Just a minute here - the judge is absolutely correct.

The girl was 15 years old, FFS. In our law, and in any moral universe, she is a child and is not capable of forming or articulating consent.

Doesn't matter how old, or young, the boy is. Doesn't matter what wiles or stratagems he used to persuade her. Doesn't matter if she begged him for his attentions. She is a child, and as a society we generally agree that she is not capable of making those sorts of decisions for herself (yet), and that she must be protected from the possibly-serious negative consequences if she tries to do things she is not yet mature enough to decide to do.

Incidentally, this is not gender-specific, and applies equally to young boys who are victimized by older women - which happens quite frequently also.

The young man in this case is nothing more or less than a predator, who took advantage of a vulnerable child. His age is immaterial, he was an adult at the time and she was a child, and what he did is just as heinous as if he had been 38 or 63 years old. He richly deserves the relatively-lenient punishment he got, and (while I am not generally a fan of 'street justice') I'd say he's in line for a thorough ass-whippin' as well.

All this 'Romeo and Juliet' malarkey hides the fact that we're talking about adults preying on children for their own gratification. The writer bemoans the fact that 'we are redescribing sex that we vehemently dislike as rape.' Well, guess what - the reason that we 'vehemently dislike' it is because it IS rape, and it should be punished as such. 15-year-old girls can't legally or morally consent. Everybody knows this, I'm sure the odious Mr Labrie knew it full-well, and yet he tries to paper over it with tales of how he 'persuaded' her, as though that somehow makes what he did OK. It's all right, I was able to talk her into it. Well, guess what, you nasty little shit - she's too young to be 'talked into' anything, you're a rapist, and you're going to the black-bar motel for what you did. Talk your way out of that.

llater,

llamas

Many states have a defense to sex with an underage girl: If both girl and boy are within 2 years of age of each other...some states say 3 years...there is no offense. It is just kids being kids.

I'm sure Mr Labrie's lawyers calculated that this defense was not available to him in this case.

He played and rightly lost.

He was not her boyfriend so he was a predator that got caught.

If he has/had a history of this he's lucky that a bigger predator (a Dad) did not play games as well.

Oh FFS, he was a cad.

A boorish cad. A predator? sex offender? rapist?? No. No. No, 1000 times no.

You want women to feel empowered? just say no.

From Wikipedia, I see these two as being relevant:

Sex with a person under 17 is a misdemeanor if the perpetrator is at least 16 (see infra). ("Sexual misconduct," NY Penal Law § 130.20.)

Sex with a person under 17 is a Class "E" felony if the perpetrator is at least 21. ("Rape in the third degree," NY Penal Law § 130.25; "Criminal sexual act in the third degree," NY Penal Law § 130.40.)

So he got a felony conviction for a misdemeanor offense? and y'all are OK with that?

@ IRA Darth Aggie - offenses in question took place in and were tried in New Hampshire. Under 16 - felony rape.

@ Bob in Texas - Doesn't matter whether or not he was her 'boyfriend' - whatever that means, in law.

'A boorish cad. A predator? sex offender? rapist?? No. No. No, 1000 times no.'

I disagree. Doesn't matter if he was a boorish cad. What he was, was 18 years old - a legal adult. And she was 15 - a legal minor child. And it was rape. Just once. he is a rapist, and a sex offender.

Answer me this - if he's not a rapist, then how young would the girl have to before you would say that he was a rapist? The law (in NH at least) has set that bar on her 16th birthday. Where do you set the bar?

llater,

llamas

"Where do you set the bar?"

I like Randall Munroe's suggestion (which he may have forwarded): N/2+7 is the minimum age for a partner. If you're 30, you should seek a partner 22+ y/o/a. He didn't suggest penalties.

Now, let us all sit back and think: is there a victim here? Is the girl forever worthless, ruined forever, better to be stoned as would the Shiites?

America is crazy about sex. Everybody thinks it's their business, to the point that sitting Presidents can do what they want while the public focuses on idiocy with an intern.

Meanwhile, I suggest there is more to the story, as a search for the term, "12 or 20?" should show us.

He was a high school student who had previously hooked up with the girl's older sister ( who might have considered warning her little sister, as they were at St. Paul's together.) something about this whole story is screwy.
Maybe single sex education is a great idea. Maybe 15 year olds shouldn't go to boarding school. Maybe guys shouldn't be jerks.

My understanding of the case is that she did protest his advances and he forced her anyway because he had "put so much effort" into getting her there. At that point, it is no longer a bad decision on the girl's part and it tips into rape. Can you imagine this little prince out in the wider world? If he thinks it is okay to harass, badger and then force a girl into sex at 18, he is already on a path to be a full blown predator at 28. Not all men are pigs who are so driven by their libido to grab any woman who catches their fancy and harass them into sex. I think that is a caricature of what it means to be a man and its offensive to men as a whole.

Interesting Rad. He was 18. She was 15. By Munroe's rule 16 is the cut off date.

I actually like that rule. It does a nice job taking into account the older you get the less the age difference matters.

Also (at the article) statutory rape is not new.

I read the reporting with some care and I'm pretty sure that nobody alleged that he used physical force or threats of force to have his way with her. His coercions were entirely verbal and emotional.

If he were 18, and she were 16 - that's not rape. At that point, she's considered old enough to make up her own mind, and then she can simply say 'no'.

But you're all dancing around the point.

Maybe she enticed him and then regretted it. Maybe there's a '12 or 20' aspect. Maybe she was fine with it until she found out that 'her sister will!' (thank you, Billy Gibbons), or vice versa. Maybe her parents found out and they drove the prosecution. Is she ruined for life? Maybe, maybe not. Who knows?

But none of this matters, because she was 15 years old. Doesn't matter what she feels about it, or what anyone else thinks about it, or whether he badgered her into it or not. Even if they had been deeply in lurve, and she fell eagerly into his arms three times a week and twice on Sundays, and her folks were fine with it - None Of That Matters. She's 15 = It's Rape.

And again, if you want to dance around it and say, well, she's 15, in a few more weeks, it would have been legal and Not A Rape - I'm fine with that. Just tell me at what age you set the bar for it to be rape. Is it a 14-year-old girl? A 13-year-old boy? To paraphrase an old joke - we've established what you are. Now we're just discussing price. The State of New Hampshire set that bar at her 16th birthday, he surely knew that (he's a legal adult, after all) and his text message showed that he knew she was under 16 and he was warned that she was under age). If you'd like to lower the age of consent, I'm fine with that - just tell me how young a girl or boy has to be before he/she's not able to consent.

llater,

llamas

I'm with llamas and Sheep Mom on this one. The guy went too far. Evolutionary psychology is only part of our behavior patterns.

I've seen the particulars of this case a couple of times. This school has a "tradition" of each senior boy trying to have sex with as many freshman girls as possible. That "tradition" should be examined very closely by law enforcement, but it doesn't specifically break any laws until it is reported.

Answer me this - if he's not a rapist, then how young would the girl have to before you would say that he was a rapist?
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Thanks, llamas. (For everything.) That's what I should have said in the Zach Anderson thread this spring - but plenty of people did a pretty good job in it.

http://www.advicegoddess.com/archives/2015/06/17/25_years_on_the.html

In that case, a lot of people tried to claim that since she lied about her age, he (a stranger) should be let off the hook - but would they have said that if she been 12 and looked a lot older? (Premature puberty is more and more common these days. Not to mention that any adult could lie and claim the younger party lied.)

Aside from the fact that there's a reason good parents don't encourage sons to think of no-strings sex (or ignorance of the law) as a "right" in the same way that going to a restaurant is, here's a hint: In this century, anyone who looks like a college-age teen but whose age isn't easily found in Google is very likely underage.

The girl was 15 years old, FFS. In our law, and in any moral universe, she is a child and is not capable of forming or articulating consent.

So, your great grandparents were immoral rapists then?

Doesn't matter how old, or young, the boy is. Doesn't matter what wiles or stratagems he used to persuade her. Doesn't matter if she begged him for his attentions.

So, you would convict a seduced boy who is younger than the girl just because he is a boy?

Also was he 18?

There is a case out here in AZ right now, news bills it as an 19yr old high school senior who raped a 13 year old.

Look at the actual dates in question he was 14 when it happened, five years ago, maybe three months older than her.

As for the whole x/2+7?

You going to make it illegal for 30 yr old gold diggers to marry 80 yr old millionaires?

You know there is a movement in this country trying to make it illegal to consent to sex until the age of 25?

That in some states the age of consent is 15?

That in some states it is illegal to take naked photos of until 19 or 20?

In others age of consent to PIV is 16, but getting a blow job is a five year prison term if the girl is under 18?

There are part of this country where it it legal to get married at 17, but not to have sex until 18, and not to take dirty pics of/for your spouse until 19.

This doesnt even begin to broach the subject of who the hell are you to tell a woman you dont know whether or not she is ready or of a mind to have sex.

Our legal system needs a serious overhaul, 12 yr old minors are charged as adults for crimes, but 20 year old adults are not allowed to drink, and no adult is allowed to use drugs if they want

Must be a terrible long count of time ago... 30 somethin, somethin years... but in my wild boy group there was a rule, that all of us knew to be true.
When you turn 18, all girls younger than that were off limits. End of story. Especially since one guys cousin was in the pen for romancing a sophomore after he graduated.

This was tribal knowledge, not really needing exposition.

There are always outliers that crash into a law, but that doesn't make the law wrong.
Interestingly enough, how many 15yo. boys are taught the basics by married 35yo. teachers, who magically only get probation?

One of many areas that people just don't wish to think through.

Lujlp,

x/2+7 thing is more about good taste than anything legal. Yes the 30 year old gold digger marrying the 80 year old millionaire is in poor taste. But it's not illegal.

And yes the law is a disorganized mess. The whole you can be paid to have sex in front of a camera but there better not be a beer on the set rule is fairly stupid too.

But there are good reasons for statutory rape laws. I'm certainly not saying all such laws are intelligently designed. But there is a reason such laws are fairly universal.

You know there is a movement in this country trying to make it illegal to consent to sex until the age of 25?
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Er, are you writing from the UK? That was the only place that seemed to correspond to what you said. (And according to this, it's a hoax.)

http://www.thatsfake.com/are-the-conservatives-considering-raising-age-of-consent-to-25/

If you mean the U.S., source, please?

From Will Saletan at Slate (2007):

"...The original age of consent, codified in English common law and later adopted by the American colonies, ranged from 10 to 12. In 1885, Britain and the states began raising the age to 16, ostensibly to protect girls' natural innocence. This moral idea was later bolstered by scientific reference to the onset of puberty."

(I assume it also had to do with the idea that children were just property to be married off as early as it suited the parents - plus maybe the idea that rich men should be free to exploit poor girls when they pleased without going to jail for it.)

Unfortunately, Saletan seems to think that while we shouldn't lower the age of consent BACK down to 12, premature puberty should be more or less of an excuse to treat teen statutory rapists "differently" than other statutory rapists. Last paragraphs (gag):

"Whatever the particulars, the measures taken should be developmentally appropriate. 'Age-span' provisions, which currently allow for sex with somebody near your own age, are a good start, but they're not objectively grounded. That's why they differ wildly from state to state. I'd draw the object line at 12, the cognitive line at 16, and the self-regulatory line at 25. I'd lock up anyone who went after a 5-year-old. I'd come down hard on a 38-year-old who married a 15-year-old. And if I ran a college, I'd discipline professors for sleeping with freshmen. When you're 35, 'she's legal' isn't good enough.

"...What I wouldn't do is slap a mandatory sentence on a 17-year-old, even if his nominal girlfriend were 12. I know the idea of sex at that age is hard to stomach. I wish our sexual, cognitive, and emotional maturation converged in a magic moment we could call the age of consent. But they don't."

Yeah? So what if he's 19, then - and probably KNOWS her age?

(I assume it also had to do with the idea that children were just property to be married off as early as it suited the parents - plus maybe the idea that rich men should be free to exploit poor girls when they pleased without going to jail for it.)
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I forgot to say that, as late as 1986, there was at least one state where the age of consent for girls, across the board, was still 13! (New Mexico.)

@lujlp, who wrote:

'So, your great grandparents were immoral rapists then?'

Times change, and so do our moral compasses. What may have been acceptable and 'moral' 100 years ago or more (think slavery, married women's property as chattel, child labor and so forth) we no longer consider to be so.

Yes, Mr Labrie was 18 when he raped a 15-year-old girl.

Nobody's disputing that the law in this area is a mess. But the age of consent is a pretty bright line, and (as others have observed) most civilized places observe some form of this bright line precisely because the potential harm to individuals and society is so well-understood. There is also no balancing good or reasonable mitigation - a person who steals may say that he does so to survive, a person who gets into a fight may say he did so to defend himself, but nobody needs to have their way with a child in order to make it to the next day.

Once again - if you don't think what he did was 'rape-rape' - at what age would you set the bright line and say 'below this age, no matter what the circumstances, it's always an unlawful assault? Personally, from what little I know of 16-year-old children, I'd say that 16 is not too far off the mark and may be too low. Most kids that age aren't competent to decide anything much of consequence.

llater,

llamas

I' may it simple.

Anyone younger than 14 can not consent to sex.

Anyone over 17 violating that line gets charged as a felon and registered (such registries not subject to public viewing) any one under 17 gets misdemeanor charges if warranted and mandatory counseling

Affirmative defenses are permissible to charges

14 year olds can consent to anyone 16 or younger
15 year olds can consent to anyone 18 or younger
16 year olds can consent to anyone 19 or younger

Anyone over 20 violating these lines gets felony charges and registered, (such registries not subject to public viewing) any one under 20 gets misdemeanor charges and mandatory counseling

Affirmative defenses are permissible to charges

No plea bargains, no prosecutorial discretion in bringing charges (or failing to bring them against women)

17 years should be the age of majority for EVERYTHING. Contracts, booze, porn, sex, military service, criminal charges, unrestricted drivers licence, ect.

16 is already the age of consent of vaginal intercourse in nearly 60% of all US physical territory.

No more extending childhood in the last quarter of the second and into third decade of life.

Times change. At one point in Oklahoma it was legal for an underage girl to drink at a bar as long as she was accompanied by a legal-age man.

One of the big problems I have is the statutory rape laws seem to be a haven for parental remorse.

i don't know about you people, but when my daughter was 14, I knew where she was, and who she was with for all but really short periods during the day and night.

There was no opportunity for her to be alone with, or seduced by a 19 year old boy.

I have a friend who was a county DA, He had some parents approach him, wanting to prosecute the 18 year old boyfriend of their fifteen year old daughter for statutory rape because she turned up pregnant.

He refused to do it, when they admitted that they knew about the relationship, and allowed the daughter to date this young man alone, and unchaparoned for the last 8 months.

To paraphrase his comment to them, when he declined to prosecute. "what the fuck did you people think was going to happen"?

And while the elites are busy re-defining rape, we have this.

The letter of the law, yes, says that in some places, an older teen having sex with a teen a few years younger is "rape" or something along those lines (maybe with a slightly lesser charge). But really, deeming a teen who has sex with some slightly younger teen a sexual predator and dangerous criminal...that is not serving our society and it is not right to do this to these teens. Think about your own son -- or your own imaginary son, if you don't have one -- and how you'd feel if he had consensual sex at 17 with his 16-year-old girlfriend (to pick two random ages) and was then arrested because her father got pissed off and decided to use the law against him. Is he a predator we should pay to cage (ruining his life) or a human being doing what humans do?

There is also no balancing good or reasonable mitigation - a person who steals may say that he does so to survive, a person who gets into a fight may say he did so to defend himself, but nobody needs to have their way with a child in order to make it to the next day. - llamas
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If only the public ALWAYS acknowledged that fact, when it comes to adults raping adults! I mean, Sam Harris, in "Letter to a Christian Nation," implied at least that rape is just as natural as, say, stealing food when you're starving to death. I mean, I beg your pardon? Maybe he just didn't think of the latter, and so it didn't occur to him that stealing food for survival is TWICE as natural, but what excuse did he have for not thinking of that?
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To mpetrie98: What people conveniently ignore is that within a rape fantasy, you have Total Control. When a violent crime is being committed against you, you do not. Not to mention that vampire novels are all the rage right now, but what percentage of the population REALLY wants to meet anyone who can't enjoy sex without bloodletting - and blood drinking? Less than 1%, I'd guess.
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To Amy: I didn't read all the details of the case, and I agree a teen should not be on a lifetime list of sex predators, but yes, maybe at least a short jail sentence IS appropriate when the other party is underage. (Yes, even when she's 18 and he's 15.) As I've mentioned, since parents of underage girls are not likely to change their minds on this, MRAs need to give up that fight and demand more penalties for older women.