Would anyone care to suggest that the boy asked for it, or that he went to the man’s home of his own free will?
A man of 52 has been imprisoned for 16 months for having sex five times with a boy of 14 who he picked up at the village band club.
Nobody will say that the boy asked for it, or that he went there of his own free will, or that he provoked and tempted the man, or ask what’s wrong because boys that age are up for it and perfectly capable of deciding for themselves.
But that is exactly what is said about girls, and that is exactly why so many people are rushing to defend that ghastly Erin Tanti.
Had it been a boy he picked up, groomed, manipulated and played mind games with, then fed whisky and pills and drove to Dingli Cliffs, the baying for his blood and guts would have been louder than that for the man who picked dead cats up off the road and tied them to pieces of wood in public, a contravention called littering or dumping animal carcasses in a public place.
At the root of much of the reaction of the Erin Tanti/Lisa Marie Zahra horror is a deep and seemingly ineradicable southern Mediterranean misogyny, in which girls and women are there to provide a biological service and hence they are ready to have sex as soon as they menstruate, with the psychological and emotional aspect having nothing to do with it because girls and women are like animals, functioning at a more primeval level than men.
In a society where it was perfectly normal for girls to be married off at 15 – yes, in the 20th century – ghax lesti (they’re menstruating ergo they’re able to have children ergo they’re marriagable), don’t expect any measure of shock or disgust because a teacher was preying on his 15-year-old pupil. Some people, in their vast and impenetrable ignorance, will even think this quite a lucky catch ghax dak teacher.
It is not only geographically that Malta is on the outer, remote fringe of Europe.
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http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20140326/local/man-jailed-for-sexual-relationship-with-boy-14.512252
This Tanti pervert had someone take down his Facebook page, unless he is well enough to do it himself while in hospital.
How can his friends justify his actions? How could they? If they support him for what he did, then perhaps it’s because they don’t see anything wrong with it.
They do not know any better themselves because they were never taught better at home, school or anywhere else.
“If this man – will people please stop making him out to be some kind of Romeo to her Juliet, because the reality is pretty sordid and horrid – actually did have that kind of relationship with a 15-year-old then that would be classed as statutory rape.”
Not it’s not. Statutory rape in Malta – as in most countries – subsists only if one of the parties is under the age of 12. Sexual contact with a minor (anyone under 18) is nevertheless a crime – which is absolutely ridiculous.
Daphne in most countries the age of consent is 16 or under. In Spain it is legal to have sex with anyone who has reached the age of 13. In many other countries, including Italy, Germany, and Austria, it’s 14. In France it’s 15.
Malta is indeed on the fringe of Europe, but for the opposite reasons you mention.
[Daphne – I agree that 18 is too high (after all, the law permits marriage at 16 with parental consent). But anything below 16 is offensive, and dangerous.]
I think it’s not quite misogyny, but rather a Magrebo-Levantine cupidity that compels you to take anything that’s free. And if it’s a 15-year old pupil of yours, why, then prosett menn what a catch and all that.
Many Maltese men never grow out of it. It manifests itself in office life, where the overriding concern from day one is to ingratiate oneself with the females at work, and then to edge closer and closer, blurring all professional boundaries and often crossing them.
This is the only place in Malta where we’ve discussed this, and why it’s enough to make any sane man over thirty want to top himself. Because anywhere else, it’s genuinely seen as the most normal thing in the world.
I don’t know where this will end. The Maltese feminists, of sorts, have got it all wrong. We don’t need more women in the workforce. We need more professional interactions between people of any sex and less mating rituals.
The appropriate term is rapacious.
I might have misunderstood what you are saying, Baxxter, but If truth be told the office mating ritual is not necessarily limited to Malta.
Given the distances, it is quite common for couples abroad to meet at work and whilst it can be frowned upon in a number of the larger institutions, it does not by definition make it sordid.
In the same way that people meet at university, in large cities, meeting people at work tends to be a given, as long as it is not in your face or have repercussions if things go wrong, which it can and I am sure in a number of cases does.
This case however, is far removed from a work-related romance. A teacher/pupil relationship is a no-no everywhere with the teacher, rightly so, being fired if there is so much as a shadow of doubt as to their behaviour vis a vis their pupils.
I do agree with you however, in terms of the pseudo Maltese feminists comments. The number of women working is immaterial, if women will allow themselves to be ‘taken advantage’ of. The reality is that in the work place the sex of the person should be secondary to the work ethics of each individual person
I was just referring to something we’d discussed years ago on this blog. The Maltese seem unable to have a relationship, even in a professional environment, that’s anything other than erotic or condescending/grovelling.
I’ve seen it happen to me, viz. women will come over all flirtatious and then turn vitriolic when I give them the old Baxxter stiff upper lip at the office.
“We don’t need more women in the workforce. We need more professional interactions between people of any sex and less mating rituals.”
I couldn’t agree more, except that it’s ‘fewer’ not ‘less’.
Spot on, Daphne.
It doesn’t escape me that the theatre group/clique that Tanti was part of very much seems to be a boys’ club. And of course a boys’ club will always stick up for one of its own.
Most of his defenders seem to be the usual poseur-intellectual types, nerdy and barely capable of talking to or about women with a modicum of respect.
They bang on about being anti-establishment and ‘sticking it to the man’, yet when an incident like this occurs, there’s barely a shred of moral decency to be found, and they sound exactly like those shrill right wingers you see on Fox News in the States.
Agreed. As a side note, though, it really must be pointed out that 16 months for something this disgusting is crazy.
And yes, our law should be more sophisticated so as to give harsher sentences the larger the age gap. Two people of 18 and 17 should be not be punished in the same way as, say, a 60 year old and a 14 year old. The 18+/- works for things like voting and driving, but when it comes to punishment for crimes, more sophistication is required.
Like getting comments to the tune of “ghax inti mara hi, hlief inkwiet ma taqalghawx”.
I think you are generalising a bit. Most people are shocked by the teacher’s actions and only a few are trying to justify. I’m sure that whenever things like these happen elsewhere there are those who try to justify.
Sixteen months imprisonment? Quite harsh for the poor 52yr old.
Thank God he didn’t rape a cat.
The 52 yr old was told not to go to the band club, but he said that the boy did not go there any longer. Does that mean that for the offender and the court it is therefore just fine for the offender to go back to his hunting ground?
Can someone be so sensitive into noting that Erin Tanti has a family? A family that is suffering too.