This opinion-editorial was written by Alan M. Dershowitz,
and published by the Los Angeles Times, in 1997.
Dershowitz served as convicted child sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein's attorney at least twice before Epstein's reported death in 2019. Epstein's main accuser, Virginia Roberts Giuffre, claims that Alan Dershowitz flew on Epstein's plane "The Lolita Express" and had sex with minors.
Dershowitz, who is married, maintains that he never took his pants off, and merely got a massage from an old Russian woman. Dershowitz maintains that he never had sex with any children, despite the fact that he has publicly gone on record as being against statutory rape laws.
In the op-ed, Dershowitz says that he supports prohibitions on sex with very young children. After the op-ed was published, Dershowitz explained that he was making a constitutional argument, not a moral argument.
However, that does not mean he is morally opposed to having sex with teenagers. In the article, he focuses on teenagers having sex with each other; probably to distract the reader from the fact that eliminating statutory rape laws, or lowering the legal age of consent, would result in adults having sex with teenagers.
The one thing that Dershowitz and I agree on is that morality certainly doesn't enter into his argument. There are certainly arguments which can be made about statutory rape laws, which are both moral and constitutional. Dershowitz's argument is not one of them. It is odd for Dershowitz to claim that his argument is a constitutional one, when he doesn't even mention the Constitution a single time in the article.
In my opinion, Dershowitz's goal, with this op-ed, is to use the "constitutional" (or legal) argument which could be made in favor of loosening or eliminating statutory rape laws, as a sort of Trojan Horse. His goal is to cloak the defense of teenagers having sex before they are old enough to consent, in a legal argument, and frame it as a constitutional argument.
It is important to notice that the very title of the article is "Statutory Rape Is an Outdated Concept". If he were questioning the concept of statutory rape only in a legal sense but not in an ethical sense, then he would have titled the article "Statutory Rape Laws Are Flawed" or something to that effect. He is clearly questioning both the legal and ethical bases for statutory rape laws.
Dershowitz writes that "It is obvious that there must be criminal sanctions against sex with very young children, but it is doubtful whether such sanctions should apply to teenagers above the age of puberty, since voluntary sex is so common in their age group." Dershowitz shows with this sentence that he is either unaware of the idea that teenagers are not old enough nor mature enough to consent to sex, or else he is simply opposed to the idea and wishes to give it no recognition in his article.
Dershowitz writes that "It is obvious that there must be criminal sanctions against sex with very young children, but it is doubtful whether such sanctions should apply to teenagers above the age of puberty, since voluntary sex is so common in their age group." Dershowitz shows with this sentence that he is either unaware of the idea that teenagers are not old enough nor mature enough to consent to sex, or else he is simply opposed to the idea and wishes to give it no recognition in his article.
Nothing in this op-ed suggests that Dershowitz is opposed to adults having sex with teenagers. He doesn't even mention it. It's as if he thinks he has no responsibility to, or that adults having sex with teenagers has nothing to do with the topic being discussed. It absolutely does.
Even more shameful in all of this, is the fact that Dershowitz cited the fact that "puberty is apparently arriving earlier, particularly among certain ethnic groups". I do not know what Dershowitz is referring to, but an article published by WebMD in 2002 confirmed that African-American girls begin puberty before white girls. However, they only begin puberty an average of six months earlier. That is not even a full year, and thus is hardly a justification for lowering the age of consent.
That article can be viewed here: http://www.webmd.com/baby/news/20021009/girls-menstruating-earlier#:~:text=While%20the%20average%20age%20of,months%20earlier%20than%20white%20girls.
Considering this small difference, consider what it could mean that Dershowitz is citing ethnicity to justify eliminating statutory rape laws. The argument that "some ethnicities, like African-Americans, 'mature' earlier", is not very different from, and aligns perfectly with the way of thinking that informs the "black girls like wild sex" stereotype. Some African-American women have been exposed to violent sex, and heard their aggressors make the excuse that they had heard that black women liked wild sex. This stereotype is fed by the old idea that Africans are "wild", which is based on the idea that they're sub-human, and basically animals, and need to be controlled. The idea that black girls "mature earlier" is thus a medical fact, but not a noteworthy one considering the probability that the fact is only cited to justify raping African-American teenagers. It also potentially implies that black people immature, an idea which could be used to justify controlling them. And rape is a form of control.
"If there's fluff on the muff, she's old enough" is not a medical saying. Nor is it a legal saying.
If getting your period makes you a woman, and that makes it OK to have sex, then by that logic it's OK to have sex with young girls if they experience precocious puberty. Twelve and thirteen years old are not the youngest ages at which a female has experienced menarche (first menstruation). That age is four.
There should not be a purely biological standard regarding when losing one's virginity is appropriate. Nor should that standard be dictated by "maturity", nor ability to earn money and have a career. There are plenty of talented children, child stars, and children capable of performing labor or investing in stocks. That does not make it OK for adults, or other children or teenagers, to have sex with them. That does not make it OK to marry children. Child molesters will tell teenagers and children that they are mature all day; they do this in order to justify treating them like adults.
Age must be the standard; not biology, nor race, nor puberty, nor maturity, nor financial independence, nor work capability. If being at a "lowered capacity to consent" makes it OK for two drunk adults to have sex, then the same logic could be used to justify a retarded old man having sex with a little girl. Or getting drunk in order to be "on the same level as" a sober teenager.
Age must be the standard. We must maintain the purpose of statutory rape laws, which is to place the obligation to prove the younger person's age, upon the older person, if and when there is any question about whether it was legal for the people in question to have sex, given their possible ages.
We must maintain statutory rape laws and age of consent laws, and improve upon them, to prevent the federal government from unnecessarily and unconstitutionally intervening in child trafficking laws in a manner which causes the lower federal age of consent to trump the state's higher age of consent. (Note: You can learn more about this topic by researching the case of Esquivel-Quintana v. Sessions.)
Laws against trafficking children out of state for sex, are useless, as long as the federal government has an age of consent of twelve, with a defense written into the law that basically instructs child molesters to argue that they reasonably thought that the victim was at least 16 years old.
Laws against trafficking children out of state for sex, are useless, as long as the federal government has an age of consent of twelve, with a defense written into the law that basically instructs child molesters to argue that they reasonably thought that the victim was at least 16 years old.
This country's child sexual abuse laws are a complete mess, and Dershowitz's arguments only help the types of attorneys and other people in the legal professions who would be in the position to read this article. Dershowitz's "op-ed" thus amounts to little more than advice to child molesters and wannabe child rapists - especially those in or connected to the legal professions - who want to use these twisted arguments, and the "black girls mature earlier" argument, to justify having sex with minors which is both illegal and wrong.
I appreciate the fact that Alan Dershowitz defended Julian Assange on rape charges. I also appreciate that Assange's victim was represented and was able to file charges. Everyone has the right to a defense. But we should be concerned that Dershowitz is leveraging his reputation as the nation's best defender of the "duty of adequate representation" (the duty to adequately represent your client) in order to justify his continued defense of accused child rapists and Israeli spies.
When you see a Jewish lawyer defend Israeli spy, after Israeli spy, accused of child sex trafficking after Israeli spy after rapist, and see him defend eliminating statutory rape laws in an article in the paper, maybe it's time to wonder whether he's a pedophile. The fact that Epstein's main accuser, Virginia Giuffre, alleges he's a pedophile, ought to suggest that anyone connected to Dershowitz, or anyone who's been following him since 1997, might have been watching him for advice on how to abuse children and get away with it.
They can certainly go to the U.S. Code section on child sex crimes for similar advice.
Written and published on January 31st, 2021
Edited and Expanded on February 6th, 2021
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