Ask Dr. Helen: Should Men Be Kicked Out of the Church Nursery?
When I was 17, I had a brief sexual relationship with a female teacher twice my age. It was as awesome as you would hope it would be, and it didn’t screw me up. I still look back on it fondly.
For better or for worse, we’ve set completely arbitrary age limits on certain activities. There’s no real intellectual difference between an 18-year-old and a 17-year-and-364-day old, but the former can vote and the latter can’t. You can freely take a sadomasochistic photograph of the former, but photographing the latter is a federal offense with a ten year mandatory minimum.
Arbitrary age cutoffs sweep more than they need to, or too much, depending on who you ask, but we need to draw the line somewhere. I don’t see any justice in compounding the problems of bright-line cutoffs by doling out severe punishment for barely-illegal activities.
Ideally, sentencing in adult-minor sex cases would reflect the true nature of the relationship and the harm to the minor. But that’s not the way the system works, and it’s hard to imagine the means by which the sentencing guidelines would take into account whether the 17-year-old dude was mature enough to choose to have sex with his teacher.
Perhaps the only answer here is prosecutorial discretion, although I’m pessimistic about how much that could accomplish. I wouldn’t have wanted the prosecutor to charge my teacher, and if I could not prevail on him not to, I would have refused to testify. But the prosecutor might not need me, and my parents might push for her prosecution. I guess what we really need is common sense from parents and prosecutors. I’m not holding my breath.
