No, it’s just another lazy excuse of male weakness, writes Hugo Schwyzer.
Please note that this column may prove triggering for some.
Can a little girl really seduce a grown man?
I was asked that question this week by a friend of mine, a graduate student whose dissertation looks at evolving attitudes towards sexual abuse. In the course of her research, my friend met a woman in her 40s who, over a series of interviews, repeatedly insisted that she’d been a “little Lolita” in her own preteen years. Deborah (not her real name, of course) wanted to make it clear that, as she put it, “grade-school girls can have sexual agendas too.”
Deborah, now a mother of teens herself, told my friend that when she was 11, she’d started taking private piano lessons. Her teacher was a married man in his 30s, and he gave these lessons out of his home while his wife was away. Deborah was desperate for affection, and she thought her piano teacher was “very handsome.” She cuddled up to him on the piano bench, and eventually worked her way up to sitting in his lap.
One day, she felt his erection driving against her. Deborah had secretly read her mother’s copy of The Joy of Sex; she knew—or thought she knew—what an erect penis meant. As she put it to my friend, she “delighted in knowing he was turned on,” and began to move around on his lap. Her teacher moaned and clasped her tighter; Deborah reported that it “felt really good.” When it was over, he sent her home angrily. But he didn’t cancel their next lesson, and soon she was in his lap again. Their sexual relationship only ended when Deborah and her family moved away.
In Deborah’s telling of the story, she was the pursuer and her teacher the pursued. That she was a preteen and he in his 30s was irrelevant. As she insisted to my friend, “sometimes girls are stronger than grown men.” Deborah seemed to remember the relationship with a mixture of pride and shame, noting that her teacher seemed powerless to resist her. “He always told me it would never happen again. But it always did.”
I’ve told my friend to refer Deborah to therapy. But I wanted to write about this story because it fits in well with one of the most troubling aspects of the myth of male weakness: the idea that adult men might be powerless to resist the charms of a seductive teen (or even pre-teen) girl. Deborah isn’t the only person who believes that girls might be responsible for seducing adult men. Listen to the chorus of complaints about how provocatively teens and tweens are dressed, and you’ll hear at least a few notes of concern that adolescents might be sending the “wrong message” to adult men. Call it the “Lolita Myth”: the idea that pubescent girls have the power to cause men many times their age to lose all sense of right and wrong.
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We see this theme in pornography. One of the staples of written erotica (both in serious literature and in modern porn) is that of the very young girl who seduces a much older man. A little Googling led to one website, “The Young Girl Erotic Repository.” It features an archive of stories, most of which feature the same thing: girls 12-16 (or even younger) seducing their uncles, teachers, pastors, and—astonishingly often—their own fathers. These little “nymphets” are invariably the aggressors, hungry for experience. The older men they pursue usually try to resist, pleading morality or common sense, but inevitably fall prey to the intensity of their own desire for these girls. It’s not hard to see that these stories are carefully crafted to alleviate the guilt of child molesters. But the mindset they reflect is one held by many who aren’t pedophiles.
I’ve heard stories like Deborah’s more than once. Most of the therapists I’ve talked to about this story have heard them as well. So I’m quite confident that some young girls (but far fewer than are imagined by a certain kind of pornographer) do try to seduce older men. Many children are hungry for attention, and many girls, sadly, have learned that the best way to get that attention is through their sexuality. And as psychologists have been telling us for generations, pre-pubescent children are capable of sexual feelings. In some instances, such as Deborah’s, a sexual encounter with an adult might genuinely “feel really good.” As I’ve written before, we make a huge mistake by assuming that the victims of sexual abuse never feel pleasure.
Rightly concerned as we are about the sexualization of young children, we need to be careful to remember that teens and tweens are sexual. Children and adolescents need the space and the freedom with which to develop their own healthy sexualities, free from the unhelpful encouragement to “be sexy” for others and from the equally toxic pressure to repress all of their desires until marriage. And one key way we help young girls develop a healthy sexuality that is theirs alone is by creating a culture in which they don’t see themselves as objects of adult male desire. That means the onus is solely on adult men to set and maintain good boundaries.
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Some teens do want, or think they want, sexual attention from older men. But the reality that underage girls (be they 11 or 17) occasionally behave seductively towards older men doesn’t mean that older men can “be seduced.” The word “seduce” means “to be led away” or “to be led astray.” No adult is so weak that he (or she) is powerless to refuse sexual temptation, much less from a child. As powerful as the libido is, it is not so strong as to trump the will. Testosterone may drive desire, but unless a man has sustained significant trauma to the moral center of his brain, hormones can’t override the power to choose. (Hint: an erection doesn’t constitute significant trauma to the right temporo-parietal junction.)
Deborah’s piano teacher had a choice as every man has a choice. The fact that she was blatantly seductive doesn’t in any way mitigate his responsibility to have chosen differently, just as the fact that she may have experienced both power and pleasure from what took place change the reality that she was sexually abused. There is no ambiguity when it comes to sex between adults and minors. An adult always has both the ability and the obligation to resist a seductive child. A child may grow up, as Deborah did, with an enduring sense of responsibility for a sexual relationship with an adult. But what Deborah needs to hear is that no matter how sexually aggressive she may have been, she was not in any way the architect of what happened.
There is no gray area here. Grown men who outsource their self-control to grown women underestimate their own capacity for reflection and restraint. Grown men who outsource that control to little girls—even little girls with women’s bodies—use the myth of male weakness to justify the unspeakable.
—Photo MaltaGirl/Flickr
About Hugo Schwyzer
Young girls can seduce older men, at least as much as anyone can seduce anyone else. No one, ever, is literally powerless to resist their desire. Not adults, not children, not anybody. But then, “seduce” does not mean “to make utterly powerless”.
This is a powerful and important post that dares to to look boldly at the complexities and ethics of sexuality. We need more voices like this!
Yes, there are moral (and legal) absolutes at the extremes of the morality continuum. For an adult man to succumb to the advances of an 11 year old is presumptively wrong. But in between the extremes, there’s a whole lot of gray area. If instead of 11 Deborah had been 19, there would be much more room for debate.
As an aside, I note with some chagrin that this site doesn’t really appear to be about “good men,” as advertised. The focus of discussion really seems to be not-so-good men. I know how to be not good; I’d really like more discussion on how to be good. That should be the focus. Or the site should change its name.
I thinks the dude should have given the girl a stern lecture and canceled the lesson. =/
Does anyone have any stories wherein the dude girls the girl a stern lecture and cancels the lesson and what that feels like? That -would- be interesting. o.O
no question of younger seducer overpowering the older seduced and the older has the power, ability and moral duty not to only to resist seduction but deal with her hard but sinsible way that the young seducer should realise her/his fault. but here another side is that the preteen and tween aged girls fashion and suductive behaviour is also responsible to raise older persons sexual desires, therefore where older are grossely wrong we also fail in proper upbringing our teens with respect to sex awareness.
A 16 or 17 y/o girl is not a child and a man should feel no guilt for being sexually attracted to a girl that age.
I feel the same way I had my first boyfriend at 17 and he was 24
This article seems to normalize attraction to young girls and I feel that is kind of disturbing. There is an interesting but questionable anecdote about the girl who seduced a guy in a context that suggest that almost any guy would at least be tempted, However with girls that age I really don’t think that most men could respond sexually to them without some kind of particular orientation toward persons of that age. To me at least the thought seems kind of gross.
There is another part of this article which intrigues me. It mentions that rare and common idea that desires can be so intense we can not help but to give into them. It then makes the tautological/important claim that we are not so overpowered by that intensity that we lose control over our free will. However if we can not consider the intensity of desire into our calculation of human experience and we can not see the power that that intensity has in our decision making then we don’t really have any respect for that intensity.
Consider this thought experiment. If a person puts there hand on a hot stove then that persons desire to remove that hand will be incredibly intense and it may be so intense that even if they knew that giving into that desire would cause great harm to others they may still relent to that desire. Yes they certainly have free will to not remove their hand from the hot stove and many may be inclined to consider that person morally culpable because of that free will. There will also be people who sympathize with that persons pain. It is strange to think of that persons desire to remove their hand in terms of desire rather than the alleviation of pain it is also strange how we speak of sexuality in terms of desire rather than pleasure. This thought experiment suggests that we need to have a deeper respect for the quality of subjective human experience which is in balance with rather than opposed to attempts to circumscribe it with rationalistic imperatives.
my husband is 41 and i`m and 19 ..is he to old for me?
It’s a little late to be asking that question now Rose, lol.
Rose, no he is not too old for you. Obviously you’re still married and if the relationship is strong and healthy then don’t have any worries.
I am a 27 year old female and have alway’s been attracted towards older men.I was a teen seductress and would flirt and get turned on by older men lusting after me.I was a child/teen model so I was used to having people look at me.I was 14 when I tried to seduce my first older man.Nothing happened.He told me he was flattered and that I was very beautiful but far too young.I married the last man I seduced.A very attractive 53 year old.He looks like a movie star with his gorgeous blue eyes and chiseled body.I worship and adore him.Flirting used to be a sport.It gave me power.I was in control.Using my sex appeal to get what I wanted.
i am attracted to 17, 18, or 19 year old girl’s, they’re perfect
for anyone that reads my previous reply, please disregard it, i am not sure what i was thinking, but i regret saying what i did, for the record i do not think 17, 18, and 18 year old girls are perfect, yes, i have been attracted to them in the past, however, i know that they are too young for an older male like me, it’s time for me to grow up, and deal with women closer to my age which i am doing now
Older men were always attracted to me ever since I was around the age of 14. I guess it was cause i looked older, ( 19-20 ) it sounds crazy but i was attracted right back sometime… it feels crazy haha.
haha, maybe we should chat..
There is nothing wrong with a younger girl (17+) dating men much older than her. Who the he** put a designation on a number anyway?
If the relationship works and they love each other, go for it.
I am sorry but 17? 17 year olds are still in high school and yes, there is something wrong with a much older man dating someone that is on a high school level of maturity. And no matter how mature the 17 year old, they are no where close to being a mature adult and one that is on the same level of the most immature of 30+ year olds. Even 18 or 19 year olds dating older men is rather strange.
There is a reason that age is a factor in relationships.
You’re right, they are not mature adults yet, and most often, those relationships do not last
Of course they don’t last. By the time the girl reaches 25, she gained in maturity and probably doesn’t like the fact that the man she has been dating, was eager to date her when she was 17 or 18. When I was younger, I dated oler men. These men were not the most mature of individuals. I didn’t know any better at the time, but they certainly should have. And by the time I was more mature, I was kind of disgusted by the men that dated me at that age. Some of them tried to contact me again when I was older but I wanted nothing to do with a man that would have dated me at 17 or 18 when he was 26+. How well would that really bode for how he views women to begin with? Not very well at all. unfortunetly, alot of younger girls aren’t mature enough to see that and they are so desperate to be validated by a man or they get wrapped up in the attention, they don’t really understand what kind of man he very well may be.
LOL? I’m not sure why you think all 17 year olds are stupid. You all make comments about people this age not being “Adults” and “Mature”. While a lot of people this age, male and female, are quite silly, this doesn’t mean that a person at that age is not “mature” or “adult” enough to make informed decisions. Did you all forget about Joan of Arc? This woman was 16 when she took command of an army, and led it to victory in 3 years, to end a 100 year war mind you. And this is in a time when women were far more oppressed than today. But if she was a “child” and too dumb or “immature” to make informed decisions, why would soldiers follow her orders? Wouldn’t they say, “I’m not gonna listen to a kid, let alone a female”? Obviously somewhere along the line, society decided that persons in their teens and tweens are children and not adults. The fact of the matter is, if a persons body has developed enough to procreate the species, they are adults. Society can change definitions all they want, it doesn’t change facts.
As a final side-note, I found this article to be a poor by the author to appear smart. They clearly have an opinion that they believe is right, based on what modern society has told them. But they contradict themselves which makes their point moot i.e. “Can Young Girls Really Seduce Older Men? No, it’s just another lazy excuse of male weakness..” and then “So I’m quite confident that some young girls do try to seduce older men.” So, no, they can’t seduce them, but you’re quite confident that some do. Well that makes a lot of sense. Basically, he disproved his own view.
Also, one has to wonder, if “Deborah” hadn’t begun her flirting/sexual behaviour in the first place, would anything have happened at all? I think not. She had been having lessons for x amount of time before attempting to seduce her teacher and he had not “abused” her. So it begs the question and as such nullifies the author’s other statement that, “no matter how sexually aggressive she may have been, she was not in any way the architect of what happened.” She most definitely WAS in some way the architect of what happened. She jumped into his lap. She made the concious, premeditated decision to try and “turn him on”.
I don’t think 17 year olds are “stupid”. I think 17 year olds are 17 year olds and they never really know as much as they think they do. You change a lot from 15-20. And you change a lot again from 20-25. No matter how mature the most mature of 17 year olds are, they are not a match for someone 25+. That’s just the reality.
We do not live in the same times as when Joan of Arc lived. People lived shorter lives, they had more responsibility that forced them to grow up. Today, most kids and young adults do not have to take on the responsibilities that made Joan of Arc and others like her responsible forces to be reckoned with. Most kids can be kids, for a longer period of time. And most kids take advantage of that luxury. Most kids back when in Joan of Arc’s time at 16, were not even Joan of Arc. Just because I will be 70 one day like Michelangelo, doesn’t mean I will be able to paint the Sistine chapel.
Girls become “sexualized” at a much earlier age than they did two generations ago. I have heard girls as young as 8 say that they like “wieners”–possibly because they have been interacting with some boy in their age range in an inappropiate manner. Add to that the fact that the media bombards tweens with images of intense sexual content. Katy Perry’s song “Peacock” ain’t about birds, and ten year old girls know it. Bratz dollas, which were popular a few years back, aren’t the “sexless” Barbie dolls that girls played with years ago, but dolls that present a teeneage girl’s image of being a slut. I’ve seen girls engage in relationships with older boys when they were as young as 10. Once a girl has learned about the birds and the bees and seems to like it, age is just a number to them. We need to educate kids better and establish taboos that are lines not be crossed.
I’ve always considered myself as a Lolita. Since I was young I’ve always been fascinated with the seduction of older men, especially teachers. I’ve always wanted older men’s attention and not even the attention of boys my age. I could honestly care less about what they think of me. I’m 16 now and have a sexual relationship with a 32 year old, who in my eyes is still a bit young for my taste. I don’t have “daddy issues” and I honesty don’t consider myself a slut. It’s what I like. So, from what I’ve seen, men become powerless when a young, new body wants them. It makes them feel young again, and who doesn’t want their youth revitalised?
People who don’t attach their self worth to their age? No matter what their age is? What happens as you age yourself Naomi?
Youth is fleeting, you can’t hold onto it. Men that date you to feel young again are still the same age they were before. And for the short term, you might make them feel good. But the don’t feel good because they value you. They feel good because they buy into the lie that your age, your young age, says something about their worth. Do you think that as you get older, you will make them feel the same way? What will you do when you are 32 yourself? Do you really want a man to want you because it’s your youth that makes him feel good? Your youth says nothing about who you are as a person. It says nothing about what you really offer. And one day, you won’t be so young anymore. And I know you won’t like this but 32 year old men that date 16 year old girls are really not the kind of men you should really want to be. They are not healthy men. You shouldn’t want to be used for your age. But your 16. And the reality is that despite how mature you think you are or how much you think you know, you don’t know nearly as much as you believe.
Do the people who care about you know of this relatoinship you are having with this 32 year old man?
I don’t think you are a “slut” either. Actually, no woman is a “slut”. Women have a sexuality just like men do and there is nothing to be ashamed with in that. But there is something not quiet right with your desire to seduce older men. And while you may or may not have “daddy issues”, there is certainly something going on that you are more interested in men much older then you then boys your own age. It’s not healthy.
As a senior (who has dated far younger women,) I find (or think anyway) that some of this is Misgerocy (hatred of seniors – which Haidt has documented in The Righteous Mind.) I’ve said before here that I think that many younger women do a memory revision when they realize that their past relationships with older men are socially proscribed. A very common relationship is for a male intellectual or artistic mentor to have a far younger erotic mentee. Yes, she’s going to leave him as part of her development– but…these relationships are going to go on to the end of time in our society. Let’s be accepting of them, rather than just play the norm cartoon.
But which seniors are being hated? Are Senior men hating Senior women which is why they date younger women or are Senior men being hated for purposely going for younger women?
To me, it seems like we hate on older women more than we hate on older men. Hence why younger women WILL date older men but older men do not find as much value in their female counterparts as they do women who are younger than them.
An older woman is much more easy and fun in a relationship. And they’re frequently more attractive too. I do think there’s something to sibling rank order in terms of sexual preferences. I’m an oldest brother so I have an attraction to women my age or younger. I slept with one (1) woman older than I am, and the experience was hot, but, as I explained in another thread, I couldn’t make an energy connection with her. I don’t think we hate on older women at all, but I’ve never looked into this, so I don’t know. If you mean we’re not (as a society) as sexually attracted to them, I think you’re right, if we’re just going on surface. Haidt’s idea was that, in general, people disapproved of seniors (not sexually per se, but in a sort of moral, judgmental sense.) I do think that there’s a problem with excessive dating of younger women by older men (this is a patriarchal tendency – see Mormon polygamy.) This takes younger men out of the sexual loop, and socially isolates them– dangerous. It explains much about why the Middle East is wild (well probably because there are no jobs for younger men is more important.) But I’m not a Kantian so I don’t use the moral imperative, and I don’t see myself arguing for “policy.” So if the magic is there with a woman, maybe a man can be lovers with her– or perhaps others too.
I don’t get it Hank. You say older wome nare much more easy and fun in a relationshpi and they are frequiently more attractive too, yet you say you date women only younger or your own age. Can you see my confusion?
You only slept with one older woman but I am sure you slept with countless younger ones even when you did or didn’t have the right energy for a relationship. (Correct me if I am wrong.)
I do think there is a general hate for older women in our society. I think that older men like to believe they are better than women in general, whether older or younger.
By the way, I don’t think we as a society are more attracted to older men sexually either. I just think there is a lot of media out there that really tries to push the idea that older men are just as sexy as younger ones because men do not want to largely loose their patriarchial power.
Sometimes I admit i wish i was a man because then my sexuality would last much longer and I wouldn’t be hated on just because I got older. As a woman, I am going to be hated on for getting older. Even by men who are my own peers who wil lbelieve they are better than me just because they are men who have more privilage in the world as older men than older women are given. Men are lucky. Women are apparently just worthless unless they are young and hot enough of being worthy of a young or old man’s attention.
Erin, your sexuality and attractiveness are going to last as long as you want them to. You express yourself well and assertively, so I can only conclude that you’re attractive. I didn’t sleep with countless women. Being a young adult in the 60s and in my case thinking sexuality was spiritually pretty important, I did sleep with quite a few women, but, interestingly, I’d known the vast majority of them for years or months first. I hardly know anyone much older than me now. I’m 68. There’s a woman about 75 that I’d sleep with, I like her so much, but both of us are married. I’ve lived polyamorously much of my life, but not currently. I think we have it reversed in terms of attractiveness. We’re actually attracted to most of the people we meet, but we suppress it because of fear. I don’t think it’s anything like sexual commodification (in the best sense, what I’m talking about) it’s more like people all glow if you are in the right place psychologically. Do we have the energy, time, and caring to have intercourse, oral sex, or anything orgasmic with them all?– no! And deep sexuality is fraught because it makes us vulnerable to people we have it with. I don’t think that there are any whole people who think they’re better than you. There are people who take that stance, but, if they do, it’s a sign of their own injury. It’s ironic, not real. I guess I was trying to be funny with Haidt’s observation that people look down on seniors.
I guess I should also say that I’ve pretty much always been interested in having relationships as opposed to quick sex and leave.
Men and women can both be “sluts”. While the original definition of a slut was 1. an untidy or dirty woman 2. a kitchen maid, it has obviously since degraded into an insult lobbed at prostitues i.e. dirty which then came to mean a woman who sleeps with men/women she isn’t married to. But by that definition, a man who sleeps with women/men he’s not married to, can also be called a slut. But there’s already a good word that covers both men and women who do this: Fornicators. So technically, by definition, some women are sluts i.e. untidy or kitchen maids.
~The More You Know~
Notice how the author of this crappy article treats Deborah – who is a grown woman – like a child? Even though Deborah repeatedly gives her take on what happened the author completely dismisses her thoughts and opinions because they don’t agree with his world view. The author is a complete sexist because he discounts Deborah’s explanation of what happened. Even worse he pulls out the “psycho woman” card and says because her explanation of what happened with her piano teacher is not in agreement with his opinions he calls her crazy and says she needs therapy. Maybe this author would actually listened to women when they speak instead of calling them crazy when their take on things disagrees with him.
Hear hear! I thought that also. I also had an experience as a 14 year old male. I went after a 23 year old woman and seduced her. I planned it out and carried through with it. I knew what I was doing at the time and in hindsight, I wouldn’t change a thing. I lost my virginity to a woman who society and the law would call a rapist. She did not rape me in anyway, regardless of what the law or anyone else has to say. I did it on my terms and I’m glad I did. Do I need therapy Hugo?
For me, it was kinda like That’s My Boy, only she wasn’t my teacher, just a hot older woman that I wanted to bang.
This isn’t as bad as the comments and articles that scold men for sleeping with adult women when there’s a huge age difference, but it does demonstrate (without meaning to) that bodies don’t necessarily conform to laws and social norms.
That’s unspeakable! I for one am glad you chose not to give her the sexually satisfying abuse she craved.