I’ve been watching The Young Turks on YouTube and it seems that you see so many of these cases where teachers get off lightly with having sex with a male student which a man would not have even dreamed of.
And what’s even worse is Cenk Uygur and the comments seem to be defending the teachers. The fact is most teens (under 15) are not mature enough to handle the consequences of sex and a teacher has a position of authority over the student which could create manipulation and blackmail.
I think the most obvious example would be the teacher getting pregnant on purpose (avoiding birth control and telling the student that she’s on it). She could then demand child support and/or worse, claim that the boy raped her. And for a parent this could be a nightmare as they would be stuck paying child support to a disgusting woman all because their child was manipulated.
I understand that men and women have differences. Men are usually stronger and appear to be more sexual than women, but we are humans. And as adults we are capable of making decisions about what to do and what not to do. A fair number of teens cannot make that decision rationally. So when a teacher has sex with a student its only just that she gets prosecuted.
I acknowledge that I have no idea what Young Turks is, but I (and my wife) tend to think many of the student/teacher sex cases we read about don’t warrant as severe punishment as is meted out. We aren’t disturbed by each other - are you disturbed by us?
I tend to be of the -“Adult in authority has great obligation to keep it in his/her pants” position. So I think the teachers are stupid, and am not terribly bothered when stupidity is punished. But when I was in HS, I surely doubt that I would have been scarred in any way as a result of having had sex with (certain of) my teachers. To the contrary, I could imagine many teen boys thinking such a thing would do wonders for their self confidence.
And many teen girls are extremely sexual individuals. Don’t know that sex with a teacher will necessarily scar them any more/less than sex with the football team.
Like I suggested, my wife takes it further than me, and thinks the age of consent should be lowered drastically.
We both agree that such incidents should be assessed on a case-by-case basis. In some situations, the adult in authority might clearly be preying on a weak minor. At the other extreme, it is conceivable that both parties might be willing participants - or even that the minor was the initiator.
I think it’s because we tend to believe there is an underlying theme of domination/submission in a sexual act, especially when we aren’t involved in said act. Males are always the dominator, females being submissive. Men fuck, women get fucked. It doesn’t matter the age of the two participants, so it’s easy to see why there is a double standard when it comes to teacher/student sex.
To me it seems icky for a male teacher to have sex with a female student, but the other way around doesn’t bother me it all. I don’t know why, and I can’t defend it logically, but that’s how I feel.
I’m partly ambiguous. I do think that the cases should be treated the same whether it’s a male teacher/female student or female teacher/male student (or male/male, female/female, which inevitably will occur eventually). How can you have a consistent legal framework otherwise? On the other hand, I still wish I had slept with my 10th grade Spanish teacher, who I now sincerely hope is not a member of this board.
A tangential question is why people think of these cases differently. Is it cultural or biological?
What I find disturbing is that there is apparently no effort whatsoever to actually prevent that sort of thing from happening. If society were more mature than it apparently is, we could tell teachers, “If you’re thinking of having sex with one of your students, go an approved counselor or therapist, and get help to refrain from that activity in the first place.”
I also find disturbing that high school teachers can be jailed for having sex with students who are at or older than the age of consent.
It’s a tricky question to answer. Most of my thoughts about this stuff say that student-teacher sex is no worse or better than teacher-teacher or student-student sex. In most teacher-student situations, both parties are either not attracted or eager to hop into bed with each other. Or with anyone else, for that matter.
The other side of it is the semi-coercion of a teacher using the position of authority as leverage to nudge the student into sex. I’ll get back to that.
A high school is a miasma of lust, hormones, and insecurity. Even the most sensible, level-headed student is likely to be spun out of plumb by the thought of a confident, good-looking person not just likes him or her, but actually shows some lust.
Now, back to the other side. When a person in a position of authority uses that authority as leverage to woo a subordinate when the subordinate doesn’t want it, it is illegal. In a teacher’s case, the teacher holds the ability to control the student’s grade. That’s a big thing to hold over a student, “Do this with me, and you’ll get an A. Refuse me, and you fail.”
A school is a workplace, and the sexual harassment laws apply there. In any workplace, an office romance can be quite acceptable, or it can be illegal.
One analysis I recall sounding plausible is that a lot of these female teachers don’t have access to a lot of desirable men. The workplace and their friends from school are mostly women. The men of their profession (to throw some shade) are mostly academic types, schlubs, nerdy guys, older, etc. and if there is a desirable man there he’ll be pounced on. So the most desirable, available guy these teachers see on a regular basis might be the 16 year old athlete.
Note that many of the newsworthy cases involve attractive women. Many of the comments you see online are from men, so it’s basically a sexual fantasy of theirs come to life. If the teacher is ugly and fat then everyone is up in arms.
In contrast, male teachers are seen as predatory, which is obvious given the nature of male sexuality, and if a female student is having sex with the gym teacher they must have been pressured into it. Which is true in a lot of cases. Lots of abusive men in authority. But when I was in middle and high school girls weren’t shy about proclaiming they’d like to jump on one particular hunky teacher. I wonder what percentage of these relationships are started by the student, broken down by gender.
Another factor is that some of these teachers aren’t that much older than the students. They can be in their early to mid 20s, teaching 17-18 year olds. Kids teaching kids.
One case I remember from a couple years ago was a male student who was having threesomes with two teachers. If I remember right, he was so good in the sack the first teacher basically called the second one over and said you have to get some of this. That’s worth a couple high fives.
I’m sure it does, but no one will ever know about it since girls don’t brag like guys do. It’s ridiculous how many of these cases come to light because the dude blabs about it on social media or shows pictures to people.
They did that premise on SNL maybe two weeks back: the teen is on the witness stand, agreeing one-by-one to the list of celebratory nicknames he’s been getting called ever since; he corrects them when they get to “My Man.”
I mean, yeah, they call him that, but you’re pronouncing it all wrong.
They only ever say it while doing a Denzel Washington impression.
That said: when I was a teen, I wouldn’t have minded; I would’ve thought it was awesome. But now that I’m a grown man, I look back and – yup, still fine.
Teachers are in a position of authority over students, many of whom are also underage. Just don’t is the safest possible rule that could be made. If a couple is *that *attracted, it’ll wait until the student graduates. It’ll also be less skeezy to onlookers if they wait until the student can, you know, sign a legal contract.
I don’t know of any workplaces outside of the military where sex with coworker is illegal. Maybe I haven’t worked at interesting enough places.
I have issues with the double standard of reaction from people and from the justice system. A guy that does it is deemed a perverted sex offender, a non-person, and raped in prison. The SNL skit shows correctly the reaction of the opposite scenario. I don’t think it is funny at all.
Go to Netflix and stream the Dutch documentary Are All Men Pedophiles? It is not well made for a Dutch film, poor directing and editing, but they have some interesting opinions, and, BTW, the Dutch speak good English.
This. Society has built up these stereotypes that men are sexual conquerors while young women are naïve and innocent creatures that must be sheltered. If an older male has sex with a young woman, the assumption is that he is a predator and she is his victim.
On the other hand, a young man who has sex (especially with a woman in a position of authority over him) is celebrated for his sexual conquest. When I hear about a teenaged male having sex with his teacher, my first question is, “Was she hot?” (Because I remember being a teenaged male and there were hot teachers that I definitely wanted to have sex with.)
So, yeah, it is an absurdly sexist double standard.
I’d also submit that our consent laws are extremely arbitrary and artificial. Age-of-consent laws are a mechanism that tries to impose order and universal standards on situations that are extremely ambiguous and subjective. The alternative would be to try to judge each relationship individually, with an assessment of power dynamics and individual maturity, which is clearly an unworkable solution. So the best we could come up with is to levy an across-the-board prohibition on certain relationships because it is the easiest way to impose unambiguous standards for behavior.
I’m sure this is because of the way the media focuses on those cases but it doesn’t help that the answer to that question has overwhelmingly been “yes”. You see a story about some teenage kid having sex with a drop dead gorgeous teacher, usually in her early 20s herself and you simply cannot convince yourself that what happened was in any way shape or form a bad experience for him.
I was reading an article about how a woman talked about in her teenage years and how she was in love with her 40 something teacher and she felt that if he had propositioned her, she would have gladly went along with it without any feelings of regret.
This makes you wonder, how many older women look back on their teenage years and think of an older man whom they wished they would have done something with and had nothing but a fond memory. Only thing is they know if caught their parents and the authorities would have gone after the man. And no way would they want their daughter or son to have sex with an older man.
So its kind of a catch 22. On one side they understand the fantasy but still wouldnt really want it. But then that’s how most sexual fantasies are. They exist only in our minds and we would never want them in real life.
To conserve power, I should wait until I’m at my laptop to brag about the incident on Twitter, and I should send these explicit pics I took to only a couple of my closest friends, instead of to my entire contact list, plus the media?
Even in dull, boring workplaces, sex that’s coerced by using a position of authority is against federal law. Some other acts related to office romance/sex constitute sexual harassment. Among these are groping, unwanted sexual advances, and repeated comments of a sexual nature. By “unwanted,” I mean after the victim has made that clear.
Romance outside the workplace is less fraught with legal worries.
