20 year old says no rape. 14 year old says no sex. She won’t testify against him when she ends up in jail???

I smell consensual sex. This is what we get for criminalizing teenage sexuality. Man is free. Girl is in jail because she won’t put her lover on the sex offenders list.

When is sex a crime? When is it a crime for a woman to say no?
When is it a crime for a woman to say yes.

Marital status discrimination used to mean not renting to unwed mothers and tormenting illegitimate children. Now morality based housing policies mean driving fathers and lovers out of INTACT families living together without a marriage license.

I don’t like the age gap, but this is fishy. Is this statuatory rape? Who filed the charges? Where are the girls numbskull parents. If this was my kid that 20 year old would have a lot more to fear from me than the law and the court could take this up with us over the phone while we went camping in Mexico.

I also think it’s because “Bastard” is rarely used to insult illegitimate children anymore. You aren’t a bastard because your parents aren’t married; You’re one because you park in the handicapped space, or whatever. The patriarchal meaning is secondary and is heading towards being an entirely archaic use of the term.

“Bitch”, on the other hand, is still used in its original sense; It’s still used to insult women simply for being women.

I’ve never really thought about it, but really, isn’t “illegitimate child” almost a more insulting term then bastard?

I stand corrected. I was going to blame Anglocentrism, but I didn’t even know that QE1 styled herself a prince. I like learning stuff, it makes me smarter somehow.

Also, what Betsy said re: Is a “princess” somehow not within the definition of a female “ruler”? So why the “or” ?

I don’t want to defend any monarchy, but a princess isn’t a ruler, a queen may be.

SarahZ, there are localities where the title of the sovereign is indeed Prince/ess.

For the duration of Imperial Rome and for quite a few centuries after, prince was actually considered a superior title to King, as it derived from Augustus’ title of Princeps (first citizen) to distinguish himself from Dictators and Consuls and Rome’s long-banished kings. Kings were considered part of a more barbaric heritage, while princes were civilised rulers. Then things got all confused in the dark ages and European royalty accrued as many titles each as they possibly could, so the distinction became debased.

Queen Elizabeth I was quite fond of referring to herself as a prince, because other queens and princesses were merely the chattels of kings, while she was a sovereign ruler.

For the record, I’m a bastard.

Yep, parents never married.

But I would say that bastard is in no way on the same level as son of a bitch or bitch. Mainly because the only reason bastard is an insult is because it implies that the *father* doesn’t own the child, because the mother is (almost) always know. Whereas Bitch and son of a bitch are directly insulting women.

SarahZ, there are localities where the title of the sovereign is indeed Prince/ess.