A 17-year-old girl in upstate New York is forced into sex by a male teacher. Instead of sympathy, the student gets harassed for causing trouble for a popular teacher, threatened and pushed around by other girls. Just six weeks before graduation, she quits school.
A 17-year-old boy in Colorado is seduced by his attractive female teacher. A neighbor tells the teen's mom it was a sexual conquest like "climbing Mount Everest." He has to hide from the crush of media attention.
They are crimes and abuses, but often they're treated as entertainment. Girls are pressed into the role of seducer or naive victim. Boys are seen as studs.
Sexual misconduct by teachers is remarkably common in American schools, an Associated Press investigation found. But how Americans react to it is deeply split depending on the victim's gender.
"Hollywood, they think it's such a hot thing when a guy gets laid at a young age. I tell you, it's not a hot thing," said Jeff Pickthorn, who speaks from experience. He was 12 when he began having sex with his seventh-grade teacher, who was 24. "They say that guy's lucky. I say, no, he's not lucky at all."
At the time, Pickthorn might have agreed with them. For several months, he had sex with his teacher until his parents found out and the teacher was pressured to resign. It left him "with no boundaries," he says now at 54, his life marred by affairs, gambling and ruined marriages.
The AP's survey of five years of state disciplinary actions against teachers found 2,570 educators were punished for sexual misconduct.
In the cases where the victim's gender was clear, the large proportion were female. Almost nine out of 10 of the offenders were male.
But the boys who are drawn into sexual relationships with their female teachers get an overwhelming amount of attention, especially when the woman is attractive.
What's more likely to be described as rape or sexual abuse when the victim is female turns into a "tryst" or a "sexual liaison" when the perpetrator is female and the victim is male.
"Prosecutors try hard not to treat these cases differently and not to apply any kind of double standard. But there are some very real double standards in society that affect how these cases will be accepted by jurors and judges," said Michael Sinacore, an assistant state attorney in Tampa, Fla.
A 2004 University of Buffalo study gauged perceptions of teacher-student sex. It found that a female teacher with a male student was most often seen as a "normal part of growing up" and respondents were less likely to conclude that the teacher should lose her license. But male respondents, in marked contrast from women, were more likely to see positive aspects in these relationships and less likely to see long-term damage.
Psychologists who treat boys say they suffer doubly - from the abuse itself, and from the view that they were lucky.
"In our society, we're socialized to think that men aren't victims, that that's the province of women," said Richard Gartner, a New York psychologist and author of "Beyond Betrayal: Taking Charge of Your Life After Boyhood Sexual Abuse." "To say that you are a victim and particularly a sexual victim, for many boys and men, is to say that you're not entirely a man."
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Ragingbear (anonymous) says…
You know what else? The sky is blue.
Grass is Green 101.
bearded_gnome (anonymous) says…
spywell,
you sir are a blithering idiot!
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Psychologists who treat boys say they suffer doubly - from the abuse itself, and from the view that they were lucky.
this article is correct, and only identifies the tip of the iceberg!
uniform crime reporting stats indicate that women are dramaticly more likely to report domestic violence than men, sexual abuse, molestation, etc. male victims in this society are *far less* accepted and supported as victims than are women.
the women's shelter movements inadvertantly cause some of this, by implying that all men are potential perps. and, by sucking up all the attention and moneys so that nothing is left for male v victims.
male victims of sexual attack, sexual abuse, domestic violence, desperately need a parallel movement for refuge, support and validation. spywell's post exemplifies some the bad attitudes that keep men and boys from coming forward.
btw, I was a male victim of domestic violence, that's how I know some of this.
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and, ref to spywell's rude spouting, a boy being approached by his teacher has all the same complexity of dealing with an authority figure that a girl would. and, he doesn't have free choice and cannot legally consent. confusion of authority role is a very serious problem for such victims. it does interfere with normal maturation and is not "climbing mt. everest or some great conquest.