Truth or Dare — or Jail!
“A game of truth or dare among Fargo-Moorhead teenagers led one to prison this week for engaging in a sex act with a minor. A 19-year-old Fargo woman, who pleaded guilty to sexual contact with a 14-year-old girl, was sentenced Monday in Cass County District Court to five years in prison for felony gross sexual imposition… The sexual contact stemmed from a game in the fall of 2002 the three girls and an 11-year-old boy played in Marshall’s mother’s basement. At that time, Marshall put her hand inside the victim’s pants during a game to see who could hold their hands in an area of someone else’s body the longest. After that game, the teens played truth or dare, which led to more sexual activity. Marshall and the 14-year-old victim in this case developed a relationship and continued sexual contact, including kissing, touching and oral sex, after Marshall turned 18.” —Forum News (US)
Most people would agree that sexual abuse of a child is wrong, morally and legally. But once you agree to that principle, you face the difficult problem of defining the terms: What is a child exactly? Anybody under 16? 18? And what is sex — intercourse? Heavy petting? Playing doctor? And what constitutes abuse? It is these nuances that make up the gray areas in the seemingly black-and-white moral stance against pedophilia and child abuse. When a forty-year-old slob sodomizes a six-year-old, the moral issues are pretty clear. But when a case like this comes along, morality gets really murky.
Consider the facts. Two girls strike up a relationship at a party — two years ago. Apparently one girl was sixteen or seventeen at the time, and the other was eleven or twelve. Though that’s a relatively large age discrepancy for two teens, nevertheless they were both legally minors. Subsequently they pursued an intimate relationship. So far as you can tell from the story, the relationship was fully consensual — and yet the moment the older girl turned eighteen, she was arrested for child abuse. As a result, she was sentenced to five years in jail. Probably she will serve two and then have probation, the terms of which include avoiding contact with minors and refraining from internet use.
Granting that child abuse is a crime, it hardly seems fair to call this child abuse or to punish the older girl so severely for something that plenty of girls do in summer camp. Reading the story, you get the sense that the relationship may have been consensual but it probably lacked parental consent. You can imagine the younger girl’s parents calling the cops on the older girl’s eighteenth birthday. Legally they had a right to do it, and yet it defies all common sense.
Worse: what happens if the only evidence of abuse is the testimony of kids who lie?
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/19/magazine/19KIDSL.html?pagewanted=all&position=
As I’ve noted before these draconian laws do not make exceptions for consensual sex — it is largely up to the DA as to how the law is interpreted and the so-called offender prosecuted.
In addition to probation, the worst part is that the young woman will likely have to register as a sex offender — for life– if the North Dakota laws are similar to Oregon’s.
Here’s a list of sex offenses that will land you on the registry in ND:
http://www.ag.state.nd.us/BCI/OR/OR.htm
If she’s lucky she may get off the list after 10 years.
http://www.ndsexoffender.com/FAQ.htm
Come all to order, Judge … preciding…
this is total stupidity, the girl shoudnt be charged for this act, its hardly a crime, its more of a growing up experance in life then anything eles, the laws sucks in america, thay dont make any sence, and if i could i would change them to work according to the situation.
and this situation is being very badly abused and mis-treated. the girl is just learning about life.
millions of people learn this way, through touching and kissing and experimenting. shes young and has no idea what shes really doing.
for christs sake, have some wisdom people
yeah, there is this whole fucked up phenom of “children who molest”, kids as young as 2 being accused of being perpetrators GIVE ME A BREAK! I had sexual experiences as a teen with folks who were much older (like in their 40s etc) some were creepy and weird but some were totally pleasant. We don’t like to hear this because we are afraid of giving pedophiles carte blanche but children can and do give consent to sex. Would this hysteria mean that the little girl that I had sex with when I was in grade school (we were in the same grade) and I would be arrestable now?
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