Inquisition 21
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The age of consent
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The question central to our sexual absolutism
The women victims of the sex witch hunts
Michael Kuehl of Wisconsin was so outraged at a sentence handed down to Laurie Mosher by the Hon. Robert Haase in 2003 that he wrote a long letter to the judge, which he has since sent to us.
Laurie Mosher, a teacher, was sentenced to 30 months in prison for having sex with a 17 year old boy pupil.
Referring to the 8th Amendment’s prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment, Michael Kuehl accused the judge of committing ‘an outrage and travesty and crying scandal’. He went on: “A few more condign adjectives: irrational, merciless, fanatical, draconian, iniquitous, gratuitously cruel, hideously unjust, so grotesquely out of proportion to the severity of the offence and ‘threat to society’ of the offender as to be literally deranged. ‘Excessive’ and ‘harsh’ are understatements, unless qualified by ‘vicious’ and ‘absurd’ and ‘insane’. Judges like you give cruelty and callousness a bad name.”
Here are some more excerpts from his letter.
For non-violent first-offenders, the average sentence for men convicted of having sex with 17-year-old girls is probably 30 days in county jail or less. Also, not so long ago, the age of consent was 16 in Wisconsin. Only yesterday, in most situations, consensual sex between men and 16- and 17-year-olds was completely legal. As for a male teacher convicted of the same offence as Laurie Mosher, I challenge (critics) to name a single case in which a man was sentenced to 30 months in prison or longer for having consensual sex with a 17-year-old female student. In the entire country, in those states in which the age of consent is 18, how many men have been sentenced to 30-months in prison or longer for having consensual sex with 17-year-old girls? How many male teachers?
And in Wisconsin, incidentally, only a minority of convicted felons are sentenced to prison - and this includes violent, dangerous, and recidivist criminals. So Laurie Mosher's sentence was longer and more punitive than those inflicted on perhaps 70-75% of Wisconsin's convicted felons. This non-violent and harmless first-offender will serve more time in prison than myriads of violent and dangerous criminals sentenced over the last 3-4 decades: men convicted of aggravated assault, manslaughter, armed robbery, muggings, car-jackings, gang shootings, burglaries, drug trafficking, violent-forcible rape, the molestation of young children.
How did you decide on the length of the sentence? By what process of logic, however arbitrary, did you arrive at 30-months in prison? Did you think that 3-years was just a bit too harsh, but that 2-years was inordinately lenient? Would ‘only’ 2-years in prison have been woefully inadequate to ‘protect society’ and underage teenage males: those pure, chaste, and innocent creatures? Would this woman not suffer enough, in your opinion, would she not be abused, degraded, and tormented enough, if she were locked in a cage and zoo like an animal for ‘only’ 12 or 18 or even 24 months? How much were you influenced by mostly baseless and ignorant accusations of anti-male discrimination and pro-female bias, as exemplified by (a letter from a female prison guard). To what degree was the viciousness of your sentence an attempt to defuse the inevitable charges of ‘double standards’ and ‘anti-male discrimination’? And despite the viciousness of your sentence, you were still charged with anti-male discrimination!
For these reasons, your sentence should be overturned by an appellate court. But I doubt if you have any reason to worry. In this category, to my knowledge, your sentence is only the third most abhorrent. The gold medal winner is still the utterly loathsome Jeffrey Kremers, who sentenced Cassandra Sorenson-Grohall to 4 years in prison for having sex with a teenage criminal who forced himself on her and then manipulated and threatened her into further indulging his appetites. The silver medal winner is John DiMotto, another Milwaukee judge, who sentenced Melissa Bittner to prison for acquiescing out of fear to the crude sexual importunities of a 16-year-old predator. Melissa was not only a victim of sexual assault; like Cassandra, she was also innocent. This case is also under appeal.
Let me ask you a few questions. Is Laurie Mosher a ‘rapist’ or ‘paedophile’ or ‘child molester’? Is the 17-year-old with whom she had an affair a ‘victim’ of ‘sexual assault’ and ‘child sexual abuse’? Is de facto consensual sex between women and underage teenage males a ‘heinous’ crime that ‘devastates’ and ‘traumatizes’ the ‘victim’? Do you believe that in affairs between women and under aged teenage males, the adult is 100% guilty and the ‘minor’ 100% innocent; that under aged teenage males bear no culpability for such liaisons, regardless of the circumstances? Do you think that Laurie Mosher, if not imprisoned, would commit serious crimes -aggravated assault, murder, armed robbery, burglary, drug trafficking, violent-forcible rape, the molestation of young and prepubescent children - or even have sex with another under aged teenage male? If you had given her probation and she moved into your neighborhood, perhaps right next door, would you and your family and neighbors be in any danger?
If your answer is ‘no’ to all these questions, if you don't espouse such absurdities, then you sentenced this woman to 2 and one half years in prison for purely moral reasons. A ‘sex crime’ with no victim is a ‘morals charge’ or ‘offence’ - like ‘fornication’, ‘sodomy’, adultery, etc. Jailing and imprisoning women for having sex with young men under statutory age is like jailing and imprisoning adulterers and homosexuals. Even worse, I would argue, since adultery is far more widespread and far more harmful to society than a few isolated acts of consensual sex between women and under aged teenage males. For every woman who has sex with a young man under statutory age, how many people commit adultery? Compare the harm done to society by adultery to that of consensual sex between women and under aged teenage males. Compare the suffering inflicted on families and individuals by adultery to that of consensual sex between women and under aged teenage males.
If, however, you believe all or most of this nonsense, then you're dishonest, ignorant, deluded, the inhabitant of a fantasy world, brainwashed by feminists and the ‘child sexual abuse industry’.
A ‘paedophile’ is a man (or male adolescent) with a sexual fixation on young and prepubescent children. In this case, as in nearly all such instances, the de jure ‘victim’ was bigger, stronger, more aggressive, more lascivious, than the de jure ‘sex criminal’. For this reason alone, it's ludicrous to define such acts as ‘child molestation’ or ‘child sexual abuse’. As for ‘sexual assault’: obviously, Laurie Mosher didn't use violence, threats of violence, or even minimal physical force to secure the compliance of her ‘victim’. And since the ‘child’ was bigger and stronger than Laurie Mosher, he could have resisted her ‘force’ with one hand tied behind his back even if she had physically assaulted him. Unless one believes that underage teenage males (even those as old as 16 or 17) are incapable of consenting to or initiating sex with adult females, unless you believe they have the mentality of young children, the sex was entirely consensual. The ‘victim’ was a willing, and knowing, participant. And I'm sure that he enjoyed the sex far more than Laurie Mosher, that he derived more intense satisfaction, physically and psychologically, from his ‘victimization’ than did his putative and definitional ‘victimizer’.
Protecting society? A draconian 30-month prison sentence was exigent to ‘protect society’ from a gentle and loving woman who never committed a violent act in her life and would probably cry if she ran over a squirrel? A 30-month prison sentence was obligatory to cure her vampire hunger for the pristine flesh of young men and prevent her from having another affair with an under aged teenage male? In this case, 2-days of probation and 5-hours of community service weren't even necessary to ‘protect society’ and prevent recidivism. Not one serious crime – not one murder, aggravated assault, armed robbery, burglary, gang shooting, violent-forcible rape, molestation of a young child - will be prevented or deterred by the imprisonment of Laurie Mosher. If not imprisoned, there's not a chance in a million that she'd commit a ‘heinous’ or violent or even serious crime. And given her hellish ordeal even before you crucified her with a 30-month prison sentence, I rather doubt that she'd even think about transporting another underage teenage male to sexual nirvana. Let's assume, for the sake of argument, that Laurie Mosher's sentence was overturned and that she moved into your neighborhood. And let's assume that you have a wife and family with both teenagers and young children. Ironically, who'd be more likely to murder you, assault your son, burglarize your home, steal your car, vandalize your property, rape your wife or daughter, molest your small children? Laurie Mosher or her bogus ‘victim’, the 17-year-old with whom she had intercourse? Laurie Mosher or every teenage male and young adult man in Oshkosh?
Hypothetically, what would occur if you hadn't sentenced Laurie Mosher to prison? Dramatic increases in violent and sexual crimes? Would dozens of female teachers in local high schools prey on teenage males? Conversely, what good will come of this draconian sentence? A substantial decline in teen pregnancy, divorce, adultery, fornication, aids, venereal disease, violent street crime, alcoholism, drug addiction, wife-beating, child abuse, etc? How will anything change in any significant way? Will the streets and homes and schools of Oshkosh be any safer?
Even if you believe that consensual sex between women and underage teenage males is a ‘serious crime’, do you actually believe that even one teacher will be deterred from sending a young man to sexual paradise. In the last 20 or 30 years, in Oshkosh high schools, how many female teachers have had love affairs or ‘casual sex’ with teenage males? A few? One or two? None? Comparatively, the experience is so rare that it's statistically negligible. In not only small towns, obviously, but also large cities, it's nonexistent or virtually nonexistent. You sentenced Laurie Mosher to prison to deter a ‘crime’ that hardly exists, to deter hypothetical crimes that, in all probably, will not even happen, or would happen only rarely even if you hadn't persecuted Laurie Mosher. And even if one or two women were deterred, your vicious sentence would only deprive one or two young men of the joyous affirmation of having consensual sex with an attractive older woman. Only the severity and frequency of this offence in general could justify the cruelty of your sentence on grounds of deterrence. In respect to frequency, consensual sex between women and underage teenage males (especially teachers and students) is the rarest of all felonies, far rarer than even murder. In respect to severity, I would argue that sex between women and young men under statutory age is easily the most inconsequential of all felonies, so inconsequential it shouldn't even be a misdemeanour. It's the only ‘crime’ in which the ‘victim’ is lucky to be ‘victimized’, the only crime from which the ‘victim’ derives more satisfaction than the ‘criminal’.
"Serious"? You sentenced Laurie Mosher to 2 and one half years in prison for behaviour that's legal in virtually all European countries for adults not in positions of authority over children and in most European countries for adults in positions of authority over children if their power is not abused. The point is not so much that we should emulate the superior and cosmopolitan Europeans -and certainly not that we should lower that age of consent to 12, as in Spain and Holland - but that behaviour which is legal in all or most European countries can't be all that horrible or even ‘serious’. A decade ago, the age of consent was 16 or younger in most U.S. states. Just a few years ago, the age of consent was 16 in Wisconsin. Only yesterday, the legislature obviously didn't think that consensual sex between adults and 16- and 17-years olds was all that ‘serious’.
I agree with most of the governing classes of European countries: such affairs should not be criminalized, not even as a misdemeanour. At the least, they shouldn't be criminalized if the young man is 16 or 17 and/or the aggressor and initiator. But even if one concedes, for the sake of argument, that criminalizing sex between women and teenage males under 18 is morally imperative, somehow essential to the survival of American/Western civilization, then I'd contend that such intrigues should be criminalized as misdemeanour ‘sexual misconduct’. And since teenage males (especially those as old as 16 or 17) know what they're doing, legally and morally, when they have sex with adult women, both actors should be legally culpable. Yet the law is based on the absurd premise that the adult woman is 100% guilty and the young man 100% innocent, regardless of the circumstances, and that the supreme pleasure of having sex with an older woman is an unspeakable and life-destroying violation.
Lastly, why should teachers be punished far more harshly for engaging in the same behaviour as adults with no ‘authority over children’? The virtual consensus that teachers should be punished more harshly is only equitous and rational, and then only partially so, in cases in which they use their ‘power and authority’ to coerce and manipulate students into having sex with them who otherwise would not have assented. Do you have any evidence that Laurie Mosher explicitly used her ‘power and authority as a teacher’ to coerce and manipulate this pure and innocent ‘child’ into engaging in sex-acts to which he otherwise would not have consented; that she threatened to exact vengeance or punish him in some way if he spurned her advances? If her ‘power’ was not abused in this sense, then how was her liaison any different or more egregious than a similar affair between a 17-year-old male and a woman with no authority over children? Or a 17-year-old girl and a man with no authority over children. For example: If a violent criminal with 19 felony convictions has an abusive relationship or one-night stand with a 16- or 17-year-old girl, he's guilty of a misdemeanour. But if a woman teacher has a caring relationship with a 16- or 17-year-old male student, she's guilty of a felony that carries a maximum sentence of 10-years in prison for each time they had sexual intercourse or ‘contact’.
If Laurie Mosher had not been a teacher - if she were a lawyer, doctor, bank teller, judge, store clerk, secretary, even the Governor or Attorney General - she would have been guilty of a misdemeanour that carried a maximum sentence of 9 months in county jail. And just a few years ago, such an affair would have been totally legal. But since she was a teacher who had sex with a 17-year-old student, you had the discretion to sentence her to 30-months in prison when, in most instances, a non-teacher would have received 30 days in jail or less for the same transgression. That's ‘equality’ and ‘justice’, Wisconsin-style!
Moreover, unlike those in other jobs and professions, those that don't involve ‘power and authority over children’, teachers would be duly chastised for such behaviour even if it weren't criminalized. Dismissal from a job for which they spent years and thousands of dollars in preparation; life-long revocation of their teacher's license; the loss of hundreds of thousands of dollars in wages and benefits; ostracism and public humiliation - all this is more than punishment enough for any minimally reasonable, fair, and humane person -but not for you, the prosecutor's office, the editors of the Oshkosh Northwestern, and I dread to think of how many others.
Signed
Michael Kuehl
More about women criminalized for 'sex crimes' coming
The age of consent
The women victims of the sex witch hunts
Grotesque eleven year sentence
A question of intent
Meet an American teenage sex monster
"It was awesome!" A child sex abuse case for salivating over.
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