Criminalizing Teens For Being Teens, Ctd

A reader writes:

I'm a husband, married to a beautiful, intelligent woman for almost 18 years. I'm a father to the brightest, most spirited, most wonderful four-year-old girl you'll ever meet. I'm also a survivor of childhood sexual abuse. I was coerced and molested several times, at the age of 8, by a 14-year-old boy. Most often it was just me and the boy in question; on at least one other occasion (my most vivid and horrific memory), other youth were involved.

I don't deny that the horrors "cls" describes in his post, take place. I don't deny that, yes, at least some of the boys listed on sex offender registries are there for the wrong reasons. I also won't deny that there are double standards, or even triple standards, for how society, families, and the legal system react when young people are abruptly discovered in the middle of sexual exploration.

I do think, however, that "cls" could've served his/her readers... his/her own credibility... and the blogosphere in general, a lot better, had (s)he taken a day or two to conduct more research on sexual abuse, pedophilia, and so forth.

Whenever you have a sexual situation involving young people, it's important to consider the age differences between the parties involved. If the age difference is less than three years, you're most likely dealing with innocent exploration; if the age difference is three years or more, there's a good chance that some sort of coercion is involved.

The occasion I referenced above that involved more than one person? That involved two boys and a girl, and myself. Now, I always knew that I was the youngest one in that situation--but it was only after I'd done extensive research via old public records, city directories and the like, that I discovered that the one boy, my primary perpetrator, was 14, his friend was 11, and the friend's younger sister was only four or five months older than me. I had always viewed this girl as a "perp"; now, in light of my counseling, and some further research, it's *very likely* that this girl was not a perpetrator, but a victim, like myself.

Again, I don't doubt that some of the young boys listed on sex offender registries are there for the wrong reason--but some of them might be there because they did, in fact, commit sexual assault on younger children.