Songo_chan
This girl was 11... what is wrong sexual interactions with a child? They have no idea what the heck your doing. Its considered rape because they dont know enough about what is happening to consent. Even if the person says yes they dont understand what they are consenting to, and the adult predator understands this and choses to have sexaul interactions with them anyway. Thus they are taking advantage of the younger person.
A 13 year old with some 20 year old? Have you ever talked to someone 7 years younger then you? You understand how imature they are in comparision and how easily it would be to manipulate them and lie to them? You can say "Oh, your so amazing I love you. I'm a super awesome mature older person." and not actually feel that connection.
As a person who has had a good childhood friend sexually violate me, I'd value the past memories and condem him in the present.
A writer is a person...
I honestly have to disagree with you here on this one. The age of people becoming sexually active is younger and younger, to the point that Age of Consent Laws are basically totally and completely void. I have known and read MANY cases of children as young as 8-9 purposely and knowingly having sexual acts with other kids their age. For a short time I worked at a "half way house" type place for children to young adults and the sort of things I've seen younger children being capable of are just mind blowing. Many people like to settle in their little bubble and believe that a younger person is not capable or able to understand the concept and idea of sex or sexual acts and therefore they are all victims. They are -not-. I dealt with a girl once that at the time was only 14. She had had a child at the age of 12 and I assumed that it was due to a case of rape or something. I felt bad for her and tried to be there and be nice to her. Turns out I was wrong. She had been willingly having sexual relations with people since she was 9 years old, both of her age and older. She ended up pregnant at 11 and a mother at 12 by -her- own devices.
Not to mention that the difference in people's age becomes less taboo as they get older. I am 5 years my fiance's senior and we mesh perfectly. Not that far off from the 7 years that you dictated. He is in no sense immature. In fact, in a lot of cases, he has more maturity then I do. My grandparents were 9 years apart in age and they were married until they day they died, both in their 80's. When a person is younger it seems more taboo because the age difference tends to place one in the "youth" category, but I find it blissfully unfair to say that a difference in years is the make or break in maturity.
Suffice to say in current generations, sex is an idea and a subject that is no longer taboo or hidden from a child until they are older. It can be a very scary thought, as when I was younger and 11 sex was not a subject that one would think of or come by. But today it is. Its all over the media, television, the internet. It is very easily accessible to younger people, and as such they can learn about it, what it is, how it works. Hell, take Gaia for example. How many "sex threads" do you see on this site on a daily basis? And how many younger users are there that are able to see this, read about it, learn about it, -understand- it? To simply say that age denotes understanding is just no longer true.
Now, is that to say that I think what happened is okay? That I think this particular girl was "asking" for it and that she shouldn't get concern because she knew what it was? Not at all. I don't personally know the situation that went on so I don't know if this was some innocent girl that was taken advantage of or a girl like the one I knew from the halfway house that sought out those types of relationships at that age. Suffice to say that no one probably does except those directly involved. If I were her mother, I'd be torn apart too.
I don't condone ***** and I don't act upon it myself. I actually get rather a kick out of people that scream that its disgusting but then move around saying how much they love a certain anime character and they "want them". Mainly because the average dictated age of an anime character is 12-16 years old. I'm not saying what the guy did is right or even okay. What I'm saying here is simply this: Children are no longer as innocent as they were in the older person's generation and shouldn't be given the treatment of "They don't understand it!", because sadly enough in the current generations, they understand it completely.
I'm not much for the idea of statutory rape. I think that rape should be rape. If a younger person wants sex, seeks out sex, cajoles or even lies to someone older in order to get it, that person should not be punished because people blindly fight for the "innocence of youth" when it was obvious that it was not there. But if an older person actually takes a younger person against their will, then its rape, plain and simple.
To the OP: You didn't know him at the time these acts were committed, and you are only thinking of him as your friend from back in highschool. There is nothing wrong with that. You can still think of him as a friend because he was. Does that mean you have to accept what he did? Of course not! Hold on to your good memories of him.
...that has taught their mind to misbehave
