Chez Chesler

See http://news.bostonherald.com/localRegional/view.bg?articleid=69753

As police continue to probe sex acts between five hockey players and one underage girl at Milton Academy last month, women's advocates say the troubling case shows schools need to be more frank in discussing teen sex.

The tony private school, where tuition runs more than $25,000 a year without boarding, expelled three sophomores and two juniors after a three-day investigation uncovered the hockey players asked a 15-year-old sophomore to perform oral sex on all five in the boy's locker room Jan. 24, reportedly as a birthday gift to one of the boys.

The girl - who was placed on indefinite administrative leave - and all but one of the boys were boarding students.

Police are investigating and intend to interview all six students involved. Under state law, the girl was one year too young to consent to a sexual act.

...

Wendy Murphy, a New England School of Law professor who teaches a sexual violence seminar, applauded the school for sending a clear message to its students that illegal sexual behavior will not be tolerated.

"Whatever was behind her willingness to be there, it doesn't mean consent," Murphy said. "Anyone who wants to normalize this as an erotic play group for kids is fantasizing because it feels better."

See also http://www.boston.com/news/education/k_12/articles/2005/02/20/milton_academy_rocked_by_expulsions/

Mearn said he believed the boys were between 16 and 18 years old. In Massachusetts, a 17-year-old can be charged as an adult, said David Traub, spokesman for Norfolk District Attorney Wiliam R. Keating, whose office is assisting in the investigation.

Under state law, anyone who has sexual intercourse or "unnatural sexual intercourse" with someone under 16 can be imprisoned for life for statutory rape, even if the sex is consensual. "There is no mechanism in the law where someone can consent before the age of 16," said Traub.

Which seems to mean that as a matter of law the girl was raped, and has been suspended for being raped.

(The statute quoted, MGL C 265, §23, refers to unlawful intercourse, which I suspect refers to fornication, which may be a common-law crime, and which is probably no longer a crime. The prior two sections, §22 and §22A, describe non-statutory rape, compelled intercourse. I don't know how consentual statutory rape is actually prosecuted in Massachusetts, but they have a tendency to dispense with criminal trials and either declare people sexually dangerous or issue restraining orders.)