Debunking myths about statutory rape, race and class: Part 2 of 3

by Racialicious special correspondent Latoya Peterson

Continued from Part 1

“But girls lie about their age to date older guys, right?”

I am aware that some girls do lie about their age to date older guys.

When I was twelve, my best friend at the time had met a guy and lied to him about her age. She told him she was sixteen and she did have the body to back it up. The guy sleeping with her accidentally would make complete sense – except for the fact that guy was twenty-five. He eventually slept with her, taking her virginity, even after he figured out how old we were. After all, it’s kind of a dead giveaway if you’re picking your girlfriend up at a middle school.

They stayed together for a few months. She eventually tried to set me up with his twenty year old brother.

Now, in the comments on the feminist sites, I noticed that a few people argued that teenagers should not be in adult places. They mention fake IDs and older ways of dressing that allowed them to gain access into clubs and go home with college guys.

The first friend I referenced, dating the twenty five year old? She met him at a local park. You know, a park with swings and a seesaw and a merry-go-round? Yeah, that one. That park also had a basketball court where guys our age and older would go to play basketball.

I had another friend. We met in eighth grade, she was thirteen and I was twelve. My friend shocked me one day after a guy (man really) walked past us and she broke down into a sobbing heap where we stood. She confided in me that when she was eleven she had a child, but her mother had forced her to put the child up for adoption. The baby’s father was the guy who had non-chalantly passed her by on the street.

Later, I found out that she was at school when she met her future abuser/baby daddy. He was aware she was about eleven – what other age group is enrolled in Middle School? At the time, this guy was about nineteen. He strung her along in this grand relationship fantasy, helping her to cut school as they drove around and had sex in the back of his car. When she got pregnant with his child, he dropped her. However, living in the same area means she would run into him about once a month, normally leading to an outburst of tears or screaming fits on her end and cool indifference (with the occassional “you were just a slut anyway”) from him.

Some of the comments at Feministe and Feministing assume that stautory rape is a one time “oh, I met this girl at the club and slept with her – I didn’t know she was fourteen!” These were ongoing relationships.

Any male with basic logic and reasoning skills will be able to pick up on the fact that they are dating a teenager. School books, curfews, teen conversations – it isn’t hard to tell. What I have more of a problem with is the men who know and do not care that the girl is underaged. In my experience, this tends to happen a little more to young women of color than it does to young white girls. Most of my Asian and Latina friends at that age also have stories of being harassed by men who were significantly older. But more on that a bit later.

“Have you seen young girls these days after they hit puberty? No one would be able to tell that they were they age!”

Emma Rose (commenting on Feministe) adds her perspective to the discussion, noting:

God, I was totally one of these girls with big tits pretty young, pretty precocious, and I got a lot of attention from older men. Interestingly, I still have the same breasts and get LESS attention from men. Which leads me to think that it’s not that men who prey on young girls are unable to judge ages, but they they are actively interested in adolescent women BECAUSE they have fewer social skills and less personal power (some girls, anyway). I know I didn’t have the social skills or boundaries to get men away from me when I was in middle school or early high school. As soon as I gained those skills, they stopped sniffing around.

Emily Rose nails one main component of this type of harassment. The fact of the matter is while we would like to think that men are only attracted to teenage girls because they don’t know better, the reality is that the men who are willing to court someone drastically younger than they are is because that’s what they want. Some people say it is because they can’t deal with the requirements of adult relationships. Others will say it’s because young girls are dumb in the ways of the world and end up being easy pussy.

Either way, adult sexuality is not something for a child to handle.

Feministe Commenter kmach also notes:

And, sorry, Sara Cole, it’s not the same as saying that men can’t be held accountable for their behavior. They certainly can. It’s just that men who are drawn to jailbait obviously don’t care to control their behavior. Everyone knows that there are statutory rape laws. The ads are preaching to an audience that couldn’t give a fuck about the message. You’d really need to have a combination of particular circumstances – a girl lying about her age, meeting a guy who doesn’t know anything about her, the girl being up for some anonymous sex with a stranger, and the guy being so clueless that he can’t catch obvious cues in mannerisms, speech, and physical attributes – for some innocent adult to accidentally have sex with a girl under the age of consent. Sure, that can and does happen, but it’s not usually what happens, is it? Mostly the girls are in “relationships” – the guy knows full well that she’s in junior high or early high school. And is just fine with it.

Maybe the ad is aimed at the hypothetical innocent guy, telling them to check a girl’s i.d. before sex. Doesn’t seem that way to me. It seems more like: “Hey, have a heart. You shouldn’t be cruising after underage girls. It’s just wrong.” Yeah, that’ll really make someone stop and think.

For the record, I really don’t have a problem with breaking the consent laws in circumstances where the parties are close in age. I had a co-worker who is under the age of consent by a year who was sexually active with her college age boyfriend. But there’s a two and half year age difference between them – they’re basically on the same page emotionally and mentally. If he was twenty-five, or thirty, then I’d be worried for her.

People in general associate statutory rape with the handful of split decision cases that make it into the media. They wring their hands about the Glenarlow Wilsons of the world, reflect on their teenage years, and talk about how unfair the laws are. After all, it’s just two years! What goes unnoticed are the thousand of cases that are happening right now – and will most likely go unreported to the police, never making it onto a police blotter or into the hands of a reporter. I can tell you for a fact, none of my friends involved with the older men ever told their parents about the situation; much less the police. If the guy turned abusive, you had to get out of the situation by yourself. After all, even if you did go to the police, who would they believe – a twelve year old kid or a grown man acting like he would never even think of touching an underaged girl?

I have to admit, it does scare me a little to see so many people – on feminist blogs, mind you – to discount the day to day reality of a lot of young women.

But they aren’t the only ones.

“Girls dress like sluts anyway – they deserve what they get.”

This ad was originally spotted on the copyranter blog. One of the comments there was priceless:

TexanInHippieland said…
I’ve read all the comments.

All valid.

Obviously the creators of the ad had good intentions. But I drop my daughter off at high school every day and too many of these 16 year old girls dress like sluts. My daughter tells me that, in fact, they ARE sluts. So maybe the ads should say something like…

IF YOU ALLOW YOUR DAUGHTER TO DRESS LIKE THIS TO ATTRACT OLDER GUYS FOR SEX, IT’S WRONG.

I’m just sayin.

Thank goodness for Yolanda (at least, I think this is Yolanda):

ycarrington said…
Texan—regardless of how underage girls dress or whether they’re “sluts” or not, they don’t deserve harassment and sexual assault from grown men. Rape is violence and it’s wrong, period, end of story. Why is that so difficult to understand?

In fact, I’d say that the attitude reflected in your comment glaringly demonstrates the need for awareness campaigns like this.

Exactly. Generally, people joke about the teenage years as years of fashion faux pas. You are trying very hard to fit in, so you wear things that are ill-advised, looking back. This process is more difficult when you are a teenager with a more developed body than your peers. You and your friends all go to the same cheap ass stores, with the same cheap ass fabric, and by the same cheap ass shirts and skirts and dresses – but girls are growing into their bodies.

When I was younger, I did not want to be labelled a slut – though black girls are more likely to be sexualized anyway – so I made sure I “wore the right things.”

I can remember an outfit I picked out and was excited about wearing to my first day of high school. I had paired a long sleeved black shirt with a red velvet skirt (what? I told you, I was young!) and mary jane style flats. I did my own internal slut check in the mirror – after all, I saw how “those girls” acted and the kind of guys they hung out with and didn’t want to convey that image. Outfit looked good to me – high necked, long sleeved, knee length skirt. I was ready to go!

My mom came into the room and flipped the hell out. She not only made me change, but she took the skirt and hid it somewhere.

It took me a few years to realize that while I had “followed the rules” the body I had was actually quite enhanced by a clingy red velvet skirt. So, even though I had purchased a similar skirt as one of my friends (who got to wear hers to school) and we were about the same size, her square shape and my hourglass shape gave off two completely different signals. Thinking back, I am sure there were some girls who were similarly oblivious – or just trying to copy the fashion sense of a smaller friend.

While my general high school uniform were wide leg jeans and a tee shirt, I was still harassed by older men almost every single day. Guess what? It doesn’t matter what you wear. It doesn’t matter how you look. It’s kind of like that feminist mantra: what you wear does not get you raped; being in the presence of a rapist is what gets you raped. For young girls in the sights of a potential statutory rapist, it doesn’t matter what you say or what you wear, or what you do – he chose you.

And now you have to deal with it.

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Debunking myths about statutory rape, race and class: Part 1 of 3 at Racialicious - the intersection of race and pop culture on 29 Feb 2008 at 2:26 pm

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Comments

Tara wrote:

It’s interesting that you say this happens more to women/girls of color. I would agree, but point out that it happens to girls who are socially marginalized in any way. Being from a super small, super white, super poor town in Eastern Kentucky, I saw most of my friends lose their virginities and/or have children with adult males while they themselves were in middle school, early high school at best. The town is 97% white, and of all my friends, only one made it out of high without having a child by a usually much older guy. I admit, even now my sixteen-year-old cousin is dating a twenty-five-year-old guy. In situations where that age difference has become normalized, for all parties including partents, how do we instigate change?

Posted 28 Feb 2008 at 8:01 am ¶
Cynthia wrote:

If girls from poorer communities are more likely to be victims, we have to ask ourselves why. Is it because these girls are so desperate, that they are more likely to fall victim to older men? I mean, it’s sort of like women who become “mail order brides,” right? “Mail order brides” tend to be from poor countries in Asia, Latin America and Eastern Europe, who somehow believe (or are convinced to believe, either by their family or match making agency staff) that marrying a man from a more industrialized country would better their lives. While these women are supposed to be 18+ and therefore legal, many still marry much older men, and because they don’t know their rights (probably both in the old country and the new), still become victims.

Another thing: Why do we have so many programs to help female victims, yet so few for men? These guys need help too, and they need help before they become old enough to become the men who prey on the girls. By the time they’re old enough to do so, it’s too late. If you want to reduce/prevent this from happening, you have to start when people are pre-school age, using age-appropriate material (even the whole “treat people nicely” thing would help at that age.)

Posted 28 Feb 2008 at 8:31 am ¶
Celeste wrote:

My situation growing up was a bit different. In Flint, MI (over 50% black) the kids were having sex with other kids. Yes, there was the occasional lecher but on the whole the 6th graders had sex with middle schooler, the middle schoolers had sex with the high schoolers, etc. My friends stopped hanging out with me in 7th grade because I was still a virgin. I would have joined in but I wasn’t considered attractive and was a laaaaaate bloomerr so no one wanted me. Ended up being a good thing but I was really upset about the situation at the time. No surprise then that 2/3 of the public high schools had daycare centers. One of my classmates left her baby on someone’s doorstep in winter after giving birth in the bathtub and that was a big todo. Another classmate was supposedly raped by another male classmate because she had said that she would have sex with him but changed her mind but he didn’t change his. And why hasn’t anyone mentioned R. Kelly (Age ain’t nothin but a number)? I think he and a lot of other men who abuse teenage girls like the imbalance of power in the realtionship so that they can more easily live out their freaky fantasies like peeing on someone.

Posted 28 Feb 2008 at 8:58 am ¶
Autonym wrote:

This is such an important series, Latoya, thank you so much for writing this. At first (after the first segment), I was thinking that this wasn’t an issue for me, but later on I realized that I too was in sexual relationships with adult males when I was a teenager. My story was different from many in that I remained a virgin (and never even performed anything that could be considered sex on any of these men). I think in part because they were grad students and the like and while they didn’t mind getting a little something from me, they were aware of the negative repercussions they would suffer. So it could be, in some cases, a class issue. Also, I was raised by a mother who told me stories of her own experiences with date rape and molestation so I was less apt to get into situations with older guys.

As for having to dress provocatively to get attention from men, I agree with you that it has little to do with it. I wore knee length skirts and longer throughout high school, kept covered up by layers of skirts and sweaters, and was still approached.

I think there are a few classes of men who pursue sex with young women/girls. One are the predators, another are the immature, and a third are the men who need to be in control and feel powerful (different from the predators because they are usually “nice guys” who shore themselves up through these interactions but don’t see themselves as agressors). I’d say there are a few who also are just not paying attention, or ignore their inner understanding of what’s right. But that’s not to diminish the experiences you’ve described – I’m just throwing it out there that there are many types of men who do this.

I’m often dismayed by how sexualized even the clothing of little girls is these days – the differences between the cut of the pants in my 3rd grader’s class shocked me when I went to visit. The girls pants mimic the low riding curvy jeans and the boys jeans are baggy. Already 8 and 9 year old girls are dressed in a way that accents their (coming) adolescent and womanly bodies. They wanna be stylish, that’s it. Why does our society *need* to put girls in this position?

Okay, one last comment. I usually don’t like to talk about this because it’s difficult, but when I was an awkward, chubby, prepubescent 11 year old, I had two uncomfortable interactions with grown men who touched me in a way I would now call “inappropriate” but then was just uncomfortable. I was not “sexy”, I was not “womanly” for my age. I didn’t even have breasts yet. There is no excuse for a grown man targeting prepubescent and adolescent women. None.

Posted 28 Feb 2008 at 9:52 am ¶
Kandee wrote:

If men are sent the message in society that they are suppose to be strong and powerful, which is the definition of masculinity, then when some are shocked and disappointed that they are none of those, they try to find power in other ways. Manhood is also not widely promoted in society as something to achieve like womanhood is. Men are encouraged to stay adolescent forever with the video games and sports 24/7. They are constantly trying to score rather than foster healthy adult relationships. Messages about controlling women’s sexuality is ever-present with men being advertised to ‘give her what she wants’. This would take centuries to fix, as it is so entangled in our society, and ingrained in how we raise our children.

I have three boys. I can’t tell you how many people have congratulated me. Not because they’re well behaved, but because they won’t be ’sluts’ – to say it bluntly, and bring home babies. As if their being boys will relieve them from responsibility. All of the comments have been about my boys’ perceived potential sexuality. I am concerned that my efforts to raise boys into men will be thwarted by outsiders trying to sexualize them and sexualize the girls around them.

Posted 28 Feb 2008 at 10:36 am ¶
nadia wrote:

latoya, thank you so much for talking about this. it’s so important. i’ve been having a lot of conversations with friends about this topic lately. there are shows like ‘how to catch a predator’ which function as opportunities for people to express their disgust at these men but everything else in society normalizes this sexualization, abuse and disrespect of younger girls.

almost every woman i know had a relationship with a much older man when she was a teenage girl. in only one of these cases was the man prosecuted for statutory rape (my friend was fourteen and he was twenty four). i was involved in relationships without as much of an age difference (when i was 16 my boyfriend was 19, when i was 17 i dated a 23 year old) but it still sketches me out now that i am 23 and i work with high school kids (who all look so young to me).

this conversation is so vital. looking forward to part 3.

Posted 28 Feb 2008 at 11:23 am ¶
Latoya Peterson wrote:

Tara –

You bring up a good point about marginalized communities…or, I would rather say, communties less likely to prosecute or inflict penalties on the perpetrators. I explain a little more of my thought process in part three, so I will elborate more on this tomorrow.

Cynthia –

Yes, in most instances, there is this element of desperation. This is why statutory rape laws exist – just because I can say “yes” when you ask me for sex, it doesn’t mean I am equipped to make that kind of decision. Also, in poorer communities, you have more leverage as this guy can make promises to take you away from your parents and go live with him -something I also saw happen. My ideas for solutions are in part three, but I want to be careful about labelling this “a lower class” problem. It isn’t, though the girls may be from disadvantaged backgrounds.

Celeste –

Personally, I try not to think about R. Kelly.

In reference to your post, that’s true as well. Teenagers love to experiment with sexuality. However, I noticed that the people in my first friend group (the one I discuss here) were ushered into sexuality at a very early age, normally by older men, and tended to suffer because of it. It kind of taints your ideas of sex and sexuality, particularly when you get into a position where you sleep with someone for money or survival or the desire to be loved, and have it end badly.

With my second friend group, most girls did not have sex until about age 16, 17, or 18. These girls did not get involved with older men too early (parental support had a LOT to do with that) and generally explored their sexuality at age appropriate levels.

Then again, we can do another whole post on most of the topics brought up here. In a nutshell, I think teens should be able to safely explore their sexuality when they are ready to, not because someone older is trying to push them to skip a few levels.

Autonym –

Good points all around. I do take issue with this point: “So it could be, in some cases, a class issue.”

Around this time, I worked at a restaurant with a lot of older men who would make jokes…but would freeze up if they thought I was even close to being offended. I also remember having very large crushes on two men that worked there. I approached them and they (kindly) rebuffed me on the spot. These men were not what anyone would deem as middle class or anything like – yet, they saw a young kid and made sure not to mess with me. (Or the other hostesses who worked there – we were all cute high schoolers.) One guy made a point to say, “You’re beautiful – you have plenty of time to find a nice guy you like that’s your age.”

These guys were low wage, busboys and former tow truck drivers trying their hand at the restaurant business. So why did THEY understand that younger girls were off limits?

Also, re your last comment – yes, I understand that completely. When I was about 13, I was sexually assualted. However, I never said anything because I didn’t know what to call it. It wasn’t rape. It was just something else, probably the “inappropriate touching” you reference on a more violent scale. And if you don’t have the words to express what happened to you, you won’t talk about it. You just internalize whatever happened and move on with your life. Another reason why I feel like younger girls need to hear about our experiences and be able to identify what is happening to them.

Kandee – The societal messaging you bring up is very true and powerful. Challenging these ingrained notions can prove to be difficult as even “good” men who would never dream sleeping with a minor or catcalling women still internalize a lot of these messages. I do try to challenge this as well, but – as I will talk about in my intersectionality post – there’s only so much people are willing to listen to.

Posted 28 Feb 2008 at 11:43 am ¶
jd wrote:

The people who bring up borderline cases make me want to scream! Yes, 17-year-old boys have been prosecuted for having sex with 16-year girlfriends. Yes, that’s insane. You know what tends to happen? The state will add a sliding-scale amendment to its statutory rape laws (generally called a Romeo-and-Juliette exception) so that a certain age difference is also required between the parties. Most states have those now, so, for the most part, that’s not what statutory rape is these days (if it ever was).

Posted 28 Feb 2008 at 1:14 pm ¶
Krl wrote:

Assuming you have a young girl (I have a lil sis-7th grader-intelligent-pretty – and 5 foot 9) under your care…what should one do? While the men who do this need to be held accountable/targeted, what can one do vis a vis the girl you have influence over?

The series is quite good, but I would definitely like to hear what, if any messages you got from your parents regarding this matter, ladies. If they did talk to you about it, was it explicit (don’t do this) or something else? Did it work (not so far as never being exposed to harassment but being prepared for it when it comes)? The girls you mentioned above (that were abused by older men) can you tell me anything particular about them and their situation (above and beyond their ages) so as to see if a certain trait/condition would better prep a girl to resist (cause that is basically what needs to be taught in this case- resistance))?

Given that many of these cases do not involve “easy” exploitation/assault (girl taken/forced physically), how can one get girl in question ready for this in a manner that doesn’t involve a heaping dose of fire and brimstone?

Posted 28 Feb 2008 at 2:04 pm ¶
Anonymous wrote:

Thank you Latoya for bringing this up!

Now that I am older I can look back and see that there were times when older men tried to take advantage of me as well. There was an instance when a family friend who was babysitting my sister and I for the weekend (he was in his twenties) touched me inappropriately and made me do things that I was uncomfortable with. I must have been 9-10 years old at that time. My younger sister was sleeping but when she woke up I told her about it and she was the one that gave me the courage to tell my parents. It always makes me sad when I think of this. When I think about the fact that there are so many girls that go through this it makes me 1) want to cry and 2) extremely angry.

I do have a problem with people who think that older teenage girls don’t have to worry about statutory rape, because they do. Some people think that if a girl is in her late teens she is capable of dealing with the mental baggage that a grown man caries, but that’s not the case. When I was 17 a man that was 27 pursued me and for a while we were in a “relationship” but he was controlling, emotionally manipulative, never physically abuse but he new how to get what he wanted, and I still somehow managed to remain a virgin (mostly due to knowing I deserved better). I was one of those girls who was smart (I still am), very mature for her age, didn’t take crap from nobody and always spoke my mind. And yet this man managed to break me! Everyone knows the type of girl I’m talking about those that say they are mature enough to handle a grown man; but I couldn’t. I think people forget that there are a lot of girls out there who will date a guy just because she wants a boyfriend, and will do anything to belong. It’s that lack of self worth and yearning to belong and fit in that makes many young girls want these relationships. And I use the word want because there where a lot of girls that I knew that were in relationships with older men, and eagerly pursued men much older than them.

Even girls who date guys that are close in age are still susceptible. There was a story in the news a while back here in Toronto that talked about cops busting up a high school porn ring (I can’t seem to find a link but if any other Torontonians remember this let me know). It horrified me because it made me wonder if these girls had been victimized, and manipulated into performing these acts on tape. People forget how much pressure young girls are under even by there so called “boyfriends” and “friends.” It also made me wonder why these teens would want to degrade themselves by placing pictures and videos of themselves performing sexual acts.

I have a lot more stories to share about this topic I don’t think I know a single female that hasn’t been the victim of some form of sexual harassment, date rape, or sexual assault by older men and guys in their age group.

Posted 28 Feb 2008 at 2:21 pm ¶
Alston wrote:

If you ever want to know just how pervasive the desire for stat rape is, just look at the “teen” genre in mainstream porn. The desire to relive (or live for the first time, in a sense) the sexual adventures of a young couple never really seem to go away.

Seriously, if you saw this stuff, you’d throw up.

Posted 28 Feb 2008 at 2:34 pm ¶
Alston wrote:

I would add that much of the worst stereotyping is made manifest in mainstream porn. Look at how women, men, minorities and the young (and old, and so on) are depicted there. It’s an uncomfortable reflection of the reality of how these groups are viewed under the white male gaze, IMO.

Posted 28 Feb 2008 at 2:37 pm ¶
K.lo wrote:

LaToya-

Thank you for this series, I always really enjoy your writing. As someone who’s been the practically the same size for the past 15 years (I’m 31 now), I can relate to these stories of GROWN-ASS MEN hitting on young girls.

I never actually fell prey to these men because I was either A: With a family member who wouldn’t even let a conversation get off the ground or B: With one of my white friends from school who thought the whole idea was odd and sordid. They were never approached by grown men, I certainly shouldn’t engage one in their presence.

This is all very interesting to me. When I was going into my senior year of HS as a virgin, one of my cousins (12 years old at the time) was APPALLED at the idea that I hadn’t had sex yet. I wanted to know how come she had at twelve years old. She told me that it was because everyone had, and you were supposed to when you got to middle school. Her first time had been behind the middle school.

Another friend (set up by our parents at church), who was quite a bit younger than me, hung out with older people all of the time. I guess that’s why her parents thought it appropriate that a 17/18 year old be friends with a 13 year old. She was another one, her boyfriend was in college. She was in middle school! Her parents didn’t know. They thought the guy was a “mentor”.

I don’t know what to do with this information, but for some reason it makes me think about the current “crisis” about black women identity and dateability.

We keep hearing men (black and white) say how unapproachable some black women are. How they always have some kind of guard up, they are never open to meeting someone at the mall are on the street they are more interested in the designer handbag they are eye-ing than the brother smiling at her.

These things have to be linked in some way.

Again, thanks for making me think.

Posted 28 Feb 2008 at 3:31 pm ¶
Autonym wrote:

Latoya, I agree with your point about my use of “class”. I was struggling to find some other word for it, because on one hand I think that is a way for people to think that sexual abuse and inappropriate behaviour is something poor people do and others don’t.

I guess perhaps I meant “culture”. I grew up in a midwest very predominately white college town. I hung around men and women who considered themselves feminist, I had a lot of knowledge of what getting pregnant as a teen was about from my friends and I was, although stupid, fairly self protective. I guess it was a matter of being in a place with people who had something to lose by being caught having sex with a teenage girl, where obviously there are many who do not (or feel they do not).

Posted 28 Feb 2008 at 3:33 pm ¶
Autonym wrote:

Oops, I want to add that by “culture” in the above example, I don’t mean ethnicity – or race. For me as a biracial (black/white) woman I feel like I’m straddling different expectations from people all the time, but it’s weird, when I was a kid/adolescent I was never made to feel uncomfortable by black men, only white.

Posted 28 Feb 2008 at 3:40 pm ¶
Anonymous wrote:

My guardian (maternal aunt) basically told me ‘no dates/boys until you’re 18.’ That was that. My clothing matched my size, because I was wearing clothes meant for younger girls until my figure caught up at bit during my senior year of high school, and then it was plainly-cut, loose jeans and polo shirts until I left for college. If any man approached me in her line of vision, she was out the door of our house like a bat out of hell, and the one man who dared approach me at 13 in her presence got his ass thoroughly whooped. Auntie had a very dim view of most young and middle-aged men in the ghetto we lived in and didn’t trust a one. Harsh, right? She had her reasons: she knew from.

Back in the 60s, when she was 17, she was targeted by the FORTY-SEVEN-year-old son of her family church’s pastor. He got her to believe he loved her, had his way with her and was gone as soon as she was pregnant. He literally never saw her again. The man had done the same thing so often to so many different girls that her son was one of ELEVEN half-siblings by 1970. No one confronted him, not even my grandparents. Why not? Because everyone involved was black and working-class in that small town? Because no one wanted to go to the pastor about his son? Was it the ol’ ‘wink-wink, nudge-nudge, yeah, way to go, guy’? Who knows? But my behavior was quite circumscribed because of her experiences, and her son was taught that his father’s behavior was shameful and that he was NEVER to behave that way. He never has.

From my teens on to my early 30s, I got approached a lot by men looking for a young girl, probably because until I was in my early 30s, I looked to be a teenager. One incident that sticks out is when I was 16, coming home from a shift at a fast food place. I was walking down a side street near my home and a late-model German car sidled up to me. The window came down and a white man asked me, “How much?” I doubt I looked older than 12 at the time. Had my uniform on, too. I recognized the man because he was the father of one of my classmates from my high school. I went to a suburban high school. Sometimes he’d help at track meets. “Mr. X? I go to school with Katie!” He gawped at me for a second, then peeled off. I didn’t call the police, no, I let his daughter know privately what happened at school the next day. She told her mother and did that take care of that. Didn’t tell Auntie. She’d've gone over and ripped his head off. In front of the cops.

These days I get a lot of men who think I’m in my early 20s, and maybe, just maybe, I’m emotionally vulnerable. All I have to do is I tell them I’m 38, and they dissipate like smoke when they realize I’m telling the truth.

How to help kids through this? Huh. Parents need to, first off, let their child know that she’s truly loved – and by lots of people. Love is a foundation for trust, and for children to know what honest trust feels like, not ‘needy’ trust. Needy trust is what unloved people give to those who’d prey on them, because they’re so eager for support and care, they’ll open themselves up to the first person who treats them nicely. Any young person who isn’t loved will exude something like a scent to predators. Then parents need to let their daughters know that they can come to them about ANYTHING, no judgments. This gives kids the open line of communication they need when they’re in trouble. Parents need to let their kids know at an age appropriate time about sex. Not just the act, because that’s biology, but about emotions and the ways people fuse that stuff with power. Let kids know that there’s some people out there who look to get on a power trip through sex – not everybody, of course. And to teach kids to trust their instincts about people. That’s the thing about being loved. In a loving environment, kids can learn to trust their instincts because they’re in a safe place to let those instincts develop. Talk to boys and girls about the messages in the culture that encourage this awful behavior and why it’s dangerous for them to not think about their entertainment choices. Teach girls value in themselves not as future virginal wives and mothers but as human beings who deserve respect for existing on this planet. Teach boys that girls and women are just as deserving of respect as any of their male friends. Pay attention to what your child says, who their friends are, what they all talk about. There’s way to do it without coming off like dragonbeasts or like trying to be one of the kids. It all comes from caring and putting yourselves in their shoes. My auntie went too far into dragonbeast territory at times, but it’s mitigated to me because I knew deep down she did care and didn’t want me to suffer through what she did.

I think all parents should get a copy of The Gift of Fear, by Gavin De Becker and READ IT. If we are afraid of every little thing, we won’t know what to pass on to our children except fear of the bogey man, and will also ignore real threats when they occur. I think this book can help teach about when and where fear is warranted, as well as how to listen to your instincts.

I’m sure there’s more we can do as individuals and as a society for the young girls we care about *and* the young boys we care about so they don’t become men who behave in such an abominable way.

Posted 28 Feb 2008 at 4:14 pm ¶
eva wrote:

I think the language around the issues have muddled the possibility for understanding. When people think rape they think of the unknown perpetrator jumping out from behind the bushes. When you hear date rape you think of peers essentially going to far and the woman backing out of it at the LAST POSSIBLE MOMENT. And also, when you think of molestation you think of pedophiles and young children. Oprah, yeah thats right Oprah, who was a target of molestation descibes what is happening as a seduction. After all many young girls pursue the attention, not necessarily the sex part because of society’s pressure to have “romantic love.” That’s the only love that is valued… all of the Princes on Disney are only focussed on finding a Prince after all.

Some how I think that broadening the language around this issue, and therefore further engaging the issue is necessary. Maybe we’re talking about “juvenile seduction” here…

Posted 28 Feb 2008 at 4:40 pm ¶
Persia wrote:

Love is a foundation for trust, and for children to know what honest trust feels like, not ‘needy’ trust. Needy trust is what unloved people give to those who’d prey on them, because they’re so eager for support and care, they’ll open themselves up to the first person who treats them nicely.

Excellent point, and describes a lot of the teen pregnancies I saw. Interestingly, the kids with the more ‘attentive’ parents were on birth control or got knocked up by a classmate; the ones with the, shall we say, less than ideal parenting had babydaddies that were significantly older.

Posted 28 Feb 2008 at 5:17 pm ¶
DWS wrote:

I remember a young lady in my 10th grade class who was always being accompanied by “Larry.” Larry was clearly much older and bearded but you never saw one without the other and girlfriend always looked so timid and terrified.

I decided to try to befriend her but noticed my efforts seemed to trigger something in “Larry” that I found a little intimidating, so I backed off.

I always wondered if hers was an unwanted relationship but she was just to scared to resist him.

Posted 28 Feb 2008 at 7:43 pm ¶
Blair wrote:

Latoya — These are wonderful posts. As a regular reader of both Feministing and Feministe, I hate seeing stupid, ignorant comments like the ones you’re refuting and can’t believe that people on feminist sites espouse them. Then again, those sites are a relative bubble compared to the kind of garbage the general population believes about rape (reading comments on outside news sources that I get linked to from blogs often makes me want to throw up). I have to say that reading this struck a chord with me too. It made me think about the ways in which women are encouraged to blame eachother, rather than those who are perpetrating the problem (a pretty common theme).

In my own experience, some of my friends began having romantic or sexual encounters with older men from middle school on too. Mostly, though, they met these guys on the internet, not in a park or a club. At the time I remember blaming them, thinking they were stupid, etc. I’m not saying they had no agency, but I don’t remember thinking much about the 23 year old guy who was into 14 year olds, which I should have been focused on. This is a predatory situation, regardless of whether or not the 14 year old is seeking out the guys, or whether or not she’s “old enough to know better.”

Posted 28 Feb 2008 at 9:03 pm ¶
Gregory A. Butler wrote:

“… it’s not that men who prey on young girls are unable to judge ages, but they they are actively interested in adolescent women BECAUSE they have fewer social skills and less personal power ”

That is right on the money.

I know guys who go after young women – and they are fully aware of how young those girls are.

There’s no “mistakes” here, no “I thought she was 25 but she was really 16″ here… (honestly, no matter how developed a 16 year old is, once she opens her mouth, it will quickly become clear how young she is).

It’s just that it’s a lot easier to emotionally, sexually and financially manipulate a teenager than it is to do that to a grown woman.

Posted 29 Feb 2008 at 1:34 am ¶
Lisa wrote:

[i]“I had paired a long sleeved black shirt with a red velvet skirt (what? I told you, I was young!) and mary jane style flats.”[/i]

Off topic, but you had great style for a teenager.

On topic: [i]” Guess what? It doesn’t matter what you wear. It doesn’t matter how you look. It’s kind of like that feminist mantra: what you wear does not get you raped; being in the presence of a rapist is what gets you raped.”[/i] So true. I find the worse I look, the more I get harassed, worst is in gym gear looking generally gunky. The ice princess thing is actually a great shield, makes us seem less easy prey.

Great and heart-breaking posts, so many thoughts, sorry to start out with more superficial comments.

Posted 29 Feb 2008 at 4:22 am ¶
nadia wrote:

“Another reason why I feel like younger girls need to hear about our experiences and be able to identify what is happening to them.”

totally, i think speaking out about the violence we endured as teenagers from our perspectives as adult women is a simple and huge way for us to use media in healing ourselves and ending violence against women & girls (like UBUNTU: http://iambecauseweare.wordpress.com/ ).

someone said something about girls who think they are grown up enough to handle a grown man, the whole myth of early girl maturity…this is so true. i think this ties into the race & class dimensions too. if you are a daughter of a single mother (especially the oldest daughter) you’re more likely to think you’re grown because as soon as you can cook dinner and take care of smaller kids, you’re managing the house, and you probably don’t have anyone around telling you what to do. i know it didn’t seem weird to my friends and i when we were in middle school/high school and some of us had older boyfriends/baby’s dads. and i had a friend who’s parents were really inappropriate with us; they would get high with us, talk about sex-related things with us, let us drink. once they invited my seventeen year old friend to swing. and now those parents try to hit me up on myspace to see how i’m doing! and it grosses me out because i’m grown now and i know they’re pedophiles. at the time i thought it was cool. ::sigh::

it’s hard for me to figure out the race/class aspects of this, but these aren’t things that the rich white girls from the other side of my hometown were dealing with.

Posted 29 Feb 2008 at 9:47 am ¶
Mickle wrote:

Cynthia,

I may be wrong, but I’d also guess it has something to do with the communities involved, especially the girls themselves, having less power.

The police are more likely to listen to girls complaining about adult men harassing them if the girls in question come from white and middle to upper class neighborhoods. Although it should be noted that “more likely to listen” =/= “will always listen when they should.”

The police and other adults are also more likely deal with such harassment – in ways that go beyond having rules for the girl’s dress, behavior, etc. – when the families in question are white and middle to upper class. Especially when it comes to parents, often simply because they have more options available to them because of the families economic and social standing.

I know that the guys that hung around my sister’s swim practice were promptly chased off. Ourparents were able to afford the time off from work, felt they had the authority to say who got to hang around and who didn’t, and knew they would be backed up by the police if things got worse. Likewise, I didn’t have the 9th grade teacher who harassed girls because my parents were listened to when they told the school that I was opting out of that class. Anon’s story also reminded me of another instance where I refused to babysit for a certain family after the dad creeped me out when he drove me home. That was a much easier decision for me than for many other teens, as I could always ask my parents for money for books, movie tickets, extra clothes, etc. The point of babysitting money was more to avoid being questioned each time I wanted to buy something, rather than actually needing the money.

Still, solutions that are left up to individual parents usually fall far short of addressing the actual problem. It was bad enough that I missed out on 9th grade science, even worse was that he continued molesting and harassing other girls. (He was convicted about a decade ago, so I’m not just going on rumor in this case.) Also, my parents switched my sister’s swim club as well because the people in charge refused to chase off the coach who was doing worse than oogling.

Last of all, kids pick up on all this really early. From the way my parents reacted to such complaints from me, I learned that avoidance of the situation was the best solution to the problem, rather than actually addressing the problem. But at least I felt that I had that right and option, and I felt that I could (usually) go to my parents when it really got out of control. What do the kids whose parents aren’t able to chase off the adult men that hang around schools learn? As Latoya already said, they learn to deal with it on their own, which they are not equipped to do.

Posted 29 Feb 2008 at 4:55 pm ¶
Amory wrote:

I feel you on this article. Thanks so much for writing this. As a woman who works with female survivors of domestic violence and sexual assault AND their children, I have a couple of things to add:

1. a profoundly disturbing statistic: In the U.S., LESS than ONE PER CENT of sexual assault cases *reported to police* end in convictions.
(Makes you think twice about how “justice” is applied to those who are convicted.)

2. I personally think that statutory rape is like all other forms of rape. (Including the sexual assault of preadolescent children.) It is about power and control. It’s about male entitlement. Probably more white males than anyone else.
All the other “reasons” thrown up by our society– pseudoscientific studies that “prove” a biological basis for rape; the sexualization of naivete (the concept of virginity, for example); the idea that men “need” *sex* (which of course involves TWO people, as opposed to masturbation, which provides purely physical relief); the joke made out of the concept of consent; the utter devaluation of older women’s bodies (coincidentally, women with more personal power and ability to see through bullshit); the idea that women and children want to be raped (most pedophiles argue that the child “seduced” them– much like the “she wanted it” response to adult male-female rape), ETC. are simply JUSTIFICATIONS, excuses made up to veil the fundamental sense of entitlement.

3. Why do we focus on the survivor and not the perpetrator? If 1/4 of girls *report* being raped by the age of 18, and ONE THIRD of all (reported) sexual assaults occur before a child turns 12, why the fuck aren’t we looking at the people perpetrating all this violence?

If 35% of college-aged men *reported* in a recent study that they would *violently* rape someone if they knew they could get away with it, why aren’t we looking at them? If that many people are being brutalized, and that many people are down with brutalization, this is a social problem. We need more community accountability.

It brings to mind a quote I’ve heard here and there:
“[Rape] is nothing more or less than a conscious process of intimidation by which all men keep all women in a state of fear” — Susan Brownmiller

Alright, sorry for the novel. Basically your work is amazing and inspiring, and thank you for writing it. I love your articles.

Love.

Posted 01 Mar 2008 at 10:16 pm ¶
Amory wrote:

Anonymous, thank you so much for your post. I totally agree with you. Kids need love and to trust their instincts about people and situations.
I’m going to look up the book you recommend.

Posted 01 Mar 2008 at 10:29 pm ¶
cinco wrote:

So many valid points have been made. I feel the best solution I have is for me to be an example to my daughters, (3 of 5 are grown); to take my role as a parent seriously; to be as involved as possible from the beginning of their lives; to have rules with discipline and consequences for disobeying and follow through; to forget and forget their mistakes and most importantly shower your child with love not things. Knowing you are loved affects almost every area of your life and subsequent well being. Remember that children ‘need’ you differently @ different stages of their growth and development. No matter what happens the greatest sacrifice is to ‘parent’ your child not ‘befriend’ them. Your influence or lack of there of will affect them forever!

Posted 02 Mar 2008 at 2:37 pm ¶