The Law Of Unintended Consequences Is Causing So Much Damage That Society Needs To Reassess

30/8/13

The unintended consequences of laws addressing sex between teachers and students

"There is a painfully uncomfortable episode of “Louie” in which the comedian Louis C.K. muses that maybe child molesters wouldn’t kill their victims if the penalty weren’t so severe. Everyone I know who watches the show vividly recalls that scene from 2010 because it conjures such a witches’ cauldron of taboo, disgust and moral outrage, all wrapped around a disturbing kernel of truth. I have similar ambivalence about the case involving former Montana high school teacher SDR. Louie concluded his riff with a comment to the effect of “I don’t know what to do with that information.” That may be the case for many of us, but with our legal and moral codes failing us, our society needs to have an uncensored dialogue about the reality of sex in schools.

As protesters decry the leniency of R’s sentence — he will spend 30 days in prison after pleading guilty to raping 14-year-old Cherice Morales, who committed suicide at age 16 — I find myself troubled for the opposite reason. I don’t believe that all sexual conduct between underage students and teachers should necessarily be classified as rape, and I believe that absent extenuating circumstances, consensual sexual activity between teachers and students should not be criminalized. While I am not defending Judge G. Todd Baugh’s comments about Morales being “as much in control of the situation” — for which he has appropriately apologized — tarring and feathering him for attempting to articulate the context that informed his sentence will not advance this much-needed dialogue.

I do think that teachers who engage in sex with students, no matter how consensual, should be removed from their jobs and barred from teaching unless they prove that they have completed rehabilitation. But the utter hysteria with which society responds to these situations does less to protect children than to assuage society’s need to feel that we are protecting them."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/sex-between-students-and-teachers-should-not-be-a-crime/2013/08/30/dbf7dcca-1107-11e3-b4cb-fd7ce041d814_story.html

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Now how the media and CPI exploit the reality, into money-making fantasy ("if it bleeds, it leads") ...

'Paedophile [sic] Sir sent me texts from under his desk': Two schoolgirls tell of how teaching assistant seduced them on Facebook

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2408412/Paedophile-Sir-sent-texts-desk-Two-schoolgirls-tell-teaching-assistant-seduced-Facebook.html

SB: The pervert [offensive and inflammatory] teacher who groomed three girls - one aged just 14 - from the same school

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/three-young-victims-tell-how-2241774

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Mark Williams-Thomas (and cronies) thinks weasel words and stating the obvious is an argument ...

https://twitter.com/mwilliamsthomas

https://twitter.com/PaintsNature 

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The painful lesson of the Cherice Moralez rape trial

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/sep/03/painful-lesson-cherice-moralez-rape

A Spectacularly Awful Week in Rape

http://www.slate.com/articles/double_x/doublex/2013/08/montana_massachusetts_rape_cases_when_judges_can_t_get_even_the_easy_cases.single.html

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Teacher put on sex offenders register for affair with pupil moves teenager into her marital home

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2416179/Teacher-sex-offenders-register-affair-pupil-moves-teenager-marital-home.html

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Petition calling for victim to see teacher

http://www.eastbourneherald.co.uk/news/local/petition-calling-for-victim-to-see-teacher-1-5470946

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Sexy teacher fantasies are not reality

http://www.salon.com/2013/09/11/sexy_teacher_fantasies_are_not_reality