Sixteen year olds are capable of making adult decisions.
Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past few days you at least know the basic story. Mark Foley, a Republican congressman from Florida who time and time again denounced sex predators as “animals” was accused of having acted as one. Correspondence between Foley and teen boys in the Page program as well as allegations that the House leadership kept it all a secret surfaced. Amidst all the scandal and all the calls for renewed protection of America’s children, Foley resigned and checked himself into rehab for alcoholism and related behavior problems.
Of course I had the same reaction as most other people when it comes to accusations of child exploitation or an older man preying on younger boys: “This guy is a pervert and something needs to be done! Poor kid, I hope he grows up to be alright, I feel sorry for him.” I was steadfast in these sentiments until the whole debacle became even more soap operatic when ABC news released transcripts of one of the alleged instant message conservations. I took the time to read the full nine page ordeal.
While we won’t get into all the lurid details and I will leave it to you to read the text yourself, I am now extremely hard pressed to view a sixteen-year-old boy who talks for nearly an hour and in great detail about his sexual habits as a victim on the one hand and as a child in need of protection on the other. Sure what Foley did was dumb, inappropriate, and maybe even sick. But what about this sixteen year old who had the equivalent of cyber sex with a 54 year old man? He certainly is not without fault.
Many issues come to mind here. Based on the boy’s own words, that particular conversation was hardly the first time the two had discussed such things. Anyone who has instant messenger knows how to block someone. Why didn’t he do it? Why didn’t he report things the first time? Why did he save the conversations for as long as he did? Most importantly, why does no one in the mainstream media ever ask these questions?
While we could debate ad infinitum about when our country says adulthood starts, let’s just put a couple of things out there. In most states, the age of consent is sixteen. In many cases, criminals as young as fourteen are charged as adults and often face life in prison. To me, these two points alone are enough to say that our country accepts the idea that sixteen year olds are indeed capable of making adult decisions. End of discussion. It is not much of a jump then to say if you are old enough to make adult decisions, you are old enough to take adult responsibility for your actions.
Could Foley have continued to have these conversations with the boy had the boy simply blocked him? Not likely. Would Foley have persisted the way he did in the conversation had the boy not explicitly described his various sexual behaviors? Perhaps he would have, but this is irrelevant. The point is that if this boy wants to claim that he is a victim, he has to accept as much responsibility for his victimization as Foley has to accept for victimizing him.
No one wants to say this however. Our society has long stuck to the idea that there is nothing more repugnant than the sexual exploitation of children. And rightly so. There is not much out there that is more heinous that taking someone’s childhood away in that manner. Accordingly, terms such as pedophilia and child pornography arouse such anger and passion within us that to even question what the role the child may have played is unfathomable.
This sixteen-year-old, however, is hardly a child. He needs to take responsibility for what he did. Perhaps we all like to live in a delusional word where sixteen-year-olds do not have sexual thoughts or perhaps they do not have the ability to adequately think through those thoughts. At best, this idea is a farce. While I am not a psychologist and will not proclaim to be, I will again say that had this same sixteen-year-old shot someone, no one would be calling him a child and not a single politician would be saying our children need more protection.
What our children do need, however, is to learn to accept responsibility for what they do. How can they, however? If you’re fat, it’s because McDonald’s made you that way, not because you got your fat ass in your car and drove there twice a day three days a week for twenty years. Clearly they should have done a better job of warning you. You got an F on your test? Obviously your teacher is a racist and is singling you out and your mom needs to schedule a conference. It could not at all be the fact that you were out funneling beer until 3am and instead of spending those next five hours studying, you spent two vomiting and the next three putting pictures of the whole ordeal on Facebook. More germane to this, however, old men are hitting on you on the internet? Clearly he’s to blame for seeking out children. You being a sixteen-year-old wanton whore who posts pictures of you and your girlfriends wearing your Abercrombie G-strings and tank tops with the caption “do you like that ass?” has nothing to do with it. He should be taken out back and shot for exploiting our children.
Get a grip America. Yes, Mark Foley clearly has issues, but he has accepted responsibility for what he did. When will the rest of America take that lesson from his political playbook?
This is a new blog and we want your comments. Let us know what you think.
8 responses so far ↓
Scotty // Oct 4, 2006 at 4:19 pm
Before I state my opinion I need to say that I wholeheartedly agree with the stated point made in this blog. the law in many states and in many instances does portray 16 (and sometimes even 13,14 and 15) year olds as adults. I do believe our culture has a schizophrenic view of the multifaceted and uber complex mound of issues brought forth through the Foley scandal. Our media merely reflects this disheveled characteristic about our American culture. It is for these reasons that I think that the argument presented in this blog is necessary.
With that all said, I do not think it is a crime for middle aged people to have sexual fantasies about 16 year olds. I don’t even think that it would be a crime necessarily for them to act on them. I do think that hypocrisy, lies, scandals and corruption within government is abominable. I don’t think the media has done enough to focus on the real issue here which is the fact that Foley has been a representation of a witch hunt against his own kind and that his party has done everything in its power to cover it up. How do we allow these types of lying, misrepresented individuals to hold so much power? And why is it so impossible to find answers to our piercing questions directed at the government? If you ask me, this is just one more small example of how the American people, and consequentially the global community, are being held hostage behind smoke screens held by the US government and all those in power. I’m not going to go on a rampage of conspiracy theories or spout off about the perils of government. I don’t think the public are victims anymore than the 16 year old Page. I just think that its about time for the public to act instead of passively listen; to engage in more constructive actions instead of complacently going about our business. Revolution?
Unruly Rubber // Oct 4, 2006 at 11:47 pm
All I have to say is:
‘ sore from waltzing ‘
and
‘ cast fetish. ‘
Aidan // Oct 6, 2006 at 4:06 pm
All I have to say is this: How dumb are we? I mean, really, who cares? Sure, the guy’s a sleeze…a hypocrite…but let’s move on, there are bigger things to worry about than some whore of a teenager flirting with an old guy who always insists that guys like him are animals.
Who really cares? It’s a problem between the teen and the man. Let them solve it, and let’s move on.
middleman // Oct 7, 2006 at 6:56 pm
i agree this is a retarded issue to be dealing with but if he was a democrat you would be all over it. spin it if you want. you are lying to someone, either yourself or whoever would be stupid enought to give this blog any weight as legitimate. go kill yourself, really.
Thomas // Oct 8, 2006 at 1:31 pm
Well I am glad that the first post in this blog garnered some comments and I thought I should take the time to respond. In general, yes there are clearly more important things going on in the world than cyber sex between a 16 year old and a 54 year old. We live in a world of 24 hour news service so the media is often forced to sensationalize many things and so it should be no surprise that there have been stories about this in all the major newspaper for at least ten days now. Just because something is “stupid” and we have more important things to focus on does not mean that one should refrain from making commentary. If that were the case, everyday I would read the newspaper and say why are they reporting on the burglary next door when 8500 people died of AIDS today. So, take things with a grain of salt, but discuss them if you feel so inclined.
As for the longer comment by Scotty, maybe the reason people have not focused as much on the hypocrisy and corruption in government is because that actually is NOT newsworthy. It’s nothing new, it’s not surprising and it may never go away.
Til next time.
Scotty // Oct 9, 2006 at 8:21 pm
Perhaps hypocrisy and corruption in government is not newsworthy within the terms set up by our current media but that doesn’t make it any less important in my mind and I’m sure there are many many other people who would feel the same way. This just tells me how much more we need to push for a different set of standards in our society.
In response to “middleman”: who are you telling to kill themselves? I’m not clear on your stance at all.. it seems you’re defending the democrat’s point of view yet you’re arguing against the legitamacy of this blog, which is sort of contradictory. My suggestion: if you don’t have anything productive or tactful to contribute, keep it to yourself.
One thing I have found interesting in recent days is how all of a sudden the Republican agenda is centered around a bipartisan “global unity” point of view. Did anyone else see Ben Stein on the Sunday morning news urging the public to pay more attention to the dire situations in several African and Middle Eastern countries and to ignore the abundance of press given to the Foley scandal? I’m not saying what he was stating is wrong but I find it to be a stark contrast to what I have always recognized Republicans to represent. It is interesting that all of a sudden Republicans are in big trouble (not just for the Foley scandal) and they’re finding all sorts of ways to gain the trust of the public. When has a Republican ever truely shown a vested interest in these countries other than for their own personal gain? I challenge anyone to cite a time (and no, fighting terrorism is not a valid example).
gabrille // Nov 6, 2006 at 1:33 pm
“Sixteen year olds are capable of making adult decisions.” Of course; there is no questioning of that. I understand that in earlier years here in America it was not strange to have sixteen year olds married and with children, or managing a business or a farm quite capably. Now it seems as if the general standards of whether or not a teenager is capable of making informed decisions and can even take responsibility for them is circumstantial and has to be proved. I for one agree with most of the points made in this blog. Adult decisions overall makes for adult responsibility.
I must confess that I didn’t think much of the issue when I heard it reported via radio. What repulsed me was mostly that it was reported. How could this young adult even be called a victim? If he is a victim than a lot of teen chat rooms need to be shut down. I am a teenager; the word seems to have the connotations of innocent and unsuspecting.
The continual reports of the impoverished standards and convictions of most of our government officials are sickening.
Sphynx // Nov 22, 2006 at 10:37 am
I agree completely with the non-victim sentiment. The thing I find most ’sad’ about this whole story is that Foley felt a need to come up with excuses. Sad that a gay man can’t be gay without blaming it on his priest and dad. If the age of the page were an illegal thing, that could be a problem, but it wasn’t. Consenting adults do what consenting adults do, age of consent defines a consenting adult. So basically, this turned out to be more about being gay than anything else.