Saturday, April 08, 2006

Female predators?

Recently there has been community outrage expressed at the decision not to jail music teacher Bridget Mary Nolan, 25, for having sex with her 15-year-old student. She had faced a maximum seven years' imprisonment for each of three convictions but instead received a suspended sentence. The judge said Nolan's sacking as a teacher, and the considerable media publicity given to her case, had already served as considerable punishment.

This followed a number of sex offences against young students by female teachers, in recent years, including:

Sarah Jayne Vercoe who in April 2005 engaged in improper sexual conduct with a number of boys aged between 14 and 16 years, and received a sentence of four years with a minimum period of two years.

Karen Louise Ellis who was convicted of having unlawful sexual intercourse with a grade 10 student at her school and was eventually sentenced to 2 years and 8 months in prison, with a minimum of 6 months to be served. This was despite the public protestations of the student that he had found her attractive and gone after her, and that he was unaffected by the relationship.

Heidi Choat who was convicted in 1999 of maintaining a sexual relationship with a 12 year old boy who was one of her pupils. The boy said that Choat had never forced him to have sex with her, but he sometimes consented because he feared she would become "grumpy" with him. Choat was sentenced to two years in prison, with a minimum period to be served of nine months.

I was surprised to find, on message boards, considerable anger towards these female teachers, for example:

“I believe that the teacher should have been gaoled. The teacher has broken a level of trust and the boys parents are mortified. The law should be for the protection of all. The boys parents must feel betrayed by the legal system.”

“I think the teacher should have had the book thrown at her (pardon the pun). it's absolutely no different than a male teacher having sex with a student. It all boils down to the teacher betraying a position of trust, and whether or not the other party was consensual has absolutely nothing to do with it.”

”I am a feminist: that means that I believe that all human beings should have a fair go.If they abuse that trust then they know the penalties. Jail the female teacher!”

“Absolutly tragic...... what this woman has done to this child ...... for her to get off the charge free to do her crime again.... unimaginable........ she should be desexed so she can never do this to anyone elses child!”

I must admit to being gob smacked by all this rage. As I recall it, during my high school years, my friends and I thought of little else other than losing our virginity, and attractive female teachers were a fantasy staple.

I can understand that from the parents point of view there has been a significant breach of trust, and I can understand that fines and termination of employment are reasonable responses. But jail is ridiculous. You can't sexually abuse males. They are genetically designed to have sex as often as possible with as many different women as possible. Survival of the species depends on it.

Seriously, where's the victim? Some kid who's got himself years of bragging rights over his mates. I think not! Surely we need to take into account the damage or potential damage to the victims. And for people to compare the female teacher’s behaviour with predatory men, real paedophiles, is a terrible insult to the victims of these men. It is PC bullsh-- of the highest order.

The last word goes to a joke I found and enjoyed on the Internet. A young boy comes home from school bragging about having had sex with a teacher. His proud father tells him to come over to the sofa and tell him about it... and the boy says, "I can't dad - it still hurts when I sit down."

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