By Rachelle Martin, Staff Writer, Emerson College
It's common for a lot of people to question what constitutes sexual assault. Where does street harassment become sexual assault? How drunk is “too drunk” to consent? Why is something that practically puts “RAPE” in neon lights for me considered romantic and sexy by my friends? Who gets to decide where these lines get drawn?
As many have heard by now, Chris Brown appeared in an interview several weeks ago saying questionable things about his childhood that made a lot of concerned readers revisit these lines. This is the paragraph from the article sparking the controversy:
He lost his virginity when he was eight years old, to a local girl who was 14 or 15. Seriously? "Yeah, really. Uh-huh." He grins and chuckles. "It's different in the country." Brown grew up with a great gang of boy cousins, and they watched so much porn that he was raring to go. "By that point, we were already kind of like hot to trot, you know what I'm saying? Like, girls, we weren't afraid to talk to them; I wasn't afraid. So, at eight, being able to do it, it kind of preps you for the long run, so you can be a beast at it. You can be the best at it."
The title of this interview is “Chris Brown: ‘It Was The Biggest Wakeup Call’,”which refers to Brown’s statements on Rihanna, something the publisher clearly thought would be the eye-catching moment in the interview. He tells the reporter that his “incident” with Rihanna—abusing her and subsequently having a restraining order filed against him—made him realize he had to “stop acting like a little teenager, a crazy, wild young guy.” Brown also goes on to explain the complex ways black celebrities are targeted for problematic incidences more than white celebrities and how his friends have helped him through the difficult times in his life resulting from becoming a celebrity so young.
But nobody’s talking about that. Everyone’s talking about how having sex at eight years old makes him a rape victim under the law.
The discussion about rape and sexual assault is common regarding women, but male victims of rape aren't encouraged to talk about it because rape culture says that women are victims and men are rapists. This isn’t a hard and fast rule, but the pervasiveness of it makes many male rape victims too embarrassed and ashamed to come forward. When rape culture demands that men are the dominating gender, it can be hard to admit something so emasculating as being subjugated.
However, Brown doesn't even seem to consider the encounter rape at all. He says that he was just being “mature” for his age; he thinks, as many young boys grow up thinking, that having sex is a sign of masculinity and a source of pride. So which was it? Was Brown raped, or was he just being sexually assertive—doing what men are “supposed” to do—at an earlier age than most?
It’s hard to ignore the glaring question of legitimate rape present in the debate that has sprung up around Chris Brown’s statement. While many women today aren’t given the opportunity to decide if their own rape is legitimate, people who deny that Chris Brown was in fact raped believe that because Brown doesn’t seem to think so either, or at least doesn’t think it has impacted him negatively (which is okay—as an adult, he’s allowed to reflect on his life however he wants to, although many might define the positive reaction toward it as a “coping” method). Taking away a person’s right to decide if their sexual encounter was legitimately rape is inherently problematic, regardless of gender. Just because my friend might consider that five shots in she’s too drunk to consent doesn’t mean that I consider myself too drunk for consent at the same level of inebriation, and neither of us should be condemned for that.
However, whereas in adulthood the lines of legitimate rape may be up to the individual, those lines are clear-cut and legally drawn for kids. Even in Chris Brown’s home state of Virginia, the laws around statutory rape say explicitly “a child under the age of thirteen years shall not be considered a consenting child.”
Similarly in the debate along these lines, a few months ago, a fourteen-year-old girl in Montana took her life because one of her teachers raped her. The teacher was sentenced for only thirty days because the judge decided that the girl seemed to be “as much in control of the situation” as the teacher was. Needless to say, everyone was outraged; a fourteen-year-old girl can’t consent to sex with a man twice her age, especially if the appeared consent sprouted out of child grooming. For the same reason we have laws to protect children from driving, doing drugs, drinking, gambling, and smoking, we have laws to protect them from consenting to sex at an age where this consent is uninformed and their psychological and developmental state cannot handle that level of intimacy without repercussions later in life (among which are suicide, depression, drug or alcohol abuse, and repeats of sexual aggression).
But instead of discussing this as if it were a legal rape, Chris Brown talks about this first sexual interaction as a conquest: he “wasn’t afraid” to talk to girls, and starting that early made him able to “be the best at it” now (in the vein of Prince, he says later in the interview).
Herein lies the difference between 8-year-old Chris Brown and the girl in Montana. Rape culture is more ready to accept and perpetuate the idea that young men—no matter how young, apparently—are sexual conquistadors. Imagine if a female star had come out with this. Do you think Taylor Swift would have been bragging about having sex at eight? What if Beyoncé said she “wasn’t afraid” to talk to older men before she was even in double digits? There would be outrage, and confusion, and most importantly, no one would take either of them seriously. In our culture, young women—no matter how old—are sexual victims with no agency over a growing libido.
Brown was able to conflate this experience with a developing masculinity and sexual prowess instead of treat it as actual, serious rape explicitly because of his gender. In reality, both men and women can rape, and both men and women (and boys and girls) can be raped. However, consent to sex doesn’t belong to children—male, female, or otherwise. An eight-year-old child having sex and thinking he has enough information to consent does not mean he is sexually mature for his age—it means he’s too wrapped up in a society that gives boys license to feel like that decision is theirs from that young of an age whereas women rarely ever get that power even after they’ve left childhood. Neither is okay.
Chris Brown’s statements need to be discussed because if they aren't, it just affirms stereotypes about masculinity that aren’t healthy. Men don’t have to be sexually aggressive, and the fact that it starts so young is a sign that the prerogative of domination men and boys have is deeply, problematically ingrained. Men and boys who were raped without any kind of consent in their youth will read this as one more source telling them that they should “be a man” about their trauma, and that solves nothing and silences victims. If we want to dismantle rape culture, we have to understand the ways agency is given to rape victims hugely depends on gender, whereas it should be dependent on age. Adults can give consent. Children can’t.
Rachelle is a WLP major from California. She likes coffee but also naps, which means she makes tough decisions on a daily basis, and should not be underestimated. You can find Rachelle on Twitter.
Images: Fox News
As many have heard by now, Chris Brown appeared in an interview several weeks ago saying questionable things about his childhood that made a lot of concerned readers revisit these lines. This is the paragraph from the article sparking the controversy:
He lost his virginity when he was eight years old, to a local girl who was 14 or 15. Seriously? "Yeah, really. Uh-huh." He grins and chuckles. "It's different in the country." Brown grew up with a great gang of boy cousins, and they watched so much porn that he was raring to go. "By that point, we were already kind of like hot to trot, you know what I'm saying? Like, girls, we weren't afraid to talk to them; I wasn't afraid. So, at eight, being able to do it, it kind of preps you for the long run, so you can be a beast at it. You can be the best at it."
The title of this interview is “Chris Brown: ‘It Was The Biggest Wakeup Call’,”which refers to Brown’s statements on Rihanna, something the publisher clearly thought would be the eye-catching moment in the interview. He tells the reporter that his “incident” with Rihanna—abusing her and subsequently having a restraining order filed against him—made him realize he had to “stop acting like a little teenager, a crazy, wild young guy.” Brown also goes on to explain the complex ways black celebrities are targeted for problematic incidences more than white celebrities and how his friends have helped him through the difficult times in his life resulting from becoming a celebrity so young.
But nobody’s talking about that. Everyone’s talking about how having sex at eight years old makes him a rape victim under the law.
The discussion about rape and sexual assault is common regarding women, but male victims of rape aren't encouraged to talk about it because rape culture says that women are victims and men are rapists. This isn’t a hard and fast rule, but the pervasiveness of it makes many male rape victims too embarrassed and ashamed to come forward. When rape culture demands that men are the dominating gender, it can be hard to admit something so emasculating as being subjugated.
However, Brown doesn't even seem to consider the encounter rape at all. He says that he was just being “mature” for his age; he thinks, as many young boys grow up thinking, that having sex is a sign of masculinity and a source of pride. So which was it? Was Brown raped, or was he just being sexually assertive—doing what men are “supposed” to do—at an earlier age than most?
It’s hard to ignore the glaring question of legitimate rape present in the debate that has sprung up around Chris Brown’s statement. While many women today aren’t given the opportunity to decide if their own rape is legitimate, people who deny that Chris Brown was in fact raped believe that because Brown doesn’t seem to think so either, or at least doesn’t think it has impacted him negatively (which is okay—as an adult, he’s allowed to reflect on his life however he wants to, although many might define the positive reaction toward it as a “coping” method). Taking away a person’s right to decide if their sexual encounter was legitimately rape is inherently problematic, regardless of gender. Just because my friend might consider that five shots in she’s too drunk to consent doesn’t mean that I consider myself too drunk for consent at the same level of inebriation, and neither of us should be condemned for that.
However, whereas in adulthood the lines of legitimate rape may be up to the individual, those lines are clear-cut and legally drawn for kids. Even in Chris Brown’s home state of Virginia, the laws around statutory rape say explicitly “a child under the age of thirteen years shall not be considered a consenting child.”
Similarly in the debate along these lines, a few months ago, a fourteen-year-old girl in Montana took her life because one of her teachers raped her. The teacher was sentenced for only thirty days because the judge decided that the girl seemed to be “as much in control of the situation” as the teacher was. Needless to say, everyone was outraged; a fourteen-year-old girl can’t consent to sex with a man twice her age, especially if the appeared consent sprouted out of child grooming. For the same reason we have laws to protect children from driving, doing drugs, drinking, gambling, and smoking, we have laws to protect them from consenting to sex at an age where this consent is uninformed and their psychological and developmental state cannot handle that level of intimacy without repercussions later in life (among which are suicide, depression, drug or alcohol abuse, and repeats of sexual aggression).
But instead of discussing this as if it were a legal rape, Chris Brown talks about this first sexual interaction as a conquest: he “wasn’t afraid” to talk to girls, and starting that early made him able to “be the best at it” now (in the vein of Prince, he says later in the interview).
Herein lies the difference between 8-year-old Chris Brown and the girl in Montana. Rape culture is more ready to accept and perpetuate the idea that young men—no matter how young, apparently—are sexual conquistadors. Imagine if a female star had come out with this. Do you think Taylor Swift would have been bragging about having sex at eight? What if Beyoncé said she “wasn’t afraid” to talk to older men before she was even in double digits? There would be outrage, and confusion, and most importantly, no one would take either of them seriously. In our culture, young women—no matter how old—are sexual victims with no agency over a growing libido.
Brown was able to conflate this experience with a developing masculinity and sexual prowess instead of treat it as actual, serious rape explicitly because of his gender. In reality, both men and women can rape, and both men and women (and boys and girls) can be raped. However, consent to sex doesn’t belong to children—male, female, or otherwise. An eight-year-old child having sex and thinking he has enough information to consent does not mean he is sexually mature for his age—it means he’s too wrapped up in a society that gives boys license to feel like that decision is theirs from that young of an age whereas women rarely ever get that power even after they’ve left childhood. Neither is okay.
Chris Brown’s statements need to be discussed because if they aren't, it just affirms stereotypes about masculinity that aren’t healthy. Men don’t have to be sexually aggressive, and the fact that it starts so young is a sign that the prerogative of domination men and boys have is deeply, problematically ingrained. Men and boys who were raped without any kind of consent in their youth will read this as one more source telling them that they should “be a man” about their trauma, and that solves nothing and silences victims. If we want to dismantle rape culture, we have to understand the ways agency is given to rape victims hugely depends on gender, whereas it should be dependent on age. Adults can give consent. Children can’t.
Rachelle is a WLP major from California. She likes coffee but also naps, which means she makes tough decisions on a daily basis, and should not be underestimated. You can find Rachelle on Twitter.
Images: Fox News