Unlike Forcible Rape, "Statutory Rape" Is Merely A Legal Construct

Last night I was watching a clip of The Steve Wilkos Show about a man that was struggling to save his little girl from all the physical abuse that his ex-wife and her boyfriend were inflicting upon her. Steve Wilkos asked him why he couldn't take full custody of that little girl if he was her biological father. This man explained that when he was 18 years old and after he had sexual intercourse with his girlfriend, who was 15 years old at the time, he was charged and convicted of statutory rape.

This same man explained that his actions with his girlfriend weren't forcible rape, but rather it was defined as rape by the law despite that he and his girlfriend engaged sexually with each other on their own volition and nobody was ever harmed from the act itself. In other words, he fell into similar circumstances as Kevin Gillson did in Port Washington, Wisconsin, back in 1997. Most unfortunately, it landed him on the sex-offender registry. Mr. Wilkos played the devil's advocate with him at first. Watch the clip below.

A Guest On The Steve Wilkos Show Tries To Explain His Predicament That Prevents Him From Legally Gaining Custody Of His Daughter

Now, this man who was trying to protect his daughter was not some child predator who had been waiting in the bushes to grab a toddler. No, when he was younger, he was involved in a Romeo-and-Juliet relationship with a girl who was slightly on the opposite side of the legal age line from him. He poses no danger to his daughter. He wants to save his daughter from the violent abuse that her mother and her mother's boyfriend have been inflicting upon her.

I'm glad that Mr. Wilkos came around toward the end of the show and lent his emotional support to the biological father as the biological father was breaking into tears. As hotheaded as Mr. Wilkos can be, even he has proven that he has a soft spot in his heart for people in that man's predicament.

When this poor man was arrested on a charge of statutory rape for having intercourse with his 15-year-old girlfriend back when he was 18 years old, he and his girlfriend had been watching Bugs Bunny cartoons 10 years earlier. I mean, that's how close in age difference they were, and yet the criminal justice system and the court system treated him as though he was some violent sexual predator.

Interestingly enough, a woman named Elizabeth Damon posted in the comments section to that same video clip on YouTube the following comment:

I am going through the same thing with my son and his girlfriend. 17 and almost 19. Just because her parents didn’t like her being with him. Now he is going to have to live with this on his record for a while. He didn’t rape her and she even told the court this but he was convicted anyway. Our legal system is so messed up.

So many years ago when Whoopi Goldberg said on The View that there was "statutory rape" and then there was "rape rape," many people got upset about it. Nonetheless, when you think about it, it is true. "Statutory rape" is nothing more than a legal construct rather than a violent, barbaric, heinous act of sexual brutality.

Our society throws the word "rape" around loosely without giving a second thought to the consequences of mislabeling someone with that same scarlet letter. Ms. Damon is correct in her opinion that our criminal justice system and court system are both in dire need of reform.

Elected officials continue to ignore the austerity of statutory-rape laws that target teenagers close in age difference. Matthew Walsh, Robert Knowles, and Michael Knowles will get on The Daily Wire podcast and run their mouths about how they feel that Romeo-and-Juliet provisions should not exist in American statutory-rape laws in state jurisdictions that do have them, but none of them have apparently had a family member get treated unfairly by the system after being arrested for something of this nature.

Of course, I have made it no secret in previous articles that I am no fan of American statutory-rape laws simply because they infantilize sexually active teenagers in our nation. It has nothing to do with anything I have done with anyone in my past, which, by the way, has never been illegal on my part.

I have never really been a fan of The Steve Wilkos Show; but I feel that if Mr. Wilkos can show the kind of compassion to other guests on his show that he showed to the above-described gentleman in the event they have fallen into similar circumstances as that gentleman, then I feel that he should be given at least one more season on the television airwaves, if not remain on the air for as long as he wants to do so. Talk shows are much more expressive of controversial issues than social media is.

It's a shame that there are hardly any more talk shows on the air anymore. I admit that at one time I was a talk-show junkie when most of them were still on the air, although I agree that some of them went overboard in the form of the 1995 murder of Scott Amedure that occurred as a result of an edition of The Jenny Jones Show that never aired. Nevertheless, people get to talk about issues that they wouldn't normally do so on news programs.

Ladies and gentlemen? If our elected officials are too cowardly to clean up our nation's sex laws, then we need to vote them out of office, period. The United States is developing a negative reputation because of the flaws in these same laws, and our criminal justice system and court system are doing nothing to alleviate the tyranny for which these laws are being used.

Travel anywhere outside the United States, and you won't find any nation other than perhaps other ones in the Anglosphere that has as draconian and outrageous statutory-rape laws as those of the United States. This travesty of justice is even getting woven into the cultural fiber of our society in the form of ridiculous sex-offender-registration laws and online sex-sting operations that amount to nothing more than entrapment.

The above-described guest on The Steve Wilkos Show is trying to do everything to rescue his little girl from violence and physical abuse, and the very criminal justice system and court system that are supposed to be helping him are throwing monkey wrenches in his pathway instead. Our nation's laws should not work this way. They are helping the wrong people and persecuting the wrong people.

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