Maybe it’s just me, but I understood the post to be asking about whether the girls bear some of the responsibility for their decision – not what the laws judgement on the issue is. It is, without question, a case of statutory rape: I don’t see anyone disputing that, neither in the OP nor in the comments that followed. But that has absolutely no bearing on the question of “Do the girls bear some responsibility for their foolishness and poor decision making?”

Given that I scold and lecture my six year old nieces for expressing their frustration in blows rather than words, I think it quite clear that I believe children are, at least in part, responsible for their choices. A thirteen year old that spent six months debating whether or not she should perform a sex act could presumably at some point in that half a year asked a confidant their opinion.

The guy was a predator and a monster, and has a world of well-deserved pain coming to him. That mitigates, but does not utterly absolve, the girl’s responsibility for her own actions.

Do your research. An experience like this does not make you a better stronger person. It can have lasting, even lifelong effects that can be debiliating. It can lead to addiction, depression…and these things can lead to death.

As to the issue of “gullibility”, pedophiles like these know how to choose victims who are insecure, and know how to prey on that. They provide emotional support and gain their trust, and then use that trust against them. It is not a matter of intelligence.

I love your site but I’m honestly disgusted that you would even suggest that they should take some of the blame.

The point is that these kids were remarkably foolish.

Hundreds of millions of Catholics, most of them adults, believe a magic ritual turns a Eucharist into Jesus flesh, and you think an experienced con man fooling a few young people is remarkable?
Tarot card reading is a multi-million dollar industry, mostly targeting adults, and you think it is remarkable a few teens got fooled by it?
Sadly, this incident isn’t ‘remarkable’ at all. People are much more easily fooled and manipulated than most of us would like to believe.

Am I being totally insensitive here?

You’re grossly underrating the difficulty of making rational decisions, and recognizing scams for what they are.
You’re underestimating the power imbalance between a 15-year-old and an accomplished con man.

And I have to ask this of the few men who think the girl should have known better. What if it was your daughter? Or your little sister? Would you then say it was “voluntary?” If you would, well, I’m sorry for you, and rather largely revolted.

I hate this argument. I know it’s intended to elicit an empathetic reaction, imagining that the person is someone close to you, but that shouldn’t change the facts of the situation. If someone did something stupid, it doesn’t matter if they’re your daughter, your uncle, or your pet shi tzu. Daughters, uncles, and shi tzus all do stupid stuff sometimes.

Just because you do something stupid doesn’t mean you’re at fault, or deserve blame. But it should be pointed out to you that you could have acted better. Or, better put, the next time you encounter a similar situation you should know better. It’s an opportunity to learn a lesson. Yes, it’s terribly unfortunate that she was raped, but in the grand scheme of things rape is just another horrible thing that happens to you, which, if you survive and can get over it, you will be a better, stronger person in the end. If, on the other hand you can’t get over it, you’ll probably spend the rest of your life in a padded cell screaming at men not to touch you. C’est la vie.

And if it was my daughter, she would have been taught to call the adult on their bullshit (in as respectful a manner as possible). I firmly believe that children who are intellectually equal or superior to some adults should challenge those adults when they attempt to assert undeserved authority. I was quite a defiant child because my parents put me on their intellectual level from a very young age. It made me some enemies, but it also protected me from pretty much every variety of child predator, swindler, or scam artist. I would teach my daughter to do the same.

Now, when I was 18, I actually believed the woo. As an adult, I understand now that Tarot cards are a tool for getting you to think, and there is absolutely no woo involved.

As for the difference between this girl and Daniel Hauser, I’m of quite the opposite opinion. I can totally understand her situation. Groomed by a trusted adult, unsure of yourself, nervous, frightened, embarrassed. But for the life of me I can’t see why anybody would think magic woo was going to heal their cancer. Everybody knows you have to go to the doctor to treat cancer. That I could have figured out at 8, let alone 13.

And I have to ask this of the few men who think the girl should have known better. What if it was your daughter? Or your little sister? Would you then say it was “voluntary?” If you would, well, I’m sorry for you, and rather largely revolted.

We, as a scociety have failed to instill critical thinking in her, maybe that wasn’t encouraged by her parents either.

We also fail her because we don’t point out such frauds and quacks everywhere we see them, disproving and debating them and warning our kids about them.

A girl of 12 can’t be guilty of any sexual misconduct. She can make mistakes, but that is not the same as guilt.

Trying to say IN ANY WAY that a child who was raped has “responsibility” or should take “blame” for what happened to her…

Eugh.

Child grooming is disgusting and not the fault of the child, the girl was THIRTEEN when this happened, and…

Ugh.

Look, if I really need to explain this to you…

I’m too appalled to keep typing. Seriously, it doesn’t matter how reasonable you are about religion, if you can’t do a little bit of poking around into the reasons why GIRLS WHO ARE RAPED DON’T DESERVE -ANY- BLAME FOR THEIR RAPE, then I don’t know how much longer I can read here.

Saying that *we* should be more responsible for giving children the tools to avoid being groomed is not at ALL the same as saying that children should take some “responsibility” for being “gullible” enough to fall for grooming – and the latter position is all I see coming from your post.

Hemant, I don’t think you need to take all the negative comments entirely seriously. This is a very emotionally charged topic and people, especially those who have experienced sexual abuse, can find it difficult to separate their own intimately personal experiences from the facts of a given case. For example, one commenter argued against you using their anecdote of being abused as a 5 year old. Obviously a 5 year old is nowhere near a 13 year old in terms of maturity and knowledge.

I’m female, and a teenager (late teens, but still), and what gets me is how these girls were brainwashed or neglected into thinking that any kind of sex at 13 was okay, let alone sex with a much older man. Seriously. What did their parents teach them?

I also think early sex education is critically important. I clearly remember being taught about the subtleties of abuse at around the age of 9/10 (in Australia). I was taught that you can say no to anything that involves your body, even if you can’t think of a logical reason why it would be wrong. We were given scenarios of trusted family members and friends touching kids in ways that are not obviously wrong (rubbing lotion after a shower, for example) but which made the child uncomfortable, and were told that this was a situation where the child should tell them to stop. In hindsight I consider myself very lucky to have received these early lessons.

The issue of blame is irrelevant here. That lies on the perpetrator, as I think Hemant made clear. This is an issue about the protection of children. These girls missed some vital pieces of information that could have protected them. Whether it was the school system, their parents, or their society, this needs to be rectified.