Sex And Fear

Here's one that hit close to home for me, in an odd way. This teenage boy was pretending to be a fellow student, a female one, to get naked photos or videos of male classmates, in order to blackmail them to have sex with him, which he also photographed and video-taped. You can put any label you want on this, that is rape. I am not one to use that word for much- if you drink and sleep with someone, they didn't rape you, you got drunk and stupid and slept with someone you shouldn't have. I'm not much for the pity party on young adults behaving irresponsibly and calling it rape to cover their asses. At the same time, I'm not one to say that is all it ever is. There's a very fine line. Here's a little tidbit only a few know: I lost my virginity to a rape at age 14, and it was someone I knew.
I know parents for generations have been having the "bathing suit areas" discussion with even the youngest of children, but touching is no longer covering it. Hell, SEX isn't even covering it anymore. We need to be telling our children that, no matter what, they will be okay and we will still love them. We need to realize that these kids aren't staying kids anymore, they are trying to come out of the womb adults, and there's just not much parents and adults can do to stop that. What with the nanny state being what it is, spanking your 4 year old causes terror in the minds of many adults. While I don't claim to be entirely in aggreeance with that mindset, it is something the adults of today need to come to terms with, in some ways. This isn't the world we grew up in. You can't lock your child in their room forever. Hell, grounding your child may not work these days.
The parents are not always to blame. These boys were frightened that there would be some sort of negative reprecussions- obviously afraid of huge reprecussions to let it get this far- and were too afraid to stop it. Girls are not the only ones vulnerable, and the parents don't always have the ability to find out. Your child doesn't have to spend the night at someone's house to have sex, or do drugs. All they have to do is step out of the house. We can't stop the future generations from growing up too fast, but that doesn't mean we can't stop them from fearing how they will be treated if things like this get out. It is against all parents' instincts, but the only solution is to start seeing them as what they are- little adults. You know your child. If you're one of those parents that tells everyone else how smart your kid is, how fast they learn, then you know that you need to be teaching them ahead of the curve. Tell them they can say no, tell them to protect their bodies, no matter what they have said or done before, tell them that saying no is okay. Don't let them question who's in control of their own bodies, because even you, as a parent, ultimatley don't have as much say over their bodies as they do.
Perhaps this was more rant than article, but it needed to be said.