Rape is more common in the Wood River Valley than the collective community conscience is willing to endure.
It's a horrific crime that breeds fear in a community and inflicts a lifetime of dark memories or worse for victims.
In the most recent Blaine County cases, two males 20 and 17 years old have been jailed on charges of rape of two 12-year-old girls. Evidence suggests the girls may have consented to sex.
However, in Idaho law, any female under 18 who engages in sex is considered the victim of rape, and the perpetrator can face up to life in prison.
Unfortunately, rape charges and rape convictions have become all too common in a valley where they were once extraordinary. A little education could go a long way to ending this disturbing trend.
Valley parents must teach their children—male and female—the law and make them understand that consent of young females does not negate the law.
They must also insure that both sexes understand the dangers of casual sex—not only pregnancy, disease, the lifetime trauma of unwanted memories, but the possibility of violence.
Nationally, dozens of young women in recent years who've hooked up with strangers they believed to be harmless have been abducted, raped and murdered.
With children growing up faster, as it were, the more they need parental guidance about the dangers of reckless sexual encounters.
And as for boys and men who believe consent for sex from a minor legalizes the act, they could have a lifetime in prison to think that one over.
