Comments

1
She's a public school teacher. Her spring break vacation is likely going to a movie at the cheap theater and treating herself to a night of responsible drinking at whatever passes for a club in a small town. The rest of the week is spent preparing for the coming week.
2
I think wanting to fuck hot 18 year-olds is normal too, although I do think it's creepy that this woman has known these boys since they were 14 and is still able to look at them as sex objects 4 years later. And her "ask me again when you're 18" response to their earlier advances seems totally inappropriate.
3
I'm pretty sure that nowadays most schools would try to find a way to make the spring break thing an issue too.
4
A classic response in all senses of the word classic: obviously from the past (sigh, how quickly Jude Law aged), yet still timeless in its perfection.

My only add-on is that an 18 year old former student of several years may have all kinds of complicated emotional stuff going on that might make the Campsite Rule difficult (crushes, love, whatever), especially at an age that's still teenage.

A random 18 year old who one just met, easier to keep the Campsite Rule.
5
Well, lessee what's in the recent browser history...

I was dragged kicking and screaming to the NY Daily News site yesterday by a Slog link regarding the Vatican gay-sex tskandal, and while there, I happened to see this:

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national…

Yes, that one was under 18. But people (pursued or pursuer) shouldn't be so quick to rely on being "hot enough to put up with the gossip that would seep through this small town."
6
It wouldn't be risking your job. It would be setting it on fire and throwing it out the window. Parent associations are insanely puritanical. When they find out, and I mean WHEN they find out about you fucking former students, the parents will demand blood, and the administrators will come down on your dumb ass like the hammer of Thor.

So I will hope this letter is fake, and that children's minds aren't being entrusted to someone this stupid.
7
So in a lot of states, including Washington, there are laws in place that bar sexual relationships between teachers and students, even if they are 18 years old. Where laws do not forbid it, teachers' codes of conduct often do.

If a teacher wants to retain his or her job and avoid potential prosecution, depending on where he or she lives, then a relationship with a former student is never a good idea (unless the student is over the higher age of consent required in such situations, often age 21).

The purpose of such laws is to prevent pedophiles who are teachers from grooming students and then making a move on a student's 18th birthday. There are many cases where pedophiles have used this M.O. (Personally, I think this is a good idea and similar to bans on unequal-rank dating situations in e.g. the military, many companies, etc.) In this case, the teacher's toleration if not encouragement and reciprocation of flirting may be documentable and used as evidence of grooming should a case end up court.

It's not like there aren't lots of 18-year-olds who might be interested who do not fall under such bans. So pursuing a relationship with current or former 18-year-old students is a bad idea on a professional level and a bad idea legally.
8
Simac, your point is good, but your terminaology is bad. Pedophiles are attracted to prepubescent children. Not ones who have gone through adolescence. Teachers who begin grooming 14 year olds for sex at 18 are predators, but not pedophiles.
9
Anybody who needs to have all this explained to them is not teacher material.
10
Simac (7) is right on target. Ditto in spades. And to repeat, what this teacher did was absolutely grooming. You shut down advances by shutting them down, not by saying catch me later.

Alanmt, semantics won't get you very far when your lawyer is trying to keep you off of the sex offender registry. To be clear, grooming is a form of sexual abuse in and of itself. You say potato, I say potah-to. Just knock it off.

*To be clear, I am not accusing Alanmt of anything and don't mean to sound like I am. I used "you" in the general you, not the specific you.
11
I say "to be clear" to damn much. Sorry.
12
I had a history teacher in high school, a real hard case, but he would also direct most of our school plays. Once, years before, a student had had a crush on him. She graduated, finished her education—I think she was a dancer of some kind—then came back and asked him out.

I only found out about it because, after they were married, he'd direct the plays and she'd choreograph the dance scenes.

Change the "when you're 18" to "when you're 21 and no longer my student." And one real relationship is less likely to cause problems than a string of flings.
13
Should've said "Ask again once you're 21 and/or out of college"
14
John Kenneth Galbraith married a student. It may not be a good idea, but it's not the end of the world.

But she's breaking the half-plus-seven rule, and in a small town. I say not worth it.
15
"Ask again when you're 18" to a 14-year-old boy is being professional?? That's creepily coy. And now that they're 18 with "killer personalities," she's ready to pounce?

How is this woman gainfully employed by the school system? She sounds like a complete asshat.
16
You beat me to the punch Confluence.

I would argue that this teacher was anything but professional. A professional response to a student is not "ask me again when your 18." It's "this is an inappropriate conversation... Etc, etc." Although I agree with you about 18-year-olds, there are too many potential bombs in the minefield of student/teacher relationships. As a high school teacher I'm constantly steering my thoughts away from what I would like to do with those beautiful 18-year-old women. Random 18-year-old women on the street, I think about it all I want, but not my students.
17
Times have changed a lot. When I was in high school in the mid seventies, my biology teacher was married to a former student - she graduated one weekend, they were married the next. I know another couple who waited six months, got married the fall after she graduated.

Looking at it as a parent, I think I prefer the standards we have about this now. Too easy for predators to use their students as a hunting ground, too much potential for young people to get badly hurt.
18
Am I the only one who didn't assume the question author is a woman?
19
Sorry kwodell, but I believe in precision in speech. Words which have specific meanings should be used to denote that meaning, whether the word is pedophile or bigot. Imprecision leads to misunderstanding. So I won't knock it off.

I do agree that grooming is predatory and wrong. I don't know whether this teacher was actively grooming or merely using an inappropriately light-hearted and ambiguous response at the awkwardness of the situation. When they were 14, she was 24, which is pretty young. But yeah if she's all that, she ought to be able to find some other 18 year olds to mess around with.

20
When 27 year old male teachers and coaches fuck their just-turned-18 charges, we actually get pretty creeped out. Getting lucky on spring break with people who have never been in a dependent relationship with you is very different.

Is anyone else struck by the extreme passivity of her letter? Why, SHE's not doing anything. She's just mildly attractive. It just happens that she's surrounded by former students and coachees who are mind-blowingly hot, look like underwear models, and have incredible personalities to boot! And they all want to fuck her as soon as they turn 18... it's not her fault! It just happened! Sounds very creepy predatoresque.

22
Because the campsite rule applies to young people who are not fully emotionally mature and experienced, may have expectations that are not shared byt he older person and also don't have a good appreciation for consequences. It doesn't matter who initiates. The older, presumably more responsible person has ethical charge of the younger one. And presumably, the older wiser one ought to have the experience to identify a bad person/situation and extricate themselves from it.

The young people have their own rule, the "tea and sympathy rule".

Also, who the hell ever found the Olsen twins attractive?
23

@18: If you have 10ish basketball players and 6 of them make a pass at you, that's kind of a lot to be gay. Especially openly gay at age 14, 8 years ago. (Or so comfortable with their bisexual curiosity.) So a woman.

Also the last paragraph about men lusting over 18 year old girls sounds like it's meant to reverse to women lusting over 18 year old boys. Men lusting after 18 year old boys isn't notably different: no one is saying to male history teachers "it's okay to fuck each of your female students as they turn 18, but not the boys."

24
I get the fake vibe from this letter. First of all, are there really female basketball coaches of high school boys' teams? Yeah, sure, Glee has Coach Beiste with the boys' football team, but the actress (Dot-Marie Jones IIRC) is 6' tall and very convincing in the role.

Then, the LW makes sure to emphasize just how sizzling HOT she is - oh, and the boys, too - before admitting that sex with them would be worth any penalty. Uh ... I don't think her male students were the only immature people at that school.

I'd also wonder how any teen girls observing her behaviour would describe it. So. Not. Cool.
25
@18, it says: "A couple of these boys developed normal crushes on me-as any horny teenager would have on a mildly attractive female teacher."
26
done.
28
Shorter reply: "Witch Hunt"
29
There's no state mentioned into the letter, but many states have laws against teachers forming sexual relationships with *former* students as well, at least for several years.
30
Nononono there is NO reason teacher should be banging her former students until they are at least, I don't know, 25 or so and with at least a handful of longish term relationships and sexual experiences under their belt. The previous relationship needs to be completely ended and new ones formed (as does happen between students and teachers when they are both reintroduced as adults), not a transitioning of one form of relationship to another.

In this case, she formed a power-relationship with these boys when they were 13/14/15/whatever - before they were emotionally mature enough (in the scientific sense of it) to make "adult" sexual decisions. Such a relationship when they were 18 is an inherent abuse of power regardless of the thoughts/feelings/motives of the individuals involved.

I used to coach middle school sports. Like any young-20's guy, several of the students developed crushes on me. Some of them I found attractive, although obviously nothing ever became of that and those memories are safely locked away in my caveman-brain fantasy zone. Even now, as most of my former students have graduated college and moved in to "real" "adulthood", I would still feel grody and icky about ever doing anything with them or even creating a situation where that could happen. How would I explain how I met her? "Oh, we met when I was coaching her middle school soccer team". FUCKING BARF.
31
Once the boys are 18 and no longer students in high school, the 'totally hot' teacher w/ arrested development is free to fuck her 'totally hot' former students and perhaps birth 'totally hot' babies just so we can keep this 'totally hot' syndrome alive. Keep in mind Dan, 'totally hot' is a fleeting image and it may be time for even you to take a totally long look in the mirror. Too many gay men I know are turning 60 and still seeing the totally hot self image they saw at age 18.
33
@14 Shocked it took so long to bring up the half-plus-seven rule. It's not law, but it certainly makes this woman creepy as fuck, and any 18-year old dude would be wise to steer clear of this trainwreck of a woman - a woman who "joked" with 14-year olds that they should ask again when they were 18. Yikes.

Also, one thing Dan completely neglected to mention is that this woman was their TEACHER. Yeah, they're 18 now, but there is and always will be a dynamic between them that would make any relationship between them, fleeting or meaningful, totally inappropriate.
35
Maybe now that Dan's son is a young teenager, he can imagine whether or not he would fuck his son's current friends as soon as they hit 18. Hey, they're "fair game" right? His son, should he find this a creepy betrayal, would just be suffering from "cultural schizophrenia" (Whatever that means).

Relationships with power dynamics are NOTHING like relationships without. This person should not be teaching. She is obviously dangerously selfish and immature. Predator is the right word.
36
I have no objection to a 27-year-old having sex with an 18-year-old. I have HUGE objections to a teacher having sex with a former student who is fresh out of high school. There are PLENTY of hot 18-year-old males looking to have sex with older women. I get a couple requests a month from them on OKC (the profiles seem pretty truthful - depressingly so), and I'm 36 and not terribly hot. This woman just seems creepy.
37
Show your school spirit by supporting them at their swim meets and soccer matches. Then go home and masturbate furiously to the physiques you were secretly appreciating the entire time. This is assuming of course that you're sure watching them run around and get drenched in sweat/pool water for two hours won't overwhelm your better judgement if they spot you in the crowd and come talk to you (and possibly hit on you).
38
@kwodell:what this teacher did was absolutely grooming...To be clear, grooming is a form of sexual abuse in and of itself.

You think "try again when you're 18" is sexual abuse?

That is sad.
39
I'm wondering if this woman is still legally able to teach in the US, now that it's 7 years later.
40
Choosing to rerun this letter when poor Rafa's knees are causing him so much trouble seems either unfortunate or weirdly canny.

And Mr Savage is not (quite) in the Mutton Dressed as Lamb category, surely? Anyway, even taking into account those who overdo it and go beyond the benign range, as a whole that group is preferable to a lot of groups of people who act their age.
41
Forget the 18 year olds. Go for their dads.
42
Wow, I don't know where you all went to HS but when I was going in the mid 80's, half the teachers in my school were married to former students. One girl actually took one of the coaches as her date to the prom. It was creepy seeing him in the hotel room after prom party.
On a creepy side note, the principal was a predatory open homosexual. A good friend of mine went to his place once and described to me how he had a hot tub and every drug you could have imagined. This was when we were Jrs. I knew what he described was wrong but I so naive at the time, I didn't realize how wrong it was and we should have reported the creep
43
Worst advice I saw in a while. no mention at all of power imbalance.
44
I think a lot of you are being too hard on her for saying "ask again when you're 18." She probably said that just to get them off her back because they wouldn't stop with other responses from her OR she assumed they would forget about it by then/figure out on their own that it was inappropriate of them to ask out their teacher. Lighten up.
46
C'mon. People are not magically transformed in fully functional adults capable of handling a moderately challenging interpersonal encounter on their 18th Birthday. We all know that. Yes, we also all know it's highly unlikely these guys are virgins. Quite honestly, I'm just as worried that the LW would be exploited by this scenario as the guy(s). I doubt they'd keep a conquest of this proportion quiet.

Lady, don't be a shallow perv. They are lot and lots of attractive men who have never been your student and who are 21 and over. You might even consider selecting sexual partners and playmates on criteria slightly less shallow than how 'hot' they look.

Full disclosure: At 14-16 years old, I was the target of my 55-year-old teacher's sexual fixation. Whispered affections and furtive touching during class escalated over the two years to a rape attempt when I was taking a makeup exam. I was telling him to stop all along. I was afraid to blow the whistle since even my friends didn't want to believe it. Also the Vice Principal was well known to be dating/sleeping with girls at the school. I looked like an adult at 14, but I wasn't. I didn't have the social skill, the judgement, the maturity, the confidence, or the authority. The year after I left, two girls came forward separately with similar stories and he was charged. Turns out girls had been reporting him FOR 15 YEARS and they did nothing. This is a public high school in an affluent, progressive Southern California town. I never came forward myself and I'm still scarred by it 30 years later.

47
My now deceased 7th grade teacher was a former high school teacher who married one of her former students. They had two kids together and lived happy, productive lives until she died of breast cancer. I don't know the specifics of their love, but I do know that it didn't happen publicly until her husband was well out of high school (aren't small towns great?).

She should wait a little bit -- and dive in when they're 20. It's an arbitrary number, but it's just enough cushion to protect both of them. If the kids are as great as she says they are, they'll still be around and they'll still be interested.
48
I'm a little weirded out by her statement, " I was closer in age/culture to most of my students than I was to the other teachers." I don't know about anyone else, but if I were a 23 year old college graduate embarking on a career, I don't think I'd have more in common with 14 year old HS freshman than my colleagues of various ages. I think this lady is extremely immature.
49
I agree with @2. My first thought was "ask me again when you're 18" sounds really, really, really inappropriate. It has a flirtatious ring to it- like if you were to text that phrase it would have a winkie-face next to it. Even if she doesn't mean it in a flirtatious way, a teenage boy with a crush on his cute teacher is likely to hear it that way.

I don't think it's wrong for a 27 year old to hook up with an 18 year old, b/c like Dan said if someone is old enough to enlist and risk getting limbs blown off, they're certainly old enough to get blown by a hot cougar or puma. Personally, when I was in my teens and 20's I always dated older, but I completely understand why she would be attracted to a hot, young, athletic guy.

I'm pretty sure this lady shouldn't be teaching teenage students if this is how she thinks. It doesn't seem like she has very good boundaries. She should find another job before she does something stupid and wrecks her life. I hooked up with my boss when I was 27, so it's somewhat hypocritical of me to lecture anyone about boundaries. However, my boss was in his 40's, so it wasn't like we were breaking the law or doing anything immoral/predatory.
50
Mr Hershey - If they're as great as she says they are, they'll still be around in two years and they'll still be interested? That's the sort of sentiment suited to Amelia Nettleship, but this situation isn't out of a romantic novel.
51
@46

"C'mon. People are not magically transformed in fully functional adults capable of handling a moderately challenging interpersonal encounter on their 18th Birthday."

This.

To a certain extent age of consent is arbitrary, but IMHO any responsible, mature adult realizes that a teenager's first relationships should be with peers, not people with whom there is a vast difference in power/age/experience. While not all adult-teen relationships end badly, and in not all cases does the younger party feel victimized, there is a huge potential for abuse.
52
The more I think about it, the more bizarre I find it that multiple fourteen year olds made a pass at her mid-20s self. There's a lot of space between the sort of behavior an adult can recognize as a crush, and the sort of outright request for a date that would bring forth a response of "ask me again when you're 18."

It would be weird if they were all peers working at a pizza place, and even then I'd find it odd that it was the 14 year olds, not even driving for a couple more years, who were putting the moves on someone a decade older. 24 to 14 is a big decade.

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