I’m a straight male college student in a relationship, which had been going great. The only incongruity was that, for a religious reason, I don’t want to have penetrative vaginal sex before marriage. I’m up for anything else—I would eat her out, piss on her, whatever else—but not vaginal sex. I made this clear at the beginning. My girlfriend started bringing up how she wanted to have “actual” sex. I told her, “I love you, and if you need to fuck other guys, go for it.” To my relief, she was offended by the suggestion.
A week later, she confessed that she had slept with someone. I feel like I can’t trust her now, and I can’t bring myself to sleep in her bed anymore. I feel like a hypocrite, since I brought up the idea of her sleeping with someone else in the first place. But I was unprepared for the reality, since she berated me for making the proposal at all. Still, I told her to do this. She regrets the hookup. I don’t know if I’m even asking for advice. I just wonder if I’m acting childishly.
Wishing Ancillary Fucking Felt Less Emotionally Ruinous
Your dilemma is interesting, WAFFLER, but you know what I’m more interested in? I’d really be interested in finding out which particular faith tradition frowns on penetrative vaginal intercourse before marriage but smiles on eating pussy and piss scenes and okays women having vaginal intercourse before marriage so long as they’re having it with guys they don’t intend to marry. That sounds like a church I’d like to visit. Hell, that sounds like a church I should be tithing to.
Look, WAFFLER, doing everything-but-sticking-your-dick-in for religious reasons is deeply silly. If you’re going to be in a sexual relationship, be in a sexual relationship. I promise you that any God who frowns on fucking-pussy-before-marriage also frowns on piss-play-before-marriage and eating-pussy-before-marriage.
As for your dilemma, WAFFLER, either you need to find a girlfriend who wants what you want—or doesn’t want what you don’t want—or you need to stop playing bullshit games and start fucking the girl you’ve got.
To say that I have recently been bored at work is a gross understatement. I have turned it into an opportunity to read all the archived Savage Love columns I can find on the internet, which has led me to three questions:
1. Your advice has always been sassy and matter-of-fact, but it seems to me that your advice is becoming less acidic as time passes. How has your attitude toward the sex-advice business changed over the years?
2. Why don’t women brag about their clit size?
3. Are you still into Ashton Kutcher or do you have a new fantasy flame?
Your Devoted Reader
1. I get a lot of mail from people telling me I’ve changed. Half write to tell me that I’ve become an insufferably bitchy sacky twatty cunt prick, and half tell me I’ve gone soft, I’m too nice, I’ve lost my edge, etc. Not sure what to make of that.
2. Clits aren’t inserted into anything—not typically—so a big clit doesn’t earn a woman any bragging rights. And a small clit, harder to locate and harder to stimulate, is nothing to brag about either. And while the clit—all of it, not just the exposed part—is central to a woman’s sexual pleasure, it’s not the showiest part of a woman’s package. That would be the labia. And it’s not the part a man is most interested in. That would be the vagina. So while the clit is hugely important to her, it’s not necessarily all that important to him.
3. I still admire Ashton Kutcher’s work ethic—the man is an acting, producing, tweeting machine—but my crush on Ashton evaporated halfway through the first episode of Punk’d. My current celebrity crush is Bill Hader as Stefon on SNL‘s “Weekend Update.”
I have recently started dating a sexually adventurous man. He is the first person to successfully fist me, and it’s fantastic. When I orgasm, I squirt. Lots. Afterward, the sheets are soaked and I’m in a puddle. We’ve put towels down, but the sheer volume of liquid soaks through them. Without towels, it soaks all the way through to the mattress. I’m not super-pleased about ruining my mattress, and the postcoital sleeping on very wet sheets is not ideal.
I don’t really want to sleep on a plastic-wrapped mattress and change my sheets every time we have sex. Does anything exist that’s super-absorbent that I could put down during sex, or even something that might go under the sheets to at least protect the bed?
Wasting Endless Towels
The bed is a nice place to sleep, a good place to read, and an obvious place to fuck. But you can have sex elsewhere, WET, and you can acquire just-for-fucking furniture/furnishings without going to hell with the vaginal-before-marriage crowd. Go to a sporting-goods store and pick up a large, folding wrestling mat. Store it under the bed, WET, and when your sexy time involves fisting—and hopefully you’re not fisting every time you have sex—GET OUT OF BED, pull the mat out, throw some towels down, and fist and squirt to your heart’s content. Then when it is all over—all over the towels, the mat, the floor—you’ll be able to crawl back into your warm, dry, comfortable bed.
HEY, EVERYBODY: Jason Robinson is—was—the football coach at Mandarin High School in Duval County, Florida. He was fired last month for sending “adult-oriented pictures” to a student. Robinson didn’t send the pictures to one of his students, but to a 20-year-old college student who is his girlfriend. The mother of Robinson’s girlfriend found the pictures on her daughter’s phone and forwarded them to the principal of the school where Robinson worked and scores of other people.
“We hold our teachers to a higher standard,” principal Donna Richardson told reporters. “They’re in front of our students. They’re talking with our students. They’re teaching our students how to become good characters.”
This is sex-negative bullshit. Robinson is a consenting adult; Robinson’s girlfriend is a consenting adult. And what consenting adults do on their own time—and with their own cell phones—is no one’s business but their own.
Savage Love readers stuck up for Constance McMillen after she was victimized by the homophobic morons who run her high school. Now we need to stick up for a straight high-school coach being victimized by the sexphobic morons who run his. Send an e-mail to Donna Richardson at richardsod@duvalschools.org. Let Richardson know that she is in the wrong. And let others know to let her know.
AND: Apparently, Steve Jobs isn’t such a prude after all. The Savage Love iPhone app is now available on the iTunes store.
Like I said, I guess it is a little reductive. But I think the point still stands. The video is significant only in the sense that he sent it to the 20-year-old. Do you really think that if the girl was 30 years old and still living with her mother and the situation had played out the way it did the school would have reacted the same way?
@152 Of course. If it was as simple as all that would’ve fired him before they got the video. They wouldn’t even bother to mention the video, they’d simply say “we were concerned about a teacher dating a younger person.” But either way, they couldn’t fire him just because he was dating someone younger any more than they could’ve fired him for being in a gay relationship. The Roethlisberger situation doesn’t even compare b/c there was an illegal activity (public sex.) There’s nothing illegal about what the coach did.
@ WAFFLER: You need this woman like you need another hole in the head. She’s already cheated on you, and now has managed to get you to feel guilty about her infidelity. Drop her like the bad habit she is. Tough luck finding anyone worthwhile who DOESN’T put out before marriage. I have heard they’re out there, but the odds are against you. Also, what does a religious man do when his new bride is a lousy lay?
@152 First, a couple of clarifications. The coach wasn’t fired. His contract is not being renewed. It seems like that distinction shouldn’t matter, but it does. Robinson isn’t suing Mandarin High School for dismissing him. He’s suing his girlfriend’s parents for violating his privacy. He has no case against the school. Second, Roethlisberger was not convicted of any crime. Whether he should have been or not isn’t legally germane.
Now. Yes, you’re right. The school could have gone on a jihad against the coach before the mother brought the situation to a head. The fact that they weren’t interested in doing so on their own volition isn’t really the point. The mother brought the situation to a head -and was ABLE to bring the situation to a head- because of her daughter’s age. She threatened a kind of scorched-earth public campaign against the coach and the school knew that kind of campaign would be compelling exactly because of the girl’s age. Let’s not be obtuse: if the daughter had been 30 and not 20 the school wouldn’t have taken her seriously.
Maybe I’m the one being obtuse, but I can’t imagine “the football coach is a kinky freak” being nearly as effective a rallying cry as “the football coach fucks young girls.”
Let’s agree that no one here did anything illegal. Not Robinson, not Mandarin High School. The question is whether either party did anything wrong, legality aside. I think Mandarin High School did something wrong. But it’s not a battle I feel particularly driven to fight. If his contract was not renewed because the mother of his 28-year-old boyfriend went to the school board or if some anti-miscegenation asshole was pissed he was dating a black woman came after him, I’d probably feel differently. Maybe that makes me hypocritical in addition to obtuse. But I’m not particularly interested in going to bat for this guy.
Men who date much younger women bug me, I guess. Should there be a law against it? No, of course not. There also shouldn’t be laws against men not performing cunnilingus or refusing to wear condoms. But both reflect a fundamentally bad attitude when it comes to relationships. Seeking out partners with less experience and less independence than you hits some of the same notes for me. I know Dan and I don’t see eye-to-eye on this, but I guess I’ll have to just live with that.
I mean yeah. Email the principal. Let her know that not renewing the coach’s contract will cost her school politically. It’s the right thing to do, I guess. I’m not a mind reader and I don’t know what went through Robinson’s mind when he decided to get his dick wet this 20-year-old. Maybe they’re soulmates. Maybe love just happens regardless of social mores. Or maybe 20-year-olds don’t ask uncomfortable questions or look at you like you’re the kind of loser who doesn’t know how to talk to women your own age. I’m probably not the right person to ask.
@152 Btw, despite the illegal activity Ben didn’t get fired, unlike the coach who didn’t do anything illegal and still got fired.
“Second, Roethlisberger was not convicted of any crime.”
That’s b/c they’re not going to prosecute him for having sex in public but sex in public is still a crime.
Hey Allison- Drug deals and street racing are criminal acts. The exchange of pictures *of consenting adults* shared *between consenting adults* is not.
The school should have checked to make sure that the person who recieved the pictures was, in fact, of legal age and then dropped it, telling the young woman’s mother “They are both adults and this administration cannot see itself intruding on their personal lives”.
Now, if he’d been surfin’ porn on the school computers, sending adult pics to minors, putting indiscreet material on his FaceBook page or even if his phone was one issued by and billed to the school district, I’d be making coffee and scones for the lynch mob… but he did not do that. He sent his adult girlfriend a few racy pics… and that should NEVER have been an issue at work.
Frankly, I’d have a hell of a lot more sympathy for Roethlisberger if he’d banged his twenty-something girlfriend on the boardroom conference table in front of the NFL Commission than if he’d taken that same nineteen year old back to his apartment. But that’s beside the point.
Using the high school administration to split the couple up was a socially irresponsible move on the part of the girl’s mom. That’s not what school administrations are for. But do I blame her for wanting Robinson’s balls in a jar on her coffee table? Nah, not really.
Of course there are anecdotes about how this older man and that younger women wound up being a gold star couple. But that’s the thing about anecdotes…there are always plenty to go around. I have a few of my own.
But like I also said. I’m not arguing against harranging Mandarin High School. It just makes me a little queasy is all.
WAFFLER’S girlfriend was horny. She was ready to get it on with a receptive male and WAFFLER was not a receptive male. Sometimes hormones get the best of us in an adult mutually consentual situation (and other situations, but that is not relevant to this situation). Yes, women have a sex drive too, Howard. Thus the brisk and ongoing sale of vibrators. If you are going to be sexually repressed in a relationship and you state that you will accept “creative” satisfaction, you have to accept and *expect* the consequences. Quit being a whiny wuss.
@WAFFLER I dated a guy like you in college. I DTMFA. Best decision I ever made. I have been having awesome sex ever since. You are a dumbsh*T!
For those of you in sympathy with the administrators forced to cope with some public relations nightmare, I have a retort.
I’ve often said this in my personal life to people unduly paranoid about gossip. Gossip only has power if it gets to you or if you let it get to you.
The administrators’ FEAR of the photos makes a public relations nightmare, not the photos themselves.
Imagine the alternative. A spokesperson calls a press conference and says, decisively, “This is an adult teacher in a consensual adult relationship outside of school. A 20 year old woman is a legal adult, so no one has any legal claim whatsoever that any aspect of their private romantic relationship has any relevance whatsoever to his job. We apologize to both he and his girlfriend for this invasion of their privacy. There is no story here. The end.”
Imagine that?
On a side note, it is this kind of scandal-phobia that is plaguing leftist politics, something that conservatives play to their full advantage. Consider, for example, Bush and Cheney’s proud and voluminous declarations of NO SHAME about their many crimes: Yeah, we tortured, what you gonna do about it? Yeah, we went to war under false pretenses, what you gonna do about it? FFS, Cheney said that he was external to the 3 branches of government! In contrast, we have a Democrat party and leadership that cower at the hint of accusation, at the whiff of impropriety. GET A SPINE and SOME INTEGRITY people. Being shamed by others only works if you are ashamed yourself.
*Exit soap box…”
I think that most of you are missing/ignoring the main issue that likely got him canned. The video itself is not the issue other than the fact that it exposed the relationship. The fact that she is twenty is only part of the problem. The fact that she is a former student of the school he coaches for is big problem. I don’t know how or when they started dating, but school officials and parents are likely concerned that this is only the first student he has be caught with not the first he been with. They are also likely concerned that if down the road he gets caught fucking a current student instead of a former one, they open themselves up to a huge lawsuit for not getting rid of him when the knew he had a thing for young girls. Teacher/coaches fucking former students is creepy even if it isn’t illegal. The mom went way overboard in going so public, but the coach was a fool and the school had little choice but to let him go.
@160
Sorry but the Roethlisberger analogy isn’t flying at all. The only reason we heard about it is because there was an accusation of rape, the only reason there was a reprimand and suspension is because of the contributing to the delinquency and the sex in public. If this had been a regular ol’ consensual relationship with a 20 year old in his apartment then there’s no way that we hear about this and there’s no way anyone cares.
“Men who date much younger women bug me, I guess.”
I can’t help you there but you might want to ask why that is (especially b/c in this case the guy’s not THAT much older.) I’m not sure if you’ve noticed but it’s not uncommon for women to be attracted to older men (case in point my wife was just telling me about her “old man crush” on Robert Duvall in Lonesome Dove.) Would you see it differently if it was a 30 year old woman and 20 year old man? What if it was a 30 year old woman and a 55 year old man?
@164
We don’t know if she was a former student or not and even if she was, she had been finished with school for 3 years and lived 150 miles away from the school. However it’s not that likely that she was a student while he was a coach. She’s in her 3rd year of college; he’s in the second year of his contract, do the math. Besides, everyone is a former student from somewhere.
I am not a squirter and therefore have no use for anything extra absorbent, but I still felt the need to Google “Shamwow” just based on the name alone. The guy says, “Made in Germany, you know that the Germans always make good stuff.” All I can say is “SHAM-WOW!”
They make disposable bed pads for incontinence that are absorbent and lined with plastic so you won’t soak. Keep some on hand and whip one out when it looks like you’re gonna be a gusher.
Isn’t any employment “at-will” essentially? In the Commonwealth of Virginia it is anyway. I can get fired for using too much sugar in my coffee. Was the phone that he sent it from paid for by the school? I have a phone paid for by my company and I’m surely not going to send out pics from it of my clit. I’m sure as a wouldn’t trust this douche to take care of a chigger, let alone a high school kid.
There’s a long history of invading the private lives of teachers. In the 19th century laws forbidding (usually unmarried) teachers from traveling with any non-family member was common. We’re only 175 years removed of some real Taliban-style shit.
@169
But if your contract didn’t get renewed b/c your boss found out that you were putting too much sugar in you coffee at home then wouldn’t you be the teeniest bit pissed?
I’m not really arguing with any particular point, bass man. And no, a 30-year-old/55-year-old situation wouldn’t bother me very much. Thirty-year-olds, by and large, have had dozens of sexual partners, a handful of long-term relationships, have paid their own rent, etcetera and so forth. Not so much with 20-year-olds.
Here’s the last thing I’ll say. Mandarin High School is in the wrong for taking an interest in the sex life of one of their teachers, given that the teacher has violated no law. I’m with Iowalan there. But if they MUST take an interest in their teachers’ sex lives, if they had to pick one particular behavior to take issue with, banging sorority sisters would probably be my pick.
And okay, before you seize on it, I mean one LEGAL behavior.
Allison, getting “caught trying to by dope” is a crime. Getting “caught” having a private conversation of a sexual nature with another consenting adult is like getting “caught” buying a sandwich; it’s perfectly legal and something we all do every day. There is no shame in it.
My letter to his boss:
“Firing Coach Robinson based on the contents of a private communication between him and his consenting adult girlfriend teaches your students some bizarre notions of character. It fails to distinguish between standards of conduct concerning one’s public role as a school employee, and the privacy of one’s personal life as a private citizen. Based on Coach Robinson’s firing, students will conclude that it is official policy that there is something wrong with private communications of a sexual nature between consenting adults. Yet it is the publication of the contents of those communications by a third party that is the real issue. Where is the outrage that ought to be directed at her in this case?
Any policy that treats such communications between consenting adults as something shameful, inappropriate, or wrong is absurd. It is also on some level voyeuristic. I urge you to rehire Coach Robinson at once. Doing so would teach your students about the sanctity of personal privacy and a respect for the relationships of others. It would also provide them with a stellar example of the courage that it takes to admit that one has made a mistake, and to set about righting it. That would be a real lesson in ‘character.'”
No need to order special pee pads…just go to your local drugstore and pick up some disposable “chucks” pads. They are what old people use under their bums to protect furniture. You’ll find them near the adult diapers.
I read my way through the comments on the coach’s dilemma, assuming someone else would point this out. But since not…
The newspaper coverage of this event says Coach sent the naked pictures from a school computer. If true, that put a completely different spin on the school’s actions. And makes the coach a stupidhead.
@176 That’s what the school is claiming but he says it wasn’t a school computer. Personally I don’t buy it. It’d be a lot easier to take a picture with your phone and then send it then to take a picture with your phone, send it to your email account, wait till you’re at school, and then send it to your gf’s phone.
@172
“if they had to pick one particular behavior to take issue with, banging sorority sisters would probably be my pick”
Yeah, I gathered that but I still don’t get why. It’s just as possible that it would be beneficial for a 20 year old to date a 30 year old as it would be detrimental. Your comment about sexual experience is more to my point. Sex is usually going to be better when at least one person is more experienced. This whole notion that we need to frown upon a 20 year old dating a 30 year old is based on the notion that we need to protect the naive, inexperienced 20 year olds. But as far as I’m concerned if I’m going to give the benefit of the doubt to an 18 year old women who decides that she wants to drive a fuel truck across Iraq then I’m going to give the benefit of the doubt to a 20 year old woman with regards to who she wants to date. It there’s something specific to the situation (you know the woman in question and she’s exceptionally naive/makes bad decisions, you know that guy in question is an abuser, etc.) then that’s different but we don’t know anything like that here so I’m going to give the situation the benefit of the doubt.
“But if they MUST take an interest in their teachers’ sex lives”
Except that don’t have to, not at all. And if you read any of the comments in the local papers from people that actually had to deal with the principal it seems that she carries herself as a self important bee-yatch who can act anyway she wants to without reprisal. Taking the whole situation into consideration I have no problem with flooding her inbox with disgruntled emails and phone messages.
Wet: if you go to any drug store they sell these under-pads for old folks who wet the bed. they come in many sizes. have a nice cotton side and are very absorbent. There are many sources (not endorsing this one): http://search.themedicalsupplydepot.com/…
@178 You make good points, and as I’ve said in earlier posts, I’m not disputing that the school is in the wrong. They are. Here’s the thing though. Not only are we not going to win every battle, we’re also not going to actually show up and fight every battle. A new teacher was let go when I was in high school after he had an affair with another teacher’s wife and I suspect the one had something to do with the other. I have a transgendered colleague who graduated from a top graduate program in education and can’t find a job anywhere in the country. A history teacher in Snohomish County had his class taken away when, in place of a non-voting Taiwan, he assigned one of the students Palestine in Mock U.N. Why is Jason Robinson the one injustice out of thousands we decide to care about?
Of course the follow up question is why not? Well, I feel like the best way to picture the Jason Robinson case is as a Venn Diagram. He is safely tucked into a zone of acceptability. She is not underage, just 12 years younger and living with her mother. He’s not her teacher, he’s just a teacher (her sister’s teacher). There is no reason to think that because he likes 20-year-old girls he might like high school seniors. Pure extrapolation. No reason to think that the reason he likes girls that age is specifically because they don’t see him with the same glasses as a woman his own age might. Pure speculation. Career counselors are fond of saying that when you interview for a job, the impression you should try to give your prospective employers is “I am not going to be a problem. I am not going to create problems.” Robinson works with students not much younger than his girlfriend. Is that the impression his behavior screams?
Fair or unfair, Robinson had to know that dating a student’s not-much-older sister could jeopardize his job with the school. Let’s go ahead and say it’s unfair, that it’s the product of a sexually hysterical culture, of which I’m apparently a part. Let’s say that if he was a bartender instead of a teacher this would would have been a non-issue (although it’s difficult to imagine how they would have met, seeing as how the girl isn’t old enough to drink in a bar) and that public education isn’t subject to any different standards than the service industry. Flood the principal’s email account. But I doubt it will matter overly much to her. Not because she doesn’t care what people think of the school, but because when it comes to Jason Robinson-esque teachers, getting flamed by Dan Savages fans is far from a worst-case scenario.
I am planning a home birth later this summer….my second, and the issue of fluids all over the house comes into play in this arena too….you can buy disposable ‘Chux’ pads at most surgical pharmacies – you can also make them yourself with two fabrics – PUL and terry cloth. Poke around Etsy or Homebirth sites and see if you can find someone who sells/makes these reusable pads – they come in many different sizes as well. They are perfectly water proof – portable, and washable. Good luck WET
I guess the short version is this: What the school did was wrong, but I can’t pretend I don’t understand why they did it. It’s like if you get punched in the face by the boyfriend of the girl you slept with. It’s against the law and that law should definitely exist. You yourself have not broken any law, nor should any such law exist. But your ass still kind of got what it deserved.
@169
Teachers are a special class in most states (I know little of Florida law, but I’d be surprised if it was hugely different from Colorado law). They’re not really at-will employees, given that (a) they are under contract, and (b) their contracts are stipulated statutorily.
There are procedures to termination, and there has to be cause for termination (cause being defined in the statutes). A private corporation can fire me for any damned reason they like. A school can’t, they have to go to the board and show cause for the termination. Further, if the board violates the requirements in the statute, they face liability for the wrongful termination. My firm worked a case recently on that very subject.
That said, he quit. He wasn’t forced out, fired, terminated, or any other word that means “the school got rid of him”. Chances are that they offered him resignation without fuss, and probably some money, and he took it. He (I will repeat) was not terminated, he quit voluntarily.
That kind of limits his ability to bitch and moan about it. If he’d fought the good fight, I’d be behind him all the way, but he decided that it wasn’t worth it.
@178
Boy, I’m really tired of the trite “if this age group is old enough to go to war, they must be mature enough to drink/drive/vote/sleep around”. You assume there’s some inherent reason and logic in giving the benefit of the doubt (in terms of mental capacity) when a young adult joins the military, but that’s an unproved assumption.
Hell, I’ll make the opposite argument. Young adults are really, really, stupid. If you can claim any form of maturity or overwhelming logic and reason at 20 (or even 25), you’re a damned liar. We’re all idiots in our youth, and the fact that society allows us to make some really dumb decisions (drinking too much, driving too fast, getting crabs, going to war) doesn’t make it a moral imperative to allow us to make every stupid decision we can think of.
You want to begin the conversation with the assumption that all young adults are fundamentally responsible and reasonable, so it would take an exception to the rule to make someone naive enough about sexuality to make protecting them necessary. I proceed from the opposite assumption: teens and young adults are phenomenal idiots, who need to prove exceptional responsibility and reason before I’ll trust them not to be taken advantage of.
Your arguments about sex being better are irrelevant to the question of whether we assume that a 32-year-old teacher who would screw a twenty-year-old, lacks the kind of moral certitude to teach sixteen- seventeen- and eighteen-year-olds.
Lemme put it this way, if I must:
In my state (Colorado) anyone up to the age of twenty-five may have sex (legally) with anyone over the age of fifteen. A twenty-five-year-old can screw a fifteen-year-old (let that sink in for a moment). If I became a teacher, and decided to date/fuck a fifteen-year-old (not one of my students, no one who went to my school), would you accept it with the same air of “it’s all good”?
If yes, that’s fine. But I doubt even Dan would accept my example as being a fine thing for a schoolteacher to do. If your answer is (as I suspect it is) “no”, I’d like to know why. Is the only difference that the teacher in question here is fucking a girl who is (just barely) old enough not to be a student? Is 32-20 inherently less creepy than 25-15? Why? How do you accept one and not the other without being hypocritical?
@Everyone talking about Jason Robinson
Sorry for the double-post, but this seems kind of important.
Can anyone get the straight dope on whether he was actually terminated (wrongfully or not), or whether he was “forced to quit”? I’ve read both versions, and it seems like everyone is using the term “fired” interchangeably with “forced to quit”, which have very different meanings legally.
Anyone know what really happened?
He’s not abstaining from dick in vagina for religious reasons. He’s abstaining because of a bullshit idea of morality instilled in him by parents or just his own weird rationalizations. He wants a way to not be telling a lie to his parents. It’s an interesting idiotic god these people worship. One that’s shriveled up and mostly dead, and likes the occasional card, like Gramma, so she can show her friends and complain that he doesn’t visit enough.
I’m not defending what the mother did, but everyone’s assumption that the daughter legally owns the phone bothers me?
I’m not a lawyer so I don’t know how the question of ownership would be resolved. However, if my employer provides me with a cell phone (or computer for that matter) and pays the monthly fee/charges then there would be no question about who owned the phone and therefore no expectation of or legal right to privacy. It is less clear where a parent buys a phone and service is covered by the parents plan. I don’t even know if this applies in this case, but I do know a lot of parents who do this even with kids who have graduated from college. I don’t know what legal liability the parents would have for how the phone is used (think drug dealing or kiddie porn for that matter) if they are the owners of record.
According to this link, the coach was not fired or quit, despite what the reporter said.
The school district chose not to offer him a contract for the next school year (symantics maybe, but they are within their legal rights to do so and they have no legal obligation to provide any explanation. It happens all the time for all sorts of reasons including the when the principal doesn’t like someone).
indyposted.com/…/sexting-gets-florida-…;
One thing I question about the post is the statement about the football coach, coaching his girlfriend’s 17 year old sister. If true, this guy is just plain stupid.
@186
I doubt the 17-year-old sister is running tight end for Mandarin Varsity, but it’s probably a good thing that a teacher at a school is considered all the students’ “teacher” in this particular context. “No ma’am, Ashley was never actually in my AP Physics class!” feels a little flimsy to me.
I know I must be coming across as a flip-flopper here, but you lose me when you start harping on what images were on whose computer and when and why. To my mind, no amount of discretion can excuse an inappropriate relationship and no amount of indiscretion can indict an appropriate one (note “appropriate” vs. “legal” here).
BTW, for the sake of argument (and it is a fun one), let’s pretend Robinson did not coach football, but the women’s swim team. No impact at all on how that would or should affect the administration’s take on the situation?
@187 You missed my point, I was addressing the general indignation about the parents invasion of their daughter’s privacy. If (and it is a huge if) the parents legally own the cellphone then they had every legal right to see what was on the cellphone (although I question the morality of their actions). There is no expectation/right of privacy when using someone else’s property.
Scarcasm and derision intended. I don’t know if anyone else has made this point, but losing a cellphone (or having it stolen) is not uncommon. Anyone who has anything embarrassing or confidential on one is a fool. Security is a joke unless you are paying an arm and a leg for it. While a 20 year old may not know any better, a presumably college educated 32 year old teacher should, but then again we are talking about an aging jock who is probably clueless (Joey Buttafuoco comes to mind, but I’m not sure if he was a jock or just a greaser). Some people really shouldn’t be allowed loose without adult supervision even if they are technically an adult. We wouldn’t be having this discussion if either the coach or his girlfriend had any common sense.
WET – you can also try this midwive’s trick: make the bed with a fitted sheet. Put down a mattress protector like a shower curtain. Put down another fitted sheet. When you’re all done, just take off the top sheet and the mattress protector and you’ve got a nice, cozy, dry bed waiting for you.
1. WAFFLER’s girlfriend should dump him. Period.
2. I hope that male coach sues the pants off not just the school, but his girlfriend’s mother.
Although I recommend him NOT to date someone not old enough to drink–especially someone whose MOMMY still monitors her computer usage. I’d say that’s definitely not mature enough. Think with your brain, coach–not the other part. Don’t follow Nicholas Cage’s path.
And yes, Allison M., you will and should be flamed.
@180
“Why is Jason Robinson the one injustice out of thousands we decide to care about?”
You don’t have to choose to care about one over the other, it’s possible to care about all of those things but that’s not the point. The specific situation here is mute, it’s the principle and that principle is that I (and many people here AND in the town this transpired in) don’t think that someone should be fired/have they contracts non-renewed solely b/c the teacher engaged in a consensual, completely legal activity that the principal doesn’t agree with and I, personally, am going to go to bat for anyone who falls into that category regardless of my personal feelings of the situation.
For example; I have no interest whatsoever in participating in a “Tea Party” rally or becoming a tea party activist or any of that stupid shit HOWEVER if someone did participate in one and didn’t get their contract renewed specifically b/c they had (without any consideration of their work performance) then I’d go to bat for them too. In the same way that I feel that everyone should have free speech, not just people that I agree with, and I’ll defend someone else’s freedom of speech regardless of how onerous I find that speech to be. If you give a pass on situations you don’t agree with personally it makes it MUCH harder to make your case on situation you do agree with. Moreover, it’s the situations that you don’t agree with that really define where you stand on an issue which makes it MORE important to stand up at those times.
“A new teacher was let go when I was in high school after he had an affair with another teacher’s wife and I suspect the one had something to do with the other…etc.”
And I’ll go to bat for them in each of those situations (assuming there wasn’t a specific breach of contract.) What makes this different (and why Dan posted it) is this is part of a trend of prying into teachers lives and firing them for legal activity. Email Dan the specifics of those situations and I wouldn’t be surprised if did a post about them and we can all rally in defense there too.
“Not because she doesn’t care what people think of the school, but because when it comes to Jason Robinson-esque teachers, getting flamed by Dan Savages fans is far from a worst-case scenario. “
You can make the say the same thing with regards to Constance McMillan. In her specific situation it didn’t help her avoid getting hosed by the school but, once again, this misses the point. The idea is to let school administrators that they no longer work in a vacuum and hopefully the next administrator will think twice about administrating based on their morality instead of performance.
@189
“but losing a cellphone (or having it stolen) is not uncommon”
Yes and disseminating information on a lost/stolen cell phone is illegal and can net you some jail time.
http://www.tabloidcolumn.com/paris-hilto…
As to how much privacy can be expected if her parents were paying for it is an interesting case for the courts to decide.
@183
“That said, he quit. He wasn’t forced out, fired, terminated, or any other word that means “the school got rid of him”. Chances are that they offered him resignation without fuss, and probably some money, and he took it.”
Wrong. He was removed from his duties, barred from campus, and his contract wasn’t renewed.
“If you can claim any form of maturity or overwhelming logic and reason at 20 (or even 25), you’re a damned liar.”
So your suggestion is…..what exactly? Redefine “adult” to be 25? And you missed the point; of course young adults make stupid decisions (as do old adults) but at the age of 18 it’s assumed that you’re old enough to take responsibility for your decisions. Yes, lots of young adults are going to make stupid decisions but many are going to make excellent decision and making stupid decisions and then “paying the piper” is how you learn to make good decision. And btw, if you think that you miraculously start making excellent decisions at 25+ then you’re a damn liar.
“If I became a teacher, and decided to date/fuck a fifteen-year-old (not one of my students, no one who went to my school), would you accept it with the same air of “it’s all good”?”
If that’s the law then that’s the law. If you don’t like the law (which it seems like you don’t) then you should do something to change it instead of just bitching about how bad the law is and then do nothing about it. Trying to do something about it is exactly what I do when faced with a regional/state law that I find objectionable and if decide to NOT do anything about it then I shut the fuck up.
@188
“let’s pretend Robinson did not coach football, but the women’s swim team. No impact at all on how that would or should affect the administration’s take on the situation?”
No. If the administration has a problem with that as a concept then they can put it in the contract that “no teacher over the age of….shall date non-students under the age of……..if they coach an opposite sex such and such.”
WET: ShamWow!
“she took his desperate suggestion at face value and did something she knew was the wrong thing to do.”
Exactly how is calling someone’s bluff automatically the wrong thing to do? Kudos to this woman for calling this douche out on his bullshit!
And so is identity theft, but it happens every day. Law enforcement can’t prevent it and doesn’t have the resources to identify and prosecute the guilty or even the jurisdiction since a lot of it originates overseas in places that don’t like US. Just how much time and effort do you think would have been expended if Paris Hilton hadn’t been rich and (in)famous?
@195 Interesting suggestion, but then I suppose the administration’s contract should probably also read”A teacher who completed an M.E. and a B.A. concurrently and is only 23 years old can still date his 20-year-old girlfriend. Maybe his 19-year-old girlfriend too, but only if she has, you know, ‘life experience,’ etc.”
My point is, not all inappropriate behavior can be explicated and delineated in a contract and it’s silly to think it can.
@198
Well we’re in luck! We know EXACTLY who went into the phone and disseminated the pictures; the GF’s mother. *whew* That was a close one.
@199
And my point is that if you’re going to have an arbitrary set of “inappropriate behaviors” that will prohibit you from continued employment then they should spell out exactly what it is so you can avoid said behaviors and keep your job. If 32 is too old to date a 20 year old and will cost you your job but (I’m assuming) that 20 is ok to date a 20 year old then should figure out exactly at what age the “inappropriateness” begins IF it’s going to cost someone their job (although I still maintain that it was the video and not the age that prompted the “non-renewal.”)