Debra Lafave

So my anger has been smoldering for a couple of weeks now, and I can’t let it go. Please allow me the opportunity to diffuse my utter frustration with the criminal justice system in this country with respect to a particular topic.

A couple weeks back a confessed child rapist got off the hook. This time, in my opinion, it isn’t because of their race (the perpetrator is white), or status (they worked as a school teacher), or because of their looks (although some say the criminal is extremely pretty). The reason the assailant got off the hook is because the rapist is a woman.

Before I get going with this post I’d like to make it absolutely clear that I understand women are societal targets and men are the agents. I am keenly aware of the fact that men are the recipients of privilege in society and not nearly enough men have been punished for the evil sexual abuse that they have perpetrated against women worldwide.

That being said, women sometimes get away with committing the same wicked acts as their male counterparts, and enjoy much kinder judicial treatment, and that’s not right!

Back to the case at hand.

A married, 24-year-old female school teacher from Florida plead guilty to having sex with her 14-year-old male student. The teacher, Debra Lafave, began a relationship with the boy in 2004, and had several sexual encounters with boy soon after they met. One instance included her having sex with the boy while his 15-year-old cousin drove them around in her vehicle. The case actually never went to trial, and Lafave got 3 years house arrest and seven years of probation as part of a plea deal.

Can you believe that? Have you EVER heard of a man in a similar situation getting the same kind of treatment?

So as I listened to every argument about this case, and heard about several other similar cases, many things heavily troubled me. So let me just lay it out for you real plain: If you are an adult and you’re having sex with a minor without parental permission through marriage (as is legal in many States), then you are a Sex Offender and you need to go to jail. Furthermore, if you are a 24-year-old, married, schoolteacher (as was Debra Lafave), and you’re having sex with your 14-year-old student (like Lafave did), then you are a Sexual Predator.

I cannot believe that this lady got off the hook at all. What she has done violates the law, morality, her marriage, common sense. I am outraged.

BUT, I heard people making sympathetic statements that would seem to justify such behavior, largely because it was a boy who was being violated by an older woman and not a girl being violated by an older man.

The following several sentiments expressed in cases where these female teachers sexually assault their male students seriously bother me:
• These women are not sexual predators like men who do the same thing
• The female (ADULT!!!) teacher is seduced by these boys
• 14-17 year old boys look like men, and so it’s not like they (the women) are having sex with a little boy
• Young boys want to have sex with their older, often “hot,” teacher
• Boys are touted as heroes by their male peers when they have sex with an adult female
• It wasn’t rape, there was a real love and passion between the two of them

There is a problem with all of these assertions, and they simply derive from the societal notion that a boy CANNOT be raped or sexually violated by a woman once he reaches adolescence. A concept that is totally false and wrong if for no other reason than the fact that EVERY INDIVIDUAL IS UNIQUE and feels differently about any number of things; including sex.

What frustrates me (almost more than the fact that these women often get off the hook) is that people in the media and apparently in the Courthouse allow arguments like the ones I listed above to fly without challenging their inherent flaws. Everytime I hear these arguments being made on the news, without opposition, I just wanna jump through the TV screen and yell at the top of my lungs YOU ARE ALL A BUNCH OF IDIOTS.

But since that never works (I’ve tried), I’ll use this site to annihilate all such arguments and leave no doubt in the minds of the reading audience that when a female teacher has sex with one of her male students under the age of 18, they should lose their job and also serve jail time just like any man engaged in the same sickening activity.

A predator, according to Webster.com, is one that preys, destroys or devours. Societally, we call anyone a sexual predator as long as they prey on children; whether that’s a first time offense, or the seventh. BUT, that only seems to apply if the perpetrator is a male. When it’s a woman, we shy away from calling the destroyer a predator. I even hear people say about women like Lafave “I don’t think she’s a predator.” But if a predator is truly one that destroys, as the definition points out, then I think she certainly falls in that category. Do you think the boy that she sexually violated can live out a normal childhood or even adulthood? I doubt it; childhood destroyed.

The female teacher is the Adult, and the student is the Child. There’s NO WAY THE BOY CHILD SEDUCED THE TEACHER. Any crushes that the boys in her class have on her can easily be squelched by the ADULT teacher not indulging the boys in their fantasies. For a sexual relationship to occur means that the female teacher was seeking a relationship with the boy, further validating my point that the female teacher is a sexual predator. Predators have to seek out and hunt for something, just like Lafave did with her male student.

Of all the things I’ve heard on this topic, the concept that “these boys look or carry themselves like men” is the silliest. Is that supposed to be a legitimate defense? If that argument works for women (which it absolutely SHOULD NOT), then shouldn’t it also work for men. Let me remind you that women develop years earlier than most boys their age. I personally know 12-year-old girls who are far more physically voluptuous than some of my 25 and 30-year-old friends. To let you know just how developed some of them are, a 12-year-old classmate of mine (who was quite shapely and physically developed) got pregnant and had a baby when we were only in 7th grade. Point being, if the physical allure of these boys is so adult that it can be confusing to the female teacher (who has a class list and sees the children in her class everyday and knows that the boys are in fact boys), then male teachers who have sex with their 14-17 year old female students should be allowed the same excuse. Of course I think that the teachers are at fault here, be they male or female.

Boys often have just as many insecurities about their sexuality as girls do. So the concept that young boys want to have sex with their attractive adult teacher is also silly. Some of them might, but I’d bet my next 37 paychecks that many of them also do not.

That being said, the idea that boys who have sex with their teacher are celebrated by their peers as heroes isn’t necessarily true either. As easy as it would be for one’s peers to celebrate their sexual involvement with a teacher, the likelihood of one’s peers teasing them about it also exists. I could see that reputation and stigma following a boy all the way through the remainder of his grade school education.

AND WHO CARES IF HIS PEERS CHEER HIM! That doesn’t change the fact that the teacher had no business, as an adult, engaging her student in a sexual relationship.

Finally, the concept of “Love” between the teacher and student is never an argument made when a 25-year-old man has sex with his adolescent female student; even though it is equally as likely to be the case. No matter though, because an adult knows that they are an adult, and they know that it is illegal and criminal to have sex with an underage child.

Now, I must be clear and point out that I think that the sexual brutality is different when a man forcibly rapes a girl. However, there are many instances where the male adult uses his influence to exploit a young student, and has sex with his female student (at which time he may argue that it was consensual). It is instances like the latter that I believe are identical to Lafave’s case. And no matter if it’s sexually brutal, or influentially consensual, a man RARELY gets a break (and I don’t think he should, I’m just making the point). Women, however OFTEN do get a break and also should not.

Let me clarify. Men almost always get a minimum of 3 years jail time for cases like these. Women almost never get more than 2 years of jail time and often only receive probation. That’s not right. These women ARE sexual traitors and exploiters of their young male victims. These women need to serve legitimate jail sentences like their sick male-counterparts. These women do (although I haven’t made the case for this point here) cause their boy victims emotional damage and societal ridicule that follows them for years if not forever.

Call a spade a spade, and treat an animal like an animal. Women teachers that engage in sexual relationships with their boy students are sexual predators and need to be put behind bars.

-Maelstrom

PS: If you think the Lafave case is rare, just look into several other cases that have come to the attention of the media (e.g. Pamela Rogers-Turner, Mary Kay Letourneau…go ahead, “google” their names and note how the criminal justice system has let them off the hook and how they re-offended the law). It is a more prolific problem than you think.