The Problem is Age, Not Gender

Professor J,

Well, now I have the song, Let's Give 'Em Something to Talk About, stuck in my head. ;)

The overall tone of your original post made it seem that you thought the activity was harmless, or something close to.

It's very helpful to know that the minor testified to it being consensual. 

There are some jobs and positions that bring with them a presumed element of trust from society. A teacher, a priest, a coach, or a doctor are people to whom we often entrust young people.  It's less disturbing somehow if the offender is someone who the minor simply knows. I doubt if this situation involved a neighbor it would be getting the same amount of publicity. That's what makes cases involving adults in those occupations seem more dangerous in the cultural psyche. We feel that not just the minor's trust has been violated but our own, as well.

 Could it be that that's the root of what is bothering you? People are reacting to something deep, but you seem to be assuming that everyone's problem is based on some kind of gender bias against females leftover from the Victorian Age. Even where I've been careful not to use a gender distinction, you have presumed that it was the sole basis for my objections as in this paragraph:

"Presumptions against consent, as you seem to imply when you said that between a 22 year old and 14 year old there would be a “fine line between consent and coercion,” do harm in my opinion, because they serve to reinforce the patronizing idea that girls are silly, what they say can’t be taken seriously, they can’t be trusted to make decisions, etc." 

The gender roles of these two matter little to me. In our city the teachers in these scenarios seem just as often to be female and the (oh, I'm going to irritate you here and say) victims, male. Doesn't matter. The same two things that bother me about it --age/knowledge/experience and the adult being in a trusted vocation--still apply. In my post I was careful to say "he (or she)" and I thought I made it pretty clear that it was the age of the participants and one of them being in a position of authority that were the issues in my mind. Not sure where you got the idea that I think the female mind is somehow inferior or less capable. But a 14 year old mind of either gender? Absolutely.  Again, barring the exceptional. 

If I were the parent of the 14 year old in this situation it wouldn't have mattered to me if it were my son or my daughter. I'd have considered either of them to be at a disadvantage in this scenario. They'd still be the 14 year old student and it would still be the adult teacher.

Would I want the teacher to go to prison? Probably not, but I'd be working hard to see that they were encouraged to find another career path.  

The law protects minors from all kinds of things because there is a legal assumption that they can be taken advantage of. In most cases you can't sell a minor a car, for instance. While states recognize a 16 year old is mature enough to drive a car, the law has doubts about whether they have enough knowledge and experience to enter into legal contracts with adults.

If we are now going to say that society has coddled young adults to the point of them not being fully mature and capable of making good decisions at 22 then should we also revisit the minimum age for positions of responsibility? We seem to be in an age of fluctuating maturity for a variety of reasons as you've pointed out.

So while we are discussing this the Huff Post has obliged us by featuring similar stories this week. The first one does me a favor and takes gender out of the issue completely in a story about a 28 year old teacher and 11 year old student. It involves some other behaviors that are troubling, but since the child kept the communication secret the relationship sounds "consensual." It's unclear from the article if there was a physical relationship, but for the sake of this discussion let's assume there was. Any crime here in your opinion? The child doesn't sound threatened or coerced, but I'd say this woman shouldn't be given a teaching position anywhere near minors.

Teacher Sent Thousands of Texts to Student Expressing "Deep Love"

This one isn't as relatable since there's no position of authority and it takes place a party:

Woman Flashed Boys at Bat Mitzvah, Performed Sex Act of 15 Year Old

And for something related barely at all, but what could quite possibly be the best headline ever, read this: 
Huffington Post /2015/03/31/

You can't make this stuff up. ;)