“In the image of humanity that exists online, taking a girl into the woods and forcing her to have sex is not a bad thing at all”

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On two or three separate occasions during the Easter holidays, between April 2 and 6, a 14-year-old girl was lured to the Kabouterbos in Kortrijk by her 14-year-old boyfriend. Once she arrived, she was forced to have sex with his friends. Ten boys were said to have been present, all between the ages of 11 and 16.

The 11-year-old is said to have been a lookout while several boys raped the girl. Some filmed the facts and allegedly shared the images on Snapchat. Only later did the victim go to the police to report the incident. On April 25, the police were able to arrest the suspects.

On Wednesday, some of them appeared before the juvenile judge. Four boys, including the 14-year-old main suspect, are still in a closed institution, the rest were released under strict conditions. The suspects are said to have made contradictory statements and pointed fingers at each other. The 14-year-old, who remains locked up, denies that he ‘lent’ his girlfriend to his friends.

The majority of suspects are younger than 16. They can only be imposed protection measures that apply up to the age of 21. The 16-year-old suspects can be prosecuted ‘as adults’ for rape. (hdb, hnb)

Criminologist Johan Deklerck (KU Leuven) has long noted that a very violent and performance-oriented image of sexuality is increasingly prevailing, especially among boys and young men, although he emphasizes that he does not know the details of the case in Kortrijk.

These are gruesome facts, with very young suspects. How can something like this happen?

“Our shared ethics are under pressure. A very violent image of male sexuality circulates on social media. It is about a vision of sexuality that puts performance first: how long can you continue? How far can you go? That becomes more important than intimacy and love. It is a pornographic image of sex and pleasure that leaves no room for relationship development, for friendship, for meeting. The man has to perform and the woman is always ready and horny enough to sleep with any man.”

“In that view of humanity, taking a girl into the woods and forcing her to have sex is not a bad thing at all, she would enjoy it herself. Such a pornification of intimacy appeals to young people for whom sex is still unknown or new, but who have to deal with their emerging puberty and all the hormones that come with it.”

Should we now worry about every adolescent young person?

“No, the image of humanity that I describe will certainly not encourage every 14-year-old boy to rape a girl. There must also be a breeding ground for this from the individual background. Absent parents, a lack of guidance, violence at home: it can all play a role.”

“Moreover, peer pressure has an enormous influence. The participants may feel that they have to participate, or that they will otherwise become a target in some way. But in those situations, we also tell ourselves that certain things are acceptable, because we imagine that everyone does them. And to belong, you have to do it too. We call that ‘normative imagination’. In this way, a dynamic of destruction easily develops in an entire circle. Only days later do they suddenly wake up from the illusion and realize that what happened there was not okay at all.”

That kind of extreme blurring of norms is difficult to understand. Have we never been so aware of the consequences of sexual abuse?

“Our society is tipping from an external moral framework to an internal ethic. The major ethical frameworks – the church, the village doctor, the mayor – no longer have the same authority. Instead, we must create our own ethical framework, based on our internal experience. Think, “Rape is bad because a friend experienced it and it hurt her a lot,” instead of “Rape is bad because God says so and I will be punished otherwise.” We don’t wait for some external government to tell us to feel this way.”

“But to maintain that individual ethic, we are constantly looking for references. And social media figures play a major role in this. For example, men with extreme ideas about the male-female relationship can exert a lot of influence on young people. That is a very big challenge. Not that we should return to a society in which the rewarding or punishing God determines everything, because that doesn’t work either.”

Why do young people film such rape? The perpetrators in the rape case at the Western Cemetery in Ghent did the same. The victim then took her own life.

“It seems very counter-intuitive: they are, as it were, writing their own criminal record. But filming their actions is an integral part of crime among boys. They are very ostentatious in their misbehavior, they constantly highlight their actions. They want to score. The inner urge to do so is stronger than the realization that they are hurting themselves by doing so.”

“That is diametrically opposed to the misbehavior that we see more often in girls. The harm women and girls cause is highly invisible. For them, everything revolves around intimacy: making friendships, sharing secrets, but also excluding and bullying people. That can be as or even more damaging than an ostentatious brawl among boys. And it is very difficult to pin them down on it.”

It is said that the number of crimes committed by minors is increasing. Is that right?

“I would be very cautious about the idea that minors commit more sexual acts. More is indicated. The enormous dark number of the actual number of sexual assaults and rapes is gradually being converted into visible figures. At the same time, I do think that there is a coarsening of society, partly influenced by our inability to deal with social media.”

What can we do to combat that?

“Love your children. There is a lot of pressure on parents, and we make mistakes. But loving your children is the essence. Build positive relationships with them, make time for them. Show them the value of love, of intimacy, of friendship.”

“You can also make a difference after the facts. Show young people the value of recovery. Offer them the opportunity to take responsibility. Then sometimes very beautiful things happen.”