[Web archive note: “Ripes” as it appears in the original print edition]
She stands five feet seven inches in her Courreges boots. Her face is as smooth and unreacting as a billiard ball. She wears miniskirts four inches above her knobby knees, and hip-huggers which hug skinny, unrelenting hips. Her favorite people in the whole wide world are Bobby Dylan, the Beatles, and Mick Jagger. She gets high on anything that’s handy—bennies, methadrine, grass, acid. She is known as a Groupie. Want to ball her?
Dirty old man!
Shortly after I had published an article on Swedish women last year I was amazed by the number of men who asked about the statutory rape laws in Scandinavia. When I informed them a Scandinavian girl could legally ball at 15 my interlocutors practically drooled as they envisioned this paradise-on-earth where an adult male could not be incarcerated for sleeping with a minor. And where he could not be stigmatized as a ‘dirty old man.’
It might seem preposterously naive on my part, but I could not understand what made practically undeveloped preadolescent girls so sexually desirable to so many adult males. Why, I asked myself, would a man, equally attracted to a girl of 15 and a woman 10 years her senior, invariably choose the 15-year-old to sleep with—assuming he would not be legally penalized for doing so? What makes a young girl, almost wholly ignorant of the art of love-making, more appealing to a man than a mature woman, who can be expected to be more knowledgeable about sex, and therefore better equipped to satisfy her man in bed?
For the purpose of this article I define a “young girl” as one between the ages of 13 and 17, one who has matured physically, i.e., one who has reached or passed puberty, but one who has not yet reached her majority.
The main reason some men prefer young girls as bed-partners is aesthetic, according to Dr. Albert Ellis, the psychologist and noted commentator on American sexual habits.
“They’re more attractive than older women,” he said. “They’re physically more exciting.”
I doubt if few men would disagree that the fully developed body of a young girl is much more exciting than that of an older woman. It is a rare man who would prefer sagging breasts, rough skin and pendent “beer-bellies” to firm, tender breasts, round tight buttocks and hard, lean torsos.
Beauty as the natural and just possession of youth is an idea which has been sounded throughout man’s recorded history, but especially in our own age. The equation of youth with beauty is a national ideal constantly dinned into our consciousness by the mass media. Radio, television, newspapers, the cinema, advertising—all have become conscientious purveyors of the idea that youthful beauty is the standard against which all other kinds of feminine beauty must be measured. And the fashion industry, which had always catered to the young, has now become almost completely geared toward the teenager. It is a rare and courageous woman over 20 who will wear a skirt six inches above the knee and not feel self-conscious in it—no matter how “modern” she thinks herself.
The second major reason a young girl is sexually more appealing than an older woman is her relative innocence in matters sexual. She has had few, if any, coital experiences. Sex to her is still a fresh source of ebullient wonder and delight. Her physical responses are still spontaneous and direct, not yet complicated by the clinging doubts and hesitancies which might afflict an older woman. Given the right circumstances, she can be expected to be not only a willing but an eager student of carnal pleasures.
“Youth is the age when sexuality becomes a vital part of the young girl’s personality,” Dr. Parker wrote elsewhere. “Its onset is imperceptible—something stirs, and her feminine sexuality begins to unfold. When the maturing factors controlled by her endocrine glands begin to function, the girl’s body begins to change. The breasts swell, the hips broaden and become rounded, and she has her first menstruation. With these physical changes she becomes acutely conscious of her sex. Her feminine sexuality becomes the dominant factor of her life.”
Of no less importance is the fact that the young girl has not had time enough to develop adequate defenses against male advances. She repairs to the bedroom in an attitude of complete surrender, neither anticipating a non-existent tomorrow nor regretting a lost, past, but fully prepared to reap the libidinous fruits of the moment.
Virgins as the archetypes of female innocence are much coveted by some men. Possessing a girl who is still “cherry” is their dream of the ultimate in sexual delights.
The conquest of a young girl makes a man feel younger; through her he regains his lost youth. The older a man becomes, the more concerned he is with questions of immortality and the more desperate are his attempts to postpone the inevitable decrepitude of age. Whereas a woman his own age merely confirms his age, a younger woman temporarily transforms him into a youth—at least, psychologically.
A man’s vanity is a strong factor in his preference for young girls. Every man likes to think of himself as a good lover; the young girl is liable to confirm this self-idealization. Having little or no previous experience she has nothing with which to compare a man’s performance in bed.
Physically, or physiologically, there are no basic differences between sleeping with a minor and an adult. Once she has experienced her first menstruation, the young girl is capable of making love—that is, her genitalia have developed to the point where she can receive a man with ease—and enjoying it, i.e. , reaching orgasm.
The situation would be totally different if the girl had not yet attained puberty. Then there would be a very real danger of serious internal injuries if coitus were attempted.
But these days adequate information, techniques and devices of contraception are so widely available in this country that the child who steals her mother’s contraceptives (replacing them with saccharin or a similar pill) has become a nationally known joke.
The greatest single deterrent to sleeping with a young girl is the legal penalties this involves. In 35 of the United States there are statutes against pre-marital fornication, whether it be with an adult or a minor. As for those laws specifically relating to fornication with a minor the penalties for conviction, in some cases, are only exceeded by those provided for murder.
The death penalty is MANDATORY for conviction of statutory rape in six states: Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Louisianna, North Carolina and South Carolina.
The death penalty is POSSIBLE in 10 others: Alabama, Kentucky, Maryland, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, and West Virginia.
Life imprisonment is the maximum penalty provided in many other states. New York is one of the most lenient states with a maximum penalty of 10 years! Most of these laws are certainly antiquated and hopelessly out of touch with the liberal sexual climate of today.
As if this weren’t enough to make a man pause in his footsteps—the age at which a girl is considered an adult varies across the United States from 14 to 21, though the average age is 18. This means that having sexual relations with a girl may be legal in one state but outlawed in another
Why can a young girl have sexual relations when she is married but is forbidden to have them if not? The act and the girl are the same in both cases. If a girl is legally free to choose a husband it seems pure hypocrisy to deny her the same right to choose a lover.
After all is said and done probably more men than will admit it find young girls sexually attractive, and would sleep with them at the drop of a bonnet, were it not for the legal penalties involved. But, paradoxically, legal restraints seem to have little effect upon sexual impulses directed at young girls. In fact, as Doctor Albert Ellis has noted, they probably have an opposite effect upon sexual conduct, the greater are the temptations to engage in them for their own sake. So long as balling young girls is considered a crime there will always be a large number of men who will be willing to risk martyrdom as an act of social defiance.
Crime, strictly defined, is a hostile act against the social body, or the individual parts thereof, and who does balling harm except those who don’t get enough? The real ‘dirty old men’ are the antiquarian judges, legislators, ministers, etc. who fear their own sexual impulses, and who, themselves, need some form of official restraint. It seems fairly obvious that those who conceive of themselves as guardians of public morals are those who most fear any loosening of those morals. In other words, psychoanalytically, such men are but projecting their own fears onto the general populace, accusing others of ‘criminal’ impulses they, themselves, are heir to.
And that ain’t going to change, baby, until the whole society, with its repressions, superstitions, and superfluous restrictions on private morality, is changed, and until all those old men in their black robes learn that it’s more fun to MAKE LOVE—NOT WAR.