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| Resisting
the absolutism of our times |
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Inquisition 21
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The age of consent
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The question central to our sexual absolutism
"It was awesome!" A child sex abuse case for salivating over.
The child was a 14 year old student. The assaulter - rapist, paedophile? It seems that no one knows what expression to use, so let’s say ‘perpetuator’ – the perpetuator was the child’s trusted teacher. The US media had a field day.
"It was awesome!" the victim exulted unambiguously. It seems that millions of other Americans agree. In the first of the two states the ‘assaults’ took place in, the judge was kind to the perpetuator, deciding that prison would not be suitable for such a good-looking ‘sex abuser’, even though the offences warranted 75years in prison. Had the judge not been so lenient, the defence lawyer planned to enter a plea of insanity.
All parties to the case were pleased. The victim's mother, in particular, was happy to see an end to the media celebrity that she seemed to feel was more of a problem for her child than sex with teacher. The police who had leaked the story everywhere had even photographed the perpetuator in the nude, including close-ups of the genitalia, and were attempting to either leak or sell these when they were stopped by a judge.
"If what comes out of this is that there is some sort of re-examination of age of consent in general or even a small shift of opinion," says the author Judith Levine, the case "might in the end have some sort of positive effect on public policy."
So what’s going on? Has there been an Earth-shattering shift in the ‘paedophile panic’? No, the rapist was a good-looking woman teacher and the victim a still-beaming 14 year old schoolboy, the envy of millions of American males.
David Steinberg, whose work is featured in several places on this web site, gives an excellent account of this story in
Beyond predators and victims: the not-so-sensational story of Dwbra Lafave and her 14-year-old student.
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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