| Yawning
Bread. 4 March 2009 Jail as a solution for age-discrepant sex
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While I have no objection against the principle that sex with anyone below the age of consent should be criminal, I find it troubling that as a public, we are not debating whether the sentences meted out are proportionate. The recent case of the female teacher and a 15-year-old boy troubled me. For details of the case, see Female teacher admits to sex with boy aged 15. For what it was worth, the boy, on the cusp of legal maturity, had more than consented to the relationship, and when she wanted to end it, he became abusive towards her. As far as I can see, we did not hear any impact statement from the boy, so how do we know that the sexual relationship inflicted such psychological damage on the boy to warrant 10 month's imprisonment for the woman?
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A new case is coming up soon -- that of a sepak takraw coach. See box at right. I do not know anything about this case and I do not intend to suggest that the boys were willing participants, but nonetheless, this, adding to the steady drumbeat of other cases, points out the need for us to clarify our minds about underlying principles. One danger we face is that of not differentiating among a whole range of situations. At one extreme, we have truly monstrous acts where a father or uncle rapes a pre-pubescent girl. See salmon-coloured box below. We throw the book at such offenders because we are repulsed by what they did and there is usually more than sufficient evidence that the girls are badly traumatised. At the other extreme, we have situations where the teenage boy may well be the initiator of sex with an older person. Out of political correctness, we tend to deny this. In that denial, do we tend to be too harsh on the adult? Out of political correctness too, we tend to equate sex with boys with sex with girls, when it might be valid to ask: Is the psychological damage to the adolescent the same between boys and girls? If not, what does that mean for sentencing? * * * * * Yet, anecdotal reports and at least one scientific study have shown that gay male teenagers are generally not psychologically damaged by the experience. (Do note: I said gay male teenagers, not just male teenagers). They tend to be willing partners too. In such situations, we need to strip away our presumptions and be very alert when assigning blame and imposing penalties. A 1993 case from London, Ontario, provides an example of moralistic hysteria. Following the accidental discovery of 57 videotapes containing homosexual male pornography thrown into a river, the police and media spun the whole matter into what was labelled the "child pornography ring". The city's only newspaper, the London Free Press, did 110 stories about the case. But, as gay community leader Clarence Crossman pointed out in a television program documenting the case, "Every one of the words in the phrase 'child pornography ring' needs to be analysed very carefully." [2] There was hardly any child pornography involved, since almost all the participants in the videotaped scenes were over the age of consent, which is 14 in Canada. Despite what one might assume from the label, the older men involved were not part of an organising network ("ring"). If there was any network, it was among the teenagers, most of whom were hustlers. The men involved generally didn't know who the others were. The boys, on the other hand, knew each other. The TV documentary about the case interviewed Maureen Reid, head of the sexual abuse unit at the Children's Aid Society in London. She averred that the tapes showed "children and adults engaged in sexual activity that could not have occurred with consent because [of] the age of the children, and that didn't fit with how we see sexuality. I mean, young children, when we see them in sexual ways, it really is counter to how we view children." Notice how, she kept using the word "children" to describe boys in their mid-teens above the age of consent. Her problem was not the reality that the videos showed -- that the teenagers were consensual participants in the sexual acts -- but that what they showed conflicted with what she wanted to believe about "children". She conceded that some of the relationships might not be criminal, but "it was clearly, in my mind, abusive. "[It] was abusive because it was coerced, because it was non-consensual, because there was a power differential, there were elements of coercion and enticements, and that to me made it abusive." But were there? Scott Baldwin, one of the former hustlers, told the documentary makers, "I think the police have made a big issue out of, really, nothing. I think it's just a pin-up on gay people in general.... Most of the young boys that I saw were old enough to make their own decisions. " His friend, David Ashfield, put it more bluntly: "I think that the stuff they're writing in the papers, a lot of it is phoney. They're just putting what they think. They think that all the kids were all victims and that they didn't know what they were doing and stuff like that. They knew what they were doing; they're just not putting that part in their paper. "I could see if adults would rape a kid or something, that's wrong. But I'm saying if they are both willing -- even if it was for money, if the kid says yes and says, sure, let's go -- the kid knows what he's doing, obviously, or he wouldn't be [cruising] in the first place." A third young guy, Andrew Cunningham, put it simply: "They were all consensual. There was no rape or nothing against my will. ... They didn't prey upon me; I went to them, sometimes they came to me, but it was all consensual." The teenagers typically came from "broken, dysfunctional homes," to use the words of the court record. They found, usually with each other's help, gay men who would give them food, money, clothes and friendship, and in some cases places to stay, the documentary reported. Seventeen of the 37 adult men pleaded guilty. As Max Allen, the documentary producer reported, "Some pleaded guilty to lists of charges involving boys they say they've never even met. Their lawyers' advice was: 'Just plead and take the deal; don't try to nickel-and-dime the police.' Another lawyer advised against contesting the charges on the grounds that 'It's hopeless'." They must have recognised the hysteria around them. What about the videotapes that kicked off the investigation? For something that anyone might regard as evidence, it was amazing how few people actually saw them. Not even the prosecutor and the judge. As Allen commented: "The videotapes showed in-your-face teenage sex. The police saw them as evidence of crime, immorality, and victimisation. But they were also evidence that contradicted the myth of teenage purity and innocence, and so they had to be confiscated, hidden, and finally destroyed." * * * * *
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In the article What really happens when gay boys get intimate with men, I describe a study by Bruce Rind on the effects of "age-discrepant sexual relations" (ADSR) on 26 gay and bisexual teenage boys [3]. His conclusion is that those boys who experienced ADSR were just as healthy, psychologically speaking, as those who did not.
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This study followed an earlier
one (or maybe it was an earlier version of the same study?) led by the same
researcher -- a meta-analysis of non-clinical literature. This came under
intense US-wide attack by social conservatives. The Philadelphia radio
talk show host who initiated the nationwide attacks pressured a
Philadelphia gay and lesbian bookstore to remove all books and magazines on age-discrepant sex. The owner yielded, but protested: "I
have thought it interesting that so many gay men I know report having had
positive sexual experiences with adults when they were boys."
[4]
As Bruce Rind himself wrote:
It is reports like these that should make us stop and think. You don't have to accept their conclusions without reservation, but at least think.
Remember however, that I am referring to relationships between gay male teenagers and gay men. I am not suggesting that these studies have any bearing on situations where heterosexual teenagers are involved (though the London, Ontario, case did also involve heterosexual boys who hustled gay sex for a living; and they didn't seem worse for the wear either.) * * * * *
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On the other hand, do we recognise teenage prostitution as a social problem? (This is not to say that all cases of age-discrepant sexual relations are cases of prostitution.) Do we recognise that teenage sex, when they may be too young to fully realise the health risks, is a social problem? If we do, then isn't it only right that we do something about it? This in turn begs the question: Is criminalisation the only way to deal with it? Even if you think it should be part of the answer -- and I do -- are heavy sentences called for? Or should we, for example, do more about sex education? © Yawning Bread
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Footnotes
Addenda None
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Recently, there seems to have been a spate of cases involving sex between
adults and minors (both male and female). Sentences have varied widely.
