Friday, October 26, 2007 - Posts
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Given that this is a women’s blog, I can’t help but point out that the last couple posts on preteen sex haven’t been gender neutral – they’ve focused primarily on girls engaging in “risky” behavior. Torie, though you start out discussing any person 13 or younger fooling around, you go on to specify that it’s disturbing when “a 13, 12, or 11 year old girl” has sex. And Melinda, in your vivid anecdote about your friend who caught two kids making out and then had to call the parents, you mention what it was like for your friend to rat out the girl, but not the boy.
Is this because we find it ickier when girls are sexually precocious than when boys are? That the thought of reporting a 12-year-old girl to her parents/guardian/the cops is a no-brainer, but that reporting a boy is a bit murkier? Or am I way off?
Personally, I don’t think it’s a good idea to call the cops or a kid’s parents. Maybe a phone call’s in order if the kid shows lack of judgment in general, or if the kid’s making out as a way to act out. But from my perspective early sex is not necessarily dangerous sex.
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Torie, I agree that there’s no need to call the D.A.’s office on teenagers messing around, but I do think the parents of middle schoolers have a right to know the score, so to speak. I don’t what’s up in Portland, Maine, but they seem to be having trouble locating the vast expanse of middle ground between initially refusing to let the parents of 11-year-olds know they were handing them birth control – and now promising that they will report every sexually active kid to the cops.
Has anybody else seen that Disney movie where Goofy follows his son off to college because he misses him so much? That is going to be me in a few years, moving in across the street from West Point, just like Douglas MacArthur’s mommy. As a warm-up, a couple of summers ago, I had the bright idea that I would accompany my children to a camp for 9- to 18-year-olds, where I would teach a little writing class and get loads of work done.
One of the reasons that loads of work thing didn’t happen is that I had other duties at this camp, too – patrolling the rec center to bust up late-night make-out sessions, for instance. Some of the other teachers were assigned an even more onerous job, on a detail known as the Bush Patrol. (My then-9-year-old son was happy to hear that the staff was on the lookout, making sure the president was nowhere in evidence.) But no, what this assignment really involved was whizzing around the far reaches of the campus in a golf cart, armed with a whistle and flashlight, interrupting couples at play in the bushes. If you broke up anything serious, you were supposed to call the parents and report exactly what you had seen.
I swore I would never do anything of the sort, but some of my friends felt otherwise, and one said she already had made such a call -- and had even provided details when the dad on the other end of the line refused to believe her: “Sorry, sir, but your daughter’s head was moving up and down.’’
Bad as it was for this friend who had to make that call, getting it must have been many times worse. Yet still not as bad as not getting it might have been, you know? There is just too much at stake to keep parents of the loop.
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Following the kerfuffle over birth control for the Hanna Montana set, health officials in Portland, Maine, have agreed to report “all illegal sexual activity involving minors as required by law,” according to an article from a Maine newspaper. That includes any time someone 13 or younger has sex, even if it’s consensual. What this does is basically nullify the idea of providing oral contraceptives for the middle schoolers.
But as Slate’s William Saletan has noted recently, consent laws are particularly tricky now that girls are reaching puberty earlier. Of course it’s disturbing to think of a 13, 12, or 11 year old girl having sex (whether we’re talking full-on intercourse or “fooling around” that includes other behaviors, like oral sex). But I’m even more disturbed by the decision to force health-care professionals to report consensual activity among teens. Perhaps it’s because I’m not a parent and, as a 23 year old, I vividly remember middle school, in all its oily-skinned, awkward glory. I knew girls who were having oral sex as 13-year-olds. I was fairly grossed by that idea, even at the time. But I was also relieved that at every physical, my doctor would assure me that I could talk to her in confidence about anything. There was nothing to tell—any romantic life I had at the time was strictly in the fantasy category. But it was a relief to hear it and helped me have some trust for her. If the 13-year-olds know that their doctor has to report any sexual contact, are they really going to be truthful during check-ups? Probably not. And if I’ve learned anything from watching House, M.D., it’s that being honest with your doctor is the most important thing you can do.
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Sam Brownback feels reassured about Giuliani's stance on abortion. No surprise there--in addition to whatever Giuliani said to Brownback in private, he has made it clear that he will appoint Supreme Court justices in the overturn-Roe mold. When does he go from being a pro-choice candidate to a pro-life one, in terms of the impact he would have as president and the way in which voters should evaluate him? Are we already there?
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If Mukasey does say now that waterboarding is torture, should that be enough for the Democrats to wave him through? What about his testimony on the presidents power to act outside statutory boundaries with regard to interrogation and wiretapping? And even if Mukasey were to change his tune now on all these fronts, what does that really mean, since his previous statements allign so closely with his record as a judge and his writings? The Democrats were awfully quick to say that his confirmation was virtually assured. Now that's not looking so wise.
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After Phil and I wracked our brains to understand why Michael Mukasey wouldn’t just admit that waterboarding is torture, and in light of Rudy Giuliani’s weaselly parsing of the same question, it’s heartening to read this morning – via the AP -- that some of the Senate Democrats seem willing to use that as the basis for a no vote on Mukasey.
Good to hear. There is just no good reason to call this an open question, a matter of interpretation, or something too secret to discuss rationally. In the same regard see this great new piece on Rudy and executive powers by Rachel Morris. Talk about things that make you go hmmmmmm.
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