Boys will be boys? An analysis of male-on-male heterosexual sexual violence

This Note attempts to address the questions of what role gratification plays in defining sexual offenses, using the Mepham football team attacks as a case study and comparing that incident with Abner Louima's police brutality suit. In September 2003, upperclassmen on the Mepham High School football team attacked and sodomized three underclassmen. Pennsylvania law, under which the Mepham players were charged, and federal law implicated in the Louima case provide two different perspectives on what requisite intent defines a touch as "sexual." Pennsylvania law relies on sexual gratification, whereas federal law has expanded the intent requirement to include humiliation and degradation. This Note argues that a reliance on sexual gratification as the requisite intent obscures the power dynamics in a sexual assault due to the sexual nature of the crime, such that the perpetrators are seen to be acting out their sexual desires. Likewise, media representations tend to characterize the perpetrators of these crimes as "perverts" who are "sexually twisted." Federal law provides a positive example of how to account for the power of sexuality in labeling an act a sex crime, but also acknowledges other motivations besides sexual gratification.