At the time that Mary Kay Letourneau was arrested for raping a child, I was 10 years old. I was also being raped by a grown woman at that time. The message from a lot of adults, especially men, to me and so many other kids--particularly boys--is that women can't be predators.
There were many reasons I didn't tell anyone what was happening to me, but the biggest, by far, was that I didn't think an adult would believe me. Seeing grown men joke about teen boys being raped by women and how great that was only reinforced my fears.
The vast majority of rapists and sexual assailants are men, yes, but even now, there are grown adults who don't believe women can prey on children, particularly if that child is a boy. That is entirely destructive. Letourneau raped a child. She was a monster.
And not for nothing: while grown men--many of them prominent--were making light of a boy being raped by his teacher, feminists were speaking up about the horror of the situation. Feminists were trying to protect boys.
