dagblog - Comments for "(Yet another) Student, 16, gets lucky with cute teacher. ..Oh, the humanity!"

Whatever - I don't need or

PeraclesPlease — Thu, 12 Jun 2014 16:42:38 +0000

In reply to Actually, I thought about

Whatever - I don't need or want any help in supporting my point, thanks.

Actually, I thought about

Peter Schwartz — Thu, 12 Jun 2014 14:08:06 +0000

In reply to And your Treblinka comment

Actually, I thought about your Godwin comment.

I think--now that I think about it--it was sort of a reverse Godwin.

IOW, instead of bringing in Hitler to trump your assertion, I was bringing in Hitler to support your position.

Your point was, as I recall, that good things can come from bad starts or bad situations. I was merely saying, "Yes, even in Treblinka good things arose, so this is that much more true when the situation is much less severe."

It's a Talmudic heuristic method: If X is true, and we know it is, then Y is that much more true.

What I was objecting to was the suggestion that because good can come from bad, we shouldn't disallow or discourage (through law or rules) bad starts like this one (either because the kid was a boy or for any other reason) or just wink at them instead of imposing some consequences for bad behavior.

Knowing that good can come from bad (just to use simple terms) means we should be compassionate. It doesn't mean that the bad is no big deal because, in fact, in many cases, bad continues to be bad and can even get worse. And things get even worse when one of the parties is supposed to be acting like an adult and caring for the other. The teacher did the wrong thing. That's not no big deal even if things sometimes turn out okay.

The objection to Jolly was that he was saying: "This is no big deal. This happened to me once, and I turned out fine. Let's not be prudes and Puritans about this."

Complaining about my use of an extreme example shows your lack of self awareness. You use them all.the.time. The last one I recall was your analogizing getting your name in the paper for being an asshole with being pinned down by a thumbscrew. It's one of the pitfalls of sarcasm.

Anyway, it's pretty rich to accuse me of fending off dialogue. Or not being willing to try to see the other side. I do that to a fault if not always. In fact, I need to do it less. A lot of these discussions, on reflection, are idiotic. The CSA flag thing was the height of idiocy.

This one has turned idiotic. You think it's okay for a teacher to bang a 16 year old in the mop room and then get bent out of shape when he asks a girl to the prom because now he's like 17? Okay then...chaque un a son gout.

Edit to add: If your position had been that what the teacher did was wrong, but the punishment was too severe and we should be compassionate, then I could've agreed. However, you kept arguing that it was no big deal and adducing examples to show that it was no big deal because, hey, things like this can turn out okay. Even good.

This is idiotic. When I was a kid and drove drunk, nothing happened. That doesn't mean it was okay to do it. It's not okay for the teacher to bang the kid in the mop room even if, years later, it becomes leitmotif of his Great American Novel and he ends up with a great marriage and raises a bunch of kids who turn out to be geniuses and his dogs never bite anyone.

Well, without simply

jollyroger — Thu, 12 Jun 2014 13:39:40 +0000

In reply to Not reducing anything... You

Well, without simply surrendering outright in the face of the "eeww" factor, I would not necessarily quarrel with a case by case analysis that turned in part on the temporal distance between the charged offense and the onset of puberty in the particular younger individual, thus insulating myself from having to excuse the sexual interaction with ANY 8 yr old, and probably (if we posit, say, a minimum "safe harbor" interval of 2 years from puberty) the11year old as well.

Without conceding anything as to my motives (bear in mind, I put in no more effort than to clip the url and add an almost twitter length comment) I was intending to highlight the `16 year old boy as special case, bringing to bear the discomfort aroused by the implicit double standard, the het-privelege granted to the teacher (someone very early on jumped on that part of the conundrum) etc.

Not reducing anything... You

Peter Schwartz — Thu, 12 Jun 2014 13:27:21 +0000

In reply to Reductio much? As to #1, I

Not reducing anything...

You said you wanted to keep age out of it...so I'm giving you a theoretical example. Isn't that what you lawyers do to learn your craft?

So here are a few more...

Does statutory punishment come along with your veto of 50-8 hook up?

Does it help if we raise the age to 11? Or 11.5?

On the other hand...

Perhaps I should apologize for our having taken your original post seriously instead of as a lark which, now, is how I think you probably meant it. Nothing wrong with that.

Reductio much? As to #1, I

jollyroger — Thu, 12 Jun 2014 13:09:58 +0000

In reply to So... You would object to

Reductio much?

As to #1, I started teaching at Hunter College when I was 24--needless to say I considered co-ed pussy to be an integral component of my compensation package.

As to #2, I'll go out on a limb of arbitrariness and veto the 8yr old/50yr.old liaison.

Ah, the voyeuristic type -

PeraclesPlease — Thu, 12 Jun 2014 12:58:44 +0000

In reply to You're welcome. Thought I'd

Ah, the voyeuristic type - careful, this could cause emotional disturbance later on

One of my nicest most

PeraclesPlease — Thu, 12 Jun 2014 12:56:46 +0000

In reply to Yes. I think if this

One of my nicest most memorable sexual experiences was sneaking to the back storage area during work - don't remember whether we locked the front door or were just kinda listening in case a customer walked in.

Sometimes the sneaking around is part of the fun, other times a nice luxurious relaxed environment - a moveable feast.

And your Treblinka comment

PeraclesPlease — Thu, 12 Jun 2014 12:52:47 +0000

In reply to And of course everything with

And your Treblinka comment was what, a compliment? encouraging dialog? a half-way meeting point? is your self-awareness so low?

If I'd listened to my

PeraclesPlease — Thu, 12 Jun 2014 12:48:50 +0000

In reply to Goes easy on PP. He's trying

If I'd listened to my parents, I might be like you, panicked about emotional distress that might jump out years later from 1 tiny slip-up.

Fortunately, no recovery needed. Mistakes been made, fun been had.

BTW - if you're going to go joyless, at least graduate to Joy Division

It's the beauty of federalism

Peter Schwartz — Thu, 12 Jun 2014 12:27:11 +0000

In reply to It was Iowa. Glad to know

It's the beauty of federalism and shows the great wisdom exhibited by our forefathers in crafting our unique, and uniquely wise, form of government.

Maybe this is what gets the states righters up in the morning.