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.
I also wish puberty didn’t start so early. i’ve got a picture of myself at 9 years old in a swimsuit. It’s clear that I had already started growing breasts. I’m in a kiddie pool playing with a doll. I remember that being the age in which my mom told me I was getting too old to play with dolls. I think it’s sad when children are hurried out of childhood.
Puberty has nothing to do with sexual maturity. Why do age of consent discussions always center around girls? One, we know the obvious reason because of whose interest that is, but second… let’s discuss boys getting boners at nine. Surely they’re ready. Stop oppressing me.
@pillowinhell — I know that it’s depressingly common for men and boys to harass women and girls. And your waitressing job sounds like something I couldn’t handle. Hugs for you, if you want them.
@Smoker — SRS isn’t Reddit’s mother ?! !! So calling people out for being assholes is presuming the ability to boss them around? Go climb a tree or something, we’ll all have more fun.
@Ithiliana — I wish I could say I was certain that men could no longer harass young girls in front of their parents, and the incident would be laughed off. Sadly, I’m not certain that it wouldn’t happen that way in all cases today.
Rutee Katreya is right, the age at which women and men married in different times and places has varied greatly, and sometimes has been influenced by things like high infant mortality, life expectancy, harsh environment, et c., as well as culture.
Hey Falconer, no worries, that was well over twenty years ago! Now my worries are for my daughter. Beloved has two daughters, and neither of them have had to deal with that kinda crap beyond the odd comment. So I take heart and hope my daughter will have the same good fortune.
As for myself…I’ve developed a bearing that makes few men want to try that approach with me annnnd..despite my youthful looks, I have quite a bit of grey in my hair that seems to render me invisible to asshats. Two years ago I noticed that mysterious drop off in attention. I dyed my hair to cover the grey and voila! More harrassment! Even women thought I was in college. I couldn’t get the dye stripped from my hair fast enough. I’ll take my past due date hair and call it a blessing.
You know what else bothers me about that thread? That everyone focused on her looks, unless it was to say that she talked a lot. You know, I think that little montage says a lot more about her than just “she’ll be a knockout at twenty”and really, is that the only thing that matters? Or how about the “she looked homeless” comment? Because even at nine her most valuable trait is in her percieved beauty? I’m almost tempted to see the one about the dads son just to compare how the commenting differs, if at all. Anyone want to bet on the themes people talk about on that video?
Okay, boys start developing boners at nine. Girls start getting their periods at 10-13 years. Biology is not an on-off switch, any more than at any point during your childhood you developed a sense of self. You did not start speaking fluent English one day when you were a year and a half old. The hormones that start the development of secondary sexual characteristics are slowly turned on over the course of years. You may notice that in 8 year olds with boners or pre-teens with their periods, it’s all over the place. There is not normal function like we would expect from an adult – random erections, irregular periods, etc. Just because a 13 year old can get pregnant does not mean that the rest of her systems are developed enough to accommodate sustaining a pregnancy, going through childbirth, lactation, etc. It is a long process to reach sexual maturity, and boners at nine years old are the system starting to develop.
Just because you’re developing secondary sexual characteristics also does not mean you’re developing a libido or have the mental maturity to be making decisions about sexual relationships with your peers, let alone with adults. Some kids might be sexually active at 13 with other kids and dealing with it well. It’s fallacious to assume that just because someone’s sexually active by choice at 13 (a tiny minority of the population) that all 13 year olds want to be sexually active. If there was an 8 year old who wanted to be sexually active, was physically and mentally mature enough to make that decision, had a willing partner of a similar age with the same characteristics, was not coerced or pressured, and was capable of understanding the consequences of sexual activity including appropriate use of birth control… more power to them, I guess. But I’m willing to be those 8 year olds don’t exist.
*gives Pillowinhell all the hugs*
Once again I’ve fallen in love with the regular commenters here at manboobz. Isn’t it horrifying the lengths abusers will go to okay pedophilia!? I have a middleschooler and every day twice a day I see 11-14 year olds. Not even one of these children look adult. Could it be that some of these skeevy mras see the body of a teen/tween as the body of a woman, ’cause they just don’t know no better? Just maybe they think a little bit of curves is some sign to signify womanhood, but FYI adolescents look like that. We need way super more realistic examples of real looking women in media so freaks can know the difference. Shapeless narrow bodies are highly coveted beauty by cultural standards.
****No, I take it all back–child abusers look for the qualities of pubescence in order to exploit children. There is a special place in hell for child rapists and sympathizers.
Creepy scumbag storytime!
I had B-cups at age 11 and they just kept growing. It sucked so very much. Guys mostly left me alone until I got a job in the county library at 16. (I’m not even cute, by the way. Busty, yes. Cute, no.)
When I was 17, this middle-aged guy started hitting on me while I’m shelving books. I told him I was 17 and it didn’t even faze him; he just kept flirting. Then he asked who my parents were. I told him. He stammered a bit and fled. I asked my dad about the guy later. They had graduated high school together. So in this guy’s mind, it was perfectly okay for a 42-year-old man to hit on a 17-year-old girl, but not the 17-year-old daughter of an old schoolmate. Creep.
“Its about business”. Yup nothin like arms length child prostitution! And look! They don’t even have to pay her!
Smoker:
“I seriously doubt anyone in that thread is an ephebophile.”
The “joke” is not a joke, and has nothing to do with ephebophilia. You don’t know what ephebophilia is. When people use words they don’t understand, it doesn’t actually make them sound smart.
I have some sympathy for ephebophiles; I think they genuinely can’t control who they’re attracted to, at least not on a conscious level.
I have no sympathy for guys who aren’t ephebophiles, but have taken the fetishization of youth and submissiveness and innocence so far that an adult woman just wouldn’t be a big enough ego boost any more.
I watched the original video and read through the comments. The vast majority of the comments were about the artistic merit of the video, or what a beautiful thing for these children to have from their parents etc.
Some of them questioned if the children (there was one made of his? son as well) were wiling participates and how they would deal with the videos latter in life.
I have to call foul David. I don’t know a thing about redit except for what I’ve read here, and this is the first time I’ve followed a link to it. From what I’ve seen in this case it would be more then fair to call out the persons who made the offending comments but the thread itself about the video from what I read was rather heart-warming.
I’m in high school, and no, we don’t look like adults. I have never seen anyone from the ages of 13-15, male or female, who could be interpreted as being in their 20s. Having breasts/curves does not make a teenaged girl look like an adult.
Kavette, he did call out the offensive comments. Nowhere in the OP is the original video being called the problem.
hellkat
The title makes me believe that reddit is somehow to blame or completely overrun by horrid people. I’ve read threads here before without following the links and had come to that conclusion.
I was a bit taken aback when I followed the link, watched the video, and shed a few tears along with the vast majority of posters.
Why does hellkell always become hellkat?
Or helicat. Which makes me imagine a helicopter/cat hybrid. That would be kind of awesome actually!
@snowy
heehehe helicopter catttttt.
@kavette
Ok don’t take out your lack of following up on David. Why didn’t read you actually read the thing before you jumped to that conclusion?
Why people always act passive aggressive about other people’s usernames I will never understand.
“And here is where the crowd will come in and tell you that they know someone who was of legal age, was asked for ID once, and got offended and didn’t have sex with the person who asked. It’s the same argument we hear all the time from people who don’t bother to get explicit consent. “If I ask if they want me to have sex with them, they might decide they don’t! And then I won’t get to have sex!”
The number of people who would rather take their chances that they’re raping someone (whether it’s an adult who is capable of consent, but hasn’t given it; or an adolescent who is too young to consent to sex with an adult) than risk not having an orgasm is astounding. Fucking sickening, and astounding.”
All of this. Adult men started hitting on me when I was 9. Yes, I had boobs, but no, there was no way I could have been mistaken for an adult. I know this because when they were doing that thing that creepers do where they try to manipulate young girls into sex by flattering them they would say “oh, come on, there’s no way you’re that young – you look like you’re 13!”. And then they would keep hitting on me.
Men like the ones on Reddit were the bane of my existance from the age of 9 till about 17. I was so incredibly happy when that particular form of sexual attention went away.
Why would anyone take the chance that they are going to fuck a child?
Or is that the whole point, to get an underage girl into bed, then be able to claim you had no idea, while grinning inwardly?
No one would suggest that it`s COMPLETELY ovverun with terrible people. Just that it`s almost entirely, or overwhelmingly overrun with horrid people.
Any decent Redditors who even try to counter the racism, misogyny and other phobias and -isms that plague every single Subreddit are quickly downvoted or told off (The female posters are even faced with rape threats! Oh boy!)
http://www.theonion.com/articles/come-on-lighten-up-im-just-being-a-total-asshole,11456/
Rutee- while there are many states that allow mistake as a possible defense for stautory rape (i.e. the fake ID example), it is not all of them. Garnett v. State (http://www.soc.umn.edu/~samaha/cases/garnett_v_state.htm) involved a 20 year old man with an IQ of 52 (he was about on par with a 11-12 year old in terms of social interation according to testimony of a social worker) who was convicted of second degree statutory rape after having sex with, and impregnating, a 13 year old who had told him that she was 16. Some of their common friends also said that she was 16. In the state Stat. rape was only if the child was under 14, or over 14 and the partner was more than 4 years older. Even though Garnett did not know the age of the girl, and acted reasonably when considering his disability and what he had been told, he was still convicted and must now register as a sex offender.
I only know that case because I have a Crim Law exam next week and have been re-reading my case notes. Want to make it clear that I don’t usually have a command memory of various stat. rape cases.
So, while it is true that there are rarely cases where someone who lacks mens rea can be convicted of statutory rape. But, let’s face it, that isn’t really what the reddit post was talking about. It wasn’t saying that stat. rape laws should be amended to create some type of mens rea. It was lamenting that guys had to wait until girls are of legal age instead of being able to hook up with them as soon as they go through puberty. It is such a weird naracisstic view of the world. Because they might be sexually attracted to the body of a person (accepting the premise that our theorietical 13 year old is actually physically identical to a 18 year old) they should be able to pursue sex with that person without regards to the other person’s maturity or emotional well being. It is the same lack of concern for others that leads to arguments about why it should be okay to have sex with a woman who is too drunk to consent, or emotionally coercing someone into sex via guilt or threats. In all these cases the sexual urges of one person are given priority over any type of concern for the other person. And until society starts making it clear that it is not okay to have sex with someone who is not actively consenting in the act, and who has the faculties to make that decision, then this will continue and it is not good for anyone.