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The way I see it is quite simple, society needs to protect adolescents and kids from preditors and deter those from trying to do harm at all cost. With an attitude such as yours, they will not be protected and preditors will be free to groom and abuse their targets. What you label as consent, I see as grooming and alcohol. If anything, the insult to any victims will result from an attitude that sees such things as consensual.
There have been many cases were adults have groomed adolescents, that is not consent. I think many of you just cannot see beyond gender when it comes to such cases.
Most people overreact when it's younger women/older man (kind of absurdly since once the magic AOC is reached, suddenly it's quite common) and the opposite when the genders are reversed. Personally, I lost my virginity when I was raped by one of my sister's friends. Also I raped my high school girlfriend, who was later my college girlfriend after we broke up after going to separate colleges and who I then had a long-distance relationship with for months after we graduated and moved were again geographically separated.
So, yeah, I've been on both sides of it and it's completely ridiculous. But California has stupid AOC laws, which is why said willing relations between people who were less than two years apart were statutory rape since there technically was no consent.
I'm not going to get too worked up about a 15-year-old having sex with a 47-year-old either way. It's criminal and I'm fine with that. There's no way there's a close-in-age exception there, and legally a 15-year-old is too young to give consent. On the other hand, 15 is close enough to the AOC that it's not what I'd consider heinous, barring a position of power exception. Genders are pretty irrelevant to me. Basically, sure, criminal, but in the scope of criminal behavior it's relatively minor. Forced rape or murder, for example, are clearly much more heinous than statutory rape of a 15-year-old who is otherwise willing but cannot technically consent. Now, if it's someone who is 12? That's heinous. 15? In and of itself is not. It might be and it might not be depending on the totality of the circumstances.
I have been following this story with some interest, primarily because I am from Baltimore and I live a few blocks from the Shattucks. I certainly don't know the family but I've seen Molly Shattuck on occasion in the local shops. She's quite unmissable in person.
The local Baltimore Sun and other media sources have provided a few more details about the incident that may have been glossed over in the national press. This was not a one night incident, but Molly Shattock and the teen in question apparently had repeated "hookups" over the summer (during which Molly Shattock was going through the divorce process from her husband). We do not know exactly what happened at the other hookups, we only know what was reported to have occurred during the weekend at the beach house.
What seems to be controversial on this thread and in the other commentaries in the various newspapers is the usage of the term "rape" in this situation. A number of people strongly believe this is a form of rape because the teenage was underage.
For someone like me, the term "rape" has very strong connotations and is closely aligned to physical violence. We know the image, a man stalks a woman and attacks her in a dark alley or garage and physically forces her to the ground, beats her or stifles her and forcibly enters her. She is physically and mentally traumatized by the rape. Date rape, where drugs are involved, is absolutely rape.
But that is not what happened with Molly Shattock and the teen. Did she seduce him? Probably. But it was also probably not entirely unwanted. He had ample opportunities across the summer to reject her overtures or to tell his parents. He apparently did not and accepted the invitation to go to the beach house. It would be hard for her to physically force him into accepting the sex acts. He is probably stronger than Molly Shattuck. He is a teen male, not a teen female, and it may dispirit some people to hear this, but teen males are almost wholly singlehandedly focused on sex, and sex only as a carnal act. He was not the one who reported the incident to the police, it was the school upon overhearing gossip among the kids and initially thinking a prominent parent was being slandered, asked him to justify the gossip. The school immediately notified the police because they would have been held liable had they not, and since the teen was underage, the police automatically brought charges.
What Molly Shattuck did was certainly wrong because we, as a society, deem sexual relations between older people and an underage minor to be very wrong (even if he might be a very mature 15 year old teen). While Molly Shattuck was not his teacher or in a real position of authority over the teen, we still expect her to act the adult she is and to accept that underage teens are strictly off limits. There was a term used in my childhood, in loco parentis, which means other adults are expected to act as the de facto parent in all situations. Molly Shattuck failed, hugely, in this regard because not only did she seduce a minor, she plied him with alcohol and did so in close circumstances to her own children.
While the courts have charged her with third degree rape, I do wish we could resort to a better terminology to use in lieu of rape, a word that would wholly imply what happened was wrong, but it was still not a violent act and that the situation needs to be handled with a little more leeway than a proper rape or a proper child molestation case. Perhaps we should introduce "teen molestation" to our vocabulary?
I have been following this story with some interest, primarily because I am from Baltimore and I live a few blocks from the Shattucks. I certainly don't know the family but I've seen Molly Shattuck on occasion in the local shops. She's quite unmissable in person.
The local Baltimore Sun and other media sources have provided a few more details about the incident that may have been glossed over in the national press. This was not a one night incident, but Molly Shattock and the teen in question apparently had repeated "hookups" over the summer (during which Molly Shattock was going through the divorce process from her husband). We do not know exactly what happened at the other hookups, we only know what was reported to have occurred during the weekend at the beach house.
What seems to be controversial on this thread and in the other commentaries in the various newspapers is the usage of the term "rape" in this situation. A number of people strongly believe this is a form of rape because the teenage was underage.
For someone like me, the term "rape" has very strong connotations and is closely aligned to physical violence. We know the image, a man stalks a woman and attacks her in a dark alley or garage and physically forces her to the ground, beats her or stifles her and forcibly enters her. She is physically and mentally traumatized by the rape. Date rape, where drugs are involved, is absolutely rape.
But that is not what happened with Molly Shattock and the teen. Did she seduce him? Probably. But it was also probably not entirely unwanted. He had ample opportunities across the summer to reject her overtures or to tell his parents. He apparently did not and accepted the invitation to go to the beach house. It would be hard for her to physically force him into accepting the sex acts. He is probably stronger than Molly Shattuck. He is a teen male, not a teen female, and it may dispirit some people to hear this, but teen males are almost wholly singlehandedly focused on sex, and sex only as a carnal act. He was not the one who reported the incident to the police, it was the school upon overhearing gossip among the kids and initially thinking a prominent parent was being slandered, asked him to justify the gossip. The school immediately notified the police because they would have been held liable had they not, and since the teen was underage, the police automatically brought charges.
What Molly Shattuck did was certainly wrong because we, as a society, deem sexual relations between older people and an underage minor to be very wrong (even if he might be a very mature 15 year old teen). While Molly Shattuck was not his teacher or in a real position of authority over the teen, we still expect her to act the adult she is and to accept that underage teens are strictly off limits. There was a term used in my childhood, in loco parentis, which means other adults are expected to act as the de facto parent in all situations. Molly Shattuck failed, hugely, in this regard because not only did she seduce a minor, she plied him with alcohol and did so in close circumstances to her own children.
While the courts have charged her with third degree rape, I do wish we could resort to a better terminology to use in lieu of rape, a word that would wholly imply what happened was wrong, but it was still not a violent act and that the situation needs to be handled with a little more leeway than a proper rape or a proper child molestation case. Perhaps we should introduce "teen molestation" to our vocabulary?
In this case - child abuse. Or in other words - giving an underage person a drug (alcohol) and having sex with a minor.
15 year old boys are sexually active and a good a number of them don't look like 'boys'. If he consented, it's not rape. I'm sick of these laws, calling such acts as "abuse" or "rape" when they aren't. The boy will still be eligible to have sex in a year or two. Seriously...
When I was a teen, around 13-18, I always had the hots for 15-16 year old boys. They had this youthful, fresh look to them that I adored. So I don't see how a middle aged person wouldn't be into them?
She's the lucky one actually. She's the one who desired him, so she got what she wanted. Good for her.
P.S. I am NOT condoning pedophilia. 10 year old boys and 15 year olds have nothing on each other. The law seems to group these two groups together, when, clearly, a 15 year old is more in the likes of a 18 year old, sexual-wise. But they don't seem to get that...
This is NOT rape. "Statutory Rape" is an insult to everyone who was actually raped. When I see someone treat it like real rape I want to punch them in the face. She had a terrible mugshot, but she was a very attractive woman and the odds are the "boy" wasn't crying to himself about how awful he felt. If he did have any tears, it would only have indicated dominating religious parents that were ensuring he was "properly shamed" rather than allowing him to live his own life.
The only thing that may really haunt the "kid" is that someone is being prosecuted for being with him. That will **** someone up in the head. We need some major revisions to the statutory laws. If the person under 18 wanted to partake and did not regret it afterward, it is hard to make a case that they were "used". The U.S. is one of the only countries so behind the times that 18 is still considered the age of legal consent.
Oh, that POOR boy !!!!!! He is ruined and scarred for the rest of his life and will probably commit suicide at the age of 20 over this horrible attack by an older woman ! I can only imagine the anguish and pain he much be feeling, as well as the embarrassment !
Either that, or he will be high five-ing all his buddies who are envious. Instead of charging her with rape they should give her a medal, she is performing a public service.
Perhaps we should introduce "teen molestation" to our vocabulary?
While your post was very intelligent, I wanted to reference that even "teen molestation" is an insult to people that are actually molested. Perhaps we could call it "allowing a teen to have sex with you". You saw the photos, it's not like she had to have a complicated game plan to seduce him. Simply saying, "I won't say no to you" would be more than enough for her to seduce most single men, regardless of age.
Yes, in regards to her own child she set a bad example, but the school and police getting involved made this situation much worse for everyone. If they were not involved, this fling probably would've ended when the young man (that's what he acted like, a young man) went off to college. He would've had a cool story to remember and she would have gone on her way having dealt with some of the stress stemming from her divorce.
Unfortunately, the laws got in the way and made the situation terrible for everyone.
I am absolutely shocked that women would sink to such a low as to have sex with a 15 year old.
Do these ladies not realize that there are thousands of horny sexually deprived GROWN 20 and 30 something MEN in the world that would gladly help satisfy their sexual needs.
Sad day in America when grown educated women choose young boys over men. Very sad.
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