Edmonds, P. (1996, April 1). "Teen pregnancy revives laws on statutory rape." USA Today, pp. 1A-2A.

OVERVIEW

Statutory rape is defined as having sexual relations with a female who is not of statutory (legal) age of consent. High rates of teenage pregnancy have focused attention on male predators and revisited the issue of statutory rape. Studies show that half the pregnant girls 15-17 are involved with men of age twenty or older.

Until the late 1960s, a 17-year-old senior having sex with his 16-year-old girlfriend (who might be a junior) could be charged with statutory rape. With the sexual revolution, the attitude of the law became (in the words of U.S. Senator Joseph Lierberman, D-Connecticut), " ‘Why enforce the laws?’ because kids were becoming more sexually active earlier."

Now, studies—like the Alan Guttmacher Institute—find men in their twenties or older are fathers in half the million teenage pregnancies a year (among girls ages 15-17). Many of these teenager girls are having sex willingly; some are finding it difficult to resist, and others are having sex against their will and not reporting it.

Teenage girls may find older men more confident and attractive; their money, cars, and apartments may also lure these girls. Increasingly, some of these girls may suffer physical abuse and even murder at the hands of men abusing alcohol and drugs to escape other problems.

Many states are rewriting their laws to distinguish between sexual activity among high school students and older men having sex with girls. In Syracuse, New York, the district attorney’s office had 100 to 150 such cases reported each year from a city of 164,000 and formed a special bureau to handle such cases. The director of the bureau, Assistant District Attorney, Rick Trunfio, says:

If we started trying to police teen dating and peer sexual activity, we’d be arresting most of the populations of the schools. What we’re really looking for is the predators (older men taking advantage of young girls).

Cases of teenage infatuation may be difficult for parents, and even courts, to monitor. The "romance" can take on a Romeo and Juliet kind of drama and fervor. The Syracuse court order obtained by the parents of 15-year-old Jessica Dattler to prevent her from being with the 32-year-old suburbanite, Neil McCarty, did not stop them. McCarty explained, "It worried us a little, but we wanted to see each other real bad."

The age of consent varies greatly in various states. In Arkansas, Arizona, California, Florida, Idaho, Illinois, Mississippi, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, Tennessee, Virginia, and Wisconsin, the age of consent is 18. Hawaii and Pennsylvania have the lowest age of consent at 14; Colorado is at 15. Other states set the age at 16 or 17. Increasingly, these statutes distinguish older perpetrators for harsher sentences. Florida’s "Teen Predator Act" would create a felony when a man over 21 impregnates a girl under 16. California and other states are following a similar course, making it a more serious charge when the girl is actually impregnated.

QUESTIONS FOR REFLECTION AND DISCUSSION

1. In many, especially developing, countries around the world, older (married and single) men are finding young girls attractive as consorts. In East African countries such men are called "sugar daddies" (newspaper articles also mention "sugar mommies"). In some countries, there are charges of young female slavery for sexual purposes. Do you think the predators discussed here have anything in common with such practices?
2. In terms of older men with teenage girls, what do you see as the motives and deeper needs of the man and girl involved?
3. To what extent do you see this matter as a legal issue and to what extent is it a larger social problem?
4. Who, do you think, needs to read this article carefully?

IMPLICATIONS

1. Our society must move from total focus on pregnant teenage girls to the boys and men who impregnate them. We must begin to teach and enforce male responsibility in sexual matters. To do so will run against the current of double standards and praising "macho" sexuality.
2. Several teenage girls have been found, in the summer of 1996, murdered by men in their twenties and thirties. These young women had been associating, in some cases living, with older men before their deaths. We are not surprised to find that some of them were high school dropouts. Girls not only need education on such matters; they need to find a place for themselves in today’s world.
3. Many school teachers and youth workers have had affairs with teenage girls. It is easy to understand the "crush" that a young woman can have for an older man. Those who serve young people may be caught off guard as to how powerfully such attention feeds unrecognized needs in their own lives. All professionals and youth leaders should be aware of such dangers and the legal aspects of such liaisons. They must be trained to understand their responsibility and the breach of trust involved in such unprofessional behavior. Even willing teenage accomplices can suffer lifelong emotional wounds as a result of intimacy with an older leader.

Dean Borgman cCYS