re: #316 Charles Johnson

By the way, the Washington Post changed the title from:

Sex between students and teachers should not be a crime

to:

The unintended consequences of laws addressing sex between teachers and students

It’s a sign of how corrupt and strange our media culture has gotten that this freakishly sick article was published at all.

I corresponded with the author privately on this. I felt (although I did not say) that she did a rather poor job at addressing a real issue — the way our culture reacts to over-sexualizing young girls by over-penalizing certain types of relationship.

God knows I would have a fit if any of my three daughters had sex with a teacher. Nonetheless, I have known three women who had serious relationships with their high school teachers (one with her principal). Two of the women married the teachers. The one I kept in touch with, whose relationship began when she was 15, remained married for decades and had several children; she is now the chair of a large department at a major university. In the one case where the police got involved, the man ended up in jail, the young woman was traumatized by the trial, and the community blamed her.

I would say that each of these women, then girls, was in an exceptional circumstance, whether it was a traumatic home situation or just being a genius among mediocre peers. The ones who were seeking help or support probably sought it in the wrong place. But did criminalization help them? No. And none felt, in retrospect, that they had been in any way victimized.

I do not think that such relationships should just be legal! But I do think that the issue is a lot more grey than most people paint it when they have not been personally involved in or close to such a situation. Our society, and especially our legal system, is terrible at dealing with the grey.