The Study of Racialism

Is the "rape" of a 14 year old male by a woman as psychologically damaging, if at all, as the rape of a 14 year old heterosexual male by an adult male or the rape of 14 year old female by an adult male? Can we or should we place all of these under the same category of sexual abuse?

Also, I'd be interested in any information that shows the long-term effects of adult female on teen or pre-teen male sexual abuse. I'd be curious to find out if it is substantively different from the effects of adult male on teen or pre-teen female sexual abuse.

Study of effects of sexual abuse on men when perpetuated by women: http://www.kalimunro.com/article_mother_son_sexual_abuse.html

Additional references on the topic: http://www.jimhopper.com/male-ab/#fem

To me the question to ask is not "who suffers more psychologically" but "what kind of effects arise given various types of abuse" in both men and women? I share these authors' views that the effects of sexual abuse on males are strongly repressed and much harder to detect because wider society propagates the notion that boys who do not want sex 24-7 (i.e., may not want the attentions of even the hottest adult woman in EVERY circumstance) are non-existent or weak. Where do these boys turn to explore the feelings of shame and anger that often result from being sexually abused when no one seems to believe that any abuse took place? It is interesting that boys who are abused by men DO receive acknowledgement of the violation of their person that has almost certainly occurred on some level.

I am ignorant of the studies on this phenomenon, but one thought comes to mind: Would it be useful to distinguish between "seduction" (defined as the use of psycho-social power to gain consent/cooperation) on the one hand and "forcible rape" defined as use of physical force or threat of death on the other? I am not suggesting that either is more or less reprehensible. I just wonder if they might be easier to study if considered as different things.

I'm sorry I've been a guy all my life.

A 14 year old boy more often than not wants to have sex, and often with an older woman.

That is quite different from being sexually abused by their mother, a female relative, a man, etc.

There are 14 year olds right now having sex as I type this who are not going to grow up mentally ill due to it.

This older woman fantasy is a common theme in "teen movies" especially in the 1980's...it is quite common for young boys to fantasize about older women.

Now if the kid is 11 or 10...that is sick and wrong.

A 14 or 15 year old knows what is going on.

The fact that you have been a man all of your life says diddly squat about the experiences of millions of other men, two of which, at the very least, do not share your opinion and have surely been alive longer than you have (if that counts for anything).

If you have not been sexually abused then you have no idea what a man who has been might be feeling or have to deal with psychologically. I know two men who have been, personally, who are not gay and were not abused by men or women in their family. They know what you are saying is completely bogus and part of the problem, quite frankly.

To "know what is going on" is not legally defined as an excuse to have sex with a minor as far as I know. I used to fantasize about Will Smith and Jodeci when I was 15 but that doesn't mean I would have or should have had a "consensual" sexual relationship with any one of them at that age. In addition, what "knowledge" are you talking about? I doubt sincerely that there are many young teenagers who are psychologically, emotionally and mentally equipped to make responsible sexual choices that include adults. That is exactly why they are protected under the law. No adult, no matter what Mary Kay Letourneau might lead us to believe, is truly "seduced" by a child or teenager. Unless the adult in question has the cognitive and social equivalent of a teenaged brain, this is highly questionable IMO. Even if it was possible, an adult is or should be fully aware of the legal consequences of sleeping with a minor. A minor, on the other hand, has no legal responsibility here under age 17 (I believe, the lawyers can correct me if I am wrong).

Were these men sexually abused by women?

In many states a 13, 14, or 15 year old can concent to sex.

Also girls are not boys. Your experiences as a woman say nothing about what a man goes through or feels. You are projecting.

It really depends on where you are if it is illegal or defined as abuse or not.


You are taking your moral ideals and trying to implant them on everyone, where there are entire states of people who do not agree with your moral norms.



This is not due to biology but due to how we raise the children as I remarked early in this thread.

Back in the day women did marry at 15 and 14 years old and that was seen as completely normal and they were not "mentally hurt" by it.

In many developing countries this is still the case. THe only difference between them and American 14 or 15 year olds in 2007 is how they are raised.

We keep "children" children for a longer period due to educational reasons. Before the industrial revolution, even some time after it would be normal for a 15 or 14 year old girl to marry a 25 or even 30 year old man. In fact that might be preferred because the man would likely be seen as more "stable and settled".

This being said even today in today's environment not all children mature equally. I'm sure there are many 14 and 15 year olds who can handle sexual relationships without being serious effected in a negative way, in fact I know so, because I have a very good friend who lost his virginity at 14 and he works for a major company in NYC now and has an MBA, he is married with one kid. He could be fronting but I have never noticed him to be "suffering" mentally.

Dragon Horse, are you saying that if you had a 13 year old son, you would be okay if his female teacher had sex with him?

Does that also mean that you would be okay if you had a 14 year old daughter who wanted to marry someone----say----30 years old?

Hardly. I am quoting and providing evidence collected from MEN, who are saying the same thing that I am. I am articulating what I have read, have been told, and what is common sense. I am not negating the experience of boys who may be glad to be sleeping with older women, but I am saying that not ALL boys feel this way just because they are boys (or because you feel this way).

Where is your evidence that having sexual relations as a boy with an older woman is NOT harmful? Anecdotal evidence does not suffice. I have any number of male acquaintances and friends who do not believe that they were sexually abused by the women/girls they slept with as teens. What you have not demonstrated is that all men share your particular view, and you certainly have not represented reality with accuracy using your anecdotal evidence.

Again, take a look at what men who were abused are actually saying before you speak on their behalf.

These are not "my" moral norms nor do I have the time, inclination or ability to implement them for other people. You are free, if you weren't aware, to believe whatever you wish but you should take care not to extrapolate your personal views to situations that you know nothing about, especially when there are peer-reviewed data that do not support your point of view.

I would also like to know the specific statutes in the specific states that allow for teens under age 16 to consent to a sexual encounter with an ADULT. Not for teens to consent to marriage, not for teens to have sex with other teens, just to be clear.

To your statement about maturity, a 14 year old in 1900 is not the same as a 14 year old in 2007. For one, life spans were shorter and people had to live their lives, on average, in far less years than we do now, so maturity "milestones" like marriage, children and death were compressed for many more people in the U.S at least. Secondly, adolescence is extended in modern society. My own grandmother married at 14, to a 21 year old, but it would have been unheard of for her daughters and granddaughters to do the same. Pretty normal stuff in 1933, not in the 60s or in 2007. The social norms in countries outside the U.S. reflect these "archaic" (for the U.S.) notions, but if I wasn't clear, I am speaking about the U.S.

Biology is only one part of the equation. Humans adapt and change social norms on a regular basis. There is also a biological element to the effects of human behavior. To negate the experiences of men because they are men is not only scientifically obtuse, it can have detrimental effects for the unknown population of men who do indeed feel victimized. If you haven't met one in your narrow circle of friends, click on the links I provided and learn about them because they exist.

The only problem is that operational definitions for "abuse" are murky in themselves. As with many sexual phenomena, perceptions of what constitutes sexual "abuse" varies from one person to the next and can change over time.

I do think that legal research clearly separates the legal definitions of rape/sexual assault from seduction, adultery, and the like. So there seems to be clear separation between violent sexual assault of a minor and coercion (or engaging in sex acts that would be legal if carried out by two consenting adults) when studying the phenomenon from a legal perspective.

As for the usefulness of these definitions for psychological/sociological research purposes, to me it depends on what is being studied. The phenomenon of "abuse" seems to be such a personal issue that one could "feel" abused but not have been legally assaulted or raped. Abuse may be underreported and poorly recalled by the victims. What we seem to lack knowledge of is how many men and women 1) were actually abused as children 2) repress memories of abuse yet experience its negative effects, 3) are aware of past abuse and experience negative effects. After that, researchers would need to classify what sex acts occurred/psychological coercion tactics were used to get them to comply with the abuser and how they affect behavior.

I will have to reach out to a friend of mine who used to study the victims of sexual abuse in grad school. Hopefully she is still at it; I know she went to work for a non-profit after school.

No if my 14 year old son had sex with his teacher that would be inappropriate. She should be fired. I would not call it rape though.

If my 14 year old daughter wanted to marry a 30 year old, depending on the state she could with my permission but she definately would not get it.

That is unacceptable in this society as she needs to complete her education and not get married and knocked up.

As I said we raise the children quite different in this society than lets say..in rural Africa or Asia, because of social conditions.

It has nothing to do with biological maturity. A 14 year old girl is perfectly capable and able to have a child and be a mother and wife in theory.

An American 14 year old is not.

My point is I despite the immorality, inappropriateness I do not equate a 14 or 15 year old boy engaging in sex with a 25 year old woman as rape or child molestation.

Dragon Horse: I requested some information from you in my post yesterday to substantiate various claims that you made in your posts. Please provide the information within 24 hours or your posting privileges may be suspended.

Thank you.

You are being pretty ridiculous about now.

I do not need evidence to justify my opinion when the issue is subjective.

You quote social science studies, which are highly subjective.

If they were not they would be considered "hard science"

Hard Science is me throwing a ball in the air and being able to accurately tell you how fast it will fall and that it will fall every single time and roughly what area it will fall in. This is based on scientific law. Social Sciences are not hard science for a reason.

It is very very hard to quantify the subjective. I could be traumatized as a 6 year old by watching the movie Hostel and the kid next to me is unaffected. I had a cousin who could not sleep at night for weeks after watching Nightmare on Elm Street. I was watched it with her and I had been watching horror movies since I can remember and never was so afraid it effected my sleep, not has it made me violent. Obviously there are more variables at play than we can quantify or that we fully understand, this is why it is a social science. We are not talking about physics or chemistry here.

We could have the same argument about murder. If someone breaks into my car in Houston, TX on my property I can shoot them dead and that is legal. If I did it in Washington D.C. it would be murder. So what is murder? Do I need studies to back up if I think shooting a man dead over a stereo is not murder?

Age of marriage should be taken into account because of what it implies.

If a man can marry a 14 year old with her parents consent that means in most states she will legally become an adult and engage in sexual intercourse with him, however if she was not married then it would be a felony. What? That does not follow logically, marriage does not increase one’s maturity automatically.

It also implies that the parents who agree to this marriage should be prosecuted for child abuse by exposing their children to a situation where they will be getting routinely “raped” however this is not done. It makes no sense, no matter what type of mental gymnastics you want to do to justify this double standard.

In states where they don’t try to justify the double standard you get this nonsense below.


You get this nonsense, a man accused of “raping” his wife and mother of his child who is legally married to.

http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/story?id=1121138&page=1


Or this one:

A woman married to her babies father legally who is accused of raping him at the same time.

http://www.cga.ct.gov/2003/olrdata/jud/ ... R-0376.htm

As far as states and age of consent most states have an age of consent at 16, and the rules vary. You can consent to sex with any age adult or someone 2, 4, 5, or 6 years older depending on the state, which tells me there is no consensus about what age is appropriate. IN most states a 16 year old can have sex with a legal adult who is 18 or 19.

In some states (admittedly a small amount) like Oklahoma a 14 year old can consent to have sex with an adult over 18.

So according to you that state of Oklahoma is consenting to pedophilia and so are the residents of the state. That would mean the state (in this case 3.5 million folks) are perverts who are potentially harming their kids. Okay.

Oh lets get back to studies…

Lets see a peer reviewed study from major universities found this:



A lot of folks did not like and tried to demonize these scholars but it is what it is.

As I said, it is not a “hard science”.

http://nymag.com/news/features/17064/index1.html

Once again, it my opinon based on what I have seen and read in my life that 14 or 15 year olds having sex with older women is not particuarlly damaging to them, which 4 professors at top level universities seem to agree with. It might be immoral, it might be inappropriate, if it is a teacher they should be fired, but I don't consider it rape in any form.




Full Text here:

http://www.ipce.info/library_3/rbt/metaana.htm

I already remarked on this and it goes to my point.

Unless you are arguing that people biological evolved in 100 years to the new social "norms" than it is all social conditioning.

If that is the case we know that people do not all respond to conditioning in the same way or are exposed to the same extent.

Therefore there are 14 or 15 year olds with different levels of maturation and different levels of emotional variability. IN our society especially, families raise children remarkable differently frmo one area to another even one house to another.

So to say that there are men hurt by this...okay...I would agree they must exist, that does not mean I agree that most are hurt by this.

It appears, as I stated before that 4 Ph.D.s from top universities agree with me as well.

The truth is a 21 year old woman can be deeply hurt by a sexual relationship...with someone their own age, I know more than one and likely everone on this board does.

To say that some boys are hurt by whatever it is (exposure to violence, sex, etc) is really a discussion of averages and varience around that average.

I have never said there were no boys who were "sensative" I'm sure there are grown men who are crushed by a sexual experience, that does not in any way mean they are the norm or they are not an outlier.

The study I posted above Rind, et al (1998) was backed up by a Ohio U. Prof:

http://www.csulb.edu/~asc/child.html

Rind, Tromovitch, and Bauserman: Politically Incorrect - Scientifically Correct


Thomas D. Oellerich

School of Social Work, Ohio University, 148 Morton Hall, Athens, OH 45701 (oelleric@oak.cats.ohiou.edu)

DH - I probably should have reposted my request, but it was not for studies substantiating the point of view that there are no gender differences between victims of sexual abuse. Sexual abuse in iteself is a complex phenomenon and is also understudied and underreported. The external validity of many existing studies is therefore questionnable IMO, but that does not invalidate the usefulness of studies and any meta-analysis conducted. Of course there are, for many reasons brought up by the studies you posted as well as the ones I posted. In addition, only experimentation is "hard" enough (if you like those terms) to withstand certain criticisms of quantitative analysis, and most academic researchers do not have the time, resources, ability or permission to conduct the rigorous experiments that would be "hard" enough to silence these criticisms. So unless someone is going to purposefully subject a male chid to abuse in a controlled double-blind experiment I wouldn't put too much faith in the "hardness" of analysis conducted to date in any discipline.

What I wanted evidence for is your claim that some states allow minors under 16 to have sex with adults who are not spouses. I wanted to know which states have these laws on the books.

Thanks.

I would also be interested in learning which states allow unmarried sex between adults and anyone under 18. Just curious. I know that "age of consent" varies greatly, but this concept is usually applied to marriage. I am asking if anyone knows about state differences in the statutes that define "statutory" rape.

There are many states in that link that show children under 16 can have sex with legal adults, but it is usually limited by age of the adult as I stated.

Oklahoma is the only state I saw where someone of age 15 can have sex anyone they want over that age.

Once again most of these laws controdict laws that specifically state children can marry often as young as 13 (which implies they can engage in sexual intercourse with an adult of any age as long as they are married) which I showed has causes serious legal conflicts. To me it is clearly illogical.

The laws conflict because:

1) Parents are giving children premission to have a sexual relationship with an adult (if they allow them to marry an adult).

2) The resulting relationship and permission of the parents if given outside of marriage would be considered rape and the parents would be considered irresponsible and criminal...inside marriage it is fine.

3) A man who is 40 can marry a 14 year old in some states, but he can also be charged with raping his wife in the same state. This makes no sense.

Children don't automatically become mature adults due to a marriage. Rape does not become permissable if the people are married.

It makes no sense at all.


I have also never said that male children can not be raped. My opinion, which is backed up by the major study done, is that male "children" in thier mid teens are not "raped" or molested just because they had sex with an adult woman.

In reality a full adult man can be raped by a man or woman. There have been cases where women have drugged men or got them drunk and raped them in the United States, and the women were charged with sexual assult.

We all know of men being raped in prison by men, this is too common.

I suppose my only point was that "ever time you hear of a male 14, 15, or 16" year old who has had sexual relations with an older adult woman does not automatically mean they were raped or even coerced and the resulting sex act is not always damaging to that male.

That's about it.

Here is a site:

http://www.coolnurse.com/marriage_laws.htm

not sure if it is accurate.

Alabama is the first state and kids can marry at 14 with parents consent.

According to the other link though:

http://www.cga.ct.gov/2003/olrdata/jud/ ... R-0376.htm

If I married a 14 year old, that is fine, but if I am not married to her and I have sex with her willingly I can be sentenced to:







In New Hampshire a 13 year old female and a 14 year old male can marry (sex discrimination here) as long as parents say it is okay and they get a waver.

However,



punishable by 7 years in prison.


So the states are saying...if you are not married you are raped, at least in a statutory way if you are married maybe that is just fine as long as mom and dad said so.

That was it. STATUTORY RAPE LAWS BY STATE answers the question as of 2003. It is interesting that some states (Alabama, for instance) allow unmarried sex involving children as young as 12, as long as the other party is not many years older (16 for Alabama). In Pennsylvania, an adult can legally have intercourse with a 13-year-old as long as it is not "deviate sexual intercourse" (whatever that means). And Colorado apparently has no lower age limit at all, as long as the other party is less than four years older. An eight-year old and an eleven-year-old, for instance. Weird.

So going back to the initial storiy I posted...if the teachers were in Colorado...(well not the one with the 11 year old, but the other one) they would likely have been fired but no criminal charges could be filed as long as the boys agreed...no crime.

Cross over to the next state and you would be a convicted felon, sex offender.


My policy since I've been 18 is that if you are more than 2 years younger than me and your parents don't know me I can't mess with you. Better safe than sorry. I had a friend in college who got sent to jail for 6 months (he was 18) his girlfriend was 15. Her parents didn't like him so they called the police. He became a convicted sex offender. That's for life.