15-year old mature enough for consensual group sex!
The case of Genarlow Wilson (click name for 2/10/2007 earlier post) is in the news again and ESPN is taking credit for helping to resolve this "injustice." I just want to be sick. How on earth can anyone think a 15-year old has the maturity needed for consensual sex? Given this logic, the driving, voting, and drinking ages should be dropped to 15 too. Maybe 15-year old kids should be allowed to join the military to fight and possibly die in battle too.
6 comments:
Then again how could a 17 yr old be considered mature enough to have consenual sex. Then again after looking at the midday, talk show, DNA testing, "Who my baby daddy" programs that run with regularity, I would wonder if there aren't many 25 yr olds not mature enough to have consensual sex.
If we threw people who were guilty of stupid and bad decision, then who would run the country?
Dear "Lord of Logic"
If your point is that the midday, talk shows dipict the best of our society, your conclusion is correct. However, I believe these showes do not depict the best, so there would be plenty of people to run the contry.
I agree that 17 is probably not old enough for consensual sex; however, it is definently old enough to know when breaking the law.
Luckily being guilty of stupid and bad decissions is not against the law. However, breaking the law has consequences.
I would say that I agree with the intent of the concerns over the length of prison time for this young man. However, my conconsern is that all of the commentary depict this sex as a socially acceptable act without any concequences, which it is not.
I guess the point by bringing up the age difference is that there is only less then two yrs difference between the two. I believe at 15 you are old enough to know you are breaking the law. However, I am relatively certain that most teenagers can barely say "legal age of consent" let alone know its definition. You can't teach it in public school with out an uproar saying that "the school is condoning sex". The 15 yr old said she was sober and consenting. How is she not equally complicit in a crime if there is one? What if she had killed somebody? In most states at 15 they can press to have you tried as an adult. Application of law equally is really important to our justice system.
There were so many crimes being committed that night with the sale to and consumption of alcohol to minors not being the least. Where were the parents?
If we understand that our laws are designed to rehabilitate and to punish, then the questions emerge. What societal abnormality are we punishing him for? In other words, what gain do we get out of this particular situation? Having sex with somebody two yrs younger then he is? Probably not even that. I don't know when her 16th birthday was going to be, but for all we know it could have been less then a month away. That would mean only 30 days later he would have not been breaking a law that would send him away for 10 yrs. Teenage minds can't grasp that concept. They are all invincible and everything happens to other people.
It is Friday night as I type this. School is out. I guarantee that the same scenario is going to play out thousands of times across America tonight. Would anything be gained or learned if we caught every couple with less then 24 months between their age difference having sex, and then threw them in jail for 10 years?
Look, their acts were wreckless and unhealthy and the kind of irresponsibility that leads to more major issues like teen pregnancy, STDs, and mental problems. But criminalization in place of education is not the answer.
Lord of Logic:
Thanks! I agree 100% with your statement about the parents (which was presented in my original post). It should not take a high school education to realize that the end results of that fateful December 31 night could likely have been bad. I would be more than willing to let the parents receive the punishment for their children if desired. I also, agree that the girls should have been punished appropriately.
How much more "education" does a "high school senior honor student" need? Going back to the original information, this young man was not even aware that he was committing a crime. While I do not know about Georgia, here in California sex education is covered in elementary school, middle school (jr. high school) and now again with a mandatory semester of "health" in high school. I do not know how much more education is needed for an "honor student" to know (at least after the fact) that his actions were unacceptable. There are time that talking to a teenage is less effective than talking to a block wall.
My point also has nothing to do with their age difference as much as that a 15-year old is mature enough for consensual sex (either male or female). I know at that age I was not and that my son is not either.
This young man gambled with a trial and was found guilty of the crime with a known mandatory sentence of 10 years. All of the others took plea-bargains for a lesser crime. All of the media has implied this young man as a “victim of having sex with his girlfriend,” which is obviously not the case. I agree that the sentence was likely harsh for the crime and believe it was appropriate for the judge to overrule the mandatory sentence; however, I do not believe he was treated unjustly.
Just because similar situations happen across the country does not necessarily make it something that society need to, or should, condone. Unfortunately, laws are the only tool society has to restrict behavior. There is no good reason for teenagers not to understand both “age of consent” and “statutory rape,” and related consequences. Without immediate consequences, reckless underage sex, no amount of education will keep boys and girls pants on.
I am not advocating “teenage sex police;” however, when parents (especially liberals) relinquished their role of adult to the school system to become “friends” with their children, and put selfish personal self-serving desires in place of raising children within a family environment with rules and expectations, they also left it up to the “state” to correct social indiscretions (e.g., laws and punishment).
If this young man, his mother and the media, would only portray the action of this judge as being a second chance because he messed up. Real good may come out of his prison time by making other teenagers think about the immediate consequences of their actions.
I pretty much agree with everything you said. Especially about the parents being punished. We could spend whole books discussing the cause of the parenting problem and how to address it.
However, I am in Ohio, and here at least once a year a lawsuit comes to some school district for crossing the line. There is this gray area between abstinence only and full coverage sex education. In my very own school district sex education is made up of some biological pictures, and some bad jokes delivered by the health teacher. Georgia is in the “Bible Belt”. My job has me travel around the country often. If you have never spent time in the Bible belt you would be in for a treat. People are very set in their traditional ways there. That mentality is reflected in their laws and policies. Generally they have abstinence only policies in school. This is like trying to treat childhood obesity by having them watch movies about controlling their eating habits.
I agree that just because it is a common occurrence that we should condone it. For instance gang violence occurs across the country. However, teen sex is something that is common across all demographics. Gang violence is generally found in poor and urban areas of a city. Teen sex and the resulting problems cross all demographics. From poor to wealthy, well educated to high school drop outs, Black, White, Hispanic, Asian, religious to atheist the problem exists. We have made laws against it and prosecuted them. Still no change. Something like 80% of us today are guilty of having sex as teenagers ourselves. I guess the point is what is throwing another teenager in jail and labeling him a sexual offender for life over something that we have a society have been working on since we emerged from the farming age. (Back then girls of 16 were considered eligible to be married.)
Thanks for letting me post. You have a nice site.
Lord of Logic
Thanks for the great comments.
I agree we have more in common than we disagree. It is my understanding that the DA offered a reduced sentnce even after the trial but the young man needed to plea gilty to the lesser charges to recieve the lesser sentance, which he did not.
I notice that this case continues to drag on for another few weeks since it has been appealed to the Georgia upper courts.
I think we both agree that we do not want to go back to the days of girls getting hitched at 16, which was also a time when they did always get to choose their man and did not have the right to vots.
The more parents relenquish their responsibilities for educating their children in the areas of civic values, standards, and responsibilities, the more the "stste" has to attempt to make up the slack, which is always bound to be a less efficient and fair to those that get caught in the system.
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