Journal Article

SEXUAL EXPLOITATION AND THE ADULTIFIED BLACK GIRL

Thompson, Mikah K

2022

Overview

In 2017, the Georgetown Law Center on Poverty and inequality released a study entitled Girlhood Interrupted: The Erasure of Black Girls' Childhood.11 The study's authors \"surveyed 325 adults from various racial and ethnic backgrounds\" to determine their perceptions and beliefs about the development of Black and white girls.12 The researchers determined that adults view Black girls as less innocent than their white counterparts at almost all stages of childhood.13 The study concluded that \"Black girls were more likely to be viewed as behaving and seeming older than their stated age; more knowledgeable about adult topics, including sex; and more likely to take on adult roles and responsibilities than what would have been expected for their age. \"22 The English enacted statutory rape laws, which were sex-specific, to ensure a girl's virginity prior to marriage as well as a proper dowry for her father.23 Statutory rape laws became a part of the American common law system and remained unchanged until feminist groups in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries successfully convinced state legislatures to raise the age of consent from ten to an average age of sixteen.24 These activists sought to protect adolescent girls from coercive and exploitative sexual encounters that would be deemed \"consensual\" under then-existing forcible rape laws.25 At the same time, they understood that raising the age of consent would increase \"patriarchal control over girls' sexuality. \"26 Today, the age of consent in a majority of states is sixteen, but other factors including the age of the offender, the age differential between the victim and the offender, and the marital status of the parties can affect the criminalization of sex with a minor.27 Oberman argues that modern statutory rape laws, which are not sex-specific,28 serve three purposes: (1) to protect adolescents from sexual exploitation;29 (2) to prevent teen pregnancy and out-of-wedlock births;30 and (3) to provide a necessary alternative to conventional rape laws that do not offer sufficient protection against coercive sexual encounters.31 The law's criminalization of sex with minors based on the age differential between the parties supports the notion that statutory rape laws exist in part to protect against sexual exploitation by much older offenders. \"33 Tenzer indicates that this age range is usually three years, but may be up to five years in some states.34 She argues that age-differential laws recognize that teens can sometimes consent to sexual activity.35 In the sixteen arbitrary prosecution states, the law draws no distinction based on the age difference between the alleged offender and the alleged victim.36 Thus, these states allow for the prosecution of a teenager who engages in sexual activity with another teen.37 Legal scholars assert that the criminalization of sex between teens is harmful because it deprives teen girls of their sexual autonomy, particularly in light of the fact that prosecutors enforce sex-neutral statutory rape laws against males at much higher rates compared to females.38 Moreover, the criminalization of teen sex fails to recognize the fact that at least forty-four percent of today's high-school students are sexually active.39 I acknowledge

• Publisher: St. John's Law Review Association
• Subject: Adults / Age / Bias / Black people / Consent / Criminalization / Exploitation / Girls / Law / Minors / Perceptions / Statutory rape / Stereotypes