Phile is love for, not so?
So a paedephile is a lover of children.
Anyone who teaches children is also a lover of children. You’d have to be.
Sometimes, however, this love is tainted.
Oh shit, I don’t really know what I’m trying to say.
[quote]And you still haven’t answered my question regarding “known” paedophiles. Are you trying to say there are schools here who say: “OK, you are a known paedophile, but that’s fine. You’re hired.” What a load of tosh!
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When I say known pedophiles I mean known in their own country. I am not familiar with the laws and regulations regarding teaching and criminals in the UK. In the US we have both state and now national level databases containing the names and information of known sexual offenders. I doubt there is a state in the union that does not prohibit sexual offenders from teaching children. In some states convicted sex offenders are required to notify everyone in their neighborhood of their criminal past.
backgroundsearches.com/sexual_offender/
Well, what kind of figures do you have to support your claim that there are many known sex offenders teaching kids in Taiwan? And how do you know that these people are here? Are there some kind of US/UK/Australian, etc. government statistics showing how many known sex offenders have applied for passports and moved overseas and to where? And even if you were to, say, persuade the government to insist on a Certificate of Clean Criminal Record (CCRD) for all people wishing to teach English, wouldn’t that simply mean that such known offenders would simply do as so many others do and teach illegally. Or perhaps you’d prefer a CCRD for EVERYONE who enters Taiwan. I suppose that would solve the problem, but at what cost?
Of course, this also fails to address the fact that the vast majority of known sex offenders tend to be a good bit older than the average kid teaching kindergarten classes. So the CCRD for these people would be a bit pointless, don’t you think, as they could be around the kids for months or even years before the urge took them.
Anyway, you said earlier that it would be “easily avoidable.” Care to elaborate on that?
People convicted of felonies cannot leave the U.S. until their sentence (including any parole) is completely served. And at least here in Washington state, the second sexual felony (rape, child molestation, etc.) that a criminal commits puts him in prison for life. (There was an effort to make the first sentence be a mandatory life sentence, but that seems to have failed.)
Between those laws and the sex-offender registries that all states have, I’d say that at least the U.S. is doing its part to make the world safer for children. No idea about the rest of the English-teacher-producing nations.
Back to the original posting … I also heard this story from several Taiwanese friends. Apparently, the kid was hard up for money, so the foreigner offered to pay him for sex. The kid found out he got an STD, and it was reported to the police. So, it’s not only rape, but soliciting prostitution too. If any of you have visited any of the gay chatrooms or message boards here (which, unless you’re gay, you probably haven’t), there are frequently foreigners looking for sex with young boys. It’s sad, but because of the stigma that still exists here with homosexuality, Taiwanese kids are less likely to report or admit to something like that because of how their families and society would treat them. When I was 15 or 16, I’d never think of going off and screwing around with a 30 year old, but apparently here many boys like “mature” guys (unfortunately, they mistake age with “maturity”, and I would hardly call a 30 year old guy going around looking for sex with junior high or high school boys “mature”). Anyway, I don’t think this is a sensationalist story, I think it’s serious, and I don’t think it’s an isolated incident. I hope the Taiwanese police will start to get serious about this kind of thing. It’s not an issue of gay sex, it’s an issue of rape.
It’s an issue of alleged rape.
It’s an issue of statutory “rape”. The kid willingly consented. Not to defend the sleazy 30 year old’s actions, but there is a degree of considerable difference between having consensual sex with a teenager and violently forcing someone to have sex. I’ve always felt uncomfortable with the ease in which the term “rape” is glibly thrown about in these kinds of situations.
A Junior High kid? Sure they might ‘consent’, but even an old pervert like me would draw the line at a higher age. I teach junior high, and anyone fucks my kids gonna get bits cut off - consent or no.
Sure it’s morally repellent and should be considered a criminal felony. But it ain’t rape. Words have meanings. Rape is a violent sexual assualt - it is a crime of violence. To indiscriminately throw around the word “rape” to describe every sex crime on the books is to cheapen the damage of real rape. The law recognizes that there are degrees of crimes. My issue is with the uncomfortable wording of the felony “statutory rape” - it’s a matter of semantics. No one here is defending the crime itself - of course the guy’s a sleazeball pervert who ought to face criminal charges.
mod lang,
I understand your point… but…
Rape is, IMO, a vile crime… in theory, a rapist, IMO, deserves the death penalty.
But rather than being necessarily a “violent” crime, I think it is a “violative” crime. That is, the rapist violates the victim… who may struggle (in which case the crime could turn violent, or who may passively resign her/himself to the violation, in order to avoid further violation in the form of violence.
Rape needn’t be “violent”… it need only be unconsented. If we define rape as a “violent” crime, we run the risk of requiring victims to struggle and thus open themselves to violence.
In cases of statutory rape, where the “victim” consented, the law treats the victim as beng too young to have the capacity to consent to the acts.
Thus, we believe that even a young person who agrees to some sexual acts with an adult has not actually consented to the same… because such young person is incapable of providing such consent.
If you have children, the idea that they are incapable of providing actual consent for many forms of conduct and behavior is obvious.
I agree there should be different language to describe consenting sex between two people when one is a minor. Sort of like murder one versus manslaugther two. You can’t leave the statutory part out of it, or you make it sound like murder one. At the same time, it’s still rape, because minors are incapable of consent. All crime is wrong and must be punished, but the punishment must fit the crime, and the courts would be shirking their obligations to mete out punishment otherwise.
I think it’s interesting that there’s a double standard for statutory rape in the public’s mind. Statutory rape of a girl is assumed to be “taking advantage” of the girl and shock/outrage is the main response. Cases of statutory rape of a boy by an older woman you see in the papers usually get lots of media coverage because the story is more sensational. Most people think that with all the hormones floating around a teenage boy’s body, he isn’t being harmed as much as getting lucky. So this kind of statutory rape fails to engender the same moral outrage, yet prosecutors must apply the law with an even hand. You might pretend in your mind that this double standard in people’s minds doesn’t exist, but it does.
I wonder how people react to hearing about man and boy gay statutory rape, which side of the double standard does that fall on?
No. Rape is sex without consent. As children are judged to be too young to give informed consent, (legally they are below the ‘age of consent’) then sex with a minor is rape. Simple really. If you want to be more precise you can go on to talk about violent rape, or sexual assault for the kind of rape - ‘act of violence’ - you are talking about.
Brian
Then you agree that there are degrees of “rape”. I dunno - we always keep hearing the cliche from feminists about how “rape is about violence, not sex!” that if you are to remain consistent then you can’t call non-violent sex “rape”. You have to coin a new word to describe this kind of low-level “rape” - seems like too extreme and loaded of a word to use for consensual sex with a teenager.
And it has to be said - this teenage boy was acting just as sleazily as the 30-year-old, though with more excuse for his slimy behavior because of his youth. When I was 15 I wasn’t hanging out on chat boards trolling for sex with older women and willing prostituting myself out to older ladies. The teenager is hardly an innocent. He commited the crime of prostitution. He went out of his way to prowl on the internet for sex, and made elaborate arrangements for a sleazy liason in a hotel or apartment. His decision to have sex with the man he met on the internet was premeditated long in advance - he wasn’t some virgin seduced on the spur of the moment by some slick predator. From the looks of things, if the boy hadn’t gotten an STD he would have kept it all in the closet.
BTW, two questions:
- What’s the legal age of consent in your country & Taiwan?
- What’s the average age when teenagers first start becoming sexually active in Taiwan & your country?
Notice the overlap?
When in college I volunteered at a women’s shelter for a time. Rape there was regarded as a criminal act of forceful control over another.
But certainly some acts of rape are more horrible than others.
You’re very right about the double standard. Seattle had a pretty bad case a few years ago – Mary Kay LeTourneau, a schoolteacher, statutorily-raping one of her students starting when he was around 11.
The first phase was pretty much “wow, what a lucky kid!” and lots of sympathy for them both, since they professed to love each other and she was pregnant with his baby. IMHO most people felt she shouldn’t even be sent to jail, but she was.
There were a few minor stories while she was in prison, about how she was contacting him despite a no-contact order, but nobody took it seriously.
Then she got out of prison on parole. There was still a no-contact order, but she violated it repeatedly – and got pregnant again. This time around, the media took it seriously, and the courts gave her a 7.5 year sentence with no chance of parole. And despite the no-contact order, there have still been a few stories about her threatening to kill him when she gets out if he sees other women.
Meanwhile, her victim is about 18 now, has been in and out of jail for car theft and drug abuse, and somehow has to raise two small children. He is a very screwed-up kid, has serious depression problems, and faces a very poor future.
That’s not necessarily true. It’s just as likely that this kid was in the chatroom (they’re not only places for hooking up) chatting, came across this foreigner, was depressed because of money problems, and Mr. Sleazy Laowai says, “Hey, I know a way to help you out …” Regardless, there is NO excuse for what this foreigner did. Consensual or not, a 30 year old man has NO business sleeping with a junior high school kid, boy or girl.
All very well about the rape vs. statutory rape but isn’t there also grounds to do the 30 year old for buggering the lad without protection? Perhaps assault with a deadly weapon?
HG
This is not relevant to the rape charges, but I am wondering what kind of money problems did the kid have that he would go this far?
Most kids I know aren’t personally in serious debt. Unless it was their family that was in fin. trouble, or they had a serious gambling problem.
Unless kids are buying big ticket items and living the high life… man… this kid must have owed a lot to even consider this.
[quote]You have to coin a new word to describe this kind of low-level “rape” - seems like too extreme and loaded of a word to use for consensual sex with a teenager.
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It’s not consensual, if the kid is below the age of consent. There’s no need for a new word. You can distinguish between rape and violent rape, by adding the word ‘violent’. And sure there’s a difference in degree. The violent kind is worse.
Brian
Hmmm…just continuing to play devil’s advocate here, but if we’re going by any teenager below the age of consent having sex = rape, then that means that previous to the 20th century (and only in the developed world) probably 90% of the people on this planet were raped repeatedly. A century ago it was normal for a 15 year old to get married and start up a family. Our modern society has created a set of new problems by artificially extending childhood up to 18-21. Kids at 14, 15 want to start having sex - remember when you were that age? It was sheer agonizing torture being a confused virgin about to explode from pent-up hormones with no release. Physically teenagers are ready to start having sex - in fact their bodies demand it, and now! - but psychologically our society has judged, for various reasons, that teenagers aren’t ready and should hold off starting their sex lives for 4 or 5 years after their bodies mature.
By solving one set of problems - teenage pregnancy and other negative consequences of sex that kids might encounter because they’re naive and ignorant due to youth - we create another set of problems. That’s the way life goes. The “can’t give consent because they aren’t capable of giving consent” isn’t the real reason why teenagers are considered off-limits. Of course teenagers are fully capable of giving consent; they’re at their most independent-minded and rebellious against authority stage, after all. The real reason is that society has decided that teenagers having sex is a bad thing, and it’s a double bad thing if it’s an older, more experienced adult taking advantage. No one wants to go back to the days of Jerry Lee Lewis marrying his 13 year old cousin (shudder).