Here's To You, Mrs. Robinson

I was listening to the radio today, and they were discussing the case of a 23 year old teacher who slept with a 14 year old student.

The student was male.

The teacher was female.

I know that the knee-jerk reaction is "teacher should go to jail." But, the reaction is much stronger when that teacher is male. No matter the sex of the student. Why is that?

A few years back, I was reading this book (yeah, I do that sometimes) called The Reader. It's a relatively short but pithy book, written by a German man. (It's also the only book on the original Oprah list that doesn't make you want to commit hari kari.) Our Hero is a fifteen-year-old male who is having a lascivious affair with a much older woman.

When Mr. Schlink was discussing this on the Oprah show, one of the women in the audience remarked on the fact that this was statutory rape, that the woman was taking advantage... and the author remarked that he only heard this comment in America. That, in Europe, it is a rite of passage for a teenaged-boy to get busy with an older woman.

What think you? Normal? Do you have the same reaction if the teacher is male vs. female?

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