STYLETHREAD -- LET'S TALK SHOP!

bumblebee · Dooney & Bourke

RE: Mary Kay LeTourneau

Cricket · Gucci

quote:
Originally posted by: mizzle
"i'm with mia on this one... we can criticize ms. letourneau, and we can feel bad for her children, but the boy who had the affair? to say that he had no ability to make judgments because he was age 11 or 12 is to give children too little credit. i think not all, obviously, but plenty of children are able to make decisions at that age. i feel bad for the lady's children and family, but i don't see how people can assume the boy was manipulated just because of his age when we don't know him and when we know that he's back with her now."

How would you feel about the situation if MKL was a 30 yr old man and Vili a 11 year old girl? It's just plain wrong and there's a double standard for women who molest. An 11 year old boy is way to immature to make those kind of decisions.

halleybird · Hermes

I have worked with hundreds of 14-year-olds (who, by the way, probably have had an easier lot in life than Vili did before he met MK)...I can promise that I haven't met a single one of them capable of handling a situation like this. He was manipulated.

The thing about teenagers that people don't realize is that their brain function is so different than an adult's, even though they seem physically similar. An 11 or 12-year-old (or even a 15 or 16-year-old) is not mentally developed enough to be in any kind of healthy sexual relationship. This is elementary adolescent-psych stuff...MK would have had to know this. It's required knowledge for almost any teaching license in the country.

mizzle · BCBG

ok... so at what precise moment is every adolescent (male or female) able to handle a sexual relationship? and is this chemical or cultural?

halleybird · Hermes

mizzle...it's not a precise moment. Development is gradual, of course. The general outline is this:

early adolescence (12-14) - very beginning of movement toward independence; desires independence but is unable to manifest that desire in rational decisions. This is when they begin to actually seek out people outside the family in close relationships (remember "BFF"s?). They can think abstractly but are not able to make complex moral decisions.

middle adolescence (14-16) - begin to experience feelings of love or passion, want to emulate other peopl. They begin to have a "sense of self" (usually manifests in diaries, journals, poetry, music, etc.). They have an interest in moral reasoning but are not yet able to make decisions that fully incorporate their sense of self.

late adolescence (17-19) - emotional stability, self-reliance, capacity for sensual love, stable self-esteem, ability to follow through on long-term goals.

Of course, these are really general. And if a child has mental health issues or traumatic experiences, this development process can be slowed or even stopped. I'm definitely no expert, but Vili's involvement with MK and the resulting media pressure probably kept him from advancing along these stages the way a normal child would.

If you want to read more, here is a basic link:

http://www.aopmentalhealth.org/ad_dev.html

A more involved study would be Erickson's Theory on Social Development:

http://www.cdipage.com/erickson.shtml

mizzle · BCBG

i appreciate what you're saying, halleybird, and i appreciate that a GREAT deal of psychological studies have been done on teens and pre-teens, but my point was just that not everyone falls under these exact timelines of development. psychology is an inexact science, and i wouldn't propose that this boy is someone we can put into a neat "brainwashed" box, especially because he went back to her after her sentence.

esquiress · Marc Jacobs

i think it's a circular argument--no one will ever know w/ 100% certainty whether or not he was capable of making a mature decision at the time, not even him. the fact that they're now getting married can cut both ways--either he's doing it because he's been brainwashed or because their love is true. imo, and this is where the great divide is i guess, i can't imagine any child that age capable of making that decision, whereas mizzle and mia can (imagine that, i mean).

Mia · Kate Spade

Yeah...psychology is a grey area/science, not a black and white one. Age is far too blunt a tool, on an individual basis, to use as the only criteria. I know people over the age of consent who *still* aren't ready to handle a sexual relationship in a mature way.

Not *every* 12 year old who has sex with an adult (consensually)will be damaged by it. I know people personally who lost their virginity at quite young ages to older people, consensually, and not a one would answer "yes" is asked the question "was that sexual relationship abusive?"

Have the people who are providing links to the psych studies read about this individual case beyond the news reports? As I mentioned previously, they (Vili and MKL) published a book in France and that book, along with public comments made by the involved parties and court transcripts of her trial all indicate that Vili was the pursuant in terms of the sexual aspect of their relationship. His own mother sees it this way! Once again, I don't discount the studies indicating that *some* are damaged by consensual sexual relationships below the age of consent but I don't believe in any way that *all* are, nor do I believe that one magically morphs into an individual suddenly capable of consent on your 18th birthday.

EDIT: I want a scientific definition of this word "brainwashing" - where are the studies that indicate a minor having consensual sex with someone of age leads to "brainwashing"? I don't even think there's scientific consensus that brainwashing even exists.

-- Edited by Mia at 23:06, 2005-02-17

esquiress · Marc Jacobs

quote:
Originally posted by: Mia
I know people personally who lost their virginity at quite young ages to older people, consensually, and not a one would answer "yes" is asked the question "was that sexual relationship abusive?"

yes, but just because those people don't answer yes doesn't mean that the relationship wasn't abusive. same way many rape victims don't see their rapists as rapists because that would mean admitting something really f***ed up happened to them. but please, i certainly don't mean any disrespect to the people you know, i just think this point goes back to the circular nature of the argument.

oh and i can't help you w/ the scientific definitions--wasn't using the term "brainwashing" scientifically, just colloquially, same way i was using the term "true love" (don't have a scientific def. for that one either).

anyway, i better get the heck outta hear. good night!

Mia · Kate Spade

"yes, but just because those people don't answer yes doesn't mean that the relationship wasn't abusive."

But does it necessarily mean it *was*? I think we are both making the same point - about the circular argument. At a certain point, though, you have to believe an individual when they comment on their own feelings or experience, unless you can *prove* otherwise. All indications are that Vili is a mentally competent adult. So, I believe him.

bumblebee · Dooney & Bourke

i stand by my original opinions on this, because i think that the relationship between vili and MKL impacted his development significantly.

i also agree with esquiress that it's a circular argument--no one will ever know how much of vili's decision to pursue MKL post-prison is really his own choice and how much of it is him being compelled to repeat that which he knows with her--precisely because there's no way of separating out the cause and effect because they are interdependent--circular argument.

anyway, i think it's dangerous to say that psychology is a completely gray area and that the science doesn't "prove" anything--i don't buy everything presented as a study either, but to be so skeptical as to say that the studies that halleybird posted (and decades worth of others that are available) don't mean anything, would be a bit naive as well. we have to start somewhere, and new research builds on older research or we wouldn't have any science at all.

this is kind of tangential, but there was a really interesting article just published (maybe i saw it in the new yorker--i will try to locate and link it for you guys), that researchers are finding evidence that people recover from abuse and trauma far more quickly and fully than was previously thought. i think at least some of the reasearch pool was people who had been abused by catholic priests as kids and are now adults. i don't know what implications it has for this issue that we are discussing, but it's interesting.

halleybird · Hermes

Well said, bumblebee!

And it's important to know that the info I posted isn't just a random study -- Erickson's theories and the stages of adolescent development are accepted as facts among most school psychologists. They aren't "soft science" theories (that is to say, the result of surveys, interviewing, etc.); they actually come from neurological studies of a child's brain. So while it's possible that Vili could have been more advanced than his classmates, I think it's doubtful that his emotional development was a full six years ahead.

When you talk about early sexual activity, you also have to realize that there's a big difference between a child who loses his/her virginity at 12-13 to another child of a similar age, and a child who loses his/her virginity to an adult at that age. The way the child's brain processes that interaction will be completely different, because of how his/her brain perceives adults at that time.

Anyway, I guess none of it matters now. I don't think I'll be coming back to this topic -- not because of you guys, but just because this story really bothers me. I actually feel physically ill when I think about MKL.