Double standard may exist for teacher-student sex cases

Yes, it does and not just in the way the criminal courts handle these cases.

“I think we still live in a chauvinistic society, where that young man is viewed almost as a hero, in getting himself an older, attractive woman. And it is that erroneous perception that fuels that disconnect,” said Robert N. Convissar, a criminal attorney and former executive assistant district attorney in Erie County.

You think? Visit any boys locker room at school, and you’ll know for sure. Or Myspace. Or Facebook. It isn’t just “getting himself an older, attractive woman.” It’s lying to young girls in order to get laid, scored higher if she’s a virgin. All’s fair, in the world of some boys, no matter how vile the experience is for the girl.

While not excusing the female teacher who molests a boy (she needs a prolonged trip through the criminal justice system), I can also imagine predatory boys actively seeking her out rather than the other way around because she would be considered a “score.” Once the word got around that she was “easy,” wouldn’t other boys be tempted go running to see if they could “score” too? If so, would it be different for girls? Would they be as likely to go running to a male teacher to see if they could get in on the action?

“We seem to have an alarming increase of teacher-student relationships, that’s for sure,” Clark said.

Is this a true increase of criminal activity, or is it an increase of reporting criminal activity? The more publicity this heinous crime gets, the more likely the victims are to report it because they don’t feel so alone. It’s hard to step forward when one is hurt, embarrassed and confused. Some may not know they were victims of a crime until they see a case discussed in the media.

Thankfully, the police have begun to ask other possible victims to come forward when a case is in the spotlight, under the theory that predators don’t stop with just one. We need to ask for a honing of the statistics before we know if these stats mean more predators are active now than ever before. I suspect it’s more predators getting caught since we’ve always had a huge supply of scumbags.

About 90 percent of offenders were male, the AP survey found, and the number of cases rose each year during that period.

This makes it overwhelmingly a male crime, so why focus on how women are sentenced? Why not focus on appropriate sentences for all predators?

For that matter, why does most of the media coverage focus on female offenders? It creates a distorted effect in the viewer’s mind. They begin to think that female predators are equal in numbers to male predators. The media likes to focus on the unusual, which is the basis for anything being news, but it is more than that. It’s catering to sexual urges to obtain the greatest ratings.

Men like to watch anything about women and sex. Some porn lines only feature women as predators because this is what their customers want to see. Shepard Smith, Fox News, openly admitted he loves covering the Victoria’s Secret Lingerie events. He loves watching the tapes so much he ran them two or three times in the same show. Even though these have no relationship to predatory teachers, they serve the same function, so we have the nightly news serving as a titillating touchstone for the same reasons porn appeals.

Neither men nor women experience that same lure when a male predator victimizes a girl. Men just aren’t interested when a male predator is featured. They might even feel sympathy if they’ve had similar experiences or urges. Women are likely to feel distress because they too have been sexually victimized.

The next step in television news will be to regularly feature female teachers having sex with female students — that’ll make their ratings go over the top.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 22nd, 2008 at 11:19 pm and is filed under Men, Sex and the Law, Sexual politics, Women. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.