Chris Brown Did Not Lose His Virginity At 8 Years Old, He Was Raped At 8 Years Old by Yesha Callhan

Every time Chris Brown opens his  mouth for an interview I wish someone would just intervene and haul him off to therapy. In a recent interview with the UK  Guardian, the 24-year-old singer opened up about losing his virginity at the age of 8.

Brown, who lost his virginity at age eight to a girl who was 14 or 15, told the magazine, “It’s different in the country,” adding that he and his friends watched a lot of porn. “By that point, we were already kind of like hot to trot, you know what I’m saying? Like, girls, we weren’t afraid to talk to them; I wasn’t afraid. So, at eight, being able to do it, it kind of preps you for the long run, so you can be a beast at it. You can be the best at it.”

Someone please inform Chris Brown, and his mother, that her 8 year-old son was raped.  Couple that with being witness to his mother’s own physical abuse, therein lies the problem with Chris Brown.  I am the last person to ever make excuses for Brown’s past behaviour, but what he touts as prepping for the long run, only prepped him for the worst.

An 8 year-old cannot consent to rape, I don’t care if he thinks it’s different in the “country”, referring to his town of Tappahannock, Virginia. The Age of Consent laws in Virginia state:

The age of consent in Virginia is 18, with a close in age exception that allows teenagers aged 15 to 17 to engage in sexual acts but only with a partner younger than 18.

Section § 18.2-63 of the Code refers to minors younger than 15, while § 18.2-371 is about 15-, 16- and 17-year-olds.

Section 18.2-63 states in part:

“If any person carnally knows, without the use of force, a child thirteen years of age or older but under fifteen years of age, such person shall be guilty of … felony … For the purposes of this section, (i) a child under the age of thirteen years shall not be considered a consenting child and (ii) “carnal knowledge” includes the acts of sexual intercourse, cunnilingus, fellatio, analingus, anal intercourse, and animate and inanimate object sexual penetration.“

Consensual sex where one partner is 15, 16 or 17 and the other is over 18 is a class 1 misdemeanor.

§ 18.2-371. Causing or encouraging acts rendering children delinquent, abused, etc.; penalty; abandoned infant. Any person 18 years of age or older, including the parent of any child, who (i) willfully contributes to, encourages, or causes any act, omission, or condition which renders a child delinquent, in need of services, in need of supervision, or abused or neglected as defined in § 16.1-228, or (ii) engages in consensual sexual intercourse with a child 15 or older not his spouse, child, or grandchild, shall be guilty of a Class 1 misdemeanor.’

This is the problem with society, if this was a young girl speaking of  ”losing” her virginity at 8, it would already be understood that she was raped, But because it’s a man speaking, it’s then turned into some coming of age act of bravado.  According to the Children’s Assessment Center, 8% of sexual abuse victims age 12-17 are male and 26% of victims under the age of 12 are male. It’s also important to point out that, what Brown describes as “being different in the country”, living in a rural area does play a role in sexual abuse, children who live in rural areas are almost 2 times more likely to be identified as victims of child sexual abuse.

Take a moment to put aside your personal feelings about Brown, but at the age of 8 years-old, sure virginity was lost, but it was lost due to rape. That’s nothing to brag about, I hope eventually one day he realizes that.