“Hi, I’m Molly, and I just raped you son. A simple thank you will suffice…”
Well, read it and weep, as poker players say.
I’ve written about this disgusting phenomenon before, when ethically-challenged bloggers, pundits and commenters snicker about how great it is for the under-age male victims of sexual assault by attractive female teachers and other comely predators. The complete ignorance of the requirements of basic adult responsibility, the wrongfulness of abuse of power, the law of consent and so much else exhibited by these blights on civilization is truly frightening, though it tells us a great deal about where Donald Trump’s support comes from among other things.
I am distraught. On one hand, reading this kind of thing makes me wonder why I bother. Really. How can one man, or a thousand, reverse or even retard the corrosive effects of so many idiots whose contempt for decency and whose ethical darkness is so deep, cynical and shameless? On the other hand, what better choices do those of us who understand and care about the values of society have? To sink into catatonic despair? To self-lobotomize and join the mob of corrupt fools, grinning and drooling as the U.S. becomes Hell? To shake out fists at the moon until something pops and we are dragged to the padded room?
The story that generated these comments involved former Baltimore Ravens cheerleader Molly Shattuck, who was accused of raping a 15-year-old boy last summer in Rehoboth, Delaware. Shattuck decided to plead guilty to one count of fourth degree and admitted that she performed oral sex on the boy, who was a friend of her son.
This classy mom (she has three kids) was sentenced to spend every other weekend for the next two years at a work-release detention center, plus she must pay the victim’s family $10,650 and register as a sex offender. Yes indeed, this is very lenient compared to what would have happened if an adult male had sex with a 15-year-old girl.
The Attorney General called it a “classic case of grooming behavior” as he argued for more than probation. What the commenters don’t comprehend is that how a victim feels about criminal conduct should have little influence on the proper punishment of the criminal. Should the battered spouse of a man who has dominated and cowed her into believing that she “deserves it” ensure that her husband is treated more leniently than the wife-beater whose spouse resists and objects? Well, this is one of the things the commenters don’t comprehend. There is so much more. (I have checked the comment threads on this story on other websites. They are essentially the same.)
Read it and weep.
Yechhhh.
Debra Ann Walker
Eugene Edward Yeo ·
Never mind that if it had been a fullback and a 15 year old girl you’d be up in arms.
Nelson Franks
Which word here is hard to grasp?
Adam Bonadonna ·
Brittney Mattison
Rob Puleo ·
Brittney Mattison
Brittney Mattison
Sorry.
Peter Zolla
Brittney Mattison
Mac Mcalpine ·
Kathy McKinny ·
Jordan Crother ·
Brittney Mattison
10 · 
Jesse Brewer ·
Michael Brown ·
Randall Huston ·
Angelo Tosti ·
Robert Graham ·
James McCord
Tom Whalibswha ·
Ray Brown ·
Brittney Mattison
Ethics Alarms 
No Brittney, your point is well taken: Not “every male in the world” would be fine. Probably a lot of Moslems wouldn’t because they have to wait for the 12 virgins in heaven. Probably some gays wouldn’t although I suspect some would. A few teenager stuck in Catholic Schools wouldn’t because they’d have to confess their “sin” to a Priest who would have to keep from laughing. However, all my friends in high school would have been happy as clams.
As they would have been if she shot them up with heroin, her treat. Britney got a bit off track there. If you enjoy being raped, is it still rape?
Why yes, it is.
Not the issue.
I don’t think any of my friends would have enjoyed being shot up with heroin Jack. But you know, 15 year old guys are like, horney mostly.
EVERYBODY enjoys being shot up with heroin. That’s why its illegal.
It’s also the slut defense for rape. You really should stop.
Baloney, my friends would have been horrified if some attractive woman would have tried to convince them to use heroin even at age 15. I’m not clear the analogy makes any sense.
The analogy is that once doing it, it’s enjoyable, regardless of why its being done and by whom. A lot of kids would be scared of an adult women offering oral sex, too: I would have been. That doesn’t mean I wouldn’t have enjoyed it, or that she wasn’t a felon for doing it.
Does giving the kids beer make the analogy clearer? That’s illegal, and irresponsible, and a lot of kids would like it.
Heroin was a bad analogy Jack. 15 year old boys don’t think about doing heroin all day long like they do sex nor is heroin a natural progression of adult life. Beer is a little closer.
I’m not a member of the high five club, claiming that this lady did this kid a favor and he should get a slap on the back. A 15 year old who has an adult female service him is going to have problems, whether he knows it or not. I would not have handled that emotionally very well at 15 nor would it have been a good thing for me.
On the other hand, I can’t fully buy into the “what if it was a 15 year old girl” mentality either. It wasn’t a 15 year old girl and that’s no more relevant than asking “what if it was a 3 year old miniature schnauzer.” As a wise friend of mine once said, if grandma had balls, she’d be grandpa. So let’s move away from all that hand-wringing about adult males and teenage girls. That’s not what happened here.
And, in my opinion, if you think both situations should be treated equally, that’s because you think there’s no difference between 15 year old boys and 15 year girls. And if you’ve ever been a 15 year old boy or a 15 year old girl, or you know one, you know that just ain’t true. They should be treated different because they are different.
No, that’s where you are wrong. There is no difference in the sense that neither is capable of legal consent. That’s all it means, and all it has to mean. And as a parent, I no more want a 30 year old woman using my teen aged son as a sex toy than I want a 30 year old man using my daughter as one. The crime is exactly the same, and you ARE a member of the high five club, by your own words. This assault and it is rape. Rape is rape. The fact that boys may be easier to seduce doesn’t mitigate the crime one iota.
“The fact that boys may be easier to seduce doesn’t mitigate the crime one iota.”
Except that’s precisely why statutory rape IS statutory rape and makes the crime WORSE…we presume as a society that bundles of hormones that have not reached an age we deem responsible CANNOT make sound decisions for themselves in this particular arena…which is why no matter how much a boy would enjoy it, he can’t make a logical decision in this and it IS an unchangeable event in his life that CAN harm him in the long run.
I don’t think that’s fair. Whatever you thought of the rest of my opinion, I clearly said that both were wrong and caused damage.
They should be treated differently?
Maybe there are other ways we can treat men and women differently. Perhaps only letting men vote? Or practice law?
Look, we as a society have said that having sex with children is statutory rape, because at that stage of their development, children do not make good life choices. It doesn’t matter whether the kids want sex (Because lets face it, a significant percentage of girls who are statutorily raped think they want it. In fact, there have been documented cases where they predatorily sought it), we expect adults to be able to make better choices and not have sexual relations with children.
It blows my mind consistently when adults talk about raping children like it doesn’t count. “(s)he was asking for it” “(s)he wanted it.” “)s)he didn’t say no.” Who cares?!?!!? You are making an argument for pedophiles. It’s taking all the restraint I have to not get vulgar.
You. Are. Making. Excuses. For. Pedophiles.
Jack’s heroin example is perfect. Absolutely perfect. Heroin and sexual contact both release endorphins which by definition make you feel good. That doesn’t mean you like what’s happening, that doesn’t mean you made informed consent, that doesn’t mean it won’t have lasting repercussions.
And while we’re on the topic, Google “Rape Victims Forced to Pay Child Support to Their Rapists”
It’s a thing.
Male victims of rape whose rapists become pregnant have been forced to pay child support. It doesn’t matter that they couldn’t have consented, it doesn’t matter that their rapist is by definition a pedophile and received custody. He has a penis! Of course he pays child support! Men are billfolds, don’t’cha know?
Thank you for seeing the heroin example the way I do. I think it’s apt as well.
Two things: 1) Clearly, you and your friends have had no experience with heroin and; 2) you’ve never met a sexually abused child and seen the haunted look in his/her eyes.
I did not read through all of them, but half seemed to express appropriate disgust…
Well less than half, and most of those by the same two or three posters. And even half, if half are saying, “She should be thanked for raping a minor,” is too much. By half.
Too much by whole.
He’s a minor. Just because he wants it, doesn’t mean he can have it. He can’t drive a car until he is 16, he can’t drink until he is 21, he can’t play russian roulette. This is why there are bans and age minimums for some damaging and exploiting things. Just because he might want or dream about something doesn’t make it a good idea.
Evidently neither of the two realized that. While bad, they presumably had hormones short circuiting their alarms. They might learn. Most of these commentators don’t have that excuse for their admiration of the event, maybe they have viagra on the brain and can’t get past that WANTing the cheerleader in highschool.
No one seems to give a thought for her son, and her other children!
I can’t begin to think of the crap they are going to have to wade through for the rest of their school life – and perhaps life, the internet being what it is.
Isn’t that a mum to be proud of! Lock her up!
Gads…
I stopped reading after the guy named “twohig” started popping off.
He was really the one who convinced me this offal needed to be posted.
I wonder if Don Twohig would be perfectly okay with his fifteen-year-old daughter coming home knocked up by a pro athlete.
Sure! She’d LOVE it!
His facebook profile pic has him pictured with what looks like his daughter.
She probably would. I find it amazing that people think that the girls that are having sex with good-looking male teachers are being coerced and forced into it. It probably isn’t a stretch to say that many of the girls have propositioned their teachers and coaches. I know that is true in this area. It has done some serious damages to the marriages of people I know.
Love the new marginalia! Nice picture of Huma and Hillary snuggling.
At my high school, there was a well to do, I’m guessing alcoholic mother of one of the guys who had guys over all the time for alcohol and sex. Pretty pathetic. This was back in the middle ’60s. Weird. I’m pretty sure it was never reported. But it just wasn’t a good thing. And then there was Mrs. Robinson. And her daughter. Saw The Graduate not too long ago. Not at all sure what to make of it. Not sure why it’s considered iconic.
But Jack, there are lots and lots of morons out there. The internet has just given them megaphones. I have no idea what to tell you to keep you from jumping off a bridge other than “Don’t.”
Jack, isn’t it true that in times before, say, World War II – or, sometime before the concept of statutory rape became law – that erotic activity between older women and young men or boys, and between older men and young women or girls, was called simply “seduction?”
I can’t help thinking that if the power of modern media was eliminated, the likelihood of due justice in cases like this would be much higher. Something cynical in me is telling me that these days, even more harm being done by sexual predators is actually being encouraged and facilitated, rather than prevented, inhibited, and properly punished, as a consequence of the ease of access, discovery and public discussion.
Okay, I’ll confess: All this publicity makes me think I’m missing something, and I am tempted to go get “my share” of my own version of “f-n vees.”
And men used to marry 11 year-olds too. Ethics evolve. It was wrong then, and we wrongly tolerated it. It isn’t more wrong now, it’s just as wrong. We just see it. Those who deny that just want to molest kids for their own enjoyment, and are rationalizing, or are denying what we know about brain development and ignorant of the legal definition of consent.
Where does Jared of Subway fame stand on this issue? Want to guess?
Critics say because people reach sexual maturity at 13, the age of consent to be lowered to that age.
It is not happening here, because, among many reasons, legislators want to be re-elected.
What idiot “critic” says that?
She’s a monster.
Phenomenal:
I just went through the latter commentators. How many of them have their place of employment prominently displayed?
A lot. I took out the early ones, got tired and said the hell with it.
Whoa! Many of the posts involving this incident you shared are frightening. Some have the moral fiber of dryer lint.
[Reply to Jack’s August 24 at 9:23 am]
Jack, I am glad you mentioned Jared in the last line of your reply to my comment of 8:17 am. The news about him must have been part of what was already on my mind when you posted about this cheerleader.
“And men used to marry 11 year-olds too. Ethics evolve…rationalizing, or…denying what we know about brain development and ignorant of the legal definition of consent.”
With sex being as accessible and widely practiced as it is these days, even by children, you don’t harbor even a twinge of doubt about whether current laws on consensual sex need reforming?
Okay, I guess I am in a “minority of ‘monsters,’ ” then. I think the age of consent ought to be lowered – significantly – in all U.S. jurisdictions. I think consensual erotic activity between those younger ages and their (sometimes, much older) partners ought to be decriminalized. And, I think “statutory rape” ought to be redefined. You cringe? Sneer? Get nauseous? At that thought? Well, wait: Look at what’s happened to “marriage;” we’re all still breathing here among many happier, more free, more equalized people, aren’t we? Do you really want to deny equal protection to younger people, such that the only ways they might satisfy their sexual curiosity are by engaging either with (1) one of their similarly immature peers, which is not only more likely, but almost certain to be harmful to both partners and on a long-term basis, or (2) an older partner, for whom the activity is a crime, regardless of the older person’s more likely greater maturity?
Go ahead, lump me together with the “potheads,” the crowd who wants marijuana decriminalized. I suppose that is a natural or easy thing to do, that lumping together, I mean. That would probably fit neatly together in many minds that want to believe additional lies about me and others who agree with me: We want to destroy society. We want to see people hurt. We want to see children exploited, or…*we* want to exploit children, “for our own enjoyment.” No. We just want only sex crimes to be sex crimes.
In the case at hand, I seriously do not think the cheerleader lady ought to be criminally liable for her sex act with the 15-year-old male. And, hypothetically, I don’t think Jared should be criminally liable for going on the Internet and finding a 15-year-old female who subsequently would engage consensually in the same act with him. To round-out the ethics profile on myself: To do such a thing, Jared ought to be an unmarried man, as should the older lady – as should their partners. I do think it’s best if only partners who are already married to each other engage in such activity. So yes, I am advocating for acts that I consider unethical (ethics debaters may disagree on specifically why the acts are unethical) to be legal nevertheless.
I could go on and on, but, schools are going back into session, and we all have much to learn, every new day, every new year. I do hope we will see a groundswell of activism on the part of today’s young people to fight for equality for their sexually curious peers and their chosen partners – including the elimination of “rape” from the dialogue, narrative and law about young people’s consensual sexual experiences with older partners. Older people of course must team-up with the young people in that activism. Only then might voices be given to the people who – like with the people most affected by abortion – for too long have been ignored as if they have no rights. To that iconic rainbow flag, perhaps we’ll see the addition of a white stripe for the young virgins and newbies.
(In all I have written above, I am not being sarcastic or tongue-in-cheek.)
With sex being as accessible and widely practiced as it is these days, even by children, you don’t harbor even a twinge of doubt about whether current laws on consensual sex need reforming?
Nope. Abuse of power and position ruin live, and the least society can do is protect the most vulnerable. If we permitted child labor, if the typical individual was out of the house and earning their way at 15, as it once was, then you would have at least a case. But society has gone in the other direction.
You think laws that basically “sentence” children to groping each other for their initial sexual experiences is “protecting the most vulnerable?” How many young children are you well-acquainted with? I mean, boys and girls under, say, age 15…age 13…okay, age 11, to square with your earlier reply. I think you underestimate what young people of those ages know, and are driven by, these days. I’m not saying I want to, er, step into any gap, so to speak, and be a teacher of sex practices to any of those kids. But, just because I won’t do it, doesn’t mean that no one else will, or that I think anyone else who is an adult and who does it is committing a crime.
Did you really just equate childhood sexual-exploration to pedophilia?
No, HT. It’s more subtle than the way you ask. I concede the impossibility of distinguishing an abusive predator from a helpful partner. But such different possible sex partners do exist. That alone is a good reason for any adult with an opportunity to be a partner with a young person to be most cautious about his own motives and sexual health, before engaging in any erotic behavior.
If his motive is purely for self-satisfaction, then the older person (presumably unmarried and not promiscuous) ought to have the good sense to take the lead in the relationship with the young person and say, “This (sexual stuff) is not for you (young person) and me to do together.” And then act consistently with that statement, without fail. (I avoid “child” in this context, because the young person IS exploring his or her own, adult future with sex, with the anticipated inevitability of adulthood and the typical suitability of sex for adulthood in later years.)
There is no perfect way for a person to begin his or her life’s sexual activity with another person; beginning with a more mature person is probably less likely harmful (and if harmful in any way, likely less harmful) than beginning with another immature, inexperienced young person. That’s all I am really saying. Ideally, of course, we hope that every young person abstains despite the strongest curiosity and urges, until they are capable of more general autonomy and strong control of themselves and of their standing in any relationship with any other person of any age. But we know reality. Risks will always abound. Young people are going to explore, and predators are going to try to take advantage. But reality includes more than just predators and prey. The law should not presume such simplicity.
I’m sorry Lucky, but this reads like a NAMBLA pamphlet to me, and that might be a personal failing on my part, but I’m always going to be more comfortable erring on the side of adults not having sex with minors. We can argue back and forth about Romeo and Juliette laws, or the like, but in this case we’re talking about a 15 year old child and a 30 year old rapist, and anything else is semantics.
We just disagree. I am convinced that the law in its current state actually fails more than it succeeds in protecting minors (I’ll use that in favor of “children”), and fails more than it succeeds in busting true predators.
[Reply to Humble Talent’s Aug 24 at 3:53 pm]
HT, if you have read one NAMBLA pamphlet, you’ve read more of their stuff than I have (or ever will, if I can help it). Again, to the point of my questions to Jack in another comment, a lot of my views stem from how many kids I know and how well I know them (devoid of sexual relations).
See, the thing is, none of what you responded with refutes or is mutually exclusive to what I said. I think you’re wrong on the ‘benefits’ of a ‘mature’ partner for children as young as 11 (your goalpost, but it carries on to maturity). But even if you’re right, I can’t think of a way to implement it that doesn’t empower pedophiles., and that makes me extremely cautious.
You say, “But society has gone in the other direction.” Part of my initial comment was to raise the question that perhaps society has gone too far in the direction it has gone.
It may have. But the children are children until the culture allows them to be something else. Mrs. Robinson doesn’t get a say.
One more: I also do not mean to dismiss your point about abuse by an older person of a young person. But, I am very confident that we have untold volumes of stories of young people and adults who were in their lives during some times, who have actually done lots of sexual things with each other, specifically as a result of whatever position and power the older person possessed in the life of the younger person – and, those relations have turned out to be as constructive as any the young person possibly could have experienced, with a result of quicker maturing and healthier thinking and action by the previously inexperienced younger person, and less harm (if any) than would have been done, had the young person first engaged in sexual activity with any other adult or age-peer.
Again: I have never done such a thing, and never would. I’m an old, unattractive crag anyway, and am happy with my wife, and she’s going to outlive me. My “sex with the young” is completely replaced by simple joy of having time with them (with more control over when and where I have time with them, than I had as a parent).
Donald Trump is their kind of President- and they deserve him.