Pedophilia in the United States

The hotly contested Senate race in Alabama has recently come under fire due to the actions of one candidate, Roy Moore. He has so been accused of assault by 8 women, all stating that they were underage at the time of the encounter. he first accusations came out on November 9th in an article from the Washington Post, detailing a woman's encounter with Moore when she was 14 and he was 32. And yet despite the damning accusations, his supporters won't back down and neither will he. Up until 3 days ago he still remained 6 points ahead of his Democratic rival in the polls. The White House has taken no action to denounce Moore beyond telling him to step down if the accusations are true. These events reveal the underlying reality of pedophilia in America.

From a young age, girls are overtly sexualized. The media makes this possible by portraying beauty pageant victories as the ultimate goal for little girls, but in reality, pageants are an industry built on the backs of young girls wanting to be beautiful and being told that the only way to do that is to wear makeup and frilly, revealing clothes. The most notorious of these media idealizations of young girls being judged on how they look is the hit TLC show Toddlers and Tiaras. But it goes beyond such a niche setting such as pageants and becomes a real problem for young women, especially teenagers, in the most overlooked form of pedophilia, street harassment. In a survey, conducted across 22 countries with 16,00 women participating, by researchers at Cornell University, 84% of women had been catcalled by the time they turned 17, even worse 13% of women were exposed to it by age 10. While you may argue that it's hard to tell someone's age just by appearances, I don't see that as the central issue here (hint: the fact that street harassment is that prominent is).

Now let's get into the legality of pedophilia in the United States. Between 2000 and 2010, over 248,000 children were married in the United States. The average legal age of marriage is 18 years old across the states, but there are loopholes that allow for marriages between children and adults. In at least 36 states minors can marry with judicial consent and 34 states allow for 16 to 17-year-olds to be married with parental consent. Two states, Massachusetts and New Hampshire, allow 12 and 13-year-old girls and 14-year-old boys to be married with both parental and judicial consent. The ability to legally marry a child, especially if someone in the relationship is pregnant or has given birth, opens up the ability for predators to marry their victims. Further showing and promoting the reality of pedophilia in America. 

To conclude, the second that girls hit puberty they are no longer considered children in the eyes of society, despite the fact that legally and emotionally they are.

Sources
http://www.elle.com/culture/career-politics/news/a28608/young-women-catcalling-problem/
https://www.girlsnotbrides.org/child-marriage/united-states/
http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/11/01/child-marriage-is-rare-in-the-u-s-though-this-varies-by-state/