Of course any teacher who exhibits such poor judgment should be fired immediately. But for anyone to claim that a 16 year old boy having sex with a hot teacher is damaging to him in some way is crazy (outside of STDs or pregnancy). Now if the boy was 13 or so, it becomes more of a gray area and yes there could be emotional damage.
But a boy having sex with a woman is not the same as a girl having sex with a man. And it’s not sexist to say that.
That depends on if you think all men are the same or all women are the same.
I don’t. Just as there are some young women who could fuck an older man and be cool, there are some young men who could fuck an older woman (or women) and have serious issues because of it.
IOW, there are enough exceptions in both cases to warrant caution and yeah, even laws governing the behavior of adults around teenagers.
I also think it interesting you said ‘‘outside of STDs or pregnancy’’ because those were risks with unknown outcomes at the time this sex allegedly happened. You can’t retroactively divorce the potential consequences of sex from the potential pleasure of sex and say it’s okay just because the kid was lucky enough to not suffer those particular consequences. Sex without the risk of pregnancy or STDs is a fantasy. We’re talking about reality.
I’d love to hear an example of a 16 year old boy who had sex with an older woman and was emotionally scarred over it. I am sure there are a few somewhere. But it’s certainly the exception.
As for consequences, yes you are right those are unknown outcomes. For the sake of argument let’s assume condoms were used properly.
Without getting into the issue of where the age of consent should be, let’s differentiate two different claims.
Either of those two arguments can get you to “16 year olds sleeping with adults should be illegal”. I think Claim 1) is pretty clearly false: to the best of my recollection, the last study I saw (from the folks at Gutmacher, I believe), suggested that in most of these cases, there’s no damage to the teen. (The same isn’t true when kids under 15 or so are involved, in those cases the sexual contact is usually damaging). However, one can certainly still argue they have an elevated risk of being harmful, and should be illegal because of the higher risk involved. An analogy is drunk driving: most of the time, a drunk driver is not going to hit anyone, but we still outlaw it because it has a high risk of causing damage.
You don’t have to believe that what these ladies did with the student should be legal, to believe that the boy is probably going to turn out fine.
For what it’s worth, age of consent laws are complicated. In Michigan, for example, the age of consent is 16 in general, but it rises to 18 if you’re an adult in position of authority over the teen (teacher, boss, pastor, coach, etc.), so what these teachers did would still be considered a sex crime.
I heard part of a radio interview in which an adult man was discussing his severe anxiety disorder and how he was dealing with it. During the interview, it came up that his symptoms began in his teen years, gradually intensifying as he grew into adulthood. He felt that his symptoms arose after he was involved in a sexual encounter with two college girls. Paraphrasing his words, “I was seduced by two coeds.”
Sorry, no cite. Can’t remember his age, but I thought it was prob 16-18. He was away from home in another town unsupervised.
So I guess it can be hurtful to at least some individuals. (Also, they didn’t even have any authority over him.)
What do you base that on? Your gut feeling?
Submitted for your consideration - if a 16 year old did have such an experience and was emotionally scarred over it, do you think he would discuss his feelings in an environment where the default reaction was to give him a high-five?
I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that this gentleman was inclined to have anxiety issues regardless of his threesome encounter.
Having been born with a penis and being 16 once? And having like 90% of men nod their head in agreement?
So, any time the outcome doesn’t agree with your predictions, it’s because there was something wrong with the guy.
Because you know all about it. Because penis.
Honestly, that’s a fair question, and I wondered the same thing. I thought it a bit odd that he told the tale to his mother shortly after returning home. Maybe he was a momma’s boy. Maybe it was that disturbing.
But someone wanted to hear about someone who had been scarred for life… and there was *this *guy… and what can I say?
He feels he was hurt by the encounter. I’m not his psychologist. I’m not *anyone’s *psychologist.
Yup. I’d note that he provides no actual evidence that in this case, the threesome led to his anxiety issues, which leads me to be fairly dismissive of his story. Personal anecdotes aren’t worth a great deal.
Yup.
I’ll just point out that not everything that we think we like or want is good for us.
I like chocolate chip cookies. I had some earlier today. I may get more later. I’m not thinking that they are necessarily *good *for me.
Like I said, I went out on a limb. Maybe it did screw him up. even if it did, he’s an outlier. Lot’s of people have anxiety issues that have nothing to do with some tragic event that happened in the past. Sometimes one’s body chemistry is just off.
Well, I know more about having a penis than you do.
Again, how do you know that? Because your anecdotes or your gut feelings aren’t science.
Just read this thread and all the men’s responses. Are you saying we’re all wrong and we don’t know how a typical 16yo boy would react to hot teacher sex?
It’s not a gut feeling. I was actually a 16yo boy once. Were you?
No, I wasn’t. But I am not relying on anecdotes of being one, either.
Is the majority always right in their gut feelings?
I’ve just got this particular perspective, that if you’ve never (or rarely) encountered a situation where a boy was traumatized by sexing an older woman, there are two possible explanations.
I’d say there’s a fair amount of evidence that the latter is the case in a lot of other instances (adult male rape or child sexual abuse, for example) so I don’t find ‘‘I’ve never heard of this’’ a compelling argument that it doesn’t happen often enough to be legitimately concerned. There is a great deal of evidence to suggest a lot of fucked up shit happens to men that they don’t talk about.
I’m a woman but I’d hesitate to generalize about how all girls would feel in a given situation, because I don’t think all women are alike. It seems evident to me that the same would be true for men.
This is true. The advantage of being a boy, from a sex-with-faculty angle, is that it only takes two male teachers to make you airtight.
On the serious tip: Sure I would have loved to have sex with certain of my teachers at 16, or 14 for that matter. Doesn’t mean it would have been good for me; that’s what age of consent is there for.
And given things like in this thread saying a boy would be an outlier, or there was something wrong with him, or abnormal if he didn’t like it would I’m sure suppress reporting of it.
If you tell people that they are wrong and stupid and abnormal and unmanly for feeling hurt, would anyone be surprised if they never say they are hurt? If you sneer at the idea someone normal could be damaged, it’s no wonder if no one says they are damaged.
Again, it’s just like saying that a handsome man doesn’t need to rape anyone so of course any sex he has in consensual. Boys like to have sex therefore a boy having sex has to be the best thing ever! Men like to have sex therefore female prison guards are just doing the prisoners a favor! SWEET!
32 states set the Age of consent at 16. But as others pointed out there are exceptions for Teachers, coaches and others viewed as holding power over the person.