In a scant eighteen months my eldest child will be the same age. In under nine, she’ll be in junior high. And while the lessons of “no means no” and “you have the right to say who touches your body” have been bandied about our house since she was a barely out of babyhood, I am in no way ready to tackle the more difficult lessons that must be taught and soon.
Her current school exists almost entirely on a single level; the only set of steps leads to a multipurpose room that’s empty at no point during the day and which is clearly visible from the main entrance and the principle’s office. The idea of a sexual assault being perpetrated there seems ridiculous.
Equally ridiculous is the fact that my mind went first to the stairs when I heard about the assault referenced above. My daughter is safe now, I thought. But what about next year? Will her new school have any stairs? Am I supposed to tell her to stay off the stairs, or travel the stairs only in a pack? Of course that assault had nothing to do with stairs, and no matter how many rules I compiled about appropriate stair usage an assault could be attempted there or anywhere else.
And this is what’s worrying me. I could teach my kids every last rule about not leaving drinks unattended or being aware of surroundings or keeping keys between fingers or not dressing provocatively it’s not enough. Rules aren’t enough to keep them safe. They’re just enough to cause guilt if things go wrong.
In a perfect world it would be enough to teach the girls and the boy alike is that sex should only happen after receiving an enthusiastic yes. For this world though, that lesson’s clearly not enough.
There is an awful lot to this story. First, if true, the response I would suggest is to start Tai Chi, which can be taught as a fitness practice without discussing the martial arts aspect; no alarmism, but gives your daughter some ability which might be useful in a pinch.
However, buried in the story is the reason at least one of the staffers thinks it did not happen, his opinion that the girl could deck the guy anytime she wanted. The scenario here would be consensual sex with the rape claim used to cover an acutely embarassing situation. Once it gets to the prosecutors, the statutory issue seems to have dominated. Even if the girl recants and says she made the charges in a panic, it sounds like the prosecutor would carry on with the statutory charge. If the boy goes to jail, the girl might be almost as scarred by guilt as she would have been if she were actually raped. Given the artificial nature of staturory consent (has ranged from 12 to an effective age of 18) and the fact that teens are going to experiment with sex at a wide variety of ages, I am not sure that statutory charges should be pressed when the kids are close in age.
In this day with the “sex outside marriage is evil” crowd in the ascendant, and felony charges filed for sexting, I think one thing that needs to be added to sex ed at age 9 or 10 is coverage of current state laws on age of consent, sexting, nudity, etc. This course should include a recommendation to check the laws of other states because what is legal in one state can get you a prison sentence in another. It is sad that this area of life has become so loaded with legal booby traps, but children need to know that sex is not just about their bodies but also the impact on others around them. Does your school system include this in its curriculum?
I suppose it’s always easier to believe that the victim actually wanted it, and the charge came from embarrassment.
And we all know that if a woman (or girl) didn’t yell or fight off her attacker, then it can’t possibly be rape.
Um, right?
:(
While I loathe to jump on the “she asked for it” or “why didn’t she scream” bandwagon, I do know from experience (my husband is a police detective) that there are rape cases where it was conscentual but the girl would have gotten in trouble (either because she was cheating on her boyfriend or her parents caught her). And many parents file stautory charges when their “little girl” gets caught having sex with her boyfriend.
So, it’s possible that this wasn’t an assault. But concluding that based solely on the fact that she didn’t punch him in the mouth or kick him in the balls or scream her head off is showing a startling lack of knowlege about the subject of rape.
My point about the teachers’ comments was that we should not make judgements based on media reports since in cases like these the tendency is to take the Nancy Grace road and write the story in a prosecutorial tone. The fact that the teacher’s who know the kids are skeptical is a point for keeping an open mind on the case. And as one of the other comments shows, false rape charges generated from fear or embarrasement do occur. My comment did not make a final statement of guilt or innocence but was a caution against leaping to conclusions from incomplete evidence. I hate such stories in part because they make it hard to get an impartial jury.
The case is apparently being prosecuted on statutory grounds, and that is where you need to focus, because your daughter needs to know that even if she wants to have sex, she can get her (future?) boyfriend in trouble if an overzealous prosecutor gets his hands on the case. My own high school was lamentably inadequate, and I have not seen anything in debates about sex education related to including the legal issues. A case mentioned on NPR concerne a case in which a couple was married with the cosent of both sets of parents when the girl was fourteen, then the age of consent in their state (and historically in many other states). They moved to a neighboring state where the age of consent was sixteen. The local prosecutor initiated prosecution of stautory rape against the husband. This is why sex education courses should include legal issues and the information that laws vary across states; with the additional penalties related to sexual offenses (note that there is not a registry of released murderers, armed robbers, burglars, or assaults) kids need to be aware of the new ways early sex can ruin their lives and those of their partners.
I have to admit that this is one time I am very glad that I have a son and not a daughter. My little one just turned 11, and while he knows about sex, waiting until you’re older and condoms, I haven’t had the consent conversation (per se) with him. We always stress that when someone asks him to stop leaning on them, etc., that he must comply. I suppose it is time to have that conversation with him.
You’ve done all you can for now to protect your daughter for now. Keep stressing that her body is hers and only she can grant access to it, and make sure she knows that it’s perfectly OK to hit, punch, scratch, kick, scream or whatever if someone attacks her. Sometimes I think we try so hard to make our girls kind and gentle that we don’t give them the tools kick up a fuss when they really need to. And yes, I realize that fighting back guarantees nothing, but if she has that aura around her that she’s not going to take shit from anyone, it can serve to make her seem like too much trouble to a predator. Just another layer, I think.
Finn it’s so nice to hear of parents teaching their sons how to prevent rape. So much time is spent instructing girls on how to be non-provocative and defend themselves and so little seems to be spent questioning how we can teach young boys to navigate issues of consent so they do not rape.
My parents spent so much time teaching me to fear being assaulted by anyone at any time that they neglected to teach me actual facts about sex and convinced me, for a while, that I should be uncomfortable in any situation with a male. I still tense up when I sleep next to someone else, after years of relationships with men I could and did trust.
You can’t save your daughter from anything ever happening to her. You can’t prevent everyone in the world from hurting her. What you can do is teach her that her body is hers, that she has a right to it and to cherish it no matter what anyone else tries to do. You can teach her that no matter what could possibly happen in her life, she will still be herself and no one can take that away from her. You can teach her to love life, to look at sex and relationships healthily, to trust when she believes someone is worth trusting. You can teach her that in spite of the pain that comes along with life sometimes, there are innumerable amounts of good. And then you teach her how to be safe, teach her to physically defend herself when need be, let her have the resources that give her access to other resources for her protection, like a cell phone, knowledge of the way alcohol will affect her body, etc.
And you teach her that if anyone ever tries to hurt her, it is not her fault, no matter what anyone else says.
But it sounds like you do a very good job at that already.
My girls take karate, it has built their confidence and they have a useful skill and we have a very close friendship with a lot of the families involved now, also. My son has been raised to respect women, he is now 20, teaches karate and not to pat myself on the back but he is a wonderful guy. I was raped by a friend’s older brother when I was 13, their mom wanted me to be safe on the walk home and he decided to take a detour into the woods. You can prepare them as much as you can but ultimately you can not be with them every minute of every day.