Why is Mark Foley an evil pedeophile while women who sleep with

[dsc]

middle school males are just fantasies come true? I am by no means defending Foley who is not only slime but hypocritical slime, but if this isn't a double standard I don't knwo what is. Either males over 12 but under 18 are capable of making sexual decisions for themselves and thus people who sleep with them are not evil, or they aren't capable of making sexual decisions and people who sleep with them are evil. Which is it?

[rzemanfl]

1. What bills did those teachers sponsor? I missed that. n/t

[ShortnFiery]

2. Oh Please! They are NOT - but let's not go *there* again? n/t

[dsc]

8. Then he isn't either

You can't have it both ways. Either boys of a certain age need to be protected from adults or they don't need protected from adults.

[KayLaw]

35. Well, of course they do!

That's why you hear about it on the news. It's wrong no matter what or which way, dammit!

[ShortnFiery]

49. I'm sorry, I mis-typed. My stance has always been that they're both wrong

Please excuse the former post. :hi:

[zreosumgame]

3. because women are property

and if the little toys lose their virginity the value goes down. And we wonder why everyone is so fucked-up sometimes...

[Reverend_Smitty]

4. IMHO a pedophile is a pedophile

but you are right society has a double standard because homosexuality still has a social stigma attached to it. In either case the adult should know better

[Schema Thing]

12. and based on this, Foley is no pedophile.

[Reverend_Smitty]

18. Isn't the person in question under the age of consent?

if so then he violated the law. Personally I find it creepy whenever I read about stories like this regardless of the genders involved. I was really just commenting on the double standard the media has when it comes to news stories.

[Schema Thing]

27. I don't know. It is likely 17. But age of consent has nothing

to do with the definition of pedophilia.

[newsguyatl]

34. trust me, a pedophile wouldn't

quite like a "kid" with a 7.5" tool.

that's no kid.

[mhatrw]

41. He's a 52-year-old man hitting on a 16-year-old boy.

It may not be pedophilia, but it's not cool.

[Nutmegger]

5. Double Standard

If it barks like a dog, it's a dog no matter what.

[catnhatnh]

6. Florida age of consent is....

16 with partners under the age of 24 and 18 to consent to a partner over 24....thus at 16 this would have been legal if the congressman was much younger.....

[mhatrw]

42. The Congressman is 52. n/t

[Cleita]

7. I personally consider any adult woman who takes advantage

of underaged teenage boys or girls as much a pedophile as any man. I believe the law views this the same way too. What the tabloid press wants to make of it is well sleazy, IMHO.

However, I don't know if we should condemn adults who were lied to by the teenagers who told them they were over eighteen and weren't.

[Truthiness Inspector]

21. Good post n/t

[Warren DeMontague]

9. There's the Law and then there's Reality.

According to the law, a pedophile is a pedophile is a pedophile, and should be treated as such. Rightly.

As for Reality: it's hard for me to imagine that Mark Foley is ANYONE'S "fantasy come true".

[devilgrrl]

10. because there is a double standard - fair or not.

:shrug:

[Midlodemocrat]

11. A pedophile is a pedophile.

I started teaching high school at 21. Some of the boys were 19. Fair game? Not by a long shot. There is a trust issue at the heart of this. You don't take advantage of someone sexually when you are in a position of power. It is wrong on every level.

[Warren DeMontague]

13. I agree about the position of power.

But I disagree that any 21 year old having sex with a 19 year old is a "pedophile". 21 and 19 are both adults, legally and in every sense of the word.

[Midlodemocrat]

15. Yes, they both are. However, the position of power that a teacher

is in, regardless of age, adds a different component to the 'relationship'.

It is a line that shouldn't be crossed. That 19yo will graduate at some point and if the relationship is meant to be, it will be meant to be.

[Warren DeMontague]

19. That's why I agree with that part. High School teachers shouldn't have sex

with their students, period.

But I wince when I see people jumping on the bandwagon of trying to classify ALL teen sex as "pedophilia". Hey, I had sex with 16 year old girls several times--- when I was 16.

[Midlodemocrat]

22. LOL. I understand what you mean.

All teen sex certainly isn't pedophilia. A pedophile is a specific term to describe a person whose sexual gratification comes from 'children' (and that term is somewhat ambiguous, but usually refers to kids pre- Tanner stage 3-4)


And, if they locked up everyone who had sex as a teen, there wouldn't be anyone left!

[Schema Thing]

14. Why are you mentioning pedophilia?

[Midlodemocrat]

16. Um, because the OP did?

:shrug:

In regards to Mark Foley?

[JerseygirlCT]

46. Absolutely. nt

[pnwmom]

17. The female teacher in my state went to jail for several years.

And she was treated as as pedophile. So I don't see the double standard you're talking about.

By the way, when the student became an adult, he married her.

[dsc]

20. If you are talking about Washington State

she only went to jail after first receiving and violating probation by seeing him again. She also went to jail for under 3 years. I would bet my house, car, retirment, and a ton of mulla, that if I did the same thing they would be planting tomatoes on Mars when I got out of jail.

[Midlodemocrat]

23. If it's the Letouneau case, I think she served the full seven after

breaking her probation by getting caught with her lover in her car. IIRC, that is when the second child was conceived.

[dsc]

26. It couldn't have been too long

as the kid she slept with isn't even 20 now and they have been married awhile. It can't have been much more than 3 years. I would bet that if I did what she did with a male student I would get decades at a minimum.

[pnwmom]

28. She served the full 7 1/2 years, and married the guy when he was 22.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Kay_Letourneau

She first served 5 months in the county jail, and was released into a three year sexual deviancy program. When she violated the terms of her probation by seeing the student again (and getting pregnant again), she was sentenced to serve the full 7 and a half years of her original sentence.

When he turned 21 he asked the court to lift the no-contact order, and they were married a year later.

He is 23 now.

[LSK]

24. a 16 year old boy is capable of being a responsible father how??

:shrug:

[rug]

25. I thought the repulsive part is that he's Republican.

[smirkymonkey]

36. Touche!

:rofl:

Nobody should have to suffer the advances of a right-wing cretin.

[calico1]

29. Yes, it's a double standard.

To me, any adult who has sex with a child is a pervert. Period.

[Beelzebud]

30. Because there is a HUGE double standard...

[HardRocker05]

31. There is a double standard, but its usually advanced by males, so

what do you want us to do? As a woman, i say it's wrong either way. The age difference does matter, i.e. 50 and 12 vs. 18 and 17, and usually laws take this into account, but the genders of the persons involved should not be a factor.

[TlalocW]

32. A pedophile is a pedophile BUT

You can't expect boys and girls to react the same. I might be generalizing with my gender (male) and grouping us all together, but you'll find what I'm about to say holds true for the most part: All teenage boys need to get off is lotion, a piece of string shaped into the outline of a woman's curvature, and five minutes alone. We "wanted" to be molested at that age - whether it was by a classmate's hot mom, the good looking vocal music teacher, etc. Not to say that the girls weren't having their hormones bouncing around the place, but (and not to once again over-generalize, but I have to) the girls will more often see having sex as a means in having a relationship, even at that age. The guys don't see it that way, and even when they mature, a lot still don't see it any other way.

Of course, there are exceptions to everything I just said, but when guys on here talk about these teachers being fantasies come true, they're talking about the fantasies they had and assuming the boy in that situation feels the same way.

TlalocW

[newsguyatl]

33. totally agree

this whole "feigned outrage" stinks of homophobia to me.

i mean, shit, the kid was 17 with 7.5"... lol.. i mean, this is no KID.

not that i condone what foley did BUT, this is NOT pedophilia.. and he didn't do anything that MANY AND MANY of his straight colleagues haven't done, want to do, or jerked off THINKING about doing.

[mhatrw]

43. He's 52-years-old and the kid was 16. n/t

[pitohui]

37. it's the hypocrisy

i don't think foley a pedophile, the email exchange i just read was clearly consensual and the teen (was he 16, 17, hardly a child who didn't know his own mind?) seemed to be enjoying it as much as foley

however foley has built his career on persecuting others for doing what he does

i'm sorry, this should not be an aristocracy where freedom of sexuality is only for the rich and powerful, joe nobody would burn for this, foley must go down as well

if he wanted different laws, he could have worked for them

[lukasahero]

38. Thank you for saying it

I've been wondering the same thing. (Oh but it's the hypocrisy. Right. :eyes:)

FTR: My own take is adults should be adults and leave young people under the age consent regardless of gender alone.

[mhatrw]

39. Mark Foley on Mark Foley

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3339966/

‘Legal child porn’ comes under fire

Lawmaker targets Web sites featuring preteen ‘models’

March 28, 2002 - The photos of 12-year-old “Amber” cavorting in a swimsuit and various skimpy outfits wouldn’t have raised so much as an eyebrow if they had been posted on a family home page. But on lilamber.com — one of a growing number of “preteen model” sites operating in the legal gray area between innocent imagery and child pornography — they have drawn the attention of the Justice Department and prompted a congressman to declare war on the “reckless endangerment” of such kids by their parents and Web site operators.

“This is an unacceptable way for a child to earn lunch money … performing like a circus animal,” Rep. Mark Foley said of the sites, which feature girls as young as 6 wearing revealing clothing and striking sexually suggestive poses but display no nudity or overt sexual material that would run afoul of child pornography laws. “It sickens you that a parent would have such disregard for their own child.”

...

Foley, who is co-founder of a congressional caucus devoted to issues surrounding missing and exploited children, learned of the pre-teen sites late last year when WTVJ asked about them. “I was outraged when I first saw it because it’s being passed off as some career-building opportunity or to apply for college,” he said, referring to statements on several of the sites saying the proceeds will go toward the girls’ college educations. “To me, it borders on pornography and indentured servitude.”

...

But Rep. Foley said he intends to explore a new legal avenue — whether the parents of the child models could be prosecuted under child-endangerment laws. “This is reckless endangerment if I’ve ever seen it because you’re basically introducing your child to some really sick people,” Foley told MSNBC.com this week.

[KingFlorez]

40. It's not okay

It's never been said that it's okay that for adult women to sleep, the point that is made is it doesn't mentally effect the boy. I don't believe it's right either way.

[JI7]

44. Foley is not a pedophile

going after a 16 year old does not make him a pedophile.

in any case, i think a lot of it has to do wtih the fact that Foley is not attractive and the 16 year old was clearly not into him. if he was some hot guy in his 20s and the 16 year old had consented to any relationship than i think the reactions would be different.

[spanone]

45. I beleive women pedophiles are as vile as their male counterparts.

[Blue_Tires]

47. well said n/t

[WinkyDink]

48. To whom are you addressing your query? I don't think DU defends either.

[dsc]

54. try again

we have had lots and lots of threads about how the hot Florida woman who slept with middle schoolers was entirely different from a male teacher doing the same exact thing.

[Libby2]

50. Mark Foley is a slimeball

A REPUBLICAN slimeball.

[KamaAina]

51. Yup, there's a gay-straight double standard out there

Proof positive comes from, surprise, Kansas, where their "Romeo and Juliet law" designed to protect young couples from statutory rape charges applied only to young straight couples. Finally the dreaded ACLU made them stop.

http://www.gaycitynews.com/gcn_443/sodomylawvestige.html

If Limon’s sex partner on that occasion had been female, the Romeo and Juliet law would have applied and the longest prison sentence would have been 15 months. But because that statute is specifically limited to opposite-sex cases, Limon was prosecuted as an adult, as if he had committed statutory rape, and sentenced to more than 17 years in prison.

Limon appealed his sentence, arguing that the failure to include same-sex activity under the Romeo and Juliet law violated his right to equal protection of the laws under the United States and Kansas Constitutions. Limon did not argue on appeal that his conduct was not criminal, but rather that the disparity in sentencing relative to peers engaged in heterosexual conduct was unconstitutional.

The Kansas Court of Appeals initially rejected his claim, relying on the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Bowers v. Hardwick, the 1986 Georgia sodomy case. The American Civil Liberties Union filed an appeal on Limon’s behalf to the Kansas Supreme Court, which declined to review the case. The ACLU then petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court to consider the federal equal protection claim.

Edit: On the other hand, it's a little different when it involves a Congressman. Can you imagine the thermonuclear meltdown in FReeperville if Hillary had been exchanging naughty emails with a 16-year-old male page?!

[bluedogyellowdog]

52. The main issue here is that Foley..

.. headed some House committee on "missing and exploited children" and made a point of passing legislation to prove how "tough on sexual predators" he is. none of those teachers ever pushed bills through Congress sending others to prison for the very behavior they themselves engaged in. Foley is a hypocrite of the worst kind.

[buddysmellgood]

53. I don't think the fantasy defense holds up in court.

[Armstead]

55. And what happoens to the teachers who sleep with boys?

They end up in court, and at least one has gone to jail.

The real issue with Foley is the hypocracy -- both individually and as a collective sign of the Republican Conservative's mantra of do as we say, not as we do.