Sometimes I like to look at pictures of 14 year-old girls. Just to see what they look like. Young, mature, innocent, experienced, etc. Then I like to look at pictures of men in their mid-20’s to see what they look like. Except when I look up the 20 year-old males they usually look all the same to me. At least pretty much.
Every time I meet a girl who’s 13 or 14, I take special note of her; how she acts, thinks, talks, looks, and just her overall character. I think of myself at that age. Try to remember what I was like. If I was like that girl. If part of me can relate to her. Usually, for the large part, not.
What do you think of a girl who is 14? Do you think she is a girl? A young woman? A child? Capable of making her own decisions? Small decisions? Big decisions? Someone who is responsible and can stay home alone? Someone who can go out in a car with older friends? Someone who can make critical life choices?
What do you think of a man in his mid-20s? Immature? Responsible? Irresponsible? Party animal? Careless? Carefree? Driven? Apathetic? Is he a man? Is he someone who goes to college? Works full time? Lives at home? In his own home? In an apartment? Pays bills? Takes responsiblity for his actions? Has a healthy sense of life? A healthy sexual appetite? Is capable of making important judgement calls?
What do you think about a man in his mid-20s hanging out with a girl who is 14?
What about that girl’s parents who allow them to hang out. Alone. Do you think it is strange? Normal? Common? Uncommon? Okay? Wrong? No big deal?
Is it any different that having a “big brother” or “big sister” through one of those organizations? Do they perform background checks? What are their true motives? Can anyone every really know anyone’s true motives?
What do you think about a guy in his mid 20s having the 14 year-old girl have sex with him? Is it his fault for doing that? Is it her fault for not speaking up? Is it his fault for not listening to her? Is it her fault for keeping putting herself back in that situation?
Is it consensual? Is it rape? Is it right? Is it wrong? Is it no big deal? Is a 14 year-old mature enough for that sort of relationship? Is a 14 year-old mature enough for that sort of relationship with a twenty-something year-old? Is a twenty-something year-old normal in his wanting to be with a 14 year-old? Is he perverted? Is he not?
What do you think?
…I know these aren’t things most people think about - or at least normally. But at times I can’t help but think about it, because it happened to someone I know. And things like that haunt me.
8 comments:
Let's see. My future son in law is 27. My daughter is 21. Her younger (not youngest) sister will be 13 in July.
I've known future son in law for a couple of years. He's a recovering drug addict -- not your average joe. He's a special Joe. He's either being ten times as responsible as most 27 year-olds (college and work and being one fantastic daddy), or he's on his way to hell and then hopefully another round of rehab. We've had a great six months. If he relapses, we'll start over.
Moose is 19, and in a steady relationship with a 17 year-old girl. 17 year old girl seems ready for the loony-bin in my book, with all her manipulating, her lack of logic, her wallowing in emotionalism. But who am I to judge? I was not adopted from Guatamala and raised by white people who insisted on my gratitude in a land my mother never knew.
At 13, Gina is ready to run our country. You can trust her to act with compassion and logic in equal measure. She still thinks sex is going to be gross, but maybe she hasn't met the right guy yet? I don't know. I hope she likes sex some day, because she's going to have to have sex in order to give me a grandbaby, and, if Myrtle's baby is any indicator, Gina's babies are going to bring down the house, rock my world, fill my soul with hope!
What are you really driving at, Sarah? What's on your mind? You can trust us.
Generally speaking, in 2006,asopposed to say, 1706, I would call a twenty-five year-old bangin' a fourteen year-old a flipped out, effed-up, freakin' pedophile. I would be tempted to prosecute for statutory rape. Whether I did so would depend mostly on what the girl says, who the girl truly is. Maturity/adulthood ain't a number. It's experience, intelligence, and sensibility, and it is all of those things within the context of the operating social paradigm.
Oh good golly.
Yes, like Zilla, I'd like to know what happened.
A six year spread is fine, but 14 is too young, I don't care HOW mature the 14-year-old says or thinks she is.
I was a very mature 14-year-old, in that I could run a household, cook, clean, responsibly get to school, keep my grades up, etc.
But I was NOT ready for sex. Not even when several friends made the leap into high school from the back seat of some upper classman's car.
I fell hard for a guy two years older, and he tried EVERYTHING to get me to have sex with him. If I could possess myself again at that age with all the knowledge I now have about a woman's right to know when she's not ready...but now that I think about it, he taught me many things about the kind of man I DIDN'T want to spend my life with. He was all about sex, and he admitted that to me a few years later. I DIDN'T KNOW THAT at the time. I really thought it was some sort of fairytale/melodramatic situation.
Thank GOD I somehow managed to continuously say no to him. It would have ruined my life if I hadn't.
Somehow I knew sex would make me completely powerless.
I waited until it was all my idea.
14-year-olds should be making out, feeling each other up, but NOT having sex, and a 20-year-old who thinks the 14-year-old knows what she's doing is WRONG, and should NOT be allowed around children who are in a program that's supposed to help them make mature decisions.
20-year-old male matched with a 14-year-old girl in an after school program?? What the hell?
Just because a body is capable of producing a child doesn’t mean that a body should produce a child, or that a body should be engaging in activities that could result in a child conceiving a child. We are not living in the back woods of po dunk Arkansas, times have changed, society has changed, women are given more of a chance to be independent creatures without looking for the support of some, of age man to take care of them. Thank God/Goddess.
The questions about twenty something males, yes to all of them, their behaviors vary depending on who the young men are.
Do I think a young man of twenty something should pursue a fourteen year old girl? No, not really.
She may be absolutely gorgeous, with her long legs, new boobies and flaxen hair, or whatever, but she is still a young girl in my book. If a twenty something male is intrigued by a young woman wait till she is at least of legal age before he goes to stomping around her in that way, by that time she may have outgrown him. Imagine continuing to love the same things that you loved at fourteen when you are twenty…..difficult to imagine, for me, but I suppose some would.
There are exceptions to every rule, but I tend to believe that young girls are just that, young, and in this time we live in they do not have to grow up so quickly. It is NOT to their advantage to grow up so quickly particularly, in a asexual way, it tends to close off some of their options in life. I don’t think it is ideal for a young girl to have to make important life decisions about intimacy at the age of fourteen.
Love ya, mean it, Lori
Yes, fill us in, willya?
that should read a sexual way, not a asexual...sheesh.
My daughter is 13, I would never ever let her hang around with a 20 year old guy. Never. I have to force myself to let her hang around with her 14 year old boyfriend. Someone is supposed to protect a young girl from a situation like that. I don't know what happened, but it sounds terrible for the girl. We are off to a bad start when big brother and sisters are called in, it usually means that parental role models are lacking, but aren't they supposed to be same sex?
first off, I apoligize for my comment regarding the big brother/big sister program. this had nothing to do with it and obviously I was not well-educated enough about it to make a justified comment regarding it. I don't know why it seemed appropriate at the moment for me to cite, because obviously it is lacking justification.
secondly, perhaps I will go into further detail in the future about this bullsh*t, but I thank those of you who have left their earnest and heartfelt comments. I'm sorry I am not pursuing this further. all I know now is all I needed confirmed for the meantime: a fourteen year old and a twenty four year old are not an 'okay' thing.
There is nothing as surreal and frightening as looking into the eyes of a 14 year old mother... yes, mother.
No girl.... no young woman so full of promise and youth should have that knowledge in her eyes. The knowledge of labor and birth and that certain loss of identity which only mother's know.
Her eyes should not be so full of adoration and giving for her child... her eyes should be full of adventure and learning and things yet to come.
May her eyes be spared that knowledge.
oh my God/Goddess, Anna, you said it, you said it exactly and perfectly.
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