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What causes a woman to seek out sex with teens?
The Intelligencer ^ | June 15, 2008 | JO CIAVAGLIA

Posted on 06/16/2008 6:07:40 PM PDT by Clint Williams

What makes a grown woman pursue a guy who gets carded at R-rated movies, lives with his parents who give him an allowance and, who if your actions are revealed, would ruin your reputation and possibly land you in jail?

Theories abound. Some might surprise you.

Like how mentally, they are about the same age.

Sexual abuse involving older women and teen boys is an underreported crime, one that experts say has been largely ignored by the public, legal system and academic researchers for reasons including sexual double standards and evidence suggesting teen boys often are willing participants.

But that attitude is changing.

Prosecutions of women for sex abuse have risen nationwide in the past several years, law enforcement experts say. Locally, last week two women from Bucks County were charged with sexual crimes involving teenage boys.

Angela Marie Honeycutt, 38, and Lynne Long, 45, both of Lower Makefield, were charged Wednesday in connection with alleged indecent acts that took place during a teen boy sleepover in April.

Honeycutt was charged with statutory sexual assault, a second-degree felony, and several lesser felonies and misdemeanors. She is charged with engaging in sex acts with two boys, ages 14 and 15. Sleepover host Long was charged with endangering the welfare of children and corruption of minors.

In the past decade, high-profile arrests involving inappropriate and illegal sexual contact between women and boys have captivated the nation.

Among the most infamous cases, both involving middle school teachers, were Debra LaFave, 23, who had sex with a 14-year-old student, and Mary Kay LeTourneau, 34, who began a sexual relationship with her 13-year-old student, later gave birth to two of his children, served jail time for abusing him and then married him in 2005.

An estimated 1,500 women are in prison for sexual abuse of children. The National Center for Juvenile Justice 2005 report on statutory rape found that 5 percent of victims were boys and adult women were overwhelmingly the abusers.

The report also found among children ages 7 to 11 and 15 to 17, boy victims outnumbered girls. On average, female molesters were nine years older than their male victims, compared with a six-year age gap between male offenders and teen girl victims.

Other research agencies like Child Trends in Washington, D.C., are starting to collect data that also suggest sexual relationships between teen boys and older women are more common than many believe.

A 2005 Child Trends research brief on the subject revealed that one in four males surveyed reported his first sexual experiences were with a woman usually a few years older.

Of more than 2,000 males, ages 15 to 24, asked, though, half who had a first sexual experience with an older woman reported an age gap of five years or more.

The abuse connection

Child molesters share some common features regardless of gender, according to the Center for Sex Offender Management in Maryland. Many show evidence of poor coping skills, relationship difficulties, cognitive distortions and an inability to empathize with victims.

But the center also noted some key differences between men and women offenders.

Among them sexual victimization histories are far more common among female sex offenders than men, and their abuse experiences are often more longstanding, extensive and severe. Adult women also are more likely than men to commit sex offenses with a willing participant.

The largest study so far involving female sex offenders found the sexual abuse connection, according to its author, Susan Strickland, a University of Georgia professor and social worker who treats sex offenders.

For her research, Strickland surveyed 130 female prisoners, including 60 serving time for sexual offenses.

She found that women who have sex with boys lack the mature relationship skills to partner with men their age. They are also motivated by a need for power and control, and they see the boy as a blank slate they can turn into the partner they want.

Women sex offenders may never have had a relationship in which they felt safe, Strickland added.

Women who seek sex with underage boys are also more likely than men to focus on one person and to profess love and loyalty and a sense of a particular and profound bond, psychologists say.

Emotional overload

Philadelphia author Alan Soble has written books about sex and love. He believes it's difficult to generalize what motivates an older woman to seduce a teen boy, but that their reasons are probably not much different than a man's.

“Is there any reason to think the motives are different? Then you have to go with the standard story, but with the genders reversed,” said Soble, a philosophy professor at Penn State University's Abington campus.

Emotions are part of why he believes women pursue teen boys.

“It's not simply why would they do it, but why do it knowing they'll be ostracized if they get caught, they are in trouble, and will get more attention than a man would get?” he said. “It's the power the emotions have to kill our rationality, and women seem to be as susceptible as men to having their rationality undermined by their emotions and passions.”

What also remains unclear is the long-term impact on teen boys.

What evidence is available — gathered through male prisoners and men in addiction treatment — is the experience disrupts normal adolescent psychological development, Strickland said.

A teen's immature brain cannot process the adult behavior they are engaging in, and, as a result, it skews social and sexual outlook, distorts thinking and hinders the ability to relate to a partner their own age, she explained.

Most teen boys involved in sexual relationships with older women don't feel they've been violated, a belief that Strickland says is rooted in society stereotypes, while girls in the same relationships are sent the message they've been taken advantage of, boys are congratulated and admired.

FEMALE SEX OFFENDERS

Source: Center for Sex Offender ManagementJo Ciavaglia can be reached at 215 949-4181 or jciavaglia@phillyburbs.com.


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Culture/Society
KEYWORDS: ageofconsentlaws; clintonlegacy; corruptingaminor; doublestandard; naughtyteacherslist; perversion; perverts; rape; robbingthecraddle; seduction; sexoffenders; statutoryrape
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To: Revolting cat!
...just check the threads here of the anti-sex obsessives...

Just did...Sorry, didn't find any.

Found a few posts about a guy imprisoning a woman for 14 years as a sex slave. Was that it? Found a few threads about child-sex trafficking in Mexico, perhaps that was it. Found a few about some 40+ year-old psychopath educator fostering a "relationship" with a 6th grader......

41 posted on 06/16/2008 8:41:43 PM PDT by Damifino (The true measure of a man is found in what he would do if he knew no one would ever find out.)
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To: Damifino

You could try harder. But then, it’s really not worth the effort. Cheers.


42 posted on 06/16/2008 8:46:49 PM PDT by Revolting cat! (Are you ready to pray for Teddy?)
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To: Revolting cat!

You will the whip though!

43 posted on 06/16/2008 8:56:24 PM PDT by BerryDingle (I know how to deal with communists, I still wear their scars on my back from Hollywood-Ronald Reagan)
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To: Clint Williams

I was signed up for the phillyburbs.com email list, but the emails stopped arriving a few months ago.

I should use my bookmarks and go there more often.

On June 7 I emailed the story about the turkey in Bensalem attacking and injuring woman to the host of a hunting and fishing radio show in Baltimore. He used it twice, once each hour.


44 posted on 06/17/2008 6:06:21 AM PDT by Eagles2003
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To: Keith Brown

I, and some others, had the double post problem happen about 3X in a row a few weeks ago. No way we can all have that problem.

I reported the double posts to the mods and JR got back to me and told me my reports were double posting as well.

Wasn’t me or my computer, only place I had the problem was here.

Darn good thing it doesn’t happen when I post bets on horseraces, unless I win.


45 posted on 06/17/2008 6:12:15 AM PDT by Eagles2003
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To: Revolting cat!
I love how you call people names preemptively. Just because someone disagrees with you does not mean they are a Church Lady. You could actually just be wrong. (I'm not making the argument against what you said, btw, just pointing out that you seem to be a little concerned that someone might actually disagree with you.) susie
46 posted on 06/17/2008 6:32:15 AM PDT by brytlea (amnesty--an act of clemency by an authority by which pardon is granted esp. to a group of individual)
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To: Marie2

Some of the several states (oddly correlated with the most ‘liberal’ blue states) had decided on 18 as age of consent, others have the scheme I set forth, still others schemes in between. If it weren’t for the fact that Kansas has made a felony, rather than a basis for pulling a teaching certification, out of teacher/student sex, I’d say we have it right in Kansas.


47 posted on 06/17/2008 10:39:15 AM PDT by The_Reader_David (And when they behead your own people in the wars which are to come, then you will know. . .)
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To: Paved Paradise; ktscarlett66

i hear you! i have about 5-6 of them in my basement right now. my 16 yo son had a sleepover, which consists of drinking pepsi, eating pizza and chips, playing video games and staying up til three AM and sleeping til 1pm. I have known these boys since they were in kindergarten, the idea of a mother having sex with any of them is as sick as it comes.


48 posted on 06/17/2008 12:13:50 PM PDT by xsmommy
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To: xsmommy

Omg, have you been living in my house for the past week?!?!?! I’ve had my youngest (16, his brother is 21 and past the sleepover stage) plus a revolving number of his friends here constantly since school got out. They moved the playroom recliner into the living room and in the mornings, I have one kid in that, one curled up on the loveseat and two or three on the sleeper sofa. All snoring loudly and sprawled out with arms and legs in every direction. I’m thinking they haven’t even changed their clothes, they’re just exchanging them with each other! They have eaten anything that doesn’t move faster than them, drinking 2 gallons of milk a day and have probably logged 20 miles every day up and down the road with friends. They’ve also moved all the lawn furniture out front and have sat out there in the evenings, yelling “HELLO!” to every car that passes. I also discovered a huge pile of wet, mildewy towels on the back steps, so I have to assume they’ve been swimming every day.

Teenage boys - gotta love ‘em! At least I know what they’re doing!


49 posted on 06/19/2008 5:55:06 PM PDT by ktscarlett66 (Face it girls....I'm older and I have more insurance....)
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