<p>I disagree that girls would not feel sorrow over ruining the family of a man by bringing his conduct to light. I can say, from personal experience, that such concerns have stopped me from reporting wrongful actions against me. It’s incredibly stupid, but females are socialized to worry about other people’s feelings more than their own - and these are exactly the type of crimes where victims blame themselves.</p>
<p>OF COURSE we are doing a horrible job dealing with abstinence and sexuality. It used to be that people got married right around the time that they matured sexually. There was no problem with telling people to cross their legs for a year or two. Now, we get married later (if at all) and mature sooner - biologically and thanks to our weird culture. It’s become ridiculous to assume that people will date for aeons and not have sex. </p>
<p>That, however, does not mitigate the effects of what is happening here - that woman knew what she was doing. </p>
<p>To some extent, it’s harder to see the harm done to boys - biologically (not to be graphic here), it is often difficult for males to have intercourse with a woman against their will - it just doesn’t work. Females, on the other hand, can be forced into intercourse - their bodies do not significantly change when they are willing participants. </p>
<p>I also think that men and women manifest the harm from sex differently. Women go to either one of two extremes: great difficulty in emotional & physical intimacy with men OR highly promiscuous behaviour. Men… from what I’ve seen, they tend to assimiliate the experience - it felt good, so it must be right - and take a very callous view towards sex. Probably this is because so few women actually talk to their sons about sex beyond “wear a condom;” the idea of young men knowing about emotional intimacy is just entirely ignored by a lot of parents. Everyone focuses on their daughters, because they are the ones who can get pregnant - and totally forget that their sons could do a tremedous amount of harm to themselves and their girlfriends. </p>
<p>Anyway… thirty years - sounds about right. I don’t think that gender really should matter - hell, if anything, I think that a woman SHOULD know better - know what it’s like to be pressured, even subtly. Grrr.</p>