About the author: To change this standard text, you have to enter some information about your self in the Dashboard -> Users -> Your Profile box. Read more from this authorAn 11-year-old girl from Zainesville, Ohio was charged with 3 counts of rape this past April. Yes, you read the numbers correctly: 11 years old, 3 counts. According to reports not released by the Ohio police, the incidents involved penetration with 2 boys and a girl all younger than 10.
The story completely blows my mind. Think of the world that an 11 year old American girl lives in – a 5th grade class, the Disney Channel, maybe a secret crush on her best friend’s big brother (despite believing in ‘cooties’). Nowhere in there is the thought of taking anyone’s pants off, let alone sexual activity. Some 80% of girls do not have regular ovulatory periods until the age of 15, which is around the time the idea of sex becomes an act they may think of exploring. For someone who asked her 8th grade science teacher if you could get pregnant from kissing, sex definitely lies on the mature end of the spectrum.
Such charges are increasing in number all over the country: a 9-year-old rapist, a 12-year-old serial rapist… the list goes on. So I have to wonder – what kind of world do we live in where an 11 year old girl is so curious about sex, she needs to simulate the act with children younger than she is? In Ohio, sex education doesn’t begin until 6th grade - so where did these thoughts come from? Her inattentive family? Her abnormally mature friends? Well, if we can’t blame a person, can we blame the media? Here’s to MTV!
While I often wonder what kind of world we live in when I hear of horrific and unspeakable crimes including rape, I would just like to point out two things.
First of all, according to the article you linked to: “The charge of rape means any type of penetration there is during the act, no matter how slight,” Ritchason said. “It doesn’t necessarily mean a suspect has someone tied down or beats them and then rapes them. A person under the age of 18 doesn’t have to be forced, either.”
In other words, the 11-year-old girl may have simply been engaged in sex play (albeit with some slight penetration) with willing partners who may have only been a couple years younger.
Secondly, while it may still be difficult to imagine such a young girl wanting to engage in penetration, it is a fact that sexual exploration among children is completely common and normal and is not a recent phenomenon. From “The Kinsey Institute New Report on Sex” (1990): “A recent study of parents of six- and seven-year-olds reported that 52 percent of their sons had engaged in sex play with other boys and 34 percent had sex play with girls; 37 percent of their daughters had activities with other girls and 35 percent with boys…Activities at this age include simply looking at each other’s bodies and ‘playing doctor’ but may also involve attempts at intercourse or insertion of objects.”
I have no idea what the specifics of this case are and it may be the case that this girl took advantage of unwilling, much younger partners in which case it is truly problematic. However, it is important to keep these two facts in mind and remember that the institutional policing of sexuality and relationships has been used to oppress as much as it has been used to protect.
The information presented is top notch. I’ve been doing some research on the topic and this post answered several questions.