NAWBLA Night, ID optional

May 31, 2009 8:34 AM

Mary Kay Letourneau Fualaau, the former teacher convicted of second-degree statutory rape in 1997 for conducting a sexual relationship with the 12-year-old student whose children she bore and whom she married after her release from jail, is now hosting a "Hot for Teacher" night at the Seattle club where her husband and former student is DJ'ing (illegible MySpace page) as "DJ Headline."

Her story was well-documented at the height of her infamy. Her family's, less so. Her father, John G. Schmitz, was an ultraconservative kicked out of the John Birch Society for "extremism." One brother, John P. Schmitz, served as deputy counsel to Bush 41 during the Reagan and Bush administrations and is a nexus of 9/11 conspiracy theorizing.

Public opinion has generally not favored the former Mary Katherine Schmitz.

posted by the sobsister (76 comments total)

Who says there are no second acts in American lives?
posted by Joe Beese at 8:36 AM on May 31, 2009 [4 favorites]

I've got my pencil…

Gimme something to write on!
posted by paisley henosis at 8:37 AM on May 31, 2009 [17 favorites]

Florida is seems is a hothouse for hot teachers getting hots for tots:

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1901762,00.html?iid=tsmodule
posted by Postroad at 8:38 AM on May 31, 2009

Well, that's classy.
posted by lunasol at 8:39 AM on May 31, 2009 [1 favorite]

From the wikipedia links for her and her father. Her father was a Congressman who was kicked out of the John Birch society for extremism. He ran for president of the US in 1972 and received over a million votes. (Calling Mr. Oswald?)
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 8:40 AM on May 31, 2009

Sixth post.

I don't feel tardy.
posted by codswallop at 8:41 AM on May 31, 2009 [5 favorites]

Just proves you can't destroy love between two people if it exists.
posted by ChickenringNYC at 8:43 AM on May 31, 2009 [1 favorite]

DJ Headline's website is a masterpiece of abstract web design.
posted by fuq at 8:46 AM on May 31, 2009 [1 favorite]

Can we just let these people go?

There has to be a real life, "Flag and move on."

I don't see this post going anywhere good.
posted by cjorgensen at 8:48 AM on May 31, 2009 [5 favorites]

How does space-time not implode when these sorts of forces collide?
posted by Thorzdad at 8:48 AM on May 31, 2009

Mary Kay Letourneau Fualaau... is now hosting a "Hot for Teacher" night at the Seattle club where her husband and former student is DJ'ing (illegible MySpace page) as "DJ Headline."

As far as I can tell, this happened a few times, but I haven't heard any promises that it will happen again.
posted by grouse at 8:50 AM on May 31, 2009

Can't we just leave these people to live out their lives in quiet dignit...

...DJ Headline?

...Never mind.
posted by PlusDistance at 8:55 AM on May 31, 2009 [2 favorites]

According to Charol Shakeshaft, a professor of foundations, leadership and policy studies at Hofstra University, sexual misconduct is the top reason teaching licenses are revoked.

And I think you know exactly why I pulled that quote.
posted by stupidsexyFlanders at 8:56 AM on May 31, 2009 [12 favorites]

Like father, like daughter:
While teaching political science at Santa Ana College, Schmitz began a longterm extramarital affair with one of his young students, who secretly gave birth to two illegitimate children. This only became known after a court inquiry into circumstances surrounding their baby son's near-castration, ultimately ascribed as accidental. The surgeon who treated the infant claimed that a hair had been tied around the penis "in a square knot."

Memorable quotes:
* "Jews are like everybody else, only more so."
* "I may not be Hispanic, but I'm close. I'm Catholic with a mustache."
* "Martin Luther King is a notorious liar."
* Claimed the Watts riot had been "a communist operation."

Oh, what I would give to spend one Thanksgiving in that household.
posted by kuujjuarapik at 8:58 AM on May 31, 2009 [4 favorites]

Fualaau has stated that she would like another child and would like to return to teaching.

Um, no.
posted by Huck500 at 9:02 AM on May 31, 2009 [1 favorite]

Jews are like everybody else, only more so

Didn't Casey Stengel say this first?
posted by stupidsexyFlanders at 9:07 AM on May 31, 2009

"He is a poet capable of lyricism, an artist full of spirit and talent."--Letourneau, on Fualaau

"I was twelve years old and I had never fucked anyone."--Fualaau, on Letourneau
posted by box at 9:10 AM on May 31, 2009 [14 favorites]

Back of the bus, Waldo.
posted by not_on_display at 9:16 AM on May 31, 2009 [2 favorites]

"Dignity, always dignity."
posted by not that girl at 9:20 AM on May 31, 2009 [3 favorites]

My hope for mankind, it dims.
posted by tommasz at 9:23 AM on May 31, 2009 [1 favorite]

Fuel's owner, Mike Morris, said he realizes having Letourneau host a "Hot Teacher" night could be touchy and might rub some people the wrong way.

Quoted for truth on two levels.
posted by not_on_display at 9:29 AM on May 31, 2009 [5 favorites]

According to Charol Shakeshaft...

With a surname like that I'm sure she could provide perspective on Why men should pee standing up.
posted by ericb at 9:29 AM on May 31, 2009

if you can't spin without having your infamous wife earn you free gigs, just keep your crates at home.
posted by the aloha at 9:35 AM on May 31, 2009 [4 favorites]

Fualaau has lived what we have only dreamed.

If the dream proved nightmare, to my mind, that increases rather than diminishes his mythic stature.

(I wonder if The Rock has optioned the story.)
posted by Joe Beese at 9:43 AM on May 31, 2009 [1 favorite]

What's most fascinating about this relationship is that, it is, still a relationship. If you look at the behavior of most pedophiles it is rather predictable, in that after a child reaches a certain age they lose interest, which makes pedophilia especially vicious, the nature of pedophilia almost predetermines a serial nature and high amount of church. This is why, in cases where pedophilia is institutionally covered up (e.g., the Catholic church's response), you will almost see a really high victim rate.

So what is really fascinating is not so much that females can be pedophiles too, but that female pedophilia, at least in some cases, manifests itself completely different. How can you be sexually attracted to someone at 12 and at 25? How can you emotionally be attracted to someone at 12 and at 25? To me that disconnect is much harder to understand than a guy getting his rocks off at a little league game. I think it is well established that sexuality is a difference in degree, and not in kind, but the fluidity in this case is just too much for me get.

I mean look at him then and look at him now. It is not the same person. In any case, is there any sort of medical description of this behavior? It is certainly not pedophilia, or even predatory, but it seems common and pervasive. There must be some sort of academic analysis of this? Reading the descriptions of the relationships it seems as if the teachers in nearly all the cases have a severe emotional retardation, they act more like a 16 year old than someone their own age, but I don't think that's exactly been defined.
posted by geoff. at 9:46 AM on May 31, 2009 [10 favorites]

Paparazzi life.
posted by zerobyproxy at 9:53 AM on May 31, 2009

Remember parents - if you don't teach your kids about sex, the teachers will.

... wait a minute...
posted by yeloson at 10:09 AM on May 31, 2009 [1 favorite]

How can you be sexually attracted to someone at 12 and at 25?

My girlfriend is a high school teacher, and I asked her about the difference between male and female teachers screwing students. Her thought was that while male teachers are pursuing a lolita, female teachers have a mommy complex going on. The article even says that most of the women they cite have some sort of emotional trauma going on--one was estranged from her husband, another had a sister killed by a drunk driver. Now give that woman in her early 30s a man-child to nurture, and one can see this form of ephebophilia emerging that way.
posted by fatbird at 10:11 AM on May 31, 2009 [2 favorites]

I'm sorry, I usually try and avoid this, but the fact that Mary Kay Letourneau Fualaau is hosting a Hot for Teacher night in Seattle is probably on my top ten list of things I never ever wanted to see on Metafilter. Flagged with extreme prejudice.
posted by Caduceus at 10:15 AM on May 31, 2009 [2 favorites]

I pledge allegiance to the flag...
posted by pracowity at 10:33 AM on May 31, 2009 [1 favorite]

This gives hope to all those other lovelorn sexual predators out there! Stick with it, creeps!
posted by orme at 10:36 AM on May 31, 2009

"Jews are like everybody else, only more so."

Especially David Lee Roth. I'm sure he need a gig. Why isn't he part of this?
posted by lukemeister at 10:41 AM on May 31, 2009

It's surprising even to me, but I'm actually really happy for them.
posted by hermitosis at 10:45 AM on May 31, 2009

Yup. One of Washington State's true power couples, still doing us proud ...
posted by EatTheWeak at 10:45 AM on May 31, 2009

Thank God they're defending the sanctity of marriage as the union of one man and one woman.
posted by lukemeister at 10:52 AM on May 31, 2009 [7 favorites]

Paging Andrew Lloyd Weber. We need a musical, stet!
posted by fcummins at 10:58 AM on May 31, 2009

Research on teen and adult female sexual abuse perpetrators has found that many suffer from low self-esteem, antisocial behaviour, poor social and anger management skills, fear of rejection, passivity, promiscuity, mental health problems, post-traumatic stress disorder and mood disorders
posted by dhartung at 11:03 AM on May 31, 2009

dhartung: "Research on teen and adult female sexual abuse perpetrators has found that many suffer from low self-esteem, antisocial behaviour, poor social and anger management skills, fear of rejection, passivity, promiscuity, mental health problems, post-traumatic stress disorder and mood disorders"

tl;dr. Are we allowed to jeer at her or not?
posted by Joe Beese at 11:08 AM on May 31, 2009

Paging Andrew Lloyd Weber. We need a musical, stet!

I think you want "stat." Stet is the term copyeditors use to say "Don't make this change I marked here after all, I fucked up."
posted by Caduceus at 11:14 AM on May 31, 2009 [2 favorites]

Indeed.
posted by fcummins at 11:17 AM on May 31, 2009

Her father, John G. Schmitz, was an ultraconservative kicked out of the John Birch Society for "extremism."

There was a guy in my hometown I know who was in the John Birch Society, who was somewhat of a celebrity because he went to every town meeting and made arguments that came from somewhere to the right of Ivan the Terrible.

I can't imagine what behavior would cause someone like him to say, "okay, that's too far."
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 11:26 AM on May 31, 2009 [2 favorites]

Class dismissed!
posted by stevil at 11:31 AM on May 31, 2009

Oh, come on, John Schmitz was just a rakish wit.
posted by lukemeister at 11:44 AM on May 31, 2009

I know this is just a weird coincidence but I can't help but find this fascinating -

"Blackwater was founded in 1997 by Erik Prince, a former US Navy SEAL and right-wing fundamentalist Christian from Michigan. Prince's father is Edgard Prince, who founded the Family Research Council with Gary Bauer. Erik Prince's sister is Betty DeVos, who is married to Dick DeVos, the son of Amway co-founder and Mormon bigwig Richard DeVos. The General Counsel for Erik Prince's Blackwater parent company, the Prince Group, is Joseph Schmitz, the Pentagon's former Inspector General. Schmitz's brother, John Schmitz, Jr. deputy counsel to George H. W. Bush and who is married to the sister of Columba Bush, Jeb Bush's wife. The father of John and Joseph was extreme right-wing Republican Congressman John Schmitz, Sr. Their sister is Mary Kay Letourneau, a former Washington State schoolteacher jailed for having sex with a thirteen year old American Samoan student who she later married."

I's a conspiracy theorist's dream, if one could find any way that Mary Kay and Vili fit into the picture. Let's just picture them putting their petty differences aside and gathering together for a warm family Thanksgiving dinner.
posted by readery at 11:54 AM on May 31, 2009 [5 favorites]

This is old news.

I heard about this on the local radio on the 20th, and didn't quite believe it at first. I got home and figured that there would surely be something on the Internet about it. But I couldn't find anything. When I found some content on the Internet the next day, I debated posting it to Metafilter, but thought the better of it. I thought of posting it to Reddit, but I could see others had done so first, and the story didn't get much attention. But on the 22nd I still couldn't resist, so I posted it to my Facebook account.

The days past, and I thought more highly of Metafilter, and didn't regret posting it here. The story was just too cheap and too sleazy for Metafilter.

I debated going to the actual DJ event, which happened on the 23rd, but instead chose a celebration of consensual violence, by watching the televised UFC at a sports bar.

I don't wanna be no uptown fool...
posted by Tube at 12:00 PM on May 31, 2009

readery,

And the Orlando Magic, owned by Richard DeVos, defeated the heavily favored Cleveland Cavaliers to reach the NBA Finals. Put that in your tinfoil hat and smoke it!
posted by lukemeister at 12:05 PM on May 31, 2009

Wow, it IS a conspiracy!

It must embarrass the hell out of the Schmitt brothers to have their sister resorting to "Hot for Teacher" to make a buck. They come from the millieu that always gets the well connected insder jobs. You think they would hook their brother-in-law up, if not with Blackwater (rebranded as Xe, so we won't remember all that bad press they got about killing civilians) maybe with one of the Bush family operations. Vili and Mary Kay could run the Bush presidential library book shop or something.
posted by readery at 12:20 PM on May 31, 2009

Every high school boys dream: Screwing your wild, deviant teacher.

Every middle aged man's nightmare: Still being married to her.
posted by digsrus at 12:44 PM on May 31, 2009 [2 favorites]

Metafilter: many suffer from low self-esteem, antisocial behaviour, poor social and anger management skills, fear of rejection, passivity, promiscuity, mental health problems, post-traumatic stress disorder and mood disorders.
posted by ambient2 at 1:10 PM on May 31, 2009 [2 favorites]

A guy I used to work with told me he worked with Steve Letourneau, her husband at the time, down at Boeing field airport. He said he was the nicest guy and that he was absolutely heartbroken when the whole story first broke.
Nothing else to add to this, except I wouldn't mind hearing his side of the story someday.
posted by P.o.B. at 1:44 PM on May 31, 2009 [1 favorite]

...kicked out of the John Birch society for extremism.

Now that's extreme.
posted by stinkycheese at 2:32 PM on May 31, 2009

Erik Prince's sister is Betty DeVos, who is married to Dick DeVos, the son of Amway co-founder and Mormon bigwig Richard DeVos.

All the boys think she's a spy; she's got... Betty DeVos eyes.

(What were we talking about? Oh yeah, LOLRAPE.)
posted by Sys Rq at 3:57 PM on May 31, 2009

Obviously it's pretty fucked-up that she fell in love with and started screwing a minor.

But ignoring that bad start, it's pretty cool that they're still together and apparently have a genuine loving, life-partnering relationship going on. Maybe they really do belong together. They seem to be doing okay, and that's a helluva lot more than you can say about many people's relationships.

It's really icky that they're publicizing themselves, though. Some things just don't belong in the public sphere.
posted by five fresh fish at 6:07 PM on May 31, 2009

I can't imagine what behavior would cause someone like him to say, "okay, that's too far."

Well, in a press release on his own legislative letterhead, he referred to the public attendees of an abortion-rights hearing as "a sea of hard, Jewish and (arguably) female faces", and boasted of having survived the "attack of the bulldykes". He was censured by the California Senate and lost his committee and subcommittee chairmanships. Gloria Allred, one of the targets of his remarks (who had presented him with a chastity belt at the hearing), sued for defamation (he called her a "slick butch lawyeress") and eventually settled for an apology and $20,000 (after California taxpayers had spent over $30,000 defending him).

He was ejected from the National Council of the John Birch Society and a few months later quit his membership, but this may have been more due to his call for a military coup: "Not a bad military coup, mind you. But a good one, like Pinochet's in Chile."

John Fund eulogized him as a man who "didn't give a hoot about political correctness. He was one of the funniest, most outrageous and most candid politicians ever to mount -- albeit briefly -- the national stage. We will not see his like again, and our politics are duller and less effervescent as a result".
posted by dhartung at 8:47 PM on May 31, 2009

Love hurts, her husband tattled, they had four children together. She claimed her first experience of love in her life, was with with Vili. He,( Vili) said "she is my life!" The overlooked victims the newborn infants, taken away. not to mention enduring solitary confinement for passing love letters to the father of her children. Not promoting sex with minors, but once the Rubicon of procreation occurs the rights of the newborn must be taken into account, the bonds of motherhood are formed before birth, every baby deserves to be with mother at least until weaning, her punishment the second time seemed unusually harsh.
posted by hortense at 9:08 PM on May 31, 2009

I know of a couple who I strongly suspect had an inappropriate teacher-student relationship in late high school. I think she was probably the more aggressive in the initiation of the relationship. They both went on to marry (he may already have been married) other people. Those marriages ended a decade or two later. And they married each other and have been together longer with each other now, than they were with their first spouses. Even more strange, they swing. He's heading into or past his seventies now and she's just really entering her best years as a businesswoman and grandmother.

Which is really quite a freaky sort of love story, but I think it speaks volumes as to how some couples have relationships that cross all boundaries of conventional morals. When two people are meant to be together, they will be.

Hopefully the Mary Kay/Vili(?) couple will be happy life partners. Hopefully others won't see it as some sort of indication that they should attempt the same.
posted by five fresh fish at 9:22 PM on May 31, 2009

So, would there be the sly wink and knowing laugh if this was Mike the teacher now married to the schoolgirl he "befriended" when she was 13? Would the nightclub even dare to have a "hot for teacher" night with the genders reversed? Kind of interesting to ponder.
posted by maxwelton at 9:26 PM on May 31, 2009 [1 favorite]

The social dialogue in this country, even amongst the elite is still so immature when it comes to this topic. Child abuse is a very serious problem. That said, let us look at the issue without panic blinding us. How is the age of sexual consent set? Whatever age we select, must be necessarily arbitrary. People are different. Some are mature (in the sense of being fully cognizant of what they are doing, and likely consequences) by the time they are 12. Some are immature at 80, and will never be mature. So we select an age where we think the largest number of people will fall into the class of "mature" - for some people (on both sides), it will be wrong, but that's the price we pay for sanity and doing what's practical and possible rather than ideal. And we mature in different areas differently. For instance, you can vote at 18, but you can't handle alcohol until 21, or the country until 35. Some could probably handle the country at 25, while others couldn't at 55 (hi, GWB!). Personally, I think it is child abuse to indoctrinate a child in religion - the child is in no position to evaluate religion at the age of 5. I think we should make this poison - religion - available at least as late as that other poison, alcohol - 21.

Further, let us not perpetuate the fiction that all child abuse is equal. For example, forcible rape by a male of a little girl, is not the same as a mature woman seducing/loving a 17 year old boy - for example.


And then, one day, some of those exceptions hit the news. It is possible that Vili was mature in that sense, even if he was very young otherwise. And so, he was not damaged by MKL - I would argue that the evidence speaks that way, from early interviews to the way he's handled himself, to the longevity of the union, and apparently the happiness of it. She (MKL) still broke the law - even if the law was not ideal in her case. And she paid the price, rightly so.

So forgive me the pun, but I don't think Vili represents the poster child case for child abuse. And yet, I agree she should have been punished - not because she was especially blameworthy, but because we cannot make unpractical exceptions in the law - sometimes the law cannot be so nuanced to accommodate every case. Now however, she's paid her debt to society. Enough.

It may be in bad taste what they are doing with this latest stunt - certainly I think so. On the other hand, having a lapse in taste is not a crime. Why should they not do this, if she's done her time? Live and let live. Bringing in her family into this? Feh. Let us grow up. There are far worse moral outrages out there.
posted by VikingSword at 10:10 PM on May 31, 2009 [2 favorites]

So, would there be the sly wink and knowing laugh if this was Mike the teacher now married to the schoolgirl he "befriended" when she was 13? Would the nightclub even dare to have a "hot for teacher" night with the genders reversed?

In a word? No. Child abuse is treated incredibly differently depending on the genders involved. There's the invisible lesbian abuse, the AHMAGAWD PEDOBEAR gay abuse, the overwhelming majority: the castigated-depending-on-how-close-it-is-to-Lolita male aggressor/female victim abuse. And then there's the female aggressor/male victim abuse, which 99% of the time is treated--in this very thread, even!--as 'hurf durf, every boy's fantasy.'

It's not. It's abuse. Despite the apparently bucolic outcome, she raped and abused an innocent in her care. Period. Whitewashing that simple fact away is bad; she had a non-negotiable obligation to not fuck her pre- or barely-teen students. I guaranfuckingtee that the responses here would be massively different if the genders were reversed, or if she'd been male.
posted by dirtynumbangelboy at 10:41 PM on May 31, 2009 [4 favorites]

It's not. It's abuse. Despite the apparently bucolic outcome, she raped and abused an innocent in her care. Period.

Yep. 100% correct by the letter of the law.

If you took a random sampling of young woman who were abused around thirteenish, and also took a random sampling of same age young boys, fast forwarded ten years into their early twenties and looked at their case files, who do you think would have a higher percentage of mental problems/disorders? I would be interested in seeing that. I don't think it justifies anything but I don't think you can lay the blanket of rape and abuse over the whole topic and start pointing fingers.
posted by P.o.B. at 11:01 PM on May 31, 2009

Let me repeat and add -

I don't think it would justify anything, nor do I think it would be right.
posted by P.o.B. at 11:06 PM on May 31, 2009

I think things worked out for the best. They were stupid and didn't keep it quiet. She broke the law and paid a consequence. They managed to continue to be a couple in spite of the challenges. They are by appearances happy to be together. Whatever their past, they seem to be doing well now.

Really can't want more than that.

Treating her as unfairly as some men are treated wouldn't exactly be a step toward the better, dnab. I acknowledge the disparity in fairness. I don't see what that has to do with the outcomes of this case, except to get the impression you'd prefer she (and thus he) had suffered more. That's assuming their lives together is as rosy as they make it out to be.
posted by five fresh fish at 11:45 PM on May 31, 2009

If you took a random sampling of young woman who were abused around thirteenish, and also took a random sampling of same age young boys, fast forwarded ten years into their early twenties and looked at their case files, who do you think would have a higher percentage of mental problems/disorders?

First we would have to cleanse society of the stigma that prevents many male victims of sexual abuse from coming forth or from even considering what happened to them abuse. Males are encouraged, even patted on the back for such occurrences as what has happened here (and what you were referring to), and to imply that they are in some way less damaged by the experience is truly naive.

The effects of abuse don't manifest themselves in each person identically, regardless of gender. And in fact, due to society's almost fetishization of female "purity", more female sex abuse victims do come forward, are encouraged to come forward, find lots of organizations willing to help, etc. It's more "acceptable" on any level. And even female sexual assault and abuse go underreported.

So what becomes of all this back patting and lack of encouragement with boys? We inadvertently hurt the young male population when they are manipulated, coerced, and violated in the same ways as their female peers. And why? Socialization. They are not less vulnerable because they have a penis. Because it isn't like a 14 year old girl lacks a libido.
posted by cmgonzalez at 12:28 AM on June 1, 2009 [2 favorites]

Sleight of hand looks good but handwaving while describing something and then shrugging off everything else doesn't answer the question. To have an adequate answer it's obvious that a lot more ground needs to be covered than anybody here is willing to. So I'll happily rescind my inquiry to spare any further exploration of "i'm righter than you". But I must say for you to imply that a 13 year old girls libido is on par with a 13 year old boys seems rather truly just as naive.
You remember the beginning of Mel Brooks History of the World?
posted by P.o.B. at 12:54 AM on June 1, 2009

I'm sorry, did you just offer a Mel Brooks movie as some sort of definitive stance on an issue to do with sexuality, immediately after taking a tone of bored superiority? WTF?
posted by harriet vane at 2:44 AM on June 1, 2009

cmgonzalez: First we would have to cleanse society of the stigma that prevents many male victims of sexual abuse from coming forth or from even considering what happened to them abuse. Males are encouraged, even patted on the back for such occurrences as what has happened here (and what you were referring to), and to imply that they are in some way less damaged by the experience is truly naive.

Waaaaait a second. Part of the solution is convincing people who don't feel victimized that they are damaged victims.

That doesn't seem like a very good idea to me, frankly. I am not jumping into the morass of the Mary Kary Letourneau fiasco, nor commenting on the difficulty of formulating just age of consent laws in general (particularly given Metafilters peculiar history of a certain poster who was fond of railing against the injustice of said laws... 'cause it turned out he was a child diddler). But saying we need to educate dudes who don't think they are victims that they are, in fact, victims seems like a bad idea to me.

From what I've read there is a controversial but growing movement that part of what makes victims of sexual abuse so damaged is society constantly telling them how their life is ruined and they're damaged. Sort of like how it's become clear that, for a lot of people, making victims of other kinds of trauma relive the trauma by talking about it actually makes things worse and contributes to PTSD or whatever. This obviously isn't true for everyone, or possibly even most people, but there is quite a lot to be said for letting people determine what's best for them, and whether or not they have been victimized.

That's not the same thing as saying that society shouldn't prosecute to the full extent of the law people like MKL who flagrantly violate good and just age of consent laws, but we don't need to try to make people feel even more victimized in order to do that. Let sleeping dogs lie.
posted by Justinian at 2:48 AM on June 1, 2009 [1 favorite]

I'm sorry, did you just...

Nahh, it wasn't a definitive stance. More of an apt comparison to how 13 year old boys are. If you got bored superiority out of that, then it was a slight misread. It was more along the lines of backtracking the conversation out of the obvious morass my question would have led into.
Also, I wasn't the one who started in on an argument from superiority with the naive characterization of someone else then immediately went on talking about social constructs which didn't have much to do with the question.

Whatevs...
posted by P.o.B. at 3:21 AM on June 1, 2009

You know who else married his high-school teacher?
posted by Halloween Jack at 8:55 AM on June 1, 2009 [1 favorite]

in defense of P.o.B., think about Van Halen's Hot For Teacher, and how, um, different that track would be if it were originated by, oh, let's just say The Go-Gos or The Bangles.
posted by hippybear at 9:11 AM on June 1, 2009

Don't stand so close to me...
posted by Tenuki at 11:10 AM on June 1, 2009

Part of the solution is convincing people who don't feel victimized that they are damaged victims

Not at all. You didn't get it.

Some people don't recognize what they've experienced was indeed abuse. Then effects begin to manifest in various ways that might be confusing or detrimental for both that victim and his or her loved ones.
posted by cmgonzalez at 5:20 PM on June 1, 2009 [1 favorite]

Well, I'm guessing that number is a lot smaller than you seem to think it is. The vast majority of 12 year olds, boys included, know that an adult having sex with a 12 year old is considered abuse. Whether they feel abused or not is a different question, but the idea that they are simply unaware that a 30 year old having sex with a child is abuse strikes me as not true.
posted by Justinian at 6:34 PM on June 1, 2009 [1 favorite]

A twelve year old will know that it's considered abuse, but will not consider themselves abused. There is nothing most tweens want more than to be taken for older than they are. And for an attractive adult to choose them as a romantic partner and "equal" is often more important than the actual sex.
This is manipulation of the basest kind. Mary Kay played that kid like a violin, and once they had the children it changed the whole thing. While she was in jail he and his mother raised the two little girls. She has no other life to go back to as her children from her first husband are estranged from her so they have no where to go but move forward, together.
True love. What else can they say. Any other description would be too painful for them to live with. Would either of them have chosen this life?
I doubt it.
posted by readery at 6:59 PM on June 1, 2009 [1 favorite]

Mary Kay played that kid like a violin

Are you aware he bet his friends that he could sleep with her? She may have manipulated him and it was certainly abuse but I don't think you can quite paint the whole picture because there are parts of this that don't add up the way some people think.

She has no other life to go back to as her children from her first husband are estranged from her so they have no where to go but move forward, together.

Becoming a felon definitely puts a dent in future plans, but I believe she was taking care of (some of?) her children from her first marriage as of recently.
posted by P.o.B. at 7:11 PM on June 1, 2009

Some of you people amaze me. Consider the term "mother-in-law". Is she your mother? Or only your mother, in the eyes of the law? "Statutory" rape is rape, in the eyes of the law. It has that word "statutory" for a reason. It differentiates from plain rape, which is forcing a person to have sex. It is rape, in the eyes of the law, when an adult has sex with a person under the age of consent. It is not, literally, rape. Force need not be proven to establish that a crime occured.

One can examine the facts, on a case-by-case basis, and possibly determine that authority was used in order for the sex act to happen. That is, arguably, rape. To argue that the age difference alone proves authority, I find highly questionable, if only because I sought sex with adults at a very early age, wilfully and with urgency. I was not raped, simple as that.
posted by Goofyy at 1:53 AM on June 2, 2009

There are huge problems with going on a "case-by-case basis" for the issue of adult-child sex. Namely, that it's really easy to convince children to do things that are not in their best interest. Especially when the perp is a trusted adult.

So we have a bright line in the sand: under this age, verboten. All adults with more than a couple brain cells to rub together understands that crossing the line is going to result in harsh punishment. While you, as a child, might have wanted to fuck an adult, it is the adult's responsibility to say "No. Not gonna cross that line. The potential consequences are way to severe to make it worth the risk."

Where that line should be can be debated. I suspect it should be a sliding scale, to accomodate transitions between child-youth-adult.
posted by five fresh fish at 8:43 AM on June 2, 2009 [1 favorite]