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Thanks for clearing that up B&B and I apologize if the question was uncomfortable for you.
For the record B&B, IMO you were not an adult so you should not blame yourself for the illicit romance, not that you have.
It's just the simple situation of an adult raping a child. This is the crime of statutory rape, where the victim is not considered mentally capable of making an informed decision to have sex. In your case not capable because of not being an adult.
There are also school ethical regulations that were violated which would have resulted in the teacher being fired, and probably the matter would have been forwarded to law enforcement for likely prosecution.
Yes, it was a lesbian relationship. My partner now is male.
To answer some other questions that came up: Yes, I was a minor and in her class. There was a more significant age difference than in some other examples that have come up, because she was in her forties at the time.
The discussion surrounding this issue has been really interesting to read. I've always been kind of hypocritical about it because I believe that these relationships are wrong for all of the reasons other posters have brought up, but at the time, I was really happy.
Your feeling happy at the time is pretty normal. I think we tend to be most critical of male teachers having relationships with female students, based on assumptions about men being predatory and/or women needing protection, but often those girls were happy during the relationship also. That's not the measure of whether these are OK, though. They can go wrong, and since that potential is there, and since the younger people typically don't see all the ways these things can go poorly, the adult is always culpable. You're not a hypocrite, you're someone who this adult woman should have maintained boundaries with, however your relationship evolved. These boundaries are there precisely because someone your age at the time is vulnerable to a more experienced, higher status person.
Having said all that, don't let our strong opinions about these relationships being wrong influence how you feel. If you look at your situation and you don't feel like a victim, or not much so, then that's good and don't let anyone put you in a role that doesn't feel right.
I don't even see any reason for this discussion. Take the teacher-student relationship out of the equation and it's still statutory rape. That's just plain and simple. It can be prosecuted and will be investigated if reported.
The only ameliorating exception in statutory rape is when the persons involved are nearly the same age.
Lovehound, I like to discuss these things because I am more interested in the underlying "is this wrong, and if so why--truly?" than I am the laws or even religious value based morality. The measure of wrongness for me is in the potential for harm. The risk of negative outcomes being high enough that even if it's not a 100% certainty, it's likely enough to tip the scales.
I differ from not only the law, but from popular opinion, in that I don't care that much about age gaps. Other things matter more to me. At 15 I was ready to consent to sex. I was able to maintain a rigorous STI testing, birth control, and safer sex rules standard. I was NOT ready to consent to some of the things that adults bundle with sex, such as having children or forming serious lifelong bonds or making binding long term promises or commitments. Sex, in and of itself, is not any of those things. It is just often connected to those things. Given that...I don't feel that it makes a lick of difference if my sex partner was another 15 year old, or a 60 year old. So long as they were only bringing sex into my life and nothing else. The ONLY problem I saw with older partners (which for me, meant in their 20s) was that too often they were ready for RELATIONSHIPS and they thought things were more serious and meaningful than what I was ready to offer them. In other words, when our fling had run its course and I was ready to be done, getting those 20-something guys to GO AWAY was sometimes challenging. They thought they were offering me something I should want, commitment and a relationship, but I was still a kid and not ready for any such thing.
Think about the movie, Lolita with Jeremy Irons, if you've seen it. If he'd only seduced her and had sex with her a time or three and then vanished never to be seen nor heard from again, then her life would have gone quite differently. So long as sex does not saddle you with a child or a disease...it's just sex. It need not leave some kind of indelible footprint on your life, really.
So the problem with teacher/student relationships in my thinking, is the other stuff attached. The confusion of roles and the necessity of ongoing interaction until the student graduates. The power differential, and coercion that can extend in both directions. I mean, we obviously think of the teacher coercing the student...but the student can wield unreasonable power over the teacher by threatening to "out" them to the school. Which, since the teacher should really have known better than to get into that situation, teaches the student to manipulate others, and unhealthy exercises of power, potentially. Link that up with sex, and you've got a pretty toxic brew.
I feel that to a lesser degree, there's also a similar flavour to why I think that workplace romance is unwise. Your circumstances force you to be around each other...so if there is a breakup, hurt, or drama (which let's face it, are common enough with relationships) then either someone has to quit, or you have to deal with being stuck interacting on the daily when you really need to heal and move on. But many companies prohibit "fraternization" or relationships between people who are in direct chain of command to each other, at least, to head off the power differential issue.
OP, last thought here...I find it interesting you had a lesbian relationship with a female art teacher, because when I was in 8th grade, I had a female art teacher that I think might have had some kind of unusual interest in me. She gave me free lessons in her home, where we sat in her kitchen and sculpted things out of clay. Dolphins. She showed me her aquarium fish. She didn't do anything inappropriate that I recall, but I wonder if she was sort of hinting and I just was clueless and missed it. At that age, I did not realize that partnering with another female (bisexuality) was even an option. Of course maybe she was only being kind and trying to encourage my talent. I had a rough home life at that time, she may have known about it. I wonder, that's all...
I had a quasi-relationship with a teacher while in high school and nope, still think its wrong.
Did it continue after you graduated? Or did you see it as a mistake and move on after that? Apologies if I'm asking questions you don't want to answer! Feel free to ignore me if you'd prefer.
Very wrong. Teacher abused her position. And the fact she lost interest because he was getting older is disgusting.
From a students stand point: A dream come true, I get that.
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