Prosecuting Mrs. Robinson? Gender, Sexuality, and Statutory Rape Laws

Introduction: Statutory Rape Laws

State statutory rape laws [1] prohibit sexual intercourse with an unmarried person under a certain age, ranging from 14 to 18 (generally, 16). Those under this age, who are not married to their sex partner, are deemed incapable of consenting to such activity; therefore, consensuality is not permitted as a defense to the crime. [2] Proscribing the sexuality of young people is thus said to be a protective measure. In many states, the perpetrator may be the same age as the victim [3] and still be charged with a felony; in most of the states that mandate that the perpetrator be a certain number of years older then the victim, a same-age perpetrator can still be charged with a misdemeanor. When the activity is heterosexual, it is usually the male who is charged.

The laws originally were gender-specific: they punished a male who had sexual intercourse with a female not his wife under the age of consent. As of August 2000, all fifty states have gender-neutral statutory rape laws, in which either a male or female may be prosecuted for engaging in sexual activity with a male or female (who is not the perpetrator's spouse) under the age of consent. While a solely heterosexual framework would assume that this was meant to prohibit sex between an older female and younger male, prosecutions under the laws have targeted homosexual relationships as well.

Considering the marital exemption, the prosecutions of same-age perpetrators (usually males), and the use of the laws against homosexual activity even as most states have decriminalized sodomy, one wonders if "age" is really the operative category in statutory rape laws. I would argue, rather, that such laws are based on—and serve to reinforce—cultural stereotypes of gender. That is, heterosexual males are perceived to be the active, aggressive, party in sexual intercourse (defined in the laws as penetration); heterosexual females as the passive, victimized, party.

This article explores the ways in which cultural narratives of sexuality work to undermine the gender-neutral language of statutory rape laws. It examines the discourses surrounding statutory rape cases involving both male and female perpetrators with both male and female victims, in order to discern whether or not gender is treated "neutrally" both in the courtroom and in media coverage of cases. I find that while much of the discourse still categorizes statutory rape with a male victim as abuse, the "older woman" perpetrator is more often described as a manipulative or mentally ill seductress while the "older man" perpetrator is usually likened to an abusive predator, doubly outside the bounds of society by being homosexual as well. Such language maintains the boundaries of traditional gender roles: the older woman is constructed as an almost sympathetic aberration of her gender who tries to obtain love by seducing a young male, while the older man is seen simply as a sexual aggressor and is therefore more universally excoriated for his behavior. The presumption of innocence, or of consensuality, begins to fade when the perpetrator is male, and in particular, when the perpetrator is a homosexual male. At the same time, victims of statutory rape, particularly by older males, are virtually always constructed as unwilling, or at best, passive and manipulated participants in sexual conduct. Yet children are also perceived to be "invested with sexual capacity." [4] Cases involving young males with older females are most readily perceived as falling into this category, as if one's male gender surpasses one's age as enabling or encouraging sexual behavior.

The paper begins with a brief overview of statutory rape laws, and then details the feminist debate over the laws and over gender-neutral language. It then moves to case studies of three statutory rape cases of national notoriety, those involving Mary Kay LeTourneau, Stephen Simmons, and Sean O'Neill. Finally, it concludes with a discussion of the implications of gender-neutral statutory rape laws and the prosecutions brought under them.

Statutory Rape Reform

Following English common law, the age of consent in the American colonies was generally set at 10 or 12. The laws in some sense served to preserve female virginity, which was a valuable commodity, until marriage. The "theft" of that chastity was considered a property crime against the girl's father and future husband. [5] This in practice applied only to white females; many young black females, for instance, were enslaved or otherwise treated discriminatorily by the legal system.

In the late nineteenth century, an alliance of organizations such as the Women's Christian Temperance Union, suffragist groups, and some conservative religious groups and white workingmen's organizations lobbied to have the age "at which a girl could legally consent to her own ruin" raised to 16 or 18. This occurred most rapidly in the states in which women could vote. [6] In response, male legislators made prosecutions more difficult. A number of states passed provisions that required the female victim to be "of previous chaste character," i.e., a virgin, and be able to prove that fact. Others allowed perpetrators to claim that they had made a "mistake of age" and thought the female older than she was. [7] Such provisions call into question if the concern was with protecting a young woman per se, or with policing gender boundaries; if a female had previously been sexually active, or could have been perceived as older and experienced, it was as if no crime had been committed.

The laws were not amended again until the 1970s. This was due in large part to activism by second wave feminists, represented in particular by such groups as the National Organization for Women. They sought to do away with gendered inequities in a variety of laws, including both forcible rape and statutory rape laws. In general, most of these feminists felt that the laws as written (prohibiting sexual intercourse with a female under a certain age) reinforced stereotypes of gender and inscribed patriarchal notions of female sexuality and mental capacity into law. They therefore sought to restore some formal agency and formal equality to young women while also retaining the ability to safeguard them from sexual coercion. Specifically, they lobbied for 1) gender-neutral language, which would include young males as part of the protected class and enable the charging of females as perpetrators, and 2) age span provisions which mandate that the perpetrator be a certain number of years older than the victim, thus catching potentially more coercive relationships while exempting those more likely to be consensual. [8]

These two proposals began a multifaceted debate among feminists, reflective of the virtually simultaneous debates over sexuality, sexual consent, and pornography. Radical feminists in particular critiqued the legal construct that sex fell into two categories: consensual sex or rape. They argued that for socially constructed reasons men and women were simply not similarly situated in modern society; some extended that argument to suggest that the idea of a woman being able to give true consent was untenable. As such, pornography reflected the degraded status of women and should be regulated as a means of pursuing equal protection for women. In this environment, radical feminists were concerned that gender-neutral statutory rape laws could not acknowledge that adolescent males and females in particular were not similarly situated in regard to psychological needs and sexual power. The problem was one of "social inequality, of sex aggravated by age." [9]

In other words, gender-neutral laws would not serve to advance the substantive equality of females in the law and in real life, but instead would grant females only formal equality which would do them a disservice. "Boys and girls may both be harmed by early sexual activity, but they are harmed differently and we gain nothing by pretending the harm is the same." [10] A number of studies recount that adolescent females have low self-esteem, are uncomfortable with speaking their minds for fear of appearing unfeminine or intellectually threatening to their male counterparts, and are insecure and willing to please. [11] Beyond the potential for pregnancy, disease, pain, and shame, a young female might regret having decided to engage in sex—but socialized as she is to believe that sex and love go together, still see such an encounter as consensual because she was not physically forced to do so. Therefore, these feminists would worry, gender-neutral language might actually worsen the situation by allowing public officials, and feminists, to claim credit for advancements in the cause of gender equality, causing any fervor for change to be undercut with no progress made on the underlying structures of gender inequality that pervade (adolescent) heterosexual relationships.

Feminist sex radicals were on the opposite side of the sexuality and pornography debate from the radical feminists. They felt that the latter essentialized all females as victims and all pornography as problematic, rather than acknowledge that many women were actively confronting inequalities and that pornography in and of itself could be received differently by different audiences—perhaps even re-constructed in a feminist fashion. [12] Worse, they worried, the radical feminist position that women are different (for socially constructed reasons) could play right into the hands of conservative censorial forces, who were all too willing to agree with that notion (for biological reasons); indeed, radical feminists and social conservatives joined forces to pass anti-pornography ordinances in the Midwest.

While they acknowledged that statutory rape laws had a protective function, the sex radicals were concerned that their patriarchal and proscriptive roots punished potentially consensual unmarried sex, painted young people and particularly young females as a monolithic group unable to make decisions about their own bodies, and sent a message that nonmarital sex and female sexual agency in and of themselves were wrong and harmful. [13] Therefore, they saw the laws as violating rights of privacy and personal autonomy in sexual matters.

Sex radicals also argued that the laws' marital exemption which allowed those under the age of consent and married to be free from prosecution showed that the laws had little to do with one's age and everything to do with one's marital status. Along the same lines, the gender-neutral language would enable the prosecution of homosexual couples already suffering from other forms of legalized discrimination based on their sexuality. Indeed, in the battle over pornography, many sex radicals were appalled but not surprised that one of the arguments used to win over male judges was to tell them that in gay porn, males were just as degraded as females. [14] The intertwining of sex and violence in statutory rape laws might only serve to further marginalize, rather than protect, homosexuals.

The liberal feminists who themselves often drafted gender-neutral statutory rape laws were somewhere in the middle of these two poles. They felt that young males should not be neglected as victims, and that the gender-specific laws formally inscribed the stereotypes of male-as-aggressor and female-as-victim in the realm of sexuality and therefore had to go. "If sex is viewed as a privilege, for a state to say that a girl of a certain age is neither legally nor factually capable of consenting to that act while boys are able to consent to sex at any age with any women, that girl has been deprived of a right that her male counterpart has been allowed to engage in." [15] The change in language would treat males and females as if they were similarly situated, thereby perhaps accelerating the process of equal treatment in nonlegal realms as well.

Liberal feminists lobbied so successfully for statutory rape reform that by 1981 all but ten states had made their statutory rape laws gender-neutral. But in that year, the Supreme Court upheld the gender-specificity of California's statutory rape law. [16] The majority opinion argued that because only the female party could get pregnant from a (heterosexual) sexual encounter, a law punishing only the male would equalize the burden placed on the two parties when they decided to engage in sexual activity. The court's rationale was much-criticized in legal circles and feminist circles; in short, neither the plurality opinion, nor the concurrences, nor the dissents addressed feminist concerns about statutory rape laws as described above, but rather reflected that the justices' assumptions about teenage sexuality were strongly based on stereotypes of gender. [17] By 2000, regardless of the Supreme Court's decision, all fifty states had gender-neutral statutory rape laws; they now read that "any person" who has sex with "any person" under the age of consent has committed a criminal act.

But has the change in the language of the law resulted in a change in prosecutions under the laws, or a change in cultural discourses about statutory rape? The next section addresses statutory rape prosecutions in general; the section following details three prominent statutory rape cases in order to examine the discourses surrounding the crime.

Prosecutions under Gender-Neutral Statutory Rape Laws

It is somewhat difficult to generalize about statutory rape prosecutions because of the methods by which arrest and conviction records on the crime are collected. The Federal Bureau of Investigation's Uniform Crime Reporting Program (UCRP) requires that statutory rape be bundled with other crimes and reported as "Sex offenses: (Except forcible rape, prostitution and commercialized vice)—statutory rape and offenses against chastity, common decency, morals, and the like. Attempts are included." The Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) sometimes bundles several datasets and then lumps statutory rape in with "Other Sexual Assault: Includes statutory rape, lewd acts with children, forcible sodomy, fondling, molestation, indecent practices, and other related offenses." The National Judicial Reporting Program (NJRP) includes statutory rape in the figure for "Sexual assault: Forcible or violent sexual acts not involving intercourse with an adult or minor, nonforcible sexual intercourse with a minor, and nonforcible sex acts with someone unable to give legal or factual consent because of mental or physical defect or intoxication." Sometimes, however, NJRP tables bundle "sexual assault" with "[forcible] rape." Lastly, the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention tracks the crime a fourth way in the juvenile court system, "Public Order: Liquor law violations, weapons offenses, disorderly conduct, obstruction of justice, nonviolent sex offenses, and other public order offenses." Local law enforcement collect data on their arrests and convictions within these categories, rarely breaking out the numbers for the crime of statutory rape alone; when they do tally statutory rape rates separately, it is rare to find them broken down by the sex of the offender. This is perhaps because of the assumption that the perpetrator will be male.

Having said this, the NJRP survey for 1998 that breaks down crimes by the sex of the offender found that of persons convicted for "Sexual Assault" (including forcible rape) felonies, 97% were male and 3% were female. [18] A BJS survey that combines datasets reports that of all offenders in state prison for "Other sexual assault," 98.8% were male and 1.2% were female. [19] In terms of probated sentences, a Georgia Department of Corrections spokesman said recently that of the approximately 800 people on probation in that state for statutory rape, eighteen are women—about 2%. [20] In short, the number of women prosecuted for statutory rape does not appear to have skyrocketed since the adoption of gender-neutral language. However, according to a recent UCRP study, the number of male victims has risen to include about 14% of all types of sexual assaults reported to law enforcement. [21] This indicates that while those prosecuted are still overwhelmingly male, a not insignificant number of them were prosecuted for same-sex activity.

Two types of prosecutions in the 1990s have further buttressed the gendered undercurrents of statutory rape laws. Spurred on by bonus monies offered through the welfare reform act (the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996) for decreasing their number of teenage pregnancies, several states have begun using stepped-up statutory rape prosecutions as a means of accomplishing that goal. [22] That such an approach could actually stem the number of teenage pregnancies is extremely unlikely; indeed, young pregnant females may be deterred from seeing their doctors if they fear their partner will be punished. Focusing on this one particular type of relationship not only excludes cases in which abuse but no pregnancy has occurred, but also subverts the gender neutrality of the law by purposely prosecuting only males who have impregnated young females.

A second type of case making its way through the court system in various states encompasses females convicted of statutory rape for relationships with young males, but who have then become pregnant, chosen to give birth, and have sued the male for child support. Thus far, in a number of different states, those young males have been forced to pay—even though they are minors as well as victims of sex crimes and their partners are in some cases felony-level sex offenders. "The State's interest in requiring minor parents to support their children overrides the State's competing interest in protecting juveniles from improvident acts, even when such acts may include criminal activity on the part of the other parent." [23] That the young male may have been emotionally or physically harmed is virtually dismissed, outweighed by the cultural assumption that he should be a provider.

Looking at the general patterns of convictions demonstrate that while the number of male victims has risen, the numbers of women prosecuted has changed little, and the number of men prosecuted has risen. Cases involving pregnancy, in general, tend to reflect gendered assumptions: females are the victims, and males are the perpetrators, regardless of their respective ages. But these facts in and of themselves do not serve to illuminate whether or not stereotypes of gender are implicated in statutory rape prosecutions themselves and the discourses surrounding them. I turn at this point to three statutory rape cases of national prominence.

Case Studies: Implementation of Gender-Neutral Statutory Rape Laws

This section examines a heterosexual statutory rape, Mary Kay LeTourneau and her victim Vili Fualaau; a homosexual statutory rape, Stephen Simmons and his victim Samuel Manzie; and another case labeled "homosexual" but which was complicated by the perpetrator's flexible construction of gender, that of Sharon Clark/Sean O'Neill. The differences between the types of cases lies in the way in which the female perpetrator, LeTourneau, was treated not so much as a sexual predator but more as an oddity with mental problems—she fell outside a cultural narrative of females as sexually passive rather than sexually active. As such, the discourses describing LeTourneau and Simmons, who by law had committed the same crime, were quite different because of the assumptions made about Simmons; namely, that he was predatory based on both his gender and his sexuality. O'Neill, a transgendered person with vaginal sex organs who identifies as male, was treated less like LeTourneau and more like Simmons. While he stood outside the boundaries of gender as a sexual agent like LeTourneau, his sexual activities themselves as well as and what was labeled his "homosexuality" masculinized him. The implications of this are discussed in the conclusion.

Conclusions: Gender-Neutral Statutory Rape Laws

These case studies have served to point out the small yet telling differences between depictions of Mary Kay LeTourneau and Stephen Simmons, who had committed the same crime—statutory rape of a teenage male. The language used to describe Sean O'Neill was closer to that used to describe Simmons. LeTourneau, female and heterosexual, was constructed as "sick," "fixated," and needing treatment; Simmons and O'Neill as homosexual and "predatory pedophiles" who deserved long jail sentences for "assault." "The reason anyone even questions whether LeTourneau is a pedophile is clear: she is a woman. Had a thirty-five year old male teacher impregnated a thirteen year old student, would late night talk show hosts really be making wink wink jokes about high-fiving the victim in the halls? It is the typical double standard: when a man commits adultery, it is assumed he did it for the sex. When a woman does, we assume she did it for love." [52]

As Kincaid notes, "Our culture has produced a story of molestation that is not only widely believed, but, more important, widely sanctioned, and, more important still, widely circulated. According to this story....They are all male, maladjusted or sick (but criminal certainly), violent and dangerous...." [53] Simmons, as a male, and O'Neill, as a transperson, were fit into this narrative while LeTourneau was not. A few sources noted the apparent consensuality of these sets of sexual relationships, and used feature stories as a means by which to probe sexual abuse. The gender-neutrality of the laws does not appear to erase the idea of young women as victims of predatory older men; indeed, O'Neill's case was forced into that box. It adds young males to the protected class but gives more credence to their claim if their sex partner is male. Gender stereotypes remain, regardless of the changes in legal language, to describe both the victims and the perpetrators.

Liberal feminists' goals for gender-neutral statutory rape laws—that they would enshrine gender equality into law and thus dismantle stereotypes of female sexuality as passive and male sexuality as aggressive—may have been unfortunately too ambitious, particularly in a climate in which homosexuality is still often constructed as suspect. Rather, the criticism by feminist sex radicals that such laws might essentialize young people as victims, punish consensual sex, and single out homosexual relationships may prove to be more accurate. It appears that the re-construction of the category of gender and its meaning vis-à-vis sexuality is a longer and more complex process than can be accomplished through amendments to laws on the books. The question remains as to how to move that process forward as quickly and comprehensively as possible.

State University of New York, College at Old Westbury

Old Westbury, New York

* The author thanks the reviewers of MFS, and Margaret Genden, for their comments and suggestions

1. The crime commonly called "statutory rape" is variously titled in the fifty states. The names include: statutory rape, rape in the nth degree (as distinct from forcible rape which is usually 1st degree, statutory rape is often classified as 2nd, 3rd, or 4th degree rape), sexual assault in the nth degree (same), sexual battery in the nth degree (same), sexual abuse of a minor, child sexual abuse, child molestation, statutory sexual seduction, indecency with a child. I will continue to call the sexual activity statutory rape for the sake of simplicity throughout this article.

2. Almost all states allow those under their jurisdictional age of consent to marry with judicial and/or parental approval, and statutory rape laws specify the victim be unmarried to the perpetrator. Because of this, sex within a married couple in which at least one party is under the age of consent cannot be prosecuted under the law, even if it is the same sexual activity as that taking place within an unmarried couple in which at least one party is under the age of consent.

3. I use "perpetrator" and "victim" throughout in order to reflect the language of the laws; it is not a reflection on whether I believe a particular sexual relationship is consensual or not.

4. James Kincaid, Child-Loving: The Erotic Child and Victorian Culture (New York: Routledge, 1992), 174.

5. Luisa Fuentes, "Note: The Fourteenth Amendment and Sexual Consent: Statutory Rape and Judicial Progeny," Women's Rights Law Reporter 16 (1994): 141; Rita Eidson, "The Constitutionality of Statutory Rape Laws," UCLA Law Review 27 (1980): 760, 767.

6. Jane Larson, "'Even a Worm Will Turn at Last': Rape Reform in Late Nineteenth Century America," Yale Journal of Law and the Humanities (Winter 1997): 38, 44, 46; Mary Odem, Delinquent Daughters: Protecting and Policing Adolescent Female Sexuality in the United States, 1885-1920 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1995), 15-16.

7. Larson, "'Even a Worm Will Turn at Last'," 57-8; Odem, Delinquent Daughters, 33.

8. Along with gender neutral language and age-spans, their other goals for statutory rape laws included: 1) redefining the crime as "sexual assault" or "sexual battery" to emphasize coercion; 2) grading the offenses based on the age of the victim; 3) broadening the offenses to include touching and oral/genital activity; this was particularly important for cases having to do with very young children; 4) lowering and grading the penalties; 5) eliminating corroboration requirements; 6) eliminating the "promiscuity" clause that dismissed cases if the young female was not a virgin ; 7) eliminating the "mistake of age" defense in which the perpetrator could claim he thought the victim was above the age of consent. See Leigh Bienen, "Rape III: National Developments in Rape Reform Legislation," Women's Rights Law Reporter 6.3 (Spring/Summer): 177-180; see also, Patricia Searles and Ronald Berger, "The Current Status of Rape Reform Legislation: An Examination of State Statutes," Women's Rights Law Reporter 10. 1 (Spring): 25-27.

9. Catherine MacKinnon, "Reflections on Sex Equality Under Law," Yale Law Journal 10 (1991): 1281.

10. France Olsen, "Statutory Rape: A Feminist Critique of Rights Analysis," Texas Law Review 63 (1984): 426.

11. See Michelle Oberman, "Symposium: Gender Issues and the Criminal Law: Turning Girls into Women: Reevaluating Modern Statutory Rape Law," Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology 85 (1994): 15-78.

12. See, for example, Lisa Duggan and Nan Hunter, eds., Sex Wars: Sexual Dissent and Political Culture (New York: Routledge, 1995).

13. See, for example, Gayle Rubin, "Thinking Sex: Notes for a Radical Theory of the Politics of Sexuality" in Carole Vance, ed., Pleasure and Danger (New York: Routledge, 1984), 267-319.

14. Duggan and Hunter, Sex Wars, 10.

15. Fuentes, "Note: The Fourteenth Amendment and Sexual Consent," 151.

16. Michael M. v. Superior Court of Sonoma County, 1981.

17. A few points about this case merit attention. First, many feminist writers noted with horror that the sexual activity between Michael M. and the victim, Sharon, was assumed by the court to be consensual. She had initially kissed him, but in her testimony was clear that she did not want to have sex with him; when he "slugged" her "two or three times," she gave in (450 U.S. at 483-486, Blackmun concurring). Second, the notion that enforcing statutory rape laws can "prevent teenage pregnancy" is troubling; most teens do not even know the specifics of statutory rape laws, and of the 70% of U.S. teenagers who report having had sexual intercourse in high school, a probable fraction of that figure represent prosecutable statutory rape cases in which the female is underage and becomes pregnant and chooses to give birth (see The Alan Guttmacher Institute, "Teen Sex and Pregnancy," September 1999). Third, the interpretation of these laws as not violating the equal protection clause is problematic, "[placing] women back into the 'you need to be protected because you're different' box from which it has taken women years to escape. If legislatures are permitted to use pregnancy to show that men and women are differently situated, all kinds of gender-restrictive legislation can be introduced and possibly enacted" (see Fuentes, "Note: The Fourteenth Amendment and Sexual Consent," 139).

18. Matthew Durose, David Levin, and Patrick Langan, "Felony Sentences in the State Courts, 1998," Bureau of Justice Statistics Bulletin (October 2001) U.S. Department of Justice.

19. Laurence Greenfeld, "Sex Offenses and Offenders," 1997 U.S. Department of Justice.

20. Andrea Jones, "Rockdale Statutory Rape Case Spurs Legal Debate," The Atlanta Journal and Constitution, August 27 2000.

21. Howard Snyder, "Sexual Assault of Young Children as Reported to Law Enforcement," 2002 U.S. Department of Justice.

22. On this initiative and its implications, see e.g. Carolyn Cocca, "From 'Welfare Queen' to 'Exploited Teen': Welfare Dependency, Statutory Rape, and Moral Panic," National Women's Studies Association Journal 14. 2 (Summer 2002).

23. State ex. Rel Hermesmann v. Seyer, Kansas 1993, quoted in Ken Tennen, "Wake Up Maggie: Gender Neutral Statutory Rape Laws, Third-Party Infant-Blood Extraction, and the Conclusive Presumption of Legitimacy," Journal of Juvenile Law 18 (1997): 1-33.

24. Darrell Giles, "Boy Dad's Plea; Let Me Marry Jailed Teacher," The Herald Sun, April 6 2001.

25. The Seattle Times, "Excerpts From Today's Hearing," The Seattle Times, February 6, A4.

26. Timothy Egan, "Contact With Young Lover Lands Ex-Teacher in Prison," The New York Times, February 7 1998, A11.

27. Karen Peterson, "Woman's Obsession for Boy Crosses Many Lines," USA Today, February 5 1998, 4D.

28. <http://www.marykayletourneau.com.27typed.html>.

29. Similarly, one could argue statutory rape cases such as this could also serve to interrogate stereotypes of male sexuality, but most often do not. In 1993 when California still had a gender-specific statutory rape law, Faye Abramowitz could not be charged with the statutory rape of eight boys aged 14-16, among whom was Marcia Beckerman's stepson. Marcia founded a group, Mothers Against Sexual Abuse, and wrote to her state representatives, "I thought it was just horrible that this woman could entice these boys into having sex, and not be charged with it" (see Karen Nikos, "Effort to Make Statutory Rape Law Apply to Women Gaining Support," The Sacramento Bee, February 22 1993). However, the numerous comments that were made publicly about the situation were mostly tongue in cheek and along the lines of one deputy District Attorney, "A lot of males have the attitude, 'Where were women like this when I was growing up?'" (see Lori Moody, "Underage Sex: A Double Standard? Those Closely Affected Want Rape Laws to be Gender Neutral," Los Angeles Daily News, March 4 1993). Likewise, a Deputy DA who prosecuted a similar case "found that attitude, just in conversation, oftentimes a gut reaction, or initial reaction [from people]: 'Oh, well, he's a boy and it's probably the greatest thing that happened to him...If it's a young girl, it's clear to people that it's a molest" (see Moody, "Underage Sex"). Unnamed policemen were quoted as saying that "some of the boys, ages 14 to 16, consider the experience a badge of honor," and one detective even pressed, "I really think the parents are more upset about it than the kids are" (see David Wharton, "Sex and Section 261.5. California's Statutory Rape Law Applies Only to Female Victims. For Males, There is Less Legal Protection," Los Angeles Times, April 30 1992).

30. Robert McFadden, "Suspect in New Jersey Strangling Was Reportedly Sex-Case Victim," The New York Times, October 3 1997, A1; Robert Hanley, "Days Before Slaying, Parents of Suspect Pleaded for Help," The New York Times, October 4 1997, A1; Hanley, "Questions About a Sting that Used a Teen-Ager: Slain Boy's Parents Consider Suing Officials," The New York Times, December 28 1997, 26.

31. McFadden, "Suspect in New Jersey Strangling Was Supposedly Sex-Case Victim."

32. For example, see Philip Jenkins, Moral Panic (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998).

33. Laura Mansnerus, "Teenager Who Killed Boy Defends Molester as Good Role Model," The New York Times, October 13 1999.

34. Later, Manzie was charged with additional crimes so that he is to serve 70 years; many of the charges against Simmons were dropped when Manzie—who received an additional six-month sentence for his refusal—would not testify against Simmons. Simmons is to serve five years for endangering the welfare of a child (see Hanley, "Pedophile Admits He Abused Young Killer," The New York Times, July 23 1999; Hanley, "Killer Will not Turn Against Man Accused of Abusing Him," The New York Times, July 23 1999).

35. Mansnerus, "'Thinking About You:' Sam Manzie's First Words in a Letter to the Man Convicted of Molesting Him," The New York Times, October 17 1999.

36. Jim Fielder, "Lovesick," Mirabella May 6 1998; Timothy Egan, "Contact with Young Lover Lands Ex-Teacher in Prison," The New York Times, February 7 1998, A11; Hanley, "Killer Will not Turn Against Man Accused of Abusing Him"; Matthew Stadler, "Statutory Rape: A Love Story," Spin June 1998.

37. This is not to say that medicalized language is not used to describe pedophilia—it virtually always is. For a recent example, see Matthew Purdy, "Sex Offenders Test Parole Officers: Predators Are Reined In," The New York Times, June 29 1997, 41; Purdy, "Wave of New Laws Seeks to Confine Sexual Offenders: Mental Hospitalization," The New York Times, June 29 1997, A1; and Warren Leary, "New Therapy Offers Promise in Treatment of Pedophiles," The New York Times, February 12 1998, A11. My point is that such language tends to be coupled with describing the [male] offenders as "violent," "dangerous," and "abusive."

38. After several years of searching LEXIS and Westlaw, with no date restrictions, for caselaw (all federal and state cases), and for secondary legal and news items (all U.S. news and wire services, all major world news outlets, all law reviews, all bar journals), I have found no such cases. Altering search terms in a myriad of combinations, and varying the levels of specificity of the searches has made no difference. Interviews with district attorneys have been fruitless as well.

39. I have found no cases fitting these descriptions either.

40. Riki Anne Wilchins, Nancy Nangeroni, Lynn Walker, and JoAnn Roberts, "Transpeople as Child Molesters?" Oasis 1996 Youth Assistance Organization.

41. Dick Foster, "Woman, Accused of Playing Boyfriend to Girls, to Stand Trial," Rocky Mountain News, December 24 1994, A12.

42. The Denver Post, "Plea Deal Made in Sex Assaults," The Denver Post, November 29 1995, B4.

43. Donna Minkowitz, "On Trial: Gay? Straight? Boy? Girl? Sex? Rape?" Out October 1995: 140.

44. National Law Journal Staff, "Sex Impersonation Charged," The National Law Journal (January 9 1995): A10.

45. Minkowitz, "On Trial."

46. Foster, "Woman, Accused of Playing Boyfriend to Girls."

47. Minkowitz, "On Trial," 101.

48. O'Neill later said that the girls "made lots of it up," that he never used any object for penetration, that the girls probably knew that he did not have a penis, and that perhaps they were embarrassed about the events (Minkowitz, "On Trial," 140).

49. <http://www.brentpayton.com/trans/transgendered>.

50. Wilchins, "Transpeople as Child Molesters?" After testimony from the females (one of whom later appeared on the Jerry Springer Show), and from transgender activists, O'Neill was sentenced to 90 days in prison, 6 years of probation which included counseling, and mandatory reporting of all contacts with females under the age of consent or which might lead to sexual intimacy <http://www.brentpayton.com/trans/sean_oneill_sentenced_to_90_days.txt>.

51. Minkowitz, "On Trial," 145.

52. Fielder, "Lovesick."

53. Kincaid, Child-Loving, 355.