Thursday, February 10, 2005

I'm sure you have heard all about the 27-year-old former teacher Pamela Rogers Turner who was arrested and charged with 15 counts of sexual battery by an authority figure and 13 counts of statutory rape for having sex with a 13 yr old student. For some takes on it:
Wizbang , Diggers Realm, Protein Wisdom , Six Meat Buffett , and Angry In The Great White North.

To begin with, if I hear another man say he wished he had had a teacher like that have sex with him when he was 13 I am going to puke. Also, when looking through the bloggers on this I could not find a single female blogger who had blogged on it. If you know of one, let me know.
If you read the commenting section on those blogs you will see the VAST difference of opinion between the men and the women. Most men are just babbling about how hot she is.. ect. (I know, there are exceptions) The women are totally disgusted by it, as we all should be. Some, like Digger, are asking why a goodlooking young woman would not just find a man her own age? Why a 13 yr old? Digger thinks they must be crazy. I think they are just a result of our culture. We are a sex saturated culture and as I have said over and over again, we have done little to keep our children from it. I wouldn't be surprised if it was the 13 yr old who started everything, or when she started it he knew just what to do. The amount of "instructional material" is readily available in every video store, most movies and music videos, not to mention the internet.

The 27 yr old woman grew up in a society that glorified sexuality. What is the difference between the pictures Britney Spears appeared in GQ and pictures in a 1975 Playboy magazine? Hardly any. How many R rated movies have sex scenes that would have been considered porn in the 1960's? Tons. One of the most popular TV shows of recent times is "Sex In The City." A show basically about slutty women sleeping with whoever fits their fancy. One show had the 30 something character having an affair with a college student who lived with his parents. The humor was all about his "young" interests like skateboarding and comic books, and his mom calling him to come home from her apartment while they were in bed, yet she just loved that young sex. Another show had one of the women characters lying about her age to bed a younger man while on spring break at the beach, and then she gets the crabs. She then gets a co-worker she doesn't like back by encouraging her to sleep with the guy.

Lovely stuff, huh?

Young women growing up in a time and perhaps a home where there doesn't seem to be any sexual boundaries, certainly no moral or religious standards to abide by, where does she learn where to draw the line? How many daughters have watched their Dad dump their mom for a young woman close to their own age? (Or have an affair, as in Clinton's case)

Demi Moore lives with a guy not much older than her oldest daughter and everyone thinks that is just great.

The sad fact is that we have blurred the line so much in our culture about when sexual activity should begin and who it should be with, that our kids are getting the message that just about everything is ok as long as you use "protection."

Aren't we all tempted with desire? We desire things we know are wrong all the time. Part of being responsible is learning to control those desires. Look at the many that cannot control their desire for food to the point where their weight and health are in jeopardy. There are also many who cannot control their sexual desires to the point of putting their relationships (and criminal behavior) in jeopardy.

Some people refer to overeating as medicating themselves with food. I think many also "medicate" themselves with sex because, as Clinton put it, they can. Digger thinks this former teacher is crazy, I think she is just a product of our culture, a culture that does not protect kids, nor even see them as such in their teenage years.