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Original poster

Jail Bait. please help me articulate why is it such an offensive phrase please.

36 replies

Ormirian · 07/11/2010 20:43

DH used it about a young DD of one of our friends. I spluttered and got cross. He looked embarrassed. All I could say was 'she's just a child, if anyone touches here they are disgusting' but I don't think it clarified things much.

It just made me see red.

OP posts:
ByThePowerOfGreyskull · 07/11/2010 23:21

I agree with all that has been written above,

almost suggesting it was known that jail was waiting but that the prize of raping a child would be worth it.

It makes me feel physically sick, but that is probably due to my baggage of being raped when I was 11.

HerBeatitude · 07/11/2010 23:19

Yep agree with all the others, it's offensive because it justifies paedophilia and it takes on the mindset of a paedophile - "I can't help raping children when they look so good."

Disgusting.

ElephantsAndMiasmas · 07/11/2010 23:14

It implies that she's a "snare" to otherwise right-thinking chaps who might be lured by her fearsome 13 year old body into acting like paedophiles/statutory rapists. Which they aren't otherwise. Honest.

It's similar to the way that "lolita" has been transformed from the name of a girl who is a victim of rape and child abuse in a book, to mean "a tempting underage girl who knows what she wants [sex with 40 year old men]".

Vile.

OptimistS · 07/11/2010 21:10

I think the reason it bothers me is because it firmly places the role of a female solely in terms of how she affects men. It implies that she wouldn't be worth mentioning or even thinking about in her own right and her only interesting feature is how she may be perceived by the men around her. Sad

Original poster
Ormirian · 07/11/2010 20:53

Thanks.

That is it. It makes it her responsibility and it isn't.

OP posts:
PosieComeHereMyPreciousParker · 07/11/2010 20:51

Or does it mean 'fuckable' and therefore statutory rape. (excuse those terms)

scurryfunge · 07/11/2010 20:51

It transfers blame for any illegality to the victim.

Original poster
Ormirian · 07/11/2010 20:50

Yes grannie - he was using it as shorthand. The child in question is 13 and without a doubt is well-developed for her age and dresses in a quite adult way. But you only have to speak to her for a few minutes to see that she is just a child.

OP posts:
PosieComeHereMyPreciousParker · 07/11/2010 20:50

I had no idea what it meant, never thought about it, but now I have eeeewwww. It does imply that she so something that she'd tempt someone into raping her. How the fuck anyone can ever be measured in that way is disgusting.

grannieonabike · 07/11/2010 20:48

Maybe because it implies that anyone who goes for a young girl is baited, ie tempted, and so it's not their fault ...?

It's the classic paedophile/rapist line: 'She was leading me on' or 'Just couldn't help myself - temptation beyond my control'. All rather nasty.

NOT implying that your husband is any such thing, obviously! He probably just meant that she was attractive and young or precocious/well-developed?

SleepingLion · 07/11/2010 20:45

Because it suggests that a girl under the legal age of consent is sexually attractive/sexually provocative/sexually precocious.

Which is just icky.

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