Frauen mit einem Jungen als Partner in der Popkultur: Keine große Sache

Portrayals of relationships between older women and younger men have showed up in pop culture time and again, from The Graduate to American Pie. But it seems like more have been cropping up lately. Alissa Nutting’s novel Tampa, published in July, is about a 26-year-old woman who builds her entire life as a teacher around her attraction to 14-year-old boys. The Lifeguard, which opened in theaters last weekend, stars Kristen Bell as a 29-year-old who returns to her hometown and has an affair with a teenager. And this week sees the theatrical release of Adore, starring Robin Wright and Naomi Watts as two best friends who fall for each other’s 18-year-old sons, and A Teacher, the story of a young woman’s undoing as her relationship with one of her high-school students comes to an end.

While these works vary from one another greatly, taken together they show how society tends to treat these kinds of relationships: as not all that big a deal.

The differing attitudes towards woman/boy relationships versus man/girl ones was, until recently, codified by the government. It wasn’t until the year 2000 that all 50 states had gender-neutral statutory rape laws. Until then, laws tended to punish the woman participant less harshly or not at all, even if she was the perpetrator. According to Carolyn E. Cocca, the author of Jailbait: The Politics of Statutory Rape Laws in the United States, the role of women sex offenders is routinely downplayed.

Hier geht es weiter – ein gelungener Artikel, gerade auch aus der Perspektive einer maskulistischen Filmkritik. (Nur im letzten Absatz, wo es heißt, das Messen mit zweierlei Maß sei dadurch erklärbar, dass Männer viel häufiger Täter bei häuslicher Gewalt seien, fällt die Autorin den überholten Klischees zum Opfer, die sie beklagt.) Das Fazit des Beitrags lautet:

For now, though, it seems pop culture still believes consent isn't an issue if the rapist is an attractive, older woman.