Seduction is not Rape

A mother in Montana is outraged that a high school teacher who admitted raping her 14-year-old daughter received only a month in prison, while her daughter took her own life. 

On the surface this sounds like an outrageous case in which a man admittedly raped a 14-year-old girl, who committed suicide as a result, but got away with just a slap on the wrist.

“This 49 year old man raped that little girl,” scream the news headlines and the TV talking puppets, “which caused her to kill herself, but he only gets 30 days in jail.”

But wait a minute. He didn’t rape that girl. Not really. And she didn’t commit suicide as a result of being raped; not at all.

Now, make no mistake about it; what he did was clearly wrong; a crime; a disgusting, unethical despicable act deserving substantial punishment, but it was not rape. 

Those who call it rape are disingenuously engaged in redefining a word in the English language which means something entirely different than what happened to that girl. In doing so, they commit a disservice to women and girls who have actually been raped.

This is a case of seduction and seduction is not rape.

Rape requires the necessary element of force or coercion. It is the crime of forcing another person against their will to submit to sex acts. It involves literally the plundering and pillaging of a person’s body.

That is a far cry from seduction which is the act of persuading, beguiling, enticing, or attracting a person to engage in sex; the leading of another astray if you will. Seduction requires winning over the will of a person to engage in sex without the element of force or coercion.

In most cases seduction is not even considered a crime, but when it involves consensual sex between an adult and someone under the legal age of majority -- a minor -- it somehow magically turns into the crime of rape in the minds of an indignant society.

The law should call it the crime of “seduction of a minor” and provide appropriate punishment, but instead it’s designated “statutory rape” upon the arbitrary legislated premise that a minor, even one of 17 years, 11 months, and 29 days is deemed as not having the requisite mental capacity to give consent to sex. Without consent the element of force is inferred out of thin air, and with force we have rape.

But it just doesn’t seem comfortable in the minds of an angry mother and all those indignant TV talking puppets to describe such an incident as one in which “that man statutorily raped the little girl.” No, they simply leave out the statutory part of it and loudly claim rape. It sounds a lot more outrageous that way.

So we have the bizarre situation today of 18-year-old’s convicted of having sex with their 17-year-old girlfriends branded as “rapists” and required to register with the authorities as sex offenders for the rest of their lives; all because of an arbitrary legal fiction.

The irony here is that had this little 14-year-old girl plotted the premeditated murder of her grandmother after an argument about money the same TV talking puppets would be screaming to have her tried as an adult for the reason that she clearly demonstrated the requisite intent to kill despite her tender age.

She can’t have the necessary intent to consent to sex, you see, but she certainly can have enough of it to commit first degree murder.

Somehow when sex is thrown into the mix people seem to lose all sense of reason and logic. And that’s what this case was about – sex. It all began in 2008 when the troubled young girl was a 14-year-old high school student and the man her 49 year old teacher. One thing led to another and they started a romantic relationship which turned into sex.  

When school officials learned of it the man resigned and was later charged with three counts of sexual intercourse without consent. Much later, as the case progressed through the legal system, the girl committed suicide just before her 17th birthday.

Of course, it’s easy for mother and the TV talking puppets to blame the suicide on the “rape,” however, I would bet money that had the sexual relationship never been discovered; had it simply phased out naturally like so many sexual relationships; had the man never lost his job and been charged with the “crime,” had she not been subjected to the societal infamy of what happened to her, that girl would probably not have taken her own life.

So it was most likely not the seduction which caused this poor girl to kill herself; it was, in all likelihood, the hysterical reaction of the authorities and society to it which she could not cope with.

After the teen's death, the prosecution and defendant entered into a "deferred prosecution agreement" specifying that all charges would be dismissed if he completed a sex offender treatment program and met other requirements; one of which was to have no contact with children.

The defendant technically violated that agreement when he had some contacts with nieces and nephews in a family setting while other adults were present, and failed to tell his counselors about certain relationships with women.

The criminal case was revived and prosecutors asked the judge to invoke a 20 year prison sentence. Defendant’s attorneys argued that he had suffered enough having lost his job, his teaching license, his marriage, and reputation in the community as well as being required to report regularly to the authorities as a sex offender for many years.

The judge agreed with the defendant. He was given a suspended sentence of 15 years in prison except for 31 days to be served in jail. Mind you, he would not have received any sentence at all, and the case would have been dismissed, had he not technically violated the deferred prosecution agreement.

Mother and the TV talking puppets are furious. The judge however defended his ruling, saying that the man is "treatable" and a "low risk to re-offend… Basically what we had was a troubled young girl… I simply did not have the evidence to conclude that her taking her life was because of her sexual offense by [the defendant]."

The Montana Organization of Women has started a petition calling on the judge to resign. "It's outlandish in a way that I cannot describe," an HLN spokesperson told CNN. "It' is the most outlandish thing that I've ever heard of."

Now, if that man had actually raped that 14-year-old girl, I’d be the first person to agree. But he didn’t rape her. She wasn’t raped. She was seduced. 

That was a crime for which he was rightly punished. He lost his job, his teaching license, his marriage and his reputation. He received a 15 year suspended sentence and 30 days in jail because he technically violated a prosecution deferral agreement which would have dismissed the charges entirely.

He’s a criminal. His conduct was inexcusable, unethical, and disgusting, but …

Seduction is not rape.