That wouldn't be illegal?
Two adults have consensual sex, Texas is going to send one to jail!
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The critical part of this post is the Former student part.
The crux of the argument is that he is a current student, not a former student.
The C-Word
Banned
No, in the U.S. the law, at least in my opinion should be, about being innocent until proven guilty. Here you either have someone being proven guilty of something with completely inconclusive evidence, or Texas believing that a 34 year old female having consensual sex with an 18 year old male should be illegal and require jail time. If someone could explain to me how this is not the case that would be cool.
You're misunderstanding the law.
If it is proven that she had sex with him, then she committed a class 2 felony and will be sentenced according to the will of the judge.
Consensual is not a question, because it cannot be given.
The C-Word
Banned
I understand that is the the law, that once there is sex proven that she will be sentenced for the felony. But what I am trying to get at is the moral reasoning that law sits on. What do people who support that law believe that law effectively does in this case? I guess if you believe that the teacher is basically a predator then that is fairly solid grounding for legal punishment, but I just find the thought of her being a predator so outlandish, not to mention completely unproven and rather contradicted as a matter of law.
I believe that any high-school student/teacher relation is inherently predatory and there is no proof needed other than the existence of sexual contact. (Of any kind.)
That viewpoint isn't exactly controversial.
VelvetMouth
Member
So there's a guidance councilor in a high school. He especially goes after young girls who might have issues at home or at school. He starts paying attention to them when they're 16, 17 years old. He helps them with their problems, builds up a level of trust with them. They think he's a great guy, he tells them how special they are, how pretty. Then when they turn 18 he turns the relationship into a sexual one. As we've seen in the past a lot of teachers don't even wait until the kid turns 18. How can anybody fail to see that it is morally wrong?
I very much doubt that.
The inability to recognize that at the very least there's a discussion to be had here is baffling. It only makes sense that it stems from the standard set of reactions you get in these situations, which is high fives for male students who bang female teachers and pitchforks for male teachers who bang female students.
The C-Word
Banned
Well in that case that dude is quite a scumbag. But a lot of people manipulate others to fall in love with them, they don't get jail time for it. The difference here is the age of course, but that is why the age of consent exists. What would make a difference for me is if the girls felt like they had been emotionally violated or controlled in some way, basically if they felt like a victim, or in some other way they were definitely a victim.
Idk, that guy would be a pretty detestable individual, but the sentencing for the case at hand just seems so wrong to me. Even in the situation you described, unless the girls felt like victims, I would just have him fired and obviously never work as a school official again.
Devolution
Member
Only incoherent to people who think coercive sex is fine and dandy.
VelvetMouth
Member
There's a huge difference between two adults manipulating each other and an adult in charge manipulating a child. I know some of you would love to be in a position to have sex with somebody and it's a fantasy to have sex with a teacher, but this isn't a story about poor woman being prosecuted for falling in love. Teachers also don't just walk up to kids and ask them to fuck and hope the kid says yes and if no hopes that the kids stays quiet. There is a lot of grooming going on and that's what normal people find contemptible.
dinazimmerman
Incurious Bastard
So it's morally wrong because the student might suffer some irreparable psychological/emotional damage as a result of the relationship? Why is it that such a relationship is wrong only when it is sexual? Wouldn't a non-sexual relationship of this sort be just as "predatory," and thus, by your logic, shouldn't it be criminal, too? Should it be illegal for a teacher to have any sort of non-academic relationship with a student, even if it's platonic or friendly, because of the possibility that it's predatory? Also, why don't we make predatory relationships between all adults illegal? Don't tell me that teachers are the only people who can exploit the emotional needs of others in order to build trust and then get sex? Why don't we make it illegal for counselors, shrinks, or doctors to have sex with their adult clients/patients? What about bosses and employees?
That said, suppose it makes sense to criminalize predatory relationships. Why can't the criminality of the relationship be decided by a visit to a shrink? When a teacher and student are caught having sex, they are required by law to visit a psychologist. If the psychologist determines it is predatory (i.e. one is manipulating the other, causing psychological/emotional damage), the predator is charged with jail time. Otherwise, they just receive counseling on how to have a healthy relationship.
Moreover, what sort of punishment is proportional to initiating a predatory relationship? Do we need to destroy someone's life, send him/her to jail and label him/her as a sexual predator, because he/she exploited someone's trust/emotional needs to get sex? Shouldn't the punishment be some sort of psychological treatment instead?
SnakeswithLasers
Member
You don't have the right to 'fuck kids under your control'--so nobody is taking it away. What is at issue is whether a felony charge resulting in jail for an adult having consensual sex with another adult is the correct course of action in all cases that could result from this particular law.
No, it's morally wrong because there was no way for the student to consent to sex with the teacher.
dinazimmerman
Incurious Bastard
So it's morally wrong because it is non-consentual by some arbitrary criterion you pulled out of your ass and all non-consentual sex is bad?
This sort of moral reasoning annoys me. It's purely Kantian/deontological, e.g. "lying is bad as a rule because it just is/God says so/the universe has determined that it is," as opposed to utilitarian, e.g. "lying is bad as a rule because we are all happier living in a society in which lying is discouraged."
The C-Word
Banned
Obviously there is a difference, but which category this falls into is not so easy to discern in such a setting as this (18 year old and 30 something). And once again I don't agree with the notion that just because one is a school official and the other a student, it is therefore only possible that the superior picked the student out and then deviously planned and executed a process of grooming. It surely happens, but we can't just assume it does 100% of the time if that is what your saying.
And even if that is what happened, so she seduced him? is that illegal too now? Yes the age the age, but he is 18. I feel like this last part might get me extra flak but eh
You lost me there man.
This criterion is not pulled out of my ass, but pulled from completely logical conclusions based on the relationship of a teacher and student.
SnakeswithLasers
Member
Oh boy.
dinazimmerman
Incurious Bastard
Please, indulge me with these completely logical conclusions.
Poor sentence structure. I'm a bad writer. Of course I believe all non-consensual sex is bad, as there is a clear victim who suffers emotionally if not physically. I was merely tracing out his logic in the form of a syllogism: a) teacher-student sex is non-consensual, b) all non-cosensual sex is bad, c) teacher-student sex is bad. Sorry for the confusion. My main beef is that his definition of consent is arbitrary, designed to fit his preconceived notions of what is consensual and what isn't, and that "consent" in this case is a red herring, as the student is an adult who is obviously mature enough to be able tell if the relationship was predatory/non-consensual/coercive or not.
The C-Word
Banned
as hilarious as the last part sounds i think all your trying to get as is the reasoning for calling it non-consensual? All non-consensual sex is indeed "bad" if your trying to contest that...
It seems people are not comprehending the fundamental issue raised by the law and those who support it. The argument is that such a relationship inherently cannot allow for consent. Consent is not merely a yes. This is literally the most important thing to understand about the position.
VelvetMouth
Member
A predatory platonic relationship or friendship? You're going to have to explain that one to me. I'm going to groom a child to be my friend so that we can say hi to each other in the hallway or ask him/her if they enjoyed their summer vacation? Why would a grown adult want to be hanging out with their students outside of school anyways if they are normally adjusted human beings? This teacher is 30. Her peers are in their late twenties early thirties. These are the people she should be friends with and forming sexual relationships with not kids she's trusted with.
As for punishment, I've never agreed with max sentence and chances are likely that she won't go o prison. They can sentence her to getting therapy but she broke the law and shouldn't be allowed to work with children again.
The C-Word
Banned
So just because it is student and teacher that means the only kind of sex they can have is the rape kind, even if the student is of age and completely willing and enamored not through any kind of psychological manipulation or other diabolical shit, and all of the consequences of rape will apply to the teacher. Please give me your reasoning for why such an argument is morally well-founded.
Count Dookkake
Member
cutmeamango
Banned
When you take it out of phrase context, it sounds bad.
He means that there is an arbitrary criteria for consent that escapes the actual participants, which is authority. Which in this specific case, the age of the participant is enough to be considered as an adult and informed about the act.
If you hold law criterias as compasses of what is correct and wrong (or moral) for this case, would it not be ignorant to contest other laws?
He means that there is an arbitrary criteria for consent that escapes the actual participants, which is authority. Which in this specific case, the age of the participant is enough to be considered as an adult and informed about the act.
If you hold law criterias as compasses of what is correct and wrong (or moral) for this case, would it not be ignorant to contest other laws?
The situation is one in which, inherently, a decision to engage in a sexual relationship cannot be made to any standard satisfying the legal definition of consent. The student-teacher relationship does not allow for it. Generally even the student claiming he or she was acting completely of their own accord is not enough to overcome that.
VelvetMouth
Member
But the law states that a teacher having sex with a student can't be consensual even if the kid is 18 does it not?
I've explained this before in this thread, but I'll try again. I doubt any of my conclusions will sway either of you.
This relationship did not happen in a vacuum. They are student and teacher and because of that their day to day interactions are based on that more than anything else. It is very unlikely that this student was not aware of this teacher in the past and decided to fuck her without first being aware of her as a teacher as well as a woman. It is very likely in fact, that there was months or even years of non-sexual interaction between the two. The student can claim until he's blue in the face that there was no coercion between them but he is not in a position to be aware of the influences that are being worked on him by the teacher.
The reason it's a law is to discourage this type of relationship because it is very likely that there are going to be consequences in the students future. Differentiating between a 16 year old student and an 18 year old student is, in this case, pointless because the influence could have started years ago.
dinazimmerman
Incurious Bastard
If the only reason why teacher-student sexual relationships are necessarily predatory, even if the student is an adult, is the possibility of psychological abuse, then a lot of non-sexual relationships are also predatory, as they involve the possibility of psychological abuse. Why are these not illegal? Moreover, even if we restrict the definition of a predatory relationship to sexual relationships, there are still a lot of predatory relationships outside of sexual teacher-student relationships. Why are these not illegal?
VelvetMouth
Member
How do you think a sexual relationship between a student and a teacher starts? I should probably ask how you think a normal sexual relationship between adults start because that could be interesting in itself. Do you think the student approaches the teacher and asks them on a date or do you think they come out straight asking for a fuck? How do you think a teacher initiates sex with a teenager?
I think the punishment should be termination, and the misocnduct being reported to the state board of education, with her appearing before the board and having the case reviewed, pending further action.
The appropriate aciton for the boad to take would be a mandatory 2-3 year suspension of her teaching license, with her teaching credentials only being restored after the suspension period if/when she retake some general teaching training courses (history of teaching, ethics, philosohy of teaching, stuff like that) at her own expense.
That would be asuitable punishment. Make it clear to her that her misconduct created a potential conflict of interest and was unethical, so it cost her her job. Make it clear to her that her actions demonstrate she is currently unfit to teach, and needs to receive further training on how to properly conduct herself in such a position and a study of historical problems that have arisen as a result of such misconduct, if she wishes to ever teach again.
In my workplace, and most other workplaces, it's okay for employees to have relationships with each other.... but they must report it immediately, so that they work in separate units, and under different managers. Obviously, failure ot report such a relation would be grounds for termination upon its discovery, same as with an employee/customer relationship.
As long as you're upfront about such things, there's no problem.
cutmeamango
Banned
How?
Zoe
Member
Workplace relationships can not be compared as there is no way a teacher-student relationship would be given the okay by the school even if you were upfront about it.
Forsaken82
Member
Clearly you missed this part...
Of age they may be... but legality goes beyond age in these types of situations.
Again though, professors are not as influential in a developing youth's life as a high school teacher, so the comparison is not appropriate.
VelvetMouth
Member
Are you talking morally wrong or just illegal? You do realize that grooming of students don't start on the day they turn 18 right? Predatory. Grooming starts before that and many teachers don't wait until the student is 18 before they have sex. I do believe that doctors can lose their licenses if caught having sex with patients and if it's a predatory relationship with a minor they can be found guilty of a child endangerment or sexual abuse.
Zoe
Member
College students don't tend to make the transition from minor to adult while in college.
VelvetMouth
Member
That's what I want to know. There are people here who clearly believe that an adult having sex with a teenager under their control is morally right and not predatory so I want to know how these morally correct non-predatory relationships start. Do they date how does it all go down?
I don't understand why people can recognize the need to fire someone while simultaneously being unable to consider the conduct illegal. The inability to consent is based on the same reasons a school district is justified in firing the teacher. If the abuse of teaching authority is bad enough to justify termination you must follow through to consider the implications with respect to the legal ability to consent.
I explained my reasoning above.
He's eighteen. He's not a child.
cutmeamango
Banned
Same way teens date other teens and older people. By approaching the other/flerting.
If the student states he felt pressured into the relation/coerced by any means, that's that. Authority was used to obtain gain. Or if estabilished that the relation started before he had the legal means to consent, that would be understandable too, while I still feel the penalty should not be more than civic duty/fine.
The school is free to suspend/fire in any cases because they do not need to allow personnel relationships inside the work environment that may affect their performances.
dinazimmerman
Incurious Bastard
I'm swayed by logic and evidence, so don't be afraid to argue your case.
I thought your whole argument is that it should be illegal because it is morally wrong. If morality and legality are independent issues, then what are we even discussing? Anyway, regarding "grooming," see my reply to marrec's post below.
I've tried to outline your argument in order to help me understand it:
1) Student-teacher sex is in all likelihood preceded by a (possibly lengthy) non-sexual relationship.
2) This non-sexual relationship was probably manipulative.
3) The student is "not in a position" to be aware that he/she is being manipulated.
4) The student will likely suffer from "consequences in the future" -- psychological problems of some sort I am assuming -- as a result of this relationship, even if he/she does not appear to be affected negatively right now.
5) Even if all evidence points to the relationship not being predatory, we can't determine if it is predatory on a case-by-case basis. In order to avoid letting some acts of predation go by, we need to rule all cases of student-teacher sex as predatory.
6) The fact that the student is currently a legal adult is irrelevant because a non-sexual relationship with the teacher could have started when the student was still legally a child.
Hopefully, I haven't misrepresented your argument. Here are my problems with it:
1) By itself, the fact that there is some history between the teacher and student is irrelevant. If a man knew a girl since he was 25 and she was 10, but didn't initiate a relationship with her until he was 35 and she was 20, is this relationship necessarily wrong? I know you don't claim that it is, but it's important to emphasize that the relationship does not become immoral simply because it didn't happen in a vacuum. At the very least, there needs to be some evidence that the teacher was "grooming" the student, whatever that means, which brings me to my second point:
2) How do you know this? Where is the evidence to support this claim? Are we just assuming off the bat that most teacher-student relationships are manipulative because that is what your preconceived notions imply? Sexually mature people often find each other attractive and have sex with one other; in order to claim something less innocent is going on, you need to present some sort of proof.
3) Are you saying that people in their late teens cannot tell they are being manipulated? Is there some scientific basis for the claim that 16-18 year olds have yet to develop the cognitive capacity to discern whether or not they are being hit on by a creep? Or that people cannot tell when an authority, like a teacher, is preying on them? Otherwise, claiming that the student is "not in a position" to deny the predatory nature of his relationship with his teacher is an arbitrary value judgment.
And what are these mysterious, invisible "influences" that teens can't detect, anyway? Flirty looks?
4) See my previous point about this:
An example: graduate student - advisor relationships. Graduate student / advisor relationships are "built up over many years during a very formative and influential time" in the student's life. Advisors can also be "coddling" and "helpful" and "directly involved in their students' lives." Graduate students interact with their advisors during years that are "crucial to the way in which they develop relationships in the future." Advisors have a lot of power over grad students, too, so they are definitely authority figures. Why isn't it illegal for advisors and college professors to have sex with graduate students? It's actually not that rare for college professors to have sex with graduate (or undergraduate) students (just look at this forum topic: http://forum.thegradcafe.com/topic/14803-dating-a-professor-fellow-student-reactions/).
5) I don't understand what is stopping us from determining with sufficient accuracy on a case-by-case basis whether a sexual relationship between a teacher and adult student is predatory or not. If psychologists and sociologists could formulate the concept of "predation" and through empirical studies determine that teacher-student relationships are more often than not predatory, then it stands to reason that a psychologist or sociologist could also determine whether a particular relationship is predatory or not. If nobody has the capacity to determine whether a relationship is predatory, then the whole concept of "predation" is flawed and shouldn't be used as the basis for any sort of law.
Also, I agree that it is better for the law to err on the side of caution, but if the punishment for having sex with an adult student is a lengthy jail sentence and public humiliation, i.e. obliterating the teacher's life, then erring on the side of caution means not making it illegal for teachers to have sex with adult students. That sort of punishment is not at all proportional to the offense. It's only cautious to criminalize sex between teachers and adult students if the punishment is proportional to the crime, e.g. an appropriate punishment might be being banned from teaching, therapy, and possibly a light jail/community service sentence.
6) The point isn't that the student is a legal adult. The point is that he is literally an adult. To claim that an 18-year-old is still a child and not responsible for his/her decisions, regardless of his/her history with his/her teacher, is just silly, especially considering the fact that we've decided that an 18-year-old is mature enough to vote and enlist.
I've never been good at logic because it requires that I don't use sarcasm.
I think you basically got the gist of it.
There is a difference here between a man knowing a girl at 10 and not initiating a relationship with her until she was 20 because that is not a teacher/student relationship. If that man were her teacher and continued to play a pivotal role in her educational and social development until she were 20, then entered into a relationship with her, that would be immoral, but not illegal because at the age of 20 she would no longer be a student. In fact, if he were a teacher of a 10 year old, then she would no longer be his student at the age of 18.
That is VERY different from what happened here. Here we have a current student entering a sexual relationship with a teacher while their influence is greatest on them. That is a clear difference that creates a think black line between the two. On one side you have something that is perhaps immoral but not illegal (The man entering a relationship at age 20) on the other you have something that's clearly immoral and strictly illegal (current student entering relationship with teacher at 18).
Of course we don't know if any overt or conscious manipulation was occurring, but you cannot deny that the teacher had more influence over the boy than one of his peers. If he'd entered into a relationship with a fellow student of 18 then there would be no problem. But this is a teacher at his school, not some random student. So you cannot compare it to a normal relationship between to sexually mature people, that's putting blinders up and ignoring what makes it immoral in the first place.
I am not claiming that. Obviously overt manipulation by the teacher would be recognized by the student, but again we are not talking about overt manipulation. She is probably did not say 'I will make sure you fail if you don't suck my clam!' the influence she had over him is much more subtle and his claims of consensuality cannot be taken as evidence of anything but his ignorance of the law. The fact remains that in a high school student/teacher relationship consent cannot be given much the same way as any statutory rape situation.
'Manipulation' is not what describes this relationship. Influence and subtle coercion are more appropriate, especially considering this teacher very likely knew the Texas law she's being charged under.
There are many non-sexual relationships that can lead to illegality and sexual ones for that matter. There is no hard and fast consequence we can point to and say 'This is why they can't bone!' but it's more prudent to not allow this type of relationship to go on at all because any potential consequence could be seen years or even decades after the initial incident.
Also, as a sexual predator, the teacher is now taken away from her prey. Even if this young man is left unscathed by her attentions, you cannot say that every young man she preys upon would be so lucky.
Again I must say that even if this particular relationship may not be predatory, but subsequent relationships with perhaps younger students could lead to many damaged men in the future. There is also the question of a teacher having undue influence on a student's grades with whom she's romantically involved with at the time. These grades and other merits that affect a students accessibility to secondary school are powerful and should not be subject to the whims of a romantic entanglement.
There is little chance she will get a lengthy jail time, but the effect on her career is a net gain for everyone involved. She should be removed from the influence of any future children. She was aware of the law before entering the relationship but decided to continue with it not out of some sense of romantic love. Usually in these cases the sexual predator is quite aware of the legal punishment facing them if caught, but they continue because they have too. They are attracted to this specific thing, not the specific people involved.
If she really wanted an extended romantic relationship with this young man should would have waited until he was no longer a student at her school, instead her criminal desires overtook her reasoning.
I agree that they are literally an adult, but until they leave the school system they are still under the care and influence of the teachers at that school and for all intents and purposes subject to the same statutory rape laws that protect their younger peers.
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