So the question is what do you do with the kids that have sex at that young age. Would you say it crosses lines? My response is sure.Even without the trauma of rape. With sexuality comes so much that is weighted, it is an area of intimacy that should be taken with responsibility and a level of love and commitment that children are incapable of.

I know now that young people today are more sexually active then in 1976. But I blame society for that as well.

Does it make a difference if there is a 17 year old pressuring a 15 year old or a 19 year old pressuring a 15 year old. I would say yes and no. If the older 19 year old is the male, well his body is stronger and more physically developed by then. He then is a young man, he can vote and drive and gamble in the United States. His mind is geared towards his future career and college. The female would still be into high school, unsure of adult decisions most often and their consequences long term. At 17, most kids don’t look past next week. At 19 they can even look far enough into their future to care about what life might be like in a year.

When I was a child there was a term called “Jail Bait” for those under the age of 18. That which I just stated is part of the reason.

Thank you for responding and listening to my positions.The truth is the healing of rape is never completed work, sadly, there are memories and moments that live forever housed in the body, mind heart and soul. The body houses memories too, and old injuries effect us long after. As for the heart, mind and soul, My soul has God, and this has comforted me a great deal in my pain. My mind and heart, well there is a sorrow, a loss undescribable of a violently shattered innocence, of the youth in me that was stolen. That I never knew the joy of choice with my first sexual intimacy. It was not based on the love we all dream of since childhood. It was violent, painful and heartwrenching. I never had a chance to grow up normal after that, my innocence was in a state of confusion and I knew not any way to put the pieces back together. Alas like Humpty Dumpty I know my innocence cannot ever be put back together. But I can be. Oh I may be broken and now handicapped yes, but at least I have all my pieces in one place and I am a more focused on how to manuever around the parts of me that are injured. The greatest joys for me are when I can still have moments of shear joy in the place of belief in the miracles of life and the goodness of life.

For a long time after my abuses I felt the whole world had failed me. There are days when I still see and feel that. Society is such a mess and so are people and their values today. But in my aging and maturing and the years of working on me I have grown closer to God and because of my spiritual path I have found that I no longer fail me even if society and people do.

I respect for Saudi Arabia they are in a growing place. For the sake of their young I pray they grow into this common sense in a shorter time than it takes the young to grow up.

Regarding Aisha, there is wide discrepancy about the age that she was at marriage, and the later age of the consummation of that major (definitely after menarche). She was a child-bride depending on what her age of marriage was, and certainly in comparison to Khadija, reputed to be 40 at the time of her marriage to the Prophet.

While no one would argue that a 12-14 year old is mature, many US States and Canada include these ages as mature enough to consent to sex with a partner less than 2 years older. Many Islamic countries, and others around the world (notably some of the verrrrry Roman Catholic ones in Latin America) have very young ages of consent to marriage (without parental consent), eg. 15 for females. Part of the tragedy of these stories in Saudi is that they are preventable by instituting a minimum age for marriage, in accordance with Sharia family law, as most Muslim countries have done, and where the trend is to raise, not lower it.

I do hope you are doing well despite your early trauma, and appreciate your willingness to discuss this topic civilly.

In reference to Mohammed I want to stress a pattern in societies that leads to child victimization. I understand there is cultural norms involved, but alas, as you said slavery was a cultural norm once too.I have seen various books account that Mohammed left to find solitude for a lengthy time. But the accounts of other issues seem to vary as well.

Here is one “Unbiased-Biographical” account:

He who wished to have Meccah at his mercy had but to stop their caravans. But before this plan occurred to their illustrious Exile, the carrying trade had furnished Meccah with considerable wealth: and gold that had been dug out of mines in the country of Sulaim was sometimes brought to Meccah, where it could be profitably employed. Ayeshah, the Prophets girl-wife perhaps inclined to exaggerate- estimated her father’s property in the “Days of Ignorance” at a million dirhems-

http://www.scribd.com/doc/14048398/Life-of-Mohammed-An-unbiased-Biography-of-the-Prophet-by-DS-Margoliouth

pg 44 of the online site, page 14 of the text.

I do study religions as God is very dear to my heart, especially in the context of what has happened in my life.

Thanks for listening.

http://www.allaboutturkey.com/muhammed.htm

Pedophilia and hebephilia are distinct and usually marked by menarche as the dividing line. In agrarian societies, and traditional ones, as Saudi still largely is, and Yemen certainly is, a girl becomes marriageable after menarche.

Mohamed had a great and monogamous love marriage with Khadija, and after her death married Aisha, the daughter of his great friend, in part as a way to stop grieving. Later marriages were political alliances, or charity cases. He seems to have operated on tribal rather than Islamic precepts in the no. of marriages he had.

Only 2-12% of Saudi men are in polygynous relationships and of those 90% have only one other wife, 7% 2 and 3% 4.

While I disagree with such early marriages and pregnancies it does seem as if news items skew the norms to the negative, as everywhere, especially reporting marriages where there is a wide age discrepancy, or a dubious father, or a medical tragedy. Perhaps it is deliberate or else for the best in terms of pushing for reform, and to establish minimum ages of marriage.

I’m not in agreement that the Prophet induced men to worse behaviour, whereas in fact both the message and his behaviour were an improvement on that of pre-Islamic Arabia. He may have had human failings/foibles, but was self-reflective and widely respected even before he became a Prophet. One is free to believe Islam contains fallacies, but promotion of pedophilia isn’t one of them.

Look for books written by, say, Maxime Rodinson, that come at the biography in a disinterested, unbiased manner. His book is excellent for giving the context of the period and social environment. Rodinson’s book, btw, is banned in Saudi Arabia, so you know it’s not sycophantic.

The point of this post–and the many before it: Search on ‘child marriage’ and ‘Saudi marriage’–is that Saudis are discomforted by the idea of child marriage. It’s not easy to make it go away, though. For 1400 years, they’d been told that is was perfectly fine, no problem at all. Now, in part due to outside pressures, they’re being told that it isn’t, that they’ve been mistaken for nearly 1.5 milllennia. It’s on a parallel with the Southern American states being told that slavery was wrong, even though it had been in practice for thousands of years. Slavery was even authorized in the New Testament! What’s going on in Saudi Arabia now is a shifting of cultural and social values and it doesn’t happen quickly or easily or painlessly. It probably won’t take a civil war, however.

I wouldn’t word it that he has “led many Islamic men to justify their dysfuntional behaviors”- but I would have to say that many Islamic men have used certain interpretations of what he did to justify their dysfunction. It’s almost the same thing- but I never like to blame anyone for someone elses disfunction.

If these men wanted to follow the example of the prophet- they could marry a much older woman- and remain completely faithful to her- instead they chose to emulate interpretations of very different things.

I can also say that there is a twisted sense in all of media that unfortunately American women have been a party too. The sexualization of everything, the objectification of everything. But even in countries who don’t exploit women and girls in bikinis or ads that are risque’ or pointless sex dubbed in a movie thwarting the plot just to bring in moviegoers.

Even in countries where men tout how women are more respectable, covered almost head to toe….they are even less respected. Honor Killings, rape and torture, and yes child brides.

The arguments of Mohammed can go back and forth of the age of his bride, even she is quoted as saying he raised her from her childhood. But aside from that, does no-one question the fact that he abandoned his first wife and family and then suddenly comes upon this youthful girl and marries her instead.

Look. I think its wonderful that Mohammed brought many back to God, but in truth he had fallacies. He has led many Islamic men to justify their dysfunctional behaviors. But alas, biblically speaking so did Solomon and David.

One could argue that what is happening in Yemen is somewhat similar. We may think we live in modern times that we know better- but in some ways they live in a time warp. I hope very much with education will come massive intervention. But the practice is very intertwined with many tribal ways, and I am glad the issue is beginning to get the press and attention it deserves. What happened to Fawziya was wrong.

One thing that puzzles me in all this- and maybe addressing it would discourage this practice- but Islamically speaking the dowry goes to the BRIDE- not her family. With this practice of it going to the family, we have what is essentially the sale of young girls.