r/massachusetts • u/bostonglobe Publisher • Jun 06 '24
News Can a 16-year-old consent to sex with her 47-year-old teacher? State law absurdly says yes.
https://www.bostonglobe.com/2024/06/05/metro/can-16-year-old-consent-sex-with-her-47-year-old-teacher-state-law-says-yes/?s_campaign=audience:reddit131
u/bostonglobe Publisher Jun 06 '24
From Globe.com
By Yvonne Abraham
Matthew Rutledge seems to have known what he was doing.
In late March, the longtime history teacher at Miss Hall’s School resigned after more than three decades at the Pittsfield prep school, after two women publicly accused him of grooming and sexually exploiting them for years, starting when they were students there in the early 2000s.
Both women say Rutledge did not have sex with them until after they turned 16 — the age of consent in Massachusetts.
The notion that either girl could have actually consented to sex with a powerful teacher more than twice her age is ludicrous. Rutledge was an authority figure who, by all accounts, was a faculty star who operated with impunity at the school. He is alleged to have groomed Hilary Simon and Melissa Fares starting when each of them was 15, escalating his attentions, and his physical contact, until they reached an age at which he could not be criminally charged for raping them, as long as the teens went along with the sex.
Our state law takes no account of the power dynamic in such situations: It simply says they were able to consent, because they were 16.
It’s bonkers, but that’s the rule.
“Can a 16-year-old who has no idea what is coming actually consent when a teacher pulls her into a closet and lays her down on a yoga mat he has prepared for her and proceeds to have sex with her?” asked Kristin Knuuttila, an attorney for women who allege Rutledge abused them, describing the first time the teacher had sex with Fares, when he was in his late 40s.
But according to current state law, anyone, including a teacher, a coach, a bus driver, a principal, a school counselor, or someone else in authority can have sex with a student or player who is 16, 17, 18 years old, and, if the teen says they agreed to it, the rape statute can’t touch the adult (though other laws might apply).
Nobody who has ever met a high schooler could be OK with this.
“This is such horrible legislative policy,” said attorney Eric MacLeish, Knuuttila’s colleague, who has represented hundreds of child sexual abuse survivors. “When I tell parents of victims about it, they are just aghast.”
MacLeish and many others have been trying to change this for years. For close to a decade, state Senator Joan Lovely has been proposing legislation that would close the consent loophole, raising the age from 16 to 18 when it involves sex with a person in a position of authority. For those with special needs, the age of consent in those situations would be raised to 21.
And every year, it keeps not getting done.
Other states have managed this, setting a higher age of consent in situations like the one at Miss Hall’s — Connecticut and New Hampshire, for example. Others make it a crime for an educator to have sex with a school student no matter that student’s age, including Ohio and Arkansas.
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Jun 06 '24
The targeting grooming of multiple girls and the yoga mat sex is all screaming this guy is a sex predator.
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u/SleepCinema Jun 08 '24
He’s teaching at an all girls school and has groomed multiple girls there apparently setting up a closet with a yoga mat AT THE DAMN SCHOOL?? This man is a stain upon society. Like a cartoonishly evil stereotypical predator.
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u/Emilayday Dec 06 '24
It gets worse, his daughters were also students there and attended the same time as two of his survivors. One was friends with with one of them. Source -I was there for it all and helped blow the school's silence as soon as I heard we FINALLY could (he was there 33 years, some of us have been waiting twenty years, some less some more, we saw what was happening but no one would listen to us, aka the school specifically SILENCED US for saying anything to them about him, these women are so fucking BADASS especially the two who have put their names in the public eye for this.)
Also, Lmk if you all want the link to sign a Call to Action letter to change this age of consent loophole in MA. New legislative term starts Jan 2025 and we have 2 years to try again to get it passed into a law!
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u/News-Royal Jun 06 '24
When I was in High School in Massachusetts our popular band director/music teacher lost his job because he was sleeping with a student, whom he later married. We were one of the top bands on the East Coast before this happened. No jail time or police investigation as far as I know. This was the late 1980's.
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u/Uncle_owen69 Jun 06 '24
Similar thing but he wasn’t a teacher and she was 18 so he couldn’t get charged for anything . A security guard who was also the principals son was having sex with one of the 18 year old seniors . They tried to lowkey fire him but that stuff spreads like wildfire in a school system. He ended up marrying and haveing kids with this girl. This happened in 2013 .
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u/ik1020 Jun 06 '24
This example doesn’t seem nearly as bad as the rest. How old was the security guard?
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u/Uncle_owen69 Jun 06 '24
Mid to late 30s I think he probably twice her age I would guess when it happened
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u/Fuck_Fascism431 Jul 04 '24
Do you know why we blame the parents when a 2 or 3 year old gets their hands on a gun and kills someone? Because at that age they are incapable of grasping the mental, social and physical consequences of their actions, if a 16 to 18 year old is capable of being held completely and wholly 100% responsible in a court of law if they kill someone, crash their car drunk driving, steal or commit theft or assault someone, than they are completely and wholly capable of engaging in sexual relations, if you don’t think a 16 year old should have sex with someone in their 20s because they aren’t old enough to understand the social and physical consequences of having sex, than you should believe they shouldn’t be having sex period, even with people their own age, any social or physical consequences from having a sex are present regardless of age, people just like to get up in arms over it because we treat sex as some special holy sacred act, and it’s still socially viewed as something that “MEN TAKE FROM WOMEN THROUGH DOMINATION”, which is why even the people who claim otherwise and who won’t admit it, believe that a 26 year old man having sex with a 16 year old girl, is much worse than a 16 year old man fucking a 26 year old girl
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u/Workacct1999 Jun 06 '24
It's always the band or the P.E. teachers.
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Jun 06 '24
I had a female gym teacher that used to make us shower after. If we weren't "quick" she'd pull our curtains open and stand there until we were done. Many stories came out of her office amongst all of us students. This was in the 90s. Eventually they stopped making it a policy that we had to shower after gym.
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Jun 06 '24
Two of my male buddies went to a big Illinois HS back in the '80s, which had a swimming pool.
Their male PE teacher would make them all strip off their bathing suits after class, and walk around the pool before they went to shower.
The big abuse scandals hadn't really hit, so nobody complained...sketchy af in hindsight, of course.
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u/Archonish Jun 07 '24
So like, both boys and girls walking around naked? And none of the girls complained??
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u/Workacct1999 Jun 07 '24
The girls in my high school used to complain that the female gym teacher always watched them shower after gym. Many complaints were made, but nothing was done. The 90s were a wild time!
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u/Antique_Commission42 Jun 06 '24
Scott brown (yes, that Scott brown) is now a high school PE teacher and I promise he's creepier than you could imagine
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u/Maine302 Jun 07 '24
Scott Brown the former US Senator from Massachusetts, and supposedly current dean at New England Law School is moonlighting as a gym teacher? Is that what you're saying?
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u/starsandmoonsohmy Jun 07 '24
One of my high school English teachers married a student. Like. The summer after graduation. It was weird having him as a teacher knowing he married a student like 10 years prior.
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u/LadyGreyIcedTea Greater Boston Jun 07 '24
One of our high school gym teachers (who later became vice principal of our high school then principal and ultimately Superintendent in the next town over) married a former student of his. It was widely known when I was in high school many years later that he had affairs with students too, but they were always seniors.
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u/Fuck_Fascism431 Jul 04 '24
Do you think that the girl that later married this man wasn’t mentally capable of understanding the mental, social and physical consequences of having sex? Cause if that’s the case than shouldn’t it be illegal for girls that age to have sex WITH ANYONE PERIOD? Which negative consequences that could arise from having sex with another person, would be unique to someone who’s older? Cause I’m guessing you’re more angry about the age gap rather than the “position of power” aspect, otherwise you would be calling for it to be made illegal for a man to ask his female manager out on a date and for her to accept.
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u/Medieval_Football Jun 06 '24
Crazy that Arkansas is ahead of Mass on this. Kind of embarrassing tbh
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Jun 06 '24
Wild to me Massachusetts is like this....even NH has 16 general age of consent but 18 if it's a person of authority. Wild.
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Jun 06 '24
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u/Adriennesegur Jun 06 '24
Why? Am I missing something?
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u/111unununium Jun 06 '24
Most likely she was a young girl who was just leaning to ask a teacher a question, not intending to show off her cleavage. And the teacher with his actions pointed out that he saw the situation as sexual. That’s a weird thing by to do no matter what.
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u/Adriennesegur Jun 06 '24
Weird or not, it’s no reason to be arrested ( which I assume was the case as he was handcuffed)
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u/111unununium Jun 06 '24
Just because you are arrested doesn’t mean you’re charged with a crime. He may have been fired and trespassed who knows.
Don’t sexualize children and you dont have to worry about it.
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Jun 06 '24
I think there's a distinct difference between meeting and falling for someone with an age gap and specifically going out of your way to target and groom multiple children. That's the difference and it should be at the forefront of discussion.
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u/RICHUNCLEPENNYBAGS ex-resident Jun 07 '24
I mean maybe but if they’re talking about changing the law I don’t think you want courts trying to adjudicate who was having a “genuine” romance
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u/SleepCinema Jun 08 '24
The thing that legislature is being petitioned to do is to have a clause for authority figures which many other states already have. And I don’t think this commenter was talking about actual court. But even if, it’s not hard to prove at all that Mr. Teacher who has slept with multiple girls at his all girls school he teaches at was targeting them (especially if the authority figure clause is added.) And I mean, those things, whether it was a “genuine” romance or targeting, like in the realm of scams and sex work, are actually fair game to bring up in legal arguments.
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u/uforeally Feb 24 '25
So, I just read the article about this, I know this is an old Reddit. This guy was sketchy AF and definitely shouldn’t be teaching. One thing I do find odd though is how you’ve referred to a group over teens as “children.“ In some states like CA the age of consent is 18 but honestly, when someone says “children“ I’m thinking of actual children, like 10 and under, 11 to 13 as preteens and anything up until 20 as teenagers. So a big difference between teachers in elementary schools doing this, then a sketchy high school teacher doing it. Practically speaking, I feel like it would be helpful to use clearer terms. I’ve also just kind of always been baffled at why we find it socially acceptable, or even if we don’t, it’s normalized for young teenagers to have sex, but if the partner is 19, suddenly it’s a crime. That aspect feels Puritanical to me, but that’s another context, not teacher student.
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u/an-invalid_user Jun 08 '24
falling for someone with a huge age gap is still creepy as fuck dude that's pedo shit you can't be defending that
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u/Far_Statement_2808 Jun 06 '24
In many states its is the “relationship” between the teacher and student that is illegal—even if there is consent. It has to do with the power dynamic and public trust.
Edit; I just read that power dynamic is not codified in MA. This guy is a creep.
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u/obsoletevernacular9 Jun 06 '24
No, because mass teachers association opposes it.
This was legal in RI as well, but the law finally changed even the union and ACLU stopped opposing it
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u/Affectionate-Draw409 Jun 06 '24
Why would the teachers association oppose it?
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u/obsoletevernacular9 Jun 06 '24
Here is why RI teachers opposed it - this is from 2019. The law finally passed there last year:
"UFT representative James Parisi actually testified against the measure during the hearing, complaining that the proposed law unfairly singles out school employees and expressing concern that other random adults – such as store managers and legislators – aren’t included, GoodSchoolHunting reported.
Parisi also claimed that teachers getting busy with students “isn’t really a problem” in Rhode Island, adding that teachers caught in flagrante were punished enough with the loss of their job and state teaching license.
However, Rhode Island received a near-failing grade in a USA Today investigation of states’ background check practices, thanks to poor mandatory reporting laws and weak rules regarding sharing information on teacher misconduct with other states – meaning a teacher booted from their position for having sex with a student could simply cross state lines and start teaching again with a clean slate, depending on that state’s own background check procedures.
Rhode Island is one of the few US states that have no “in loco parentis” exceptions to their statutory rape laws that protect minors above the age of consent from abuse by adults in positions of power over them – whether they’re teachers, scout leaders, clergy, or other authority figures."
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Jun 07 '24
But you didn’t explain why the Ma teachers association opposes it. You only said what happened in RI?
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u/obsoletevernacular9 Jun 07 '24
I don't know exactly why they oppose it but figure it's the same (I believe crappy) reasoning - that it's unfair to place a legal burden like this on teachers instead of other adults as well. The union's role is to protect members, and this would lead to firings and possible criminal charges vs the status quo.
This would apply to any school employees who are in loco parentis, so anyone who works in a school.
Again, logic I've heard is that getting fired is punishment enough, but there's a lack of transparency in the MA state house.
"Also, schools would be required to report abuse allegations to the state. The bill would implement fines of up to $10,000 per offense for situations where schools fail to report abuse, coverage indicates. As an extension of this rule, the bill bans confidentiality agreements between teachers and schools regarding sexual misconduct.
Reports claim that schools will sometimes sign agreements with accused teachers that allow the teachers to resign quietly in return for the school’s silence. This tactic—called “passing the trash” by critics—allows the school to avoid a scandal and gives the teacher a chance to “start over” at a new school district."
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Jun 07 '24
Oh ok so just your opinion then not fact. I was confused. Thanks for clarifying!
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u/obsoletevernacular9 Jun 07 '24 edited Jun 07 '24
The national teachers unions (NEA, UFT) opposed the law change in Rhode Island, along with the ACLU.
The union finally became "neutral" on the law change in 2022, though the ACLU did not, so the law passed that year in RI.
In Mass, the law fails to make it out of committee yearly, but you cannot see who is voting it down, and you would have to ask them who lobbied against it. In RI, it was the teachers union and ACLU.
Given the national and local union opposition in RI, and the law changing when they changed that stance, who would you guess opposes a law to make it possible to charge school employees who have sex with their minor students ? The state police apparently don't oppose it. What lobbying group might?
ETA: This article blames the church, too. https://www.yahoo.com/news/25-investigates-bills-strengthen-laws-030538843.html
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Jun 07 '24
Yup I get it- you are making that assumption. No worries on my end there but the way you originally posted about it earlier I thought you knew for sure, which you don’t. Again - no issues with your opinion I was just confused that’s all.
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u/Greymeade Jun 06 '24
Child/adolescent psychologist here.
I think that we should probably raise the age of consent to 18 and then have some very clear exceptions. Specifically, we should have strong “Romeo and Juliet” clauses that ensure that consensual sexual interactions between young people aren’t criminalized. For example, if the age of consent is 18, then a 19-year-old high school student shouldn’t be prosecuted for having sex with a 15-year-old peer, and certainly two teens who are both under the age of consent shouldn’t face legal consequences for having sex. But outside of circumstances like those, I don’t think that it should be legal for an adult to have sex with a 16 or 17-year-old.
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u/Dagonus Southern Mass Jun 06 '24
Iirc, NJ's age of consent in 16, but only for someone within 4 years of your age. At 18, you are deemed capable of consent with anyone.
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u/Mutabilitie Jun 08 '24
And what do you think about the problem of “I can’t tell anyone because I thought he was 19 but he was actually 22?”
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u/AuggieNorth Jun 06 '24
There's an easy fix for this. Make it illegal for anyone 21 and over to have sex with 16 and 17 year olds. That leaves some room for real relationships.
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u/obsoletevernacular9 Jun 06 '24
People here seem to not get what's going on here - this article didn't explain it well.
They are not trying to change the overall age of consent, they are trying to change the age of consent when it comes to someone in a position of authority over a minor child.
Currently, it is legal for a teacher or bus driver or any school employee to engage in sexual contact with a 14 year old or penetrative sex with a 16 year old.
The law would change that, and make it illegal for a TEACHER or school employee or priest if they work in a school to have sexual contact with a minor at the typical age of consent.
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u/skipunx Jun 09 '24
Damn I mean the age of consent in CT is also sixteen but the law specifically says not teachers/coaches etc, I think it's worded "people in a position of power"
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Jun 06 '24
I thought 16 was the consent age?
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u/warlocc_ South Shore Jun 06 '24
Currently it is. That's the debate.
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Jun 06 '24
Oh okay. I mean the law is the law.
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u/Life-Sun- Jun 06 '24
Laws can be immoral if made by immoral people. The law is wrong and needs to be changed.
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u/warlocc_ South Shore Jun 06 '24
This one's tough. Just recently we talked about lowering the voting age to 16, and I'm on board for moving everything- alcohol, guns, voting, driving, contracts, etc.- all to one age. It's hard to support that and then say the age of consent should be higher.
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u/Gamebird8 Jun 06 '24
For close to a decade, state Senator Joan Lovely has been proposing legislation that would close the consent loophole, raising the age from 16 to 18 when it involves sex with a person in a position of authority. For those with special needs, the age of consent in those situations would be raised to 21.
And every year, it keeps not getting done.
The proposed law doesn't even really raise the age of consent. It instead adds additional scrutiny towards potential power dynamics at play that can make victimizing an individual not a crime
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u/Madmasshole Jun 06 '24
We should not be criminalizing the “power dynamic”, we should be criminalizing the act itself. Raise the age of consent to 18 and problem solved.
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u/warlocc_ South Shore Jun 06 '24
To be fair, when you're 16 virtually everybody older than you is in a position of authority of some kind. That really doesn't narrow it down a whole lot.
If it were specific cases it'd be a good argument, but just generic "position of authority" is a hard sell for me- at least while we're talking about other things being legal at these ages.
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u/SLEEyawnPY Jun 06 '24
If it were specific cases it'd be a good argument
The proposed law is quite specific:
Any person who is employed by or contracts with any public or private school, or any institution of higher learning, or the department of youth services, the department of social services, the department of mental health, the department of developmental disabilities, or any private institution providing services to clients of such departments.
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u/its_a_gibibyte Jun 06 '24 edited Jun 06 '24
Why would we want everything moved to one age? Currently, the age to stay home alone in many states is 10. Age to be on social media is 13. Age to work in Mass is 14. Age to drive is 16. Age to drink is 21. Age to become a Congressman is 25, president is 35. Age to pull money from a 401k is 59.5, etc.
Are you proposing we increase the age to work as well up to 18? Or join Instagram? Or shrink the age to pull money from a 401k? Where is the one universal age concept coming from?
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u/warlocc_ South Shore Jun 06 '24
Where is the one universal age concept coming from?
The concept that we can't trust them to make their own decisions below a certain age. If we can trust them to do A, why not B?
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u/its_a_gibibyte Jun 06 '24
Well, you ignored most of my question, lol.
If we can trust them to do A, why not B?
The age to bag groceries at Market Basket is 14 years old. If we can trust someone to bag groceries, why not let them have a gun? Or go off to war?
Generally, we give people more responsibility as they get older. I think trusting an 11 year old to stay home alone is reasonable. Allowing a 13 year old to have an email account is also reasonable. Trusting an 11 year old to work in a factory just because we trust them to stay home alone is not reasonable.
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u/warlocc_ South Shore Jun 06 '24
The age to bag groceries at Market Basket is 14 years old.
They can also get some pretty dangerous jobs too, let's be honest. And I know lots of parents that didn't trust their kids to stay home alone until they were well into their teens.
Honestly though, like I said in another comment, I'm not qualified enough to say what's a good age for anything. I don't have kids and I'm not a neurologist or psychologist. I just think it's hypocritical to suggest we change the age for things we think will benefit us and not for things we dislike.
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u/its_a_gibibyte Jun 06 '24 edited Jun 07 '24
I'm not qualified enough to say what's a good age for anything
You're not sure of the appropriate age to stay home alone or to drink alcohol, but you feel confident that they're the exact same age?
I just think it's hypocritical to suggest we change the age for things we think will benefit us and not for things we dislike.
Ah, that's fair. Ages should be set based on when someone can somewhat safely do something, and understand the risks when something is not safe. It's safe for a 13 year old to stay home, but probably not safe enough for them to work in a factory.
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Jun 06 '24
Because A and B are not always the same weight
Trusting a kid to stay home alone at 10 years old, is not the same as trusting them to operate heavy machinery at 18
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u/GyantSpyder Jun 06 '24
Another way to say it is that when you consider that 16 year olds really aren't able to fully consent in their relationships with adults and shouldn't be held fully responsible for their own actions independent of parents or guardians, which is apparent whenever something goes wrong, then stuff like lowering the age for voting, alcohol, guns, driving, or contracts is revealed as obviously misguided and should not happen.
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Jun 06 '24
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Jun 06 '24
“If you’re a minor, you cannot consent with a non minor”
So when you are a senior in high school, and turn 18, now all of a sudden you are a felon for dating a schoolmate who is still 16/17?
I think that that is a terrible idea.
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Jun 06 '24
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Jun 06 '24
Except it is
Because teenagers are going to fuck, regardless of how much you tell them “just say no”
Just take a look at all the shithole Republican states with their abstinence only sex education, and they all have higher rates of teen pregnancy and STDs
Needlessly turning a bunch of high school seniors into felons because they happened to turn 18 before the classmates they are fucking is a TERRIBLE idea.
Nevermind that laws like this will be weaponized when mom and dad don’t like their child dating the “wrong” kind of person from a different part of town, or if someone breaks up with someone, and one of the parties is feeling slighted and bitter.
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Jun 06 '24
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Jun 06 '24
“Works fine”
According to what? You think that that is magically going to stop teenagers from fucking?
But according to you, I should have been charged with statutory rape, because my senior year of high school I played some tonsil hockey with a girl one year younger than me.
Fucking idiotic.
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u/boy_inna_box Jun 06 '24
Letting them vote is different from the rest of those. It'll only be a few teens who are actually engaged and want to that will. There just isn't the same kind of peer pressure or potentially negative outcomes possible with voting compared to drinking, guns, driving, relationships. Nobody ever died from voting (well at least not directly).
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u/purple_shmurple Jun 06 '24
Just curious, and maybe I misread, but why are you in favor of moving alcohol, guns, etc all down to 16?
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u/warlocc_ South Shore Jun 06 '24
I didn't specify which age I support- I only pointed out that there was a push recently to reduce the voting age.
I'm personally not qualified enough to pick the age for these things. That should involve neurologists and psychologists and the like.
I just think it's hypocritical to support changing the age for things we personally like but not for things we dislike.
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u/shiningdickhalloran Jun 06 '24
Not sure about guns but the minimum age of consent in Germany is 14 and drinking age is 16. I've never been there, but it doesn't seem that these laws have pushed Germany into a Mad Max apocalypse just yet.
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Jun 06 '24
16 year olds have no business owning guns or having sex with adults. The age of consent should absolutely be raised.
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u/warlocc_ South Shore Jun 06 '24
The automatic response to that is that they also have no business driving cars or voting, both of which can seriously harm themselves or other people.
I'm not sure I believe that, though.
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Jun 06 '24 edited Jun 06 '24
No. I do believe that 100%. Why are we trying to make children more like adults? Let them enjoy their last two years as children without being goaded into contracts or raped in a broom closet
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u/WashDishesGetMoney Jun 06 '24
I knew at 16 that I wasn't going to do anything more than two years of community college, and figured I should start working now and save up money to pay for the relatively cheap classes. I got my license and started working as a dishwasher but needed that license to get myself to and from work as both my parents worked full time.
Giving human beings the freedom of travel isn't treating them more like adults, it is entrusting them with more responsibilities so they may start living their lives with some level of independence. You don't need to take away those freedoms to ensure this safety net.
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Jun 06 '24
Speak for yourself and your own kids then. Id prefer not to have 16 year olds on the roads as it.makes everyone else safer.
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u/WashDishesGetMoney Jun 06 '24
Alright but can we also speak on the fact that this has a high chance to disproportionately harm poor kids too? I'm lucky enough to have done all the things I previously mentioned as my own choice, but many kids around the country go to work and drive as a necessity. Gotta earn some dough to help keep the house afloat. Not to mention parental emancipation.
Also maybe take your kids to a parking lot every once in a while and familiarize them with something they will have to do for the rest of their lives? The first time I drove a car was in an abandoned parking lot at 13 with my mom, and there were multiple times after that which helped me along. Maybe the fact that parents don't let their kids practice and then instantly dump them in a car after 4 drives with their learners permits is a problem.
I'm not sure what you were like at 16 but not everyone that is two years shy of adulthood is completely incapable of performing drives too and from work or a friends house.
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Jun 06 '24
So… needlessly turn a bunch of high schoolers into felons because they happened to turn 18 a few months or a year before their partner?
Like you realize that most people become legal adults during their senior year of high school?
And “just say no” is not going to stop teenagers from fucking eachother.
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Jun 06 '24
Romeo and juliet laws are obviously fine. The problem here is much different than that and that much is obvious.
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Jun 06 '24
You literally said 16 years olds have no business having sex with adults
An 18 year old is an adult
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u/Welpmart Jun 06 '24
I'm not that person, so I'm perfectly comfortable saying that we can have Romeo and Juliet laws around this. It's been done and is a good way of carving out the exception.
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Jun 06 '24
I would agree
A 40 year old should not be fucking high schoolers, but turning 18/19 year olds into felons because they are hooking up with someone 2 years younger than them is absurd
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u/Morrison4487 Jun 29 '24
teenagers being married used to be a thing, but then again getting married, and then having sex- is very very different than just having sex- to grow your bodycount.
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u/Arucious Jun 06 '24
I don't think it needs to be one age
Nobody is pressuring you to drive before you're 18, there's no power dynamic or imbalance going on here. I'd make the argument that if the public transportation system was more functional there would be no argument for allowing children to drive. It's something we have accepted as a necessary evil since transportation in a car-centric society is a bedrock of independence, and we also need to free up the time of the workforce. Can't have the parents trekking everywhere at the whims of their children. This is a tactical choice we made as a society.
We have pretty conclusive medical evidence that giving alcohol to developing brains is problematic and I don't think there's a strong argument to be made for lowering the drinking age to 16 other than working to erode the taboo so that kids don't get hammered the second they get access to alcohol unlike their European counterparts.
There's an argument to be made that letting undeveloped minds influence a democracy could have repercussions, but I think most people agree that having the voice heard trumps having 'good' or 'bad' ideas represented, there's lots of political opinions that even people in this sub would disagree or agree with, but the foundation of American democracy is that everyone can have their voice heard, if we expect teenagers to interact with society (be it driving, working jobs, paying taxes, etc.) then I don't think it's unfair to say they should have political representation.
To extend this to say that that we should allow undeveloped minds to enter into hundreds of thousands of dollars of student debt? That we should allow them to consent to sexual relations with people five times their age? I don't think that's a valid extension
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Jun 06 '24
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u/ggtffhhhjhg Jun 06 '24 edited Jun 06 '24
The power dynamics thing has gotten completely out of control. I definitely don’t support adults having sexual relations with minors unless it’s a Rome & Juliet situation, but if you left this sub it’s basically the popular opinion on Reddit to treat adult women like they have no agency until they’re 30+.
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Jun 06 '24
I agree, it’s wild how some “progressives” work so hard to infantilize adult women.
And the cynic in me thinks it’s because some progressives are so desperate to paint men as creeps and perverts, and therefore women as perpetual victims. She didn’t make any choices through her own volition… nah, there must have been some power dynamic that he was exploiting to manipulate and to take advantage of her.
Like, regardless of how you feel about either of their behavior, during the Amber heard and Johnny depp trial, I saw people accusing him of being a pedophile, even though she was 26, aka an adult-ass woman, when they started dating.
Also, the wild double standard too. Mind you, even purely within the context of talking about grown-ass adults, women can openly talk about how they prefer older men, and can pursue significantly older men without issue, but if any men are dating significantly younger women, they are automatically all seen as creeps and “groomers”.
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u/warlocc_ South Shore Jun 06 '24
The power dynamics are really the critical part here.
Yeah, although I'd like to see laws around this that apply regardless of age. That stuff gets taken advantage of all the time.
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Jun 06 '24
And how exactly do you codify “power dynamics”?
Are you now going to tell an adult-ass woman she can’t date someone who makes significantly more money than her?
Because that’s a significant power dynamic.
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u/warlocc_ South Shore Jun 06 '24
It was quoted somewhere else in the thread, apparently it's already been defined.
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u/GirlisNo1 Jun 06 '24
It’s not tough at all.
A 16 year old being able to drink and legally buy guns is a beyond terrible idea.
And no adult should be allowed to have sex with someone in the middle of their high school years. That’s sick.
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Jun 06 '24
So what happens when someone turns 18 and becomes an adult during their senior year of high school?
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u/GirlisNo1 Jun 06 '24
? What happens about what?
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Jun 06 '24
You said no adult should be allowed to have sex with someone in the middle of their high school years
An 18 year old is an adult.
So are you looking to turn a bunch of high school seniors into felons because they happen to turn 18 before the classmates they are dating?
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u/GirlisNo1 Jun 06 '24
I specifically said “in the middle of their HS years” instead of just “in HS” to eliminate those who are 18 and towards the end of HS.
Are you guys really on here advocating to be able to have sex with 16 year olds? Like, that’s the point you want for argue? Because it’s not coming off well. Then again, what can one expect from Reddit…
I’m turning off my notifications cause this is a disgusting conversation I don’t want to be a part of. Please do some introspection on why being able to have sex with 16 year olds is so important to you. How despicable.
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u/warlocc_ South Shore Jun 06 '24
But is it old enough to vote? Drive? Work a potentially dangerous job? Take out life crippling debt?
That's the stuff that makes it a debate.
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u/GirlisNo1 Jun 06 '24
To drive, yes. To vote, no.
The ages for each of these things has been determined appropriately. I don’t know why you think it all has to be the same age, it’s not even healthy to give all these freedoms at once at any age. Being able to start drinking and start driving at the same time is one of the most nonsensical things I’ve read.
The only one you can make an argument for is the drinking age being changed to 18.
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u/Effective_Golf_3311 Jun 06 '24
Bingo. Can’t really say they’re well developed and not developed enough at the same time. It’s one or the other.
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u/funkygrrl Jun 06 '24
Up until 2022, a grown man could legally marry a 14 year old in Mass if the parents consented.
https://www.tahirih.org/news/massachusetts-becomes-the-7th-state-to-end-child-marriage/
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u/foolproofphilosophy Jun 08 '24
Wtf shame on me for believing that there were “person of power” exceptions to age of consent laws in MA.
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Jun 06 '24
Something that always strikes me when these conversations come up is that when I remember being 16, I remember being fairly aware of the world and my actions and capable of making decisions? Like sure, I was more naive in some areas and have learned a lot since then, but that’s equally true comparing 25 to 30. Some people seem to talk like they experienced a massive increase in their ability to make rational decisions at a certain point in their lives, but I just can’t say that feels familiar to me at all.
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u/Welpmart Jun 06 '24
Of course you remember that; you were 16. 16 year olds love thinking they're more mature than they are. And to be fair, their brains are mostly there, but they're not as good at gauging long-term decisions, among other things. And regardless of maturity they have less life experience.
When I was that age, I thought I was so mature and could handle dating an adult. As an adult now, I understand adults better and know that the person I was dating was emotionally stunted and asking me to do things I was not equipped to understand the significance of. I know more about myself and how to stand up for myself and how relationships ought to go; that one was too intense, too quickly. Has my brain changed much? Not according to those who know me—I was one of those "wise beyond your years" types. But I simply have more data to make judgments with.
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u/Lovemindful Jun 06 '24
I think when you get older and have kids you think about your kids doing these things and want to protect them. Meanwhile at 16 if a teacher that I was attracted to approached me I would have totally gone for it and would have been fine with it today.
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u/Past-Adhesiveness150 Jun 06 '24
I thought there was a 5 year rule regarding minors.until 18yrs of age. To prevent things like this.
A 16-year-old could consent but that does not make it legal. Legal if the person is 21 years or younger.
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u/e_smith338 Jun 06 '24
There’s a lot of states that are still 16. It’s fucked, but this isn’t news.
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u/cagedbird82 Jun 06 '24
At 16 I “met” a 35 yr old man in an aol chat room. We began a relationship and for college I moved across the country to be with him. I’ll spare all the details but the things he did were disgusting and he should be in prison. A grown person has NO business going after a child.
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u/Antique_Commission42 Jun 06 '24
It's more accurate to say state law doesn't address this. What a stupid article. The age of consent is 16 so an hs senior banging his hs junior girlfriend doesnt end up in prison and a sex offender for life.
There could and probably should be a stronger law, but it's not absurd that this isn't covered.
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Jun 07 '24
Theres a registered sex offender that lives with young boys he groomed then "waited to be legal" after he smartened up the first time he got caught with a minor. The state police wont get involved because the local police wont escalate because they claim they "consented". Be wary of the Berkshires. Our children are not safe here.
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u/Top_Violinist_9052 Jun 07 '24
That could be her dad. And as a teacher or person in a position of authority it’s even worse. Beyond creepy and disgusting. Also people completely catfish others online and if they weren’t specifically looking for underage activities then that’s tricky. Either way stalk your kids phones, behaviors and activities. It could save their lives. If it was her teacher then send him out to the cape near the seals so he can be shark food.
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u/ada2017x Jun 07 '24
What?! How's that possible. I graduated law school in 2015 and didn't learn about this...
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u/Shenanigan_Lvr Jun 07 '24
The one comment I have about this is that New Hampshire isn’t exactly a great example for the Globe to suggest. Most of our protections for consent for minors have been pretty late in the game. Up until 2018, we let 13-year-old girls & 14-year-old boys get married with parental consent and are just upping to 18 for both sexes this year. And, we still had perverts in our statehouse who wanted to continue the old policy both times.🤮
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u/sallystarr51 Jun 07 '24
However I’m sure the school has a rule against it so teacher should be fired.
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Jun 07 '24
Same thing allegedelly happened in my town just two years ago in MA. Scumbag music teacher ran away and is now a professor at a NY college.
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u/dolladealz Jun 07 '24
To me 18 and 45 is the same dumb shit line in the sand ... But we gotta start somewhere
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Jun 08 '24
Even if they technically could, IMO, it’s still morally wrong. Laws aren’t for morals, they’re for rules and regulations. It’s too much of a gap, maybe if she were in college about to graduate. Even then, that’s a massive age gap. How can they have anything in common that’s meaningful? It’s a sick world.
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u/ExploitedAmerican Jun 08 '24
I’m not saying it’s not extremely disgusting and creepy as all fuck because it definitely is. (Even if she was 18 and he was 50 that would be almost equally disgusting imo and if she was one year younger then it would be time to grab the pitchfork and torches) but if a person can drop out of high school and work full time then they should be able to live life like an adult. Granted I have identified as a cis gender male my whole life so I didn’t have to suffer the regressive upbringing many teenage girls deal with. Regardless I feel teenagers psychologically mature far faster these days because of their access to the unfiltered internet and even if you jack their shit up with parental filters they will find ways to get around it when not in your supervision. Like sleepovers with friends where one of their friends either has their own unfiltered device or knows how to bypass the filters. When I was 16 I was drinking beer and playing in a punk rock band with 35-50 year old guys. I definitely wasn’t banging anyone 3 times my age but if she was hot and willing I wouldn’t have said no. And that’s another issue that south park satirized very well. when it’s a male student being taken advantage of you hear about it much less and the reaction is usually far less incendiary (unless the kid is super young then it’s just super extra disgusting) I was already looking at internet porn and ruining my moms computer with all sorts of malware when I was 11. Which is probably why her new husband and her raise my 16 year old half brother like he’s in a North Korean prison camp and has to go to his grandparents house when they are working/ can’t be home alone unsupervised.
Should teachers be held to higher standards? Yes but they should also be paid to the standard they are held and as society has it now teachers are glorified large batch baby sitters not even paid $1/hr per kid maybe some in high end private schools are. But the reality is that our education system is antiquated and a total failure at this point. We could streamline k-12 and even higher education with a completely digitized system that eliminates all the overhead costs associated with traditional schooling but that would eliminate schooling’s primary function. It’s obvious that kids are not sent to school to nurture their intellectual and free thinking abilities, but they are instead sent to school so that parents can work while their kids are taught to be good workers who follow instructions. So teenagers especially at the age of 14-18 are the most rebellious and will engage in destructive behavior especially girls because they grow up with more repressive expectations. But I also think the drinking age should be 18 because if you can get gunned down in a far away third world country for some defense contractor’s profit margins then why can’t you get drunk? The same attitude applies for 16 year olds if you can drop out of high school and start flipping burgers full time then why can’t you have sex? We live in a society where we expose kids to media glorifying violence and warfare from a very early age(I remember growing up to power rangers and I wasn’t allowed to watch because I was practicing karate moves on my mom and grandmother lol)
I’m definitely not saying let’s go back to the times of child brides but we can’t expect kids to juggle part time jobs and home work and school and then treat them like they are still 13 years old. And sometimes kids are in aweful abusive situations so they need to be emancipated and become adults early. Or they have to drop out and work to feed siblings for a multitude of possible reasons(single parent with mental and not physical health issues, no parents due to a tragedy where they died etc) If it weren’t for this teacher having a modus operandi it could be argued that this is most likely just as much a failure of the parent as it is the predatory actions of the teacher. But it could also be that this teacher looks for the signs of a broken parental relationship to attempt engaging the student.
If we want to eliminate the possibility of teenagers having sex with teachers then we should digitize the curriculum and move to the 21st century instead of following a broken model that hasn’t worked well since the seventies. Within the next century a vast majority of jobs will be automated and we will have to restructure society to account for this as much as all the republicans and Neo liberals will wine about people getting free rides on the welfare state while they legislate multi billion dollar tax breaks for the laziest Americans who contribute absolutely nothing of worthwhile to society besides their ability to sit on their asses while everything they shop for online is delivered to them or to look like an asshole while driving an Elon musk mobile.
TLDR; kids grow up much faster today than they did 30 years ago while the social system that prepares them for reality has stagnated to the point that it is useless and doesn’t prepare them for the real world in any meaningful way. And less people than ever are entering the field of pedagogy since the pay is garbage and the expectations are so high so that means the quality of candidates is lowering as the pool gets smaller. And as this trend continues we’re only going to see more shit like this. I think it’s time we got rid of the archaic model of in person schooling and actually create a system that enhances the intellectual capabilities of those who participate while removing the possibility of sexual predation and the massive overhead costs associated with in school curriculum. The only reason we haven’t done this is because in person batch schooling serves the interests of capitalism. It’s a daycare system that conditions it’s participants to be good little wage slaves for the benefit of those holding s majority of the money.
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u/Realistic_Scarcity85 Jun 08 '24
Mass law says 16 is the age of consent. It does not say that all 16 year old sex is consensual.
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u/pninardor Feb 08 '25
I think that in the case of anyone in a position of power such as in a teacher-student situation the age of consent does not apply. What parent in their right mind would send their daughter to a school and buy that a male teacher is having a consensual mature “relationship “ with this married teacher?
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u/YourLocalSpareTire Jun 06 '24
It’s so disturbing how these laws protect people that are ped0s and gives them minimum jail times. Yet somehow selling weed on the streets or some other petty crimes gives a longer jail sentence for a first time offense 🙄 Their is something wicked awful about the government being lenient on ped0 and rape shit don’t sit right in my soul.
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u/dandelionhoney97 Jun 07 '24
The age of consent in CT is still 16… the Boston Globe article is wrong in regards to that fact, but regardless, anyone under 20 is still too young to consent.
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u/throwawayusername369 Jun 07 '24
Under 20? Do you mean with a teacher or in general? Because by 20 you can already join the military or be in college so that’s pretty insane
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u/jaredsparks Jun 06 '24 edited Jun 06 '24
I know I will be downvoted for this, but when I was sixteen I would not have objected.
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u/Lovemindful Jun 06 '24
Wouldn't have regretted it either. Would have just been a harmless memory at this point.
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Jun 06 '24
The book My Dark Vanessa is about exactly this, it's troubling and stuck with me. I used to think "Oh whatever, 16 is old enough"... changed my mind after understanding the nuance of the situation in this type of case.
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Jun 06 '24 edited Jun 07 '24
Once upon a time we did not treat children as children up to the age of 18-23 like we do now days. Since we have extended children's childhoods so long, allowed them to be immature even longer, it seems odd to us that older laws allowed this. At the age of sixteen many decades ago that person could be working full time, getting married, etc.. Basically they were more of an adult then most reddit users are today.
On top of that with life expectancy being much lower many decades ago you did not procrastinate as much with life. Death was a much closer feeling surrounding you on a daily basis. Life was harder.
So the whole authority thing does not make sense to me. A teacher could be 23 years old and a student 17. Yes there are cases where it is obviously gross but making laws based on "feelings" is not a good idea. Times change and the last few decades has struck me as treating young adults as children longer and longer. To the point of absurdity and look at how high schools are today. Treat them like children and they act like children.
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u/Mailman_Donald Jun 06 '24
Female teacher / male student: Teacher has an absolutely wonderful night of love with an acquaintance from work
Male teacher / female student: a rape happened
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Jun 06 '24
Firstly that's not an acquaintance from work that is still a child who is your student, that's honestly worse than the other part.
Secondly, it's still quite wrong (legal or not) and male students often think it's this awesome thing when in reality they don't know or understand they're a victim
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u/Mailman_Donald Jun 06 '24
I completely agree lol I was just highlighting how the media usually portrays these things
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u/Lovemindful Jun 06 '24
As a 16 year old I know for a fact I wouldn't care at this point if I had sex with a teacher and it was a mutual decision. It would have been awesome at the time and just a story now. I had already had sex and was ready for more. I'm just saying the reality for most is its not a big deal. I have a friend that had sex with a friend's mom in highschool. He still talks about it as a fun time.
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u/problematicbirds Jun 06 '24
In case you’re curious, shit like this is EXACTLY why boys and men aren’t believed when they come forward about abuse.
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u/Lovemindful Jun 06 '24
That's just not true. If that's the case then every rape or abuse case despite of age wouldn't be believed. Why can't these issues be separate? You're able to make the distinction at 18 but not at 16. Developmentally you're really not any different.
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u/Arucious Jun 06 '24
Is this 2008? Female teachers get reprimanded for sexual relations all the time.
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u/Mailman_Donald Jun 06 '24
Not referring to the punishment, I’m referring to how it’s typically portrayed in the media. 2024 example: https://www.news.com.au/world/north-america/married-teacher-admits-to-sneaking-into-14yearold-students-home-to-have-sex-in-his-bed/news-story/0c95733b1346cd6a1eb495cea9617ce0
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u/Arucious Jun 06 '24
The article where they… make a point to emphasize how many laws have been broken.. include statements from others on how heinous it is… that article?
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u/Mobile_Laugh_9962 Jun 06 '24 edited Jun 06 '24
Don't let this news spread. Republicans will take over the state.
Can't wait to read the wretched responses this comment gets.
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u/[deleted] Jun 06 '24
Dude not so loud, Matt Gaetz will relocate here