After a night out on the town, the couple relaxingly sits on the couch to catch the latest episode of their favorite television program. He slowly puts his arms around her and gently caresses her neck. She smilingly rejects his advances, but he continues to caress her. Although she pushes him away and shouts no, she finds herself heavily engaged in unwanted sexual intercourse with him. Rape is often understood to be a crime that only males can implement and females can endure. As the word rape travels through the minds of people, the picture of a young, beautiful innocent girl often makes a pit stop and fuels up in their minds. When the word rapist travels through the minds of people, the picture of a big, strong muscular male often makes a pit stop and fuels up in their minds. But, let us look at the scenario from a different perspective. Let’s travel down the highway where the “word” rape refers to a little, innocent boy, and the word rapist refers to an adult woman. With the increasing number of cases involving adult women sexually assaulting young males, it is apparent that a woman can commit an act of rape with force or deception to make a young boy engage in a non-consensual penetrative or non-penetrative sexual act.
When it comes to sexual crimes, women are often perceived as innocent victims as opposed to males who are perceived as the guilty perpetrator. The Crime and Sexual Assault Support Services (CASAS) is an organization that aims to support victims of rape and sexual assault. According to the Crime and Sexual Assault Support Services, 91 percent of the victims of rape and sexual assault are females (1). French philosopher and novelist Simone de Beauvoir is the author of the book Second Sex, which analyzes the experiences of women and highlights circumstances of which women are discriminated against as the other as opposed to their male counterpart. De Beauvoir states how a woman is viewed as the Other as opposed to her male counterpart who views himself as the One (77). However, in terms of sexual assault and rape crimes, men are viewed as the Other, and women are viewed as the One. In reference to how men are viewed as the Other in terms of sexual assault and rape, the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control organization has released statistics that states that female students are more likely than male students to report sexual assault. The ratio for the statistics is 11.9 percent of female students versus 6.1 percent of male students that actually reported being raped (1). The main reason for these numbers vastly differs is that society itself places certain expectations on males of which the expectations are males are supposed to be strong, masculine, and able to take care of themselves. However, such cases involving adult women molesting young males have been reported with increasing frequency in recent years in which that provides evidence that is highly likely that a female can sexually assault males.
Secrecy, distress, anger, controversy, and fear have surrounded the issue of female sexual abuse. In recent though, the subject matter of female sexual abusers has become more recognized by society. One of the most famous cases concerning female sexual abusers involves Normandy Park, Washington native Mary Kay Letourneau.
Mary Kay Letourneau is a former schoolteacher that sent American into much outrage as she continuously had an affair with her sixth grade student, thirteen-year-old Vili Fualaau. Letourneau first encountered young Vili when he was a student in her second grade class when he was around eight-years-old. Several years later, Vili returned to Letourneau’s sixth grade class as an older more mature young male. Shortly afterwards, Letourneau and Fualaau began having a sexual relationship. According to Kim Murphy of the Los Angeles Times, Letourneau and Fualaau’s relationship was publicized when Letourneau’s husband discovered love letters written between them, and following the incident, Letourneau was arrested but released due to her pregnancy which resulted from her affair with teenager Fualaau (3). Today, Letourneau and Fualaau are married with two children as result of their affair.
Although Mary Kay Letourneau is one of the most well known female sex offenders in America, there are numerous cases involving adult women sexually abusing young boys. According to Pamela Watson of the Knight Ridder Tribune Business News, sexually explicit letters that contain intense reenactments of sexual encounters suggest that two female guards, twenty-three-year-old Pamela Watson and twenty-six-year old Shelia Snell had sex with a teenager from Clemont during his detainment at an Okeechobee juvenile-detention center (1-2). Another infamous female sex offender is Jami Lee Knox. Knight Ridder Tribune Business News author L.L. Brasier, forty-one-year old Jami Lee Knox developed a sexual relationship with her son’s fifteen-year-old friend (1). As a result, Knox is now facing charges (Brasier 1). Brasier also notes how thirty-two-year-old band instructor Laura Findlay “has admitted to having sex with six of her middle school students from November 2006 to March 2006”(1). The latest incident involving female sex offenders occurred in a Delaware elementary school where a four-year social science teacher, thirty-four-year-old Rachel L. Holt, was charged with twenty-eight counts of raping a thirteen-year-old sixth grade student (Wood 1). Within the article, the medical director at the Joseph J. Peters Institute Dr. James M. Pedigo states that the number of female pedophiles has not greatly increased in the last twenty years, but that society is now recognizing that a sexual encounter between an adult women and a younger male is sexual abuse (2). The sexual abuse of young males is becoming increasingly recognized not because the young males are reporting the rapes but due to other concerned adult figures that take the initiative to put an end to rape. Let’s now take the alter the scenario at the beginning of this essay.
After a night out on the town, two thirteen-year-old boys rush to their friend’s house to catch an exciting football. As they knock on the door, the boy’s mother enthusiastically greets them. She calls to her son to let him know that his two friends have arrived. Two of the boys rush to the living room and turns on the television, while the other boy goes upstairs to the bathroom. As he leaves the bathroom, his friend’s mother calls to him to enter her room. When he enters her room, he finds her seductively dressed in lingerie. She comes and wraps her arms around the waist of the young boy, who is extremely aroused. Before the boy realizes it, he and his friend’s mother are heavily engaged in sexual intercourse.
The National Center for Injury Prevention and Control states that “over 90,000 men (0.1%) reported being raped in the previous 12 months”(2). Now, when the “word” rape travels through the minds of people, the picture of a young male should also make a pit stop and fuel up in their minds, and when the “word” rapist travels down that same path, the picture of an adult woman should also make a pit stop and fuel in their minds.
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