is this abuse? | Imamother

amother

Rose

Sun, Jul 12 2015, 10:12 am

recently a friend asked me this and I had no idea what to tell her. she's totally normal, regular person (or as normal as a regular person is...) married with a bunch of kids etc and she was attending an awareness lecture on abuse and it made her wondersomething. she grew up ffb and had no contact with boys etc and a girl who was about 17-18 became very close to her and at one point their relationship 'became physical' - she said 'like boyfriend-girlfriend'. it was totally consensual. she's not struggling with issues like 'am I gay?' and is a pretty happy person but she started to wonder if that was abuse, if she was taken advantage of, (technically the older girl should have known better), how does she know if it affected her...

amother

Rose

Sun, Jul 12 2015, 10:22 am

she was 15, her friend was 17/18... no power or force in any way. she said she liked it a lot and it stopped after a few months when she kind of fell 'out of love' with her friend. she didn't really give it another thought (though she told her husband when she got married.) until listening at this abuse awareness program and they mentioned how sometimes the innocentest of friendships can go awry and she realized that's what she had... and she didn't know what to make of that.

MagentaYenta

Sun, Jul 12 2015, 10:31 am

PAMOM wrote:

It sounds like zxual curiosity. Unless she feels abused, can she just say it was a stage that passed?

I totally agree with you. This isn't uncommon behavior, s-xual exploration is human and just because it is considered deviant in our culture doesn't mean it's necessary to relabel and stigmatize the actions of those that experiment.

amother

Blush

Sun, Jul 12 2015, 11:57 am

Seas wrote:

How can it be abuse if it was consensual? Also at 15 years old she should also have know better.

I agree in this case it may not be abuse, but these factors aren't necessarily indication of it not being abuse.
What about a 15 year old boy being "seduced" by a married or divorced 23 year old woman? What if he was from a broken home and vulnerable? 15, yes. "Consensual"? Well technically yes. I would still consider this abuse though.

ahuva06

Sun, Jul 12 2015, 12:04 pm

From the little bit of background that you gave us, I wouldn't consider this abuse. It is VERY common in our society of only-girl environments for girls to experiment with each other. I think it could have been abuse if say, the 15 year old was socially awkward or something like that and the older girl was picking some random younger girl out to try her tricks on her, but in this case it sounds like they were just two friends who were figuring life out with what they had available... ultimately your friend is the only one who can really know how she feels about this.

tryinghard

Sun, Jul 12 2015, 12:07 pm

Generally speaking, a relationship between two consenting teenagers is not considered abuse unless the age difference is three years or greater
When children are even younger, the definitions are a little different because there is an assumption made that if a very young child is acting in a s-xual manner, he or she has been exposed to material, sights or experiences which are not age-appropriate.

mommy3b2c

Sun, Jul 12 2015, 12:12 pm

amother wrote:

That is completely different. That is called statutory rape. It is never consensual if one is an adult and one is a minor.

amother

Violet

Sun, Jul 12 2015, 12:56 pm

It's the kind of thing that could definitely make her feel uncomfortable, looking back, but that doesn't mean it's was abuse. There could be some confusing feelings to work through, for example, getting involved in something because it felt good even though in her head she may have thought it was wrong, being influenced by someone with a stronger personality even if she wasn't being forced. Reflecting upon those experiences from an adult's perspective may just bring new thoughts, feelings and insights. The thing is, there is much that happens in a person's life that can make them uncomfortable without being a case of abuse.

Seas

Sun, Jul 12 2015, 1:22 pm

amother wrote:

I would say a bit of both. At 15 he should know better and he wasn't 'forced' so he is not blameless. She is also extremely wrong, even more than he is because of her age. But her being very wrog doesn't make him a pure 'victim' only he has diminished repsonsibility. (The same thing is true if a grown man would seduce a teenage girl.)

Ema of 5

Sun, Jul 12 2015, 2:34 pm

mommy2b2c wrote:

That is completely different. That is called statutory rape. It is never consensual if one is an adult and one is a minor.

OP said the other person was 17/18, and her friend was 15, so it may very well be that had someone said something at the time, it technically could have been statutory rape.
I don't understand what the friend wants to gain though. She said she enjoyed the relationship while it lasted, and has moved on and is happy. So why is she trying to see if she was abused?

mommy3b2c

Sun, Jul 12 2015, 2:44 pm

eema of 3 wrote:

I was explaining to the other poster why a teenager with an adult is illegal even if it was consesual. I didnt say that in this case it was or was not statutory rape.

Also, 17 is not legally an adult yet.

Also, in many states its not statutory rape if the adult was within two years of the minor.

singleagain

Sun, Jul 12 2015, 2:56 pm

If your friends had never thought of it as abuse, then I do not believe she should now go back and label it abuse. I think by labeling it now might cause her more issues than quietly putting her own memory to bed.

However, I do in general believe that type of behavior can/is generally abusive, and if your friend took this class to learn the red flags, she should keep an eye out and not think "oh, it was like what I went through and that was nothing." Bcuz it could very well be something.

But I think relabeling now would be a big mistake.

amother

Jetblack

Sun, Jul 12 2015, 5:05 pm

Seas wrote:

How can it be abuse if it was consensual? Also at 15 years old she should also have know better.

On the one hand, in most jurisdictions, 15 is considered statutory rape (ie you can't give consent because by definition you're not mature enough to understand what you are getting in to) if the other party is an adult. I would not say a 15 year old should have known better, full stop.

On the other hand, she doesn't need to label it abuse to exonerate herself, if it was not abusive in fact. People are allowed to make mistakes.

Unless she's considering filing charges, what's more important is how this is influencing her today. If she's suffering because of it, then it needs to be dealt with, by whatever person will work for her circumstances and community. (I realize not everyone is comfortable going to a therapist.) If she's not suffering, then there is no benefit to labelling it abusive, and she can chalk it up to everyone having something in their past they wish they'd done differently.

amother

Rose

Mon, Jul 13 2015, 4:43 am

op here..
Thank you so much for all the responses. I read them to my friend and she was really gateful for the different perspectives. she liked the one about not relabeling the past and not to worry about it if its not affecting her.
in answer to those who asked 'why now?' ... she has kids now and wouldn't want them to have such a relationship. also she said that the emotional ramifications of such a friendship was really hard at the time (like when her friend went away on vacation and she was devastated)

FranticFrummie

Mon, Jul 13 2015, 11:23 am

amother wrote:

Life is going to be full of disappointments. People move away, switch cliques, and have petty fights. The best thing she can do for her children is to give them a strong sense of self worth, and to teach them resiliency when things don't go their way.

As the mother of a 12yo, I can tell you that girl friendship drama is EPIC right now, and there are often hormone induced rages and tears. Let the children know that you are there for them, that they can come to you any time, and give them space to let everything blow over.

Trying to overprotect your children just teaches them that you believe that the world is an unsafe place, and that they are not capable of taking care of themselves. THAT is what will make them potentially attractive targets for abuse.