R0bert - quite happy with 'Scout' actually.

Its sad when men don't feel they can interact naturally with children because of the perception of paedophilia. I love seeing dads with their kids - we really need some kind of an awareness program. I am trying to think of something. How to protect our kids and at the same time not have decent men persecuted - tough one isn't it?

Cheers

Maximus, Redneck, Space Cadet, Aaron and R0bert, thank goodness you are all sensible men able to properly deal with any approach by an underage girl. Ditto Scout re underage boys.

However, there are some men (and women) that take advantage. Those men (and women) are pedophiles. What they do is wrong. It doesn't matter whether they think the girl or the boy was "asking for it" or "dressing inappropriately" or "teasing" or "ripe for their age", for an adult to have sex with a person under the age of 16 is wrong and, literally, criminal.

Don't give these men (and women) any excuse. If you give them an inch, they'll take a mile. And that's what Barbara's article is really about - how pedophiles use the "but he/she initiated it or wanted it" excuse and society colludes. This argument, as Suse rightly points out, is reprehensible. Society's collusion is also reprehensible.

We-e-e-e-ll, I don't know about that, Pedant. I do not see much wrong with older females giving much appreciated instruction to eager young boys, myself. But then again I am prejudiced, because I went to a boy's school where the drop dead gorgeous and absolutely scrumptious Miss McKim was our art teacher.

I guarantee you that there was not a boy in all of Form 9 who was not having pleasant little fantasies about Miss McKim. I always wondered if she was aware how high the hem of her micro miniskirts used to rise when she turned around and reached up high on the blackboard to write something? But one thing was certain, it was guaranteed to instantly silence an entire class full of ranbuctious 15 year old schoolboys. My eyes used to pop out like saucepan lids.

So men seducing under age girls, yes, that is bad. But older women seducing schoolboys? Well, maybe not so bad. Especially if the offender looks like Miss McKim.

Redneck, I hope you don't take umbrage at my comments here, but when you say, "I do not see much wrong with older females giving much appreciated instruction to eager young boys, myself", then that's a point of view that is antiquated and very wrong for boys of today. The world and more especially, the law has moved on. It isn't quite as simple as that any more.

Women who participate in sex with minor boys are now criminals. In fact I'd go further to suggest that they're psychologically unbalanced and there are a lot more of them than most might think. And they're your children's teachers. But these are exactly the sorts of women, who, should they become pregnant by the boy, are very likely to carry the foetus to birth through some misguided love. These women are unhinged. Then as RObert has pointed out above, the boy - 12 or so years old - is then liable to pay child support to raise the baby even though technically he's been a victim of rape. He will have to do this for the next 18 years of his life or even more.

The law and, dare I say, yourself have an enormous amount of unresolved double standards that have come out of the social norms of yore, but have now become gross social injustices. The picture isn't quite as rosy or simple as you paint it.

Check this -

The Times
Courts get tough on women who have sex with boys
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,11069-1898507,00.html

And courts should get tough on women like this - but of course they don't, because the judges just can't bring themselves to believe that the princess (woman) and monster (man) stereotypes don't exist anymore and in many cases it's the woman who's the monster.

The laws have changed and they haven't made being a man any easier. In fact they've often made life almost unbearable. If the laws haven't affected you yet, then count yourself lucky. The chances are they will - sooner or later. Let's just hope it doesn't happen to your son.

Maximus, I'm not certain that the same child support issue applies in Australia. I recall hearing at the time I heard about the instance I mentioned that Australia may be different. Great post though.

Pedant, I hope I'm speaking for most (clearly not Redneck) of the afore-mentioned posters in saying that I don't believe that a child initiating the contact should be a defence. I do believe that the claim that children never try and initiate sexual contact is seriously flawed and does not help our understanding of and dealing with this issue. I do agree with Redneck in that a lot of teenage boys (myself included) when I was growing up would have welcomed adult female sexual interest. As previously stated the responsibility still rests with the adult to deal with that appropriately. I must say the adult women I knew were amazingly restrained and managed to resist my obvious charms.

Scout, how to move forward.
First I'd like to see some unbiased statistics. The material I've seen is all over the place. Some groups seem to think that about 200% of kids are sexually abused before they are conceived (I exagerate slightly), Queensland Abused Child Trust puts the figure at about 7% of all substantiated abuse and neglect incidents.
Then some kind of breakdown in regard as to who is doing it (I gather biological parents are a very small proportion with step parents and family friends being the bulk of the perpetrators). I'd also like to see some indication of the seriousness of incidents. I might start world war three with this and that is not my intent but I'd be a lot more concerned if my son was physically abused than if some pervert took a picture of him at the beach and shared it with other peodphiles. Both are wrong but one is more likely do a lot more harm to the child. I suspect we need people to be "alert but not alarmed" (where have I heard that before?).

Rober

Well Redneck, first of all you say, "My sexual career began at the age of 10, when I was damned near raped by two 10 year old girls who initiated sexual contact" and then you say you, "do not see much wrong with older females giving much appreciated instruction to eager young boys". Clearly you didn't appreciate "instruction" by the girls.

The things you say are similar to what pedophiles (male and female) say along with "the child was eager" argument - they say they are "helping" the child by instructing them in sex. I know a pedophile (now in jail for life) and that was his argument when abusing girls from the ages of 3 months old to 13 - "it didn't hurt them and he was, in fact, helping them by instructing them in sex". That is a reprehensible argument.

Perhaps this will scare R0bert regarding his son, but that is what organisations like NAMBLA say - eight year old boys love being initiated into anal sex and it's the responsibility of older men to give these eager boys much appreciated instruction. So by your argument if it's okay for older women to initiate boys isn't it okay for older men to initiate boys? [of course not!]

I'm not saying homosexuality is wrong, but homosexual pedophilia (be it man to boy or woman to girl) is wrong and so is heterosexual pedophilia (be it woman to boy or man to girl).