From Gothamist:
Are you a parent? Well then the News today really, really, really wants to get you worried about the idea that your children may be sleeping with their teachers!
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Are you skeptical of there being a teacher/student sex problem of “epidemic proportions” yet? Because Terri Miller of Stop Educator Sexual Abuse, Misconduct and Exploitation really seems to think there is. Us? Not so much.
While we don’t doubt for a minute that there are teachers out there who have in the past, are currently and will in the future sleep with their students we also think it is an incredibly dangerous thing to go running around like chicken little about. A 33% increase to 92 substantiated cases of sexual misconduct in a school system with well over a million students sounds about what we would expect statistically (and again, less than a third were full-time teachers). There is no question that parents need to be vigilant about who their children spend their time with be their teachers or priests. But we saw where these kinds of sex witch hunts can lead when we were in high school, and it can get very ugly very quickly. Environments rife with illegitimate allegations are seriously not conducive to anyones education.
I agree 100%. This entire issue is a lot like the shark attack news stories we see every summer. The media blows everything out of proportion.
Here’s the article being discussed:
Stripping down to a bra, miniskirt and crotchless panties, 30-year-old Bronx teacher Albania Abreu allegedly gave one of her GED students a lap dance – as a “Christmas present.”
Angelique Jarnes, 33, shaped young minds at Long Island City High School in Queens until she was accused of having weekly sex with one of her students – while also allegedly sleeping with the boy’s older brother.
On a football field in Staten Island, Curtis High School music teacher Louis Mannarino, 42, allegedly took the virginity of a high school senior, then professed he was “falling in love” with her. The girl later wore a wire to catch him discussing his tangles with two other girls.
A Daily News examination of city documents found shocking details about scores of sexual encounters between teachers and students in city schools.
Those kind of lurid details are probably a good way to sell newspapers, but I don’t think they match the reality of the vast, vast majority of high school student’s educational lives.
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What’s with all the female teachers getting charged? Do no males ever commit these “offenses” or are the vast majority really perpetrated by women? I wonder. I also wonder whether this is because males are assumed to be more likely to offend and therefore more closely watched, or if they’re smarter about it and don’t get caught… strange if true.
Or is it just the intent of this site to focus on cases involving women as perpetrators?
Whichever it is, holy tempest in a teapot batman! I can see people getting upset when there are drugs and alcohol involved, but consensual sex? Pfft!
Where were all these hot horny teachers when I I was in high school?! I had to wait until I was 17 to be seduced by an older woman, and she wasn’t even one of the teachers I was busy fantasizing about… Damn!
It’s a fond memory, and in no way inhibited my ability to establish “age-appropriate” relationships, or romantic relationships in general. Quite the opposite, in fact. Nor did it do any lasting harm. Other than the normal angst of a breakup when the affair ended, it was an entirely positive experience. We’re still close (platonic) friends 24 years later.
Society’s reaction to inter-generational sex between physically mature individuals is more damaging than the “offense” itself. Now I’m not chasing schoolgirls, and I don’t exactly approve, but if this “happened to” one of my own kids, the LAST thing I’d want to do is get the legal system involved.
Scary. Talk about saddling kids with a load of pointless baggage, not to mention the sheer injustice of jailing people who for the most part are more in need of counsel than punishment.
Sexual morality is mainly culturally determined. What’s right to one society can be appallingly wrong to another, but except in cases of coercion, misuse of power, or blatant abuse (not just the sexual acts themselves), right and wrong are entirely relative judgements based more on culturally induced prejudices than anything else.
What a waste.