'12-year-old negligent and responsible for own rape'

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I don't care how anyone might want to rationalize the situation. Three words ought to stop all of it.

Twelve years old.

End of story. Not old enough to consent to ANYTHING sexual. Not old enough to be held LEGALLY responsible for what happened to her by them, no matter WHAT she may or may not have done.

They were adults. She was a child.

Done. Any and all speculation beyond that is just ridiculous. Some things are, and SHOULD BE cut and dry.

It's supposed to be why we are called ADULTS, and they are called CHILDREN.

That's exactly why I started with a man; if we use a 12 YO boy in my example, we're bound to have more sympathy for him than for an adult man, and I want to keep emotions out of this for the moment. I'll get there soon enough though, although I could start with what's the difference between a 12 YO and an adult man in this situation? I see two important ones; the child is less able to defend himself and less mature than the man. Oh and we tend to see children as more valuable than adults, but I wonder if that's actually true.

So I must ask you again, is the mugger fully responsible, or does the man share a part of the responsibility as well?

Last edited by Shatbat on 14 Nov 2012, 2:58 pm, edited 1 time in total.

You're intellectually closing yourself with that. You should take the "legally" out of it, laws aren't really important unless you think that good morals are based on following the law (although yes, taking laws out of the equation, I don't think she should be held responsible). But dismissing the whole AngelRho's argument on those grounds sounds quite fundamentalist to me. He has already agreed sith you that what happened to that girl is awful. But instead of letting it stay there and calling it a day, he's playing Devil's advocate, a very unpopular position, to pry deeper into the reasons, why is that not acceptable, but why are some things more acceptable, and if you keep closing yourself to that and saying that she's 12, end of discussion, period, then it could be said you're right, because you have no more to contribute to it, and then it would effectively be the end of the discussion... for you.

I, for one, have realized that my own cultural values are those of a victim-blaming mentality, of a certain contempt for the weak and the naive, that thinks thay they deserve what it comes to them because they aren't strong enough or shrew enough to defend themselves in this world. I can see that those cultural values are wrong, and I am changing them for something else, and I know no better way than a good discussion about alternative points of view.

Calling my intellectuality into question aside...

Some things are, and SHOULD BE cut and dry.

I'm sorry, but there are certain principles and issues in life that are only clouded by intellectual debate. This is one of them. Being close minded about some things doesn't necessarily make one stupid or intolerant.

Some things in this life simply should not be tolerated or excused. This is one issue that is not debatable for me.

If you don't stand for something, you'll fall for anything.

That's my story and I'm stickin' to it. I'm not dismissing any user here. I'm dismissing the value of arguing this point.

Well, I didn't mean to question your intelligence or anything, I should have phrased that better. But you got my point; you are being close-minded in this issue, and if you see nothing wrong about being close minded in certain issues, well, I guess that's you and I can't do anything about it

But the way I am, I believe that everything should be open to intellectual debate, everything should be examined, questioned, no matter how obvious it is at first sight. So if you don't see any value in arguing this point, well, fair enough. But I still do. Probably I'll end up reaching a similar conclusion as you anyway, but with a firmer knowledge of the moral system and concepts behind that conclusion, which is what I'm really looking for.

Id you're interested though, there is still the other example I put there, with the grown man who gets mugged.

And here is a great example of why younger generations (my own included when I was younger), tend to view older generations as "close minded."

I'm sure you do see the value in arguing a lot more things than I do. But then, I am a lot older than you, so that shouldn't be surprising. Age doesn't make one close minded though, but I do understand why younger people tend to think so. You'll get here too one day, and probably will understand yourself, that after many years of debating and questioning many issues, you will reach some conclusions and find that debating some things any further is just a waste of time that you no longer have as much of.

This is one issue among many others that I no longer see any value in debating. It's very cut and dry for me, because I've already been through that process.

Emotion has nothing to do with it.
Twelve-year-old boys and girls are not old enough to understand all of the consequences of what they do. It's the same reason we don't charge most twelve-year-old murderers with adult murder charges, even if they deliberately point a gun at someone and pull the trigger. Twelve year olds, if they have been raised by caring, protective parents, still generally believe that they can conquer the world and have no understanding that they might ever die or experience real pain, or that they could ever seriously harm someone that they love. A twelve year old boy choosing to walk through a bad part of town, or a twelve year old girl parroting what she sees adlut women doing on tv, is not responsible for the consequences of his or her actions and should be protected by the adults they encounter, whether those adulds would behave differently (or not) to another adult showing the same behavior that the child is showing.

^^^ With you on everything but the first line. Can't figure out what you mean about emotions. Where'd that come into play?

I mentioned them. I figured they could be playing a part in our opinion, although I seem to be wrong on that.



Well... that's what I wanted to hear about. When I said that they weren't as mature as adults, I was thinking along those lines too. I wouldn't say they are not at all responsible for the consequences of their actions, but they definitely aren't as much as an adult would be. A 12 year old thinking himself invulnerable and doing rash and dangerous things would make sense to me. I still have doubts on how responsible are mature adults of their misfortunes, although I probably should make another thread about it.

I didn't sense anything emotional at all. Might have been my all caps? That's just my lazy way of emphasizing. Too lazy to click the italic button. Oh well.

Caps in the internetz mean shouting, and shouting is quite emotional =P Had you used bold it would have come across differently

I'm well aware of that. Been on the internet for a very long time. It's a habit many users got used to here on WP after I'd been here for a while. But I have been gone for a while, and forget that there are new users here now that don't know me that well. Caps are quicker, and it's one of the "arbitrary rules" I personally rail against in the same way that most aspies rail against other arbitrary rules. I only use them with individual words. never with entire posts or blocks of text.

Bolding quite often gets the same responses, as does using italics, especially here on WP, where things tend to get misinterpreted more easily than elsewhere to begin with. Which is why I gave up using them for emphasis and went straight back to caps, because it didn't stop people misinterpreting anyway.

Nobody said it did.


Perhaps not. But they understand more than we're willing to give them credit for.


I'm not sure I agree with NOT charging 12 year olds with murder. Look, if you act like a child, you get treated like a child. Make little kid mistakes, you get little kid consequences. You do an adult crime, you should face adult consequences and get treated like an adult. If a child acts inappropriately, you punish the child first, THEN you get to be as judgmental as you want against the parents for their lackluster performance in the area of discipline. If a parent loves his child, he'll do everything it takes, maybe even going to rare extremes, to protect the child from the child's own poor choices. The best guarantee against a child's failure is having parents committed to setting the child up for success. I don't shield my kids from pain and suffering. If I cause my kids physical/mental pain/anguish, it is because (I know) whatever I dish out pales in comparison to what the outside world has for them. Same reason I don't send my kids to public school. And I TELL my kids that. If I'm making you miss Spongebob to "help" me cook dinner, it's because I'm sick and tired of you making your sister cry. If I take your game away, it's because that game is making you angry. If I put you in time out, it's because you're either freaking out or acting grossly defiant. And if you got a spanking, it's either because you did something that put you in danger of severe injury (and you need to understand you could get seriously hurt, but that understanding comes without the consequences of severe injury) or death, or we've exhausted all other forms or methods of discipline.

I don't care if a child thinks he's bulletproof. My job is to make sure he doesn't have to find out the truth the hard way.


I'm not buying it. We are all responsible for the consequences of our actions whether we understand those consequences or not. I MAKE my 5 and 3 year olds responsible. It's a pattern we started early, as in by 2 years old. It's not a lot of fun, but I don't think it's a coincidence that we have extremely well-behaved children. It's not my place to advocate one parenting style over another or tell someone what discipline methodology to use (we're old-fashioned, but whatever), but parents who love their kids do whatever it takes to get the kids' attention and make them understand there are things you JUST DON'T DO.

I completely disagree that children aren't responsible for their actions. If this is true, there's no point in teaching them otherwise.

Now, I do agree that all adults should protect children. I agree that it is wrong for adults to harm children. I'll even agree that dressing inappropriately is not asking to be raped. It is the rapist's fault when rape happens. No argument there.

But I think it might be a problem when a person KNOWS the risks, acts inappropriately anyway, and fails--nay--REFUSES to acknowledge her own negligence in what happened to her. No, she didn't "ask for it." No, she didn't make her rapist attack her. But bad behavior is tacit encouragement for others to do the same.

I don't KNOW that this is what is going on with the 12 year old in question. I highly doubt it, to be honest. But it raises a good question: In a civil case against a 3rd party, is it possible to use the negligence defense against child abuse? If the 3rd party isn't involved in the abuse, and they inherently aren't (definition of 3rd party), then they don't deserve to be sued over it. If they knew about it, facilitated it, or simply ignored it, that's different. We don't have enough information to know what this lady can/cannot do. I mean, the justice is such that you can sue someone for just about anything. Doesn't mean you'll win, but you really can take anybody to court. My opinion is that this lady's case is against those who raped her, not an entire school district! A negligence counter-argument might not do a thing for a rapists, but if the rape victim is making an accusation against someone other than her attackers, then showing negligence might very well hurt her case.

I mean...it's like if I shot someone and then turned around and sued the gun manufacturer and ammo supplier for getting me in trouble.

I'm sorry, but this is a totally ridiculous comparison.

I agree that even 12 year olds must be held responsible for their actions, but that is a completely different issue. It DOESN'T MATTER if she did some stupid things. They are the adults, and they bear far more responsibility for THEIR actions than she does for hers. She was RAPED. Adults raped her.

To even speculate that she may have been responsible for that lacks sensibility. If you want to speculate whether some things she did were dumb or stupid, that's a different issue, and doesn't make her responsible for what those ADULTS did to her.

Why do you think we have statutory rape laws? It's because as a society we KNOW kids will do stupid things. We know they will get themselves into dangerous situations with irresponsible and predatory adults! It is the JOB of ALL adults to protect kids from their own lack of judgement.

What the district is doing by this is saying, "We're not at fault, because if she hadn't done what she did, this never would have happened." Really?

What if the scenario went like this?

Let's say the teacher shot and killed her, and the district blamed the gun manufacturer, because if they hadn't been doing what they do (manufacturing and distributing guns), the teacher never would have shot her. Not very logical is it?

Shot yourself in the foot with your own argument.

(No, the scenario isn't meant to be an accurate comparison, but it's no less inaccurate than your own.)

What the district SHOULD be doing, is proving they did as much as they could to protect her from those that raped her, and that there was nothing more they could have done. Not blaming her because of what she did. That's just ridiculous.

The problem with this whole debate is that the real point is being missed. The REAL ISSUE is whether the district holds any responsibility for what happened. Passing the blame along to others is the worst way in the world to defend oneself against this kind of thing. It's like saying, "It's not our fault 'cause the devil made him do it." What she did or didn't do is IRRELEVANT as to whether they hold responsibility.

The real question is, "Could the district have prevented what happened?" Whether or not she could have changed her behaviors has nothing whatsoever to do with the answer to that question.

Whether she did anything stupid doesn't have any bearing on what the district could or could not have done. By putting the blame on her, all they're doing is making themselves look bad by passing on the blame. Instead of defending what they DO to prevent situations like this, all they're doing is saying, "It's not our fault, because it's her fault." That's not even a defense! It makes no effort to explain what they DO to prevent things like this, and it doesn't address why, perhaps, there is nothing more they can do.

It's a smoke screen. Misdirection in a feeble and very stupid attempt to redirect attention from themselves, and place it on her, plain and simple. Obviously, it isn't working. And it flabbergasts me that they could be dumb enough to believe that it would.

No argument here.


Agreed, but maybe we should focus on teaching kids to NOT BE STUPID. Of course, it helps if parents don't do stupid things themselves.

I mean, say a 12 year old is about to walk out the door dressed in skimpy clothes and tells mom/dad "hey, I'm going to a party, will probably get drunk, do some drugs, and there are tons of horny boys over there who would probably enjoy taking advantage of me against my will. Bye." right before she jumps into some 18 year old's black Dodge Charger waiting outside. What kind of parent is just going to let that go?

Honestly, now, no kid is going to announce what they plan to do because most parents at least have THAT much sense. A reasonably intelligent parent is going to be aware of where the child is at all times and what kind of environment they're dealing with. If you set a child up to make negligent decisions, you're just as evil as a child predator in my opinion.

No. Good parents keep their kids informed and make liberal use of the word "no" and then point out to the kid when one of their school classmates falls down dead from alcohol poisoning or has her first baby before age 13; or how so-and-so ended up in jail and Susy ended up ruining her life because "everyone was doing it." I'm not asking to rationalize rape. I'm asking people to use good, common sense.


The role of a parent is to make sure that kids don't get in the wrong position in the first place. I mean, if a predator wants a kid bad enough, no amount of good parenting is going to stop a predator from breaking into a house at night, kidnap the kid, and have his way with her in the tool shed before either killing her or letting her go.

But that's not what we're talking about here. I don't care what the laws say. Laws can change. Are we just supposed to let kids do whatever they want so they can recklessly file lawsuits against people when as much justice as can be done for them has already been done? Or is it possible that certain situations can be avoided? If a person, whether a child or an adult, could have avoided situations that made disaster more probable, then negligence does become a factor. No, you can't blame a rape victim for being raped. But you can't blame a third party for a victim's negligence or a criminal's lack of concern for the rights of the victim. What we're saying here is that it's not the victim's fault for what someone did to her. But we also have to be careful that we don't make her out to be Snow White when she's not.


Well, we don't know any more details, so all we can do is speculate and play lame "what-if" games. I think we're doing the best we can given what we know. If LKL has more info, preferably from a just-the-facts source and not a biased commentary on it, we might be having a completely different discussion.

And no, I didn't shoot myself in the foot. The point is precisely that it isn't logical. In this case it doesn't appear that the district set this girl to meet with her rapists, didn't engage in "random" strip searches where there was only one teacher in a locked room conducting the search, and funny stuff happened. I mean, maybe they DID. OK. Then it's the district's fault. But if this is something the teacher did beyond the knowledge or purview of the district, then you can hardly blame the district for something they had nothing to do with. They should fire the employee, revoke his credentials/license, and call the police. That's really all they can do. You can't sue a school over that. And if there's a good chance that the girl herself encouraged her "attackers" to have sex with her, like dressing provocatively, openly flirted, made inappropriate physical contact with the teacher (and not the other way around), then it's POSSIBLE that negligence is a factor in what happened.


I actually agree here. Negligence doesn't automatically imply responsibility. I mean, even if it's actually true (which we don't know), the defense lawyers here are acting in poor taste.


It might, though. If she knowingly acted in such a way to provoke a sexual encounter, perhaps a consensual one, then she wasn't even really raped. It's stupid for a teacher to fall for this crap, but any idiot, I don't care how old you are, can figure out if you have sex with a teacher, you automatically have that teacher by the balls. Heck, you don't even have to know the teacher or even be in the classroom. All you have to do is say "Mr. so-n-so raped me" and that teacher gets an unpaid administrative leave. A negligence defense could very well be what it takes to help prevent abuse of the system.


Agreed. And regardless of how awful it was that the girl went through this--by TWO teachers, not just one--I think she's only making matters worse by being not only negligent but unethical. And I'd say that her lack of ethics reflects on the likelihood that she may have been negligent at 12 years old.

And maybe the district COULD have prevented it. That there were two separate incidences (at least) involving this girl and other incidences with other students that ended in a teacher committing suicide suggests that at least some rumors had gotten out, at least among the kids, and there likely was some talk about it among the teachers. But we don't KNOW. Maybe they (the people directly involved) did a good job of keeping it under wraps. You don't get to just assume the district is guilty just because one woman says so. We need better proof than that. If the girl set the district up for a fall, then they are the one who has been done an injustice by her revenge motive and don't deserve Crazy to run wild on them in the courtroom and in the bank account.


Well, I kinda made that point earlier in the thread. And even in this post, I've mentioned that what the lawyers are doing is in poor taste.


Agreed, but misdirection is also capable of actually working. It's in poor taste.

I mean, you're not going to get any argument from me on these points. I don't actually believe in "blame the victim." This discussion started out as kinda one-sided, I feel up for a challenge this week, so I'm working the other side. I don't do it often, but I just happen to be bored.

What I do find genuinely troubling, though, is the way rape cases and rape laws are handled, it places an enormous amount of power in the hands of those who lack the maturity to wield it. You can completely just make up stuff and ruin a person's life. And it doesn't even really matter how it plays out in court. Let's suppose defense wins on a plaintiff's lack of evidence. It still doesn't matter. You went to court being accused of rape and the community just assumes you did it. A court decision is NOT going to change the perception of the public. That's how social pariahs come to be in Western society. And that's how teachers and parents come to be afraid of children.

I'm NOT afraid of my own children, btw, and I've been a social pariah most of my life to the point I no longer care what other people think of me. One more isn't going to make a difference in my life. Even if I end up in prison, I still get three hots and a cot. What do I care? So I try my best to do what's right by my kids, no matter what. They know to be afraid of me if they mess up, and I always explain WHY we just don't do certain things. I tell my 3 year old to smile and say "thank you" every time a sweet little old lady says something nice to her, even if old people creep her out right now. And I tell her how she treats others impacts how others see us as a family, and being ugly to old people is unacceptable and can come back to haunt all of us, not just her. So if she gets severe punishment after being warned, it's because she has to understand that she exists for something greater than just herself.

And I also tell my children that doing certain things in public and saying certain things to people can result in a call to DHS. It's one thing if they are being harmed under our care. But if that's not the case, don't go running your mouth about your parents, even if you're just mad because you didn't get to watch Spongebob before school or you disagree with a parent's choice to use discipline because now you think it's cool to jump out of your bedroom window. Ending up in foster care is not cool and can result in a life more difficult and dangerous than hanging out with parents with high expectations but also keep you safe. And yes, I have personal experience with DHS as someone having to deal with another parent's irrational bad mood and being the nearest object of her rage.

Childhood is OVER once parents hand over the reigns to their kids. But that is precisely what too often happens. The workplace environment doesn't become dangerous when kids start bringing guns and knives to school. It becomes dangerous when kids figure out that they can and nobody can stop them. There is a genuine need for a proper counter-argument when 12 year olds start using sex as a weapon and know how to manipulate the system to get their way, especially when there has been no wrongdoing in the first place.

Yeah, but you said you were taking the position of "Devil's advocate," and that typically means the opposite of the general consensus. The points you brought up, though they are not necessarily bad points, are irrelevant to the actual issue under discussion.

They're part of a totally separate (albeit related) discussion.