Sisters Are Doin' It For Themselves

She's a right-on chick, a feminist icon willing to endure the slings and arrows of our bluenosed society. She's a righteous woman, following her bliss in the face of timid patriarchal morality. She's Mary Kay Letourneau, statutory rapist and erstwhile sixth-grade teacher, and she's got a zany Valentine for you: After a lengthy pre-engagement, Letourneau, 43, will marry lover and former student Vili Fualaau, 22, father of two of Letourneau's children.

Given the age difference and unusual circumstances, you may have more than a few questions about the viability of this match, but consider that the bride and groom to be have already endured seven and a half years of state-mandated separation, the scorn of a nation, and the end of Letourneau's teaching career. After all that, things have got to get easier…right?

Buy the happy couple a gift: The Smoking Gun has their bridal registry.

Comments

[Mo]

Would it be in poor taste to send a VHS copy of the Hot For Teacher music video?

Or should I spring for the DVD?

[David T]

Ah, Mary, your dad, John Schmitz would be proud of you. He sure taught you good family values...

[Gary Gunnels]

Alan Keyes' daughter is a lesbian (and a "liberal"): http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6971166/

[OPUS]

I know love is where you find it. But, good God woman he was a sixth grader! Can Jackson use this in his court case?

[Mr. Nice Guy]

The Smoking Gun has yet another article about female teacher's after-school activities:

http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/0208052teach1.html

Okay, this has to be at least the third or fourth instance, by my count, of a HOT young teacher seducing a male student. I think any guy who gets pissed off over this is simply mad that it didn't happen to him when he was a teenaged horndog.

[Twba]

Now that robbing the cradle is no longer exclusively for men, it's fun to listen to people say the woman shouldn't be charged but the man in the same situation should have the book thrown at him.

[Kevin]

The statuatory rape laws are partly there to keep young girls from getting pregnant. This young man was not going to get pregnant; therefore, there is a justification for this double standard.

[Twba]

He knocked up his older girlfriend twice. Maybe he should have gone to jail.

[MP]

Becoming a father at 14 as justifiable a reason to enforce stat. rape laws as becoming a mother at 14. In either circumstance, a child is now responsible for the upbringing of another child based on the action of an adult. A 14 year old girl is in no physical danger if she becomes pregnant, thus I fail to see the justification for the double standard.

If your argument is that the adult father can simply take off, my counter-argument is that the adult mother could abadon the child with it's child father and also take off.

[kevrob]

Pamela Joan (Rogers) Turner is/was pretty hot. Bikini pictures @ http://tinyurl.com/45sk4

Decide for yourselves if she's hotter than Debbie LaFave.

Kevin

[Would have totally done whatever my 6th grade teacher, Mrs. Zzzzz, wanted. Like that would ever have happened. 🙂 ]

[Poustman]

My understanding is that the concept of statutory rape deliberately does *not* take into account the desires or consent of the underage person. They are presumed to be under the age of consent. If that is the case, the gender of the underage person is not relevant, as is whether the boy (or girl) is a 'horn-dog'.

The point is I think to protect children not only from adults but from themselves, since their biology can override their prudence even more easily than in the case of us grown-ups.

[rst]

I think any guy who gets pissed off over this is simply mad that it didn't happen to him when he was a teenaged horndog.

Amen brother. Miss Senecal, sixth grade math teacher of my dreams. It almost makes me feel like I was an inadequate student. Teehee.

The thing is, I wonder how they can prosecute these cases without seeing big tongues in cheeks. Does anybody really think there was any seduction going on? The implication here is that these boys were not interested in sex with their teachers until solicited thereto by these women. I find that implausible. Were I the boy's father I'd have a hard time getting behind a charge like "statutory rape" knowing full well that only a technicality invalidated his undoubtedly vehement consent.

The statuatory rape laws are partly there to keep young girls from getting pregnant.

Ah, do I detect the facade of reproductive freedom...? Here let us protect you with this here law. It smells like fish, so it should fit perfectly.

[rst]

statutory rape...presumed to be under the age of consent

It's not just presumption, that's facial -- the person had to have been under the age of consent for the act to qualify as statutory rape at all. Even if the person has a fake ID, meets you in an adult setting, such as a bar, represents themselves to you as an adult, comports themself as an adult, and you sleep with them, you are still as wholly liable as if you had rang their doorbell looking to score while their parents were away.

If that is the case, the gender of the underage person is not relevant, as is whether the boy (or girl) is a 'horn-dog'.

Ideally, but this is not practice. Gender is highly relevant in our society and is a primary characteristic in determining prosecutions, benefits, you name it. The recent explosion in interest in these otherwise mundane cases I think somewhat illustrates that.

[Franklin Harris]

I think any guy who gets pissed off over this is simply mad that it didn't happen to him when he was a teenaged horndog.

I'm mad it's not happening right now!

[smacky]

For those of you angry that there is a "double standard" for women who are not equally prosecuted for statutory rape, at least you can console yourselves with the fact that there is ALSO a double standard against women who commit statutory rape, in that any woman who commits this crime is exposed all over the country by the media, while a man committing this crime might make headlines in the local county news. While she might get less of a criminal punishment (or so people believe), she pays for it a thousand times worse socially and in the long run (because of media overexposure) than a man would.

[rst]

she pays for it a thousand times worse socially and in the long run (because of media overexposure) than a man would.

Hah! my ass. Nobody calls Mary Kay Letourneau a rapist anymore. Now reverse their genders...would a "Mark Letourneau" and a "Vila (???) Fualaau" be viewed differently? The male version of our heroine would be vilified to the end of his days as a child rapist.

Will she have to register in that other registry, I wonder?

[dagny]

The statuatory rape laws are partly there to keep young girls from getting pregnant. This young man was not going to get pregnant; therefore, there is a justification for this double standard.

Bullshit. Rape is rape whether there's pregnancy or not.

Statutory rape laws exist because minors don't have the ability to control their fates and therefore are easy prey for sexual predators because they don't (themselves) have the option of moving, quitting/changing schools, etc. Basically their fates are entirely in their parents hands.

Would a sixth-grader be able to refuse his teacher's sexual advantages? No, not because of any defect in himself (though minors are emotionally unstable, I don't see this as the reason for the law), but because he's forced by the government to do whatever his teacher says.

[Mo]

she pays for it a thousand times worse socially
Well, this is untrue unless she gets put on the sex offender registry. The male version of this case would have to notify all his neighbors (depending on the state) and be vilified by whatever community he moves to.

[dhex]

"but because he's forced by the government to do whatever his teacher says."

but MOOMMMMMMMMMM....the teacher said i HAD to touch her boobies!

[smacky]

Hah! my ass. Nobody calls Mary Kay Letourneau a rapist anymore. Now reverse their genders...would a "Mark Letourneau" and a "Vila (???) Fualaau" be viewed differently? The male version of our heroine would be vilified to the end of his days as a child rapist.

RST,

People might not call her a rapist, but I highly doubt that she'd be happy about all the media exposure she's gotten over the case. The fact is, when a woman does this, it's national news (and a scarlet letter for her), while a guy doing this would generally only make local news headlines at best. I've seen it many a time. Why is there a big thread about this woman if I'm wrong? If it were a guy, we wouldn't even be discussing him. (Ahthough like I said before, that doesn't mean that he won't have big criminal charges to face). A woman who does this sort of thing, factually, loses all of her privacy in society, because of an unequally greater amount of national media exposure. That simply wouldn't happen to your standard male statutory rapist.

[Mo]

smacky,
Don't you know, it's because a) We're all jealous and b) it gives us a stupid reason to reminisce about our hot teachers from the past. Though I only had one semester of teacher hotness, and a student teacher at that. Most of the time they were men or women within a decade of retirement.

[smacky]

Mo,

Though I only had one semester of teacher hotness, and a student teacher at that. Most of the time they were men or women within a decade of retirement.

Me, too. When I was 17, I really wanted my music theory student teacher to statuory-rape me.

But my point still holds, I claim.

[Rex Little]

The only reason a woman-on-boy case gets so much more exposure than man-on-girl is that it's so much rarer. Man bites dog, and all that.

You can posture all you want to about how double standards are wrong and it's rape no matter what gender the child is, but let's get real. If a 13-year-old girl is seduced by her 34-year-old teacher, she got used. If a 13-year-old boy is seduced by his 34-year-old teacher, he got lucky.

[Mr. Nice Guy]

"I'm mad it's not happening right now!"

Excuse my bragging, but.. heh heh.. it's happening for me. Highschool teacher hottie. Minus is that she's a bit bossy and is always grading papers. The big plus is.. well.. heh heh

[E. Steven]

Okay, some perspective here. Letourneau is about to marry a guy who is 21 years younger than her. Woody Allen is married to a woman, his step-daughter as I recall, who is 35 years younger than him. One is an internationally known film celebrity and the other isn't. Discuss.

Also, Letourneau and Fualaau have been involved for over seven years. That's longer than Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher's relationship. Heck, I think it's longer than Demi Moore and Bruce Willis's relationship.

What I really want to know is who's on the guest list. What are the odds John Waters will be there? He lives for this sort of thing!

[Mo]

Mr. Nice Guy,
Based on my personal experience, elementary school (and below) teachers are they way to go. When they make cookies and cupcakes for class, you get to be the tester and the taxman. The best part is those goodies are tax deductible.

[Nice memory]

ahhhh, Miss Falletta!

[speedwell]

It gets worse...

Their whole relationship has been based, for many years now, on the thrill of the forbidden and the joy of sticking their wretched liaison in the eye of Mrs. Grundy. Now they're going to get MARRIED, and (oh horrors!) RESPECTABLE. It can't last. And if you think the uproar over the affair and the marriage is something, just wait till the media gets wind of the DIVORCE.

[kevrob]

If a 13-year-old girl is seduced by her 34-year-old teacher, she got used. If a 13-year-old boy is seduced by his 34-year-old teacher, he got lucky. - Rex L.

My inner horndog tells me the same thing, but if I think with my noble, public-policy wrangling brain, the law should not adhere to a double standard. I bet that once Mr. Jr. High turns 18, his former lovebird/teacher could slap him with a child support suit, if they were so careless as to have unprotected sex that resulted in a child. There's also the more immediate problem that if a boy-man is receiving the sexual attentions of a Ms. LaFave or Ms. Turner, he may develop an unrealistic expectation of how to interact with girls, and later women, in his own age-cohort.

As for the publicity these female (accused) predators receive, well, it's woman bites dog, isn't it? I've seen one estimate that male offenders outnumber women in these cases by 500-1.

I don't buy that a youngster would feel compelled to service his teacher because she wielded state authority over him. Public school teachers aren't allowed that much clout nowadays. If they were, they might be able to control their classrooms, without parents backing the kids when they misbehave. I would have been putty in my 6th grade teacher's hands, but since that was private school, the govt. wouldn't have been involved at all.

Kevin

[Mental soundtrack: Don't Stand So Close To Me by The Police]

[smacky]

[Mental soundtrack: Don't Stand So Close To Me by The Police]

Kevrob,

That was what I secretly considered me and my student music teacher's "our song" in high school...

[Poustman]

Ok, yeah, all of us had/have the fantasies. And the Police song is nicely mentioned. But the point of the song is that it was also a 'schoolgirl's fantasy'. In other words, she wanted it to happen.

So what? Again I say that the point is not consent, but simply age, because we've decided (I suspect rightly) that people below a certain age are not ready to make decisions of that nature.

As for 'women who bite' paying a social price, well... yeah, at the time. But they change their name and are still hot. Can anyone besides me remember what Gillooly (sp?) changed his name to? He got similar public villification I'd say, and now he's living as Jeff _____. Anonymous, really. Mary Kate L and the others can do the same, and like was already said, unless they have to register as sex offenders and tell their neighbors, where is the impact? (And if they *do* have to do that, is the neighborly response going to be anything remotely like the hostility males deservedly get in that situation? Hardly. The wives will be upset, but that's about it. Heck,some dad's would probaby send their sons over in the same spirit as some hired hookers-- this is free. I'm only partly joking.)

[rst]

we've decided (I suspect rightly) that people below a certain age are not ready to make decisions of that nature.

Well, we were right in making that decision, but wrong in thinking that it is appropriate to determine a static "age of consent" as the sole metric and accept the injustice that arises from it as a necessary component of the justice that accompanies it. Fuaalua (sp?) should have had the option, like emancipation, to in the presence of a judge divorce himself from having that standard applied to him at all. Would have saved us the cost of incarcerating someone who was a 0 threat to society, and they would have been able to get married when they wanted to.

The fact is, when a woman does this, it's national news (and a scarlet letter for her), while a guy doing this would generally only make local news headlines at best.

Well, fact is, when a woman or a man does this, they both go to jail. It's illegal to screw kids. It seems you're on the media response, which is different and rightly so. There are different cultural mechanisms at work in the response to the Ms Letourneau's situation, because we the sheeple assume she was not acting out of being a horndog and he was, because any guy older than 18 knows that to be "taken advantage of" as a pubescent minor by your hot teacher of 27 is a victimless crime. We consume this story to a greater degree because we at one point probably wanted to be that guy. If it's the gym teacher and the captain of the cheerleading squad, we the sheeple assume he was acting out of being a horndog, because the cheerleader has her pick of anything with a dick, and probably many things without. He might get a pass if she's mofugly, but either way he's going to jail. But he's not the "innocent victim of molestation," he's the "perpetrator of kiddie rape," and who wants to be that? Really it's just another glass ceiling.