GA- Some still don’t see double standard

12-20-2008 Georgia:

Once upon a time, the sexual activities older women engaged in with adolescent boys may have be dismissed with a wink and a nod. Today we should know better.

But do we?

If recent headlines are any indication, some people still don’t get it.

Amid talk about Muscogee County teacher, Claire Richards, being investigated and arrested regarding allegations of inappropriate behavior with male high school students, a similar case happened to a Troup County middle school teacher.

Elizabeth Gaddy, 45, is accused of having an inappropriate relationship with a 13-year-old male student. She was also charged with enticing a child for indecent purposes. Gaddy’s “relationship” with the student is alleged to have gone on for several months.

We can attempt to dress it up anyway we like, but women who involve themselves with young boys are sex offenders. They are child molesters. And their offenses represent about 10 percent of all sexual offenses.

‘What is the problem’

Such women initiate sexual activity, “taking advantage of boys who were sexually stimulated and flavoring their crime with a romantic tone,” Katherine Ramsland writes on trutv.com. “There was no violence involved, some of them say, and the boys were willing, so what is the problem?” she writes.

If a man said this about a girl the community believed to be a “good” girl, people would have no problem assigning him a cell on death row — before his trial. But there can be a double standard with boys.

Remember Debra Lafave, the 25-year-old Florida teacher who had sex with a 14-year-old in the back seat of a car being driven by a 15-year-old? She is the blonde whose lawyer told the court she was too beautiful to go to a prison full of women. So she was sentenced to house arrest.

“People tend to think women can’t really sexually assault because they don’t have the proper anatomy, or they don’t have aggressive tendencies — sexual aggression,” said Susan Strickland, Ph.D., a certified sex offender treatment provider.

“Women molest, but they molest in a different way,” said Strickland, whose office is in Atlanta. “There is less use of force than with male offenders, and more use of coercion. These women come in all shapes and sizes. There is no profile.”

And female sex offenders use more intrusive levels of sexual behaviors than men. They are more likely than men to abuse strangers. And they are less likely than men to acknowledge guilt or to feel sorry or guilty, Strickland said.

Still in our culture most men grow up viewing molestation by an older woman as a conquest: It feels good and sounds good when it’s told to the other guys. ..News Source.. by Kaffie Sledge