Mary Kay LeTourneau...disgusting... (1 Viewer)

[Claudia P]

Crime library has a report on the case which throws interesting light on M K Letourneau's background and motivators. Worth a read if you've got a spare 20 minutes or so.

I noticed no-one here mentioned the children Vili fathered with Mary Kay. FYI they have two daughters who were raised by Vili & his mother while MK was in prison. Of interest, Vili & his Mom tried, unsuccessfully, to sue the school & police department for $1 million for failing to protect Vili (from?). Evidently the money was required to help pay for the girls' upbringing.

Check out
crimelibrary.com/criminal_mind/psychology/marykay_letourneau/10.html?sect=19

The psychology interests me, the sensational news coverage doesn't. I'm with Bruce et al; if this news item bothers you then change channels.

Now guys, help me out with a technicality. How does a woman rape a man who is not aroused?

 

[Christ Reynolds]

thanks for the news flash. i thought the couple was reading these posts. this just in...the sun is hot.

again, i dont care what they do, but the media is eating it up, and for good reason. sadly, people will watch that trash.

CJ

 

[DonnyD]

What I find sad is the fact that the media seems to be promoting our interest in this situation just as the media does with anything that is believed to be sensational.

It is the media's perception of our need to know that drives stories such as this. The talking heads always seem to know what is on our mind, don't they........

I'm glad to realize how very little news I listen to as I haven't heard anything about this mess until today. The news media are simply not welcome in my home; my remotes work very well......

 

[Jeff Ulmer]

What I want to know is, aside from the riginal charges, how this situation differs from the thousands of men who each year wed/date women that are a third their age? Don't you think it's kind of creepy knowing that a guy was 40 when his wife/lover was born?

 

[RobertR]

I think there's always been a double standard there. People look less kindly on the older woman/younger man situation.

 

[ChrisMatson]

How does a man rape a woman who is not aroused?
Victims sometimes get aroused during the assault. A biological responses is not consent--period.

This case involves statutory rape. According to the law, he was not able to give consent, whether or not he could get aroused.

Having said all that, I think it is fitting that they get married. Perhaps they are in love and marriage is best for them and their children. I wish them all the best.

Who are we to judge?

 

[Christ Reynolds]

maybe, but if a 34 year old man raped a 12 year old girl, he would still be hanging from the highest tree. unless you werent referring to mary kay in this case. old men/young women dating each other is one thing, statutory rape is another. of course mkl and the boy are now over 18, but we all know that the hoopla about this marriage is what happened before he was 18. and that has absolutely nothing to do with older men/women dating young adults.

CJ

 

[RobertR]

Actually, I was responding to Jeff's post, which excluded the original charges and focused on their present age difference. Usually, no one so much as bats an eye when an older man makes it with a younger woman. It's the reverse that makes people say ewwwww.

 

[Mark-W]

There are a whole ton of issues involved in a case like this, and the fact is the media is showing them as much as they are (or not) because it raises their ratings and makes them money. So, I don't really blame the media for showing what generates revenue.

Don't like it, change the channel.

As for other aspects...
Society still treats and acts like a boy loosing his virginity as a right of passage: look at all the films about young teenage boys on a quest to loose their virginity and how that is protrayed. Imagine "Losin' It," "Last American Virgin," or "Porky's" if the gender roles were reversed...Does it still work?

No. We don't celebrate women loosing their virginity the way we do men. With women, they have lost something...They are sluts. Men are called studs for exhibiting the exact same behavior that defines a slut.

This really hasn't changed that much..just look at how Britney Spears used to talk so proudly about being a virgin. Ya think a member of any of the boy bands' guys could've promoted themselves as a virgins, even when they were barely teens?

Uh, no.

The issue here, I don't think is just the age difference. Any 20something who marries a MUCH older person (who happens to be rich) is in love with the lifestyle they are being offered by the older person. (At least Anna Nicole was upfront about that.) It is a marriage where looks and youth are traded for money and security. It is inequitable, because money usually lasts longer than looks, but at least both parties are old enough to have some idea of the trade in goods.

But what happens when we reduce the age to someone who cannot make mature decisions? Who gets hurt? Most often the youth.

My problem with this is that anytime you are dealing with a teen and there is a significant age difference, you are dealing with someone who, on some level is preying on the less experinced youth. It isn't that age makes one wise, because for some, it doesn't, but I know that decisions I made, even when I was in my early twenties are not the same decisions I would make now if I could go back use the wisdom I have now.

Even if a thirteen year old boy wants sex, and many many many do, the fact that he was IN A RELATIONHIP a woman more than twice his age leads me to believe Mary Kay needed to be in a position of power and total authority in the relationship (a relationship of unequals) to be happy and fall in love.

That is the creepy part, not the sex itself.

Wanting to have sex? Sure. When I was thirteen, it was all about Farrah Fawcett and that red swimsuit. I am sure there are plently of thirteen year old boys now who would willingly have sex with Pamela Anderson, too.

But, we're focused on the wrong aspect of this, because it isn't the sex that is the problem, it is the dynamic in an actual relationship between a thirteen year old boy and Pamela Anderson that is unacceptable.

While we can quibble about the fact that it is now "legal," the bottom line is this guy is making relationship decisions as a young man that make him look like a fool.

As for the sex, I tend to believe he wanted it and enjoyed it (because most men don't have the same kinds of fears and issues of identity...in a negative way...the way many women do), even when we are teens about losing our virginity.
Sex is just not that big of a deal.

However, the relationship itself is what is creepy.

In my state, we recently learned that our former govenor, Neil Goldschmidt, had an on-going sexual relationship with a young girl (I think the neighbor's baby sitter, if I recall correctly.) quite a while ago. It seems to have ruined this now-not-so-young woman's life, not because of the sex, but because of the emotional abuse that cannot help but be part of a sexual relationship between an early teen and a much older man who had sex with her, but no other "emotional relationship" with her.

Because of our American cultural values, and possibly even the way men are wired, a young guy who has sex with an older woman is just less apt to feel taken advantage of than if the gender roles were reversed.

However, regardless of the gender of the younger of the two people, we exspect our adults to behave as responsible members of society and engage in whatever they want with other consenting adults.

I work at a college, and it never ceases to amaze me how many young girls have crushes on their somewhat older professors. I don't blame the girls, nor do I think it "unnatural" for them to be sexually attracted to some of these instructors. But we look to our professors to be wiser and not act upon the inequity of these student/teacher relationships, and maintain appropriate boundaries, even when it is the students who are trying to engage in unwise behavior.

Cue Sting: "Don't stand..Don't stand...Don't stand so close to me."

It is the same way, on a much larger scale, with children and adults.

 

[Claudia P]

Some facts:

MKL had an incestuous relationship from age 7 with an older brother. This lasted some years but curiously MKL did not call it abuse.

Her father had an affair spanning several years (one which produced two children) with a young woman he once taught.

Vili reached puberty at age 10. He bet his mates $20 that he would have sex with MKL.

MKL claims Vili was the dominant one in the relationship, even at age 13.

I think we all agree that this was not rape in the physical sense. MKL abused her position of trust. What possessed her to pursue relationship with this man-child we'll never know. I wish it could be simply diagnosed as that old devil called... lust ... but it's deeper and more twisted than that. Vili & MKL call it love. Time will tell.

 

[MarkHastings]

Christ, I still would like to know why you think them being on tv makes it your "business"? It only becomes your business if you let it get to you (as it has). This is EXACTLY why the media puts these things on tv (and in newspapers) in the first place. They sucker you in with trashy stories and the public eats it up. Whether you love it or hate it, your passion is what made it your business.

Ignore it and it will no longer becomes your business.

 

[Kevin M]

Not to get too nitpicky but at 13 I personally would not call him a "man-child", I would call him a child. I know in many cultures that is considered the beginnings of "manhood" but from an emotional & physical standpoint still highly immature. IMO.

So the real question is, if she has indeed been conditioned from childhood to be more attracted to young boys....how long does he have before he is too old for her, in her mind?

 

[todd s]

Like I said earlier. What makes it my business is that if some older woman or man sees the publicity and money they are making off their relationship it might emboldened them into doing it. Thinking their will be no consequences. I have 2 daughters (10 & 7) and a son (2). I would go ballistic if anyone tried to touch them.

 

[Jeff Ulmer]

Sorry, but I have to disagree. While he is still young, and lacks a lot of life experience, 13 is by no means a child in this day and age, at least not in behaviour. Even when I was 13 (which was a long time ago), I would in no way characterize myself as a "child," I was a young adult, and accepting of responsibility, even if I wasn't fully prepared for what that meant. Adults, especially parents, tend to forget how developed kids are at a very young age, and perfectly capable of making decisions, even if they turn out to be the wrong ones. Sexual experience begins at a very young age - I knew several girls who had lost their virginity by the time they reached high school, and while it wasn't the norm, this was in a time when sexuality wasn't nearly as pervasive in society, at least not in the media. By grade 7 most of us were experimenting sexually, even if that was only superficially.

The "rape" in this case was purely from a legal viewpoint, and while I don't agree with adults initiating this type of relationship, a sexually active 13 year old is nothing to be surprised by.

 

[Paul_Scott]

how does one aquire the ability to make mature decisions.
does preventing them from realizing consequences from decision making due to a standardized age of majority/consent, retard or facilitate this ability?

what else contributes to the descion making process?
would access to information be a factor?

 

[Kevin M]

Yes I knew someone would say this and I have to disagree for all of the reasons I and others have highlighted before. Mimicking adult behavior does not make a 13 year old boy any more of an adult or "young adult" than a 9 or 10 year old, I have seen 8 year old girls mimicking their mom's behavior and rule imparting to their friends on playgrounds, does this make them "mature"? They were using semi-logical applications of what their parents had taught them in a real world situation, so this surely must mean they are mature. No. They are merely on the very long road of becoming an adult which does not IMO begin with mere physical maturity, unlike what other and/or older cultures may have believed because it was an economic necessity to reproduce as quickly as possible to increase the family workforce, they also have (and still do in certain places) believe that women are inferior in every way to a man and that slavery is a perfectly fine thing to do to other humans as long as the economic benefit is felt by the community, so let's not place too much blind reverence in the sociological wisdom of older cultures.
He may have been physically capable of producing a child but was he capable of raising that child? Feeding it? Understanding what consequences his actions had not only for his life but the life of LeTourneau's family as well*?
Doubtful.
You can define a 13 year old as not being a "child" because they may be going through changes but IMO (notice how I keep saying that) at that age they are developmentally far more childlike than adult and therefore still children in most of the important definitions of the term for at least some time to come.


*I have to concede that quite a few adults lack this faculty as well, not the least being LeTourneau herself.

 

[MarkHastings]

So can someone tell me why a 17 year/10 month old is not considered an adult, yet someone just 2 months older is considered an adult? Does this mean the 18 year old can make better "adult based" decisions over the 17 year/10 month old?

As Jeff mentioned, it's all legalities and really has nothing to do with behavior.

The mere fact that Mary Kay LeTourneau made a stupid decision is proof that even 27 years olds make "non adult" decisions, so why are we so harsh on 13 year olds? It sounds like they make just as dumb decisions as adults do.

The only difference here is the law. Mary Kay made the decision knowing that it was illegal for her, yet the boy made the decision knowing that he could not get in trouble. It's bizarre to think that (legally) the boy is not considered old enough to make these adult decisions, yet is allowed to act on these adult decisions without consequence.

 

[Malcolm R]

I doubt you could find any 13 YO who would characterize themselves as a "child." That's the age when they start to know everything and parents become "stupid" in their eyes.

Doesn't mean it's true. And actually, it just proves how immature they still are.

 

[SethH]

While I agree with this logic for the most part, the thing is that a line has to be drawn somewhere. If you didn't draw the line at 18, where would it be drawn? How about 15 . . . but wait, is a 15 year old any more adult-like than someone who is 14 years and 10 months? Nope. There has to be a line, and unfortunately it's impossible to take everything on a case-by-case basis.

I think a legitimate argument could be made to start considering people adults at 16 or 17 (in many states 16 is the age of consent for sexual issues), but people could continue to use the same argument you just used even if the age were lowered.

 

[MarkHastings]

I know it would probably mess things up more, but I believe there should even BE a line.

Unfortunately we need this line to defend court cases, but other than that, there are definitely cases where 13 year olds act a hell of a lot more mature than some 30 year olds. That's why I think this 'line' is absolutely ridiculous and makes no sense.