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Monday, Nov 9, 2009
"Statutory rape is a significant public health problem nationwide," says Georges Benjamin, executive director of the American Public Health Association. "A large percentage of births from young women can be from older men." He cites several studies, including a 1997 study that indicated that at least half of all babies born nationally to minor women were fathered by adult men. "The fact that Virginia is trying to do something about this is commendable," Benjamin says.
It is estimated that in 2000 the state of Virginia "had a total of 104 births to 14- and 15-year-olds that the age of the fathers would have made their engaging in sex a felony," Franklin says. (The number can only be estimated because just 28 percent of mothers age 14 to 15 reported the age of the baby's father.)
"A girl at 13 or 14 doesn't have the same decision-making skills, self-confidence, maturity or experience as an older woman and is thus more susceptible to bribery and intimidation," says Michelle Oberman, a law professor at Chicago's DePaul University who has written extensively about statutory rape laws. "This makes her prey to a guy who doesn't consciously want to violently rape a woman, but wants sexual intimacy."
All states have laws against sex with a minor, but those laws vary from state to state -- and few states vigorously enforce them. "Numerous studies tell us that a good number of teens under 15 are sexually active -- and it's something we just know [from anecdotal evidence]," Oberman says. "If we really had a vigorous enforcement of statutory rape laws, we'd have no room in our jails."
When dealing with teen pregnancy and sex with minors, state departments of health tend to focus their energy and finances on raising young girls' awareness and teaching them ways to protect themselves; a male-focused campaign is a new approach. "In the past, a 13-year-old girl was being asked to stand up to an adult," says Franklin. "We said to ourselves, 'Why aren't we talking to the men?' Not that we don't need to do education for young women on victimization, but we need to start talking to the men as well."
But will men listen? After all, the campaign is competing against a media culture saturated with images fetishizing young (and youthful-looking) women. MTV even titled its "satirical" movie about a high school football star who is accused of the statutory rape of his 16-year-old girlfriend "Jailbait," while teen queen Hillary Duff's 18th birthday is eagerly awaited by online fans (the first online "legality countdown" was, of course, the Olsen twins').
One of the goals of the campaign is to urge men to start talking to each other about the reality of statutory rape -- to remind each other that dating underage girls is against the law. "If he hears it from enough of his friends, hopefully he'll change his behavior," Odor says. Billboards and bar props seemed like the best way to reach groups of men when they might be meeting up with friends or going out for the night.
Dr. Rev. Darius Beechaum, who runs a men's support group (and provides individual counseling for men) in Richmond thinks Virginia's statutory rape campaign is a positive effort, but questions the heavy focus on male responsibility. Sex with a minor is a topic that occasionally comes up in his groups, he says. "You have these younger ladies that look older, act older, say that they're older. The attitude expressed by men in my group is, if she looks the age, then I guess she is."
And Beechaum isn't sure that men involved with a minor will be open to discussing their personal life with friends. "If a man is engaged in a sexual activity with someone younger, no one knows about it. He won't really take that person out in public -- he'll visit her at home, keep their relationship a secret."
