Ok so he has no clue about you lovely ladies ~ but I told him I would ask my online girls ... I just didn't say where!
He has one opinion on this subject & I'm not sure I see it as black & white as he does:
When I was 16 I started seeing The Guy (behind my parents back) & he was obviously 4 kinds of wrong for me. So I, of course, adored him. He was 24, divorced, in the military, Catholic (not a big thing to me, but it was used against me by my parents later) and living off base with his friends in a house not far from mine. I met him through my best friend, he was teaching one of her classes at the Catholic church ~ she then babysat for his roommates, they became friends, she developed a crush on him that wasn't returned. She was supposed to watch the kiddo one weekend but had to back out, so she asked me to do it. I quickly developed the same crush & it was returned ~ I became their full time babysitter that summer & spent almost every afternoon & evening at their house with the kiddo ... and The Guy. We had inside jokes, long talks, heart to hearts, and heat heat heat. He was my second kiss and first .... almost everything else. The whole "is she still a virgin" ground was very gray by the time we broke up a year later.
Hubs thinks that because I was so much younger than him & was in a situation of not being in control ~ this is molestation.
While I'm not proud of the things that I did with him at such a young age ~ I'm not exactly ashamed of the relationship either - for a long time it just seemed like that was my experience & we dated & it ended badly & life goes on.
But Hubs says that he should have been prosecuted for things he did ... I told my parent's attorney that I wouldn't testify against him because he never raped me.
Hubs is utterly convinced that The Guy was a pedophile & molester and that he should have been thrown in jail.
It never occurred to me that he wasn't just an older guy that I dated & yes I did things with him that shouldn't happen between people with that age difference ~ but we dated. We were emotionally involved & I still think he really did care for me ... I was of the age of consent, I knew what I was doing & yes I was nervous ~ but I never told him no, I never backed out of a babysitting job (i.e. chance to see him), he sent me roses during my national vocal competition & sent me letters every week when he was out on activities & for the 2 months he was deployed to Grenada.
I do agree that I was much younger & less experienced & wouldn't know what his moves were & I could have been easily coerced into something I didn't want to do ~ but the rest of the relationship negates that doesn't it?
Where is the line? Where is the divider between inappropriate relationship & illegal acts against a minor? Shouldn't I know if I was molested? Wouldn't I feel that difference?
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8 comments:
I side with you 100%, as I did the same type of thing. Looking back I can say that it wasn't probably one of my smarter choices in life, but it is nothing that I would have considered unlawful. While I was significantly younger, I was WELL aware of what I was doing and the consequences of my actions. I don't say that I made great choices, but I made the decisions I did on purpose. Other than the 'peer pressure' that everyone at that age feels, I made my choices and I still stand behind them. They weren't smart - but they were mine.
Did I have any business dating someone that was way too old for me? Probably not, but isn't that part of the allure? Was my age a factor and was the guy I was involved with a child predator? Not at all - I might have been a teenager, but I certainly looked much more like an adult than a child.
I don't know where the line is - I think that it probably changes depending on other circumstances...if you had not been a willing participant then that would have been different.
I can't say for sure either way. It's your experience and you have your feelings about it and I don't know that I have any right to tell you to feel a different way about it.
My question to a teenager in the same situation would be "WHY would you want to date someone who wants to date someone so much younger? What does that say about him as an adult and as a person?" I do feel that a 24 year old man could very easily manipulate the feelings of a teenager and that it is an inappropriate relationship to have under any circumstances. But as to whether he should be prosecuted? I just don't know if I'd be willing to go that far if the 16 year old consented.
But that brings up a whole new discussion of whether psychological/emotional manipulation of a minor should be considered as serious as physical rape. I would tend to think that, as an adult, this 24 year old should have been the one to say "This is inappropriate and I am putting a stop to it." and if he didn't? Perhaps he needs to be reminded about his responsibility as the adult? Does that look like prosecution for molesting a minor? Again, I just don't know.
Please don't read judgment in this. I don't know enough about this type of thing to really come down on any side of the issue. I wouldn't have said anything if you hadn't asked. Just thought I'd share my initial thoughts after reading the post.
/Shannon (www.livinginthegray.com)
I agree with you as well, having had similar experience long ago. I knew full well what I was doing and as C13 said, age was an appeal for both of us. In hindsight, I think that dating me was really inappropriate and sort of gross for a guy that age, but do I think he molested me? No. Would I kick my daughter's ass if she did the same thing I did? You bet I would!!!!!
I'm with Shannon: the way YOU feel about it is what I think is important. But OKAY! I like giving opinions! And in my opinion, adult males have no problem seeing teenaged girls as adult women, so I don't think it was anything pedophilic. And at age 16, I was in possession of my senses and would have been fully able to make the decision to get into a relationship of that sort. It might not have been my BEST MOVE EVER, but I wouldn't have said at all that I wasn't in control of myself or didn't know what I was doing.
I've done the same as well. I think that while the state may consider that some kind of molestation/sexual assault, it really has to be determined more by the actual relationship. You can't tell me that people only fall in love, or like, people of the same age catagory. Not to say 13 year olds and 26 year olds should start dating, but I think you know what I mean.
Shannon ~ most of the things you asked are why Hubs feels like the guy should have been in jail. I didn't see how creepy 24/16 was until I was with Hubs & he was 24, that was when it hit me what it would look like for him to be dating a 16yr old & what I would think of him. And The Guy was very possessive of my time and attention & I think that was part of the draw of a 16 year old to him ~ it made me happy to bend over backward to make him happy, until it cut into my time to do high school things that I wanted to do. Slowly I began to see him as an overbearing asshole & I wanted out & to go play because I was so young & I wasn't ready to be married yet (which was what he kept saying he wanted).
I guess now that we're parents of a little girl all the things I did & Hubs' past suddenly seem so much more sinister & dangerous for the Princess.
At 17 I was in a situation where I would have been very willing if he had made the move, he just never did. He was quite a bit older than 24 though.
Dan Savage (from the Savage Love advice column) has a "campsite rule" about older people choosing much younger partners: Leave them better than you found them.
What that means is, the oldie should leave you STD-free, pregnancy-free, and debt-free, and should expand your horizons emotionally and sexually.
From what you've said here, I don't think the Guy broke the campsite rule, you're no worse off-- and you **were** the age of legal consent, so it wouldn't have held up in court anyway.
He didn't treat you poorly or leave you with 3 kids and Chlamydia... so tell the hub to back off. It *is* cute that he's so fired up about it, though.
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