Today in Rape Culture

[Trigger warning.]

Under the charming headline "Horndog High scandal heats up," the NY Daily News reports that, at the same high school where two female teachers were reportedly caught by a janitor in a state of undress in an empty classroom while students attended a musical performance, a third female teacher has been reassigned while the school investigates allegations that she had "an inappropriate relationship with a male student."

"Officials found more than 200 texts and calls between the teacher and the male pupil," who is apparently not of legal consenting age.

The story doesn't say—and obviously I don't know—whether the teacher and the student engaged in sexual activity, i.e. she statutorily raped him. But it appears that the best-case scenario is "merely" that she emotionally abused someone who is not old enough to legally consent to the relationship.

Conflating that with two adults (allegedly) having a sexual liaison in an inappropriate place is really problematic. That's not to diminish the reality that the "inappropriate place" was (allegedly) a serious breach of ethics, as it could have been a student who walked in rather than a staff member. But the two scenarios are fundamentally not the same.

And a teacher who emotionally, physically, and/or sexually abuses a student, deliberately and remorselessly, isn't a horndog. Zie's a predator.

[H/T to Shaker MLM.]

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