I had a favourite English teacher fired after sleeping with a student; she transferred to another school. At least, that was the rumour. Nobody thought to quell it by giving us actual information. It was interesting, but I didn’t care. His absence affected me more than his continued presence would have (though if the rumours were true, adult me thinks he should have gone to prison. Junior High me didn’t really know where to start thinking about it).
But this proves the point that as an impressionable student it obviously corrupted your morals, since you are now aligned with ungodly folk who hold that we should no longer mark harlots with a scarlet letter and marginalize them for the sake of our precious children.
Moderating:
Please comment on the content, not on the commentators. Seriously, don’t be a jerk.
Remind me, is the antecedent to “it” “teachers who engage in sex work” or “teachers who are in a same sex relationship”? Because what you said works equally well either way.
All true. But that still doesn’t mean she was ashamed. Or deserved to be.
Again, you are categorizing shame as purely an external, something put on people by others.
I’ll tell a common tale. Boyfriend repeatedly begs girlfriend to make a racy video for him. She finally does it, maybe even enjoys it in the couple sense. They break up and he releases the video as porn for others to see. She hopes people don’t find out and they do. Most everyone she knows hates the man and nobody blames her. A few of her scuzzier acquaintances check it out and have a smirk on their faces every time she sees them.
Does she feel shame? Almost certainly.
No one that deserves any respect is shaming her. This was something intended to be private that a scuzzy person she trusted made public. This is not her fault. Yet, she has her sex life exposed in public. This is not a good experience for her. It is not how she wants to be seen. She is being seen in a naked way that she doesn’t intend.
I do believe that now and in the future people will still want sex to be private. People may feel shame upon exposure, regardless of why that happens. I do not share the idea that our utopian goal is some sort of bacchanal libertopia. But I’m not surprised to see people argue for that, on the Internet. Real life is another matter.
In your tale, the video is made public against the woman’s wishes. In the examples we’re discussing, the women posted the videos themselves. Completely different scenarios. I maintain that no one would voluntarily post video of anything they were doing about which they were internally shameful.
And that is absolutely my last comment on shame.
Depending upon the age of the students it could be statutory rape, which is definitely illegal.
Several years ago, at the private school my son went to (middle school) two of the teachers were having an affair (both were married). The administration learned of the affair and asked them to end it as there were rumors throughout the school.
Several months later, the two different couples happened to be dining at the same restaurant. Somehow the two teachers ended up in a stall in one of the bathrooms and started having sex. A high school student working at the restaurant filmed a 15 second video of the couple over the stall wall and promptly sent the video throughout the student body.
Both teachers were fired the following Monday.
I certainly could have been. The students, one male and one female, were probably 17 years old. I’m not sure what the Maryland laws were like in the late 70s. In both cases it was definitely something we knew was wrong. Despite them being “role models,” and despite actually liking both teachers, I didn’t grow up thinking it was okay for teachers to have sex with their students. If one of these teachers was doing the 1978 equivalent of Only Fans, I’m sure we could have continued learning stuff.
Did anything happen to the peeping tom? That’s illegal where i live.
I’m sure the sex in the bathroom was illegal too, so they could just say they were documenting an illegal act.
I’m late to this thread and haven’t read the whole thing yet, so apologies if this has already been said, but the problem with this statement is that a few people are making moral judgements that don’t reflect the majority opinion. Especially in a time when ultra-conservatives are working to take over school boards. OnlyFans reports around 200 million registered users, so obviously a lot of people don’t have a problem with it. If people do use OnlyFans but think teachers who make a little money from it should be fired and never be able to teach again, I would say they are hypocrites.
Maybe, but
- How do you know what the majority opinion is?
- The majority of what/whom?
(For the record, I’m not sure how relevant “the majority opinion” is here, but since we’re discussing it…)
Like a Paul Reubens scenario, or the present case, where there’s all this publicity and all the kids find out?
~Max
We definitely read that book… but I don’t remember that scene at all. I can barely remember something about a juvie camp, a snakebite, and an escape into the desert.
~Max
Nitpick: I don’t see how that’s necessarily hypocritical. It’s possible to have a consistent moral system that includes the position “sex work is okay, but sex workers shouldn’t be employed as teachers” for some subjective reason or other.
E.g., the person in question might think those teachers aren’t doing due diligence to keep their adult sexual activities hidden from children, or that teaching requires an exceptionally high standard of decorum in one’s personal life, or whatever. Such a reason might not be very persuasive, but it’s not necessarily hypocritical.
Being an OnlyFans user while claiming you don’t think sex work is okay for anybody, on the other hand, obviously would be hypocritical.
It was a pretty big plot point.
I’m sure it was there, I just don’t remember it or any discussion of it.
In fact I don’t remember any discussions of ethics in any books we read for school, until 7th grade. I guess the purpose of my anecdote is to put a perspective on LHoD’s. Maybe I understood something important in 3rd grade, but I’ve forgotten it now.
~Max