What is Digg?223 Comments
- Scik, on 10/12/2007, -16/+139Only in Utah...
- Ademuth, on 10/12/2007, -4/+126"Randall Richards, the girl's attorney, argued that prosecuting children under a law meant to protect them is illogical."
I couldn't have said it better myself - shakin, on 10/12/2007, -4/+114"Only an idiot would support the idea of 12- or 13-yr-olds having sex."
You're right. It makes much more sense to charge kids with committing sex crimes to themselves. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -4/+88Hows about we just leave people alone?
- dashifen, on 10/12/2007, -8/+84@willdiggforfood
One doesn't have to be an idiot to understand that while one 12 or 13 year old may not be emotionally and physically mature enough for a sexual relationship that another one might be. Assuming that a person's age is the only indication of a person's maturity is a dangerous thing. - Chebyshev, on 10/12/2007, -2/+73I don't think anyone is supporting 12/13 year olds having sex, but it doesn't seem to me that the government should be involved in this case. It was consensual (as far as 12 year olds can consent I guess), so I think it should be left to the parents to discipline/educate their children.
Besides, labeling a person the victim and perpetrator of the same crime is inane. - roosterjm2k2, on 10/12/2007, -8/+73Umm, no.
Here's how it works. From a strictly realistic point of view.
You know why kids become interested in sex? Because when the body and brain have reached a certain level of maturity, a 'switch' is flipped on and the sex drive begins to develop. At this point, sex is natural. Point blank, its life. Before this point, there is curiosity, but not about sex. Its more the "You show me yours, I'll show you mine" kind of thing setup by being told your not allowed to see each other like that. There is generally nothing sexual about those curiosities.
Assigning an age to when the proper time to have sex is, is ridiculous. Our bodies and brain chemistries set that up for us. Boys and Girls are reaching puberty at an earlier age more and more. I was in a middle school a few weeks ago talking to a friend of mine who is a teacher. I was amazed at how many middle school girls have 'developed'.. I certainly dont remember that when i was in middle school. For whatever reason, kids are developing faster...naturally the sex drive will kick in earlier. One of my cousin's daughters has already begun her "cycles" .. shes just turned 10. Thats a good couple of years before most people want to even think about that. Its a physical sign that her body is mostly ready to bear a child, and her sex drive will be growing soon.
The fact of the matter is, kids truly are "growing up" faster... - championchap, on 10/12/2007, -2/+62"Only in Utah... "
And in the UK.. we have pregnant 11yr olds..
Cant believe it, there are 11yr olds getting more than me - ghm101, on 10/12/2007, -6/+62Agreed, this is just a waste of money and time ***** court action by a bunch of middle age legal voyeurs who want to get to the juicy details for their own salacious amusement.
- Andronicus1717, on 10/12/2007, -0/+53I know the same case could probably happen in Michigan and I'm sure many other states that don't have laws regarding sex between similar aged minors. Usually there is just a cutoff at 15 or something like that.
- zzzang, on 10/12/2007, -6/+55It's America... both sets of parents obviously saw an opportunity to sue rather than take responsibility for their children's actions.
- freff, on 10/12/2007, -0/+38The saddest part of this case to me is the fact the "boyfriend", despite being a year younger than the girl involved, has already been found guilty in this case.
It's ridiculous to charge two minors with sexual abuse in an act involving themselves. They are both kids themselves. If the police wanted to charge anyone with a crime, they should have talked to the parents. A waste of taxpayers money, and a troubling precedent all in one. Good job Utah.
@ICSU: Ewwwwww.... - orientis, on 10/12/2007, -1/+36So, therefore, the answer is to teach kids about sex as soon as they are physically able to have sex.
Duh. - caryw, on 10/12/2007, -4/+37Agreed. Absolutely ridiculous. No crime has been committed here.
- martalli, on 10/12/2007, -3/+35Laws do need to be in place to prevent 11 year old from being taken advantage of by 18 year olkds, etc. Unfortunately, the "I know it when I see it" standard to hard to put people in jail for, so states have laws like this one. Then the laws appear to have obvious problems themselves. It could be fixed by simply saying that if both are below the age limit, it does not apply.
- orientis, on 10/12/2007, -6/+37@willdiggforfood Do you have any reason why similarly aged kids should not be allowed to have consensual antics? Or are you basing this off an arbitrary sexual morality?
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -6/+33why not just accept it as a normal act that humans do?
they are around the same age, so what's the problem? - ICSU, on 10/12/2007, -9/+35Video or it didn't ..
- ICSU, on 10/12/2007, -2/+26We figured since you post on digg. Wait a ...
- kurth, on 10/12/2007, -1/+24Sadly, it is not. These sorts of things happen in other states too. Maybe not 12 and 13, but 14 and 16 is common.
In America we have a law for everything. Godly, moral laws. So that when you do ANYTHING out of the norm, you can be charged with it.
I love living in America. My phone calls are recorded for national security, I pay thousands per year in taxes (Small business owner), and my country is slowly slipping into a recession, while fighting wars we cannot win. (War of Drugs, War on Terror). Our media is bias, and gas is still 2.50/gal while Exxon posts a 4bn profit. Thank you elected officials and politicians. - Somniis, on 10/12/2007, -6/+28A child having a child.. sigh.
- SelfAbortion, on 10/12/2007, -0/+21Initial sex play starts much younger than that. Not all societies choose to pretend it doesn't exist.
- Chebyshev, on 10/12/2007, -1/+20@luckyllama
Why should the courts be involved in the sex lives of people at all (unless they are rapists and/or child molesters)? I'm not saying it is a good thing that this 12 year old got pregnant, but why is it our (because we're paying for this through taxes) responsibility to regulate who can get pregnant?
To governments in general: Stay out of my pocketbook, stay out of my bedroom (and that of my kids in this case). - bmson, on 10/12/2007, -1/+20But should we put them in jail if they want to have sex?
some 12 year old drink, smoke, do drugs and they are not put to jail.
Sex is the most natural thing and many 12 year old have hit puberty so mother nature has given them the ability to have sex.
If 12 year old want to have sex they should ask there parents and get advice.
They should not be banned to have sex, if they want... they will.
So it would be better if they could ask an adult for advice and condoms. - martalli, on 10/12/2007, -0/+18Since she became pregnant, then I think the relationship would quickly become obvious. Since she would have been in that under 14 age group, then the medical professionals would probably have been required to report the case. The parents might have reported it, too, possibly thinking an older person had been responsible.
- orientis, on 10/12/2007, -6/+24@luckyllama Sure, but that's a problem with education, not a problem with young sex. If Western society wasn't so ***** up, and we didn't consider sex to be a dirty thing, only fit to be practised by adults who are aware of their own sin, then this sort of ***** wouldn't happen!
Sex is not sinful. Sex is a wonderful thing. I started having sexual thoughts at an early age, messed around a little. Where's the problem? - HUKI365, on 10/12/2007, -3/+20Funny, in Australia anything done when the participants are willing and within one year is legal.
- Law Student - gharding, on 10/12/2007, -4/+20Well, this girl's life is ***** up now, for sure. Hope she didn't ever want to work with children!
- spurtle, on 10/12/2007, -0/+16Wasn't it the norm to get married at an early age and only recently, within the last few 100 or 200 years people pushed back getting married to their 20's or 30's?
- elitexero, on 10/12/2007, -0/+15How the hell is she a victim? Then again how is she an offender? They're around the same age, instead of legalizing them, educate them. Jesus
- ABadInAlbany, on 10/12/2007, -4/+18RTFA, the girl got pregnant
- SmokedL, on 10/12/2007, -1/+15@luckyllama
"A good example of why 12-13 year olds shouldn't have sex is in the article... the girl got pregnant. Besides that, there's STD's to think about. A preteen generally doesn't have concern for either of these things and cannot be responsible enough to have sex."
Unless you mix up some arbitrary "morals" into the equation, reality is abundantly clear. Individuals of any species will start to have sex, in accordance with the sexual instincts of their species, when they have passed through their species version of puberty. No amount of "morals" is going to stop this from happening. Trying to force these "morals" onto these sexually mature human beings is doomed to fail. You cannot beat instincts of species survival developed through hundreds of millions of years.
All you can achieve is is to slightly lessen the frequency of sexual intercourse, while making hundreds of millions of people ashamed of doing what is perfectly natural, and hurts nobody. This to my mind is a crime.
Real ethics, that make sense, is about promoting behavior that brings real benefit, and forbidding and punishing behavior that causes real harm. Threats of facing eternal torture from disobeying arbitrary and silly rules should not play a part.
There are valid for arguments for laws that protect against sexual exploitation of young inexperienced humans. Such laws define the crime to be related to an age differential. Several countries do it this way. You consider it a crime of sexual exploitation if the person below the legal age of sexual consent is x years younger than the other sexual partner. I'm inclined to agree with such laws if x is sufficiently large. Making it a crime for a 12 year old to have sex with a 13 year old is nonsensical. A 30 year old having sex with a 12 year old should certainly be a crime to my mind. Settling on a value for x is a difficult ethical question, and I feel the circumstances of any particular case needs to be taken into account as well.
What really need to be done about young humans having sex seems abundantly obvious to my mind. You should make sure that they are informed, so that they can protect themselves against sexually transmittable deceases and unwanted pregnancies, before puberty when the urge to have sex grabs them. You should also make sure that the material needed for them to protect themselves is readily available, without any stigma or shame attached to getting hold of it. - d722002, on 10/12/2007, -3/+16Yeah, it is wierd at such a young age, but if she was consenting, and it was with someone around her age, I see no problem...
- lsatkins, on 10/12/2007, -2/+15Damn when I was 12 I thought it was still a big deal to kiss a girl let alone have sex.
- rhavenn, on 10/12/2007, -0/+13Suffer the consequences? Sure. However, those consequences should not involve a court case and "sexual predator" draped around their neck. The kids did what the hormones told them to do. Did they fully understand what they were doing? I'm guessing not. So, sit them down with the parents and have a discussion. Talk about adoption, abortion or whatever and then talk to the kids. Running them through a Supreme court ringer is not what should be happening.
- skyanathema, on 10/12/2007, -4/+17This is stupid, by taking those kids to court they made a bad situation even worth for those kids.
- orientis, on 10/12/2007, -2/+15"We've educated millions of adults about the dangers of drugs but they still do them. "
Yup, and there's nothing wrong with drugs either, if you do them properly. If we had that taught to us at school there wouldn't be so many idiots on smack and crack and meth.
We should be taken out by our parents, our role models, when we are 16 and give magic mushrooms in a solemn, life-affirming event. Like an initiation.
Like we have done for thousands of years before this idiotic morality based on NOTHING came along and ***** our society for ever. Sex is good and kids should know that. They should also know the dangers.
***** up stuff happens all the time, there is no point singling out sex and drugs as the most dangerous things in the world. - wonkavsn, on 10/12/2007, -1/+12One of the things Canadians make fun of the most about America is all the crazy court stories we hear.. like "Woman sues Mr Christie for making Oreos too addictive."
Is this only in certain states? - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+12I'm sick of this hypocritical society.
When you were 12 and 13 (7th and 8th grade, I believe), you knew what sex was, and if presented with the opportunity, you would've done it. You would've been smart about it, so give them that benefit of the doubt. Do mistakes happen? Sure, but ***** happens.. even in your twenties. I knew what safe sex was when I had sex ed in the 4th grade...
I'm sick of this whole "protect kids from sex" and pretending like they don't know what it is, or the "they're too young" argument when that's pretty much the whole age where it all starts. If you're having sex then you aren't too young. 20 having sex with a 14 year old? Eh, okay. I can see the problem with that. But two people the same age? Leave it alone.
Can't let them see boobs in a movie! Can't let them know about sex! ...even though a few years later they'll be doing it themselves.
So stupid and pointless. Just leave them be. - Ystig, on 10/12/2007, -0/+12It could be worse
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lina_Medina - twistedonion, on 10/12/2007, -0/+12Just because America has very weird morals doesn't make you right. I don't see Spain falling apart at the seams do you?
- kingjoey52a, on 10/12/2007, -0/+10Wait, parents teaching there own children? That's what TV is for!
- ThatBlokeRob, on 10/12/2007, -5/+15@willdiggforfood - "Only an idiot would support the idea of 12- or 13-yr-olds having sex."
Grow up, this is the real world. You missed Tweakers point. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+10Hope this gets thrown out. It's going to suck if those kids have to get on the sex offender list. They'll have fun explaining that for the rest of their lives.
Or worse yet, don't judges sometimes make sex offenders go to support groups as part of their rehab? Putting 12 and 13 year old kids in a sex offender support group could be disastrous. - Haohmaru, on 10/12/2007, -0/+10The laws are arbitrary and senseless.
Sex is a moral issue, not an intellectual one. Can you truly _reason_ that X age is too young if the subjects are consenting?
The problem is, as soon as you make some valid points, someone else comes along and reasons them away.
And as the debates rage on, the world delves deeper and deeper into the morass. - calvmari, on 10/12/2007, -1/+10I weep for the kids who have their future destroyed by pregnancy. :(
- ksponge, on 10/12/2007, -1/+10Hey, if you don't teach your kids about safe sex, due to the fact that you fear nakedness and the human body, it's your own fault for not guiding them when they feel driven to reproduce. It's obviously a natural function and you freak shows that fear it need to grow some extra brain matter. Repressing information, hiding truths, making up stories, all in an attempt to misdirect your own kin. It's sickening. Teach logic and truth so they can truly understand their environment. I never hide anything from my children. It's wrong and installs a false base for them to rely on when problem solving. If the base isn't correct, then all you build on top of it is going to be *****, just like the original assumptions.
- orientis, on 10/12/2007, -1/+9What would you be punishing them for? What is it they have done wrong? Surely the parents and society are to blame for not teaching kids about sex at an early enough age? Perhaps, if this had been rapped into their heads for years, they would have tried to use a condom.
Don't you think punishing them for having sex will ***** them up for life? What is wrong with sex?!? What the ***** is wrong with *****, for *****'s sake. I cannot understand the problem here at all. - diggenerate, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8Not only in Utah. I remember a similar case in which a girl was actually convicted on child pornography charges after taking nude photos of herself when she was a minor (17). She was consider both the perpetrator and the victim.
- adstretch, on 10/12/2007, -1/+9@ martalli
"It could be fixed by simply saying that if both are below the age limit, it does not apply."
Don't for get to add, that they must be within a year or 2 of each other. you don't want to miss out on charging some sociopath 13 year old who rapes some 5 year old. -
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