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260 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2010
There is no doubt whatever that many parents connive at the illegal sexual activities of their children. It is true that some men are still convicted of having had sexual intercourse with girls who were under the age of consent, but they often claim, not wholly implausibly, that the girls in question did not look their age and were allowed by their parents out at a time when one would not expect girls of such an age to be allowed out (in the general drunken and drug-fuelled sexual sauve-qui-peut that takes place in the centre of British town and city every Friday and Saturday night it is hardly to be expected that inspection of birth certificates should be demanded and accorded).Since there are almost no convictions for close-in-age statutory rape, especially with 15 year old girls, presuming that the men were at least 19, but more likely in their 20s and they didn't suspect that the girl was 14 or 15 is rubbish. The author is not talking of a one night stand, "stopping having had sexual relations" means it was an ongoing thing if not a relationship. He couldn't tell from her conversation? He didn't care enough to find out? He didn't care for her at all?
Furthermore, the men claim that they are being punished not so much for having had sexual intercourse with such girls, but in effect for stopping having had sexual relations with such girls: the girls being unhappy at the cessation, they run to their parents — who already knew of the relations — and ask that they should go to the police. The convicted men feel aggrieved not because they are innocent of the charge, but because they have only done what many others have done and continue to do, with the knowledge and even approval of the parents of the girls. The age of consent thus becomes not a rule to be obeyed, but a weapon to be wielded."
"...the emergence of the human rights culture seems to owe nothing to increased moral knowledge, and everything to hearing sad and sentimental stories..."This struck me as a sharp, powerful insight. It got me thinking about sentimentality, and by chance I happened to run across this book. I wanted to dig more deeply into Rorty's idea, and I hoped that Dalrymple might develop it further. He definitely does. It's true that Dalrymple is an old-fashioned curmudgeon (as some of the other reviewers have noted). But he does have an interesting personal history (prison psychiatrist, lived in Africa etc.), and he makes many thought-provoking points despite a somewhat rambling style. The book is short and very readable.