Is a relationship with a mentally challenged person "child sex abuse"?

[HMILF]

I wrote about my relationship with a mentally challenged boy some time ago. when it happened I was 43 and he was 19. I believe there was nothing wrong with our relationship, both morally and legally. Many members believed that it was a beautiful relationship. I even wrote it as a story with more details and tried to publish it, but not only it was rejected because of "child sex abuse", my thread was deleted as well!

Contrary to the editors beliefs, I believe describing that relationship as "child sex abuse" is immoral. Mentally challenged people are not children; when they reach the legal age, they have every right which other people have. it's very cruel to treat them like children for all of their lives. it also hampers their mental and social development - which they are able to reach to some degree. The person which I had a relationship with was actually more responsible and acted more mature than many people who are not suffering from down syndrome.

 

[Chlobo]

I wrote about my relationship with a mentally challenged boy some time ago. when it happened I was 43 and he was 19. I believe there was nothing wrong with our relationship, both morally and legally. Many members believed that it was a beautiful relationship. I even wrote it as a story with more details and tried to publish it, but not only it was rejected because of "child sex abuse", my thread was deleted as well!

Contrary to the editors beliefs, I believe describing that relationship as "child sex abuse" is immoral. Mentally challenged people are not children; when they reach the legal age, they have every right which other people have. it's very cruel to treat them like children for all of their lives. it also hampers their mental and social development - which they are able to reach to some degree. The person which I had a relationship with was actually more responsible and acted more mature than many people who are not suffering from down syndrome.

Absolutely not. I don’t understand why your story got rejected, might be worth trying another editor or speaking to an admin. If that doesn’t work there are plenty of other sites you could share your story.

 

[DarkPleasures]

This thread is not in the correct board. What other thread was deleted? That may give some insight here. As for your story being rejected, did you make it crystal clear that the young man was 19? Did you write the story as if he were a child mentally? Hell, when you had sex with this person, WAS he mentally a child? I work with adults who have disabilities and some of them are mentally children, for lack of better words. To have sex with some of those people would be morally and ethically wrong.

 

[NotWise]

I wrote about my relationship with a mentally challenged boy some time ago. when it happened I was 43 and he was 19. I believe there was nothing wrong with our relationship, both morally and legally. Many members believed that it was a beautiful relationship. I even wrote it as a story with more details and tried to publish it, but not only it was rejected because of "child sex abuse", my thread was deleted as well!

Contrary to the editors beliefs, I believe describing that relationship as "child sex abuse" is immoral. Mentally challenged people are not children; when they reach the legal age, they have every right which other people have. it's very cruel to treat them like children for all of their lives. it also hampers their mental and social development - which they are able to reach to some degree. The person which I had a relationship with was actually more responsible and acted more mature than many people who are not suffering from down syndrome.

From your description, I think the site made the right decision. If they didn't follow that policy then what would keep someone from writing a story about fucking a 10-year old, and then couching it in terms of "they were eighteen, but mentally challenged?"

Keep your sex between adults.

 

[SimonDoom]

From your description, I think the site made the right decision. If they didn't follow that policy then what would keep someone from writing a story about fucking a 10-year old, and then couching it in terms of "they were eighteen, but mentally challenged?"

Keep your sex between adults.

What in the world are you talking about?

A mentally challenged person who is over 18 is not a child. Having sex with such a person is not having sex with a child. It would be awful and wrong to deny to such a person the right to have sex or to believe that such a person was incapable of choosing to have a sexual relationship. It would be wrong to deny a writer the ability to write about such a relationship. This is a terrible view.

 

[jaF0]

I work with adults who have disabilities and some of them are mentally children, for lack of better words. To have sex with some of those people would be morally and ethically wrong.

It can be criminal if there's a question of ability to consent.

 

[NotWise]

What in the world are you talking about?

A mentally challenged person who is over 18 is not a child. Having sex with such a person is not having sex with a child. It would be awful and wrong to deny to such a person the right to have sex or to believe that such a person was incapable of choosing to have a sexual relationship. It would be wrong to deny a writer the ability to write about such a relationship. This is a terrible view.

I do have a personal problem with adults taking advantage of mentally challenged people. Maybe it's okay for you to fuck a mental 8 year old. It isn't okay for me.

From the site's angle, I don't think it should ever be acceptable. It's just another way around the "must be adult" rule. Someone could write a story about a 43-year-old woman (or man) fucking an 8-year-old boy (or girl), and then say "they were 18, but mentally challenged."

 

[Bramblethorn]

The question of a mentally handicapped person's ability to consent is a complex one that's not amenable to simple cutoffs. Things like birthdays and IQ tests are not necessarily good measures for the emotional maturity needed to make good decisions about sex. Highly trained lawyers and ethicists struggle to find the right balance between protecting the vulnerable and letting people live their lives.

AFAIK, Laurel isn't a highly trained lawyer or ethicist, so I'm not terribly surprised she just noped on this one, especially with an age gap that would be cause for concern even without the DS angle.

Content being rejected here doesn't necessarily mean that the site owners consider that scenario immoral, or vice versa; sometimes it just means that they don't want the grief that could come with hosting it.

 

[Enchantment_of_Nyx]

What in the world are you talking about?

A mentally challenged person who is over 18 is not a child. Having sex with such a person is not having sex with a child. It would be awful and wrong to deny to such a person the right to have sex or to believe that such a person was incapable of choosing to have a sexual relationship. It would be wrong to deny a writer the ability to write about such a relationship. This is a terrible view.

It's not denying a writer the ability to write about the relationship. It's denying them the ability to publish it here. You've made a sweeping declaration about all mentally challenged people, for admirable reasons, but it's not that cut and dried. It's a terribly problematic issue with no good answers that can be captured in the form of rules. There are mentally challenged people who are adults when they are adults. There are mentally challenged people who don't have the comprehension to ever be able to consent. Treating them categorically like children is wrong, and so is categorically leaving them open to predation.

The average IQ is 100, and most people fall between 80 and 120. An IQ of 70 might be diagnosed as mental retardation, but in that range, you're talking about someone who is definitely a mental adult. There are four diagnosed levels of mental retardation, and they go all the way down to an IQ of 20. An IQ of 20-40 is considered severe mental retardation.

Mental age is something that is tested for. Criminally, a person is not liable for an adult punishment if their mental age is not that of an adult. If a person is capable of performing only the mental exercises of a ten year-old, that person's mental age is said to be ten. Mental retardation isn't just being less able to learn. It can involve an inability to grasp or process abstract concepts. At certain levels of mental retardation, the person lacks a concept of far future, or may have a tenuous grasp of consequences. Problem solving can be be seriously impaired. Even the ability to perform multiple steps of a task can be too much unless the person is reminded of the steps one at a time.

Testing for "mental age" is problematic because of the social and legal ramifications, but it is an objective indication of a difference. I don't know what the right way is to characterize that difference. Generally speaking, emotional maturity advances in tandem with intellectual maturity. If that development isn't tandem, I can see how how problematic that would be.

This isn't a subject that allows easy answers or black and white solutions, and it's not terrible to view it as a potentially inappropriate relationship. Whether or not to publish it on Lit is a much easier question to answer for me. The answer, for me, is that you don't publish it for the same reason stories aren't published about 16 year olds, even though some 16 year olds are more emotionally mature than some 26 year olds.

A story like this could be tastefully handled elsewhere. I don't think a sex story site is the right place for it.

 

[SisterJezabel]

It boils down to informed consent and mental capabilities. Consent is more than 'Yes you can stick your dick in me,' but the person realising the implications of this. There are countless legal cases where people have been charged with rape after impregnation of an adult with an intellectual disability, arguing that whilst the body may have been willing, the person did not fully understand the ramifications of what they were doing.

At the other end of the spectrum you have people with dementia. I worked in a nursing home once where we had to keep a firm eye on two of the residents. He was always trying to stick it in, for want of a better term, and she legitimately thought he was her late husband. Because they both had advanced dementia nothing could be done legally, but the home had a moral obligation to provide safety to these residents.

Then you have those in the midst of a manic or psychotic episode. I nursed a woman once who lived with bipolar illness but was married and both were pillars in their church. She decided to stop taking her meds, developed a mania and went and screwed countless guys at nightclubs in town ending up with various STDs. I'd love to know what happened to their marriage- he was hell bent on having her back etc, but I'm not sure if they ended up happily ever after.

 

[Enchantment_of_Nyx]

I wrote about my relationship with a mentally challenged boy some time ago. when it happened I was 43 and he was 19. I believe there was nothing wrong with our relationship, both morally and legally. Many members believed that it was a beautiful relationship. I even wrote it as a story with more details and tried to publish it, but not only it was rejected because of "child sex abuse", my thread was deleted as well!

Contrary to the editors beliefs, I believe describing that relationship as "child sex abuse" is immoral. Mentally challenged people are not children; when they reach the legal age, they have every right which other people have. it's very cruel to treat them like children for all of their lives. it also hampers their mental and social development - which they are able to reach to some degree. The person which I had a relationship with was actually more responsible and acted more mature than many people who are not suffering from down syndrome.

You called him a boy, not a man. If your story included descriptors like that, it might have contributed to the issue. I think there are other legitimate reasons not to publish it, but I think your first line says a lot, even if it's contradicted by your clear statements that the "boy" was not a child and the fact that he was 19 years old.

I'm not suggesting he wasn't an adult. There are many people who are mentally challenged who are adults. There are others who aren't. I addressed the difficulty in a separate post. But, if he's referred to as a boy or written in a way that sounds like you're writing about a child, that may have contributed to the problem. If you had any descriptors like "child-like" that would have compounded it. I mention "child-like" because it fits into the same romanticization as "beautiful relationship." We tend not to describe "normal" relationships that way, and it seems to me that your intention was to describe what you view as a normal relationship.

If you want to write about this relationship, you could write about it without labeling the person as mentally challenged. Just talk about the challenges themselves without categorizing them. If what you really want to do is address the issue of a relationship with a mentally challenged person, you could leave the sex out of it and publish it in non-erotic stories (I'm guessing this would get past, but don't know), or publish it elsewhere, preferably somewhere that's geared towards exploring the social issue. Publishing this sort of story as an erotic story is many times more problematic than publishing it in a non-erotic format. The legal and moral issues are the same, but there's not the risk of feeding the appetites of a predator.

Just my suggestions.

 

[Emirus]

Whether or not the story was to get past Laurel, from how you have described it, it’s not a story I would like to read on this site and I wouldn’t get any further than reading the description. I’m sure a story like that could be written in a sensitive way but not for this site.

 

[SimonDoom]

I agree the issue of consent is not cut and dried, but that doesn't mean that a mentally challenged person over 18 is a child. The law doesnt treat them as a child. Underage sex and statutory rape laws do not apply. So I don't understand why this would run afoul of Laurel's rule. Sex of this sort should fall under the non consent category if consent is an issue. Nonconsent stories are allowed. It strikes me as an odd application of the rule. The fact that the behavior may be illegal, as well, doesn't mean the story is.

 

[RetroFan]

My advice is do not write erotic material that involves one party being mentally disabled at all.

No matter how good your intentions are or how well your story is written, it will not be received well in any category, and can only come across as creepy, uncomfortable and will be seen as sexual manipulation and taking advantage of a mentally disabled person.

I've written stories about characters who are stupid, naive, have a personality disorder such as being borderline or a sociopath or who are physically disabled, but all of these characters are mentally competent consenting adults who are capable of making the decision whether or not to have sex.

But no way, never in a million years, would I ever write a story where one of the erotic partners has Down's Syndrome, autism or some other mental developmental disorder nor would I read one.

 

[jaF0]

I agree the issue of consent is not cut and dried, but that doesn't mean that a mentally challenged person over 18 is a child. The law doesnt treat them as a child.

That's not necessarily true in the U.S. We also have laws that prohibit relations where one is in some way a caretaker or has authority over another, regardless of age.

 

[jaF0]

So I don't understand why this would run afoul of Laurel's rule.

Something has changed in recent days or weeks. Posts and threads are being nuked on the forum side for reasons they never were in the past. Very long time IDs, many years old with tens of thousands of posts have been nuked also.

No explanations have been posted, nor rules updated.

 

[lovecraft68]

From your description, I think the site made the right decision. If they didn't follow that policy then what would keep someone from writing a story about fucking a 10-year old, and then couching it in terms of "they were eighteen, but mentally challenged?"

Keep your sex between adults.

First the rule is the character has to be 18, in this example the character is 19. If the character acts immature due to being mentally immature from a mental disability....that is nothing compared to the countless stories here with character, usually girls that are '18' dressing speaking and acting much much younger...but never a problem there, right?

But this site also allows the term budding breasts, does it not? Search it and read some of the stories that show up.

This is another example of running the site based on whim not rule and a bunch of ass kissing hypocrites always defending the indefensible.

"wahhhh its laurel's site....wahhhh she can be as unfair as she wants don't like it tough, wahhhh

Its what you spineless toadies sound like.

 

[lovecraft68]

I wrote about my relationship with a mentally challenged boy some time ago. when it happened I was 43 and he was 19. I believe there was nothing wrong with our relationship, both morally and legally. Many members believed that it was a beautiful relationship. I even wrote it as a story with more details and tried to publish it, but not only it was rejected because of "child sex abuse", my thread was deleted as well!

Contrary to the editors beliefs, I believe describing that relationship as "child sex abuse" is immoral. Mentally challenged people are not children; when they reach the legal age, they have every right which other people have. it's very cruel to treat them like children for all of their lives. it also hampers their mental and social development - which they are able to reach to some degree. The person which I had a relationship with was actually more responsible and acted more mature than many people who are not suffering from down syndrome.

Your story touches on a subject a bit more serious and mature than the average story

My advice to you is find a better venue for your work, one that has actual rules they stick by based on the rule not being a fickle child, and one that has some class

Literotica is neither of those.

Post it somewhere else.

 

[lovecraft68]

I do have a personal problem with adults taking advantage of mentally challenged people. Maybe it's okay for you to fuck a mental 8 year old. It isn't okay for me.

From the site's angle, I don't think it should ever be acceptable. It's just another way around the "must be adult" rule. Someone could write a story about a 43-year-old woman (or man) fucking an 8-year-old boy (or girl), and then say "they were 18, but mentally challenged."

And I have a problem with you acting like a mentally challenged person is not a person or an adult.

Your ignorance and intolerance is a bigger handicap than any of mentally challenged people will ever have.

And whatever problems they have they can't help and were born with,

You're attitude is deliberate.

 

[jaF0]

First the rule is the character has to be 18, in this example the character is 19. If the character acts immature due to being mentally immature from a mental disability....that is nothing compared to the countless stories here with character, usually girls that are '18' dressing speaking and acting much much younger...but never a problem there, right?

The difference there is that the latter is intentional and consciously playing/acting out a role. The former may incapable of knowing right from wrong.

 

[jaF0]

And I have a problem with you acting like a mentally challenged person is not a person or an adult.

They may or may not be considered mentally an adult legally regardless of body age.

 

[lovecraft68]

You called him a boy, not a man. If your story included descriptors like that, it might have contributed to the issue. I think there are other legitimate reasons not to publish it, but I think your first line says a lot, even if it's contradicted by your clear statements that the "boy" was not a child and the fact that he was 19 years old.

I'm not suggesting he wasn't an adult. There are many people who are mentally challenged who are adults. There are others who aren't. I addressed the difficulty in a separate post. But, if he's referred to as a boy or written in a way that sounds like you're writing about a child, that may have contributed to the problem. If you had any descriptors like "child-like" that would have compounded it. I mention "child-like" because it fits into the same romanticization as "beautiful relationship." We tend not to describe "normal" relationships that way, and it seems to me that your intention was to describe what you view as a normal relationship.

If you want to write about this relationship, you could write about it without labeling the person as mentally challenged. Just talk about the challenges themselves without categorizing them. If what you really want to do is address the issue of a relationship with a mentally challenged person, you could leave the sex out of it and publish it in non-erotic stories (I'm guessing this would get past, but don't know), or publish it elsewhere, preferably somewhere that's geared towards exploring the social issue. Publishing this sort of story as an erotic story is many times more problematic than publishing it in a non-erotic format. The legal and moral issues are the same, but there's not the risk of feeding the appetites of a predator.

Just my suggestions.

Daddy watching his 'little girl' do whatever is common here.
Girls who are '19' and dressing, speaking acting 13 are common here
The term budding breasts are allowed here.

The rejection has nothing to do with those terms being childish, but the usual bullshit.

This person is writing what they think is an empowering story where a mentally challenged person can enjoy what everyone else does.

This site and the people here don't have enough class to understand that, too busy posing and posturing with make believe outrage.

These same people write or read about 45 year old men having sex with girls who giggle and have underdeveloped prepubescent bodies.

Fact is, at its core this is a brave story trying to portray a looked down upon demographic as just like everyone else in many ways....and of course it gets trashed.

 

[SimonDoom]

There seems to be a creeping trend on this site and in the forums of more and more content being disapproved of -- of the conflation of illegal conduct with whether or not the story is improper to tell or to publish.

Generally speaking, there is no such principle. Turn on the TV. You will see every sort of depraved and illegal behavior imaginable. There was a mainstream movie with Mel Gibson about a developmentally challenged man having a sexual relationship with a woman. No one argues the movie shouldn't be made or shown, that I know of. There are TV shows and mainstream movies about serial killers, about rape and incest, underage sex, you name it. But increasingly authors here seem to want literotica to regulate story content by standards far more strict than what network TV allows. I think it's odd that an erotic story website should have stricter content standards.

 

[Enchantment_of_Nyx]

I agree the issue of consent is not cut and dried, but that doesn't mean that a mentally challenged person over 18 is a child. The law doesnt treat them as a child. Underage sex and statutory rape laws do not apply. So I don't understand why this would run afoul of Laurel's rule. Sex of this sort should fall under the non consent category if consent is an issue. Nonconsent stories are allowed. It strikes me as an odd application of the rule. The fact that the behavior may be illegal, as well, doesn't mean the story is.

By the same argument, stories about children would be allowed under non-consent. While it's true the law doesn't - and in my opinion, shouldn't - have provisions precluding mentally challenged people from having sex, it's not true that it treats them uniformly as adults.

Regarding sentencing for criminal convictions: In Atkins v. Virginia, 536 U.S. 304 (2002), the U.S. Supreme Court held that the execution of someone with intellectual disabilities violates the Eighth Amendment's ban of cruel and unusual punishment. Application varies widely because state law governs what constitutes an intellectual disability.

Regarding the trial of a person with mental disabilities: In Penry v Lynaugh, 492 US 302 (1989), the U.S. Supreme Court held that the jury had to be allowed and instructed to consider the defendant's mental age. The defendant was 22 year-old who raped, beat, stabbed and killed a woman, but was assessed to have a mental age of 6 years old.

Regarding competence to stand trial: A person with mental disabilities may not be put on trial if the person is not legally competent to confess, stand trail or plead incompetence. See, State ex rel. Vanderbeke v. Endicott, 210 Wis. 2d 502, 563 N.W. 2d 883 (1997). The test of whether a person is legally competent to do so is “[w]hether [a defendant] has sufficient present ability to consult with his lawyer with a reasonable degree of rational understanding – whether he has a rational as well as factual understanding of the procedures against him.” Dusky v. United States, 362 U.S. 402 (1969)

Regarding property: A court may appoint a conservator with or without the mentally challenged person's consent to manage the person's financial affairs. The conservator can have complete control or limited control, depending on the order. The law on requirements and procedures varies by state, but the general concept is universal. The judge may appoint a relative who applies to be conservator or may appoint a state agency to act as the conservator.

Regarding health decisions: A court may appoint a guardian with or without the mentally challenged person's consent to make health decisions. Like conservatorship, guardianship laws vary by state, but follow similar principles. Like conservatorship, the guardian may be a family member or interested person, or may be the state.

Consumer protection laws: Many states have provision in their consumer protection statutes that include heigthtened penalties for defrauding someone with mental disabilities.

Ability to enter into a contract: A mentally challenged person may not be able to enter into a legally binding contract. It's a state-by-state analysis, but it turns on the person's ability to understand the terms of the contract and to make basic judgments.

Consent to sexual activities: It varies by state, but rape laws often prohibit sex with someone with a someone who is legally incompetent by reason of mental disability to give their consent.

All of those legal exceptions for people with mental disabilities treat the person as a non-adult if they are judged not to have the mental capacity of an adult. They do not apply to people with mental disabilities who do have the mental capacity of adults.

The entire basis for all of these legal exceptions is that a person who does not have the mental capacity of an adult cannot be subjected to the same standards as an adult, and must be given the protections given to a non-adult. It's entirely consistent to treat a story about an adult who does not have an adult's mental capacity the same way a story about a chronological non-adult is treated.

The problem, of course, is that we don't know whether the person in the story's disability left them with a mental capacity that wasn't adult, but we know from the OP that he had Down's syndrome, and as Reuben said, most people with Down's syndrome do not have an adult's mental capacity. Since its a grey area, I can't imagine why it would be allowed.

 

[Bramblethorn]

I've written stories about characters who are stupid, naive, have a personality disorder such as being borderline or a sociopath or who are physically disabled, but all of these characters are mentally competent consenting adults who are capable of making the decision whether or not to have sex.

But no way, never in a million years, would I ever write a story where one of the erotic partners has Down's Syndrome, autism or some other mental developmental disorder nor would I read one.

Are you fucking kidding me?

Guess I'd better go break up with my partner of two decades then, since apparently neither of us are mentally competent to consent to sex.