A thoughtful acquaintance of mine sent around an e-mail expressing skepticism that what Mary Kay Letourneau did was all that bad. Many 12-year-old boys, he pointed out, would be quite happy to have sex with a 35-year-old woman. Perhaps this is even so for most 12-year-old boys, at least most of those who actually end up doing it. Nor would this be likely, he opined, to leave lasting psychological scars.
Well, maybe so; I can’t say that I feel deep pity for the boy because this woman had sex with him, or visceral outrage at the woman for doing so. Perhaps I should, but I can’t quite muster it — and, yes, I’d have a very different view of a 35-year-old man and a 12-year-old girl, because I do think (based on an admittedly nonexpert judgment) that this is more likely to involve manipulation and lasting harm. (That doesn’t by itself tell us what the law on this subject should be, of course.)
But Letourneau didn’t just have sex with him — she had two babies by him. Now that is a matter that leaves lasting (life-long) effects on many (I’d hope most) men, and certainly not one that the boy was prepared to thoughtfully embrace. Children can be a great joy, but also a great burden, one reason that it’s pretty important for people to think hard and maturely before having them.
Would you want to start your adult life at 18 with two kids whom you’d feel (if you’re a decent person) a moral obligation to support, to spend time with, and to be responsible for? I sure wouldn’t. I suspect that of the men who think back and say “I wish I had a 35-year-old woman have sex with me when I was 12” (or more likely a little older), very few would say “I wish I had two children to be responsible for when I was 18.” The boy may well love his children, who are apparently being raised by his mother. But he didn’t have a meaningful choice in this matter (not even the choice involved in choosing to have sex as an adult, knowing the risk that this will lead to an unwanted child). And he lacked this choice in a matter that likely has a far greater effect on his life than the mere sexual (or even romantic) relationship.
I don’t care that much whether Letourneau took the boy’s innocence, a metaphysical, metaphorical, and possibly (in this situation) overrated attribute. But she did take his freedom — the freedom to be a relatively carefree yet decent 18-year-old, and the freedom to have a family that he in some meaningful sense chose to have. And that is indeed something to feel outraged, and full of pity, about.
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