[DanaC]

Originally Posted by Livia

I think it says a lot about the judges and the prosecutors view of 13 year old girls who are sexually experienced and sexually predatory.

Ah yes the age old story of middle aged men seduced and entrapped by dangerous young Lolitas.

By describing the girl as predatory, she is recast as perpetrator and by default he is recast as victim: if she is predator, then he is prey. His sentence reflects this recasting.

How exactly, does a 13 year old girl 'prey' upon a middle aged man? How was she able to seduce him into allowing her to perform a sex act on him? The only way that works is if her charms were 'irresistable'. However sexually experienced or aggressive, however manipulative she might have been (not saying she was, just taking the description at face value) his defence rests solely on an assumption that he was unable to say no. That he was unable to resist, even whilst he believed that she was a young girl of 14 or 15. It rests on assumptions of male powerlessness in the face of desire and female voraciousness as a danger to men.

We are back in the land of the 'self-guiding penis':

http://www.theguardian.com/science/t...atell-rape-men

The conclusion to the above article is excellent:

It makes a lot more sense though if, like Ross, Wolf, Platell, and a thousand other hacks, you believe the myth of the self-guiding penis. It allows offenders to abdicate responsibility for their actions, and transfer it to seductive women; it leads people to assume that rape is a crime of passion rather than a cold, premeditated act of psychological manipulation and physical oppression; it reinforces the victim-playing notion among misogynists that female sexuality is a dangerous weapon; and it reduces men to the role of a barely sentient bag of hormones clinging desperately to the back of a rampaging penis.

The myth is as offensive to men as it's dangerous for women. Perhaps the worst part of it is the subliminal message repeated across the media each and every day of the week: whether it's porn driving men crazy or short skirts inviting rape, female sexuality is dangerous, and it must be controlled to protect men. How bizarre to be confronted with the world the way it is, and come to that conclusion.