I'd just like to say I side with the "they were in a position of power" arguments that they should be legally punished accordingly, the teacher/student power dynamic shouldn't be broken like this without serious consequence. More towards what Parker is talking about at what point "sentience" of ones actions occurs I think it was happyfunball that put it best that even though 18 seems arbitrary there has to be a line set lest we have idiots pushing the lower limit to truly disgusting lows. Can there be young people ahead of the average maturity? Sure. Just like there are a lot of older people that are way below the average for their age. Fuck the teachers here could be labelled as such, how could anyone at their age not realize gang banging a 16 year old was a good idea? Was it a case of extended adolescence run amok where they weren't mature enough to realize the harsh consequences? Or just two broken adult women making poor choices? Are we seeing cases of this more and more because of extended adolescence would be my question? More and more college aged adults are moving back with their parents, almost refusing to "grow up" by not making the traditional big moves in early adult hood, drinking culture, etc. Ive noticed, and maybe it's just the medias access to these teachers Facebook accounts that they are shown as the now typical 20 somethings, partying and such. Mary Kay Laetourneau had been married for years with multiple children. It seems like these teachers aren't matured to what we'd traditionally think they were by the time they start banging students.
And the real victim here? Guy that found out his wife cheated on him with a 16 year old high school student. Holy fucking shit, that is going to inflict some psychological trauma and have lasting results on their children. Kubla, I like where you went there, except the extended adolescence discussion is a pandora's box. Because there is a large contingent of women that put it on men not wanting to get married, and the idea that marriage = maturity is a firestorm.
The 16 year old student. Parker, not sure why you are defending your assertion so strongly, I don't think there's much behind your thought process. As much as I respect you, there's just not much to say that it isn't wrong for a female teacher to bang a teenage male student. Gender has nothing to do with this, its all about age. Imagine if a 16 year old female student banged the hot male geography teacher. There'd be outrage, he'd be a pervert, her a victim, him shamed for life. But somehow if you switch genders all that changes? Not sure how that can possibly be reasonable.
As far as teachers go, I think Id like take a shot in the sack with The Trunchbull from Matilda. She can rub chocolate cake all over my face anytime.
As you point out, there IS a difference. Is it reasonable? Who knows. Does it exist? Yes. There can be all sorts of discussions over why that difference exists; girls are softer/weaker physically? they trigger that genetic "I must protect you" response in guys? Who knows, but it does exist. Seems to me that it kind of relates to the impression of how much "protection" that kid needs, or how vulnerable they are. If the student was a huge alpha-male jock, the reaction seems to be high-fives all around. If it's a weaker-looking, feminine male student, then the reaction is that he's a victim and taken advantage of. The same way that HFB talks about her kids both being victims if it happened to her, I'm guessing that it again comes down to a sense of protection; a momma-bear looking after her cubs. I think gender isn't the key thing that evokes those feelings, it's the normal association between the appearance of needing protection and gender. People look at those involved and make a determination about how well they could defend themselves and their overall level of vulnerability, and that determines their level of outrage.
Never said it wasn't wrong. Just saying it needs to be looked at differently, and I'm only speaking about this situation, not the reverse. Also, how is the student a victim outside of the laws set? If we were in a lawless country, someone murdered would still be a victim because something happened out of their control that caused them harm. In this situation, outside the perceived and expected trust put into the teacher, do we actually know if there was harm to this 16 year old in something he wanted and then later bragged about? Holy shit, Nettdata nailed it. I think I wanted to get there, but couldn't. Perfect.
As I see it there are two issues being discussed here. First, there's the ethical/legal aspect of a teacher/adult screwing a minor/student. For all the reasons people have stated - power differentials, conflict of interest, etc. - it's absolutely wrong that she fucked him and she should be punished accordingly. The second issue here is whether or not the kid is a victim in a psychological or real sense. The bottom line is that that only ethical stance to take is to let the kid decide for himself how much he's been damaged/victimized/traumatized. We as a society have the horrible and rotten habit of silencing people in that we like to decide for them whether or not they count as victims. It's the same as every time we here a story about a woman who was raped or sexually assaulted and we ignore what the aggrieved party thinks and feels and believe we have the right to determine how she should be classified, "oh she was drunk? Well she should've known better and it's her own fault. She's not a victim". If the kid feels traumatized about the experience and wants counselling and therapy, that's his decision. If it makes him feel like a stud and gives him confidence or whatever, that's his decision too. Telling him how he should feel about it solely to fit the narrative we want to believe is fucking bullshit.
I agree that there's a difference in perception based on gender, and think what it comes down to is that people simply don't take female sexual agency very seriously.
I agree, and that's a huge problem. Combine that with the whole perception of protection and projection of how a person should feel given the circumstance. Wonder what the situation would be if the female student was a 6'1 jacked volleyball/basketball player and the teacher was a 5'3 biology teacher. The physical imposing argument would be a little interesting, on top of the possibility of her initiating it. Saying she doesn't know what she's doing because she's 16 is arbitrarily putting her on one side of the sentient agency line, which moves. Life/culture/society is hard y'all.
Along that same line, I can't wait to see the effects that readily available porn has had on this generation, where "normal" sexual relationship expectations include "gagging ass to mouth".
So where are these two hot teacher sexual agency in this argument? Like I mentioned when this was still in the WDT, was their motivation more along a guys motivation? They just wanted a hot piece of jock ass? Outside of the unethical minor-adult/student-teacher argument is this just a result of women taking on a more traditional male mindset towards sex? Guess we can't know for sure since we won't see the kid. You never know maybe the kid was a schlub just had the female condition clocked and made them feel wanted like Christian Grey or something. My bets on him being a Ryan Lochte type.
The point made that describing the victimization someone feels is really valid. Trying to say how much someone should/should've been injured is just conjecture and guessing. For example, a guy I play hockey with had a CB radio in his car for the longest time during the 70s/80s. Accordingly, he got his car broken into more than a few times. I asked him if he felt annoyed people kept breaking into his car, asked him if he felt violated because people kept trying to steal his stuff, he said no, they never got the radio so he didn't mind. Most people would feel very victimized by someone breaking into their car, this guy (albeit because he is a weird Russian dude) didn't seem to mind really. He didn't feel victimized by the car break-ins. Trying to say if this kid was emotionally/psychologically injured really isn't worth a conversation because its impossible to know. What is worth knowing that he was likely to be injured, thats what makes it criminal to engage in that kind of behavior.
Think back to your first sexual experience and tell me if it's a reflection on your current sex life. I hope it isn't. Most guys I know had a "45 seconds of pumping with my boxers around my knees" experience. As for a "healthy sexual relationship", I think you're setting aside the abject sexualization of children from the age of 10 these days. Look at any YouTube music video these days and tell me that it portrays a healthy sexual relationship between people. Also, was the student a virgin? Probably not. So now he's had both ends up the spectrum - the painfully awkward first time and the wild and crazy threesome. Good for him. It shouldn't have been with teachers, but if it had been two cheerleaders, bravo.
The black and white of this conversation is that the teachers should have had the intelligence not to sleep with a student because they are figures of authority. Gender and age play no part in that distinction. They did something morally and legally wrong and their punishment should reflect that. The gray area comes in with how society views the sex based on the genders of both the student and teacher. Yes, society will view a male teacher sleeping with a student differently than a female teacher. The same goes for the age of the student and teacher involved. We can make the argument that a 16 year-old boy's consent is more legitimate than someone younger. You can go against the larger societal beliefs and say that a 16 year-old girl's consent is also more legitimate than her younger counterpart. We could take this a step further and discuss the legitimacy of consent for same-sex student/teacher relationships. At the end of the day, though, a teacher sleeping with a student is wrong on every level. The gray area comes in when discussing the mental and emotions effects of this relationship. Some 16 year-old students will walk away from such an encounter with no ill effects. Others, no matter the gender, will have fucked up ideas of what a healthy adult relationship looks like and/or will require therapy to deal with the ill effects of the encounter. My personal opinion is that the gender of the student does not matter. The teenagers that I know would not be able to cope with this sort of fucked-up relationship before they reach college and have spent a small amount of time outside of their parent's home. Spending time outside of the snow globe that is high school is the "magical moment" when teenagers are capable of handling these sorts of adult relationships. Two teenagers going at it does not have the power imbalance that teenager-adult relationships have. Edit: I want to add that "reach college and out of their parents home" can also be living with their parents and/or entering the workforce. As long as they are out of high school and among a more diverse population on a daily basis.
I want to preface this by saying that, even though I've always been pretty secure in my beliefs of not wanting to fuck a teenager, after spending all day every day having teenagers tell me graphic details about their sex lives it makes even less sense to me why anyone would be interested in that. I don't 'know what they're doing but it isn't sex. Anyway, I think an unnecessary amount of attention is being paid to how he reacted as proof that this shouldn't be considered rape or victimization. It's been a really long, slow process for the general societal perception and acceptance of rape to be anything other than an armed stranger jumping out of the bushes and dragging a girl into the alley and violently raping her, and so the perception and acceptance of how someone who's been properly, legitimately raped should act afterward is still lagging far behind reality. But, really, the Special Episode image of reacting to rape with a bawling cold shower and then immediately being thrown into despair is pretty damn rare. I just hate to have this prevailing attitude about how someone reacts to being raped to be proof to how Actually Raped they were when the majority of rape falls under the general umbrella of Date Rape and the aftermath is rarely terribly simple. And besides, for as much as it is extremely difficult and terrifying for women to tell someone they've been raped and talk about it, it's a hundred times harder for men to do it because of all of the shitty attitudes about sex and sexuality of both genders we still have. I think the idea that someone suggested earlier than he really did just tell his friends with the intention of wanting to talk about it and having his group of 16 year old dorks not realize and instead give him an "oh NOICE bro" reaction that he rolled with to avoid being shamed about it is just as plausible as him actually going around bragging about it. But, again, even if that was the case it's not indicative of anything. People snap in weird ways. Even in just my relatively small social circle throughout the years, I've later found out that a few hookups that were dished about just like any other date were actually them talking about their own rape because they panicked and thought talking about it in any other way would incite suspicion. I know that I deal with all sorts of trauma by making light of it and presenting it as this funny absurd story if I can because I still want to tell people but want to avoid making it some sort of Big Deal. And aren't guys kind of notorious for misdirected reactions to their feelings anyway? But this is all with actual adults in mind. When I think back to being a teenager, I don't think I reacted to or handled anything "properly." I thought so many things were fine just because I accepted my reality for what it was, and I look back on it now and realize how incredibly fucked up so many things were that I just kind of took in stride. All this is to say, I'm not terribly surprised at the (supposed) reaction of either the boy himself or those that are more or less giving this a pass when it comes to dealing with rape that wasn't perhaps carried out with physical force or the threat of physical force. We've still got a long way to go when it comes to all this shit.
My first orgasm was from a blowjob from an older girl in front of twenty people. I'm just saying. If this was Susie getting railed by the hot track and field coach, mr Adams, and the hot English teacher mr bravo, there wouldn't be any discussion. Almost all of us agree that teenage girls mature faster than teenage boys, but male teachers would be crucified for the same crime - they'd do time and they'd be pariahs for the rest of their lives for it. Should the teachers be fired? Fuck yes. Is the kid a victim? That's a lot harder to say. Does this once again illustrate a gloriously fucked up double standard? Jesus fucking Christ does it ever.
Seriously, these teachers chose this kid? I would have volunteered to save them the scrutiny and possible record. A 16 year old? I would definitely be a better lay than him. Probably. Maybe At least I'd be legal
The conclusion I'm drawing is that he never really stood a chance of saying no. That could be due to their position and authority, social stigma or expectations, but that was a train he couldn't exit. That, by definition is rape. No one is crying "poor baby", but there are degrees of being a victim. I think if you look at seducing and fucking a 16 year old as an intentionally malicious act, rather than a fantasy, then it changes. This kid, assuming he's like every other 16 year old cannot play this game with adults yet. How many of us have fucked people 8 or 16 years older and it been a healthy, stable, equitable relationship? This is what I mean: he had no power in this situation. No power to say no, no power to avoid manipulation and no power to end it, realistically. Why else would an adult do it, other than to have sex with someone where they control every dynamic? Maybe he never wanted it to stop, maybe he was 100% ok with all the things that were going on, but if he wasn't...what choice did he have? Say no to an adult fully capable of ruining his life (Hell hath no fury, and all that....), risk the social backlash from turning down sex and hope that his life isn't permanently derailed? The fact that he was incapable of making those calculations is the whole fucking point of why it's rape: his consent is not the same.