Wouldn't she be considerred unable to consent to sexual activity (IQ of 50)? If so, how could this be anything but rape?

Parents: Expert Says Attack 'Pleasurable'

Now, my friend, THAT is how to use scare quotes in an article. Not like in the 'rape' fiend one.

Also, this is awful. The school district should be doing everything it can to be resolving this situation, and instead, they sent the message that this is acceptable behaviour. Disgusting.

This is absolutely horrifying. I can't fathom how an "expert" could even think to make such an idiotic claim, with no support for such his outlandish idea (presumably because there isn't anything that could support it).

I live in CO and this shit makes me cringe.

That being said, that this was in CO Springs does not supprise me. It is the redist of red state spots. The (forgive me) fu**king Focus on the Family and the radical Cleric James Dobson is based there.

Great family values, huh?

...

I'm about to take a contradictory stance here on the validity of the claim, so let me begin by saying that I think this is in the same category as statutory rape, with some of the same consequences to the victim. Whether or not the experience was "pleasurable" or not, there is a legally presumed inability to consent involved, doubly stacked because the perpetrator was in a position of authority/caretaking over her. The school was also indisputibly negligent in performing background checks on caretakers.

The negative consequences aren't always the result of the event being unpleasant, however -- sometimes, as it appears to me in this case, there are unfortunate consequences in the reverse. It was noted that the victim has become more "aggressive", grabbing and pinching men, and I'm going to speculate that this is because that's how her first sexual contact was introduced to her as well. Presumably, she retains enough mental functions to communicate basic likes and dislikes, and the "expert" has possibly worked out from both that communication and the fact that she is herself now assaulting strangers (and possibly sexually assaulting them? the location of the pinches is left obscured) that the event wasn't unpleasant to her.

The critical reader has probably noticed that there's a lot of speculation in the above. So why am I bringing it up? Because I think a focus on the technical truth of whether or not she enjoyed it dangerously implies that it matters. At best, you demonstrate that she didn't, and then let it go implied that it would somehow have made things better if she had, and at worst, you manage to come up with solid evidence that she did, and by virtue of having picked that spot to fight over, ended up losing the entire argument.

The perpetrator's defense is roughly equivalent to, "Yeah, she was only 12 years old, but I made sure she had an orgasm, so it's okay." You do not want to be spending a lot of time publically debating whether or not she had an orgasm -- especially if it might be true. Bodies sometimes (often?) do things the mind wish they wouldn't. The technical experts that discover this are not necessarily the enemy, if that's a question they were assigned to answer. The expert in this case might very well be honest as well. Nobody should care except the psychologists dealing with re-socializing the victim -- and if in fact the victim desocialized because she enjoyed it, and not because she didn't, they bloody well better be willing to start treatment from that perspective.

The only issues of relevance to the case are that a caretaker was found having sexual contact with someone legally incapable of giving consent, abusing a position of authority, and that the school district both failed to screen the caretaker and attempted to use the claim "but she liked it" as a defense, period, whether or not it was true.

And every single one of those facts has already been conceded.

I'm going to take an interesting stance here...

I remember an episode of Judging Amy in which 2 *searches for the PC term* mentally handicapped (?) teenagers were caught having a sexual relationship. Both of their parents freaked out and wanted to keep them from having sex. But they both enjoyed it...

So if you are mentally handicapped, are you not allowed to have sex *ever*? and if so, wouldn't that just bite? I'm not saying that this guy was right, I'm just wondering if being mentally handicapped is a sex-life death sentence. In what situations could someone with a very low IQ be allowed to have sex? Should they have arrested Jenny for having sex with Forest Gump? It's not like these people don't masturbate, so who picks if they get to have sex?

Ahlana, that has completely nothing to do with this case at all.

I'm not suggesting that *this* case is that way labyrys. I obviously don't have enough details to know what's going on with this one. But I wasn't making rhetorical questions, I am actually curious as to how this issue is worked around.

Ahlana:

It's problematic. The one case where the two mentally handicapped teens were exploring each other is pretty much the only one where there isn't an immediate ethical problem stemming from imbalance of power, but even in that case, there is a major social problem in that the two teens are obviously not fit to be parents should a pregnancy result.

My personally favored means of resolving that, to sterilize them both and tell them to enjoy what they can, generates a whole slew of ethical issues around when a guardian can tamper with the reproductive processes of someone without sufficient mental capacity to understand the significance.

From a strictly utilitarian standpoint, I think it harms their lives less to be able to share that pleasure without disastrous repercussions than it does to never be allowed to have sex at all. There's lots of room for reasonable people to disagree, however, and the slippery slope is scary to look at.

I work in an agency that provides services for people with disabilities. Usually what happens is a sexuality assessment is done by a psychologist that examines their knowledge about sex, birth control, STD's, reproduction, etc... and then it's determined whether or not the person is able to consent to a full range of sexual activity, a partial range (i.e. they can kiss, touch, but not actually consent to sex) or is unable to consent to everything. All of our consumers are offered sexuality education if they would like it and they can request a new assessment if they diagree with the findings. Staff can also request if new issues come up (for instance we had a girl who was deemed fully consenting freak out because she kissed her boyfriend and was worried she was pregnant) and they are concerned the person isn't as consenting as they were originally deemed. It seems like a lot of fuss about not much, but it really does prevent a lot of issues. A lot of people with developmental disabilities can have a very hard time with sexual activity because they really don't understand what is going on or what is happening to their bodies. There is a huge risk of being taken advantage of or exploited and their caretakers (whether it be their parents, staff, etc...) have a responsibility to protect them. If they are able to consent, it's our responsibilty to make sure they are empowered to do so.

Zed, you always get here first and say what exactly needs to be said. Now I have nothing to add! :p