Source: CNN



more after the link. however, what you won't find on cnn just yet, for some reason, is the interview they did with the girl. which explains that this is just another case of a teen girl wanting to rid herself of a sullied image. JMO.

this is what happened from the girl's very own mouth

she met the 23yo man at a party. at this party they hung out, she got drunk and high and eventually passed out. she awoke to them having sexual intercourse. she said she felt violated, but neglected to mentioned whether or not she'd protested. it's irrelevant however as she continued to have an active sexual relationship with this man having consensual sex on numerous occasions. she said that sometimes she'd protest, but he'd manipulate her into allowing him to continue. now, the allegations of STATUTORY unsolicited interaction didn't come up until dear old dad found the pictures of her and him on her myspace acct. the florida prosecuting attorney would NOT charge the 23 yr old man for unsolicited interaction because she was one month away from being 16, which is, in florida, the age of consent, and the acts of sexual conduct in question where all consensual.

so, what's your opinion? mine should be blatantly obvious. in fact the youtube video to me looks like an act. actually the bit they showed on cnn before running the story looked to me as though she was trying to not laugh. so yea, i just wanted to get some opinions on this. it's a very sensitive issue and one that i think can bring about some pretty good discussion. not only about the girl now crying unsolicited interaction, but what is one month? if one month is acceptable enough of a "grace period" of sorts, why not two?

EDIT

lol, word filter'd

unsolicited interaction = rape for teh n00bs

I think South Africa should expand their female anti-unsolicited interaction condom to the rest of the world. Whether that would really work on decreasing the sex crimes or not, is still under a question mark, thou.

While I'm not really commenting on the guilt of the man without knowing all of the details (that's what trials are for and everything), the above example (having sex with an unconcious girl) is rape. And the following sentence is the exact reason that we have statutory unsolicited interaction laws.

Yeah, a video on YouTube, much better than telling the police.

Well, just because she was one month shy of the legal age of consent in her jurisdiction doesn't make her consent legal before the date. And even a report of possible rape isn't something that should be taken lightly by the police. I've known a number of girls who've been raped or molested and never reported it for various reasons. We can't presume it didn't happen just because this girl lacked the sense to report it "properly" -- even many adults aren't exactly sensible about legal/criminal proceedings, to say nothing of a 15-year-old. I can't tell how I'd interpret her reactions since the link is now dead and I can't see the video, but looking as though "she's trying not to laugh" isn't really conclusive. People can have strange reactions to trauma.

On the other hand, I would certainly have my suspicions too about such a story. And since we're none of us police in that jurisdiction (who probably have policies on what they do and don't investigate further), it's all just hearsay to us. She could just be looking for attention or testing her acting skills, or getting vengeance on a guy she wasn't supposed to date, or....

For better or worse, there's a ton of parody videos on youtube now of her. Not gonna bother searching for the original.

she did go to the police and the prossacuting attorney investigated and came to he conclusion that the sex was consensual.

the thing that damages her story the most is that after said party and supposed unsolicited interaction, she had a continuing relationship with the guy, and didn't claim unsolicited interaction until daddy found out.

in a perfect world we'd be able to base laws on maturity, as much like drinking and other mature activities, it depends on the maturity of those engaging in the act as opposed to their age. however, the world isn't perfect so we must rely on age. personally, a month's leeway is acceptable.

I don't think a month's leeway should be acceptable from a legal perspective. However, even if it's illegal, I don't think it's that practical to pursue and what happened here was probably about right for the circumstances. Kids in these age ranges are all sleeping around and, while far from being a shining paragon of virtues, society hasn't fallen apart yet (least as I see it ). I'm more concerned about how stuff like this affects other cases. Girls with rather "loose" lifestyles aren't doing any favors for the rest of the gender when a more serious case comes up..

I disagree when we're talking about the law. If a month is acceptable today, tomorrow a month and a week is okay, and then two months, and it isn't long before our imposed age limits are meaningless.

I agree that in a perfect world laws would be able to apply to maturity instead of age, but in this world age is the best we can do...so we need to actually stick to it.

It's what the law says... Plus you did something stupid while drunk, live with it... learn to take responsibility for your actions.

Also, she had a relationship with the guy afterwards.

which is why i feel that the prosecuting attorney was lenient on this guy.

I also just want to add just how much manipulation and pressure a 23 year old guy is capable of exerting on a 16 year old girl.

The law is the law. Law's don't say things like "about 16" "around 18" or "18 unless your really don't like'em".

As for ANY 23 year old having sex with a 15 going on 16 year old under ANY circumstance.... He ought to be taking his cahones home in a jar.

[devil's advocate]

what's the difference between a 23yr old being with a 16 yr old, and a 40yr old with a 30yr old? most 16yr olds (esp females) have been sexually active for more than a year or two, and most of them know the consequences and have been educated. i won't say most, but i'm willing to say a good bit of 16yr old females are pretty damned mature too.

[/devil's advocate]

[devil's opponent]
The difference is the law. The law reflects the view of the voting population of a jurisdiction that the age of consent is appropriately set at such-and-such an age. Analyzing the social intent is somewhat speculative, but age gaps matter less in adult relationships, psychologically, emotionally, and physically, than they do for minors.

Even if it is broadly recognized that females have been sexually active by the age of 16, society has not yet recognized that the legal age of consent should be lowered to match that expectation. And there can be valid reasons for this since 23 year olds are much more capable of manipulating an unbalanced relationship than a 16-year-old is. In many jurisdictions, the law is much more tolerant in statutory rape cases or classify it as a much lesser offense than statutory rape when both are minors and/or the age gap is say under 2 years.
[/devil's opponent]

I find it interesting the attorney said the age was 16 in Florida. Both Wikipedia and this site say it's 18 (even weirder, check out Nevada, NH, and New Mexico..). Now one would think an attorney should be more in the know than websites, but meh.. too lazy to check further..

Yeah, in reply to Buddykiller, for all that we know (and I really do want to emphasise that point), the girl could have been a virgin when she woke up to the 23 year old guy raping her unconcious body. For all that we know she could have been planning to save her virginity for the guy that she married, and thus felt compelled to try to make a relationship with the man that had raped her. For all that we know, the guy could have manipulated her with threats to tell all of her friends or her parents that she was a slut, or some other entirely trivial thing that would mean the end of the world to an emotionally insecure teenage girl.

Or she could have been a skank that's trying to make herself look better now that her Daddy has found out she's not a pure virgin princess any more.

We just don't know, and that's why there are trials and stuff that present all of the evidence.

I'm 25, and I realise that it's been nearly a decade since I was sixteen, but when I was a teenager I knew plenty of girls who fit into both categories, with certainly more in the former (emotionally insecure and easily manipulated by peer opinion and individuals in positions of social power) than I did in the later (fully developed and emotionally secure).

But, yet again, that's why we have trials.

It's an excuse plain and simple. I remember seeing 20 somthings dating girls I knew when I was in high school (not many, but a few) and at the time I it struck me as a bad thing. But once I was a 20 something and I'd meet girls in HS I was like... "OMG these are KIDS. Those guys were F-ed up!"


This is impracticable as law, but philosophically I feel the measure of this kind of thing is the disparity of capability of one party to take advantage of the other, and taking advantage of some one being the real evil.

The capability of the 23 year old to take advantage of a 15 year old unacceptably outweighs the 15 year olds ability to defend them selves. This brings the probability of the elder being in a objectionably negative postilion of control in the relationship so likely as to object to the practice altogether. (Not to say that it is IMPOSSIBLE for a 23 year old to have genuine acceptable feelings for a 15 year old. But that is SO unlikely that it is acceptable to condemn the practice all together.


That is not the case with the 40 and 30 year old. Both are adults and have been adults for some time. The likely hood (based solely on age) of one being able to manipulate the other is significantly reduced.

We have laws that attempt to protect children from those who don't comprehend or ignore this. If we feel these laws are in some way lacking, then we should change them. (For instance... 16 as the age of consent seems pretty pervy to me). We don't get to pick and choose which laws, or which parts of laws, we feel like following that day.

The only problem is there's no way to prove either of their intentions in a court of law.

I know a girl who was beaten and raped continuously for some time by a man several years older than she, she refused to testify against him because she was afraid of him.
Of course, that he has attacked her in public -and no one has so much as given her screaming a second look- might be important to this fear.
It takes a lot to get me violent, he managed it with a single smile that said "I do what I want and no one will stop me".

I know a couple of female friends who didn't report the incidents, and only mentioned them in passing to me in fairly strict confidence. One seemed to feel it wasn't really consensual but she didn't make it clear. The other felt the excessive touching was stopped and the transgressor was someone a lot of our other friends knew. In either case, there was the feeling that, "It's not worth the fuss because..."

So the reality is grave enough that it irks me when more promiscuous girls abuse the system because they're just irresponsible or, worse, just looking for attention. But just because some girls are irresponsible doesn't mean the law can be in its response, nor does it mean they have any less access to protection.

But is it really unsolicited interaction if it happens more than once? Can it still be unsolicited interaction when it's allowed to happen?

I lost a lot of my sympathy for battered women when a female friend of mine was in an abusive relationship. Despite having a large support network and a lot of close friends - including men - who would have been willing to help her, she chose to sever all ties with us and remain in the relationship for over a year. And say what you will about manipulation, what it came down to was that she chose to be in that situation and would not allow us to help her. We wanted to. She didn't. We're friends again now, but it's something that still bothers me, and I lost a lot of respect for her because of it.

Going by your description

The way I see it, you've kind of answered your own question.

It still matters. How can it be said a girl makes her own free choice to maintain a flawed relationship if she was manipulated into the choice while still a minor? There's also the notion of codependence..

Quick definition of rape beyond "no means no"



Duress can take many forms, (the social pressure I mentioned earlier)

And just because you agree to attempt a relationship with the person later doesn't mean it was ok for them to hump your underage unconcious body to begin with.

Well yes, I'm not really sure I see what you're getting at with that first bit?
And the person I know (I know two actually, but one did something about it. Eventually) wasn't in a relationship with said person, dozens of people knew (And do know) but I was the only one who ever actually did anything, and that was only because I lost my temper quite catastrophically, do you see why she's afraid of him?
No one was helping when she did ask.