The Debra LaFave Scandal

Don’t you long for the days of Mary Kay Laetourneau, when sex between an older female teacher and young male student was, like, real? Laetourneau was 34 when she began her affair with12 year old Vili Fualaau. Now, ten years later, after two separate jail stints (she became pregnant with their second child when she was out on parole, so they sent her to the slammer for seven years), the couple is married.

This is, of course, the exception that breaks the rule. Most of the pedophilic stories don’t have such happy endings. Most end with a lot of anguish and/or therapy bills. The most intriguing story to come out recently, one that breaks from the traditional mold of this scenario is the Debra LaFave scandal.

LaFave is a full fledged sex kitten, a striking blonde with better than Penthouse looks and an impressive body. She was 23 when she began a Florida teaching job and soon after started to sleep with one of her 14 year old students. She was 23. I don’t have the statistics out in front of me (I’m not a big stat guy anyway), but I would have to say that the average female preda-teacher is somewhere in the 33-35 range. So, for these two reasons (the youngness and the hotness), we have to treat this case separately.

Now, before I go on any further, let me stress that I don’t ACTUALLY condone any type of pedophilia. Even if (as a male) the fantasy aspect of this situation seems overwhelmingly awesome (and I’ll get into the hypocrisy of the statement later), it’s probably still not right (in a moral sense). Okay, so let’s play devil’s advocate!

Debra LaFave was nine years older than her unnamed companion, correct. LaFave was 23 and he was 14. The separation in my parents’ ages is eleven. Now, I’m not stupid; I’m not trying to imply that these situations are similar (my parents met when my father was in his late 30’s). But we also can’t deny that 23 and 14 isn’t better than 34 and 12. If this affair had occurred four years into the future, guess what? It’s no big deal; it’s not even illegal; which brings up another point.

I care very little for our legal system and try to ignore if whenever I feel that it’s wrong, which is at least 25% of the time. In other words, I support the recreational use of (most) drugs. I also feel we need to change a lot of our sex laws. For instance, it shouldn’t be illegal for an 18 year old to sleep with a 15 year old, in my opinion (not that I ever did that or anything, I swear).

And again, I’m not condoning LaFave, Letourneau, or any other preda-teacher of French dissent. But I’d like to talk to you about the other half of this equation, the one that I feel gets ignored: the male (AKA: the so-called victim). Recently, I read a magazine article and an anonymous psychologist said the following, “Sometimes, the woman is not much older psychologically than the boy is in her development stage. So she’s having sex with a 14 year old and in her head, she’s 14 too. She’s getting the attention she never got.”

I thought this was a very intriguing idea, and it made me think about the 14 year old (the actual one) in a different light. The media (and perhaps rightly so) never paints a picture of the male victims. But, personally, I think this might be wrong. It’s like going to a Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan movie and Hanks’ head is blurred out and every line he says is bleeped over. In this day and age, the kids are advancing earlier and earlier. Have you ever seen daytime television? If you’ve watched at least three episodes of Jerry Springer, there is a 74% chance that one of them involved 12 year olds having sex. The kids are doing it, let’s not be so naÃ?¯ve.

So if the kids are already doing it with one another, whose to say that they’re not being the aggressor in situations like these (under the pretense that their teacher is psychologically on their level anyway). Now, I’m not saying that every kid in these cases is some pimp; some hyper accelerated youngster, who’s been smoking since he was 9, drinking since 11, and screwing since 12 (although, these children exist). They all might be total introverts who just learned how to whack it, for all I know. My point is, we don’t know. We don’t know because the media never goes there (I realize this is most likely because the law doesn’t let them, and not because of some newfound moral consciousness).

But let’s get back to Debra LaFave. LaFave is the type of girl who (if she wanted to) could walk into a bar and leave with a guy in less than a minute, without saying a word (she’s that attractive). She’s been in calendars and recently she did some kind of a strip tease web cam thing, presumably for money (but why not, I’m sure she’s got a shitload of legal bills to pay off). I have no problem with that stuff; I don’t care if she makes cash off of her newly discovered celebrity. She’s obviously got a lot of problems and we all got fucking bills.

My point is this: she didn’t do this because she never got attention. There is no way she applies to the comments of that unnamed psychologist. For a girl like LaFave, her only problem (if anything) was getting too much attention. She did this because she’s a selfish bitch (this is my Forbidden Fruit Theory). She could have any male in the adult world (more or less) and this bored her. So she went after something she wasn’t allowed to have, a teenager. This was wrong. Debra LaFave was wrong and she’s got a lot of community service ahead to show for it.

So, like Jerry Springer, here is my final thought. Hypocrisy is fact. In this situation, the hypocrisy that exists is true and completely accurate. Other than a lot of (perhaps) unwanted attention, what really happened to this 14 year old boy? He got to fuck a model in the classroom, her car, her house? Poor kid. Maybe I’m naÃ?¯ve, hell, maybe I’m an asshole. But the worst problem that this kid is going to have is coming to the realization that those moments were the best he’s ever going to have. His life peaked at age14. Now that’s not fair, that’s really fucking sad. And for that, Debra LaFave, you should be punished.

Take care of yourself, and each other.