Testimony: Adult Female with Minor

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Man-Girl | Man-Boy | Woman-Minor Minor-initiated | Among minors Nonphysical childhood sexuality Adult attraction to minors
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• Amy (16, commenting on a relationship with her teacher when aged 12) in "One Teenager in Ten: Writings by Gay and Lesbian Youth":

  "I am a sixteen‑year‑old lesbian. I have been a lesbian since I was twelve. I had known my dance teacher for three years before she brought me out. I was very attracted to her when I first saw her, and from then on, I grew to be more and more in love with her. When I was ten, I had a crush on a friend of my older sister, and some time after that another crush on a cousin of mine. But these didnʹt last long. I always wanted to be near my teacher, dance well for her, and have her touch me! Often while falling asleep at night I would think about her holding me in her arms while Iʹd go to sleep or about her kissing me. I didnʹt know anything about lesbians then, so I didnʹt associate my feelings with anything but my love for her. We became lovers the weekend I was asked to give a special dance presentation in another city. My dance instructor chose me and accompanied me there. She was 23. After the performance, we returned to our room. She was elated with my reception, and hugged me and told me how good I was. I felt so good being held by her, being so close to her; secure in the arms of a woman I had admired and loved for three years. Her eyes were so alive, so exciting; her smile so sensuous. When she said, ʺLet me help you take this off,ʺ I could only hope something might happen. I let my arms hang loose as she slipped the leotards over my shoulders, then I cooperated with her so my arms could be freed, leaving the costume hanging at my waist, with my breasts bare. ʺYou are so pretty,ʺ she said, placing her hands on my neck and then running them down my chest and then running them down my chest, over my breasts and then cupping them in her hands. I loved what she was doing, especially when she licked her index finger and began rubbing my left nipple, making it hard. She did the same with the right one, and I held her tightly around the waist. ʺDoes this feel good?ʺ she asked. ʺYes, donʹt stop.ʺ Then she took a nipple in each hand and rolled them between her fingers. At the same time she moved closer to me. From the waist down we were touching; from the waist up, separated enough for her to get her hands on my breasts. Somehow our lips met, tentative at first and then we kissed passionately with her tongue edging its way into my mouth. I began sucking her tongue, and for the first time I felt tingly all over. My next sensation was our deep breathing, then I felt her hands move from my front to my back, and she pressed tighter to me. Then she moved her hands down to my butt, massaging, and pushing my pelvis into hers. When I felt some thrusts of her pelvis against mine, my eyes opened wide. She responded by saying, ʺYou really turn me on...do you like this?ʺ ʺOh, yes.ʺ She said ʺLetʹs take this off,ʺ referring to the costume still covering my bottom. Down it came, and I stepped out of it. She held me at arms length, saying, ʺI want to look at you.ʺ Her hands moved from my neck, to my shoulders, down over my nipples to my waist; one hand on each side. Then she told me I was sexy and moved her right hand down my stomach and lower. I knew what she was going to do, hoping those sensations I had felt before would be even better. They were, as she concentrated on my clitoris with a circular motion, slipping her middle finger between my lips and occasionally into me. ʺI want to make love to you. Letʹs go to bed.ʺ We continued that night, all weekend and for almost three years until I had to move with my family. I became a lesbian and a woman that weekend!"

• Daniel in Mulya (2018) - Contesting the Dominant Discourse of Child Sexual Abuse: Sexual Subjects, Agency, and Ethics

  "When I was 12 years old there were two female seminary students from another town came to my church to do their internship. I was interested in one of them because she had a pretty face and a sexy body. After one month we were involved in church activities together, we engaged in this sexual sin. It started when we were alone in the church’s music studio. At that time we were just looking at paintings on the wall. Then I approached her, and I don’t know why I just suddenly had the courage to kiss her cheek. She looked at me. I was terrifyingly afraid. But then she suddenly pulled me and kissed my lips. We kissed, and then she led me to the church attic to do something more. I was confused and afraid she might get pregnant. I asked her and she said she was on the pill so she won’t get pregnant. Then we had sex there. For the next three months, we did it almost every day in her bedroom within the church area. I told my friends at school and my cousins about it (but not my friends at church) and it made me feel proud. I didn’t feel ashamed at all. After a while I started to feel bored with her and I ditched her by coming only when I wanted sex. One day she said her internship was almost finished and she would soon return to her hometown. I was happy because finally I would be free from the commitment and responsibility. I distanced myself from her by saying I wanted to repent from this sin, and also because she was six years older than me. She was upset and perhaps bitterly angry with me, because one week before she left I didn’t talk to her at all.Later, after she left I felt guilty. I tried to apologize but I wasn’t able to contact her."

• Littauer, Amanda. (2020) Queer Girls and Intergenerational Lesbian Sexuality in the 1970s, in Historical Reflections, 46:1, 95-108

• Abstract: "Drawing on letters and writings by teenage girls and oral history interviews, this article aims to open a scholarly conversation about the existence and significance of intergenerational sexual relationships between minor girls and adult women in the years leading up to and encompassing the lesbian feminist movement of the 1970s. Lesbian history and culture say very little about sexual connections between youth and adults, sweeping them under the rug in gender-inflected ways that differ from the suppression of speech in gay male history and culture about intergenerational sex between boys and men. Nonetheless, my research suggests that, despite lesbian feminists’ caution and even negativity toward teen girls, erotic and sexual relationships with adult women provided girls access to support, pleasure, mentorship, and community."

• Newgon: Except Paidika's special issue dedicated to female sexuality and the non-specialist Youthlove Anthology "She Said - Women, Lesbians and Feminists Speak about Youthlove", this article represents one of the few discussions of "Queer" (non-normative) intergenerational lesbianism. Because the article represents a seminal contribution drawing on archival material which has never been publicized before, we have included longer quotations as a separate page here [if someone could create this, link the page and simply paste the following quotations that would be amazing 'cause idk how / I'll take forever., and focused on testimonies in what follows here.

[Quotes for separate article - I've given some titles in bold to separate info and signpost the reader]:

The Conspiracy of Silence on Intergenerational Lesbianism

"Across the [feminist] ideological spectrum, there was strong opposition to the sexual objectification of women and attentiveness to the ways that power relations shaped sexual dynamics. The feminist politicization of sexuality sometimes led lesbian feminists to downplay butch masculinity and to deemphasize lesbian sexual desire and practice. It should not be surprising, then, that explicit discussion of age-differentiated sexual relationships between women and girls felt risky and unwelcome in lesbian feminist communities" (p. 96)

"Historians have speculated that reasons for this absence in the literature likely include the lasting impact of the myth of homosexual pedophilia; the exclusion of legal minors from LGBT commercial, cultural, and social spaces; and the politics of gay and lesbian respectability in the marriage equality era" (p. 96).

"Many teen girls in the mid-to late twentieth century [...] initiated sexual and romantic relationships with self-identified lesbians who were part of lesbian networks. Unlike in gay male subcultures, however, lesbian and lesbian feminist communities usually stigmatized relationships between adult lesbians and adolescents, who were seen as placing adults at risk of persecution and even legal prosecution for “contributing to the delinquency of a minor.” In their search for connection and belonging, teen girls who initiated romantic and sexual relationships with adult lesbians risked rejection and further alienation" (pp. 100-101).

"In Boots of Leather, Slippers of Gold, Elizabeth Kennedy and Madeline Davis [..] mention the phenomenon of older femmes taking young butches under their wings, both socially and sexually. Lesbians (and gay men) in the postwar years often used the language of “bringing out” to describe a more experienced queer person’s introduction of same-sex sexual practice to a less experienced person" (p. 102).

Littauer's Approach

"I take a social-historical approach that centers the voices of girls, whom I define according to gender self-identification and legal minor designation (i.e., under the age of eighteen or twenty-one, depending on the jurisdiction). I ask what girls and women have said and written about their romantic and erotic feelings for, and consensual sexual relationships with, adult women and what themes or categories we might use to begin to understand what those connections meant and how they shaped the lives and subjectivities of queer girls." (pp. 96-97)

"Based on preliminary research, I argue that girls in age-differentiated sexual relationships with adult women sought affective experiences of pleasure, belonging, and safety, and in many cases also sociosexual mentorship and access to resources, independence, and community. Their ability to achieve these outcomes depended largely on forces and dynamics beyond their control, including adult lesbians’ preference for keeping youth at a distance." (p. 97)

Queer Girls Have Always Been There, You Just Didn't Notice

"Stories of girls developing “crushes” on adult women are ubiquitous in oral histories, autobiographies, and fiction. Gym teachers, school teachers, scout leaders, camp counselors, and nuns appear over and over again as the objects of girls’ affections and obsessions, which were often romantic and sometimes sexual in nature. Sources from the 1970s suggest marked continuity from earlier decades in the affective experience of “schoolgirl crushes” as well as in the function of such recollections in “coming out” narratives that sought to document, track, and consolidate the emergence of lesbian identity." (p. 97)

"In the 1970s, nationally known lesbian authors such as Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon joined teachers and others in the group of adult potential objects of adolescent girls’ fantasies and desires. Founding the nation’s first lesbian homophile organization, the Daughters of Bilitis, in the 1950s, Martin and Lyon published Lesbian/Woman in 1972 and devoted several pages to the problems facing lesbian teens. Girls from around the country got hold of the book and wrote to the authors, seeking advice and attention. In April of 1976, for instance, a seventeen-year-old named Paulette wrote from Zolfo Springs, Florida. Paulette mentioned early in her letter that she would turn eighteen on 28 June. She wrote: “I know my age is very young, it is a label, I am somewhat more mature in ways than that of my age.” She then raved about the book in emotional and erotic language:

[indented] I have your book in my lap right now and I am looking at the cover and just by looking at this cover just goes to show you can’t tell a book by it’s [sic] cover . . . it’s what’s inside that counts, and boy does this book have something inside!!! I wish I could give some of this back to you, (this - the overwhelming feeling I get, wow! it will turn you around. Really it’s a pocketful full of energy, excitement so much, listen it’s beyond words, what can I say I could go on and on and never really define what I feel exactly, ecstatic, turned on tremendously!) I really like you both very much, I like your hearts, I like you. Please write, I hope you do soon. Love be with you, with my love and happiness to you, Paulette.

"Many girls in the mid-to late twentieth century acted on their feelings for adult women and entered into romantic and sexual relationships, usually in their own neighborhoods and communities. A range of sources speak to girls’ experiences in sexual relationships with adult women, who were often married with children and who did not typically identify as lesbians or engage in lesbian subcultures. For teen girls, these relationships served a range of purposes and met a variety of needs, including the opportunity to recognize or validate their romantic and/or sexual desire for women and to enjoy physical and emotional pleasure, connection, and satisfaction. Letters from adolescent girls seeking advice about their sexual relationships with older women in the 1970s suggest, however, that the interpersonal dynamics of age-differentiated couples could be quite complex and challenging, particularly in the absence of community support." (p. 98)

"Another letter speaks to the theme of relationships with older women introducing a mix of insecurity and support. An eighteen-year-old from Daytona, Florida, wrote that after two suicide attempts and a brief stay in a psychiatric ward—she pointed out that it was brief only because she knew better than to admit that she was gay—she went to live with an older, married woman and mother of two who was studying to become a psychologist. Talking openly about her feelings helped her tremendously, she explained. She fell in love with the older woman but kept her feelings to herself and was therefore quite surprised to find that her feelings were reciprocated. The two had an affair that lasted for a few months and that the letter writer described as “beautiful,” but after it ended, loneliness and suicidal thoughts were again taking hold and the letter writer begged Martin and Lyon to help her find other lesbians so that she would have a reason to keep going. She promised to wait for their reply before “doing anything stupid.” The file includes a copy of Lyon and Martin’s reply, in which they gave information about a local chapter of the National Organization for Women known to have several lesbian members and a chapter of the Daughters of Bilitis that was somewhat further away. They urged her to get rid of her gun and to use their help to secure support in finding her way as a lesbian in the world, as so many others had." (pp. 99-100).

Stigma and Secondary Harm Endured by Queer Girls

"An eighteen-year-old from Denton, Texas, wrote that the age difference between her and her thirty-six-year-old lover, Barbara, sometimes left Barbara feeling “guilty” and worried. She asked:

[indented] Do you know of any couples (homosexual) with a very large difference in ages that have had a long life together? I wish that you could let us know if you do — it would do nice to give Barbara a little extra encouragement. She worries about me more than she does herself and she is afraid something will happen to me because of our love. I hope I don’t take too much of your time, but you are about the only ones I really have to talk to about Barbara and me. It’s really great telling someone how much I love her — cause I do love her an awful lot.

Despite the stress created by their eighteen-year gap in age, the letter writer relished the opportunity to name the love that the two women shared. She also mentioned that she and Barbara were looking to rent a house together, which raises the point that intergenerational relationships created not only emotional and sexual possibilities, but also material opportunities for teen girls." (p. 100).

"In the early 1970s, the two founders and editors of the literary arts journal for lesbians, Amazon Quarterly, traveled across North America to interview subscribers and published excerpts of the interviews in a book called The New Lesbians [Laurel Galana and Gina Covina, The New Lesbians: Interviews with Women Across the U.S. and Canada (Berkeley, CA: Moon Books, 1977) - Newgon]. The book offered a lesbian feminist framework that explicitly countered dominant messages about lesbians’ family histories, psychological stability, reliance on gendered “roles,” sex lives, and general health and well-being.

Within this collection is the story of Sylvia, a novelist and “university teacher” in her “early forties” living in British Columbia with her long-term partner, Margaret. Sylvia remembered being attracted to girls by the age of thirteen and recognizing the feelings as sexual at fifteen, when she became involved with a thirty-five-year-old woman who was married with young children. When an interviewer asked how Sylvia felt about the relationship, Sylvia responded: “Just marvelous, I was just awestruck, it was the most marvelous thing to discover and it was an odd relationship.” She continued: “I suppose I really joined the family, there was no hassle, her husband knew what the relationship was and it didn’t bother him.” In fact, she explained, she was “devoted to him, too,” to the point that when Sylvia was staying with the family to help with the children during their mother’s illness, Sylvia became “sexually involved” with her lover’s husband, because “it just seemed the right sort of comforting thing to do.” The interviewer asked if Sylvia felt the need to tell other people in order to gain support, and Sylvia answered “no”; she “had a feeling of secrecy” to protect the relationship, because it was “so absolutely acceptable to all of us” but would almost certainly baffle her parents and grandmother." (pp. 100-101).

"although legal prosecution of women over twenty-one for having sex with legal minors “rarely occurs,” the possibility did exist and that parents of youth sometimes threatened legal action. The mother of Teresa, one of [Susan] Cahn’s white narrators, “said she was going to call the cops and throw my lover in jail,” which ended the relationship. As a result, some adults insisted on keeping their relationships with minors completely secret, which, as Cahn pointed out, “puts a great deal of added pressure on both partners.” Cahn added that older partners sometimes treated younger lovers in “ageist” ways, criticizing them for their lack of experience or expressing frustration that they could not get into bars easily or at all" (p. 104).

Angelica, who was nineteen, felt that she was the one who “set up” the mother–child dynamic in her relationship at sixteen with a woman who was thirty. “I would keep using my age as an excuse” for not knowing things, “setting myself up as a baby needing to be mothered.” In a different relationship, however, the dynamic was reversed, and her older lover resisted other lesbians’ assumptions about the burden of dating someone so young. “I remember how if we would be in the bar and other women would come up and talk about how she’s a chicken hawk . . . and what’s she doing with a baby dyke and don’t you have to teach her everything. . . . She would say, ‘I don’t have to teach her anything. She’s teaching it all to me.’” Angelica’s account reveals the multiple possibilities for age-differentiated relationships, whose internal dynamics were often more subtle or complex than the stereotypes would suggest." (p. 105).

"A few of [Susan] Cahn’s interviewees reflected on the reasons why adult lesbian feminists tended to stigmatize relationships with girls and young women under twenty-one, including internalized homophobia. The myth of pedophilia inaccurately stigmatized gay and lesbian people as child molesters seeking to “recruit” youth into homosexuality and clearly got into the heads of lesbians. Elliot, a seventeen-year-old white lesbian, told Cahn that “I’ve had a couple people just freak out” when they found out her age. “Just feeling like they robbed the cradle. . . . It’s like they can be relating to me just fine. But once they find out I’m 17, these huge stereotypes just come down." (pp. 105-106).

"The sting of adult lesbians’ sexual rejection was especially frustrating to young lesbian feminists who embraced the movement’s political analysis of power and oppression. Like the young lesbian subjects about whom I write in “Your Young Lesbian Sisters,” Cahn’s interviewees understood ageism as limiting girls’ access to resources, community, and their own potential. They saw it as an oppressive structural force that intersected with sexism and homophobia, and sometimes also racism. For Kim, a black sixteen-year-old, the lesbian community “has showed me what I could have, if I was the right age and the right color and looked right. . . . It’s offered me some things; a sense that there are women here, that there are lesbians here. Whether they’re here for you is another thing.” Older white lesbians’ attitudes toward Kim’s blackness and youth left Kim feeling alone, even in the midst of lesbian community." (p. 106).

"Emily, one of Cahn’s white interviewees, explained that her current lover, who at thirty was ten years older than herself, “has the old image of the lecherous old woman who seduces the young woman into lesbianism.” Liz also explored the fears driving women’s reluctance to see young lesbians as potential sexual partners: “I think that some people are threatened . . . I know there’s that issue in women’s heads about statutory rape or something . . . and being cradle robbers and all that kind of stuff . . . Maybe they thought I was a little naïve or something, and I’d take chances to do this and that . . . violating them or something.” In Liz’s view, women interested in teen girls feared their own negative views of themselves and perhaps of one another" (p. 106).

The Verdict

Despite the need for considerable additional research on the subject, it appears that there was a marked contrast in the ways that gay male and lesbian subcultures regarded sex between adults and minors. Postwar lesbian and 1970s lesbian feminist cultures seem to have discouraged the eroticization of youth and sex between adults and minors, emphasizing the significance of age-based differences in maturity and perspective to a point that young lesbians often found patronizing and disrespectful. Nonetheless, girls experienced feelings of romance and desire toward adult women that they identified as meaningful, and they entered into consensual sexual relationships with older women through which they accessed pleasure, self-understanding, and resources of various kinds. Sexual intimacy with self-identified lesbians who were part of lesbian communities provided even greater benefits, such as sexual and social mentorship and introduction to subcultural networks and shared vocabularies. Intergenerational eroticism was a factor in the lives of teen girls who, whether they lived in Denton, Texas, or Philadelphia, sought out connections to adult women through erotic letters to authors, relationships with neighboring housewives, and sexual instruction from a lesbian couple providing a place to crash on nights away from home. It is time to take the sexual agency of queer youth seriously, which means that many of us have a great deal more research to do." (pp. 106-107).

Testimony [Separate Section to Stay Here]

• Lisa (14-17 with a woman of 28) "Relationships with adults sometimes helped teens figure out what forms of intimacy they wanted. Adult partners could draw on experience that youth did not have, not only sexual but also emotional, relational, and cultural. Lisa, a black lesbian whom I interviewed about her childhood on the South Side of Chicago, spoke at length about a sexual relationship she shared with a twenty-eight-year-old woman when she was still in high school [14-17 years old - Newgon] and subject to her mother’s rules and curfew. Lisa had prior sexual experience with age peers, but her experience with this older lover was quite different. “She was a woman, like an adult woman, a real woman,” Lisa recalled with a smile. “She was sensitive. She was gentle. She was open.” Lisa also described her as “warm” and “nurturing.” Lisa described herself as “large” and her lover as significantly larger than herself; her lover was comfortable in her own skin and with asking for what she wanted, and she was sexually responsive and enthusiastic. “It was fulfilling. It was. It was all of the things that I think I had imagined.” Lisa’s lover encouraged and supported her. Even through ups and downs and breaks in the relationship, Lisa credits it with helping her get into college" (p. 98-99)

• Jeanne (14 with her 25-year-old neighbor, a mother of 2) "Jeanne reported that Paula had helped her work through her feelings, stop using drugs, and come out to her friends, who reacted supportively. Three years after the breakup, Jeanne wrote: “She is one of my closest friends.” (p. 99).

• Sylvia (15 with a 35-year-old mother) "Sylvia remembered being attracted to girls by the age of thirteen and recognizing the feelings as sexual at fifteen, when she became involved with a thirty-five-year-old woman who was married with young children. When an interviewer asked how Sylvia felt about the relationship, Sylvia responded: “Just marvelous, I was just awestruck, it was the most marvelous thing to discover and it was an odd relationship.” She continued: “I suppose I really joined the family, there was no hassle, her husband knew what the relationship was and it didn’t bother him.” In fact, she explained, she was “devoted to him, too,” to the point that when Sylvia was staying with the family to help with the children during their mother’s illness, Sylvia became “sexually involved” with her lover’s husband, because “it just seemed the right sort of comforting thing to do.” The interviewer asked if Sylvia felt the need to tell other people in order to gain support, and Sylvia answered “no”; she “had a feeling of secrecy” to protect the relationship, because it was “so absolutely acceptable to all of us” but would almost certainly baffle her parents" (p. 101)

• Carmen Vázquez (16 - helped to found the San Francisco Women’s Building in the 1970s)

• "Vázquez recalled the following:

[Indented] There was this woman Toni, who’s a friend of the family, who was a closeted lesbian, whom I slept with and partied with for probably a year. I was this little butch thing. She was a femme. She would take me to these women’s houses who were, you know, lesbian-femme couples. We’d go to underground places. I was 16 years old, going on 17. [...] Toni was seven years older than me and the women that she was hanging out with were older than her. So I’m talking [with] women in their late twenties, early thirties, who absolutely knew that they were dead meat if they were caught with a minor, and they did it anyway. You know, they just did. They took care of me. They would let me have a beer now and then, but, you know, it’s mostly Coca-Cola. You don’t get the rum in the Coke until you’re older. But they also taught me how to dance, how to dress, how to flirt, and it was fabulous. It was completely fabulous. . . . So, that was sort of my sexual awakening, was with these older women." (p. 102).

• Kate Day (15-18, multiple partners including radical feminist Victoria Brownworth; attempted to legally emancipate herself to protect her lover; participated in lesbian feminist activist group Dyke-Tactics)

• "The story of another young lesbian named Kate Day further illustrates the extraordinary resourcefulness of teens for whom sex formed one aspect of their efforts to survive, connect, and become who they wanted and needed to be. Born in 1958, [...] She first met radical feminist Victoria Brownworth when she was fifteen or sixteen, [... who] began showing her the bars, helping her act tough enough to get in, and helping her learn the etiquette of working-class lesbian Philadelphia. Like Vázquez, Day said that the adults told her she was “jailbait” and that they had to be careful, but they mentored her anyway, including, ultimately, one time, in bed" (p. 103).

• "After this one-time sexual mentoring session, Kate felt more confident and entered into sexual encounters and relationships with other adult lesbians. She got into a lasting relationship with a woman, Chris, who was ten years older than her [25-28 - Newgon], and who worked as a nurse while living at home with her parents. Around this time, Kate’s parents found out about and strongly discouraged the relationship, and Kate moved into Chris’s family home. Chris’ parents, however, became nervous that they or their daughter could face legal exposure because of Kate’s underage status, so Kate took the extraordinary step of working with a feminist lawyer — with whom she was interning through her high school — to become an emancipated minor. [Eventually] Chris and Kate moved into a women’s collective in West Philadelphia, while Kate was still finishing up high school. (p. 104).

• Revised Thinking About Former Sexual Experience by Porn-Dog in All About Sex, 1998.

  A 17-year-old writes about an incident in which his 16- or 17-year-old babysitter engaged him in sex games when he was seven or eight, including fellating him. He was punished for it and grew up sexually repressed. He later came to the conclusion that the sex games were okay and his problem had been the way his parents reacted to it. He wrote, "I laugh at myself for calling someone doing me a favor like that 'abuse.'"

• The Confessions of Victor X, circa 1910, Chapter 2: Enlightenment. See also publisher's ad for history of the book.

  A man in pre-revolution Russia looks back on his aristocratic and prudish upbringing and the twists and gambols he went through to learn about human sexuality. This had been left by his parents entirely up to him to research in the musty family library and with whatever friends, servants, or servant's children knew enough and were willing to show him. At ten years old, Victor was molested by a young woman servant almost twice his age. The woman grabbed his hand and thrust it under her skirt while grabbing his penis with her other hand. The boy chastized her and thereafter avoided being alone with her. Far from being traumatized by the event, it played an important part in his budding awareness of sexuality. I believe this case shows, not only that a prepubescent boy of ten can be capable of resisting what he does not want, but also that when it is gently forced on him, he can be capable of processing the experience in his young mind and turning it to positive effect in his life.

• Part 6 of A Young Boy's Awakening by "Girl Luvr" on alt.support.girl-lovers, February to March 2001.

  A man in his sixties, looking back on his sexual adventures from age five to 19, recalls the time that two older girls held him down and fondled him. His initial reaction was to struggle, until he realized that it felt good and he then turned to convincing them to let him return the favor.

• Mary Kay LeTourneau -- [1] Interview (PDF, 250 kb) by Larry Elder, September 15, 2004 and Show Recap, [2] Ex-teacher pleads guilty to rape of boy who was 13 in Seattle Times, August 8, 1997

  At the age of 22, Vili Fualaau tells his story of love for his once sixth-grade school teacher and now mother of his two children, Mary Kay LeTourneau, six weeks after she finished serving seven years in prison for statutory rape: "Mary's out now and we're finally together. And we still have the same feelings for each other, times forever." [1] At the age of 14, after she had given birth to their first baby, he said, "I want people to stop seeing me as a victim. My life is going to be fine. Mary didn't harm me in any way." [2]

• Letter from Bayardo in HFP Mailbag.

  A 14-year-old boy writes about his desire for women aged 35 and older.

• Catherine N.X.

  "Catherine N.X. is a 19 year old girl whose girllove relationship [with her mother] started at age 8 and continues happily to this day" [HFP main page]. She writes a column for the website, called Ask Cat!. For her view of her relationship, see her answers to the letter from Rainer.

• Post by "Self-Rolled Poison" in discussion of pedophilia is not okay in a forum on Gaia Online, June 30, 2007.

  A 13-year-old girl writes about having "a number of perfectly healthy sexual relationships with adults … [including a current] relationship with a sixteen year-old girl who I understand and who understands me on a level unparalleled by what I believe I could reach with anyone my age."

• Anonymous, in e-mail to Newgon admin, 2009.

  "My Story Of Consent

  Yes, consent. I gave consent when I was 7 years old. My parents were friends with neighbors of ours who had a daughter named Patty. She used to babysit me, but never overnight. I remember being smitten with her. She was 17, slender build, and had long brunette hair with about a small C cup. She was very feminine but liked to roughhouse. Pinning me down and tickling me, play jokes on me, make weird noises (one she called Retarded Donald Duck) to make me laugh, play records for me. All of the fun stuff I can still remember. I really loved her and used to call her my girlfriend.

  My parents left her with me for a few days while they went out of state. I had a much older brother (mid 20's) who used to come and go out of the house. He had clothes and all of his stuff still there. Anyways, I found his "stash" in a drawer. Playboys and Hustler. I got them out and started looking at these nude women. I knew I liked it because I could feel my heart and pulse racing. Didn't know about masturbation but I was feeling something stirring in my pants.

  Patty came into his room and saw me looking at the magazines. She gave me this "oh shit" look and I thought I was going to get in trouble. But I didn't. She came over and asked me if this was the first time I'd ever seen a naked girl. I used to bathe with my mom when I was like 2 or something but she didn't look like what I was looking at currently. I then asked Patty whose "these" are, pointing to breasts. She told me they were boobs. I then pointed and said "what's this?" She said "it's called a pussy." I asked her why there was hair down there. She said everybody, boys and girls, have hair. I asked her if she did and she said yes. Then I ratherboldly asked if I could see. She became embarrassed and after what felt like an eternity said OK. She drops trou and shows me. YES!!!

  Then we started looking at the Hustler mags. I saw pictures of a man performing cunnilingus on a woman. I knew about it before because a girl named Alicia I went to in Kindergarten asked me to do that to her.

  I told Patty that I had done this "pointing to the oral pic" before. She laughed but I told her I was serious and started to basically reenact it to her. I guess it might have been a bit too much for Patty because she was completely dumbfounded. After the awkwardness she asked me if I liked it. I said "I guess so, yeah." I then asked if I could see her naked. She grabbed a stool and took all of her clothes off. I walked around her, marveling at her naked body. She asked me if I wanted to lick her pussy and said "I didn't have too if I didn't want to." I said I did. She started pointing out where and how to lick. I went down on her off and on. She started making these small moaning sounds and asked her what was wrong. She said "nothing, I like what you're doing, don't stop." I don't know how long it lasted initially but over the course of my parent's absence I performed oral on her. She never once asked to see me naked or "play" with me. Those couple of days were the only days we engaged in heavy sex play. I mean she still babysat me and all that. I always asked every time she came over to let me do those things to her. Sometimes she did but briefly. Me and her shared and strengthened our bond for each other up until the day I never saw her again.

  She joined the military is the last thing I know. But she had the decency to tell me she was leaving for service and I cried and I cried begging her not to go. Even though I was around 9 then she gave it to me straight as I "deserved to not have the news sugarcoated." We loved each other. She told me she did and that we should always have a special place for each other in our hearts. I might be an adult now and society says I should look at my precious Patty in a negative light but I can't and I won't. She did nothing wrong because there was love attached to it, because I felt it then and I feel it now. The fact still remains true that I hold her very dear to me even after not seeing her all of these years."

• Interview: Heidi, from Paidika Vol. 2 No.4, Winter 1992, pp. 27-29.

  A 24-year-old woman looks back on the fling she had with a teacher when she was 13. "By final exam time I couldn't concentrate at all. I was dreaming about her. I saw her everywhere; I couldn't think of anything else. During the math exam I took a compass and scratched the first letter of her name in my hand. It's still there, you can see it when it's cold. I was so in love with this woman! [...] One day when I had gone to the park again with her and her class, we started hugging and kissing. I think she started it but I didn't say no. I had kissed boys, but I was never in love with them. This was totally different. I was in love with her, so it felt much more intense, more exciting, because it was so secretive. [...] Looking back, I think I would have liked to have had sex with her. At that time it was not the most important thing for me. I don't know how much I knew about sex at the age of thirteen. I think I would have been afraid--afraid, that is, of not knowing how to do it or how to do it right. I had read about sex and heard about it on TV. But to actually do it? On the other hand, she was so gorgeous, it would have been wonderful if we could have been close, to feel her without her clothes. She meant everything to me. I really regret that we didn't do it."

• Anna in Martijn (PDF, 8 Mb), January 1981, page 18-19, in Dutch.

  A woman talks about her teenage love affair with a music teacher in her school. She courted the teacher innocently for about a year and they developed a close friendship. When the teacher was ill and the girl was comforting her at her home, the teacher initiated some kissing and sexual stroking. The girl enjoyed this and later took to intiating such activity herself, although she did find the teacher's orgasms frightening. The relationship began to attract attention from others at school, which created presure to end it, which they did with some difficulty.

• Alex's story in Rage of Consent by Heather Corinna in Soapbox Girls, July 2001.

  "All in all, it was a positive experience. I had an early taste of adult concerns and responsibilities with the person that I was involved with, but it was also a lot of fun. The sex was fantastic, and she was a really great friend. If more people of any age could have that kind of relationship we’d be better off. If more people of any age could have that kind of relationship we'd be better off."

• "NotAMonster" on the IIDB forum

  A teenage pedophile has a good personal reason for not believing in the current dogma surrounding child sexuality. "When I was 10 I met a 21 year old girl who was a family friend of my cousins. Over a period of 2 months, we started to have a relationship. This went on until I was 13. She never forced me and I don't cry myself to sleep at night because of the memories that "monster" made me do. Never told my parents or anybody else about us because I knew she'd be arrested. Me being a girl lover may possibly be a result of being with her as a child, however it has not had a negative impact on my life. Not to mention we're still friends."

• Jane Rule (novelist) from "Teaching Sexuality", The Body Politic, June 30 1979.

  "Certainly my own initiation came long before I was legally adult. Though a number of males around my age offered to participate, a woman ten years my senior was "responsible," at my invitation and encouragement. The only fault I find with that part of my sexual education was the limit her guilt and fear put on our pleasure, the heterosexual pressure even she felt required to put on me. What she did "for my own good" caused both of us pain. If I were to improve on that experience now, it would not be to protect children from adult seduction but to make adults easier to seduce, less burdened with fear or guilt, less defended by hypocrisy."

• Kirk Douglas (Oscar-winning actor), in his 2008 memoir Let's Face It: 90 Years of Living, Loving, and Learning.

  "He also remembers getting deflowered in high school by his English teacher. "I had been a ragamuffin kid of 15 coping with a neighborhood filled with gangs ... under her guidance I became a different person ... I am eternally grateful. By today's standards she would have gone to jail. I had no idea we were doing something wrong. Did she?""

• Peter Jay Rudge, detailed in: Sullivan, Randall. "The Seduction of Peter Jay Rudge," Rolling Stone, January 1 1993.

  F40 and M13. This story is very long, and known to us because of the legal persecution it faced. "Peter wasn't sure about the natural part but became convinced of the enjoyable aspects, he said, when Diane stroked him again - ``three or four more times - while they were riding her BMW. ``She would touch my penis, outside my clothing and inside, he said. ``She would just kind of move it around. She would ask if it felt good. He and Diane were ``just friends at that point, Peter explained: ``It was fun to be around her. There were, like, no limits. With Mrs. Walden, he and his brothers ``could do whatever we wanted, Peter said, ``and Diane paid for everything. And when the two of them were alone, Mrs. Walden ``spoke to me like a grown-up, Peter recalled. ``She was glad we were such close friends."

• George Hamilton, a Hollywood Actor - interviewed on "The View" on 16 October 2008.

  "When I was very young (12), I had a relationship with my stepmother (not kin … I've always liked older women)". Asked for age of woman: "She was about 28 … 30" … "my father never knew" "it was very normal … she didn't make me feel bad about it" Told that his experience was molestation: "I was molested? Damn, I'm down for it again". It went on for a "short period of time" and when he was a professional actor, they met again. "it didn't feel abnormal at the age of 12 … I cuddled" Informs us that he went further. "I don't think that it warped me … in my life."

• Beth Kelly (feminist), quoted in Paedophilia: The Radical Case. Originally published as "On woman/girl love, or lesbians do "do it"", Gay Community News, 3 March, 1979.

  "But what about Beth Kelly, now mature in years, and a radical lesbian feminist, who, as a 'precocious' eight-year-old, developed a relationship with a grown woman? She writes:

  'The first woman I ever loved sexually was my great-aunt; our feelings for each other were deep, strong, and full. The fact that she was more than fifty years older than I did not affect the bond that grew between us. And, yes, I knew what I was doing - every step of the way - even though I had not, at the time, learned many of the words with which to speak of these things.

  'Aunt Addie was a dynamic, intelligent, and creative woman - who refused, all her life, to be cowed by convention. In an extended family where women played out "traditional" housewifely roles to the hilt, she stood out, a beacon of independence and strength. She was a nurse in France during the First World War, had travelled, read books, and lived for over twenty years in a monogamous relationship with another woman. Her lover's death pre-dated the start of our sexual relationship by about two years. But we had always been close and seen a great deal of each other. In the summers, which my mother, brother and I always spent at her seashore home, we were together daily. In other seasons, she would drive to visit us wherever we were living, and often stayed for a month or so at a time.

  'I adored her; that's all there was to it. I had never been taught at home that heterosexual acts or other body functions were dirty or forbidden, and I'd been isolated enough from other children to manage to miss a lot of the usual sexist socialisation learned in play. It never occurred to me that it might be considered "unnatural" or "antisocial" to kiss or touch or hold the person I loved, and I don't think that Addie was terribly concerned by such things either. I do know that I never felt pressured or forced by any sexual aspects of the love I felt for her. I think I can safely say, some twenty years later, that I was never exploited physically emotionally, or intellectually - in the least.'

  As so often happens, this joyous liaison eventually foundered on the rocks of parental disapproval, when Beth's mother chanced upon her and Addie in bed together."

• Lesbian Connection, Nov-Dec 1997.

  "I have always been open with my daughter about my lesbianism. While I would never try to manipulate her sexuality, I am very proud to be the lesbian mother of a lesbian daughter! At age nine she started having sex with other girls with my support and approval. My daughter looks femme, yet acts very butch and is completely secure in her sexuality. Her early experiences were with girls at school, in the neighborhood, on sports teams, etc. Actually, she had a lot of them. Then at age 12 she developed a crush on one of my friends. She told me about her feelings, and I replied directly and emphatically that I approved. Since that time she has mostly dated adult women. Whether we want to admit it or not, there are lots of lesbians who include teenage girls among the types of women they find appealing, sexually and otherwise. As teens, some lesbians had their own loving sexual encounters with adult women. It is hypocritical for them to now deny that same opportunity to contemporary teenage lesbians. To me the ones being controlling and manipulative are those who tell the teens they must not have sex with adult women. Now that is control! Rather than labelling them as "baby dykes" and dismissing them, we should encourage girls to come out and support them through mentoring relationships (and yes, even intimate relationships with adult lesbians when the feelings are mutual). My wife and I have dedicated ourselves to being good role models for these girls. We refuse to dismiss or minimize their sexuality, and we support their inherent right to express it, even with adult women. 'Monica', Oklahoma City, OK."

• Loving Boys, Volume One, p. 62

  "'My first serious relationship was with a much older woman. She was twenty-six and I was thirteen, but she thought I was fifteen. It was in the summer in New Hampshire. She was an artist, and she really loved me. We were very serious. I loved her a great deal too. I couldn't believe anything so big could happen to me.' The boy's father discovered, however, what had happened, and put an end to the summer romance. 'I never, ever saw her again, never talked to her again. I still think about her once in a while.'"

• Karen Ellis (37) with student Ben Dunbar (15), as recounted by Steven Angelides (2008) in "Sexual offences against 'children' and the question of judicial gender bias", Australian Feminist Studies, 23(57), pp. 359-373.

  "'In the way that it happened, you could say I was a predator', asserted Dunbar confidently to a defiant Liz Hayes in a Sixty Minutes interview two years after the offences (2005). 'I mean, I went after her … I took my chances. And I just went for it.' But Hayes would not have a bar of any inversion of the standard 'adult-perpetrator'/'child-victim' formula. 'But you know that's impossible', Hayes responded, 'You can never be the predator. You know that, don't you?' Despite the arrogant and didactic tone, Hayes's rhetorical question highlights how a narrative of inevitable child sexual abuse often functions to determine the normative boundaries of adolescent subjectivity at the same time as erasing the experiences of actual adolescents themselves. Dunbar was at pains to stress the misfit between the legal categories subsuming him (child, victim) and his experience: 'Well, apparently I'm the victim. You know that's …' But before he could even finish, Hayes cut him off. 'But you are. Not "apparently". You are.' Still emphasising a distinction ignored by Hayes between legal definition and what it seeks to 'capture', Dunbar replied, 'By the law, yeah, yep.' Sixty Minutes then provided him with a rare moment to articulate his position, albeit in an aggressively infantilising context, and one reflecting his experience at the hands of the law. 'You don't see yourself as a victim?' inquired Hayes cynically. 'Definitely not, no', he said with conviction. In his letter to the court in support of Ellis, Dunbar had pre-empted the question of potential harm and victim status: 'The only way this will affect me is if she was to go to prison or was harshly sentenced. I would feel guilty because I know that she is a good person … At all times I knew what I was doing and wanted to do it'."

• Film director Ingmar Bergman in his autobiography, Mein Leben (pp. 12-13, cited in Paidika 11, pp. 19-20)

  "One evening I was to be bathed. The housemaid filled the bathtub and poured something in that smelled good. Alla Pitreus [widowed acquaintance of parents] knocked on the door and asked if I had fallen asleep. When I did not answer, she entered. She was wearing a green bathrobe, which she immediately took off. She explained that she wanted to scrub my back. I turned around and she also stepped into the bath, soaped me, brushed me with a hard brush, and rinsed me with her soft hands. Then she took my hand, drew it to her, and put it between her thighs. My heart was beating in my throat. She spread my fingers and pressed them deeper into her lap. With her other hand she clasped my sex, startled and wide awake. She cautiously drew back the foreskin and carefully removed a white material that had collected around the glans. Everything was pleasant and also did not frighten me in the least. She held me firmly between her strong, soft thighs, and without resistance and without fear I let myself sway in a strong, almost painful, pleasure. I was eight or perhaps nine years old."

• Anthony Kiedis (musician)

  "Kiedis reveals in a new autobiography that his father, a one time Hollywood cocaine dealer called Blackie Dammet, was always bringing home new girlfriends. The singer's ghostwriter, Larry 'Ratso' Sloman, told the New York Post: "His girlfriends were always young, hot girls. "One night, when Anthony was 12, he went with his father to the Rainbow Room and Blackie's girlfriend is there dancing for him. "And Anthony asks: "Dad, can I have my first sexual experience with your girlfriend?" And Blackie says: "Sure, son!" "So they go back to the house, and his dad builds a big bed out of four mattresses in his room and puts the girl in next to him. And that's how he loses his virginity.""

• 14-year-old girl with Alisha Nicole Smith, 20, detailed in: DeLea, Pete. "Woman Admits To Relationship With Girl, 14: Minor Says She Is Not A Victim", Daily News-Record, April 15 2009.

  "The girl reported that she had taken nude photos of herself and sent the pictures to Smith's cell phone. The 14-year-old told investigators sending nude pictures was a "normal part of their relationship," according to court documents. [...] The girl told investigators she doesn't believe she is a victim. Smith admitted to the relationship and told investigators she didn't force the girl to do anything she didn't want to do."

• John Irving (novelist and Oscar-winning screenwriter), quoted in: Leve, Ariel. "The world according to John Irving", Sunday Times Magazine, October 2009, p. 55.

  Seduced by a woman at the age of 11. "I was sexually initiated by a woman in her twenties [...] She was someone I was tremendously fond of. I never felt coerced, frightened; I never use the word abuse. [...] When she moved on with her life and moved away, I missed her because I was very fond of her. Later, having relations of my own sexually, they weren't as satisfying. Because groping around with a girl your own age wasn't as interesting as this woman."

• Dave Douglass (political activist) in letter "Abused child", Weekly Worker #796, December 3 2009.

  "If Liz Hoskings, cares to read the first part of my autobiography, Geordies wa mental, she might find that not everyone has had such an apparently sheltered life that she had (Letters, November 26).

  I started having sexual intercourse at the age of 12, as did a number of my schoolmates. The two girls who did me the pleasure were indeed two years older and therefore more experienced than the virginal little me. Not by the wildest stretch of anyone's imagination could it be called abuse, and I was highly delighted. I have to say I considered this extremely healthy - whether it was 'informed' or not, I'm really not sure.

  What does Liz think I needed informing of? The two girls took for granted that, being a normal, developing teenager, I was up for it. I was and, since I hadn't a clue where to start had it been down to me, I was more than pleased that they seduced me - if you can call having your pants pulled down and a semi-naked girl bounce up and down on your penis 'seduction'.

  Now, of course, the law would jail the girls for rape. And this is the trouble: you can talk up a case of 'abuse' by altering the meaning of facts and terminology, making this whole thing complex and difficult when really it's a perfectly natural process. The law today would say I had been a 'victim'. Actually, I wasn't, and no-one had done anything remotely wrong.

  Two years later, four of my friends and I had sex with a real sexy women in her early thirties. Did she 'abuse' us? Are you crazy? We had planned the encounter for weeks and, if anything, we seduced her. Doubtless, she knew all sorts of clever stuff that we didn't, but what had that to do with anything? Half of the school would have chopped off their big toe to have come with us, and there is no doubt that we consented like there was no tomorrow.

  Were we 'ill-informed'? Again I have to ask, ill-informed of what? What does Liz think we needed to know before getting laid? Basic facts, she suggests, because young people can be ignorant. But we knew well enough what the sex thing was about; finding enough women and girls to engage with was the problem. It was practical stuff, not theory, that we were searching for."

• "Woman, 22, who had 'sexual contact' three times with a boy, 14, who she met on the internet avoids jail after judge says 'there was genuine affection' between the pair.", Daily Mail, Jul 2020

  "Mr Doig said there appears to have been 'genuine affection' between them and the sexual activity only happened over a short period of time. The boy did not provide a victim impact statement and while he cooperated with the prosecution, he did not wish to provide any further information, the court heard. Johnson, of Elswick, Newcastle, who has no previous convictions, pleaded guilty to five counts of sexual activity with a child and was sentenced to a three year community order and must sign the sex offenders register for five years. Setencing her, Judge Sarah Mallett said: 'This was a relationship of mutual affection, there was no pressure applied or grooming of any sort."