BTW, when my S was in sixth and seventh grade, it was largely the girls who were the sexual aggressors, often towards boys who were one or two years younger. For example, I knew someone who returned a call on her answering machine because she thought is might have been her older D, and the girls who answered said, “X (her 7th grade S), are you going to come over and have sex with us?” When she identified herself, taken aback, they replied, without missing a beat, “Oh hi Mrs. Y, is X there?” She was stunned.
That same year, there was an infamous “blow job party” among the jr high set, at which a bunch of girls apparently willingly arranged to service a bunch of boys. (Besides the obvious, what really got me about it was that they didn’t seem to expect any satisfaction in return…) The HS ended up cancelling all of the dances that year because a bunch of 9th grade girls came to the first one drunk.
My point is that the idea that 15 yr old girls are uniformly frail little innocent flowers and boys are uniformly sex-obsessed predators is inaccurate.
Don’t get me wrong, no matter what has happened, when she says no that means no and that’s the end of it. And, as I have said earlier, I don’t think 15 yr olds should be having sex with anyone. Even if they are technically sexually mature, I don’t think that they are emotionally ready for it.
Let me just put it out there. Here’s an idea that no one seems to have considered: what if Owen Labrie was actually telling the truth? What if instead of being the cynical, sexually experienced “stalker” he is portrayed as here, he actually was a pretty inexperienced guy who got caught up in the whole adolescent male bravado/pack behavior thing of the “contest,” and actually did prematurely ejaculate, then have a moment when he came to himself and said “this is wrong” because he actually DOES have beliefs that he was in the process of violating. What if he then lied about it to “the guys” in order to keep up that adolescent male bravado? What if the fact that he did not actually consummate intercourse with her is the reason he was unwilling to take a plea?
Even if it is true, it doesn’t make what he DID do right. But I don’t see that it is necessary to view him as an evil genius sexual predator in order to say that what happened was a bad thing. And while I’m at it, the fact that he sent an email to some other girl makes him a “stalker”? Give me a break.
I, for one, rather than gloating that “he’ll never be a minister” hope that he does in fact become one, if that is what he really wants to do as life goes on. I think that ministry in general could use more sadder-but-wiser people with greater insight into human frailty.
