How would decent men changing their behavior help Samantha? Honest men *already* don't have 13 year old girls over alone to their houses. That's not a thing people do. Nor do male teachers or psychologists have teen girls over to their houses. Male teachers generally interact with whole classrooms full of students inside a school full of…
How would decent men changing their behavior help Samantha? Honest men *already* don't have 13 year old girls over alone to their houses. That's not a thing people do. Nor do male teachers or psychologists have teen girls over to their houses. Male teachers generally interact with whole classrooms full of students inside a school full of people. They are rarely alone with the students, and that's on purpose to prevent abuse. I suppose doctors and psychiatrists might see kids alone. Mine have never been alone with a doctor/psychiatrist. Even still, parents would be driving their 13 year olds to their apointments and sitting out there in the waiting room, not trusting the doctor to come pick the kid up.
I know "don't be dumb" is an unsatisfying answer, but scams essentially prey on gullibility and stupidity. Normal parents--even your average dumb ones--would have realized that Polanski's "photo shoot" stank and either cancelled or insisted on accompanying their daughter.
Maybe there actually is a difference between Europeans and Americans, as Samantha Geimer repeatedly suggests in her book. Samantha's family supposed that Europeans were more liberated and Roman Polanski held another set of values because he was European. They thought he held other, but perfectly decent values.
I can recall numerous occasions when I spent time alone with adult men when I was a teenager: I stayed after the lessons with my teachers (most of whom were male) to get further explanations on topics and discuss things further. With some of them, I essentially socialized. I once spent an hour in a room with the education and job-adviser. I spent numerous occasions alone with the school doctor (in Sweden, schools hire nurses and doctors so the parents don't have to drive their kids to a clinic for minor issues). I went alone to see a psychologist. When my daughter got an appointment with the school doctor a few months ago, I didn't think twice: I just trusted her school to arrange that safely. If I had insisted on being there for safety reasons, people would have considered me weirdly paranoid and untrusting.
Being gullible and stupid might be two different things in Europe and in America. Or it might be more local than that. But it certainly seems to differ.
There is definitely a difference between Europeans and Americans--Americans are already doing what you essentially suggest in this post. We don't let young teenage girls hang out alone with unknown, older men. Honest adult men don't try to hang out alone with girls. Male high school teachers here know that they would be opening themselves up to tremendous risk by meeting alone with a student, even if they are completely innocent, because someone could accuse them of assaulting a student and they would have no way to prove otherwise.
We don't let little kids walk to school alone, because they could get hurt/hit by a car/kidnapped/raped/killed. (The schools literally won't allow a young student to walk home alone. Some districts don't allow children to walk at *all*, even with a parent.)
We don't let kids play unsupervised outside because they could get hurt. We don't let teenagers go to parties by themselves because they could get into drugs/sex/alcohol. We don't let them have unsupervised contact with adult men. There have been too many scandals where people whom others trusted took advantage of children--the Boy Scouts scandal, the Catholic priests scandal, teacher scandals in general, etc.
So what you are proposing is *already* what we are doing, at least in the US. Perhaps European men could change their behavior and act more like Americans. That would mean that teachers wouldn't meet with students like you, and doctors wouldn't come to the schools, and kids wouldn't walk to school, and so on. It would all be a bit like Saudi Arabia, where of course women don't meet alone with unrelated men.
(Whether it's a good idea or worth it to try so hard to prevent situations where rape or assault might occur is a separate question.)
It sounds like, from what you just said, that Samantha's parents were aware that this is the norm in the US, but chose to ignore it because Polanski is European and thus more "liberated." This doesn't make much sense, since "liberated" generally means "sexually liberated," I.e., he believes it's moral to have a promiscuous sex with lots of people. That, well, sounds a lot like saying "yes, we figured he wanted to have sex with our daughter." I think they just figured he'd stop at making out/some heavy petting or photographing some material for future masturbation and not actually rape her.
It all sounds like the worst rumors I have heard about America. I wouldn't want to copy it one bit. Especially as Jonathan Haidt et al (probably rightly) are sounding the alarm over kids getting depressed from being overprotected.
I guess I'm making things less clear through using an example of the rape of an underage girl, when I'm mostly talking about ways to decrease sexual coercion of adult women (which is much more common). The reason why I used this example is simply that it is very good and unusually well-written (Samantha Geimer was helped by a professional writer). Good and honest descriptions of non-violent rape are scarce, for obvious reasons.
Statistics say that most rape victims are young adult women. I assume that sexual coercion mostly happens in places where it would be considered legitimate to have sex: Appartments, outdoors clearly out of view of other people. For that reason, my only proposition was that adult men and women who haven't had the time to get to know each other a bit should avoid the very places where people have sex. I think that such a small measure would reduce the amount of sexual coercion rather drastically. My aim was never to eliminate sexual coercion for any age-group: that can't be done.
>>I think they just figured he'd stop at making out/some heavy petting or photographing some material for future masturbation and not actually rape her.
They definitely didn't. They were upset that he took topless photos of her. If nothing else, having sex with someone less than 15 years old is forbidden in Europe just like in America. The vast majority of European men respect that law.
Then America is big, and European-style things happen there too. Like the Aaron Knoedel case. Knoedel was acquitted despite proof that he had had very long nightly telephone conversations with a student. He claimed he was just supporting a student with troubles and that doing so was the norm at the school where he worked. Obviously, many people found that explanation plausible.
How would decent men changing their behavior help Samantha? Honest men *already* don't have 13 year old girls over alone to their houses. That's not a thing people do. Nor do male teachers or psychologists have teen girls over to their houses. Male teachers generally interact with whole classrooms full of students inside a school full of people. They are rarely alone with the students, and that's on purpose to prevent abuse. I suppose doctors and psychiatrists might see kids alone. Mine have never been alone with a doctor/psychiatrist. Even still, parents would be driving their 13 year olds to their apointments and sitting out there in the waiting room, not trusting the doctor to come pick the kid up.
I know "don't be dumb" is an unsatisfying answer, but scams essentially prey on gullibility and stupidity. Normal parents--even your average dumb ones--would have realized that Polanski's "photo shoot" stank and either cancelled or insisted on accompanying their daughter.
Maybe there actually is a difference between Europeans and Americans, as Samantha Geimer repeatedly suggests in her book. Samantha's family supposed that Europeans were more liberated and Roman Polanski held another set of values because he was European. They thought he held other, but perfectly decent values.
I can recall numerous occasions when I spent time alone with adult men when I was a teenager: I stayed after the lessons with my teachers (most of whom were male) to get further explanations on topics and discuss things further. With some of them, I essentially socialized. I once spent an hour in a room with the education and job-adviser. I spent numerous occasions alone with the school doctor (in Sweden, schools hire nurses and doctors so the parents don't have to drive their kids to a clinic for minor issues). I went alone to see a psychologist. When my daughter got an appointment with the school doctor a few months ago, I didn't think twice: I just trusted her school to arrange that safely. If I had insisted on being there for safety reasons, people would have considered me weirdly paranoid and untrusting.
Being gullible and stupid might be two different things in Europe and in America. Or it might be more local than that. But it certainly seems to differ.
There is definitely a difference between Europeans and Americans--Americans are already doing what you essentially suggest in this post. We don't let young teenage girls hang out alone with unknown, older men. Honest adult men don't try to hang out alone with girls. Male high school teachers here know that they would be opening themselves up to tremendous risk by meeting alone with a student, even if they are completely innocent, because someone could accuse them of assaulting a student and they would have no way to prove otherwise.
We don't let little kids walk to school alone, because they could get hurt/hit by a car/kidnapped/raped/killed. (The schools literally won't allow a young student to walk home alone. Some districts don't allow children to walk at *all*, even with a parent.)
We don't let kids play unsupervised outside because they could get hurt. We don't let teenagers go to parties by themselves because they could get into drugs/sex/alcohol. We don't let them have unsupervised contact with adult men. There have been too many scandals where people whom others trusted took advantage of children--the Boy Scouts scandal, the Catholic priests scandal, teacher scandals in general, etc.
So what you are proposing is *already* what we are doing, at least in the US. Perhaps European men could change their behavior and act more like Americans. That would mean that teachers wouldn't meet with students like you, and doctors wouldn't come to the schools, and kids wouldn't walk to school, and so on. It would all be a bit like Saudi Arabia, where of course women don't meet alone with unrelated men.
(Whether it's a good idea or worth it to try so hard to prevent situations where rape or assault might occur is a separate question.)
It sounds like, from what you just said, that Samantha's parents were aware that this is the norm in the US, but chose to ignore it because Polanski is European and thus more "liberated." This doesn't make much sense, since "liberated" generally means "sexually liberated," I.e., he believes it's moral to have a promiscuous sex with lots of people. That, well, sounds a lot like saying "yes, we figured he wanted to have sex with our daughter." I think they just figured he'd stop at making out/some heavy petting or photographing some material for future masturbation and not actually rape her.
It all sounds like the worst rumors I have heard about America. I wouldn't want to copy it one bit. Especially as Jonathan Haidt et al (probably rightly) are sounding the alarm over kids getting depressed from being overprotected.
I guess I'm making things less clear through using an example of the rape of an underage girl, when I'm mostly talking about ways to decrease sexual coercion of adult women (which is much more common). The reason why I used this example is simply that it is very good and unusually well-written (Samantha Geimer was helped by a professional writer). Good and honest descriptions of non-violent rape are scarce, for obvious reasons.
Statistics say that most rape victims are young adult women. I assume that sexual coercion mostly happens in places where it would be considered legitimate to have sex: Appartments, outdoors clearly out of view of other people. For that reason, my only proposition was that adult men and women who haven't had the time to get to know each other a bit should avoid the very places where people have sex. I think that such a small measure would reduce the amount of sexual coercion rather drastically. My aim was never to eliminate sexual coercion for any age-group: that can't be done.
>>I think they just figured he'd stop at making out/some heavy petting or photographing some material for future masturbation and not actually rape her.
They definitely didn't. They were upset that he took topless photos of her. If nothing else, having sex with someone less than 15 years old is forbidden in Europe just like in America. The vast majority of European men respect that law.
Then America is big, and European-style things happen there too. Like the Aaron Knoedel case. Knoedel was acquitted despite proof that he had had very long nightly telephone conversations with a student. He claimed he was just supporting a student with troubles and that doing so was the norm at the school where he worked. Obviously, many people found that explanation plausible.