DS 16 debagged at school

[Atomsplitter]

My 16 year old year 12 student has just disclosed to me that he was debagged/pantsed by another student while on his recent D of E expedition. Luckily he managed to hold on to his underwear but still very embarrassing 😳 He also said that the same student has been trying to do the same in the common room at school. DS has to tie his shorts really tight to prevent him from pulling them down. AIBU to think this is sexual assault? This person is not his friend and is a bit of a dick according to DS. He has targeted others too apparently, some have been totally exposed. I want to contact the school but DS doesn't want me to and won't tell me the students name.

I don't bloody blame you. I'm furious on behalf of you and your son, too! It seems that children, who are among the most vulnerable in society, are expected to put up with abuse that adults would never be expected to.

You could try reading the OP. His genitals weren't exposed.

You could also have tried reading my whole post instead of the bit you cherry picked.

That completely depends on what you mean by "assault".

If you pick someone up without consent then that's assault, if you pick them up with consent then it's not assault. If you cut someone's leg off with consent, (unless you're a qualified surgeon going through the appropriate channels) that's still assault.

Assault is several different offences - some can be consented to (and thereby are not assault) and some cannot be consented to.

No, I don’t think so. I’m not into minimising this.

You're doing the opposite of minimising it, but you're responding to something that you've imagined up and not what actually happened. Repeatedly mentioning having underwear pulled down and 'having your genitals forcibly exposed' when the OP clearly stated that her DS's underpants stayed on.

And you picked out the one part of my post where I said that being annoyed and then moving on from it was one possible response to what is completely unacceptable behaviour that would be very upsetting for most people. If it happened to me I'd be outraged. If it happened you, you'd be outraged. And that's a perfectly normal response but if other people are less outraged and don't want to raise merry hell that's their decision.

I'm sorry if your upbringing led you to believe that it's okay for someone to try tp publicly expose your genitals without consent

My upbringing led to nothing of the sort. Please don't assume my views on consent.

The children in my family were extremely fortunate to have been raised in such a way that we were emotionally - and more importantly, physically - capable of dealing with anyone who didn't respect our boundaries.

If someone had tried to 'pants' one us at the age of 17, it would have gone extremely badly for them if we weren't in on the joke. If someone had tried to sexually assault one of us, you'd have read about what happened to them in the paper.

Thankfully in addition to being taught how to look after ourselves, we were taught to know the difference between a stupid prank and a sinister assault, and how to respond proportionately.

You know full well (or at least you should) that the chances of this being anything more than childhood silliness are so slim as to be non-existent. Lads have been 'pantsing' each other since pants were invented. I know adults in their 40s who still do it to each other in the gym.

It's extremely dumb and immature whether it's a 14-year-old or a 44-year-old doing it. But for the most part that's all it is. And in school, it may contribute to a pattern of behavior that constitutes bullying, but in and of itself it is almost certainly not a sexually motivated assault.

To suggest to children that it is, is to trivialise actual sexual assault, and fill them with unnecessary fear. It also has the potential to attach a lasting stigma to the perpetrator that they don't deserve.

However you might feel about the law and its possible application, your anger at a mother asking for advice on the issue (and deciding to encourage her son to report it to the school) is disproportionate, to the extent that it suggests that you might have some unresolved trauma.

I understand the law quite well, which is why my eyes roll when I see people suggesting that involving the police in a situation like this should be the first port of call.

My post lamented the fact that people have become so fragile, they think calling the police to report the oldest schoolyard prank in the book as a sexual assault is a proportionate response.

Fragile parents raise fragile kids. And I do find that pathetic.

It's interesting that you took that to mean that I'm somehow angry at the OP to the point that I have unresolved trauma. Almost like your default position is to blow things massively out of proportion.

OP's kid, one year off being a legal adult, has asked her not to get involved. I don't know where you went to school, but if a 17 year old's mum came in and got people in trouble for 'pantsing' them at my school, the stick they'd have got as a result would have been biblical. They'd have ended up the stuff of legend.

My advice was to respect her young adult son's wishes and avoid that at all costs.

If so, perhaps consider speaking to someone, professional or otherwise. If not - consider calming the fuck down x

You're absolutely entitled to disagree with anything and everything I've said, but suggesting that I'm somehow mentally unwell enough to need professional help because we hold opposing views (which you've apparently determined based on a single post) is a bit much, don't you think?

If you think I'm chatting wham, I'd be more interested in hearing why than sarcastically having my mental health questioned by a person who's brave enough to talk big behind a screen, but would absolutely get pantsed/an atomic wedgie if they told me to calm the fuck down to my face 😂

I'm very disturbed by your response and you are part of the problem of a generation of parents who think this type of behaviour is ok. It simply isn’t.

I didn't say it was OK. It's (almost certainly) not a sexual assault and jumping to that conclusion without evidence is preposterous and wreckless.

If it's part of a targeted pattern of bullying behavior that's making OP's kid's life miserable then it should be dealt with as such.

If it's an immature kid acting immaturely then it should be dealt with as such. At 17, I would be expecting OP's son to be standing up for himself in that situation. What would be do if someone did it to him in the street?

Not only does throwing the term 'sexual assault' out willy nilly diminish actual cases of SA, it has the potential to attach a stigma to the accused that could have serious repercussions. Conviction or not, the mere accusation that someone has sexually assaulted a child at school can ruin someone's life.

I'm all for 'Play silly games, win silly prizes', but an 18 year old idiot doesn't deserve that label for a harmless prank. And while it may be embarrassing, it is, ultimately, harmless.

Of course we treat children differently to adults. They're learning how to act and behave in real time, testing boundaries and experiencing consequences. They've not all had the best teachers. Some of them haven't had any teachers. Some of them have been purposely taught bad behaviors. Their brains are literally still developing.

Removing someone's liberty is the harshest punishment we have in this country. It has massive, lifelong consequences. Unless they're a legitimate danger to society, of course we should give children all the leeway possible before doing so.

If two adults have a fist fight at work, they're losing their jobs and potentially going to prison.

If two students have a fight after school, they might get excluded for a day or a weeks detention.

Are we saying that's unreasonable?

We know what happens when you criminalise adults, all that criminalising children would do is start that cycle earlier.

People are quick to toss around the term 'sexual assault' on this thread, without considering the lifelong consequences of labeling a someone a sex offender.

Yes this. I can’t believe people behave like this and people are minimising it.

Naming the act is not the same as determining the punishment.

None of us know this persons motivations, but the fact is that at 17, he is within a year of being classified as an adult in the eyes of the law. Whatever he or any of the rest of us thinks about whether it’s just a joke and a rite of passage or not (personally I cannot abide the boys will be boys justification for poor behaviour) he can’t walk around the streets forcibly removing peoples clothes against their will without rapidly running into some serious problems.

It happened at school, and therefore I think the school needs to know, as they have a duty of care to everyone involved to address this; the student who is perpetrating needs to understand the seriousness of his actions, and all of the other students deserve to be able to go to school without worrying that someone might pull their clothes off

The fact that this nearly adult keeps doing it makes it seem like it's a bit of a fetish and that he's getting thrills out of it.

I am amazed by the number of adults, some of whom (God help us) work in schools, who think it isn’t sexual assault to forcibly remove someone’s trousers in a way that exposes their genitalia.

Let's take a moment to consider what your attitudes would be if he had done this to ... you?

Also I'd want to know what this boy might be observing, experiencing, enduring at home.

This kind of behaviour can be a symptom.

Um, I was not suggesting that children should be criminalised! I was saying that bullying like these boys have experienced should not go unpunished!

People are quick to toss around the term 'sexual assault' on this thread, without considering the lifelong consequences of labeling a someone a sex offender.

This type of thinking is messed up.
Surely you should be thinking, If you don't want the label then don't sexually assault someone.

Why would he get suspended for defending himself with a punch? He’s been assaulted.

He shouldn't, but you'd be surprised at some of the mad things that happen in schools.

Many years ago, one of my pupils was attacked by the school thug. He successfully defended himself and floored the bully.

Unbelievably, our HT wanted to suspend the victim. The only reason that it didn't happen was that the bully's mother told the HT that she was glad that someone had finally put her son in his place.

In law you can defend yourself in a reasonable and proportionate way. If a stranger walked up to you in the street and tried to pull your pants down, you'd almost certainly get away with punching them, regardless of them not hitting you first.

Depending on the context/specifics, I imagine a lot of schools would see lamping someone who pants'd you as disproportionate... especially as it comes down to a teacher's opinion rather than a legal test.

Yes. They'd soon change their tune if a 17 year old pulled their pants down or their 16 year old child's

It's sad to read the examples on this thread of people's sons who were affected years later by having their genitals exposed and the ensuing mocking. My sympathy lies with them and not the perpetrator, who seems to have a weird fetish, given how often he's doing it.

God, ok, slowly here…. they tried to, repeatedly, pull down his trousers and underwear. If they didn’t succeed then the intent is still the same. This isn’t ’the opposite of minimising’ (I believe that would be… maximizing?) - it is being clear about the intent and potential end result given we’re talking about whether something is sexual assault or not.

And yes, if it makes you feel, I don’t know… right? Then yes some people might have that happen to them and shrug it off. I probably wouldn’t say that to a sexual assault victim though, but perhaps that’s just me. I’ll leave this here though, as we definitely have different views on sexual assault and how to approach discussions relating to it.

The sexual assault aspect is a dead end, IMO. You would never prove intent, and I don't think it increases the seriousness of the assault anyway.

This type of thing is generally wanting to humiliate someone. It's bullying, nasty and cruel bullying and it should definitely be reported.

He has targeted others too apparently, some have been totally exposed

This is what the boy was trying to do to OP's son too. He only didn't succeed because op's son fought hard to keep his pants on.