When adult men feel sexually attracted to a 12 year old girl, we need to talk about rape culture

Valentina is 12 years old. She has the body of a 12 year old girl. She is blonde, fair-skinned and she acts like a 12 year old girl. She has been selected to take part in the Brazilian version of MasterChef Junior along with several other kids, boys and girls. What separates Valentina from all the other children, for now, is not her talent in the kitchen, but the rape culture that allows adult men to go around talking about how they could rape her.

(It is important to stress that even if Valentina had a different description, what we are about to see in the following paragraphs would still be a terrible, wrongful thing.)

Let’s make something clear from the start: any kind of sexual relationship with a child is rape. A child can never have a consensual sexual relationship, since a child can not make such decision. That’s the law. Let’s give things their proper name. We are not talking about pedophilia, a disease which can be treated before the person commits a crime — be it child pornography or rape. None of the men who made comments on the MasterChef participant is suffering from a disease, they just think they have the right to talk absurd things like these because they don’t see a child when they look at Valentina: they see a woman.

“Talking about Valentina, is it pedophilia if there is consent?”

Of course, we’ve been on this many times before. Increasingly younger girls play adults in hyper-sexualized advertising campaigns. Women undergo plastic surgeries to rejuvenate their vulvas and achieve a virginal appearance. Adult women are infantilzed. How many times have you seen people calling grown up women “girls”? And the idea that a girl that dresses up as an adult woman can be treated as such is becoming ever more popular. This is a tremendously evil idea.

Day after day, our society is creating ways to make women more vulnerable. And sex is the fastest way to achieve this. Girls are encouraged to have relationships with older men because they are very mature for their own age. Women become pregnant, and socially it is implied that the woman is soley responsible for the baby. Abortion is illegal in most jurisdictions — even though it happens at alarming rates in every place and every social class. Older men know how to guide girls to do what they want. Teenage mothers drop out of school and don’t go to college, and they must take low paying jobs to support their children. On top of all this, these women, who were victims of rape culture when they were girls, are also considered sluts.

The myth that girls mature faster than boys and therefore should have relationships with older men is perhaps the oldest and the main thing responsible for the feeling of impunity in the male collective mind, a feeling that allows certain men to post comments such as the ones written about Valentina, for example.

It is important to clarify that girls do not mature faster than boys because of biology. That happens because girls are given responsibilities at an early age. They are the ones looking after the house, their younger siblings and the food. They go to the market and they fill in for their mothers. In certain cultures, 12 year old girls are taken out of school to look after the house, while boys enjoy a normal childhood. With all these duties and responsibilities, plus the fact that girls must learn from a very young age to be cautious with the advances of adult men, it’s no wonder they become more mature. It is a social construct.

While girls are sent to early maturity, boys and men are forgiven for all their mistakes because they’re just kids, regardless of their age — Let’s also make it clear that this is more powerful when related to white men of a certain socioeconomic status. To black men, black boys or the poor, the only thing left is suspicion and theories which assume a biological reason for their mistakes.

In addition to this culture, we also have to deal with the notion that all women are sluts. That is, all the women who do not fall under the expectations of a specific man, since there is no consensus on how a non-slut should behave. When a woman is pretty, the problem is even worse: she is seen as stupid, she is objectified, stereotyped and she can no longer say “no” to any sexual advance. If she does so, she is full of herself. And it doesn’t matter what a woman does: just arousing sexual desire on a man is enough to make you a slut.

“And Valentina is making all those dishes on MasterChef…What a slut!”

Desire is the responsibility of those who feel it and not those who arouse it. When an adult feels sexual attraction for a child, he is the one to blame for going against a social norm that protects the childhood, the integrity and the body of a person under the age of consent, according to the law. However, it is very easy to twist this argument when one argues that a girl has the sexuality of a woman, that she wears provocative clothes, and that she calls for the attention of men. Under this idea, the man becomes the victim of a “homewrecker” who still plays with dolls, despite the fact that she does have a sexuality of her own, only a very different sexuality from that of an adult woman.

“Relax, buddy!! Pedophilia happens because of these hot kids!”

It is important to talk about rape culture. It circulates between the lines in several arguments. It goes hand in hand with the idea that men can not control their impulses. It is fully connected with the false idea of child consent. It is reinforced by the infantilization of adult women. Impunity is its best friend and blaming the victims, its most powerful weapon.

Children are only children, regardless of if they have adult skills (such as cooking), a developed body, provocative clothes or a mature mind. And it is a crime to engage in any sort of unfriendly relationship with them. They are not the ones to blame. What should Valentina do? Give up her dream of becoming a chef? Hide herself under masculine clothes? Look for ways to become less attractive? These are the paths that we — women — have taken all of our lives. And they are not the paths we would like to lead girls to. They deserve a better way.

Special thanks to Ju Freitas, who shared the prints Twitter. ❤