Aspies For Freedom

An 80 year old man should not date a 48 year old woman.

A 22 year old should not date a 19 year old.

Should, should, should.

Is there a different formula in countries where the age of consent is 16?

In Georgia, a 17 year old was convicted and sentenced to 10 years in prison (without parole)  for consensual oral sex with a 15 year old.


NYTimes:
Editorial
Free Genarlow Wilson Now

Genarlow Wilson loves reading mystery novels and can’t wait for the next Harry Potter book. The 20-year-old former high school football player and honor student works in a library, the perfect job for a young bookworm. Unfortunately, that is where the good news ends and a genuine horror story of this country’s legal system begins.

The library in Georgia where Mr. Wilson works is in prison. He is two years into a sentence for engaging in consensual oral sex with a 15-year-old girl at a New Year’s Eve party when he was 17. He won’t be eligible for parole until he has served 10 years, essentially sacrificing his remaining youth to an obvious miscarriage of justice.

As Shaila Dewan reported in The Times this week, Mr. Wilson has been convicted of aggravated child molestation even though he and the girl were both minors at the time. Even if he could win an early release, Mr. Wilson could not go home to his family. He would have to register as a sex offender and would be prohibited from living with his 8-year-old sister. It is all the more disgraceful because the Georgia Supreme Court last week refused to hear his appeal.

The sexual act took place during a party involving sex, marijuana and alcohol, all captured on a graphic videotape. But that does not make Mr. Wilson a child molester. When high school students engage in consensual sexual activity, that is not the same as an adult molesting a teenager or a teenager molesting a child.

What makes this case more absurd is that if Mr. Wilson and the young woman had sexual intercourse, he would have been guilty only of a misdemeanor and not required to register as a sex offender, thanks to a provision in the law meant to avoid just this type of draconian punishment for consensual youthful indiscretions, the “Romeo and Juliet” exception. And since Mr. Wilson’s conviction, the law has been changed to exempt oral sex as well. But the courts say that can’t help Mr. Wilson retroactively.

His lawyer is planning to file a habeas petition seeking his release. The courts need to grant it and expunge his record so that Mr. Wilson can return to his family and his once promising academic career. Legislators in other states should take notice and make sure that their own laws do not catch children in dragnets designed for predatory adults.

What on earth are you talking about? Did you even read the article you're supposedly referring to, or did you just hear about it from Glenn Beck?

Where does it imply in any way that they were "in love" or that any sort of relationship existed beyond a hook-up at a party?

"The sexual act took place during a party involving sex, marijuana and alcohol, all captured on a graphic videotape. But that does not make Mr. Wilson a child molester."

That's your idea of an ode on Young Love?

It's your brilliant formula, Duck, and it shows a lot of rigidity, but not much thinking. If it sounds stupid to you now, join the rest of us.

I knew you'd get defensive, Max, but you exceeded my expectations. Bringing up Glenn Beck from our previous conversation? *L*

No, the article didn't say they were 'in love' but it did leave out some of the critical points of the case - such as the rape!! It shouldn't have stopped at 'he's not a child molester' it should have continued to say 'he's a rapist'. But it didn't serve the authors point, so he conveniently left it out.

The law was written to catch child molesters. It happens to snag young people who might think they are in love*and it happens to catch young dirtbags, like the fellow in the article you posted.  Of course there should be different laws for different offenses and sentencing should be on a case by case basis so I'm glad they are trying to change things.

My problem with your article is that it is trying to drum up sympathy for a rapist. The guy deserves to be in jail - not for child molestation, but for his behavior in general at that party. His life isn't 'ruined' because of jail, he's getting the slap in the head he needs before he goes  on to do what he did to other young girls.

As for the original post - I LOVE LOVE LOVE this show - not watching it, I don't care to watch much of it, but the fact that it exposes these perverts is beautiful justice. Especially since they are such idiots in the face of their sexual urges. Guess Who - you made some excellent points in your first post.

That said, IMO the worst forms of child/teen rape and sexual exploitation doesn't come from predators on line who convince an unsupervised kid to meet them for sex. Rather, it is a far worse crime when those who are trusted with power and respect exploit their positions by preying on those that look up to them.  There are creepy priests, teachers, doctors, family members, government officials etc out there acting upon the opportunities that come to them to take advantage of their positions of power for sexual gratification.

It's disgusting and tragic because most of them get away with it.

* (a teenager can decide if they want to have sex, but do they really understand all of the ramifications? Add to that the fact that an older one can so easily manipulate a younger one and you have a good case to make it against the law )

The day my defensiveness catches up to your hysteria, I'll worry about it.

You want this kid doing ten years for a crime (rape) he wasn't charged with? That's insane.

If there were any grounds for a rape charge, he would certainly have been prosecuted for it. The prosecutors are being incredibly vindictive and persecutorial  toward this kid, even if they aren't quite up to your lunch-mob mentality.

The DA even went so far as releasing the videotapes -- and for what purpose except to inflame a bunch of hysterics -- and titillate pedos with a sex tape of underage  kids? That seems like a more serious crime than Genarlow's.

We need to be a little more honest about the real underlying issue here...

In June, right after a judge ordered that Wilson be freed, saying that his sentence constituted “cruel and unusual punishment,” Georgia Attorney General Thurbert Baker appealed it. Among other things Baker, who is also black, said the judge overstepped his bounds.

Yet, Baker would be acting within his power to, well, not act. If he had ignored the ruling, it would have stood -- and Wilson would have been freed.

It seems to me that Baker, a black Democratic AG in a state where hardcore conservatives increasingly seem bent on rolling it back to a pre-civil rights stone age, is more concerned about keeping his job than seeing to it that justice is done.

Meaning that for him to allow Wilson -- a young black male who almost surely stokes unshaven, O.J. Simpson-type fears in the minds of many whites -- to walk means some of his votes will walk too. So Baker’s ambitions -- ambitions that hinge on what white people think of him -- serve to keep him in his place.

Then there’s the despicable Douglas County District Attorney David McDade who, apparently miffed that Wilson’s case has sparked cries for justice rather than moral condemnations, took it upon himself to release the videotape to reporters and lawmakers. He may have torn his proverbial drawers by doing so, however, because federal law prohibits the distribution of child pornography.

But it seems McDade wasn’t driven by that possibility -- or by any sensitivity toward the youths whose identities apparently weren’t concealed in the videotape. What drove him is the fact that he couldn’t break Wilson; that unlike the other guys involved in the encounter and who accepted pleas -- an encounter in which a jury agreed that no rape was committed -- he wouldn’t “take his medicine.”

Wilson didn’t know his place. And McDade is obsessed with putting him into it.

Now, this script is an old one when it comes to black males in the criminal justice system. And it’s played out all the time.

Three years ago in Florida, for example, the Miami Herald found that judges were frequently using a judicial tool called a withhold of adjudication. Judges use it at their discretion to allow people who have been found guilty of a crime to avoid a conviction. That means that when its time to fill out a job application, get a loan or vote, they can legally say that they’ve never been convicted of a crime.

The Herald found that judges had been tossing withholds around like confetti to rapists, batterers, and the like. The one group that was missing out on the parade, however, was black men.

According to the Herald, white offenders were 50 times more likely to get a withhold than black men who committed similar crimes and had similar records. And while socioeconomics and access to private attorneys is certainly part of the picture, the overwhelming part of the picture is that in this society, black men are seen more for their potential to be predators than productive citizens.

Blacks like Baker feed that perception when they ought to be starving it by not cutting a kid like Wilson any slack; a kid whose testosterone overwhelmed his judgment one night.

Whites like McDade act on that perception through their obsessions with finding ways to break the Genarlow Wilsons of the world.

And McDade’s decision to distribute the videotape should tell the world that this case, if it ever was, is no longer about protecting girls like the ones who found themselves caught up in a teenage orgy with Wilson and his buddies.

It’s now about revenge. It’s about the fear of what will happen if one black man’s plight does more to expose the system’s shortcomings than his own.

It’s about keeping them in their place.

A judge ordered his release, calling it "cruel and unusual punishment" -- BUT the crazed DA immediately appealed it to the Georgia Supreme Court in order to keep him locked up. The Supreme Court heard the case last week, but probably won't release a decision until September. The DA blocked Genarlow's release on bond pending appeal, even though Genarlow's supporters raised a million dollar bond.  He's still in prison.

Max - after your first hostile sentence I didn't even bother to read the rest of your post.


Kylo,  The 'rape' was of his girlfriend - a different girl at a different time at the same party, not the oral sex youngster. They couldn't get him on rape even though she was drunk because she had consented earlier... not sure if it was on the video or not.  

Unlike many people, I don't comment just on what the law says, but what is just in my own mind. In my own mind, having sex with a woman who is drunk and passed out and asking your friends to join you is rape. So even if he wasn't convicted, he's still a rapist. IMO.

And I said that 10 years was too long in my first post. I never said he was a child molester, I even separated the three different types of crimes who can be caught by the same law in my second post.

And with that, I will leave the thread because I don't have the energy to continue to repeat myself.

Yes, you did. And you're reading this one.

They couldn't "get him" on rape because there was no rape. That's what consent means.

Fortunately we have moved a little beyond minds like yours -- which is why lynchings are not as common as they used to be.

7oclock, you might be right twice a day, but this isn't one of them. You've squirmed in multiple directions from the point of the debate and conflated the issue with side issues, recycled that nasty bit of hash through your own prejudices and judgmentalism, and come up with nothing more than "I DON"T APPROVE!" That's neither reasonable nor intellectually honest. It's certainly of no interest.

Feel free not to engage with me. I've yet to hear anything from you that's either enlightening or entertaining.

Just a few comments.

I was 15 when I lost my virginity to my 17 year old boyfriend.  It wasn't rape.

I was 17 when I fell asleep (or is it:  passed out?) in my boyfriend's car after drinking a lot of beer at a party.  When I woke up (came to) he was trying to stick his you-know-what in me.  We had not had sex previously, and apparently he decided this was his golden opportunity (a la Animal House movie of the 70s).  Since I had gotten drunk, I decided it was my fault.  I stopped him, and he apologized, and that was the end of it.  

When I was 33, I was very strongly attracted to a 24 year old young man who I worked with.  After I deduced that he was interested in me, too, I pursued him, but guiltily, because of the age difference.  I told myself that ten years would be too big of an age difference, but nine was OK.  SILLY.  I think the issue is more about maturity.  Someone who is still in college, has barely lived on their own for any length of time, etc. is going to be lacking in life experience, and may have idealisic and unrealistic ideas about the older, world-wise person.  This is just my opinion.   Now that I am 44 I could see dating someone in their thirties, for sure, but I think early twenties would be out of the question.  That's just me, personally.  

I also think it's a point worth considering if you have children, that it may well make them feel *yucky* if the person you are dating is close to them in age.  

Other than that, I don't see a problem with large age differences.  I, in fact, have a little harmless crush on a 62 year old man right now, and I AM young enough to be his daughter.

Then stop saying it and explaining it.

Go read some Ann Coulter so you can find out what you've been ordered to think. I don't need another right-wing stalker.

7oclock, stop trolling. You've made your politics clear and I find them reactionary, dangerous and foolish. I don't understand your desperation for my approval, but it's just not going to happen.

Examples of either would keep you from sounding utterly paranoid.

Your reading skills aren't perfect, but I give you props for ESP.