What makes a grown woman pursue a guy who gets carded at R-rated movies, lives with his parents who give him an allowance and, who if your actions are revealed, would ruin your reputation and possibly land you in jail?
Theories abound. Some might surprise you.
Like how mentally, they are about the same age.
Sexual abuse involving older women and teen boys is an underreported crime, one that experts say has been largely ignored by the public, legal system and academic researchers for reasons including sexual double standards and evidence suggesting teen boys often are willing participants.
But that attitude is changing.
Prosecutions of women for sex abuse have risen nationwide in the past several years, law enforcement experts say. Locally, last week two women from Bucks County were charged with sexual crimes involving teenage boys.
Angela Marie Honeycutt, 38, and Lynne Long, 45, both of Lower Makefield, were charged Wednesday in connection with alleged indecent acts that took place during a teen boy sleepover in April.
Honeycutt was charged with statutory sexual assault, a second-degree felony, and several lesser felonies and misdemeanors. She is charged with engaging in sex acts with two boys, ages 14 and 15. Sleepover host Long was charged with endangering the welfare of children and corruption of minors.
In the past decade, high-profile arrests involving inappropriate and illegal sexual contact between women and boys have captivated the nation.
Among the most infamous cases, both involving middle school teachers, were Debra LaFave, 23, who had sex with a 14-year-old student, and Mary Kay LeTourneau, 34, who began a sexual relationship with her 13-year-old student, later gave birth to two of his children, served jail time for abusing him and then married him in 2005.
An estimated 1,500 women are in prison for sexual abuse of children. The National Center for Juvenile Justice 2005 report on statutory rape found that 5 percent of victims were boys and adult women were overwhelmingly the abusers.
The report also found among children ages 7 to 11 and 15 to 17, boy victims outnumbered girls. On average, female molesters were nine years older than their male victims, compared with a six-year age gap between male offenders and teen girl victims.
Other research agencies like Child Trends in Washington, D.C., are starting to collect data that also suggest sexual relationships between teen boys and older women are more common than many believe.
A 2005 Child Trends research brief on the subject revealed that one in four males surveyed reported his first sexual experiences were with a woman usually a few years older.
Of more than 2,000 males, ages 15 to 24, asked, though, half who had a first sexual experience with an older woman reported an age gap of five years or more.
The abuse connection
Child molesters share some common features regardless of gender, according to the Center for Sex Offender Management in Maryland. Many show evidence of poor coping skills, relationship difficulties, cognitive distortions and an inability to empathize with victims.
But the center also noted some key differences between men and women offenders.
Among them sexual victimization histories are far more common among female sex offenders than men, and their abuse experiences are often more longstanding, extensive and severe. Adult women also are more likely than men to commit sex offenses with a willing participant.
The largest study so far involving female sex offenders found the sexual abuse connection, according to its author, Susan Strickland, a University of Georgia professor and social worker who treats sex offenders.
For her research, Strickland surveyed 130 female prisoners, including 60 serving time for sexual offenses.
She found that women who have sex with boys lack the mature relationship skills to partner with men their age. They are also motivated by a need for power and control, and they see the boy as a blank slate they can turn into the partner they want.
Women sex offenders may never have had a relationship in which they felt safe, Strickland added.
Women who seek sex with underage boys are also more likely than men to focus on one person and to profess love and loyalty and a sense of a particular and profound bond, psychologists say.
Emotional overload
Philadelphia author Alan Soble has written books about sex and love. He believes it's difficult to generalize what motivates an older woman to seduce a teen boy, but that their reasons are probably not much different than a man's.
“Is there any reason to think the motives are different? Then you have to go with the standard story, but with the genders reversed,†said Soble, a philosophy professor at Penn State University's Abington campus.
Emotions are part of why he believes women pursue teen boys.
“It's not simply why would they do it, but why do it knowing they'll be ostracized if they get caught, they are in trouble, and will get more attention than a man would get?†he said. “It's the power the emotions have to kill our rationality, and women seem to be as susceptible as men to having their rationality undermined by their emotions and passions.â€
What also remains unclear is the long-term impact on teen boys.
What evidence is available — gathered through male prisoners and men in addiction treatment — is the experience disrupts normal adolescent psychological development, Strickland said.
A teen's immature brain cannot process the adult behavior they are engaging in, and, as a result, it skews social and sexual outlook, distorts thinking and hinders the ability to relate to a partner their own age, she explained.
Most teen boys involved in sexual relationships with older women don't feel they've been violated, a belief that Strickland says is rooted in society stereotypes, while girls in the same relationships are sent the message they've been taken advantage of, boys are congratulated and admired.
FEMALE SEX OFFENDERS
- Histories of childhood maltreatment, including sexual victimization, mental health symptoms, personality disorders and substance abuse problems
- Difficulties in intimate relationships, or an absence of intimate relationships
- Propensity to primarily victimize children and adolescents (rarely adults)
- Tendency to commit offenses against people who are related or otherwise well known to them
- An increased likelihood of perpetrating sex offenses in concert with a male intimate partner
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21st-June-2008
