spurspinter1
Pat van den Hauwe
I only saw the tongue thing, I didn't know there was kissing involved - what I saw just looked playful (albeit weird), but as you say, he's a person of power, and the kid would probably have felt pressured into listening to him, which of course isn't great. And I completely agree with Glenda over here, it all depends on how the child felt. But imagine in a situation like this, say if the child found it funny and playful and actually didn't think much about it, but then saw the massive response it got in the media! He'll obviously feel very differently about it just by the volume of news coverage this thing has gotten, it's bound to color his response to it in a negative fashion. I'm not saying he's not allowed to react negatively, of course, but there's a definite role of how
I know it's not comparable in the slightest, but I sometimes think back to when I was 13-14 - if a woman I found attractive wanted to have sex with me at the time, I would've jumped right on it! And I imagine I would've liked it - UNTIL someone started telling me it was wrong and abuse and all that brick. I'm just trying to say that stuff like this isn't always as cut and dry as we seem to think - I think we inadvertently push a lot of shame and guilt on the socalled "victim" of circumstances like this, which might make them feel more like a victim than they felt in the first place, simply by succumbing to our cultural bias of always thinking there's a victim in situations like this. I remember an old friend of mine, she was 14 when she got a boyfriend, who was 19 or something at the time. At the time everyone was cool with it (this was back in the 90's), they seemed to have a loving relationship (I think they were together for 4-5 years or something) - yet, in hindsight, people are very eager to criticize that relationship, because the guy was over 16 years old (the age limit for consensual sex), and supposedly took advantage of her. Now, I'm pretty sure she did not feel taken advantage of when they were together - so why the eagerness to judge? We have to see that there's a cultural bias here - and that we may be a bit quick to label everything as pedophilia just to be safe.
Shame is an interesting concept, and it makes us behave in ways that we think are innate, but maybe is way more learned than we tend to accept.
It's hard to make this point without sounding a bit arsy, and I know you're are absolutely not one of the typically ignorant posters on here but......
It takes 15 seconds to watch the clip which contained the joke and the inappropriate kissing. If you haven't taken the take to watch it but still chose to formulate an opinion based on a headline and / or the reaction of others that's rather odd but is unfortunately human nature. Glasgow also had something to say about it without having seen it.
I don't feel like you have taken Glenda's point in how she meant it but I can't be certain and don't want to speak on behalf of other posters.
To me, it's not really about how the kid feels about the situation, for the exact reason you later go on to describe in terms of it seeming potentially awesome to bang one of your school teachers, I was exactly the same and many other pubescent boys and girls would probably have had similar feelings towards their teachers. There's often not enough of a grasp on right or wrong in the mind of the minor / child and what may seem "cool" at the time is in fact a form of abuse as you say, whether it's statutory *struggle cuddle* or however it's labeled.
As for any mention of shame, that sounds dangerously like victim blaming to me. The shame entirely lies in this case with the Dalai Lama, as it does with the abuser in any similar or worse cases. Given that it was in front of cameras he must have thought it was okay, which sort of helps in a weird way but it's still so very far from harmless.
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