The story last week about a 38-year-old woman who was charged with having sex with a 15-year-old boy elicited the predictable male remarks of “lucky kid” and other choice comments.

Yes, I know. Having sex with an older woman is every teenage boy’s fantasy.
Having a toy boy might probably even feature in some mature women’s fantasies as well for all I know. To each his own. But that’s the thing isn’t it? There is quite a line between our imagination (no matter how tantilising it may seem) and the real thing.  Well, there should be a definite line anyway.

In the harsh, cold light of the real world, this woman is a single mother with two teenage daughters who have to go through life with the knowledge that a boy their age was having sex with their mother. It will take years of therapy to remove the scar of that kind of mental image from their psyche. How they will be able to form a healthy, mature attitude towards their own sexuality is anyone’s guess.
In the same week we had a 41-year-old who was accused of defiling a 14-year-old girl (who is now pregnant with his child)…but at least no one dared say “lucky guy”, no matter how much the forbidden thought might have flitted through their mind.

There is obviously a double standard when it comes to teenage sexual experiences with older men and women, not least of all because a man taking advantage of a girl is seen as a perverted, dirty old man while a woman/boy relationship is seen as somehow consensual and, in some people’s view, almost like a rite of passage.  There was even a song way back when, about how “she was 31 and I was 17” and how the encounter turned the boy into a man.  A boy of that age, with his hormones raging all over the place, is not forced into such a relationship, the reasoning goes; he is seduced and lured by the prospect of his wildest dreams coming true.

There’s another reason why these inappropriate relationships carry a double standard. This young girl will have a baby to forever remind her of what happened whereas the teenage boy has simply notched up his own street cred as men slap him metaphorically on the back.

The harsh, cold light of the real world for this girl is that she will be a teenage mother,  who will presumably continue to be financially supported by her parents, and who will have to grow up very fast as she learns how to deal with an infant when other girls her age only have to deal with ‘O’ levels. Understandably, the parents are preventing the man from contacting the young girl.  Unless she has great encouragement from her family, she will probably never finish her schooling, and will join the ranks of girls who are unskilled and unqualified, pushing a pram and living off benefits.

The girl/man relationship also seems to have been consensual (although this does not justify the man’s behaviour). According to the report, “Even though she was pregnant she continued to go to school and see him when her parents thought she was meeting a friend. Their sexual encounters happened in his car after he would pick her up in Valletta.” How does a 14-year-old get it into her head that a relationship with a man in his 40s is OK? I wonder about these young girls, I really do, and the more I read about cases like these, the more I wonder where our society has gone wrong.

It seems to me that our culture has blurred the line between fantasy and reality in more ways than one as the early sexualization of young girls continues to hit us everywhere we turn. The consequences of encouraging girls to look older than they really are and to act sexy when they are under age, can be seen all around us – and no, that does not mean I think a girl is “asking for it” when she dresses in a skimpy outfit. Unwanted sexual advances, molestation and rape can never be justified.

What I think such a girl is subconsciously doing, however, is sending out a deliberate message – obviously, she wants to be looked at by boys, and yes, by men. She wants the kind of attention which confirms to her that she is attractive to the opposite sex and which validates her own self-confidence in her looks. What young girls do not realize, however, is that they are literally playing with fire here. Lascivious glances, guttural noises of appreciation and wolf whistles are one thing, as long as they stop there. But in some men’s minds, cleavage and a short skirt are signaling much, much more than merely, “look at me, aren’t I pretty?”   Given half a chance they will take it further, especially if they find a young girl looking for “love” and who is easily drawn in when shown some affection.

When the parents of this young girl learned that she had entered into a relationship (for even if it was merely sexual, it was still a relationship) with a man who is 26 years older than her, they were stunned because of her quiet nature, and because she comes from such a “good family”.  Unfortunately, however, with teenagers it is always tricky – the openly rebellious ones can cause you a lot of grief, but the quiet, secretive ones probably need to be watched more. Above all, the consequences of what an unexpected pregnancy really means, need  to be constantly drummed into girls, even by schools during their PSD lessons.

As for the young boy who gained his sexual experience with an older woman, once men stop ‘congratulating’ him on his fortuitous luck, I hope he too finds the emotional support he needs in order not to be screwed up for life. For even when it is a young boy/mature woman relationship, it still amounts to abuse. Just as an older man should be made accountable for crossing the line, so should an older woman.

It needs to be made amply clear that anyone under the age of consent is out of bounds.