Oprah Magazine: Female Teachers Who Have Sex with Students Are Misguided Poor Souls Looking for Love…
“Sex with students is bad, but why should it be the case that for women it’s a case of ‘poor boundaries’ and for men it’s hardcore brutal predation of the most evil sort?”
Jay, a reader, recently wrote me a letter about an article in Oprah magazine on the number of female teachers caught having sex with their students, such as Debra Lafave (pictured). The article is “Why Did the Teacher Have Sex With Her Student?”
Jay writes:
My wife and I both had problems with the article, but it was interesting that we had two different problems. Here are some of the offending sentences:
“Most of these women, experts say, don’t go into teaching with plans to seduce a child, the way a classic pedophile does; what leads to their downfall is emotional immaturity.”
“These teachers have a poor concept of boundaries, so they don’t recognize when they’ve crossed the line into inappropriate behavior.”
“In a lot of these cases, the woman thinks she has fallen in love.”
“But most of these women come from conflict-ridden families where they didn’t learn healthy social skills. Many learned to get their emotional needs—for love, attention, approval—met through sexual behavior.”
None of the experts condone the teachers’ actions, but they do have sympathy. “I don’t think she’s a sexual predator,” Schleicher says of Rogers. “I see her as a really hurting adult who needs help. I just hope she can get it.”
My wife sees this as reasons why we should have sympathy for the female teachers, and that what they are doing isn’t really bad, just misguided.
To me, the article seems to be saying that the female teachers are somehow misguided poor souls who are just looking for love, and their fantasy world leads them to find love in the wrong places sometimes. However, the first quote makes it sound as if women don’t plan to seduce children, but men are “classic pedophiles” who want sex with children, and they’ve decided that becoming a teacher is a great way to get access. It’s rather insulting to all the male teachers out there.
Of the male teachers who do have sex with students, couldn’t it be possible that they think they’re in love also? Sex with students is bad, but why should it be the case that for women it’s a case of poor boundaries and for men it’s hardcore brutal predation of the most evil sort?
Now that I think of it, it’s also insulting to women. Isn’t the article really saying that women just have no self control or self awareness? She can’t help herself. She got caught up in the fantasy. She’s just emotionally immature.
The article mentions one woman who is serving an eight year sentence. Is that comparable to the sentences men get? Is there even a way to estimate the average sentence for teachers who have sex with students?
About that woman, the magazine writes:
An impending divorce helped push 27-year-old Pamela Rogers into getting intimate with her 13-year-old student in 2004, says Joan Schleicher, a Nashville forensic psychologist who testified in court on her behalf. “She was demoralized and feeling empty inside, and he was the one to whom she could turn her attention.” As the relationship progressed, Rogers (a former homecoming queen now serving an eight-year sentence) began, as many of these women do, to live in a world of “magical thinking,” Schleicher says. “And she responded to that instead of the rules of society”…
“I don’t think she’s a sexual predator,” Schleicher says of Rogers. “I see her as a really hurting adult who needs help. I just hope she can get it.”
I’ve previously stated that I think that some of the current statutory rape laws are draconian. I think it’s ludicrous that a 19-year-old boy can go to prison for having sex with a 16-year-old girl. However, a 27-year-old with a 13-year-old…well, that’s different.
Glenn Sacks, www.GlennSacks.com
[Note: If you or someone you love is faced with a divorce or needs help with child custody, child support, false accusations, Parental Alienation, or other family law or criminal law matters, ask Glenn for help by clicking here.]
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15 comments
However, the first quote makes it sound as if women don’t plan to seduce children, but men are “classic pedophiles” who want sex with children, and they’ve decided that becoming a teacher is a great way to get access.
Not to excuse behavior or take away from the level of disgust at crimes like this but, generally speaking, we are not talking about pedophilia here. According to Britannica.com, pedophilia is a psychosexual disorder in which an adult’s arousal and sexual gratification occur primarily through sexual contact with prepubescent children."
Most, if not all, of the stories of teachers having sex with students, whether the teacher be male or female, are not cases of pedophilia. It usually involves teenagers who have reached or gone through puberty. In other words, making female teachers out to be misguided or immature while comparing them to "pedophile men" is hogwash. It is an equivalent problem.
The same thing happened with the Catholic Church and the priest sex abuse problem. All the news media reported the "Pedophile Priest Sex Scandal" when, in fact, most of the cases involved post-pubescent boys. That means it was a "Homosexual Priest Sex Scandal" which, in today’s media, would not fly because we dare not criticize anything having to do with homosexuals.
Once again, I am not trying to downplay the serious nature of these crimes. If a 30 year old teacher has sex with a 14 year old student, it doesn’t matter what the sex of either person is, it is the same crime.
this is more a response to reader jay than to glenn:
this isn’t what the article is saying at all. first of all, it’s not implying that male teachers, as a group, are "classic pedophiles," nor is it even saying that male teachers who have sex with students are "classic pedophiles." it’s merely making the distinction that the women who have sex with their students, in some unnamed number of unnamed expert’s opinions, do not fit the description of a "classic pedophile." inferring anything else from the quote seems to me to be a case of oversensitivity.
The word you´re looking for then, TexasAg03, is ephebofilia. Andrew Sullivan (back when he was rational) made the same argument: attraction to sexually mature (or nearly mature) individuals who are not yet of legal majority is not wrong to the same degree as attraction to individuals who are still children biologically as well as legally.
Ah! Helps if I get the spelling right…
Wow. Just a week or so ago, Mr. Sacks writes about a 15 y/o boy "victim" of statutory rape by a 19 year old girl. The poor youngster made a baby with her and had to pay a token of child support. Statutory rape NOT forcible rape. Since it wasn’t forcible rape, we can conclude that he came willingly, in more ways than just one. She, of course, broke the law and needed to be punished, didn’t deserve any child support and even better the "victim’s" parents while crying about paying support are suing the girl for custody!!!! Sounds to me that the parents of said "victim" are vindictive assholes.
Today, he writes that " I think it’s ludicrous that a 19-year-old boy can go to prison for having sex with a 16-year-old girl." A few months ago, Sacks made a "victim" out of a man who committed forcible rape and couldn’t attend his son’s 8th grade graduation because he was a sex offender.
Again, I ask why the double standard? Why is the 19 y/o girl a criminal for having sex with a 15 y/o boy but it’s ludicrous that a 19 y/o boy get punished?
How about we stop making the men "victims" on both sides of the fence…can we? Can we try to be a little tiny bit more even handed?
Again, I ask why the double standard? Why is the 19 y/o girl a criminal for having sex with a 15 y/o boy but it’s ludicrous that a 19 y/o boy get punished?
Please read more carefully. From the essay you mentioned:
[As an aside, I don’t believe a 19-year-old having sex with a 15-year-old should be statutory rape. However, legally in this case it is statutory rape–just as it would be if it were a 35-year-old with a 15-year-old–so demanding that the victim pay child support should be out of the question.–GS]
No double standard here.
Now ask yourself if you can be as even handed: if a 19 year old man impregnated a 15 year old girl, and if the court decided for whatever reason that he was a better parent and awarded him full custody, would you support him in suing the girl for child support? Or would you say, "Wait a minute, he raped her, and now she has to pay for it?"
I’m all for equality; and I agree that Mr. Sacks has a bit of a one-sided view on these cases. But as the Oprah article shows, he’s not the only one with a one-sided view. Women rapists are poor innocent victims in their eyes.
Zach,
I do see your point, but here’s how I saw the article:
1. There is a group of people.
2. This group is made up of teachers who have sex with students.
3. Of this group, we assert and specifically single out the females as not your classic pedophile.
I will concede that the author might not have had this intent, but doesn’t taking a certain group, and saying "This group is not X," seem to imply that things not in that group are X? In this case, the things not in the "female" group, the males, are, classic pedophiles.
Scarlett: What Martin said.
The double standard exists because many 15 year old boys WANT TO bang their teachers. I imagine some girls may dream about their teacher, if he’s a total hunk, but the number of them is fewer to be sure.
I only ask where was this chick when I was going to school? Awesome!
Seriously, society can see this any way it wants it’s when the law sees it differently that we have to worry. I hate double standards too, but this one exists because I never once in my years as a teenager ever cringed in fear at the thought of a hot female teacher trying to bang me.
What Jay Dean said.
Thoughts expressed below are somewhat risky; for the record, I don’t believe teachers having sex with students is OK under any circumstances. In the past two years there have been two (female) teachers fired from the local high school for this, and I believe it was the right thing to do. As a parent, either the school is "in loco parentis" or else I home school. I expect the school to honor its responsibility, and that includes limiting some behaviors. There is actually a "no public display of affection" (PDA) rule here.
Re the article, I expect that some men are flattered and get a major ego boost when an attractive female pays them some attention. I expect that (just like the women) some men have low self esteem and lots of societal pressures. If that is some kind of justification for women…
I do not believe the teaching profession is rife with pedophiles; the implication in the story that men choose teaching because they are pedophiles is pretty vile. I find it incredible that a pedophile would consciously choose the teaching profession specifically intending to support predation.
(In my mind) there is a VERY large difference in the sexual nature between prepubescence and (particularly late) teens. I tend to think of a pedophile as someone focused on children, not teens. If you can get condoms in the school office, then there is a pretty blatant admission that kids are having sex. If kids are having sex, I don’t know the basis for saying that they can’t have sex with someone from an older age bracket. (My father-in-law was 15 years older than my mother-in-law.) Maybe it is arguable that the teaching position inherently has too much authority to avoid coercion (or at least it used to).
I would like to see some rational separation in the description of pedophile based on victim age; could be argued marriageable age, maybe something else. If there is a rationale for singling out teacher-sex with students, make it a law.
The crime of theft is graded; there is petty theft and grand larceny and everyone knows there is a difference. Sexual crimes are all kind of lumped together, and the heinous nature of some subset(s) of the named-crime does not fit well with others that are less clear cut.
There was a story in a college newspaper many years ago about a co-ed who ended up hanging with three guys in a bar. They decided to go to another bar, couldn’t drive, and she fell down in the middle of the street and was too drunk to get up. The guys had serial sex with her, but she didn’t know their names, couldn’t describe them, and couldn’t identify them. Although I don’t condone, excuse, or support the guys, somehow in my mind that set of circumstances is totally different than where the guy who breaks into a house or kidnaps a victim.
Martin,
I think stat rape laws are nothing more than a means for angry parents to be vindictive when they find out their little darlin’ isn’t a virgin any longer.
Calling consensual sex rape because of an arbitrary age limit instituted by the state is ridiculous, ESPECIALLY, when so many people argue that a 13 y/o girl is old enough to decide to abort a baby but not old enough to consent to having sex.
No Martin, I am even handed.
Child support is about the innocent child’s needs and again arguing that a 15 y/o boy who got laid and made a baby is a "victim" because of his age is bullshit! He’s a daddy now - just like all those little girls who became mommies for doing the exact same thing…
Scarlett: Those are all good arguments, but I’m still not seeing any double standard at all. It looks like just plain disagreement to me. I find Glen to generally be quite consistent in his views, even if I disagree with him sometimes.
By the way, if the option of adoption is always available–and it is–why should the boy be forced to pay child support?
Scarlett,
I think stat rape laws are nothing more than a means for angry parents to be vindictive when they find out their little darlin’ isn’t a virgin any longer.
Calling consensual sex rape because of an arbitrary age limit instituted by the state is ridiculous, ESPECIALLY, when so many people argue that a 13 y/o girl is old enough to decide to abort a baby but not old enough to consent to having sex.
That’s Mr. Sacks’s stated position as well.
Child support is about the innocent child’s needs and again arguing that a 15 y/o boy who got laid and made a baby is a "victim" because of his age is bullshit!
So then you’ve still left one question unargued: if the 19 year old man had custody, would you be OK with the court requiring the 15 year old mother to pay child support?
Mr. Sacks’s stated position is: a crime is a crime, regardless of the sex of the person committing it, and regardless of whether he agrees the action should be criminal; and if someone is statutorily a victim, then it is wrong for that person to be financially obligated due to that crime, regardless of the sex of the victim.
But at least on evidence presented so far, society’s position is: this crime is a crime, but if the person committing it is female, we don’t consider it to be serious; and if someone is statutorily a victim, then it is OK for that person to be financially obligated due to that crime, as long as the victim is male. So far, there is no evidence either way whether society would support financially obligating the female victim as well; but indicators are that female victims would receive preferential consideration.
So do you stand with society, with preferential treatment for female victims (regardless of whether you agree with their victime status)? Or do you stand with Mr. Sacks, who argues for equal victim status or equal non-victim status, but not unequal status?
Jay Dean,
no I don’t think that implication is there. perhaps it’s a sin of omission, but Oprah’s readership is probably very overwhelmingly women, and it would make sense for the author to tailor the article to reflect that.
P Mike,
I don’t think there was ever any assertion in the article that men enter teaching because they are pedophiles. The article only states that a "classic pedophile" (regardless of gender since none is mentioned) would have entered teaching for the access to children, and draws a distinction there between (most) women teachers caught having sex with their students because they entered teaching for, in the author’s and some expert’s opinions, the usual reasons. It makes no comment on male teachers in general or even male teachers who have sex with their students specifically.
Martin:
So then you’ve still left one question unargued: if the 19 year old man had custody, would you be OK with the court requiring the 15 year old mother to pay child support?
Actually, I thought I addressed that when I stated that child support was for the child. If the father had custody and the mother didn’t then of course, she should pay support regardless of her victimhood or not. If the court found him to be the better parent, then he should collect support for said child.
Of course, if the boy is truly a victim AND isn’t demanding his parental rights and his parents aren’t demanding any claim to the child then maybe he shouldn’t be forced to support the kid. That isn’t the case here, is it?
They want to have their cake and eat it too. Don’t they?
Or do you stand with Mr. Sacks, who argues for equal victim status or equal non-victim status, but not unequal status?
Actually, I don’t stand with Mr. Sacks as it seems he very often argues in favor of men regardless of their guilt or innocence. He leans more towards making men the unjust victims of society rather than fighting that everyone be treated equally.
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