Page four? :o Mine is totally on page 8. :XP

Anyway, in the article where the teachers are, the age of consent is 16, so thats why I mention that age as opposed to any others. :yes:

legal age of consent for me has always been 18, there are increments and such, but at age 18, it makes much more sense to be told to deal with the owrld and your own actions. Also walking into a relationship causes one to realize there actions may affect their partners.

There is something else that bothers me about it too, though, that goes along with the position of authority. When students are at school, there is this term called in loco parentis... It means that when students are at school, the teachers and administration are in a position that makes them basically like the students' parents, giving them certain rights and authority over the students while they are on school grounds. Does it not bother you that people with a position similar to parent are sleeping with the students?

And I agree with Luenola. It really sets things up for a bad social situation for both students and teachers with their peers. I remember there was this girl in my high school who, when we were in 7th grade, I think it was, she slept with a senior. When we were seniors, that guy came back as a new teacher, and it was very awkward even though they had slept together while he was still in high school. All kinds of nasty rumors spread, because, as we all know that's how a high school works, and it made life miserable for her.

Yeah... I wasn't meaning that it would be incestuous, but creepy for a person in the position of parent to be having that kind of relationship with them...

Anyways, I think that even if they aren't labeled as being sex offenders, they should at least be stripped of their teaching licenses and never allowed to teach again as it is a breach of ethics and... for goodness sakes, they should know better than to do something like that and be mature enough to be able to wait until that student graduates. If they're not that mature and responsible... they shouldn't be teachers.

I think it should be legal. :| I don't see anything wrong with it, as long as the younger party is of age.

The problem is that it's very hard to give empirical proof that such a relationship is based purely on love, not on students trying to get better grades or teachers taking advantage of their students. I think these punishments are only there to prevent teachers and students taking advantage of one another. It is possible, though, that a teacher and a student really do love each other.

I remember when I was in high school (I think I was 17): a friend of mine had a boyfriend who had just got his diploma as a teacher, and he worked as a substitute teacher every now and then. One time, my friend's Biology teacher needed surgery and couldn't work for several weeks, so they called in a substitute... who just happened to be my friend's boyfriend. :XD She felt really awkward and tried to avoid him at school, which led him to believe that she was ashamed of him and/or fancied a guy from her class, which led to fights and eventually they broke up.

Kah Hilzin-Ec: My point about the being mature and responsible applies only to the teachers and not to the students. High school students aren't expected to be as mature and responsible as the teachers are. I'm not sure you fully understand all of the expectations and responsibilities and things like that that are placed upon the teachers... They are generally held to a higher standard than most other adults are. No, it's not quite fair, but they are responsible for the "shaping of young minds" so to speak, which is a much greater responsibility than what is placed on anyone except for the parents. *sigh* I really am having trouble getting my points across, I think.

But Lolita is not about a teenager who can legally consent! Although she did consent... :sweat:

Morwyn:
While I don't disagree entirely with you, because you are more than welcome to think the relationship between a teacher and a student is awkward, as most do, the question is- should they really be punished, or stripped of their license because of something unrelated?
I can see something happening if they are a teacher who works with children under the age of 13, and then happens to be an active pedophile, and the school wants to get rid of them.
Or I can see a punishment occurring if the teacher knowingly raped a student.
As long as the teacher poses a threat to the students they deal with, I can see action being taken against the teacher.

But not for this, really. They just don't seem to be posing a threat.

Yeah, I know you meant, I was just commenting...
Lolita was a great book though. Really funny~ ^^

Couldn't a distraction from the students studies be said about any relationship?

And in many of my classes in high school, our teachers were very casual. :yes:
There wasn't much of a professional environment until you walked into the office or something. For our teachers, there was a lot of joking around and being friendly.
While, yes, we did sit down to learn, it wasn't a cold business atmosphere either.

Care to elaborate, Hatori? :eager:

I do believe that such action should be illegal: the student-teacher relationship should be one of trust, and a sexual relationship within that context could too easily lead to an abuse of power. I want to be a teacher, and that whole concept simply doesn't jive with my principles. Particularly when taken in context with what the term "en loco parentis" should mean... a teacher should always have the best interest of the student as primary consideration, and neither sex nor a sexual relationship can ever be fully selfless and protective.

However, I do not think that teacher should be labeled permanently as a "sex offender." The offending teacher should be barred from the profession, in my opinion, but the label of "sex offender" on his or her permanent record would prevent that person from obtaining any sort of fulfilling professional career outside of teaching. At that point, the punishment becomes disproportionate to the time and should be labeled cruel and unusual. As the sex was consensual, it should be considered only a breach of trust, and not a sexual crime. "Sex offender" is an impossible term to overcome, once it is given.

I don't believe in criminalizing consensual acts. I'm especially incensed that an 18 year old can receive that same label for sex with a 17 year old.

And in California, it's technically illegal for two underage teenagers to even have sex.

These things irk me, as I believe that the government should stay out of the bedroom. In my opinion, consensual sex between two teenagers of reasonable age similarity (within 2 years) should be legal. Consensual sex between adults should be legal as well. I only believe that sex between a teacher and a current student should be illegal because k-12 schools are institutions of public trust, and should maintain a level of strict professionalism.


I have a more selfish reason for wanting the system to be like this: I would prefer to be able to hate all sex offenders unconditionally, without having to worry about possibly extenuating circumstances. Allowing consensual acts to filter into the category of sexual crime makes it more difficult for me to be uniformly biased against and wary of sex offenders.

Call a tree a tree. Do not call a bush a tree. Else how shall I know which I ought to cut down?