From David:

This is sort of odd, ’cause their list… the women are really really hot.

So why would women, who can get their pick of the lekking order, want adolescent boys?

The lonliness excuse doesn’t fly, ’cause they can get whoever.

i don’t think it’s fair to call them pedophiles if they’re not pursuing pre-adolescents, but…

and the whole “tenderoni” thing implies it’s not exploitative and/or predatory…

From Amanda Hess:

David, I agree with you that neither “pedophile” and “tenderoni” seem to fit here. I also agree the women are attractive, and at least socially adept enough to be hired as schoolteachers.

So why do they want to have sex with underage boys? Remember that these women are risking their jobs, reputations, and free lives in order to do it. In Letourneau’s case, she even served time, was released, and returned to the boy again (they’re now married). How do we account for this compulsion to do so despite the consequences?

I’m not going to venture to say that what sexual predators do can ever truly make sense. But when a woman preys on a young man, I can’t help but think that some of the compulsion here lies in subverting the traditional gender dynamic. Sure, many of these women could probably have their pick of men of legal-age. But while those men might want them, would they need them like an underage kid does?

From Eleanora D'Aborborera:

“I’m not going to venture to say that what sexual predators do can ever truly make sense. But when a woman preys on a young man, I can’t help but think that some of the compulsion here lies in subverting the traditional gender dynamic.”

Amanda! This is why I almost never read your column. You are sitting there with the entire internet at your fingertips, and the opportunity to share actual information with many people.

How about you (1) do a search to see what has been written on the topic, and (2) call a few experts to ask their opinions and then (3) write up a few of the things you have learned? Is that too much to ask of someone who writes the only news/culture gender-conscious feature in the City Paper?

Sigh.

I'll double that Sigh, Eleanora. I wish that I had time to thoroughly report out all the conversations that go on in the comments section of my blog. For better or for worse, though, the blog mostly functions as a venue for myself and others to share, opine, and argue. Some of the sex and gender issues I care about I'll open for discussion on the blog; others, I'll report out fully (and I would be honored if you would look for my reported column in the newspaper every week!)

That being said, I'm probably not going to write a reported column on adult female sex offenders, citing experts and victims and perpetrators—it's just not my main area of interest, and I'm a local reporter, not a national one. Even if I did spend a day making phone calls, is that going to conclusively determine why some women sexually abuse underage men? Still, I don't think that precludes me from sharing an opinion that I've formed by following the media coverage of these cases—that these women are acting from a position of power that they can't claim with men of their own age and status; that they are often themselves victims of male dominance (either culturally or explicitly through their own sexual assault experiences); and that her actions are often downplayed specifically because she is a woman, and doesn't fit the abuser profile. Does any of this mean that I can truly understand the abuse of a minor? No.

I can't write a newspaper story for every blog comment, but I can open the conversation on this blog, and I encourage anyone and everyone to share their own insights and information and links and opinions on the phenomenon. Maybe someone else, like you, will take an interest in the subject and write a story on it. If you do, I'll link!

In the meantime, you can check out my reported work here.

Yesterday, the Washington Post published a love letter to young love by Mark Regnerus. Piggybacking on the trend of couples marrying later in life, Regnerus argues that today's young adults should stop delaying matrimony by "hitting the clubs, incessantly checking Facebook, Twittering their latest love interest and obsessing about their poor job prospects," and just get married already.

But Regnerus isn't really P.O.ed at eternal undergrads drinking their lives away—only the females. What Mark Regnerus is truly lamenting is a trend away from what I like to call the "Tenderoni" theory of marriage:

The average age of American men marrying for the first time is now 28. That's up five full years since 1970 and the oldest average since the Census Bureau started keeping track. If men weren't pulling women along with them on this upward swing, I wouldn't be complaining. But women are now taking that first plunge into matrimony at an older age as well. The age gap between spouses is narrowing: Marrying men and women were separated by an average of more than four years in 1890 and about 2.5 years in 1960. Now that figure stands at less than two years. I used to think that only young men—and a minority at that—lamented marriage as the death of youth, freedom and their ability to do as they pleased. Now this idea is attracting women, too.

"Tenderoni"—"a slang terminology which refers to a younger male or female love interest"—emerged in the 1970s, but the concept is as old as time. Ah, the '70s—when women, on average, married half a decade older than themselves. Creepy.

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Michael Jackson, lifetime Tenderoni enthusiast

But alas, the 1970's are over—have been for decades! That doesn't deter Regnerus, who pulls some stats to argue why older men should return to the good old days of marrying 'Ronis: "women's 'market value' declines steadily as they age, while men's tends to rise in step with their growing resources," he reports; "women who marry at 18 have a better shot at making a marriage work than men who marry at 21."

It's telling that Regnerus' arguments for marrying young are all about making marriages work, not making women's lives better. Women should get married young because young women can devote themselves to staying married (instead of their careers). If women wait don't settle early on, maybe no man will ever marry them (and what will support them then—certainly not their own careers!)

Let's go back to Regnerus' vision of unmarried 20-something for a moment. They're all wasting their time "hitting the clubs, incessantly checking Facebook, Twittering their latest love interest and obsessing about their poor job prospects," right? Oh, wait a minute—that last one is actually not a waste of time, but the point of many people's lives! Too bad these young people have such "poor job prospects"—they should probably just abandon them and marry someone who already has a career, like an old dude. (Too bad Regnerus is taken!)

I'm not going to argue why people ought to wait until they're older to get married. But I will argue against the "Tenderoni" theory of marriage—that men should wait, but women can't. If women are expected to marry older men, they're forced to enter into an inherently unequal union. Younger women may be better prepared to stand by their men than young guys, but they lack other marks of maturity—established careers, higher salaries, direction in life. If one partner has a well-established career, and the other is just beginning to weigh her "poor job prospects," his job will always take precedent. He will be the breadwinner. She will get some job—whatever best accommodates his. She'll abandon it when she moves where his job moves. When marriage is urgent, the career always waits.

But if the marriage ends—and most do—where does that leave our aging Tenderonis?

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Bobby Brown was actually Whitney's Tenderoni!