Debunking myths about statutory rape, race and class: Part 1 of 3

by Racialicious special correspondent Latoya Peterson

The image above has been making the rounds of the feminist blogs, most notably Feministe and Feministing.

The ad was intended to target perpetrators of statutory rape in Milwaukee. Comissioned by the United Way of Milwaukee, the PSA style posters attempted to address a growing issue in that region: an increase in teen pregnancy where the mothers were young to mid teen and the fathers were grown men.

While the images were apparently tested with a focus group, the ads were killed before they made it to the streets. Personally, I hate the images in the ad as they are so comically disorted the messages is lost. The young girls who these men are impregnating do not have seven year old faces on twenty year old bodies. Most of them do look close to their actual ages. And most of the men who would sleep with a developed fifteen year old would probably be repulsed by the idea of having sex with a seven year old.

The ad does garner attention, but by using a photoshopped image of a girl, as opposed to an actual teenager it fails to reinforce the actual message.

However, the ad itself isn’t what prompted me to write this post. The responses to the ad on mainstream feminist blogs did. As I scrolled through the comments in each thread, I was shocked to see how many women were willing to dismiss statutory rape as an issue of mistaken identity. While there were definately some commenters who spoke up as to why the ads were needed, I was astounded to see how many feminists defended the poor men in this situation, who were tricked by these age-bending teens into having sex. The prevailing assumption was that these girls were somewhere they had no business being, doing grown adult things and most of this statutory rape stuff was just an innocent mistake. Some women even threw in their own accounts of looking tragically underage and having to deal with being endlessly carded or having men leave them alone because they looked so young. Tough life.

But not as tough as a fifteen year old trying to cope with a grown man’s affections.

So, I write this post in hopes that some of those women – and a few men – who were so quick to dismiss my day to day reality (and that of my friends) as a simple case of teenage sluts gone wild will read this and reconsider what they know about statutory rape, how it plays out in communties, and how it isn’t easily dismissed as a race or class issue – though both race and class do complicate things quite a bit.

Some notes before we begin:

1. In the vein of feminist blogs, I am slapping this post with a trigger warning. I am not going to describe things graphically, but some of what happens will probably be hard for some people to take. For that, I apologize, but it has to be said.

2. Please do not judge any of the actions taken by my peers or myself. All these things happened from the ages of 12 – 15. One of the events I will describe starts at age eleven. We were not in the mindset to make adult decisions, or even good decisions.

[FYI, age of consent in Maryland is 16, with an exception for actors with less than a four year age difference. This means that a 16 year old can have sex with someone aged 16 - 20 and it would not necessarily be statutory rape.]

3. Settle in, this is the first of a 3-part post.

Ready? Here we go…

“People who have sex with children know what they are doing is wrong.”

Feministing Commenter stinsonnick said:

Ad #1.
I think for the most part men who have sex with children know that it’s wrong, or at least understand that society views it as wrong. This isn’t going to help anything.

Ad #2.
I agree with GoGo. The text of this ad is the equivalent of saying “Oh yeah, she’s hot, but don’t hit that yet.” Awful. And it’s a complete contradiction to Ad #1 which says you shouldn’t even be viewing children sexually. I guess, as always, it’s okay to sexualize black women and girls.

From my reference point, his assessments are off.

Yes, society generally frowns on men that have sex with children and the term “pedophile” conjures up a pervy older man looking at kiddie porn trying to abduct a nine year old from the playground. However, in my personal experience, there are way too many men who know that having sex with a child may be wrong, but consider a teenager (or a pre-teen with a great body) is totally fine.

When I was younger, one of my biggest fears was older men. I could deal with the guys in my grade and older teenage boys. What I was not prepared for were the grown men who would persue me ruthlessly – either by following me up the street in their cars or on the metro. This experience was not unique to me – most of the girls I knew then or the women I know now have all had similar experiences with men who looked to be well into their twenties or thirties.

I remember talking to an older advisor at school about how to deal with it, and she suggested (in addition to trying to go find help) lowering my age when men asked how old I was. I remember telling a guy (aged 21) that I was thirteen when I was sixteen and he didn’t skip a beat. He went on to ask if I had my first boyfriend yet and if he could be my first. I freaked out, because in my mind that was my best chance out of the situation without having it escalate into a confrontation.

At this point, I know, some of you are scratching your heads wondering why a young me didn’t just scream or tell the man to leave me alone or run away. Let me share a little something with you: that afterschool special shit doesn’t always work in the real world.

If I scream and no one decides to help me, I am royally fucked. But don’t take my word for it, take the woman who got harassed on the green line. She asked for help and no one came to her aid on a crowded train. Finally, a teenaged girl risked her safety to help the woman out. Here’s what happened, for those of you who don’t live in the DC area:

The victim had just sat down after boarding the train when a man aggressively moved in next to her and began pushing his body against hers.

“I immediately reacted putting out my hands saying, ‘Whoah, too close. You need to move or I need to move.’ And I immediately got up to move seats,” the woman said. After that brief exchange, the victim claims the man became violent and slammed her against the glass while jamming his elbow into her ribs.

He then allegedly called her derogatory names, attacking her race and gender.

As the victim pleaded for help, a teenage girl responded, pulling on the woman’s wrist to help her break free.

“He just grabbed me again by the lapels of my coat and threw me up against the glass on the other side of the train,” the woman said.

Once the train stopped, the victim escaped and reported the attack to the train operator and two station managers. She said they responded with indifference, never contacting Metro Police and let her attacker get away.

A teenaged girl came to a grown woman’s rescue as the rest of the passengers just sat there and allowed the assault to continue. This is not unusual. Here’s one occassion from my life:

I remember very clearly is coming home on the bus after hanging at a friend’s house afterschool. I was a freshman in high school at the time, so 13/14 years old. A man – yes, man, I remember him to be about 24 – who recognized me from around the neighborhood came up to say hello. Now, this man had already had a few nasty encounters with my friends, so when he approached me on the crowded metro bus I did not speak to him. I was on the window seat, and there was someone else between myself and this man.

He continued to question me about where I was going and I remained silent. The man became irate, demanding that I speak to him or acknowledge him. He then escalated to screaming “oh bitch, you want to act like you don’t know me!” banging on the top part of the bus. I sank down in the seat and felt the person next to me sink down too. The violent tirade continued until the bus driver finally took notice, stopped the bus, and put the man off at the next stop…which happened to be in my neighborhood. I ended up riding the bus to the end of line and back. The only person who did anything about the situation was the bus driver.

One of the things I learned when dealing with men who approached me was not to make them angry. If you make a man angry, he is more likely to try to restrain you or outright attack you. So, even if you are screaming inside, the best way out of most situations is to be nice and bide your time until you are in a safe enough area in which to get away. This dynamic is explored in the anthology Naked I referenced in an earlier post. In that collection, yet another woman is puzzled why her mother is kind to the men who disrespect her on the street – and yet, comes to understand very quickly what could happen if you aren’t.

I am not saying that this behavior is right. It irks me everytime I have to respond to disrespect with kindness fue to fear of physical harm. However, escalating a situation with too many unknown factors isn’t my style – and I am not trying to end up dead or assualted because I wanted to prove a point.

To be continued tomorrow…

This series is now complete.

Go to part two.
Go to part three.

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Trackbacks & Pings

Debunking myths about statutory rape, race and class: Part 3 of 3 at Racialicious - the intersection of race and pop culture on 29 Feb 2008 at 9:52 am

[...] from Parts 1 and [...]
Race, class and statutory rape : Speaking Out. on 29 Feb 2008 at 6:31 pm

[...] Debunking myths about statutory rape, race and class: Part one Part two Part three [...]
makes me wanna holler (throw up my hands) « Molecular Shyness on 01 Mar 2008 at 12:20 am

[...] 1, 2008 by molecularshyness In reading the three-part series on skeevy oldheads running behind young girls, I found myself confronting some of the [...]
Irreverently on 01 Mar 2008 at 5:04 pm

[...] Myths about Statutory Rape, Race and Class: Part One/Part Two/Part [...]
Of “Wacky” Japan and the Myth of the Other at Racialicious - the intersection of race and pop culture on 14 Mar 2008 at 8:00 am

[...] (Hmm…there’s part of an answer for you, Wendi.) [...]
Three amazing posts about statutory rape and men who hit on teenagers on 08 Apr 2008 at 9:18 pm

[...] are due to Laytoya Peterson who posted at length on Racialicious about being harassed by grown men when she was as young as 12. She captures very [...]
Class, Sexual Assault, and Anti-Rape Organizing | Change Happens: The SAFER Blog on 30 Oct 2009 at 3:28 pm

[...] http://www.racialicious.com/2008/02/27/sex-and-youth-why-we-need-community-focused-messaging/ [...]

Comments

Aaminah wrote:

THANK YOU so much for tackling this issue. I look forward to your continued posts.

Posted 27 Feb 2008 at 8:53 am ¶
Niki wrote:

I want to echo the sentiments expressed above. Thankfully, I was never a victim of violence or sexual abuse, but as an early-developing young girl it was scary fending off the attentions of men who were twice my age.

Posted 27 Feb 2008 at 9:39 am ¶
Caro wrote:

Thanks for writing about this. I never really experienced street harassment or anything of the sort when I was younger, but now that I am a 22-year old woman and living in DC I am starting to face the sort of situation that you talked about. Several times recently when I’ve been walking home from work, some man, either walking by or in a car, has gone out of his way to say something sketchy like “Hey sweetie, how are you doing?” or “Hi there, you’re looking good tonight.” etc etc. My first impulse (as an uppity feminist) is always to confront him and say, “Don’t you realize how disrespectful that is?! What makes you think you have the right to talk to women like that?!” But I would never, ever risk provoking someone like that, particularly when I’m walking alone at night. Instead, I usually say “hello” quickly, or curtly nod, and walk quickly away.

I feel like if I were to talk to a lot of my guy friends about this, they’d just say “it’s not a big deal, just ignore it, keep walking, whatever!” That’s easy enough to say, but the stories you mentioned remind me that it’s really not that easy. Bringing it back to the issue of underage girls — it’s hard enough for me to deal with casual unwanted advances from total strangers, and I’m a (semi)grown woman. It’s even harder for a teenage girl to fend someone off who’s seriously coming on to them, particularly when they know the guy.

Posted 27 Feb 2008 at 9:58 am ¶
Jen* wrote:

Looking forward to tomorrow’s exposition. While I was reading, I was thinking of my own situations…they come up all the time, and it’s just another one of those things…

I remember dreading trips to the library when I was 13, because I would always have to fend off unwanted attention from grown men. It’s actually lessened since I’ve grown up.

Posted 27 Feb 2008 at 10:10 am ¶
Heather wrote:

Hmmm. So interesting to hear about other women’s experiences with this – sometimes it’s easy for me to file this sort of thing away in the “things women just have to deal with in the world” category. Which is perhaps what the other people on the subway/bus were doing in the situations described above?

In my case, my dad began teaching me self-defense from a painfully young age, and exhorted me to “kick them in the nuts first and sort it out later” in these situations Which perhaps negatively affected my social development. But, it did give me some confidence to stare down unwelcome advances from older men.

Posted 27 Feb 2008 at 11:03 am ¶
Lynn wrote:

LaToya, I’m sitting here reading this and I almost cried. When I was 13, I was approached by a man on the street, who I thought I recognized for a second. He said hello from his car and I quickly realized he wasn’t the familiar face I thought he was. He offered me a ride home (I was walking toward a bus stop), and I repeatedly declined. I walked away and thought that was that. Until I heard footsteps behind me.

He’d gotten out of his car to follow me. He yelled up the street that I was stuck up, questioned why I thought I was too good for him, did my mom let me date yet, and how his big dick would make me a woman. My heart raced and all I knew to do was to get inside. I picked up my pace and darted into a gas station and stayed there until I watched him give up and drive off. This man was easily 40 years old. That was not my last encounter with men like that.

I COMPLETELY understand not wanting to upset that person. Trying to be *pleasant* enough to get by him on the street without much fuss. It’s a matter of safety.

I look forward to your next posts.

Posted 27 Feb 2008 at 11:22 am ¶
Wendi Muse wrote:

statuatory rape and the ages set by governing bodies regarding the offense make us wander into tricky territory. not to defend those who engage in it, but it makes me think quite a lot about cultural relativism. many countries in south america, the middle east, and africa have low statuatory rape ages and some have none. even france and england have lower S.R. ages than we do in the united states (though theirs, arguably, correlate to their voting and drinking ages).

how do we gauge maturity and why do we assign the ages that we do in cases like this?

i have also heard the argument that SR ages relate to the status of women’s rights in a country (i.e. countries with low or absolutely no SR age tend to be behind in recognition of women as equal citizens). this makes me go into one of those moments of confusion…is it ok to say that? is it accurate in most cases? is this just judging a population via the colonial gaze?

Posted 27 Feb 2008 at 11:31 am ¶
Ali wrote:

I read this blog all most daily and this is probably the first time I’ve ever commented! This is such an intensely emotional issue for me that I just had to throw in my two cents. I recently moved to Brooklyn from a suburb in Colorado and this whole phenomenon has been one of the major cultural readjustments I’ve had to cope with. When I first relocated I lived in Crown Heights (near Franklin and Crown). I was shocked by the sheer aggression I would face on a daily basis from complete and total strangers. The attention was more than just unwanted and unflattering, sometimes it was down right frightening. Once I realized than any smile or acknowledgement of the unwanated attention only served to further motivate my harasser I switched in to defense mode. I began to ignore these men flat out. I think the worst instance happened while I was apartment hunting one day. A man that I had ignored began screaming after me as I crossed the street, furious that I had ignored his numerous calls of “Hey sexy.” “Oh so you ain’t sexy. I guess you ain’t sexy then, I guess you ain’t sexy.” Mind you I was dressed like a total bum in ugly track pants, stuffed into boots, with a fleece jacket and a knitted cap pulled over my messy hair. I ran into a shop across the street because I wasn’t sure whether or not he might try to follow me. That was the first time I actually felt afraid that I might be physically harmed. I live in Prospect Heights now where the occasional harassment I face is no where near as bad as it was in my previous neighborhood. However, I’m still having a hard time adjusting to this crap and I’m nearly a grown woman (I’m 25), I can’t even imagine what it’s like to deal with shit on a daily basis as a young girl. The thing that bothers me the most about having to go into “defense mode” as a means of dealing with daily street harassment is the initial effect it had on my personality. I was on guard all the time and I was angry about being publicly disrespected on a daily basis. I think my anger was magnified by the fact that this whole experience was so new to me. Sometimes is was hard to turn off that irritability in regular social situations because I felt safer when I was closed off. Just walking around in that part of Crown Heights I felt so suffocated, it seemed as if I couldn’t even go to the fucking store, or pick up my dinner without some asshole asking me if I had a man or yelling disrespectful shit at me. I’ve definitely been able to ease up more since moving to P-Heights but all of this developed in a matter of weeks, I can’t imagine how I’d feel had I been thinking and reacting like this for a number of years, especially if this was all happening during my formative years. It really makes me feel for the young girls and women (and there were many) who live in that area. It’s not fair that some young women have to fight in the streets daily for the respect that should be given to them by virtue of just being who they are. These are smart young women who deserve to be able to go to school, hang out with friends, and live their lives in a non-hostile environment.

Posted 27 Feb 2008 at 11:32 am ¶
melinda wrote:

I am really looking forward your post tomorrow. I developed early and from about age 12 and up I remember very well being really intimidated and sometimes just outright scared when men would approach me – and what do you say when you’re 13 and a 40-year-old man is asking you out or making crass comments? I can totally relate to the – be nice long enough so that it doesn’t escalate and to get away as quick as possible way of reacting.

Posted 27 Feb 2008 at 11:37 am ¶
Eva wrote:

I’m over forty and believe me, this has ALWAYS been going on and probably always will go on. I’ve had to dress down a few older men who I caught looking at young girls by saying, “they’re going to put you under the jail for that shit.” They look at me and pretend they weren’t looking at the girl in the school uniform.

Recently I was in the laundry when a man I know to be about seventy just sat in there looking at me, he’s the local dirty old man. I did nothing until he lit a cigarette, so I told him to not smoke in here and to, “go outside and smoke that, shoo, shoo.” and he left.

Here’s the thing though. A lot of those guys who hit on young girls will continue hitting on young girls even when they’re old and grey, sometimes these young girls get into their apartments and rob them blind, I’ve seen it many times, in fact it got so bad where I live (in New York City) that management had to put a sign up telling people NOT to let strangers in the building, no matter what they promise you.

Posted 27 Feb 2008 at 12:23 pm ¶
Penni Brown wrote:

Thanks so much for addressing this issue. I grew up in a city not far from DC and I experienced the same thing going to and from middle and high school…and I didn’t ‘develop’ until I was well into my 20’s. So, I know it has NOTHING to do with what the little girl’s body looks like. These are just nasty men trying to assert their manhood by dominating some PYT. I too would, and still do, try to be pleasant just to avoid a violent confrontation. It’s almost like I will myself invisible. People brush it off and dismiss their behavior but, it’s traumatic. I look forward to your post tomorrow.

Posted 27 Feb 2008 at 1:06 pm ¶
Jane wrote:

Thank you for this.
I have only ever told one person this:
When I was maybe 9, maybe 10- elementary school- my class took a trip to an amusement park. This was the first time I’d ever been on a roller coaster. I was always skinnyskinny, and the older (I’d say 30s) guy I got stuck next to was quite heavy, so the lap bar didn’t cinch down enough to protect me. I called out, got the ride stopped and the bar lowered, but as we resumed our roll up the hill the man- he smelled like sour milk- he leaned over and said, really quietly, ‘Aww, honey, I’d have held you in’. And I knew, I felt sick to my stomach because I knew he wasn’t a friend and I’d no notion of molestation- didn’t know it existed, didn’t know about sex yet- but I knew what he was looking for was wrong, and nobody else in the group even noticed.
This is never OK. Women and children and nearly-grown teens should be safe wherever they go. Men who do this should be ashamed and frightened because we are speaking out.

Posted 27 Feb 2008 at 1:31 pm ¶
purehapa wrote:

Dang, when I was in high school in the 70s, male teachers openly dated students. I was leered at by adult men from the age of 12 or so. Once, alone on the way to the bathroom at a baseball game – where my parents and siblings were with me – an adult man, out of the blue, asked to take my picture. I just hurried away. Another time I was visiting a friend’s apartment and a man stopped to ask me something, I don’t even remember what, and told me he knew I was the friend of so-and-so, that he had seen me before. Ugh, stalker. Male teachers offered to drive me home, and on and on. I learned to be very wary of any man. To this day I do not look at or say hello to strange men anywhere. Even walking the dog at a park. If I’m considered rude, that’s always better than seeming interested. That’s just the way it is for women of any age. And I don’t live in the city.

Posted 27 Feb 2008 at 2:00 pm ¶
johnjihoonchang wrote:

I regret to say that I have witnessed verbal harassment before and have done nothing about it, like many of the bus/subway riders in the stories. The problem as an outsider is that it’s difficult to know the situation and even as someone who is trained to defend himself, I never want to escalate a situation to the physical.

If I were to interrupt such a person, who is clearly agitated, it could easily become a fistfight (or larger scale brawl, depending on the dynamics of the commuters), or if the person is armed, the undesirable situation of myself or other passengers getting stabbed/shot.

That said, in my very first encounter of that situation, I resolved myself to intervene if the harasser ever became physical, but he never did. I felt bad, however, for not doing anything, but in that encounter and future encounters, I was never certain what I could do that wouldn’t escalate the situation.

When is the point that an observer should intervene? What is the best way they could do so?

Posted 27 Feb 2008 at 2:04 pm ¶
Ailurophile wrote:

Latoya, I’m really looking forward to reading your next installments on this. I want to read your interpretations of the class issue (IMO I don’t think it’s so much a race issue as a class one, but I will wait to comment until I see what you have to say).

And I agree that the onus should be on the MEN to know what they are doing is WRONG. Not on the girls for being “overdeveloped” or “forward” or whatever. Hold the adult men responsible for wrongdoing!

Posted 27 Feb 2008 at 2:13 pm ¶
Celeste wrote:

Jill Scott has a really powerful song/spoken word about sexualizing children. It’s titled “Thickness”. It’s very explicit but I think it very true as well. Has anyone else heard it? It’s on her concert album.

Posted 27 Feb 2008 at 2:17 pm ¶
Latoya Peterson wrote:

Hey everyone –

Thanks for your thoughtful responses.

I do need to mention that I wrote this whole post in one (angry) shot. It’s broken up into three parts because it ended up being 10 printed pages. So, again, somethings will be made more clear in the next few posts. Luckily, these are going to run back to back.

Heather – I think you nailed one of the reasons that we don’t talk about these things. It is considered normal, not even worth mentioning. When I come home to my boyfriend, I don’t say “three guys hit on me today” unless something really funny or really scary happened. As a teen, I know I never told my parents about what was going on for fear they would take away my privileges.

Lynn, Ali, Jane, and Purehapa –

Thanks so much for sharing. I am sorry this post brought up bad memories for you all, and I fear it is only going to get worse in part two. But after watching Beyond Beats and Rhymes with my male friends and seeing how shocked they were at things I understood to be part of my day to day reality…well, I decided to start speaking up.

johnjihoonchang –

I am glad a man decided to speak up. Just like with my catcalling post, I wonder why men go completely silent on these issues.

Anyway, yes it is very tough to guage a situation where you are an outsider. My boyfriend and I were out one night and witness what we *thought* was a guy threatening his girlfriend in the metro station. First, it looked like they were playing around, so we left it alone. But since my boyfriend was uneasy, we went back to find what looked like the guy holding the girl around her neck.

But we were shocked at what happened next. My boyfriend had steeled for a fight, but as soon as I said “excuse me” the guy freaked out and ran up the stairs.

The girl then called after hi, asssured us she was fine, they were just playing, and then followed him.

So, it is tough.

Furthering the situation does make it tougher as well as no one wants to get their ass beat trying to help someone else out. It’s hard to gauge these things – trust me, we are doing the same thing on our end. What’s the best thing to do with this guy? Ignore? Polite acknowledgement? A curt mean reply? Leaving the area?

If I see a young girl being targeted, I normally go ask her if she’s ok, or I go and alert the driver/conductor if the guy looks dangerous/confrontational. Men tend to have more leverage in this situation, so my boyfriend tells me that he goes and confronts the guy who is doing it. I would recommend – if you don’t feel confident engaging the guy – talking to the girl involved instead. Ask her if she would like to switch seats, if she is ok, if she would like you to go get help. All those things can provide the out she needed.

And, regardless of how afraid I may feel, I hope to be as brave as that girl on the green line to step in and help someone out if things do turn violent.

Celeste -

Haven’t heard the song. It’s on her concert album?

Wendi – I get your point, but I make the legal statutory rape distinctions in the beginning of the piece for a reason. (Obv, this piece is not only US relative, but Maryland relative as it will involve a lot of anecdotal experiences.) When people discuss statutory rape, they seem overly concerned with the borders.

A few years is not that large of a deal, and as most people can see, Maryland law contains a provision for high school sweethearts and the like. All these things are taken into consideration.

However – as you’ll see in the next post – at the time most of this stuff was going on, my friends were 11-14 and the men involved were 19 – 40. It may be different in other regions, but here, it’s generally understood that children and teenagers need room to develop into adults (and grow into things like maturity and sexuality.)

So, while it would be interesting to look at SA in other countries, that’s not really the focus of this piece.

Posted 27 Feb 2008 at 2:56 pm ¶
Carmen Van Kerckhove wrote:

Celeste – yes “thickness” is a great spoken word piece by Jill Scott and really captures a lot of what Latoya is writing about.

Great stuff Latoya. We’ve already discussed this offline but I think this a really important series, and it’s brought back some painful memories for me too.

You’re reframing the issues in a new way that I’m finding really thought-provoking.

Posted 27 Feb 2008 at 3:10 pm ¶
Jennifer wrote:

Latoya–I don’t have anything new to add–I just wanted to say thank you, thank you, thank you. I look forward to reading the future posts.

Posted 27 Feb 2008 at 3:25 pm ¶
EvilAngelfish wrote:

This post really struck a chord with me – as one can easily see by watching any number of movies about “slutty babysitters” or “fast teens” who trick and seduce poor unsuspecting men into sleeping with them, it would appear that our society would rather place the blame on these girls than on the adults who should know better and should take responsibility for their decisions. I am disgusted when “mistaken identity” is thrown out as an excuse for statutory rape because I doubt it’s often the case that it’s an instance of a girl appearing to be 22 when she was actually 12. There are all sorts of cues about a person’s age beyond how developed they look. I guess men who make that argument either don’t take the time to make sure or don’t care either way.

The summer before I went to college, I signed up for driving lessons. One day, my instructor told me to pull over. He then started talking about what beautiful lips I had and asked if I would kiss him. At first, I was stunned – not only was this man was older than my father but he was a teacher, an authority figure. Technically, I too was an adult but I certainly didn’t look 18 (I’m 25 now and the other day I was mistaken for 15). I was strapped in a car on some random deserted street with a grown man and he was asking me to kiss him. What could I do, get out and walk home? He leaned in closer and actually began to plead with me, saying it wasn’t a big deal if I just gave him a little kiss, etc. I said no, though not nearly as forcefully as I would have done had I not been terrified. He told me to start the car again and we drove back to my house as if nothing had happened. Even though I’d worked all summer to pay for the lessons and still had three left, I cancelled them. I didn’t tell anyone what had happened, for two reasons – because I knew my parents would be furious enough to burn down the driving school but also, because I was convinced that if my parents or I reported the incident, I’d have to prove that I’d done nothing to encourage it.

I honestly don’t know if it’s possible for a fifteen or sixteen-year-old girl to have the level of maturity to be fully consensual in any sexual activity with a grown man. Even if she agrees to have sex, is she mature enough to demand that he use protection to make sure that she doesn’t get pregnant or catch a disease? Even if she did allow herself to get into the situation or welcome the man’s attention, does she have to power to stop it? Can she really stand up to him if the situation becomes uncomfortable or hostile? Of course, these questions pertain to relationships between peers as well but there is a very big difference when there is a vast difference in age between the two participants. Can it really be said that the men are not flagrantly taking advantage of the girls in situations like these?

I agree that the ads miss the point—there’s no explicit message that not only is it wrong for adult men to solicit children but that adolescents are off-limits too. We can’t, as a society, decide when it is permissible for a man to find a woman sexually attractive but we can dictate when it is permissible for a man to act on that attraction. I don’t think that message is pervasive enough.

Posted 27 Feb 2008 at 3:30 pm ¶
Curious wrote:

I’d like to discuss how retail encourages the sexualization of girls from three years old. I recall trying to find a pair of shoes for my niece and not being able to find a pair at Target (TARGET!!!) without a heel on them. I had to wonder who the heck benefits from little girls wanting to look grown up.
The attention little girls are paid regularly has to do with what they look like and not how smart they and so on… So its easy to see how young girls are seduced by men. They have been hitting the same button since they were three years old… Look how grown up you look. Little Diva!

Posted 27 Feb 2008 at 3:54 pm ¶
Cynthia wrote:

But what about training little boys to behave? We always teach girls about self defense, to guard drinks at bars, when to say no, etc, but it seems that boys and men have zero training. Kind of sad, when you think about it.

Posted 27 Feb 2008 at 4:08 pm ¶
A wrote:

I can recall so many instances in my adolescence of being followed through the neighborhood by men in their 40s and 50s, when I was between the ages of 13 and 16. It seems to come from men who deny a woman’s right to walk in public w/out an escort… not just men who want young pussy. Age, to these men, only makes the difference of whose more easily influenced by cheap flattery or if the woman is going to ignore the attention (or better yet, respond to it w/anger and confidence).

HollerBackNYC.com is of course, a great way to stop these men through internet-infamousy before they corrupt some poor young thing by statutory rape.

Posted 27 Feb 2008 at 4:35 pm ¶
Celeste wrote:

I concur that men need to desist with the sexual predation of minors and I’m sure all of us over age 18 would appreciate being allowed to walk the streets in peace. This kinda refers back to another entry (i’m becoming racist or something) but I consistently have to endure more harassment from black men than any other group. It’s always bothered me that some of us treat our own women this way. I’m not sure why either. On another point, desexualizing our children would go a long way in helping the situation. Has anyone walked into an abercrombie (kiddie version) lately? Talk about some sexy children, they even sell thongs. I think little girls are cute enough to pull off panty lines thank you very much. I also wouldn’t put bottoms with writing on the fanny on my child (especially “Juicy”). Why attract attention to their “Juicy” butts? It seems to have gotten worse in the past decade and I’d love to say it all started with Britney Spears/ kiddie pageants but that’s really oversimplifying it. I think dressing children in a sexy fashion can make them more vunerable to advances because they might start to think increasingly of themselves more as sexual beings than as children.

Posted 27 Feb 2008 at 5:40 pm ¶
meownette wrote:

A, what you’re saying makes a lot of sense to me, especially about old men specifically targeting adolescent girls because of those girls’ relative inexperience with sexual/relational situations. I always wondered if grown men really thought I was of legal age when I was, like, eleven years old, or if they just thought I was an easier target because I was more taken off guard by their advances than an older woman would be.
I think a lot of street harassment boils down to generalized anti-woman aggression. Adolescent girls are more easily victimized by behavior like that because it leaves more indelible marks, and it’s the male aggressors’ way of teaching women their “place” early on.
I also think that those posters are off-mark…they seem to be conflating a couple of issues and that makes their message really unclear.

Posted 27 Feb 2008 at 5:50 pm ¶
NancyP wrote:

I got to the point where I just stared back and didn’t say anything or stop moving.

Posted 27 Feb 2008 at 6:09 pm ¶
al wrote:

i was 21 when i told a man who was bothering me that i was ‘younger than i looked.’ i looked much younger than 21, so it was the same strategy that person gave you. and of course it didn’t work. “what are you, 15? you look 18″. ew.

Posted 27 Feb 2008 at 7:14 pm ¶
al wrote:

oh, ps, i find those images really disturbing and i feel like they do the opposite of what they’re intended to do. they make it seem like young girls -can be- sexual objects, not that they shouldn’t be.

Posted 27 Feb 2008 at 7:14 pm ¶
enfantdunord wrote:

some of the comments on feministe are really sickening to me – especially some by posters whose names signified as male who suggested that “teens are just confused by definition” and that many teens are flattered when men tell them that they look mature.

the fact that this is their reaction is just shocking when compared to my own perspective and those voiced by some of you here

i have distinct memories from, in particular, age 13 through the end of high school (i was very young looking, and never really dressed very trendily until college) of feeling literally sick in my stomach, uncomfortable, queasy, and (unfortunately) ashamed when older men approached me sexually – i certainly never felt flattered, and most often felt some level of fear, as many people here have already described.

i am really grateful that this discussion is happening – although it is hard to share some of these things, it is important that it be said that young girls often DO have a ‘NO!’ reaction to these incidents, and that reaction needs to be encouraged and fostered rather than allowed to fade the more frequently they experience such harrassment

EvilAngelfish – i, too, had a horrible experience with a driver’s ed teacher while we were out driving, and it’s really frightening being essentially trapped in a car with someone like that.

Posted 27 Feb 2008 at 8:03 pm ¶
Celeste wrote:

Upon further consideration, the overwhelming majority of sexual harassment/accidental groping at work has come from white men. In all cases they completely outranked me and I didn’t say anything because I knew/thought it would hurt me more than it would them. At my school it was an open secret that 2 of the much older married male attendings liked to sleep with female med students. No one seemed to care enough to do anything about it. One of the two aforementioned lechers offered to pay off my student loans if I’d be his mistress…nice. I don’t think being a lecher in the streets, making me fear for my safety (all while telling me how long it’s been since you had an orgasm) is worse than abusing your power (getting way too close to my chest because you can’t quite decipher the writing on my shirt). They are both ways of showing dominance over me because I’m female and he’s not. I agree with meownette, it seems like it’s meant to put you in your place whether you’re 12 or 25.

Posted 27 Feb 2008 at 8:27 pm ¶
johnjihoonchang wrote:

L – I think part of the reason that it’s hard for men to speak up is that 1) they might themselves participate in such behavior, 2) they have nothing they can add-because they haven’t witnessed such a thing or 3) they just don’t know what to say.

Personally, I would always intervene if anything looked like it was going to get physical, but it really enrages me to see women harassed so. Upon listening to everybody’s comments and reading these stories, I think it’ll always be better for me to engage than ignore. Better to fight than let injustice go on, right?

The only time I’ve ever encountered a cat call was when I was escorting my sister and her friends to a club. A trio of boys drove by in a car and called out to them. I immediately faced these boys and yelled out “What the hell did you say about my sister?!” They drove off in a hurry.

Posted 27 Feb 2008 at 8:41 pm ¶
johnjihoonchang wrote:

Correction: Better to risk a fight than let injustice go on. One should never start a fight that could’ve been prevented.

I have thoughts about the overall issue you’re addressing, but I want to wait to see what you wrote first, as not to jump the gun.

Posted 27 Feb 2008 at 9:19 pm ¶
marjorie wrote:

An important way men can help end these sorts of practices is to call their male friends and family on their habits. Make them uncomfortable when you witness it. Make them understand it isn’t acceptable or tolerated in your presence.

Posted 27 Feb 2008 at 9:24 pm ¶
Adrianna wrote:

I live in Haiti and I have to deal with harassment daily. I hate leaving my house. Here we not only have to deal with harassers but with kidnapping. When they kidnap women and young girls , they usually end up raped and mutilated. That happened to a girl in a neighborhood near mine ,because she would curse out her harassers.

Having just come back to the country I’m not afraid to curse them out if they are disrespectful. Usually I ignore them . Acting like they are not even there. I always fear for my safety here so do every women. we have no laws to protect us .

It pisses me off that I can’t get mad when some jackass bothers me on the streets. We should be able to retaliate when the bother our fucking piece of mind. I even considered carrying a gun. But I settled on having my cousins teach me self defense. I feel your guys pain.

Posted 27 Feb 2008 at 11:58 pm ¶
Jennifer wrote:

THANK YOU for posting on this issue! I have been traumatized by my experiences to the point that I HATE going outside around my neighborhood or any “hood” areas.

I’ve learned to turn men down nicely or play deaf. I thought this was just a problem I faced in Chicago. However, while I have been at school in Champaign, IL I have had some terrifying experiences.

Posted 28 Feb 2008 at 12:05 am ¶
Krl wrote:

Regarding teenage girls and their sexualization, that shit is despicable and always has been. I hated it as a kid (i.e. when older cats were hollering at and bedding girls in my age range) and I loathe seeing it now. That said, most of these girls derive a crap load of their self-esteem from the attention and that’s a major problem that needs to be addressed. When girls get their cues about sexualization and esteem from Brats, Hot Topic and have mothers that are often times no better, you set them up to fail. This happens long before any boy steps into the picture. As a teacher, I’ve actually had mothers roll up in school having conversations about the “sexy” outfit they bought they’re daughters. I had a classroom of 4th graders in which half the damn girls couldn’t take part in reading time (mandatory in NY that it be a sit around on giant rug purchased for the purpose), because their damn skirts (friggin headbands really) were so damn short. This is so damn common, we have a term for them (girls dressed provocatively by their parents) – Prosti-tots. That’s the biggest problem. It is the root problem. I don’t care how many ball grabs and eye-gouges you teach a girl, she’ll never use them if she feels that she is “special” etc based on her P, it’s packaging and the male attention to it.

Regarding men hollering at these youngins depends on the age of the guy and the age of the girl. What kids from H.S. senior age down to H.S. sophomore ages can do whatever. That said, it is difficult to see (so far as intervening goes) what age a girl is and what age a guy is based on simply looking at them. It is unfortunately never blatantly obvious, particularly since the safest defense for the girl involves smiling/being polite (so you can never tell what is going on).

Regarding intervening- If you are a guy on this board I’m about to give your ass some life-saving advice- WHEN IN DOUBT ABOUT INTERVENING- MIND YOUR OWN DAMN BUSINESS!!!!!!!!!

If you see what looks like a grown man hitting on a girl, keep tabs-but keep ur mouth shut…maybe let it be known that you are watching…if it is a crowd, hit the guy with an “excuse me” (as if you are trying to get past him) and maybe ask him a question about directions/time as a distraction. Don’t even think about that shining knight B.S. Why? You should never ever ever ever step into a domestic violence or sexualized harassment scenario unless it is a most blatant, vicious, unambiguous physical attack on an unassociated person (male attacker does not appear to be an acquaintance of female attackee). Because, assuming you don’t get your head knocked off by the adrenaline pumped assailant or harrasser, odds are you will get scratched and cut up by the female attackee you were trying to protect (if she is indeed an acquaintance of his). And when the police come, odds are great that the damsel in distress will side with her abusive boyfriend/significant other. That’s a fact, it’s happened to me, it’s happened to people I know, and I know plenty of cops with a million and one stories of the same sort as well.

What does this have to do with underage girls/sexual harassment in public places? It is hardly ever clear whether or not the girl/woman being harassed is an acquaintance of the person harassing her. Do keep in mind when I say harassment I mean sexualized convo etc under duress (physically blocking her off/getting all up in woman’s face etc) and not what seems to pass as sexual harassment on this board (i.e. a black or latino guy trying to get your number/start a convo in the street) – comment based on the fact that despite being groped and having white employers attempt to pressure yall into sex, some black cat going “what up ma” is what you harp about so far as harassment goes.

Posted 28 Feb 2008 at 12:39 am ¶
E wrote:

Latoya,

You wrote: “I would recommend – if you don’t feel confident engaging the guy – talking to the girl involved instead. Ask her if she would like to switch seats, if she is ok, if she would like you to go get help. All those things can provide the out she needed.”

Good (helpful!) ideas; thanks for suggesting them.

Posted 28 Feb 2008 at 3:15 am ¶
Celeste wrote:

Hey Krl,
As long as the “convo” doesn’t start with a description of my intimate parts or what he’d like to do with them I don’t consider it harassment.

Posted 28 Feb 2008 at 8:44 am ¶
GyratoryCircus wrote:

Thanks for this post.

I started getting followed as a young teen and I looked very young for my age (still do. I’m in my mid 30’s and still get carded on occasion) – so I know it wasn’t because I looked 18 and they were just mistaken.

As for street harassment, I encounter it on a regular basis, and have written about it over on a feminist blog I participate on:
http://avastconspiracy.blogspot.com/2007/07/learning-to-feign-deafness.html

http://avastconspiracy.blogspot.com/2007/04/hypervigilance.html

Posted 28 Feb 2008 at 10:34 am ¶
Kaori wrote:

krl, it sounds to me like you have some seriously pent up issues that you need to address elsewhere.

Generalizations about young girls makes things worse, and your response borders on misogyny. How do you KNOW that the girl likes being harassed by a man? How do you know that she derives some sort of pleasure from it?

When in doubt, blame women and young girls for the problems that older men have!

Have you even paid attention to this blog? Most of the posters here are PoC. Latinos, blacks, Asians and even whites. Way to make assumptions on race based on skimming through the entry, because it’s clear you didn’t read it at all.

Jennifer – I’m a Native of the Champaign-Urbana area, and this thread reminds me of the situation that went on at Thomas Paine in Urbana.

Posted 28 Feb 2008 at 3:37 pm ¶
G.K. wrote:

To Krl:

I’m black, and Ive had black men I didn’t even know go off on me while walking down the street (that wa actually more common several years ago, and I live in a majority black city,so this isn’t a racist statement) simply becaue I didn’t feel like talking to them when they said something to me, or precisely because I just ignored them–I didnt’t feel like I should be made to feel like I HAD to talk to every total stranger that says something to me. One time, about 6 years ago, I was talking with a brother near a gas station–as we were saying goodbye and then parted, some idiot dude down the street was hollering in my direction, “Yeah, you need to be with a real man,baby,” and just kept going on and on, despite the fact that I never once looked his way or even acknowledged his existence.
Yes, a guy trying to get all up in your space is harrassment—-especially when he can’t seem to get it through his head that you just want to be left the f*** alone no matter how clear you make it to him.

And, yeah, that IS messed up that some moms would let their little girls get dressed up like that at such an early age. What some people (including men,or even some mothers,apparently) don’t seem or want to understand is that just because a young girl is well developed before the age of 15, it does not make her automatically a woman, it also does not mean that she is emotionally and mentally prepared to deal with what being a woman means at that age is,either, or the issues that come with that.They sure as hell should’nt be in any rush to grow up either. But,yeah, dealing with everything the previous posters mentioned is sadly part of the everyday reality of being a woman in the inner city these days.

Posted 28 Feb 2008 at 8:31 pm ¶
Gregory A. Butler wrote:

LaToya,

You know, as stupid as this sounds, I have never fully understood what it feels like for women and girls when they get harassed like that – thanks for opening my eyes!

Don’t get it twisted – I’ve always KNOWN that girls and women got disrespected like that, and have known it for a long time.

But I never really had a sense of what those women FELT LIKE when that was happening to them … your article gave me perspective on just how terrifying it can be for a woman or girl to be holla’ed at.

Posted 29 Feb 2008 at 1:08 am ¶
Lisa wrote:

Sadly, sexual predation seems to be part and parcel of being a young American woman. What are the differences in law and recourse between statutory rape and molestation? I think with any victim under 16 and any perpetrator over 20, they should be the same.

Between fundamentalist christianity and a mother who hates men, I was a young skeptic, but I still had the old perverts hitting on me from 11-yo puberty. Luckily I always freaked out and ran away. I got it worst from random Navy guys, but even my parents’ and grandparents’ friends would stand too close, touch too much.

A lot of girls and women derive their personal value from attention, particularly the male and the sexual. No justification for the predators, but we need to show girls that academic and career accomplishment, and friendship and respect, are much better measures of their “worth” than male sexual attention.

A large part of the class/race thing is that low-income girls, who are primarily non-caucasion, are much more in public spaces and much less supervised by parents. I’ve had my worst assaults on isolated sidewalks and crowded public transportation, but realize my being a WASP did give me some presumption of protection.

Last month, the Judith Miller NYT blog griped about how her middle-aged male contemporaries fantasize about bedding “hot, young babes”. The comments mostly blamed biology/evolution (handy). I left one that was censored, never posted (handy).

I tried to provide the other perspective: how oppressive it is as a “hot young babe” to have pervy old men feeling entitled to my person and my body. How horrific it is to be a young women in America constantly hounded by sexual harassment, predominantly the inter-generational, age-inappropriate variaty.

The perverts don’t want younger women because they’re “hotter” – the cases of 20-yo predators prove that. They want younger women because they are easier to exploit, control, manipulate. To trot out “evolution” is obscene: it is purely about power.

Whenever a stranger accosts me now, my hands instinctively curl into fists, I start scouting escape routes. It is part of why I love living in China, public boundaries are really precise. Yet people are fairly willing to intervene to help others out when things get extreme.

Posted 29 Feb 2008 at 5:00 am ¶
Alston wrote:

“They want younger women because they are easier to exploit, control, manipulate. To trot out “evolution” is obscene: it is purely about power.”

Do not assume that the power trips and evolution are mutually exclusive. I’m just sayin’.

Posted 29 Feb 2008 at 1:11 pm ¶
anne wrote:

thanks for this great post, i look forward to the other installments.

i grew up in the confines of suburbia, and was relatively sheltered, so i didn’t start experiencing this type of harassment until i was in high school, and then not at this level of severity.

now i live in a big city and even though i’m in my mid-twenties and feel more than capable of taking care of myself, the catcalling and aggressive, unwanted male attention makes ME angry and frustrated quite frequently. i simply cannot imagine having to deal with this at 13. i definitely understand the importance of not angering the aggressor as a safety issue. that serves to piss me off even more as i fume about it afterward that not only am i subjected to this, but i am forced, out of concern for survival, to be nice about it when i would much rather give them a piece of my mind.

Posted 29 Feb 2008 at 2:06 pm ¶
PB wrote:

When I was 14 or 15 (and definitely wasn’t very developed or womanly looking) there was a janitor in his 30s. He knew who I was and who my parents were, as did everyone, because it was a tiny town. So it wasn’t that weird when he started saying hi to me. But it became really uncomfortable after a while. He was always in the gym sweeping during my PE class, and I felt like he was watching all the girls in shorts. One day I was leaving the school and he stopped me by the door and said “need a ride?”. Um, no, I was going home the same way I always did, my dad or mom was picking me up. Something about his tone, the way he looked at me, just SOMETHING felt very very wrong to me. I kept it to myself for a while then I told my mom one night. She assured me that it probably wasn’t anything weird, but she sounded like she was trying to tell herself that. To this day when I think it I feel uncomfortable. And why should I? I was just a young teenager going to high school. He was the perv watching us. Yet I had to make excuses to avoid him the rest of the school year.

Posted 29 Feb 2008 at 2:08 pm ¶
keshmeshi wrote:

I agree that this is mostly about power trips, but it’s also about these guys doing anything for attention and sex. Adolescent and teenage girls do not yet have the emotional strength to stand up for themselves, many of them are naive enough to think that the attentions of older men are something to be desired. These men know this perfectly well and they will try to use it to their advantage.

Men like that really make me sick.

Posted 29 Feb 2008 at 2:15 pm ¶
Nicole wrote:

I post on Feministing nearly everyday, and I remember that particular topic being posted. In defense of the rest of us commenters, you chose to use two comments out of 30 others. The majority of commenters were not being rape apologists as you imply. The majority were talking about the ad itself and the issue of putting a child’s body on a developed women’s body, and the message that this sends, which is totally ineffective. The ad does not address statutory rape at all, if anything it associates children with sex because of the imagery, which is why these ads are so horrible. I don’t think that these commenters are being statutory rape apologists like you imply.

Posted 29 Feb 2008 at 5:25 pm ¶
Ellen Guy wrote:

Thank you. I had older (20’s, 30’s, 40’s, and up) guys hit on my when I was a pre-teen and teenager out by myself in public. I didn’t like it, and didn’t know how to handle it, either. I’m so glad to see someone writing about this.

Posted 02 Mar 2008 at 10:28 am ¶
Ellen Guy wrote:

Oh – and my high school had uniforms, which I was wearing at the bus stop where so many of these encounters took place. I was and still am completely flat chested (”has the body of a woman” – what does that look like, anyway?). There really was no chance of mistaken age with the men who hit on me. They knew I was underage, and they didn’t care.

Posted 02 Mar 2008 at 10:39 am ¶
bdsista wrote:

I grew up maturing early but with bifocals and braces, so no one tried to talk to me thankGod. I got this stuff more as an adult and knew how to address it particularly after going to an HBCU and having to pass the “ignorant bench” where all the ignorant catcall guys sat, but since I also had a couple of friends who hung out there but didn’t catcall, they would tell the other guys to leave me alone and I could cuss em if I felt like it. Shocked about the DC metro thing. I live in MD. I swear, its bad, makes you want to carry a gun. I think maybe people will leave you alone with a a few shots in the air….

Posted 02 Mar 2008 at 8:02 pm ¶