June 29th / July 1st, 2007
"Teachers Should Take Roll to See Who’s Abstinent"
Last week a forty year old male science teacher married his sixteen year old
female student. Reportedly the Wilmington couple has been carrying on since
she was fourteen. As disgusting and shocking as these nuptials seem to most
of us, it was all quite legal. That’s because nearly every State allows
girls to get married once they turn sixteen. In some states, like New Hampshire,
a girl can marry at age thirteen so long as the parents consent.
The male teacher in Wilmington has come under fire for taking advantage of a
young, impressionable girl, as well he should. But public outcry is a bit
different when a female teacher hooks up with a male student, and those
incidents are becoming increasingly more common.
Over the past few years, scores of cases have been reported where a female
teacher seduces, has sex with, and even marries a young male student.
- Mary Kay Letourneau started the media frenzy when, at age 34, she bore the
child of her twelve year old male student. Since then the national dishonor
roll of teacher tarts gone wild is astounding. Here are just a few:
Amber Jennings of Massachusettes who showed nude photos of herself to the
boy she wanted to seduce.
- Angela Comer of Kentucky who fled to Mexico with her student lover.
- Bethany Sherrill a Missourian who’s father-in-law was the school board
chairman while she scored with a fifteen year old boy.
- Floridian Carol Flannigan who slept with a student and his father
concurrently.
- Christine Duda of St. Louis who lured her underage prey back to her
apartment for sex.
- Christine Scarlett of Ohio who had a fling with the captain of the high
school football team, then gave birth to his baby.
- Deanna Bobo of Arkansas, had sex with her fourteen year old student in his
own bed while his parents were out of the house.
- Diane DeMartini-Scully of New York was a school psychologist who had sex
with the sixteen year old boyfriend of her own thirteen year old daughter.
- Elizabeth Stow of Fresno who seduced three of her male students.
- Ellen Garfield, a music teacher in Newton, Mass. coaxed her student lovers
into sex by first disrobing in an empty classroom.
And of course, there’s Debra LaFave who just last week plead her way out of
a prison sentence in Florida. She’s the smoking hot middle school teacher
who had sex with a fourteen year old male student in a car driven by his
fifteen year old cousin.
The list of school sirens is endless and begs the question, Why?
A FoxNews.com report suggests that many of these adult offenders suffer from
a disorder called “hebophilia”, which, in plain English means a sexual
attraction to adolescents.
Interestingly, though, such disorders are rarely mentioned when a male
teacher is on trial. That’s because according to Louis Schlesinger of the John
Jay College of Criminal Justice, a double standard exists in our society.
Matthew Felling of the Center for Media and Public Affairs says that a male
teacher accused of inappropriate behavior is often labeled as a beast, while
the female teacher is simply thought to be mentally ill.
And, Schlesinger explains the double standard by saying that for a young boy
to be seduced by a female teacher is considered by many to be a “rite of
passage” – the boy is envied by men of all ages for being lucky enough to have
sex with a great looking older woman.
But aside from the double standard controversy, a number of other collateral
issues have arisen during this epidemic of student/teacher sex, among them:
- Is the adult solely to blame and ultimately responsible?
- Should consensual sex with an older youth be considered statutory rape?
- Is inappropriate behavior the same as child abuse?
- What reform is needed to stem the tide of school sex?
To further complicate the probability of nationwide uniform reform, in many
states it is not even a crime for a school employee to have sex with a
student aged sixteen or older.
And what to do about whistle-blowing students and parents who now want
justice (and money) years after the affair took place?
According to the Heartland Institute, 4.5 million public school students
(roughly 1 in 10) say they have experienced unacceptable sexual behavior by a
school employee, but often times, what is later reported as unacceptable was
originally consensual.
Florida judge Bob Wattles is on a crusade to stop student/teacher sex
altogether. In fact, he is planning a statewide speaking tour of schools so he can
warn teachers of the consequences of their amorous actions. Wattles who
has been tough on offending teachers in his courtroom, is not entirely
unsympathetic to the temptations and false charges they sometimes face. Says
Wattles, “It’s not always the teacher stalking the student…these kids can be very
aggressive”.
Let’s be clear. It is wrong for any adult to have sex with any minor. But
today, most incidents of school sex involve students who are between 15 and
18 years old, and that brings me to the parents.
If you have a sixteen- or seventeen-year-old child you must come out of your
denial. These kids are either already having sex, or are planning to have
sex. And those who aren’t engaged in either still know how to flirt, seduce
and tease. So deal with it. Monitor how they dress, who they hang out with,
what movies they watch, what clubs they go to. Set curfews and enforce them.
Never let your teenager spend time that is unaccounted for. Know where he
or she is every hour of every day so long as they live under your roof. If
you as a parent fail to do these things, then you have very little credibility
in my book when you seek to imprison a teacher for having consensual sex with
your seventeen year old child who might have initiated the act to begin with
because you didn’t do your job in the first place.
Again, any teacher who has sex with a student is sick and should never be
allowed to teach again. And those who have sex with any child under sixteen
should go to jail for a very long time. Beyond that, the debate and the law
gets a bit fuzzy and inconsistent And so it is up to parents to guide,
educate, and monitor their nearly adult children.
Meanwhile, here’s my advice for you would-be hebophiles who work in the
public schools, but haven’t yet acted on your sick impulses: find another line
of work now, get some counseling, and have sex with someone your own age.
It may sound contrary to what the government requires these days, but I’m
asking these sicko teachers to leave every child behind, and don’t let the door
hit you on the way out.
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