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 themselve…
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.
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.