statutory rape

The Kaitlyn Hunt Affair: Upon Further Review…

/ Jack Marshall / 129 Comments
This may not have been Juliet and Juliet after all...

This may not have been Juliet and Juliet after all…

As happens all too often with these viral ethics stories, the facts in the Kaitlyn Hunt case as represented in the first accounts appear to be wrong. Kaitlyn did not first become involved with her girlfriend when both were minors. According to an arrest affidavit , Kaitlyn and her girlfriend began dating in November 2012 when the younger girl was 14 and Kaitlyn was already 18.

Sorry, but that changes everything. Unless one is ready to assert as fact that lesbian relationships in which an adult, however young, becomes involved with a child are less dangerous and potentially damaging than heterosexual ones, Kaitlyn broke a law that is legitimate and sensible as it applies to her, and that law should be enforced. A 14- year old is not capable of meaningful or legal consent, and the opportunity for older, more experienced teens to exploit their inexperience, innocence and deference to older peers is significant and a genuine source of parental—and legal, and societal— concern. If the law permitted an 18/14 year-old sexual relationship between female teens, it would be difficult to explain why 18/12  year-old sexual relationships were materially different, and that being so, legal prohibition on 18-year-old young men seducing 12-year-old girls would be difficult to maintain. Continue reading →

The Kaitlyn Hunt Affair

/ Jack Marshall / 36 Comments
Child abuser?

Child abuser?

Once again, the ethical complexities of applying statutory rape and age of consent laws to relationships between non-adults and just barely adults has led to an ethics train wreck. The worst example in recent years has been the epic criminal system abuse of Genarlow Wilson, which if you are unfamiliar with his story and its aftermath, you should catch up here and here. The Kaitlyn Hunt case,however, has potential to be an epic of its own.

It appears that Floridian teen Kaitlyn Hunt was involved in a consensual, same-sex relationship with another girl in her school while both she and her partner were minors. They had started dating at the beginning of the school year, and the relationship had been known to both parents for months. Clearly the parents of the younger girl did not approve, for when Kaitlyn turned 18—the other girl was 15—they filed a criminal complaint with police. Continue reading →

Cost of Rick Curl’s ‘Stay-Out-Of-Jail-And Keep-Molesting-Girls’ Card: $6,250 a Year

/ Jack Marshall / 15 Comments
I hope it was worth the cash, Kelley.

I hope it was worth the cash, Kelley.

All in all, you would have to say that renowned Maryland swimming coach Rick Curl made a pretty sweet deal for himself. True, he’s headed to jail now, after pleading guilty to charges of child sexual abuse as a result of the testimony of Kelley Currin. Currin, now 41, was a former swimmer coached by Curl, and was molested and ultimately raped by him over six years beginning when she was only 13. But Curl paid Kelley’s parents, Gerald and Pamela Davies, $150,000 to keep his secret from police, the community, and the swim team (the Davies had read about his abuse in their daughter’s journal and confronted him) in 1989.  Kelley, who was 19 when her family got paid off, waited until last year to finally alert authorities, so Curl kept his freedom, reputation, and most important of all, his opportunity to be trusted with the yummy, young, nubile daughters of other, unsuspecting parents, for a bargain yearly rate of only $6,250.

Not bad! Not bad at all. Continue reading →

Ethics Dunce Déjà Vu: Drew Curtis’s Fark

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments
"Ma'am, your teenage son was raped by this woman, Isn't that great?"

“Ma’am, your teenage son was raped by this woman, Isn’t that great?”

Once again, one of my favorite news aggregation websites, the prolific and often hilarious Fark, is laughing at child rape. Its comment on the story from Nehalem, Oragon about the arrest of a 31-year-old model for sex crimes involving at least three under-age boys—15 and 16 years old—was this…

“…niiiice”

Not funny. An adult woman using—that’s the correct word, using—teenage boys as her personal sexual aids isn’t niiice—it’s criiiiminal. In October, I gave Fark an ethics dunce cap for an earlier wink-wink-nudge-nudge comment about a teacher who added statutory rape to her duties, and that was surely worse; after all, she was a teacher, and violating the trust of the school, the parents, the students and the community to get herself laid. Nonetheless, the conduct of model Anna Walsh was neither harmless nor trivial. I know: Fark’s official stance is sophomoric; I get that. I also get that sophomores, and other morons, have staked out the position that any male child who has obtained a sufficient level of sexual maturity to be used as a human dildo by a “hot” woman is a lucky dog. Well, that spectacularly stupid and unethical position does a great deal to help sexual predators like Walsh victimize children, who are misled into feeling that something must be wrong with them if they really don’t want be used.

Since the site is a repeat offender, I’m sure Fark’s wags intend to keep doing this. So I guess Ethics Alarms will have to keep reminding everyone what irresponsible ethics dunces their warped sense of appropriate treatment of young boys shows them to be.

“Duuuunce”

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Spark: Fark

Facts, Graphic: KATU

Unethical Quote of the Week: Drew Curtis’ Fark

/ Jack Marshall / 61 Comments

“Seduced by your teacher at 16 thereby robbing of your childhood, oh yeah that’s surely worth 10 million…”

—Drew Curtis’ Fark, satirical news aggregation site, commenting on a mother’s 10 million dollar lawsuit against Brooklyn and the teacher who had repeated sex with the mother’s 16-year-old son, whom she was supposed to be tutoring.

Erin Sayer—teacher, child molester, sex fantasy. “How to GO kid! I’d hit that, for sure!”

Let me begin by saying that Fark is one of my favorite sites. It is consistently irreverent and funny, and its news links have inspired some of the most interesting exchanges on Ethics Alarms. Let me also say that I understand that the point of the site is to make snarky, often irreverent, sometimes obscene and intentionally outrageous tongue-in-cheek comments about news stories  trivial, major and odd, and that for the most part, it accomplishes its mission with wit and good humor.

This comment, however, is wrong, unethical, because whatever value it has as humor is outweighed by the harmful attitude it reinforces. Whether it is the  sentimental, , “Summer of 42” myth of the beautiful right-of passage of a teen-aged boy with the help of a loving, lovely, adult woman, or the macho “All right–I sure would have loved to have had a roll in the sack with MY hot high school teacher!” reaction of the locker room crowd, the idea that an adult teacher seducing and having sexual relations with a minor student is anything but sexual assault, rape, and a dastardly breach of trust, position and power does affirmative and continuing harm. The currency and resiliency  of this enabling attitude (read the comments to any online news story about a female teacher prosecuted for having sex with a student) emboldens sexual predators in the schools, reinforces an indefensible double standard ( a male teacher who has sex with a female student is an unequivocal villain, but a boy being raped by a female teacher is a lucky stiff) ) and worst of all, makes student victims more vulnerable.

The cultural assumption that a boy who is seduced by a teacher has been given some kind of gift is in the same category as the claim that women who are raped secretly “want it.” It is important that this theme be rejected, which means that websites like Fark shouldn’t reinforce it even in jest, because the jest does reinforce it.  Hitting communities, schools and teachers with tough jury verdicts is an essential part of eliminating this far too common crime in our schools. Ten million dollars in damages properly states how wrong and intolerable the conduct is, and like all forms of rape, it is nothing to laugh at.

________________________________________

Facts: Fark

Source, Graphic: Daily Mail

(Again, thanks to Jeff Field for catching a typo!)

Settlement Corruption and Ethics Failure: The Kelley Currin-Rick Curl Saga

/ Jack Marshall / 18 Comments

” Ah, what a beauty! $150,000 well spent!”

Imagine, if you will, that the late Joe Paterno didn’t take action to expose the child-molesting proclivities of his former assistant coach Jerry Sandusky, not because he was concerned about his cherished football program’s image, but because Sandusky paid him off with a big check. Can we all agree that this would have been even more reprehensible than what actually occurred? I assume so. Paterno would have been enriching himself with the sacrifice of young innocents to a pedophile.

Now compare that hypothetical with what we know about the developing scandal around renowned swimming coach Rick Curl, who has trained Olympian swimmers for decades. took a leave of absence from the club he founded Wednesday in the wake of accusations that he engaged in a sexual relationship with a teen swimmer and then paid her and her parents to keep quiet as part of a settlement. Continue reading →

The Freeland Community School District Law Suit: Just or Joke?

/ Jack Marshall / 9 Comments

It’s time for another Ethics Quiz!

Freeland (Mich.) High School Marcie L. Rousseau has already been sentenced to prison for committing sex crimes with one of her students, but the matter is hardly over. The student’s lawyer says he is seeking at least $1 million in damages in a lawsuit  naming Rousseau, the Freeland Community School District, Freeland Superintendent Matthew A. Cairy, Freeland High School Principal Jonathan Good and former high school Assistant Principal J. Barry Weldon Jr. as defendants. The suit alleges negligence, and that the three administrators “neither completed a proper investigation nor reported the findings as they had a legal and ethical obligation to do,” despite having sufficient information to alert them that Rousseau was having sex with her student, who was 16 at the time.

This is pretty standard stuff. What is causing some skepticism and hilarity around news rooms, coffee machines and the Internet, however is this: the lawsuit  claims that the young man has suffered and continues to suffer “physical, psychological and emotional injury” because of the illicit relationship with Rousseau, which the law suit claims “was non-consensual”  and which, according to police reports, included at least 100 instances of sexual intercourse and at least 75 other sex acts between May 2009 and February of 2010.

Your question:

Is the law suit’s contention that the young man participated in various forms of sex with his teacher against his will inherently absurd and dishonest when it includes 175 sex acts in a nine month period? Continue reading →

Planned Parenthood Gets The ACORN Treatment

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments

Taking its inspiration from James O’Keefe’s infamous ACORN stunt, and anti-abortion group called Live Action videotaped actors as they asked Planned Parenthood staff at a New Jersey clinic for advice while disguised as a pimp and one of his prostitutes. Sure enough, just like in the incident that helped destroy ACORN, the eager-to-please Planned Parenthood staff member cooperated, advising the couple how to get abortions and other services for the “pimp’s” prostitutes, some of them described as illegal immigrants and girls as young as 14.

The episode raises several ethical issues: Continue reading →