Boys as victims of statutory rape

Male sexuality and the difficulty with seeing women as perpetrators of sexual assault

While statutory rape laws are sex-neutral, many people, especially men, continue to hold a moral double standard. “Come onnnn” they’ll say, rolling their eyes “you’re telling me I’m supposed to think that a 25 year old woman who has sex with a 15 year old boy is abusing him?? That he’s traumatized by this? I could’ve only dreamt of being traumatized like that!” Adult women do not share this sentiment when reflecting on adult men having sex with teenage girls. Most of us feel disgust for the men. They’re creepy losers who prey on teenage girls either because they aren’t able to attract adult women or because they enjoy having significant levels of control over their romantic partners. 

While not always the case, coercion is often presumed on account of the fact that teenage girls are often insecure, easy to manipulate, sexually inexperienced and not sufficiently aware of how to handle their newfound desirability to men. Teenage boys on the other hand, while also insecure and sexually inexperienced are struggling more to control their newfound sexual desires than they are to adjust to their desirability to others. Coercion is not naturally presumed because it’s harder to imagine a teenage boy needing any coercing: they’ll fuck anything after all, even a warm apple pie!

Male victims of sexual assault and harassment are often taken less seriously. Recall Wendy Williams’ flippant reaction to Terry Crews #MeToo story, or the fact that James Charles remained more or less uncancelled despite publicly admitting to sending sexually explicit messages to several underage fans (he was only 21 at the time and claims he thought they were of age, but I think the reaction would’ve been much more extreme if he had been messaging underage girls). But while women are more physically vulnerable and are more frequently victimized, male victims of sexual assault deserve just as much empathy, particularly because they often have to wrestle with an additional layer of shame before they’re even able to share these experiences. 

You could, however, believe that laws against sexual assault or harassment should not be sex-specific while arguing that statutory rape laws should be. Statutory rape laws don’t rest on non-consent but instead criminalize all sex with a minor, at least if there’s a significant age gap, on the presumption that said sex is likely to be coercive. Men may occasionally be assaulted or harassed against their will, but should the presumption of coercion apply to underage males who are engaging in sexual relationships with adults?

I acknowledge that underage boys relate to sex quite differently than underage girls do and that we should expect sex to have significantly different psychological effects for boys vs. girls for both social and biological reasons. But you still have to consider selection effects: what sort of women do you think are having sex with teenage boys? Not many that are remotely normal. Maybe the Kristen Bell lifeguard situation or Eva Longoria as desperate housewife happens occasionally, but I’d bet the typical woman in this sort of age gap relationship is not someone you’d be excited for your son to have a relationship with. And you also have to consider the fact that men can victimize teenage boys as well as girls. 

As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, statutory rape laws were originally sex-specific such that only females could be victims. These laws were made sex-neutral in all states between the 70s and 90s. These reforms began as part of a larger program of rape reform which broadened the offenses covered under sexual assault laws and graded these offenses by severity (Cocca, 2004, p. 17). As I also mentioned in my last post:

[d]espite the fact that these reforms were being debated during a time when many other gender-specific laws were being successfully challenged as unconstitutional, court rulings were not a factor in removing the gender specificity of statutory rape laws. In a series of cases throughout the seventies state courts consistently ruled that gender specific statutory rape laws were constitutional, and the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the constitutionality of California’s law in 1981 (Cocca, 2004, p. 68).

But these laws were eventually made sex-neutral anyways, despite pushback from radical feminists and religious conservatives. The changes were justified both on the basis of equality between the sexes and in reaction to specific cases which demonstrated how boys were left unprotected under the status quo. Therefore arguments in favor of making the laws sex-neutral were both ideologically based as well as pragmatic. Summarizing the relevant factions and their arguments (as described by Cocca, primarily):

• Liberal feminists wanted formal legal equality for girls and boys. They also wanted to empower young girls by recognizing their sexual agency but remained concerned about the potential for exploitation and the need to protect these young women. They supported sex-neutral laws and a relatively high age of consent along with relatively large age gap provisions.

• Pro sex feminists wanted to empower young girls by recognizing their sexual agency. They rejected the vision of women as weak and victimized and the narrative that they were sexually passive and disinterested. They supported sex-neutral laws and a relatively low age of consent and/or large age gap provisions.

• Radical feminists, as I detailed in my last piece, were concerned that formal equality would fail to generate real equality and, by refusing to recognize that young boys and girls were not similarly situated with respect to sex, would leave young girls unprotected from boys their own age. They supported a high age of consent and questioned whether making these laws sex-neutral and decriminalizing sex between close in age teens through age gap provisions would actually advance feminist goals.

• What Cocca calls the “good-old-boy” conservative democrats were worried about the potential for young boys to be punished for normal expressions of their sexuality. It’s important context that up until this time many states, explicitly or implicitly, allowed a promiscuity defense to statutory rape such that the crime only protected girls of “previously chaste character”. This defense was facing increasing push back from feminists and as such the “good-old-boys” were worried about young temptresses who could land boys in jail for completely consensual relationships. They supported a low age of consent (particularly without the promiscuity defense) but the liberal feminist position of having a high age of consent with relatively large age gaps and sex-neutrality also accomplished their desired goal of protecting what were likely consensual relationships from being prosecuted as statutory rape.

• Religious conservatives wanted to maintain the prohibitions on premarital sex, and the statutory rape laws pre-reform (which were sex-specific, had a high age of consent and no age gap provisions) aided in that project. They were against the reforms because they wanted to maintain the illegality of consensual sex between teenagers.

• Feminists in general wanted to make the laws sex-neutral in order to recognize boys as victims. In states that were not immediately on board with sex-neutral reforms, they ultimately were pushed to the fore in part by motivated mothers who were reacting to and in some cases publicizing with outrage examples of relationships involving adults and teenage boys which were not considered statutory rape and which I’ll discuss below.

Focusing on the last point, getting the legislators or the general public to see boys as potential victims required some re-education. In her book Jailbait¹, Carolyn Cocca covers how concerns that young boys were being convinced to engage in homosexual activity with adult men, rather than a belief in equality between the sexes, was often what motivated legislators to support these reforms: “The sex neutral aspect of the offense was appealing to legislators because it protected boys from homosexual assaults by adults. That was a policy change that male legislators understood and endorsed, especially when presented with examples of abusive scout masters of camp counselors. (Bienen 1998: 1513, 1578)” (Cocca, 2004, p. 76). As she notes in discussing the case study of New Jersey which made it’s statutory rape laws sex-neutral in 1978:

It is interesting that the male legislators almost automatically conceived of the gender-neutral language as protecting young males from homosexual activity. They apparently did not imagine females to be the principal perpetrators of statutory rape; they did not seem concerned about relationships between older females and younger males. They did conceive of it as a way in which to prosecute homosexual males, even though the same bill package decriminalized sodomy between two adults. The notion of a male perpetrator, heterosexual or homosexual, was a better fit with the legislators’ notions about gender and sexuality (Cocca, 2004, p. 77).

I’d go further and say that even now, the notion of a male perpetrator is a better fit with most people’s general notions about gender and sexuality. Feminists wanted to include women as potential perpetrators however, and made the case to legislators in New Jersey, in part by arguing that women could aid and abet statutory rapes and should be subject to punishment for such actions (Cocca, 2004, p. 76). Most states reformed their laws to be gender neutral during the 70s, but California was one of the last states to do so in 1993: 

Part of the puzzle of California’s inaction is that by the end of the 1970s, most states had made their rape statutes (both statutory rape and forcible rape) gender-neutral. Indeed, California had made its forcible rape statute gender-neutral in 1979 but left its statutory rape law alone. (Cocca, 2004, p. 78)

(Cocca, 2004, p. 74)

This was likely related to the advancement of the view, starting in the late 70s and upheld in the 1981 Supreme Court decision, that sex-specificity in statutory rape law was appropriate due to the differential natural consequences which sex held for men vs. women (Cocca, 2004, p. 79). The idea was that women were already deterred from sex by the threat of pregnancy, and that creating a threat of jail time or a criminal record for teenage boys simply equalized the costs. Two cases in the early 90s changed this narrative and the public understanding of boys as potential victims.

The first case involved a 40-year-old woman and a motivated stepmother:

40-year-old Faye Abramowitz of Granada Hills was charged with having sex with eight males aged 14-16, among whom was Marcia Beckerman’s stepson. Because the law was still gender-specific at the time, Abramowitz could not be charged with statutory rape. Rather, she was charged with five counts of sex acts with a person under 18 and three counts of lewd acts upon a child, sentenced to five years probation, and ordered to undergo counseling. (Cocca, 2004, p. 49)

In response to this case, Marcia Beckerman created Mothers Against Sexual Abuse which began lobbying legislators to reform the laws and also brought the issue to pubic attention. As Cocca notes however, the public was not fully on board with the idea of these boys as victims:

... the numerous comments that were made publicly about the situation were mostly tongue-in-cheek and along the lines of those made by Deputy District Attorney Craig Richman, who prosecuted the Abramowitz case: “A lot of males have the attitude, ‘Where were women like this when I was growing up’?” (Moody 1993). Likewise, the Sacramento deputy district attorney who prosecuted a similar case “found that attitude, just in conversation, oftentimes a gut reaction, or initial reaction [from people]: ‘Oh, well, he’s a boy and it’s probably the greatest thing that happened to him’… If it’s a young girl, it’s clear to people that it’s a molest” (Moody 1993). Unnamed policemen were quoted as saying that “some of the boys, ages 14 to 16, consider the experience a badge of honor,” and one detective even pressed, “I really think the parents are more upset about it than the kids are” (Wharton 1992). Jeff Beckerman, the father, said that “he was not as disturbed as his wife about the incident.” Marcia Beckerman herself noted, “All the kids thought she [Faye Abramowitz] was cool” (Moody 1993). Such comments reflect the assumption that males are sexual agents and would therefore welcome any sexual attention. (Cocca, 2004, p. 80)

The bill that was proposed by Senator Russell in response to this case and Beckerman’s lobbying failed. There was significant pushback from groups on the religious right, who argued that sex-neutral laws would reduce the reporting of statutory rape between close in age teens since either could be a perpetrator. And there was a legislative focus at the time on reducing teenage pregnancy, for which sex-specific statutory rape laws were seen as a tool. However, another case came up shortly after which showcased how teenage boys who had sex with adult women could nevertheless be victims of coercion. Cocca summarizes the details below:

A.T. Page and Mark Searl were 17-year-old high school students when their football coach, Randy Brown, asked them to have sex with his wife, Kelly. Searl refused; Page did not (Associated Press 1993, Kataoka 1993). As in the Abramowitz case, the gender specificity of the law did not cover these males as victims. [...] Page and Searl contacted a local attorney to change the wording of the law so that future male victims could seek redress. The attorney in turn contacted Senator Russell’s office and arranged to have the two boys go to Sacramento to testify. They did so with great emotion, which appeared to affect the progress of the bill. (Cocca, 2004, p. 82)

This case was interesting, in that it involved the sort of heterosexual sex between a teenage boy and an older woman which the public and legislators assumed would constitute a peak experience for him, but also included a male perpetrator in a position of power. As such, understanding these boys as victims of coercion was much easier than in other cases involving heterosexual sex. There were also cases in other states which involved heterosexual sex between adult women and very young teenage boys, or boys with some degree of mental incapacity which added to the public concern for boys. In general however, I think that even now males are only consistently recognized as victims of statutory rape in cases which involve a male perpetrator.

I do share that intuition, but there are at least some cases, including some which involve heterosexual sex, where teenage boys are clearly victims and are deserving of the same protection as young girls. But still, it’s hard to deny that boys and girls are differently placed with respect to their readiness to explore their sexuality, and with respect to the amount of desire they engender in others. There are far more individual men who would take advantage of sexual opportunities with underage girls than there are individual men or women who would do the same with underage boys. And again, the psychological damage caused by such sex is likely to differ for the average girl vs the average boy.

Given this I think you could make the case for either sex-specific statutory rape laws or a lower age of consent for boys without relying on arguments related to the “natural costs” of pregnancy. Instead you could argue that the presumption of coercion is weaker when talking about teenage boys, and that therefore additional evidence of wrongdoing should be needed to conclude that sex between an adult and a male minor is problematic. If, however, you wanted these laws to continue to protect boys from adult men, you’d have to make the additional argument that adult men are better at coercing boys than adult women are, and that therefore the presumption of coercion is higher when talking about homosexual activity. I think this would be a very difficult case to make, and the fact that young women are more frequently victimized in these ways doesn’t imply that we shouldn’t protect young men when they’re victimized as well. On top of that, while arguments that these laws should be sex-specific are typically focused on the greater need to protect young girls, such a change would also mean that girls’ behavior is restricted in ways that boys’ behavior is not. So, while I acknowledge the relevance of sex differences to these laws, I settle on sex-neutrality as the most reasonable compromise on offer.

1. Cocca, Carolyn. Jailbait: The politics of statutory rape laws in the United States. State University of New York Press, 2004.