The student could be scarred for life because he blabbed and thereby ended the sex.
The student could be scarred for life realizing that his sex life would probably never be as good again.
Of course the above are facetious, but in all seriousness, the student could be upset because he blabbed and got the women into trouble, not being experienced in life enough to realize that it was not his fault that the women are in trouble.
And yes, there is a very real possibility that a youth could actually be seriously messed up by having sex, by having sex with an older person, by having sex with more than one person, or by having sex with one or more people who are in a position of authority over him. If you take that real possibility and spread it over a broad population, the odds are that of all the young men who have sex with their teachers, some of them will be screwed up by it, thus establishing the reasonableness of the law.
But just because some young men would be messed up by a threesome with two comely teachers does not mean that most would be messed up. Have a look at Shakes’ poll, which has been answered by men of various ages – most of whom are old enough to understand the very real issues and to distinguish them from a common fantasy, and most importantly are old enough to understand themselves and give honest and most likely accurate self-evaluations. So when most of them say that such sex would not screw them up, take that as a fact. To do so otherwise is to devalue them by ignoring their reasoning and dismissing their own well found knowledge of themselves, and is also to take control of their own sexuality and self-worth away from them by way of telling them how they should feel and how they would have reacted.
This is the most compelling argument I have seen advanced in this thread.
Though I am a woman I do have some experience that gives me insight into the sexual power dynamics between an adult and a young person. So knowing the very worst that it can be, even if harm would only come from a minority of cases, I want that minority to be protected and their experiences honored. I hope that’s not overly feminine of me.
Oh, for Og’s sake, Shakes, jsgoddess isn’t arguing out of misandry or straw feminist man-hating! In fact, she’s the only one on this thread who seems to realize that male sexuality is not as simple as “see girl, bang girl”. You and all the fiat-pumping guys on this thread are the ones who don’t seem to get that men are more complicated than Penthouse Letters. Look at your own poll - you’ve got honest answers from men who say that, while this might have been a positive experience had it happened to them, it also might not have been. “Hot Teacher Gives Sex-Ed Lesson” is a nice fantasy. But real life is not a porn film.
ETA: I’m just gonna let jsgoddess speak in the rest of this thread; she’s saying all the things that need to be said. Plus she’s a Cleveland fan, so she’s clearly a woman of intelligence and refined taste.
This boy definitely suffered as a result of a sexual relationship with his teacher. The story really does illustrate the double standard well. The high school cop, upon verifying with the boy that he (the teen) was having sex with his teacher, high fived him and promised not to tell.
I was a 16-year-old girl who dated (and slept with) a 28-year-old guy. At the time, I thought it was awesome. Thinking about it years later makes me ill. Just…gross.
Which is really the issue in a nutshell. Tons of guys would think it awesome at the time and that they could handle it. Many of them would be wrong, and never acknowledge it.
The thing is… there are few people I know that haven’t been scarred by mishandled or unwise early experiences that have colored their interactions their entire lives, and those experiences were with peers. This is really about having an easy target to blame.
That story also points out something else. I suggested upthread that it’s possible that the boy in this thread’s story was simply bragging, but that it was also possible that he was hoping for the word to get out so that the relationship would be stopped without him having to tell his peers that he was unhappy with it. In this story, the kid was shunned by his peers when they thought he had ratted out his teacher.
It’s not unusual for people to try to come up with ways, consciously or unconsciously, to reveal their secrets so that someone will help them.
In any case, while the story you linked to probably isn’t showing the average outcome of such a relationship, it’s definitely is interesting.
As was said before, when it comes to people in a state that may hinder the making of valid wise decisions (young age, position of authority, family relation, intoxication, etc), protecting those who *would *be harmed makes it worthwhile to penalize across the board, even if there may be cases where there would be minimal or no harm.
That said, now a message from my inner High School Soph:
"TWO Teachers Charged For Sex With SAME Student"
They’d better make sure they only got charged half price each!
Win arguments, apparently.
All the people pointing to the fact that he was bragging about it as evidence that he was unharmed it: how exactly do you imagine these relationships go between girls and their male teachers? Do you imagine it as a series of borderline violent rapes where the girl is always left sobbing and humiliated, but keeps coming back anyway? Girls in age-inappropriate relationships also think they’re in good relationships. You ask any sixteen year old girl dating a thirty-something teacher if she’s in a healthy relationship, she’s going to say “yes.” Is there any reason we should assume that girls are more unreliable in this regard than boys?
“If it had happened to me, I wouldn’t have minded,” is the sort of thing I put in the same category as people describing how they would have behaved in hypothetical fights. Unless it actually happened to you, you don’t know how you would have reacted.
I was really screwed up in high school. Still am in many ways, but even much more back then. The sex itself probably wouldn’t have been too bad, except for the huge guilt from my Mormon upbringing, but that type of a relationship would have been emotionally devastating for me.
As one who hangs out at a variety of 12-step programs, I’ve meet people who have really unhealthy views of relationships and sex.
I suspect that the average high school guy would suffer no harm to a Penthouse Letter fantasy of screwing two young, hot teachers, especially if it were entirely NSA. However, for troubled kids, the emotional issues could be really hard.
Now as an ESL teacher, including teaching junior high school and HS kids, you see the kids who have problems at home. As a teacher, if you start to become an adult supporter for them, they often really open up to you. It just seems really, really sick to image taking advantage of that emotional trust for sexual pleasure.
What if they weren’t two hot women, but two hansom guys.
I don’t mean to be snarky with this question, just asking: Why is it rape when a male teacher does this kind of thing, but no big deal if it’s a female?
That’s what all this discussion is partly about, MyFootsZZZ.
By the way, 40 years ago, in many states the way it was legally defined in the penal codes and case law of the time it was physically impossible for a female to commit against a male the crime that was described by the word “rape”, and thus legally impossible for a woman to be charged with it. This has changed for the better and modern penal codes are more sophisticated in how they define and by what terms they refer to the various forms and degrees of sexual battery.
In many cases, those newer penal codes have given up the word “rape” itself, in some cases because of that historic baggage. However to this day many people still can’t wrap their minds around the bilaterality of sexual assault so in common reports and in media you’ll still hear "Mr. Pervertvich was charged with statutory rape()"* but “Miss McCougary was charged with Unlawful Sexual Intercourse With A Minor Under 16” even if it’s the same charge.
(* BTW “statutory rape” was not the actual legal name of the criminal charge, dude would be charged with rape, plain and simple; newspaper crime beat writers used “statutory” to communicate that it was not rape through force but was nonconsensual simply by definition.)
There was an essay in Salon recently by a woman who had been sexually involved with a teacher when she was only 14. She (correctly) refers to this as sexual abuse now, but that wasn’t how she thought about it at the time:
Yes, but thats why people aren’t allowed to drink or drive or vote or join the military or own guns at 14 (and in most places 16). There is insufficient maturity.
What did you think when you were 5?
Puppies!
What did you think when you were 10?
I was safe; that ump is a jerk!
What did you think when you were 14?
Umm…why does that part of my body do that? Sometimes it feels nice.
What did you think when you were 16?
Man, I know Everything! And I’m gonna stay in this bathroom til dinner & like it! Medicine? Psah, I can practice That! Law? The same & twice on Sunday! And if I ever get Cheerleader Jane in bed, I’m gonna bang her silly, boy!
But… why doesn’t she return my calls? Hey, I can hold an m80 in my hand and light it! Only wusses thank thats dangerous… :smack: