Foley Quits Amid Allegations of Email Sex Scandal

No, we cannot consider the desire to have sex with a 16-year-old to be "pedophilia." To claim otherwise would be to expand the definition of "pedophilia" so that it encompasses those who desire sex with postpubescent teenagers, which renders the definition nonsensical.

If, after all, Foley could have legally had sex with these 16-year-olds, it stretches one's credulity to call him a law-abiding pedophile.

Ephebophilia, also known as hebephilia, is the condition of being sexually attracted primarily or exclusively to adolescents. These terms are used in contrast with pedophilia; however pedophilia is sometimes used more broadly in the western world to describe both ephebophilia and attraction to younger children, that is, any person younger than the legal age of consent.

Foley was in DC, where the age of consent is 16, but the page in CA, where the age of consent is 18. So if those chats could be argued to be sexual sollicitation or the sort, which age of consent would then apply?

Regarding the law, because on that you are the expert, I have a question, btw. How would this complication work out that Little K I think mentioned already, re the case of the sexual online chats between Foley and the 16-year old in California?

Foley was in DC, where the age of consent is 16, but the page in CA, where the age of consent is 18. So if those chats could be argued to be sexual sollicitation or the sort, which age of consent would then apply?

I agree, but I wonder if the same amount of moral indignation would be generated by the number of people that are outraged if his targets had been 16 year old girls.

Still Republicans need to wise up: this is a losing issue since the public doesn't really care whether the Democrats are hypocritical, using scandal for partisan advantage, or hysterical in seeking headlines: the facts determine the case: a US Congressman wrote sexually suggestive messages designed to entice an underage subordinate employee. End of story. All this is left to doubt now, is how much the Republicans will hurt themselves if they persist in whining about partianship rather than condemning pederastic flirting.

I understand that there are differences between legal definitions and cultural definitions, and that you are going with the legal definition on this one; but that doesn't really matter to me, because as far as I am concerned, 16 is still a child.

I don't think I am the only American who will look at it this way, either.

And, forget about the age, there is still the 'power difference' angle to focus on. Foley was a predator who used his status and influence against the kids who he wanted to prey upon. Some of them probably went to him willingly, others, probably not so much; but his actions, no matter the age of the person in question, were highly unethical and despicable.

Cycloptichorn

JPB wrote:

I agree, but I wonder if the same amount of moral indignation would be generated by the number of people that are outraged if his targets had been 16 year old girls.

You think that if a 52-year old Congressman had been accosting 16-year old girls, who were sent to work as pages, with sexual emails and chats, people wouldnt have been indignant?

I'd be..

Well, probably not on the Right side of the fence

Cycloptichorn

If you're caught with a 16-year-old in Washington D.C., you'll be glad that the law disagrees with you.

Two things, Joe.

1) That last "if" (emphasised) is an "if" indeed. In many US states - including the state that at least one of the pages is from - the age of consent is after all 18, not 16.

Thats why using the "would he have been able to do it legally" argument doesnt work for us here. It would really be nonsensical to assert that we could call someone doing a certain thing in CA a pedophile but someone doing the very same thing in DC no such thing.

2) So that leaves your underlying argument - that pedophilia can not in any case refer to attraction to "postpubescent teenagers".

Your claim that "expand[ing] the definition of 'pedophilia' so that it encompasses those who desire sex with postpubescent teenagers" would render it "nonsensical", however, is - well - an opinion.

On the other hand, we've had dlowan for example, whose work deals with child abuse, earlier appearing to use a definition of pedohilia that does go up to 16-year olds. So thats another opinion.

Browsing through the Wikipedia definition of pedophilia, it seems the experts are actually divided on this as well. The term is commonly used for sexual attraction to pre-pubescent children or children in early puberty. Puberty in turn is defined alternately as 10-19 or 13-18 year.

There is the medical definition setting the picket at "a prepubescent child or children (generally age 13 years or younger)", but then there is also this: "according to some experts, a diagnosis of pedophilia can also be appropriate for a post-pubescent adolescent.[4] See entry for sexologist Dr. John Money.", and this:

Quote:

Ephebophilia, also known as hebephilia, is the condition of being sexually attracted primarily or exclusively to adolescents. These terms are used in contrast with pedophilia; however pedophilia is sometimes used more broadly in the western world to describe both ephebophilia and attraction to younger children, that is, any person younger than the legal age of consent.

And the legal age of consent in turn can mean 16 year olds are included, or are not included.

In short, your sweeping brush of how including 16 year olds would make the definition "nonsensical" hardly chimes at all with the nuanced and divided opinion on this among experts.

If not illegal as pedophilia, Foley's behavior certainly violated sexual harrassment regulations because of the unequal power relationship.

wandeljw wrote:

If not illegal as pedophilia, Foley's behavior certainly violated sexual harrassment regulations because of the unequal power relationship.

Much like the relationship between a President and an intern I suppose?

All the more reason not to use the term "pedophilia" in describing this case. If a person is a "pedophile" depending upon where the sex act is committed, then that calls into question the usefullness of the term. Even more bizarrely, suppose that Foley had sexual fantasies about a 16-year-old in California and another 16-year-old in the District of Columbia. Would he be a pedophile as to the former but not as to the latter?

Again, that's all the more reason to choose the most restrictive definition, since that's the one that everyone can, at a foundational level, agree upon. Everyone agrees that having sexual desires for prepubescent children is "pedophilia," so that's the only definition that we are able to rely upon as having widespread assent.

Well, thats a reasonable argument - I dont agree that we should only use the most restrictive definition, myself, but wanting to is a wholly reasonable point of view - and a far cry from asserting that people who don't limit themselves to this "most restrictive definition" are being "nonsensical".

Kirk Fordham, chief of staff to Rep. Tom Reynolds, resigns amid fallout from Rep. Mark Foley's sex messages to a teenage page, CNN confirms.

littlek wrote:

Quote:

§ 22-3020. Aggravating circumstances.


(a) Any person who is found guilty of an offense under this subchapter may receive a penalty up to 1 1/2 times the maximum penalty prescribed for the particular offense, and may receive a sentence of more than 30 years up to, and including life imprisonment without possibility of release for first degree sexual abuse or first degree child sexual abuse, if any of the following aggravating circumstances exists:

(1) The victim was under the age of 12 years at the time of the offense;

(2) The victim was under the age of 18 years at the time of the offense and the actor had a significant relationship to the victim;

(3) The victim sustained serious bodily injury as a result of the offense;

(4) The defendant was aided or abetted by 1 or more accomplices;

................

Moral Outrage

That was what I wanted to know......here, if someone like a teacher or therapist has sex with a client/pupil under the age of 18 it is a CRIMINAL offense because of the special relaionship, which carries the expectation that special duties and responsibilities towards the young person exist.

For me, after 18, it is not a criminal, but an ethical violation. I would likely lose my job and so on, but not go to prison.


The nature of the relationship is what could take the thing into the criminal in this zone after the age of consent is reached.


Not sure I would be very confident that Foley had such a role with the pages according to law....but the lawyers here would have way more idea than I.

Republicans have been struggling to put the scandal behind them, but another member of the leadership, Rep Roy Blunt of Missouri, said pointedly during the day he would have handled the entire matter differently than Speaker Dennis Hastert did, had he known about it.

"I think I could have given some good advice here, which is you have to be curious, you have to ask all the questions you can think of," Blunt said. "You absolutely can't decide not to look into activities because one individual's parents don't want you to."

Foley resigned last week after he was reported to have sent salacious electronic messages to teenage male pages. He has checked into an undisclosed facility for treatment of alcoholism, leaving behind a mushrooming political scandal and legal investigation.

Acting U.S. Attorney Jeff Taylor for the District of Columbia sought protection of the records in a three-page letter to House counsel Geraldine Gennet, according to a Justice official speaking on condition of anonymity.

Such letters often are followed by search warrants and subpoenas, and signal that investigators are moving closer to a criminal investigation.

At the same time, FBI agents have begun interviewing participants in the House page program, according to a law enforcement official who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the ongoing investigation. The official declined to say whether the interviews were limited to current pages or included former pages.

Rep. Rodney Alexander, R-La., the congressman who sponsored the page at the heart of the furor, said Hastert "knew about the e-mails that we knew about," including one in which Foley asked the page to send his picture. But he quickly backed off that comment, saying he discussed the e-mails with Hastert's aides, not the speaker himself.

"I guess that's a poor choice of words that I made there," he told AP.

Hastert has insisted he not know about the e-mails that were discussed with his staff.

Alexander said in an interview he first took up the matter after receiving press inquiries in November, when he told Hastert's staff and the parents of the 16-year-old boy who received the e-mails. The parents wanted the correspondence stopped but apparently did not want to take the matter further.

After a second round of press inquiries in the spring, Alexander said, he again notified the family and discussed the e-mails with the new majority leader, John Boehner of Ohio, on the House floor during a vote.

Alexander said Boehner turned first to the architect of the Republican midterm election campaigns, Rep. Tom Reynolds, R-N.Y.

"I went to Boehner before Reynolds," Alexander told AP. "He sent Reynolds to me to talk about it. Within a minute Reynolds and I were talking."

Boehner and Reynolds have both said they had spoken with Hastert about a complaint concerning a former page from Louisiana last spring, after Alexander told them about it.

The chairmen of two coalitions of social and fiscal conservatives in Congress rallied behind Hastert as some conservatives outside Congress demanded he step down. "Speaker Hastert is a man of integrity," Rep. Mike Pence, R-Ind., and Rep. Joe Pitts, R-Pa., said in a joint statement. "Speaker Dennis Hastert should not resign."

Foley, of Florida, resigned his House seat after e-mails and reports of lurid instant messages to teenagers in the page program were exposed last week. He checked into an alcohol rehabilitation center.

The ensuing uproar has enveloped Republicans who were already at risk at losing control of Congress in elections five weeks away.

Conservative activist Richard A. Viguerie was among those who called for Hastert to step down. "The fact that they just walked away from this, it sounds like they were trying to protect one of their own members rather than these young boys," Viguerie said on Fox News.

Hastert has said he will not quit.

Alexander defended Hastert on Wednesday, as well as his own response.

"Hey, what else was I supposed to do?" Alexander asked. "I was very uncomfortable even talking to somebody in the speaker's office."

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