"Calling her "a parent's worst nightmare," a judge sentenced former Hillsborough County schoolteacher Ethel Anderson to 38 years in prison Monday for performing oral sex and other lewd acts on a 12-year-old boy she tutored on weekends."
"There are those that believe that nothing's wrong if the defendant is a woman and the victim is a male," Tharpe said Monday. "This court does not recognize gender. If it's proven, as an adult, that you had sex with a child, you can expect to go to prison."
Tampa Bay Times via Instapundit
61 comments:
Did the judge single her out for harsher punishment?
I didn't think a judge could still do that.
Maybe in the dark dismal days before Obama they could that.
Call me sexist, but I'd be far more concerned if a male teacher was having sex with my twelve-year-old daughter than if a female teacher was having sex with my twelve-year-old son.
I'd certainly want the female teacher to be fired and to go to jail.
The male teacher would be lucky if he lived long enough to be arrested.
Close down the Hillsborough County Schools.
Sorry but 38 years is insane. Male gets oral sex doesn't equal rape of girl.
To say so is c-r-a-z-y.
A couple years and the loss of a job would have been punishment enough.
If my beautiful 7th grade teacher had given me a BJ, I would have been happy as a clam.
I agree - the crime is bad - but 38 years? Come on.
Age 12 is pretty much pedophilia... not quite like having sex with a "jail bait" teenager.
38 years makes me think that there must have been something else going on that made it clearly rape-rape.
She was offered a 15 year deal and turned it down...
There were facts to support the harsh sentence.
Actually, I bet that was it. The 12 year old hadn't gotten his growing on yet. The other examples in the article were 14 year old boys. Some 14 year old boys have hit puberty.
I think the line in the article, "a county that has attracted disproportionate attention for sex scandals involving female educators", explains the severity.
What surprises me is that she's almost certainly a union teacher.
rcocean said...
If my beautiful 7th grade teacher had given me a BJ, I would have been happy as a clam.
FWIW, those underage boys that have had their stories told say it was kind of creepy.
You never know. The kid jn this case may have been retarded, disabled somehow, etc.
I'm with the troglodytes on this one. There is no comparison between oral sex on a boy and rape of a girl. I think they are attempting to be sex-neutral and I may just be showing my age/sex but it is not equivalent.
This is not to say that female sexual predators on young boys may not produce some psychological damage. I have known one boy/man who had an early sexual encounter with an older woman and he seemed a bit shell-shocked sexually. And twelve is very young. Depends a lot on the boy. Some boys would think it the greatest thing that ever happened to them and boast about it to their friends, who would be envious/grossed out. Others might end up a bit shell-shocked.
Ok, ARM... how about sex with a girl? Why say rape? But lets not say 12 year old girl either, because bunches of 12 year old girls are what we'd call "sexually mature" and can have babies and everything. So lets say 10 year old girl.
A 12 year old boy is a child. And even a 10 year old girl can *participate* so that it's not rape, exactly. If we want to be explicit and try to be as carefully equivalent as possible... say the man (or woman) didn't stick something in her big enough to rip her apart but only used a finger or mouth on her.
Fingers and mouths, 12 year old boys or 10 year old girls, no *physical* injury involved.
How is it worse for the girl?
As a mother, I'd react like the mother here did... something was stolen and boys (and then men) are twisted by stuff like this and it *can* wreck their adult sexual relationships. It might not mess him up for life either, but hey, some women deal fairly well with being raped, too, and recover pretty well.
That sounded a lot crankier than it was meant to. Sorry.
I have no sympathy for anyone who would molest a child.
There is no spin that can be applied that would make it right.
Synova said...
Ok, ARM... how about sex with a girl?
Assuming no one is physically damaged it comes down to psychological damage. I think the psychological damage, on average, would be vastly greatly in a girl than a boy of the same age.
I have had both sons and a daughter and obviously was once a boy myself and my impression is that boys are sexually messy. They are exploratory and not emotionally invested in the same way that most, not all, girls are. I could be wrong about this but I am not uncomfortable with a legal double standard here. Not that there should be no punishment but that it doesn't necessarily have to sex neutral.
If the precedent set by Clinton still holds...
A bj is of a less severe sexual nature than intercourse.
Clinton still very much in the public eye, so what he said... must be true.
Oh come on, just look at her. You can just tell she was hungry at the time. Give her a break.
In cases like this I don't think there's anyway to make abstract comparisons that are correct or just.
You have to look at the specifics of each particular case. You need a judge that has the wisdom to decide whether 38 years or 38 months is the best decision.
The wisdom of a real imperfect human being is sometimes better than cold equality and fairness of the books or the law.
I donno, ARM, girls like to feel grown up and sexually powerful just as much as boys do. Problem is, little girls have babies and cultures all over the world have valued virginity in girls as a way to determine paternity. It's not really *about* the psychological damage. We're just more protective of girls.
I don't think that necessarily means that girls get hurt worse.
Why is there a boy/girl comparison being made? A 12 year old child was repeatedly sexually assaulted by a 38 year old person who was in a position of power over that child.
The sentence was appropriate. A few long prison sentences might deter others from this behavior.
Grown up men suggesting they'd be sorta okay with a 38 year old woman giving a 12 year old boy a blow job is ridiculous. It's fantasizing.
Michael Haz said...
Why is there a boy/girl comparison being made?
Because there seems to have been a change in how these cases are treated legally that doesn't entirely match public perceptions of the relative severity of the effects on the two sexes. Maybe public opinion is changing and I am slow to recognize this.
I can only speak for myself, but when I was not that much older that this kid there was more than one older woman whose sexual advances would not have been unwelcome. I lacked all knowledge about how to make this clear to these individuals at the time.
This being said, twelve is too young and as others have mentioned it is inappropriate for a person who is in a relative position of power. Bagoh speaks about the increasing pussification of young men and while I am happy that they are becoming less violent I see this as another aspect of the same trend.
Michael Haz said...
Grown up men suggesting they'd be sorta okay with a 38 year old woman giving a 12 year old boy a blow job is ridiculous.
I don't think anyone is saying that. It is the length of the sentence that seems disproportionate. I have not followed this area other than the few high profile cases that pop in the Daily Mail or on Drudge but it seems that there has been an attempt by the legal profession to treat these cases in a sex neutral way. Maybe this makes good sense politically in a way that I cannot see.
April Apple said...
I agree - the crime is bad - but 38 years? Come on.
This jurisdiction had three similar cases including LaFavre. Interestingly the leniency of sentences exactly tracks the order of the offender's attractiveness.
This jurisdiction had three similar cases including LaFavre. Interestingly the leniency of sentences exactly tracks the order of the offender's attractiveness.
I had that intuition... but I didn't know how to broach it.
Titus has an unpleasant name for her. Something I wouldn't call her.
Marshal said...
Interestingly the leniency of sentences exactly tracks the order of the offender's attractiveness.
This is fairly predictable. Some things will never change.
First, 38 years is too long. That's a life sentence. We give that to people who murder. So now giving a 12 year old boy a BJ = Murder?
Crazy.
Second, how do you a BJ to a young kid who hasn't entered puberty? I would have found that confusing not horrible.
Thirdly, boys aren't girls. And women giving boys BJ isn't the same as old men raping young girls.
Fourth, I don't see a big number of women who need to warned off from giving BJ's to 12 y/o boys. However, there are a significant number of men who need to be deterred from rape.
Fifth, so this sentence is crazy. A couple years and the loss of job/reputation is enough.
Oh and ARM - Fuck you lefty. I don't need you on my side.
rcocean said...
Oh and ARM - Fuck you lefty. I don't need you on my side.
You would possibly benefit from a less Manichaean world view.
We made a wish
And threw in a coin
And since that day
Our hearts have been joined
So come all you young lovers
Wherever you are
The fountain of love
Is not very far
Curly said to the Judge
What might be my fine
The judge said poor boy
You get ninety-nine
She turned down 15 years?
A woman of that age who singles out a twelve year old has quite a lot of pathology going on. Odds are she gave that kid a few hang ups along with his bj.....The sentence seems severe but, on the plus side, she's a union teacher and will receive full pay and benefits while incarcerated. She'll exit prison a rich woman and be able to hire a pool boy.
I can specifically remember being 11 years old and fantasizing about this very thing. That doesn't excuse the adult here, but the damage done is definitely in dispute or at least not always the case. I'm sure that I for one would not have been damaged. I'm also sure some boys would be.
I assume there are 12 year old girls who fantasize about being seduced by an older man, but, I have no idea really.
Still, it would not be justified for either adult. A 12 year old might want to try some crack, but I wouldn't help them with that either. Even if the child is not damaged, it's not just about that. The violation of trust that everyone else has in you, including the child. The failing you have done to your own honor,your family, your friends. You just don't, even if you do want to.
There is a legitimate basis to charge a man who sexually abuses a young girl more harshly than a women who sexually abuses a boy--a young girl risks pregnancy and significant health complications associated with that. But beyond that sexual abuse is very damaging to a young person. There is a huge difference between 12 and 15.
While I think 38 years sounds excessive compared to what others get, this case seemed to be egregious. Because pedophiles (and a woman of that age going after a 12 year old is a pedophile) pose such a risk, I am all for very long lock ups of them. Send them to a mental hospital, have them given therapy and evaluations of what makes them tick, keep them out of Gen Pop, but most importantly keep them away from children.
A 38 year old teacher put their mouth on a 12 year old student's genitals.
Who's male and who's female in this story doesn't matter. The bottom line is this: Mouths that old don't have a right to touch genitals that young, at least not in the country, not yet.
Sexual abusers like to believe they are givers when the sad truth is, they are takers, predators intent on using power and position to violate.
And the other sad truth with regard to abusers is the likelihood of them having experienced some physical/sexual violation or intense experience of powerlessness in their own lives as children or adolescents.
After seeing the photograph of the teacher in question, I get the need for a harsh sentence.
She won't serve more than 10, which is probably about right in my opinion.
12 is pretty fucking young, male or female.
I think that the 15 year sentence would have been appropriate. That the woman refused to take the 15 year plea bargain implies (as she more or less explicitly said) that she thinks she is a good person and that she didn't do anything wrong. Nothing *at all* wrong. She thought she could confess, completely confess to this, and not to go to jail *at all*. From what she said, this seems to be completely true: "Sexual abusers like to believe they are givers..."
So what do you do to someone who goes through the entire process of being arrested and shown the law and meets with person after person who condemns them and they *still* insist that they were *helping* the boy? That they are a good person?
The attractiveness thing: Yes, seems to be part of it, but again, 12 years old isn't 14... so that's part of it too. Also, that the other cases happened first so public disgust has time to build up.
Lastly... fantasizing about sex with teacher involves an unrealistic expectation of being in control. It's a power fantasy.
It really is the same with young girls... sex with someone much older is perceived as power. It's a lie, but no child fantasizes about powerlessness. Abused children, boys and girls, can and do imagine that the attention they receive makes them important and grown up.
Interesting topic, crime and punishment. What's a crime and what is the appropriate punishment.
Not much doubt that there is a crime here it is the punishment that is in question.
I find sex laws problematic in several ways. One troubling one are examples of 17 year old boys getting labelled as sex offenders for life for having sex with a 16 year old girl.
Sex and drugs seem to tie the legal system in knots of unintended or flat out bad consequences. Preening politicians and panicked parents combine to create bad laws.
When I was that age and fantasizing about sex with an older woman it had nothing to do with power. It may for some people, but I think generally it's a case of sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. I was fantasizing about being with a naked woman, period. The older woman is fantasized about at that age, because 1) they are sexier than girls your age, and 2) you can imagine them actually wanting sex. 12 year old girls are just not sexy.
It may be about power for young girls, but like I said, that's not my area of expertise.
I'm still attracted to grown up women for the same reasons I was when I was 12, and just about as lucky with them. Hope springs eternal.
As others have mentioned, I think the judge was influenced by the other cases in this same jurisdiction. He wanted to send a message. Civilian judges are not supposed to do this, but I think he did.
BTW, in a military trial, under the UCMJ, an offense's affect on “good order and discipline” is a legitimate consideration in determining punishment. IAW, an offense may be punished more harshly if it has a bad effect on unit morale.
I wonder if this judge has JAG experience.
38 years does seem excessive as the victim does have some chance to recover from any damage done; unlike say murder. Otherwise, I see absolutely no difference in oral sex performed on a girl versus a boy. Some, like TPM may think oral sex leads to pregnancy, but it doesn't work that way. The actual physically and psychologically damage of oral sex is the same for men and women. That the young girl might have wanted the gratification should be taken into account just as much as a young boy's desire.
Sorry, 38 on 12 is pedophilia. Period.
Bagoh20 said ... a cigar is just a cigar ... and that is how I see this case.
Today we constantly hear about the equality of men and women, and I don't have an issue with that. I do have an issue with trying to over analyze this case, or imply degrees of severity. 38 on 12 is pedophilia. Period.
Jerry Sandusky got 30 to 60 years. This wench getting 38 is equivalent to that. Defendant apparently saw nothing "wrong" with her actions...no more than Sandusky did. Therefore removal from society effectively permanently is appropriate. Recidivism is the only alternative...sure as sunrise.
Just so everyone is clear:
Teacher is age 31
Student is age 12
Teacher's daughter is age 6
Sentence is 38 years in prison
31 year old having relations with a 12 year old is still pedophilia.
And correction: "The actual physical and psychological damage..."
bagoh20 said...
When I was that age and fantasizing about sex with an older woman it had nothing to do with power.
Yes, I think Synova has the wrong end of the stick, so to speak, on this one.
Workplace sexual harassment is a real issue and I have seen some disgusting examples. The average teenage boys sense of power, however, revolves around things that may seem absurd to adults, at least those who don't remember their own adolescence.
Leland ... thanks for the correction. The whole story just pisses me off beyond anything I can say here.
I didn't mean power as domination or oppression. Just power. Not power *over* someone.
Simply... no one imagines being *used*. Not seriously. Even in a joking way it's still being there because you want to be there. (Yeah, har har, I'd let her do me,) It's still imagining being a full adult participant in this full adult activity.
That's not reality. That's not what happens. In your cusp-of-puberty fantasy, your tween-years crushes, you're never imagining inequality.
The boy testified... I thought she was my girlfriend...
Of course he did.
And yeah, I'm not the least bit sad that she's not going to be there to raise her daughter.
The whole story just pisses me off...
Me too, and I didn't check the facts before responding. I appreciate Leland's clarification.
Also, a twelve year old is not a "teenager". As for ARM thinking "Synova has the wrong end" of whatever stick he is imagining, it appears to me as if she has a good grasp if not handle on the situation.
Abused children, boys and girls, can and do imagine that the attention they receive makes them important and grown up.
Their bodies can also naturally respond to stimulation, which can lead to a tremendous amount of confusion and guilt/shame down the road, as it introduces an element of experienced sensation/pleasure into the mix along with the thought that they had a part in what was done to them.
Leadership has its responsibilities and privileges; touching the genitals of minors is not among them.
Lot of passion on this topic. I understand to some extent. If anything I felt even more strongly over the priest abusive of minors. But there it reflected a broad institutional failure and coverup and was an even deeper betrayal of the victim's trust, if we take the priest's role as spiritual advisor at face value.
If this women deserves 38 years in prison, what would have been justice for the priests and their institutional protectors?
If this women deserves 38 years in prison, what would have been justice for the priests and their institutional protectors?
Substitute the words "this teacher" for "this woman", and my answer would be: "They deserve the same consideration of crime and judgement as the teacher received."
Maybe you think it's cute, or witty, or fitting to use the word passion here, but according to the dictionary I'm using, it doesn't fit, leaving me unclear as to what you are "understanding to some extent". Unless you or someone you love experienced sexual abuse as a minor, whatever understanding you have is limited. Mine is not.
Passion: a strong feeling of enthusiasm or excitement for something or about doing something
: a strong feeling (such as anger) that causes you to act in a dangerous way
: a strong sexual or romantic feeling for someone
MamaM said...
Substitute the words "this teacher" for "this woman", and my answer would be: "They deserve the same consideration of crime and judgement as the teacher received."
The psychological damage in the case of the priests must have been much worse. Forcing same sex sexuality on heterosexual children must have been vastly more confusing and embarrassing. The coverups were appalling. The children were essentially forced to take on the institutional power of the Church in order to get some justice. Finally there is something uniquely appalling about a religious person behaving in this manner. It undermines whatever faith a person might have.
I am not excusing the teacher in this case I just think the punishment is excessive. I certainly believe that the priests deserved a much harsher punishment.
I'm with ya on the priests ARM. That was substantially worse than this. Your family and community's very symbol of morality and GOD rapes you. I don't know how it could be any worse. At least the boy in this situation might feel some pride, and somewhat normal, but raped by your priest, the guy who your parents pray with, and get counseling from? That's the bottom of the sex crime barrel.
Let me clarify my stance on this. Teachers, coaches, and priests, and anyone else, should all be punished to the full extent of the law. I'd be comfortable to 38+ years for all of them, since we can't just put a bullet in the heads.
For the record, my best friend is a priest and he is in complete agreement with me on this subject, which we have discussed many many times. The actions of other self-centered sacrilegious priests have made his ministry much harder and cautious.
That's the bottom of the sex crime barrel.
The psychological damage in the case of the priests must have been much worse
A child who's been molested by their own father or mother might beg to differ with you. Parents are gods wearing skin to the children who depend on them for survival and love.
At the root, molestation of children involves abuse of power.
In listening to adults describe their own experiences of sexual abuse as a child, I've not heard any mention feelings of pride and normalcy as outcomes.
From the wiki, this list of effects is consistent with my awareness:
Effects of child sexual abuse include guilt and self-blame, flashbacks, nightmares, insomnia, fear of things associated with the abuse (including objects, smells, places, doctor's visits, etc.), self-esteem issues, sexual dysfunction, chronic pain, addiction, self-injury, suicidal ideation, somatic complaints, depression,post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety, other mental illnesses (including borderline personality disorder)propensity to re-victimization in adulthood, and physical injury to the child, among other problems. Victims of child sex abuse are over six times more likely to attempt suicide and eight times more likely to repeatedly attempt suicide. Much of the harm caused to victims becomes apparent years after the abuse happens.
Sexual abuse by a family member is a form of incest, and results in more serious and long-term psychological trauma, especially in the case of parental incest.
MomaM said ...
At the root, molestation of children involves abuse of power.
Exactly. It is also the epitome of cowardice.
ARM said ...
...what would be justice for child abusing parents?
Quoting another person: "A cigar is a cigar."
Justice is the same for all pedophiles, no exceptions.
If I had my way, here is the resolution. About $1.27 for a good round. I'll pay.
PS: don't come back with some philosphical nonsense...you are talking to a man who has had to protect a child.
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