Joanna Schroeder and Hugo Schwyzer react to a moving Salon article where a woman finally realizes she isn’t responsible for being taken advantage of by a 20 year-old man, when she was only 12.
In a recent Salon article by Jillian Lauren, the author admits to having been sexually aggressive with a 20 year-old camp counselor when she was 12 years old. For her whole life, Lauren has felt like the sexual relationship that developed between them was her fault, because she really did want to have sex with the man, and because she enjoyed the interaction.
Now, looking back, she feels that the adult in that situation (and others like it) was responsible for saying “no” to her, no matter how she may have acted. Lauren cannot help but wonder how her life may have been different if this man had done that.
I wonder what I would have learned from not getting what I asked for. Would I have learned that there are other things about me as valuable and compelling as my sexuality? Would I have learned that some men are trustworthy? Would I have had more options than the ones available to “that kind of girl”?
In 2011, Hugo Schwyzer wrote about this exact subject in an article called Can Young Girls Really Seduce Older Men? This article touches upon a taboo subject in our society—the fact that we idealize and sexualize the teenage and pubescent female body. Even Lauren, in her article, refers to watching a friend’s 12 year-old daughter and observing “the sharp lines of the daughter’s body (perfection, by our media’s standards), so like my own at that age. She was dazzling and precious and still unaware of the ruckus she was causing among the male onlookers.”
It seems to me that one of the profoundly disturbing aspects of this narrative is the one where a 12 year-old’s body is considered perfect. This single line shook me to my core. Not only have we, as a society, come to idealize the coltish frame of a 12 year-old girl for fashion and beauty, but also for sexuality. And there is something profoundly wrong with that.
Regarding Jillian Lauren’s article, Hugo Schwyzer had this to say:
The truth is, as Lauren’s essay so poignantly shows, sometimes she is “asking for it.” I don’t mean she’s asking for it by being flirtatious or wearing short skirts. I mean she makes it clear that she wants—or thinks she wants—sex with you, an older man. But when it comes to someone made vulnerable by inexperience, her wants don’t serve as your excuse. In a society where young women are raised to see older men’s desire as a yardstick to measure their own worth, the most valuable thing you can do with a “sexually aggressive” underage girl is to her affirm her value while rejecting her sexually. She’s asking for your “yes,” but she desperately needs—and she sure as hell deserves—your loving, gentle, irrevocable “no.”
That doesn’t mean just 12 year-olds, but other people we have authority over. And this isn’t targeted only at men. A news story recently highlighted a former NFL pro-cheerleader who sexually assaulted a 12 year-old boy, then claimed to be drunk and confused. As Danny points out in his insightful news blog, a storm of tweets shamed the boy for turning the woman down and asking for help.
The boy in the story above did not want the sex, but in other stories like it—think Mary Kay Letourneau—the boys say they desired the older woman. And many in society think that the boy is a hero for landing a hot older chick. But there is little to no difference between these stories. This is statutory rape.
Jillian Lauren cites a Health and Human Services qualifying factor for sexual abuse:
At the website of the Department of Health and Human Services, one of the qualifiers for the clinical definition of sexual abuse is a “knowledge differential.” It states, “An act is considered abusive when one party (the offender) has a more sophisticated understanding of the significance and implication of the sexual encounter.”
This should cause us all a moment of pause in our daily interactions. The vast majority of us reading these articles will ever be in a situation where there is opportunity to engage in sexual activity with someone much younger (or otherwise less able to make sound decisions about sexuality) than us. But we can make our voices matter in this society when it comes to the sexualization of children.
Calling the child who was sexually assaulted by a former cheerleader in her 40s a “pussy” or lobbing homophobic slurs at him is profoundly wrong. This child needs our support, and a message needs to be loud and clear that his alleged assaulter’s behavior was wrong, and that those who are attacking him on social media are also profoundly wrong. We need to send a strong message to the entertainment media that women raping men and young boys is not funny, and should never appear on-screen in a humorous way. And we need to stop making heroes out of older men who date or marry teenagers.
We need to stop holding up innocence, purity, and pubescent bodies as sexual ideals.
And as Hugo says above, adults owe younger people the respect and protection that comes with saying “no”.
For more on this topic, read Hugo Schwyzer’s article Can Young Girls Really Seduce Older Men?
Photo: dyogi/flickr
Removing comments that show one of the people of cited in the article not only excused an adult having sex with a child (in this case a boy), but also accused the boy of being the aggressor kind of undermines the whole point of this article. But let me ask a question: can I assume by the removal of those comments that the author of this article agrees with the man she cited that nannies who have sex with their 11-year-old male charges are not sexual predators but victims?
I really don’t think a man who had sex with one of his students, and who has gone on record saying that a young child was the “instigator” when he was sexually assaulted by his nanny, is the person this site should be looking at as an expert in this matter.
I know he’s your pal or whatever Joanna, but come on.
It reads as if you’re saying first-hand experience and introspection about that behavior disqualify someone’s opinion to you, rather than potentially giving them additional insight. Perhaps that’s not what you meant?
That wasn’t his personal experience, it was Pal Sarkozy’s, and Hugo simply labeled Pal as the aggressor, because male privilege, so older nanny doesn’t matter because he’s male.
In the case of the nanny sexually assaulting her male charge, that was not Schwyzer’s personal experience. He merely felt free to comment upon it and assign culpability to the male minor party.
In the actual case of Schwyzer’s personal experience (having improper relations with students), Schwyzer was the authority figure and party in power. His personal experience in that case was as the perpetrator and guilty party. Maybe there is value in the introspection of a perpetrator, but most probably do not view it in the same way as introspection from a victim.
Where is Schwyzer’s “personal experience” in that article he wrote? It’s not there. he doesn’t talk about it. Instead he projects his sins onto all men. And I’m sorry, but someone who would call a child under ten the “instigator” of a sexual encounter with that child’s *nanny* (someone in direct authority over the child) solely for the reason that the child is male (and rich, I suppose) is emphatically *not* someone who I think should be commenting on this matter on a site for men and a site which claims to give a damn about men who have experienced… Read more »
“We need to send a strong message to the entertainment media that women raping men and young boys is not funny, and should never appear on-screen in a humorous way. ”
“The Perks of Being a Wallflower” is a film that finally addresses the issue of older woman/young male child sex in a serious and thought-provoking way.
It isn’t just sex abuse though. Have a look on youtube for the video of the women on “The TALK” and how they reacted to the woman who cut off her husbands penis and put it in the trash compactor. Now for a good mental exercise, Change it from “The TALK” to “Late Night with David Letterman” and he has 3 male guests and they are talking about a man who cuts off his wifes breasts and puts them in the trash compactor and they all react the same as the women on “The Talk”.
““The Perks of Being a Wallflower” is a film that finally addresses the issue of older woman/young male child sex in a serious and thought-provoking way.” Oprah Winfrey addressed it too. Several times she has presented rapists of boys as celebrities and subjected them to enthusiastic applause as they got the chance to tell millions how it was really a loving relationship. New Idea magazine in my country of Australia effectively sponsored a US woman to a years stay in this country whilst she consummated her grooming of a Perth boy. That the woman concerned was in breach of numerous… Read more »
Are you sure about Oprah? She also made this.
http://www.oprah.com/oprahshow/Male-Sexual-Abuse-Survivors-Stand-Together
Yes, I’m sure. I didn’t imagine it or the abuse I actually experienced as many have suggested. Suggest you count the victims of female perpetrators among “her” – as she views them – survivors . Sexually abused boys are as likely to be abused by either sex but are conspicuously and conveniently absent.
Should read…”Sexually abused boys are as likely to be abused by either sex but some are conspicuously and conveniently absent.”
While 12 year olds are too young to say “YES” , what strikes me about this article is that “YES” is the new “NO”. Sorry but 16 year olds are grown up enough to be charged with adult crimes, 16 year old can drive a car legally, in some areas (granted not all) a 16 year old can have an abortion without parental consent or permission, SO YES, 16 year olds are old enough to say “YES”. and this “At the website of the Department of Health and Human Services, one of the qualifiers for the clinical definition of sexual… Read more »
Totally agree. Female pedophiles should be held to the same accountability as male ones. Shame on the people who are shaming the 12 yo boy who asked for help. (A circular problem, indeed.)
Good for him. He’s a strong one.
I could relate to the original article by Lauren, although I was barely 16 and the man was around 41. We worked together and flirted constantly and frankly, I liked the attention. From day 1 on the job, he made sexual comments to me about my body and not looking 16. Part of me knew it was wrong because he was married and separating from his wife while also having a girlfriend on the side. I also knew that the age difference and the fact that I was 16 was inappropriate. But like I said, I liked the attention. When… Read more »
@Cat: I agree with your comments….. I was just reading a blurb on FB by the lead singer of the alternative band, Garbage, about how she had a relationship with her teacher when she was 16….she characterized the relationship as mutual and satisfying, and not coercive or abusive in her eyes….although, she acknowledged that relationships like that between student and teacher can definitely be manipulative and harmful…. I think in regard to my own experience, I probably felt like Shirley Johnson (of Garbage) for the longest time…or was perhaps deluding myself that it was a mutual relationship between equals…..now in… Read more »