Quote:
Dan Harden wrote:
Hi Marc
One thing always nags at me with these things. I don't care if the girl was 13 or 16. I have seen girls at 16 or 17 who wanted to explore their sexuality and them being drawn to an older guy (20's and early 30's) and going after them. Now let's add in adult women who are drawn to men with powerful positions in their business circles.
To me the burden is on the the older person or the one with power to have the capacity to understand the situation and quite simply control themselves for the benefit of the other. It seems to me that there is a fundamental lack of caring, a total disregard for the person in the younger or junior role. I don't know where the psychological profile fits in, or even if there is one, but the undercurrent of selfishness, or cold blooded predator like focus (I want, what I want) that bothers me the most.
One friend of mine was seduced by a young secretary and I upbraided him, not only for bragging about it, but for getting involved at all. I told him if he got fired not to come looking to me for support.
I think there is a reason these rules are in place, and it is about placing the personal responsibility looking out for the welfare of others on to the perpetrator. Thus the perp mitigating it with the oldest excuse in the world-"She was mature for her age" fails from the start.
The law recognizes the common good and that the one most able should be the one most responsible doesn't it? Thus placing the burden on them to care for both. None of this is just about sex-I think it is far deeper than that and expresses a foundational lack of caring for anyone but themselves.
Cheers
Dan
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Dan:
We do live in a narcissistic society where personal responsibility seems to end with what feels best for my own benefit. I sadly feel that some days we seem to be dinosaurs who truly believe in looking out for the greater good of society.
As a father and grandfather (daughter and grand-daughter - second grand daughter is 1/2 way baked and still in the oven!), the irrational part of me longs for "frontier justice." I do the best I can to help raise a family of caring, morally-responsible individuals, while looking out and helping to protect the community that I live in. These incidents sadden and anger me in that we have a LONG WAY to go in order to help our society do a better job at developing healthier, morally-sound individuals.
As an Aikido instructor, I truly look at budo from a macro perspective. The healthiest and most connected community is the one that is best protected from the inside out. I express this concern and desire regularly in class and have the dojo practice this culture of healthy caring. We just celebrated our third anniversary last weekend. I was delighted to see how the dojo has gelled as a community both inside and outside of the dojo, and was very happy with the amount of food that we collected that I anonymously donate to the local food bank. I hope that my students impact those around them in a similar manner so that we can develop into a healthier society. Unfortunately, I am not holding my breath on that one.
Regards,
Marc Abrams