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That's the second time in about a month I've seen it described as sexual assault / molestation / predation when it's a woman doing it.
Usually news outlets bend over backwards to call it a 'relationship' or a 'romp' or otherwise put a positive spin on it.
Colour me impressed.
Police say they were tipped off that Zinger allegedly had a relationship with a child between the ages of 12 and 15...
Ah, bleh. I only looked at the excerpt
They call it a "sexual relationship" regularly when it is between a man and a teenage girl as well.
Once AGAIN! Not a Drag Queen!
Rape. It's called rape.
While that's definitely what happened often the legal definition of "rape" in a state explicitly requires penetration with a penis. So a lot of things that a normal person would consider rape are classed as sexual assault and have to be reported as such in the media. You can see this in the recent E. Jean Carroll suit against trump. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/aug/07/donald-trump-rape-language-e-jean-carroll
Every time one of these articles comes up we have the same discussion.
I understand it's a sensitive subject for some but the reasoning to avoid calling it rape when you're a publication is pretty solid.
While that’s definitely what happened often the legal definition of “rape” in a state explicitly requires penetration with a penis. So a lot of things that a normal person would consider rape are classed as sexual assault and have to be reported as such in the media.
The Department of Justice redefined rape a decade ago. The revised definition includes penetration with any object. I think it would be fine to call an act rape if it meets the federal definition of rape, but does not meet the state definition.
A man who receives oral sex without his consent or is made to penetrate without his consent would still not qualify as rape under the revised definition however.
Thank you, florida woman.
Florida man has been dominating the eccentric-wild news segment but I see you have stepped up for the cause.
I already don't understand pedophilia, but I especially have a hard time wrapping my head around a person in their early 20s that's into grooming and sexually assaulting people who are not that much younger than them to begin with.
For the same reason it’s illegal… while there might not be a huge difference in age between someone 22 and 14, there’s a vast difference in maturity, experience and vulnerability to manipulation. While I’m not a psychologist, it seems like for some people, it’s based on opportunity (easier to manipulate a younger person) and others it’s based on a psychological impairment regarding their own sexual development. For this lady perhaps it’s a combo.
I'm not trying to quarrel with the legality at all. There is no question in my mind that it deserves to be illegal. I just can't wrap my head around the psychology of this. This wasn't opportunity, this took effort.
I didn't think you were questioning the illegality. I agree; you'd think it would be easier for her to find someone her age. Except for what I was saying earlier... some people go for minors because they can manipulate them more easily. And then, if she's warped in the way that she's particularly attracted to younger people, that explains why she'd seek one out.
The manipulation part does make sense to me. I just find the whole thing hard to keep in my head I guess.
It's not a bad thing that you have a hard time empathizing with pedophiles, in case that helps.
Haha. Agreed there!
It's about power. It's always about power.
Power over the victim, and the power to transgress.
If they can manipulate people and get away with heinous shit, in their mind they must have rich-person energy.
Just spitballing here, but a young attractive woman like her probably gets a lot of unwanted attention from men who have sought to control her. Maybe she wanted someone who didn't pose a threat. Still illegal, and she still needs to go to jail. It doesn't matter what turns one into a predator.
From what I understand for some it's just the tools they have at their disposal to get affection or sex in a very low effort or ego flattering way. To a teen, having a car, a place where there's no parents calling the shots and any kind of income is a huge and enviable power gap. The person's experience with other relationships means that they don't tend to go all in on the younger partner either the way a person experiencing love for the first time does. So you have someone who remembers that all consuming need to hold onto that first sacred relationship enough to mechanically exploit it so they can either shift all the work onto their younger partner and keep them on the back foot by threatening to end things or push their younger partner to do exactly what they want because to them the relationship is just one of a potential many. That disposition towards relationship fungibility means you have solid leverage.
Youngsters also don't have any real experience with autonomy. A kid is used to being told what to do and accepting inequity in power balances as normal. Rebelling in the face of adult authority structures also means there's a lack of seeing adults as peers to whom they can seek advice and benefit and trust their experience and more as just unfair weilders of social power that need be avoided so to transgress means you ditch the social structures that are the most able to spot the red flags.
Shit, this comment deserves to be Best Of'd. An incredible breakdown of the exact problem with this kind of abuse, and absolutely destroys the "hurr teenage boy horny tho" idiots.
Why thank you! I had some acquaintances and friends who fell victim to these power dynamics and I noticed often it seemed to stem from them essentially being used to thinking of adults only really in terms of authority and obstacle... but my folks were awesome and always treated us as "adults in training" where our concerns were valued and our circumstances negotiable. We could argue our points and expect that if they were good, well thought through points that passed all the safety concerns our parents would conceed. It made us view parents, teachers, older friends and relatives and so on as essentially just our more experienced peers...and we were very VERY aware of the advantages we had when navigating sketchy shit.
I did get to see this dynamic play out in real time to disastrous effect with people I knew. I realized my home circumstances were unusual and sometimes my parents ended up basically becoming friends with my friends who I think benefited as well by an adult just treating them as another adult who was non-judgemental about the hazards they encountered. There are people from my highschool days who still show up to my parent's place at Christmas. It's made me regard myself as a bit of a self case study as to what happens when at all ages you are treated as a being who is worthy of and expected to practice mutual respect.
There’s a huge difference between 12 and 22. The power imbalance means there can’t be meaningful consent.
The Tampa Bay Times reports that police stopped Zinger and a minor after they tried to steal from a Nordstrom store over the summer. “Zinger identified herself to an officer using her name, but stated she was born in 2009. The officer could not find information on her with the date of birth she provided, but found an Alyssa Ann Zinger who was born in 2001,” the article said.
Not at all the brightest bulb there.
Idiot didn't follow the golden rule
Only one crime at a time.
THAT'S the golden rule? My kindergarten teacher played me for a fool!
The part that really confuses me is... wtf is a Homeschooler? Obviously this isn't a parent teaching their own child in a homeschool setting. Context makes it sound like they advertise as someone who will come teach a child who is being homeschooled... but isn't that just, you know, a teacher? Who the fuck is going to all the bother of homeschooling their kid, presumably specifically to keep them from going to a regular school, only to then hire some fucking rando off the internet to do it for them and providing even less accountability and background certainty than even a public school?
I assumed they meant she posed as a kid who is home schooled
Yeah I did too, it tracks since she gave her birth year as 2009 to cops when caught stealing from a store, when investigated she was actually born in 2001. On a side note, God damn people born in the 2000s are becoming adults? When did I get so old? Make it stop!
Greaaaat, here come the incels.
OH MAN THAT'D BE SO HAWT WHY COULDN'T THAT BE MEEEEE
It's 50/50 people who wish it was them and people who only hate her because she's a woman and wouldn't say a thing if a man had done the same thing. But damn her being attractive, young, and feeeeemale
I'm all for holding people accountable based on their crimes and not their gender.
The verbage they use to describe the molestation of a child when the victimizer is female is disgusting. This bitch was a devious, calculated child predator. Her acts should not be white washed because she's a female. Pathetic.
According to a search warrant obtained by the Tampa Bay Times, that platform was Snapchat.
Figured one of the image based platforms.
The warrant detailed additional information about at least one relationship that allegedly spanned from May through September. Zinger allegedly sent explicit material to the minor and “engaged in sexual activities several times” with him.
I don’t get the mindset that leads to these kinds of actions.
Figured one of the image based platforms.
It is image-based, but it can be used entirely as an instant messaging platform too. My daughter basically never takes pictures with the app, but she chats with all of her friends on it. That is apparently the 13-year-old messaging app of choice, at least around here. From what I can tell second-hand, it's becoming the same mess of features no one asked for and enshittification in the attempt to turn itself into an everything app that every other social media platform suffers from.
There was one pint a few years ago Snapchat wanted to develop glasses that would take pictures and post them directly to your story.
Good! Means you’re normal.