You know, I read the thread in question yesterday and I re-read it now. With the notable exception of rjung, I didn’t see that many jokes about the situation, and, from what little I know of 11 year old boys, they’d be much more likely to fantasize about hitting a grand slam which wins the World Series than having sex with their teacher. I find it appalling and inconceivable. My mind cannot grasp the notion of finding an 11 year old sexually appealing or, as Mary Kay Letorneau put it several years ago, “a peer”. (The latter does not apply to people younger than, oh, say 13.) I read the Pit thread about this as a rant about how wrong this woman was to molest that boy.
Why does it get treated like a joke? Here’s my guess, and it’s 90% guess. It gets treated like a joke because it perverts people’s ideas of power and the roles men and women play in society. Maybe my notions are somewhat outdated, but men are supposed to be the sexual aggressors, not women, and women are supposed to be the victims. I suspect the notion that a man or boy could be raped by a woman is deeply terrifying in a way that there is no current societally acceptable outlet for. Heck, the notion of being raped scares the snot out of this woman, and at least there are ways I can joke about it. It’s also much easier to accept that a woman might not want sex than a man. Any joking going on may be a form of whistling in a graveyard. It does diminish the effect of the wrongness to bring it down to a level where we can handle it. It’s not necessarily right, but it is a coping mechanism.
Kurdt Kobain, I’ve been hyper-sensitive, hair-trigger, and spoiling for a fight at some points in my life. There have been some people from whom I’d consider “Good morning” an insult and have to fight to keep myself from looking for the insult in it. I’ve been in fights to defend my honor, and I suspect if it were acceptable to hit women in American society, I would have been in more. That said, I did not read what Blonde wrote as an insult. I saw it as advice, and I was shocked by the virulence of your response. I won’t deny that there are people around here who dislike you, and I’m afraid you’re not on my list of 10 favorite posters, but I regard your response as uncalled for and doing the very thing you objected to Blonde doing.
Calm down, lad. The entire membership of the SDMB is not out to get you (and I can already see the follow up post). A lot of us here understand about starting off on the wrong foot and are willing to try to help you get on the right one, but if you continue to be a jerk, which you were in my opinion, sooner or later, even the most compassionate of us will quit bothering. My honor and my integrity have been questioned on this board. Rather than respond with a stream of profanity, I took the person’s statements and tore them to pieces. A few times other Dopers have even beaten me to it. Don’t use a hammer for a job which requires a scalpel; you’ll only damage your reputation more. This is not an attack, just advice which is offered. Whether you take it is up to you.
Respectfully,
CJ