Fill out this form to email this article to a friend

Your name		Your email
Recipient email	You may enter up to 20 multiple email addresses, separated by commas.
Your message
Validation Code	Hear validation code
	Enter validation code

We were unable to send your email.

Click here to try again.

Why are guys so hot for hot teachers?

By Shannon Colavecchio-Van Sickler and David Norrie, tbt* columnists
In print: Friday, May 16, 2008

Story Tools E-mail this story Contact the editor Print this story Comment on this story Social Bookmarking Digg Facebook Stumbleupon Reddit Del.icio.us Newsvine

ADVERTISEMENT

She said

Another week, another Tampa scandal about a female teacher accused of having sex with a student — or in the latest case, students.

Makes me wonder if the chamber of commerce should come up with a new slogan to lure summer tourists. Like Tampa: Hot for Teacher. Illegal Fun in the Sun.

But what really gets me is the reaction when it's a female teacher of even moderate good looks.

I have never heard a woman react to a male teacher accused of such misbehavior say: "Man, he's good-looking though, right?" or "I wish my high school teachers had been like that!"

But when it's a pretty woman like the infamous Debra Lafave or Mary Kay Letourneau, grown men who should know better get all overly sexed and just plain stupid. They assert that because the teacher isn't a dowdy librarian, the kid she had sex with will not face any sort of emotional or psychological damages.

Yet a male teacher has sex with the girl in his eighth-grade English class, and the reaction tends to be more realistic, with people lamenting the emotional damage and the horror of such an embarrassment.

So what gives, Dave? Why are you all so hot for teacher? Even when it's illegal, even when it's just wrong?

He said

Regardless of gender, that anyone who has sex with a minor should be treated exactly the same. There's no case-by-case bias. It should be similar to the gun law: You pull it out and use it in a crime, you're doing 10 years.

In most cases, when a male teacher has had sex with a female student, you can attribute it to sexual desire and the male appetite for carnal satisfaction. Logical conclusion, although still sick and unacceptable.

Yet from what I've seen in these female teachers, the common thread is that they're all cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs. I have a hard time believing these boys are satisfying these adult women sexually. But who is more easily accessible and adoring and eager to feed a woman's twisted and battered ego than a horny young teenage boy?

In normal, consensual sex between adults, women often look to fulfill a need for affection and/or attention on a completely different level than men, who are often just looking for the physical part. These teachers are preying on boys to fill a part of their lives that's obviously missing, and not because the boys are Dirk Diggler.

There's a double standard at play here, and it lies in the fact that these boys are expected to be oblivious to any emotional damage.