[Puffer Fish]

Does anyone find this grossly excessive and unjust?
Yes, what this man did was wrong and probably should be punished. But life in prison?

A man was sentenced to life in prison for having sex with a 13 year old male.
The sex was "consensual" but some view this as "molestation" due to the boy's age.

At the time the man was already on probation for a previous conviction for a crime of the same nature.

This happened in Georgia, a state with notoriously harsh punishment on these sorts of things.


The Georgia Bureau of Investigations had received a cyber tip from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children on June 11, 2016 regarding "an inappropriate conversation" between the two, who had communicated on a gay dating app, Facebook, and text messages.
The man had requested that the child send him pictures of his penis, which the child did. In return, Harris sent the victim a picture of his face and his penis.
When a Georgia Bureau of Investigations agent served the man with a warrant, the suspect was asked if he had ever had sex with someone he knew was underage. The man nodded and said, "I made a mistake."

It looks like the man had served around 11 years in prison for the previous offence.

Fulton man gets life in prison for sex with gay teen | Project Q Atlanta
https://www.projectq.us/fulton-man-gets ... -gay-teen/

[Puffer Fish]

Just a theory, but I'm thinking the child may have been an African American child. If this was the case, the judge may have been disgusted by the combination of this being sex between an older person and a younger person, being gay, and being interracial sex on top of all of that.

Many African American children look and act a few years older than their age too.

This was near Atlanta with a very high African American population, and it's a lot more common for Black boys to go out looking for sex at that age than White children.

[Wellsy]

Yeah pedos are hard to reform and the sort of person who prey on the young should definitely cop a hard sentence. Many don’t due to the difficulty of proving it. Its one thing tk be attracted to children, it is most certainly another to act on it. In fact their vulnerability may be part of the attraction which is condemnable.

[Igor Antunov]

If you actually read the article, this was not the first time. He did it after getting out of prison for same crime earlier.

All he had to do was move to somewhere where his boipussy predispositions are perfectly legal.



sex pests are tiresome. nothing of value was lost.

How many years in prison do you think this senator will receive for having sex with 12 year olds?


https://nationalfile.com/arizona-rising ... olestation

I suspect considerably fewer.

[Puffer Fish]

What happened here was not exactly "molestation" in the usual sense.

The child was 13 years old.

Yes, some analogy can be made between this situation and molestation, and maybe someone could claim this does lie somewhere on the spectrum of molestation, but it's very close to the edge. If traditional molestation involves a man forcing himself on a 5 year old who's too young to know what's happening, then this is only 2 percent of that.

I think we can all infer that by 13 years old a child certainly already has some idea of what sex is and some great degree of mental consent is already there, if not legally.

And if this was an African American child, half these boys in these neighborhoods are already going out having sex by that age. That is another not completely insignificant factor that should be taken into account.


You might argue this man is likely to continue to have the same problem and do the same thing again and again, but this is still wrong. The level of punishment does not fit the crime.

The article does not give the details of his previous crime but I think we can infer the child in that situation may have been older than 13, since this man only spent 11 years in prison for that crime compared to being sentenced to life for this crime.

This was not a case of a perpetrator forcing himself on to someone else. It was not rape. It was a case of what is referred to as "statutory rape".
Calling it "molestation" is mostly absurd. The child was already a teen.
"Molestation" implies the child is younger and doesn't have the mental capacity to understand what's going on or resist.

[Godstud]

Yes, it is completely fair. It is not grossly unfair or unjust. It is amongst the worst kind of victimization that exists.

He should rot in jail, as this was hardly a first offense. Trying to call it unfair is decidedly creepy and gross, too.

[Wellsy]

Statutory rape would apply of we believe that a 13 could legal consent in some capacity. But just as with younger child we can say that they may show a willingness to do something but their consent isn't significant enough to be legal. And Jn many countries even where a 16 hear old can legally have sex this has qualifiers such as closeness in age so as no to criminalize young teens having sex as opposed to adults who may groom them.
Most places legal consent is between 16-18. If you want to make a case for why it should be lower you should. This would require really investigating intuitions and points about meaningful consent and why is tolerable to such a younger age.

And the wording for such a situation can be statutory rape but also could be called
sexual intercourse with a minor, sexual assault of a child, criminal sexual penetration of a minor or a child under a certain age, and sexual abuse of a minor.
So my wording is not misplaced.

[Patrickov]

Even if it's consensual it should not be allowed. Laws on consensual age are scientifically-based enough that it should be seen as absolute in most cases.

And God knows if (or when) he would do it on people with the same age but less capable to be consensual (which is probably nearly 100% of the time)

[Puffer Fish]

And the wording for such a situation can be statutory rape but also could be called
sexual intercourse with a minor, sexual assault of a child, criminal sexual penetration of a minor or a child under a certain age, and sexual abuse of a minor.
So my wording is not misplaced.

Would you are least be able to agree that what the crime was that happened here falls somewhere in between sexual abuse of a minor and statutory rape due to age difference?

Calling it an "assault" seems disingenuous.

[Puffer Fish]

Even if it's consensual it should not be allowed.

That was totally not the point. The point was the absurdity of a punishment of life in prison for something that was consensual.

Just to emphasize again: The child was a teen, the child went on a gay dating app which is how the man met him, the child sent the man a picture of his genitals before the meeting.
The background details of the situation point to the sex being consensual (if it can be considered possible for a child of that age to consent).

[late]

That was totally not the point. The point was the absurdity of a punishment of life in prison for something that was consensual.

Just to emphasize again: The child was a teen, the child went on a gay dating app which is how the man met him, the child sent the man a picture of his genitals before the meeting.
The background details of the situation point to the sex being consensual (if it can be considered possible for a child of that age to consent).

The problem here is that you don't know enough to understand much.

We only got serious about this sort of thing in the 1980s. We overreacted badly, which apparently Georgia still does.

While I love ragging on the South, and while they deserve way more than I give, reform takes time. One thing reactionaries never understand is that, over the years, there is a lot of adjustment as our understanding changes with our experience, and vice versa...

Eventually, even Georgia will learn that Lady Justice holds a scale to balance the punishment against the crime without prejudice. At least, that's my hope, Georgia clings to the past like a leech clings to your leg.

In the 1980s, after the harsh laws were passed, these people started killing their victims, trying to cover their tracks. An 11 year old girl I knew was raped and murdered. She had what we call the Right Stuff, looks, a brilliant mind, and a wonderful personality. The world was sadly diminished with her loss.

[Wellsy]

Would you are least be able to agree that what the crime was that happened here falls somewhere in between sexual abuse of a minor and statutory rape due to age difference?

Calling it an "assault" seems disingenuous.

Hmm I could day that outright violent rape is worse or the grooming of an even younger child but 13 years old is still intuitvely incredibly young and on the face of it speaks to an inherently unequal power dynamkckf an incredibly immature and young kid compared to an adult.

Whether such a crime warrants life in imprisonment I don't know the case law and points on but I am not the most sympathetic to those who target such young people for sexual pleasure. And I am cynical of the prospect of reform for such types who will always speak of the agency of the victim in provoking the situation in order to cast themselves as a victim rather than someone who actively sought out sexual relations with a child.

And the age being so young that it intuitively feels like a big difference to say statutory rape of someone in their 20s with someone 16-18. There is a big difference in development of kids between each year and am even early about those who are so much older going for what end up socially being kids even when they're legally adults.

[Godstud]

@Puffer Fish Was your goal, when you started to make this thread, some way to make it look as though you defend pedophilia, because that sure is what it's looking like now. Just saying...

Life sentence for sexual assault of a 13 year old (second offence) is perfectly FAIR.

[Igor Antunov]

Life sentence in this case is a waste of tax payer resources if it is to be federally funded. He needs to be sent to a fully privatized convict labor camp, I think Georgia actually has them.

[Patrickov]

He needs to be sent to a fully privatized convict labor camp, I think Georgia actually has them.

I'd say leave it to the real experts. Just give Kim Jong-un a call.

[Puffer Fish]

Life sentence for sexual assault of a 13 year old (second offence) is perfectly FAIR.

What makes you think this was an assault?

What you are engaging in is disingenuous illogical word games. It's called an equivocation fallacy in logic.

You are using certain words with implied meanings to attempt to bolster your logic when the original meaning was not there.

[late]

@Puffer Fish Was your goal, when you started to make this thread, some way to make it look as though you defend pedophilia, because that sure is what it's looking like now. Just saying...

Life sentence for sexual assault of a 13 year old (second offense) is perfectly FAIR.

Not really, we still haven't thought this through.


What we need to do is spend some money on developing treatment regimes. Because males write the laws, for the most part, they have resisted the most sensible option for extreme repeat offenders: castration.

[B0ycey]

@Puffer Fish, the sentence wasn't harsh enough. The guy was three times the age and a second offence. THE ONLY sympathy I have for underage sex is when the age difference is a few years. Like a 15 year old having sex with a 17 years old. When you are past teenage years you really should be looking for someone your own age.