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So the first thing I would say - which I find a lot in these horror stories - is that there were a hundred things wrong with this story before we even got into anything sexual. He was severely beaten repeatedly by his mother. His house sounds like it was a shooting gallery. It sounded like his mother might have been part of some kind of cult at one point. His sisters were given drugs at a very young age by his parents. Mando emotionally manipulated him in all kinds of bad ways, not just manipulating him into bed. One thing I noted was that early on he seemed to say that the reason he kept going back to Mando even after Mando started doing things with him is because the alternative was staying with his mother. He seemed to imply that staying with Mando and blowing him was better than living on the weekends with his mother. Which is I think a detail worth noting: at the time at least Seth apparently perceived the neglect and abuse from his mother as worse than the sexual abuse from Mando. Yet it's "child sexual abuse" that ends up in the title, and his mother is painted as almost sympathetic at times. I would also like to take a minute to ask: why are these stories ALWAYS about gay CSA? We know from representative studies that gay minor/older sex makes up only a couple percent of total minor/older sex incidents. Yet they always seem to get way more coverage. And indeed, it does seems like there was a bit of homophobia buried in the story. Early in the story he talks about being afraid to tell anyone, because then people would know he was doing something with a guy. Or towards the end he says that the reason he didn't turn in Mando sooner is because he was ashamed to admit what had happened. Several times in the story he talks about how "disgusting" doing things with Mando was. Which, sure, it might have been disgusting to Seth because he is not gay, but I'm not totally sure if that distinction was there? You can kind of see that in his account of his brief affair with the 10yo when he was five. It didn't really sound like all that much happened. It sounded kind of like kids experimenting. I know plenty of people who did similar things and don't regret it. It seemed to me like what freaked him out thought was the gay part of it? I would agree though that this does speak to the "grey zone" problem. Seth, at least in this account, never seems to have said "stop". Yet I would not describe him as a "consenting" partner in the activities. He just kind of went along with it, cause he was 11 and an adult who was being nice to him (for a change) said so. Mind you it does sound to me that if Mando had been paying even a bit of attention to Seth's state he would have noticed this. So I don't think it's that you couldn't tell if consent was present. But I do agree that the normal standard of "he didn't say stop" that we use with adults doesn't seem adequate here. Another angle I would bring up though is the issue of secrecy. If a relationship between an adult and a child was legal and at least somewhat socially acceptable, then he might have been more willing to talk about this with other people. That in turn might have led other adults to advice him better of his right to say "no" and help him exercise it much earlier. It seems like part of the reason this went on so long and went so far is because Seth felt so much shame about it, and I'm not sure that statutory rape helps that. Though I'll admit that the flip side to that is that what stopped Mando from doing this to the next kid is the ease of proving statutory rape. In summary, I certainly agree that this is a horrific story. But I'm not convinced that the root problem in it is the age difference. |