Calif. teacher resigns after leaving family for student

the fucked-up power relationship is kinda implicit in any relationship where you have someone who is of, say, college age or older, pursuing a teenager.

See, I don't think this is true. Although, of course, your phrasing is purposefully built to imply activity on the part of the person who is older and passivity on the part of the younger person. Many people in such relationships would not perceive that as accurate, rather that they entered into a relationship with one another. But the teacher-pupil relationship (and the child's-best-friend relationship) are coming from a base where the power relationship of the older half is very much ingrained, and I find it difficult to see how you can form a healthy partnership from that.

watching Solid Gold with my father was an odd experience because he would shout "WOO! SHAKE IT!" at the Solid Gold Dancers and I would always think to myself "they can't hear you"

The sexualization of younger and younger women

I cannot tell you how much I disagree with this.

knowing you, I'm anticipating some kind of historical argument that is totally OTM

xp

Hey some dude, I was reacting to your calling it "a rite of passage" because that makes it seem like something it's normal to go through, you could even say it's healthy. Like, it's gross to kids when they figure out their parents had/are having sex, too, but we would say that that knowledge is a healthy, if temporarily uncomfortable, part of growing up. I don't think being a witness to your own dad perving on young girls is in the same category.

But the teacher-pupil relationship (and the child's-best-friend relationship) are coming from a base where the power relationship of the older half is very much ingrained, and I find it difficult to see how you can form a healthy partnership from that.

right yeah totally agree with this.

my god election is good imna rescreen asap

DJP+Dad bringin the sitcom lolz in this thread

my dad embarrassed the hell out of me when i was a kid. often. so embarrassing. he was definitely from the mad men 50's. not a bad guy at all, but ugh...

mw, sexualization by mass media isn't the same as acknowledging that people of that age have sexuality of their own.

Banaka otm

Hey some dude, I was reacting to your calling it "a rite of passage" because that makes it seem like something it's normal to go through, you could even say it's healthy. Like, it's gross to kids when they figure out their parents had/are having sex, too, but we would say that that knowledge is a healthy, if temporarily uncomfortable, part of growing up. I don't think being a witness to your own dad perving on young girls is in the same category.

― drawn to them like a moth toward a spanakopita (Laurel), Thursday, March 1, 2012 4:43 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

lots of rites of passage are unhealthy and gross, that wasn't my implication at all. the so-called rite of passage ITSELF involved feeling disgusted.

what i am saying really is if you can get through your whole life without having the asexual view of your parents that you had as a child tarnished in any way, you are among the few and the fortunate afaict

lewd and lascivious battery: Teacher charged with having sex with 14-year-old student

And I'm saying that viewing your parents as people with a healthy sexual relationship does not necessarily entail accepting that your dad is going to lust after teenagers all his life because I think that is an embarrassing and shameful way to be and we should not accept it for ourselves in our own lives.

mw, sexualization by mass media isn't the same as acknowledging that people of that age have sexuality of their own.

but... young girls were super-heavily sexualized (in lots of cultures) way prior to mass media

xp

what i am saying really is if you can get through your whole life without having the asexual view of your parents that you had as a child tarnished in any way, you are among the few and the fortunate afaict

I knew I'd told this story on here before

The sexualization of younger and younger women

The sexualization of women happens when it happens and it usually happens pretty young (hello, what does pornography originally mean?) and it's precisely culture and 'civilization' and morality that tends to make people have to wait before shagging like stoats. If a man is a man at 13 in Jewish culture and a mere girl can be married at (to me) obscenely young ages in arranged marriage cultures where the consummation happens at 12 or 13 or 14; in a world where life expectancy was in the 40's or 50's until fairly recently, the current re-sexualization of adolescents is just reverting to the human id, albeit for other id reasons like money (status) or greed.

Is that whole story I've heard about the origin of women shaving their legs generally true?

Yeah, shakes, but those cultures were quite likely fucked up? Like, those young women were valued by older and more powerful men for their virginity, their fertility, the fact that as soon as they got married off at age 15, women had 29 kids and aged 20 years prematurely until they died in childbirth? Whatevs, they didn't exactly get the awesome end of the stick. So I don't see why examples like that should be aspirational?

Yeah, shakes, but those cultures were quite likely fucked up?

writing off an awfully huge swathe of civilization here

most of civilization has been pretty fucked up, in retrospect

And I'm saying that viewing your parents as people with a healthy sexual relationship does not necessarily entail accepting that your dad is going to lust after teenagers all his life because I think that is an embarrassing and shameful way to be and we should not accept it for ourselves in our own lives.

― drawn to them like a moth toward a spanakopita (Laurel), Thursday, March 1, 2012 4:49 PM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

ok i'm not gonna keep stopping you from making these huge leaps of logic from what i said onto what you think i'm saying so have fun with that

Also, something I have never, ever got; why is the fact that your parents are fucking so gross to people? Do you really live in such an artifically antiseptic world that you would wish upon your parents that they become eunuchs? Did you never see happy lovers as a kid? Never see horses or butterflies rutting? Never wonder at the driven resiliance of salmon swimming upstream to spawn and die?

I just...don't get it and I never have.

mw you are talking about having a personal sexuality. This thread is specif about inappropriately older men having sex with or wanting to have sex with really young women. If you want to argue that you think it's awesome that you can fantasize about fucking teenagers and you feel good about being that guy, obviously that's up to you.

hmm I just don't want to think about my dad's penis, I guess, why is that complicated

i don't think pointing out how these relationships could've been, might've been normative in totally different history/context/culture/experience has any bearing on how they occur in our culture where they're certainly not normative. did we invent the idea of childhood (and later teenagehood) fairly recently in human history? yes. but now that they're been invented, it's not like they're just made-up nonsense. partially they were invented bc they were needed. just bc children were forced to labor throughout human history doesn't mean we should do it now.

reallllllly wary of any arguments that want to discuss this issue in terms of "biology" or "humanity's id" or "what other cultures have done in the past"

Also, something I have never, ever got; why is the fact that your parents are fucking so gross to people? Do you really live in such an artifically antiseptic world that you would wish upon your parents that they become eunuchs? Did you never see happy lovers as a kid? Never see horses or butterflies rutting? Never wonder at the driven resiliance of salmon swimming upstream to spawn and die?

I just...don't get it and I never have.

― Morning becomes apopleptic (Michael White), Thursday, March 1, 2012 9:55 PM (41 seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Complete guess, but possibly a natural thing to stop you from wanting to fuck them yourself and thus create an inbred and unhealthy population? No idea whether that's true, though.

just bc children were forced to labor throughout human history doesn't mean we should do it now.

right obviously I'm not saying it's good or anything. but it's also not an aberration.

why is the fact that your parents are fucking so gross to people? Do you really live in such an artifically antiseptic world that you would wish upon your parents that they become eunuchs?

I'm not taking this as having been directed at me, but just in case: I said I think this is healthy! Just temporarily uncomfortable for you as a kid/teen.

This thread is specif about inappropriately older men having sex with or wanting to have sex with really young women. If you want to argue that you think it's awesome that you can fantasize about fucking teenagers and you feel good about being that guy, obviously that's up to you.

uh, pretty big difference between fantasizing about and actually doing something.

well, it's an aberration by contemporary standards. it's an aberration to stone homosexuals, but during most of history it was legit. our ethical expectations have changed. xxp

Laurel's "at younger and younger ages" implies that it's some deviation from the norm... but the norm, broadly speaking, has been pretty fucked up historically!

xp

Laurel, what we aspire to is very, very often not our biological past and eyeing beautiful women neither negates a healthy sexual relationship nor is it particularly shameful or even embarrassing (as long you're discreet).

- acquaintance who once complained to me about how "hard" it is to be a hs teacher because of the preponderance of hot young chix

― be scientific, douchebag (Shakey Mo Collier)

as a working teacher, i find this really f'd up and i find this really hard to understand ... no matter what they look like - and i have met many who look like more or less like adult women - teenage girls are still teenagers: obnoxious, childish, irresponsible, naive, selfish, etc ...

i really think you would have to

-- enjoy and seek out these personality traits (hard to believe)
-- only think about physical qualities (easier to believe)
-- have something wrong with you

to be attracted to a teenage girl

reallllllly wary of any arguments that want to discuss this issue in terms of "biology" or "humanity's id" or "what other cultures have done in the past"

This is perfectly healthy but I'm even more wary of arguments that don't. By all means kick a theory in the nuts if you think it makes baseless assumptions based on prejudice or self-interest or bias but at least come up with a theory?

I grew up in the country and I never saw horses or butterflies rutting as a child. How would you even know the butterflies were rutting?

obnoxious, childish, irresponsible, naive, selfish, etc ...

are you talking about one of my exes?

they stick together xp

You know, aerosmith and I agreed on some thread about a similar topic a long time ago (now that I think about it, it was prob the "look at the azz on that one" thread) and the crux of it was that I think people should rule their thoughts more--it's not like the fact that a thought CAN occur to you means that you should indulge it and take to an extreme just because it doesn't "hurt" anyone. Or that thoughts are free from any moral compass being applied just because there hasn't been an action taken at that time.

I mean I aspire to cause physical agony to a lot of people, every day. It's not like that anger and violence is free of consequences for me, personally.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c6j8EiWIVZs

if it's any consolation that hs teacher I was posting about is now blind, so his job's probably gotten "easier" lol

xp

Laurel otm. Although to be honest, I don't think I've wanted to harm anyone for years and years

im not sure what kind of "theory" im supposed to come up with here? i can barely parse this argument, tbh, im just noting that appeals to nature or appeals to the past arent particularly convincing

I think people should rule their thoughts more--it's not like the fact that a thought CAN occur to you means that you should indulge it and take to an extreme just because it doesn't "hurt" anyone. Or that thoughts are free from any moral compass being applied just because there hasn't been an action taken at that time.

Excellent point. Unproductive thoughts are as bad as unproductive actions. Any rational agent must be a merciless with self-criticism and control.

"This tenure business seems to create a lot of tension."
"You must have the same thing in England?"
"Oh no. Probation is more or less a formality. In practise, once you're appointed they can never get rid of you -- unless you seduce one of your students, or something equally scandalous." Philip laughed.
"You can screw as many students as you like here," said Ringbaum unsmilingly. "But if your publications are unsatisfactory..." He drew a finger expressively across his throat.

I mean I aspire to cause physical agony to a lot of people, every day.

I think I remember that thread and my point remains; as long as you're not beating nor killing people why should you beat up on yourslef for having thoughts? Did you plan them? Did you mean to? If not, loathing such thoughts is as pointless as hating your body or resenting gravity.

i don't see anything particularly "aberrant" about sexually mature people of any age desiring sexually mature people of any age. sexual maturity being something that's attained during puberty.

otoh, i understand why contemporary societies have established a protective cordon around youth. with that in mind, so long as all parties are of legal age and consenting (and so long as there isn't implied coercion of the type that seems likely to be present in student-teacher pairings), i have no problem with age disparities in relationships, or with appropriately discreet intergenerational ogling.

we can rehash the whole "ass on that one" thread if need be, but, no, i don't agree with that at all (xp to m. white)

gravity has no moral content.

do thoughts have no relationship to actions? loathing those kinds of thoughts is how you short circuit their impact on actual real life actions