So someone on Reddit posted a video showing time-lapse video of a girl from infanthood to 12 years old. Naturally, Redditors responded with creepy pedophilia jokes, and one Redditor (speaking for many, judging by the numerous upvotes) took the opportunity to complain about just how hard it is for dudes to not have sex with underage girls. Apparently these girls deliberately develop earlier than boys as part of an elaborate plot to entrap guys and send them to jail.
Thanks to ShitRedditSays for pointing me to this latest bit of egregious Redditry.
Amused, that is a really shitty experience, I wish you hadn’t had to go through that…
Falcon, my experiences are fairly common amongst young girls. I went through a lot of shit when I was just starting out in coffee shops. There were older men there who did stand up for me and let it be quietly known that if anything worse happened than “joking” they’d deal with it. And those guys were part of the Hells Angels, not the kind of group you want to mess with.
Yeah, my moms awesome that way. Taught me how to deal with men so that they’d either find themselves too humiliated to continue, or unable to complain about the coffee spilled in their laps. My moms practicle, she knew there would be days when I’d be cornered by someone really unpleasant. Where she couldn’t shelter me she taught me how to deal. My dad would have locked me away if he could. I can’t count the number of times he would be waiting for me in the car late at night because I was working til two in the morning.
I wish my mother was like that. Rather than teaching me how to be safe she basically forbade me from doing anything fun. I had a rather uneventful childhood to say the least =P
This is so absurd.
Now, I once had a brief sexual affair with a sixteen-year-old when I was a twenty-year-old university student (which is legal here, btw). She’d gleefully lie to my acquantances about her age, tell everyone she was eighteen and did her last year in gymnasium when in fact she was at her last year in basic school (in Sweden, we have nine years of Basic School, then three years of gymnasium, then university or college). She was completely convincing, she’d get into parties where alcohol were served and didn’t have to show an ID to anybody. But, well, I knew the truth (only I was so embarressed over my own creepiness that it took quite some time before I came clean to my friends and said, when they mentioned something about this incredibly pretty, funny and clever girl I used to date, that she was actually still in basic school).
I think she just wanted to have a fun, urban lesbian adventure and play at being older than she actually was. She initiated the whole thing, and I found out later that she’d had a same-age boyfriend in the small town where she lived, only she didn’t tell me. So, seemed like it was just some adventure on her part.
You can imagine a situation where I somehow didn’t learn her real age until we’d already slept with each other. And you can imagine that we lived in some state in the USA where the age of consent is eighteen rather than fifteen. In that case, she would have tricked me into doing something legal. It’s not inconcievable. The really absurd claims are that
a) you couldn’t tell a thirteen-year-old from a twenty-year-old – that’s pretty different from not being able to tell a sixteen-year-old from an eighteen-year-old
and
b) that girls would purposely try to put men in jail. It’s one thing to lie about one’s age in order to have a fun little adventure, another thing entirely to go out of one’s way to become a legal rape victim and have people put into prison.
No, but my grandmother dumped a kettle-full of boiling hot water on him after I was able to get away from him and he attempted to chase me up the stairs. A feminist plot!!
My brother and I got a pretty mixed upbringing. She tended to err on the side of teaching opposite gender roles, because she wanted a daughter tough enough to survive in a mans world and a son …how to put this…I guess understanding and gentle enough for women to feel safe with. It worked well since our temperments pretty much fall in line with the opposing gender stereotypes. Not saying that. My bro isn’t manly, he’s been a firefighter and in the rerserves. He just has a balance of masculinity and feels no need to prove himself.
Me, I ended up with a fairly “manly” way of looking at life and dealing with situations. Or so I’m told by folks who prefer the old gender roles.
Way to go Grandma!!!woohoo!
And yes that’s me cheering that a pervert possibly got injured. I make zero apologies about that. I really can’t say how many adults and children (yes boys and men too) can defend themselves, but maybe if that were a bigger risk perverts wouldn’t be so quick to try this shit.
Polliwog: Oh, I know. I just keep hoping maybe one of these days a few of them will accept the revolutionary idea that the risk of not-getting-laid-right-this-second is more acceptable than the risk of raping someone. Hope springs eternal…
But it’s TOTES! not rape. She wanted it. If she can “ask” for it, then consent is just a legal fiction that keeps her from getting what she wants, and punishes men for responding to their “natural” urges.
I think I’ve spent too much time dealing with people who lie to themselves. I can do that far too easily for my comfort. I think I’ll go be a Roman and kill some “barbarians”. I’ll feel less soiled.
Pecunium, it happens. My solution would be planting some new seedlings. At least that way the soil touching me is honest.
I started being mistaken for a 20something at 11 or 12. By 13, I was 5’10” and pretty much fully developed. I talked like a college student too. It is possible to mistake a young teen for an adult, it’s just anomalous. These guys are skeezeballs anyway, because they don’t see why it isn’t ok to sleep with a physically developed 13 year old.
I’m still struggling over the idea that anyone could control their growth and physical development, especially at an age where hormones might (depending on individual development and age) be driving your brain into places you’ve never considered.
If I, as a 21 year old college student, have trouble convincing myself to work out and get back into shape, how can a young person decide to make their body act in a certain way to hurt people ze’s never met?
Also, if women can control their development, wouldn’t that have been noticed and recorded by people long before reddit?
Viscaria: But you know what? If you’d had a conversation with me, you would never, ever have thought I was an adult. I was a young girl, with a young girl’s interests. I had a young girl’s mannerisms and speech patterns.
This. “Janeen” (name has been changed) the young woman I was talking about, only seemed 16 because she was in an atypical environment; which was the main reason those of us who realised she looked older than she was were so protective.
Some of the usual indica were missing. She was wearing non-modern clothing, and using a non-modern style of speech, on non-modern topics.
That was a recipe for potential disaster, when coupled with the naïvte of youth.
1. I can understand how you might have trouble telling the difference between a 16-year-old and 17-year-old, which might be of issue if you’re the sort of creepy guy who’s intent on sleeping with a girl the second she reaches the age of consent. Of course, you could ask, but we know them girls will just lie.
And none of that will change the fact that if you’re over 21, you really shouldn’t be making the sexy with someone under 18, and if you’re over 25, you really shouldn’t be dating anyone under 20. If you are, you’re skeevy, whatever the law says.
(As for not being able to tell a 13-year-old from a 25-year-old? Please.)
2. Stephen Colbert said it last week: our children need to refuse to go through puberty until they get married. Puberty is a choice. If they’re to irresponsible to make that choice, we’ll just have to spay and neuter our children.
Dude, Hercule Poirot could tell from her knees. HER KNEES. I understand you’re not a genius, but it cannot be that hard. (I’m on a bit of an Agatha Christie kick lately, and I just finished Cat Among the Pigeons, which is why it’s on my mind.)
(Also, long time reader, first time commenter. Hello everyone! *waves*)
Holy shit motherfucker! I’ve had to “deal with biological reality” from early on. This isn’t an unusual problem insofar as there are men who want to fuck little girls! Its fucking everywhere! No sooner does a girl sprout I tiny amount of breasts, men will look, asses her, grope her and sometimes corner her. Oh but she looks…is just a halfassed nonpology. And that kind of treatment has a very real effect on the many girls who experience it. Its not funny, its not something all these “jokers” want happening to their daughters. This isn’t about being PC, this is about having the basic decency to let children be children and finding someone who is sexually mature to fuck.
Jayem: Welcome. Do you like limericks?
Jeff Fecke: I don’t think the issue of age is as cut and dried as, “Over 25 anyone under 20 is a sign of ill-intent”. As was said, at length, when Brandon was accusing us of having an irrational hatred of older/younger relationships, large gaps are suspect, but not intrinsically wrong.
I hit puberty early and it was horrible! It’s not that I had problems with adults bothering me, it was a 12 year old boy in my class. I was 11 at the time. At first he thought I was stuffing my bra so he called me, “stuffy.” Then he looked down my shirt and discovered that the nickname was unwarranted. He groped me serveral times that year, and made life miserable. I was too embarrassed to tell an adult about it, was afraid I’d be accused of encouraging the behavior. This was over 30 years ago, and I’m sure worse things happen in schools nowadays.
Lots of comments freed from moderation; scroll up, etc.
I feel sorry for all the young adolescent girls throughout history who were forced into early marriage and childbirth before their bodies were finished growing. I’m sure many died as a result.
Cliff – sorry, I worded that badly! I didn’t mean your comment reminded me of that, I meant the OP’s comment did.
Are we not allowed to make criticism of jokes? I swear, you PI (yeah, it’s an acronym now, maybe that’ll help with trivializing it) types are so sensitive.
And you know, adults who fuck teenagers exist. In the real world. And hence on the Internet.
And they hear people joking about fucking teenagers and they get to think “oh, thank God, it’s not just me, this attraction I have is totally normal and healthy.
It’s the fault of people who don’t bother to find out the age of an obviously young-looking partner.
I mean, no one’s going to be under the age of consent and look thirty, right? So if someone looks like they’re 18 or 19, the onus is on the older partner to find out their age before having sex. Some kids do lie about their age, but I don’t think there are a whole lot that are super convincing.
I think the real problem here is adults thinking “well, if she turns out to be 14, worst that happens is I screw up her life” when maybe they should be thinking “holy shit, if she turns out to be 14 it’ll screw up my life, I better make sure of this!”
And once again I have to wonder where these innocent guys are meeting all those 14-year-olds. Yeah, some 14-year-olds hang with a much older crowd, but it’s not common, and meeting one of them without anyone saying “she’s 14” or her saying anything telling like “I can’t wait until I get a driver’s licence so I can take myself to cheer practice” is even less so.
I don’t think the real answer is “they’re hanging out in schoolyards,” though. I think the real answer is that most of these guys have had no sexual opportunities at all with teenagers, but are consumed with a need to justify why they totally should be allowed if they ever get the chance.
Oh, really, Smoker? You doubt it? Seems there’s plenty of sick fuckery to go around on Reditt these days.
As far as older men having sex with these girls “by accident,” what the fuck? Did they just fall in? CAN NONE OF YOU USE YOUR FUCKING WORDS?
Oh, Smoker. It’d be easier to take the “But what if she looks 18??? And tells me she’s 18??? And shows me a fake ID????” people at face value if that argument weren’t always paired with bullshit like
*Women’s intellect don’t mature, so really, when you think about it, screwing a 12-year-old and a 35-year-old is basically indistinguishable!
*Men are genetically hardwired to prefer 12-year-olds.
*Statutory rape and age of consent laws are a feminist plot to force men to have sex with unattractive old ladies!
And a variety of other statements that make it clear that the people making the arguments are basically against the whole idea of meaningful consent (e.g., pretending that rape never happens and the only reason anyone would ever accuse anyone of rape is because she “regretted” having sex).
For what it’s worth, I’m a person who cannot tell how old people are at all. Like AT ALL. But I can tell if someone’s young or very young. That’s a whole ‘nother thing from walking around complaining about how goddamn unfair life is because there’s all these youngs walking around being all young and shit, and you don’t know which youngs you can have sex with so you should be able to have sex with all of them.
Well Holly, those innocent men were meeting me at my place of work. I was fourteen and working in the local coffee shop alone from three pm to eleven pm most nights. Believe me, I was NOT interested in picking up old men. Yes old men Smoker. Most of the guys there were twenty to fourty years older than me.
Now take a moment to imagine being surrounded by groping leering smut talking women with that age difference. Imagine this is your very first job, and you want to prove you’re responsible and worthy of greater independance. Now imagine wondering if any of that large group of women might take it further or follow you home.
I dealt with the problem one way. Others girls who faced the same problem either tried to go with the flow and not make waves or they quit.
I have never waitressed anywhere that this was not an issue, and when I was a supervisor I made sure that younger women and girls weren’t left to work by themselves.
I have just one word to say, but imagine it in large flashing font scrolling across your screen in HUGE letters:
C R E E P Y!