A few months ago (maybe a year by now), I wrote a story about a woman who was 300 years old, but still looked 12. I put her in a relationship with a man.

The first situation is apparently ok since the movie was quite popular. The second situation, according to many critiquers, was gross.

I'm not complaining, I'm just making an observation about how perception plays a role in our stories, sometimes in strange and unexpected ways. It seems to me that looks are more important than reality.

Most guys jokingly comment "Where were teachers like that when I was in school..." the same guys when told about about a male teacher molesting a 13 year old female student will generally comment that "castration is too good for the son a bitch".

I myself am a little guilty of this, since at 13 I know I fantasized quite often about teachers and older women.

As you said, many men joke about "I wish someone would do it to me," but in reality men suffer the same horror and trauma women do when they are molested, raped, or abused by their partners. Crimes like this against men are under-reported, I think primarily because men are ashamed to admit they've been victimized. After all, don't their friends joke, "Sure wish someone would do it to me?" This happens to be my hot button... I've worked in Violence Prevention for County Government and have worked as an advocate for an organization that works with victims of Domestic Violence and Rape.

I have a low tolerance threshold for criminal acts in my entertainment, particularly violence against children or sex crimes.

I could never figure out why it creeps men out to watch man-on-man action when these same men often love watching the woman-on-woman thing. Either homosexuality bothers you, or it doesn't. I'm not bothered by it either way, but I'm not going to pretend that one is gay and the other isn't. I have a story I'm working on that has a gay couple in it. The story doesn't dwell on the fact that they are gay; it's just mentioned to illustrate the nature of their relationship, in the same way that you might mention a male character's wife.

Simply put, once you are talking about sex, you can't say that sex doesn't matter. And which you could say that humans don't have a significant level of sexual dimorphism, it would only be relative. For example, it is normal for human females that have only recently reached sexual maturity to seek out males that have already proven themselves "fit", this is a common mammalian and nearly ubiquitous primate behavior. In our society we tend to tone this down to a few years at most, and forbid sex with females below our definition of "sexually mature" very strongly, but it isn't just an artifact of the patriarchy or anything like that, this is just how primates behave.

In "nature" (meaning among non-human primates living wild), female homo-sexual behavior is frequently observed, while male homo-sexuality is basically non-existant. This doesn't mean anything from a perspective of right and wrong, by the way. After all, male monkeys masturbate constantly, but we don't like the idea of human males doing the same. But it does mean that there is no inconsistency in regarding female homosexuality as more or less natural (or even attractive) and male homosexuality as totally unnatural. As long as you accept that there is nothing inherently wrong with acting in an unnatural way (say, obeying the law rather than doing as you please till someone smacks you), there is no reason to argue that both behaviors are equally natural when they are not.

I might also add that hetrosexual men can understand (or think they can understand) why a woman would want to have sex with another woman. They even like the idea, if they can picture themselves somewhere in that scene. They generally don't understand why anyone would want to have sex with any man (including themselves, this is the source of a great deal of the underlying stress that afflicts most human males). To be perfectly fair, you'd have to compare the popularity of men on men action in various female oriented markets. In the ninties, it was pervasive in American culture to regard homosexual men as being inherently more attractive to women. What are we to make of that?

Anyway, even leaving aside such musings, once you begin to talk about sexual acts, questions arising from the compatability (or lack thereof) of involved genitals become unavoidable. And here I'll stop and turn to the other question

If we use mental age to determine whether it is okay to consider a person sexually mature, then what about unusually intelligent people pairing with average or impaired people who are older. Say you have a forty-ear old teacher--having the emotional and mental maturity of a twenty year old--who meets a 13 year old student with the mental and emotional maturity of a twenty year old. Leave out questions of gender and sexual identity for a moment. Is that sort of thing acceptable?

Now, to get to the specifics of your actual problem, Christine, I think that most readers would accept an ageless woman in a very petite, underdeveloped body having sex (off-screen, at least) as long as she was presented that way rather than a centuries old mind in a child's body. More to the point, if you actually wrote that she looked 12, that implies more than just her physical developement (or lack of same). It implies mannerisms, clothing, speech patterns (yes, even though you can't really see them) and so forth. It even implies that she will look like a 12 year old when having sex, both to the reader and to her partner.

One thing I should mention, I read a story much like this, about a woman who was something like two hundred years old due to an...elixar devised by her father, which could halt aging in sexually immature humans (it was supposedly derived from a plant that produced a similar effect in insects). The plot had multiple threads, but the relevant one (for our purposes) was her plan to administer this treatment to the protagonist's neice so that she could have a companion (her father had destroyed the formula once he realized that he'd effectively sterilized his daughter--it took her a while to replicate it and a bit of casting about to find a suitable candidate).

Properness of sex has to do with emotional maturity, period.

Is the person emotionally capable of making the decisions required?

You mention your 300 year old character in a 12 year old body...but you don't say that she is emotionally mature and lead us to believe that her body is a 12 year old human body. (vampire a la Claudia?) Or is she fey and her race just happens to look like prepubescent humans?

Science has proven that people who have genetic disorders which prevent aging of the body also do not age emotionally or mentally. Keep that in mind when dealing with long lifespans.

quote:

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Science has proven that people who have genetic disorders which prevent aging of the body also do not age emotionally or mentally.

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Woops...I missed this before.

No matter how much you teach a twelve year old, they just will not be capable of thinking the way an adult does.

There are several aging disorders out there which halt the body's maturization. When this happens, it also halts their mental and emotional growth. There are cases of people stuck at 6 for their whole lives. (The body parts still break down, so they die of old age, they just never mature.) There is even a twelve year old girl out there who is stuck, physically, mentally and emotionally in the body of a six month old baby.

I recall a few years ago somebody somewhere objected to the movie version of Gunter Grass's "The Tin Drum," I think it was. I've never read it or seen the movie, but I believe it's one version of this idea we've had under discussion---a child who never grows up. (Something to do with the child's experiences in the Holocaust, I think.)

Anyway, a video store carried the movie version, which was a little too graphic for some, who then complained to the authorities, who then raided the video store, who then with their friends and supporters spent years arguing whether the movie or book were art or porn. It may be in the courts yet.

I know a girl with Turner Syndrome; she looks about 7, but she's 16 years old...and acts it.

The relevant point it to make sure that you show your character is of adult maturity if you are going to have them engage in sex, unless your point is to be shocking and for the sex to be wrong.

It is my understanding that the new Colin Ferell movie, I can't recall the name, but he plays John Smith is having legal issues because he has a graphic sex scene with the 15 year old girl playing Pochontas.

Peace,
Scott

As for the first amendment, "The Turner Diaries," are also covered by the first amendment, not that I would read it nor would I suggest them to anyone, unless they may want trouble, depending on whom they buy a copy from. In this day and age, The Turner Diaries would be a bad thing to be in possession of, yet, it is the author's right to pen such a book. Furthermore, the author is constrained by the established written laws - - and to some extnet the non-written laws - - of the society in which they live.

The reader is another thing. The first amendment just guarantees freedom of the press to the press, it does not extend to the reader. The reader does not have any right to read whatever they may want.

You can probably even create art about it.

Now, as to whether you can display that art or sell it... I don't know.

P.S. I just randomly mentioned this to my brother and he told me he thought that there was special child pornography out there that does not involve actual children and is meant to help people with the kind of sexual perversions that would make them want to watch real child porn. I'll have to look into it...he saw it on Law and Oder SVU. If anyone knows anything about it I'd be darn curious. I'll try to look it up myself but doing research like this on the internet may not get me the most savory results upon googling.

P.P.S. As much as I can write about anything, I don't choose to write about a great many things. Child sex is not something I choose to write about. What I did want to write about (but gave up on for a wide variety of reasons) was a woman who felt utterly alone. In the world I created, she was the only human being who had been genetically engineered to live for so long. Loneliness is something I do choose to write about in a great many forms. In this case, the loneliness was caused by two things: 1. Her continually outliving everyone she's ever known. and 2. A society that keeps her at a distance. Part of that second bullet inclues people who would refuse her a soulmate for the prudish reasons suggested here. I continue to feel sorry for her, but I still can't pick up the story again because it's a little too close to the truth for people to accept.

However, I spoke with a friend of mine in the New Orleans Sex Crimes Unit. She jokingly asked why I was so concerned about this. She says that, currently, in the United States there is no law prohibiting sexually explicit stories involving children therefore the internet is "chock-a-block full of them." The only time these stories become an issue is when obscenity laws become an issue, and since there is no judge willing to take a stand and write case law concerning art vs. obscenity, there will continue to be written child poronographic stories in the United States. But, apparently, this type of "sexually explicit children adventure stories" - - that's what they are called -- is starting to gnaw at people who view this as skirting the law. She also said that law enforcement officers are starting to keep tabs on people in their respective jurisdictions who write this stuff, and when executing search warrants finding a copy of Lolita is most assuringly damning, especially when it is later brought to the attention to a 12 person jury.

What your brother saw on Law and Order SVU was a story about how child pornographers are making money legally, or what used to be legal methods. They would take a person's picture and morph it to look like a child. Its basically the same thing law enforcement does when we have a missing child's picture and age it a few years, only the porn guys are doing it in reverse.

1. The implication that I am not entitled to first ammendment rights.

2. The implication that I wrote child pornography in any way, shape or form.

I'm not sure which angers me more. To the extent that I am angry at you, I'd say it is the second because the first is more general anger at a system of laws that is attempting to abridge my freedom. On the first issue, you're just the messenger.

On the second, though, you have struck me with a deep, personal insult that I cannot even come close to expressing. I cannot remember the last time I was so personally insulted and I truly hope I am never so personally insulted again. You have accused me of writing child pornography and I simply don't know how to react to that right now.

But before I lob a string of obscentities at anyone or write something else I may regret, I think I will simply ask Kathleen to close this thread. It is not what I intended it to be and it has become utterly disgusting.

I'm not a fan of the imagry it produces, but I do not think it is wrong in the way you planned to present it.