When did men lose the capacity to say no?

On May 11, the Gleaner newspaper in Jamaica carried a very disturbing headline: "Lover slays 14-year-old; Stepfather says he tried to end relationship". I read the headline and immediately felt an immense sense of outrage. It bothered me that the news editors had decided that "lover" was an appropriate term to use to describe the illicit and illegal abuse of a 14-year-old, underage girl CHILD by an ADULT man. Under Jamaican law, there are legal terms to describe the role the man played in the situation - assaulter, abuser, paedophile, repeat rapist, etc. Lover is not one of them.

The story itself was yet another tragic tale of violence against a girl child. This girl was failed by everyone. The entire community knew about the illegal relationship. Her parents were aware. And yet no one reported the abuse to the police or the appropriate authorities. After the young girl decided to "leave" her abuser, the man threatened to kill her and then kill himself if she did not come back to him. He ended up stabbing this girl child to death. She lost her life because no one acted effectively to protect her from repeat abuse by this adult man.

Stories like this continue to break my heart, because they represent a phenomenon that's common and accepted in Jamaican society. Adult men prey on underage girl children. And they get away with it. And communities watch this cycle unfold every time a girl child hits puberty, and they do nothing to stop it. 

In fact, we lay blame on the girl child, without holding the adult men accountable for their actions at all. The common argument is that these girl children are precocious, and force themselves on these men, who are left powerless by the advances. Society behaves as if these men have no control over the situation. They have no choice. The poor things are so pressured, so stressed and vulnerable in these situations that they haven't the strength, the will or the wherewithal to say no. What, really, could we expect these poor men to do?

I wish I had the money to run a campaign to RUBBISH that claim, and effectively dispel this preposterous and nonsensical myth that has become engrained in our cultural belief system. 

Fact: A man who can say no when propositioned by someone he's not interested in doesn't suddenly lose the capacity to say no when it is a girl child. He makes a choice to commit a crime because he WANTS to have sex with the child. There is no excuse. None at all.

Fact: Underage girl children cannot have sex with unwilling adult men. If the men were unwilling, the sex and all the abuses that come along with it, could never take place. The problem is that the men are willing. They are willing child abusers. 

Fact: It is the adult's responsibility to BE RESPONSIBLE and SAY NO to any sexual advances from a child.

Fact: Society needs to hold adults accountable for their actions and decisions, and stop blaming children for the decisions of irresponsible adults who abuse them!

Fact: Laying blame on a girl child when she is being abused by an adult man is one more way of reinforcing the negative gender stereotype that the female must endure scrutiny, shame and judgement for a sexual engagement, while the male escapes accountability altogether.

Fact: Adult men must be held accountable for their illegal, irresponsible choices to have sex and engage in relationships with girl children.

If our adult men have lost the capacity to say no to sexual advances from girl children, we must use the full extent of the law, and all our social powers, to reacquaint them with that capacity to say no. Adult men must say NO to sex with girl children. And we, as a society, must protect our girl children from predatory, nasty, dutty adult men.