Two things srike me about the case of Genarlow Wilson, the Georgia kid who was sentenced to 10 years in jail for committing oral sex with intent to enjoy with a 15-year-old (he was 17 at the time) at a New Year’s Party.
First, I heard today (NPR, Tavis Smiley) that the entire Georgia State Legislature (or State Senate, I’m not sure which) was given the incriminating sex video to watch. That’s wrong and weird in several ways, dontcha think?
Second, almost all the coverage of the case discusses him "having" or "partaking in" oral sex with the young woman. Of course, we all assume what they mean is that he received said sex, because women in general, and high school girls in particular, certainly give a whole lot more head than they receive. In fact it is the case that Genarlow was the recipient but wouldn’t it be fascinating if he were in jail for going down on the girl? (And wouldn’t it be less likely that she’d have been pissed off enough about it afterwards to try to get him sent away for it?). I think we should start a movement encouraging young men and boys to give as much head and hand as they receive. It would surely make for a better world in so many ways. Boys would get to know that mysterious, scary part of a girl’s body. Girls would surely also get to know and accept said part (yes, I just evasively wrote "said part" rather than either "vagina" or a slang term) much earlier in life. The list goes on and on. In general, in response to groups like the "Partnership for a Drug Free America" and it’s sexual equivalents, I say, how about "Realistic People for Education and Encouragement of Moderate Teen Experimentation with Drugs and Sex." It’s a bit of a mouthful (as it were!) and RPEEMTEDS isn’t much better as an acronym, but I think RPEE. . . is long overdue.
Young Mr. Wilson has made a point of saying he "made mistakes" on that faithful night when he drank and smoked weed and got to have sex with one girl and get a blow job from another, but I’m hard-pressed to understand just what his mistake was. By all accounts, he was a great student, good guy, star athlete, homecoming king. His mistake was being a teenager who tries some pot and booze and sex? Those aren’t mistakes, those are LIFE, and if people like the Georgia legislators who locked their office doors and took out the lotion and the tissues when watching the Wilson video would start to address teenage experimentation as a natural part of growing up, well, well then maybe the next generation won’t grow up to be voyeuristic moralists who punish teens for getting head but then go and jerk off to the video of it.
