A UK mom wept in court Thursday as she was cleared of knowingly having sex with a boy who was only 14 years old — after he admitted previously lying about his age to set up a social media account, according to reports.
Mom of three Teah Vincent, 32, admitted to initiating sex with the teen after inviting him and a pal into her Glousterceshire home — but insisted she thought he was 16, the legal age of consent in the UK.
Now, the annoying double standards thing about this is, there was a story here in the UK a few years back (I’ll see if I can find it in a while) about a man who had sex with a girl who he thought was above the age of consent because she lied about her age.
This was even established in the actual trial by the judge and magistrates and the jury, that the guy had actually been lied to, and that he had no way of knowing this.
He still went to jail for two years because “it didn’t change the fact he had sex with a minor.”
Now, the annoying double standards thing about this is, there was a story here in the UK a few years back (I’ll see if I can find it in a while) about a man who had sex with a girl who he thought was above the age of consent because she lied about her age
Edit: Took another look at the story. It didn’t take place in a Bar or adult only setting that would otherwise keep under 18s from entering. She invited a bunch of random people into her house without checking IDs WTF… Also it’s not clear that she even looked at his facebook page. And even if she did, a facebook page could easily include a false birthdate. So it shouldn’t be enough to be a defense of reasonable mistaken age. But the law says knowingly. So British law should probably update it with “knowingly or recklessly”. She may not have been knowingly which is why she was not convicted. But she definitely fucking behaved recklessly. Which still makes her culpable morally. I don’t fault the jury, but I fault the law for being too narrow. It doesn’t seem that she behaved reasonably even if she genuinely thought he was older. In Sydney, where I live, she would have been convicted. Reasonable mistaken of age requires a lot and it’s something the accused must prove.
Kids are known for not caring one bit about terms of service and eula related stuff so they fake ages. Regardless, the existence of an affirmed defense is still important, since someone a year below the age of consent can bring in fake IDs or sneak into adult venues by fraud, claim they were really in their 20s but were actually a year shy of the age of consent. But the reasonable test is important, and the affirmed defense must always be something the accused prove. This is to protect the children. subhuman pederasts abusers should never be allowed to claim that they did not know when they raped the 8 year old girl.
But she didn’t commited homicide. She wasn’t forced by the kid to have sex with him, she did that willingly with full autonomy, knowing what she is doing. She had a choice, something that isn’t always possible if you are attacked by someone and want to incapacitate the aggressor as quickly as possible, to avoid anyone else getting hurt.
Apparently, if he went to jail for two years because it was decided that “it didn’t change the fact he had sex with a minor.”, then the judge must have decided, that the evidence was credible, but that it simply didn’t mattered.
But even that is beside the point. She, a 32-year-old mother of three children who I would expect to have enough of an ability to recognize that a person is a little bit too young for her age, willingly initiated, as a figure with authority, money and status and thus - more power, sexual intercourse with a 16-year-old in her knowledge minor, who regardless of claiming the age that is legal in the UK, is still in a state of emotional development that is easy to exploit, especially by way more experienced in coercion and manipulation methods adults, and can be easily coerced not only by a promise of sexual intercourse, but also with potentially various material things that he might not be able to afford, through the social media, and got completely left free without any punishment. The fact that she is a woman doesn’t change that she had the same predatory intentions as male sexual predators. It doesn’t change the fact, that the 14-year-old was affected.
All this story shows is that UK law is completely turned upside down. It doesn’t matter that it was legal in England. They punished people for having comic books way stronger than that. What precedent does this situation leave?
“Oh, if you are an adult woman, you can sexually exploit any teenage boys through social media, as long as they don’t tell you their actual age”
This situation pretty much tells every predatory woman that if she finds a child that claims to be older, even if he clearly looks younger than he states, she has a free pass, and has nothing to worry about when it comes to punishment.
Seriously dopeko, the problem with sexual exploitation of minors isn’t that the number of the year they were born subtracted from the year that we have today is a little bit too low. It’s that minors, and that includes not only prepubescent children but also teenagers, 14-year-old, 16-year-old, 18-years-old, hell, even some 19 and 20-year-old, aren’t in a position to give informed consent to sexual interaction, aren’t capable of taking responsibility that comes with sexual intercourse, with the most obvious ones like pregnancy, taking care of the children, dealing with potential STDs, but also socio-psychological aspects of human sexual and non-sexual interactions.
Underage people are in a low socio-economical position, lowest than even homeless people, since all of their belongings really belong to their caretakers, and can be legally taken from them. This position can be easily exploited by adults that can give them the prospect of having material benefits and status that comes from their relationships in exchange for their bodies, which makes every of such relationships dubious when it comes to the goodness of the intentions of the adult and the child in such relationship - the power balance isn’t even near equal and the relationship like that is exploitative in nature, which is a characteristic that makes it unable to last long term, ending up in a break-up, that is detrimental to both individuals and the potential offspring that was created during the course of the relationship.
And the same low socio-economical status combined with often lack of finished education, due to young age of one of the parties naturally, makes them unable to find a job that is necessary to sustain a family, or even themselves alone, putting the entire responsibility onto an adult, making him not a partner who can rely on his partner financial, emotional and general support, but a single parent “with benefits” from lack of a better term, with such relationships and potential of pregnancy having a disruptive effect on the education process and development in general of the minor involved.
Also, minors, especially teenagers, go through the long process of emotional and psychological changes, becoming independent from their caretakers, during which time they might try to latch on to other authority figures in seeking of comfort, that counterintuitively, would paralyze them actually learning how to become independent, and being unable to deal with their own affairs and problems independently in the future, making them potentially unable to leave even the most abusive and pathological relationships in the future, relationships that they will desperately seek for the sake of their own survival.
Additionally, minors naturally lack knowledge and experience in every area of human existence, which makes them often lack the ability to handle various social situations, and dealing with interpersonal conflicts. And those conflicts, happen in every relationship, which in conjunction with the power imbalance between a fully grown, well developed, most likely physically stronger, psychologically more resilient, better-suited financially, more experienced adult, and a minor that literally has nothing of their own, rely on others and is still in during the process of learning, means, that in case of any abuse from the side of an adult, the minors has no way of leaving the relationships or even asking anyone for help, simply due reasonable fear of not being able to live independently on their own, making them forced to sustain any kind of abuse, simply to survive.
Add to this the fact, that some individuals with antisocial personality disorder tend to enjoy sadistic practices, especially on vulnerable individuals, which includes children, which is one among many types of individuals that are non-pedophilic, yet still exploit underage people, including sexually, simply due to a different reason than sexual attraction, and you can see how easy it would be for them to obtain a perfect punching bag if such relationships were to ever be allowed.
And all of this is just a tip of an iceberg of reasons, that fundamentally made us decide that such relationships should be prohibited many years ago.
There is this idea that I sometimes see on the internet, that “drawings normalize pedophilia”. But I don’t see drawings of children involved in sexual situations changing any of those reasons, at all.
What I do see, however, is the constant refusal to use rational mind to realize why it’s wrong, and instead relying on emotional disgust and outrage for the sake of being disgusted and outraged, making people blind to the actual reason why such relationships are wrong, why they were prohibited in the first place, and should stay prohibited.
And dopeko, with his own example, shows us where it does lead. These reasons I just mentioned, weren’t changed in any way, they still do exist, the children involved in sexual interactions with adults still suffer because of it. But because people who rely on purely emotional attitude to the topic, without ever even thinking a second about why exactly they oppose it, in the end, do try to find justifications to predatory actions against minors
It doesn’t matter that it was legal, and it doesn’t matter what circumstances both the male predator and this female predator were in. They shouldn’t even attempt to be dealing with an underage individual in the first place, even if the law allows them to do so.
Because that is what happens when the entire reasoning is purely based on emotions. When a controversial situation involves two protected classes, women and children, but the child also belongs to a class that isn’t protected, which is males, our emotional biases work in opposition to what reason would tell us.
When an adult woman gets away with sexual exploitation of a 14-year-old minor, because she thought he was 16-year-old, but a man get’s a nine-month suspended sentence for possession of drawings
Then I think we can completely throw away the idea that the UK legal system has the wellbeing of the children as a priority.
The reason why they gave him the sentence is:
“This is material that clearly society and the public can well do without. Its danger is that it obviously portrays sexual activity with children, and the more it’s portrayed, the more the ill-disposed may think it’s acceptable.”
Well apparently, telling child predators that they can exploit real minors and be judged not guilty as long as the minor lies about their age on social media in no way has the ability to make the ill-disposed to think it’s acceptable, of course not. An actual real-life situation where such person got away free, where the judge explicitly states such a person is not guilty of harming an individual has less convincing power than a drawing.
Age of consent is a guideline, not an excuse. It was set at such low age in the UK to avoid parents suing their kid’s boyfriends and girlfriends if they didn’t liked them, and to allow situations of two peers who are underage being able to have a relationship with each other without being locked in jail. It wasn’t set up to allow older people to exploit naive teenagers without the legal consequences, but it seems to me that a lot of people who claim to be against pedophilia are extremely willing to accept this excuse of “it was above the age of consent in a given country”.
EDIT to your edit:
You missed the point completely, the problem isn’t that you didn’t explicitly state that her behaviour is reckless or immoral. The problem is that this story didn’t make you reconsider that the legal system in the UK is completely wrong, and instead, you assume it’s correct, and use those laws, to basically explain to us all, why the judge’s decision wasn’t wrong, as to why we shouldn’t blame him.
While we should, he made a decision based on his own emotional bias, and not on the reasonable evidence of her having predatory intentions towards a child. But considering that you want to base entire laws on your own personal feelings, isn’t that surprising to me, as to why you have such logic.
I just find it interesting that for a person that just a couple of posts and accounts ago wanted to kill all pedophiles, you suddenly make out of character exception when the child predator was a woman. While the reasons and effects of her actions are exactly the same as if the sexes were reversed. That indicates that you don’t know those reasons, and rely on your emotions when it comes to the topic of pedophilia, and as a result, when you don’t have an emotional bias, you justify clear acts of abuse of children. Because you don’t feel that this situation is as wrong as in the case of male predator exploiting a 14-year-old girl. While in both cases, the situation is the same, there are the same reasons why such acts are wrong and should be punished accordingly.
You wanted to lock in jail for doing disgusting, immoral yet victimless things. Well, I find it disgusting for you to have such an immoral double standard when it comes to actions, that do have real victims. By your own standard, you should be in jail.
It’s not about whether or not a child is being sexually exploited, it’s about whether or not it hurts the feelings of the legislators. That’s what this blatant hypocrisy tells me. Both the UK and Australia have a sick way of addressing these issues that HURTS INNOCENT PEOPLE!!