A man in the arena

Debra Lafave is no longer being prosecuted for her crimes. The county charging her has dropped their case because the witness will not testify. Have no fear Lafave is already serving three years of house arrest and seven more years of probation.

Debra Lafave, at the age of 23, had sex with her student who was 14. This is quite obviously a crime and pathetic. That is not what is interesting.

What is interesting is this: who would argue that this is the same crime if the genders were reversed? It is easy to understand the impulse to kill a man who takes advantage of a teen age girl. Why does this not apply both ways?

I submit that we protect a young women’s sexuality because at the gut level we know it is more personal then a young boy’s sexuality. We suspect that the boy was quite happy he had sex with the teacher, and we suspect that a girl would not feel the same way.

This may be a gender oriented suspicion. A man may remember being quite attracted to a high school teacher. He may also remember a girlfriend who had been taken advantage of at a young age and the damage this caused. This may be that a man understands the primacy of the masculine sexual drive and the often horrible ramifications to women this can entail. The instinctive defense of a girl’s sexuality is based on the memory of a young man’s instincts.

# posted by D. W. Eifert @ 9:31 PM