This column touches on sensitive subject matter. Be prepared for a good deal of innuendo, tons of euphemisms and a lot of question marks.
How else do you begin a family-friendly discussion about the uptick in the number of 20-something women engaging in … um … inappropriate relations with teenage boys?
In the most recent case, we have Brighton Charter High School’s Carrie McCandless – a cheerleading coach married to the principal of the school (really, you can’t make this stuff up) – who allegedly had sexual contact with a 17-year-old student.
McCandless apparently chaperoned a group of kids on a field trip last month, where she allegedly did this deed with a male student at the YMCA in Estes Park.
The story has become national news for two noteworthy reasons:
McCandless is a woman.
McCandless is an attractive woman.
Why else would a run-of-the-mill assault case be breaking news on national cable news, the featured joke of late-night hosts and the stuff of wire service copy?
I hear this stuff has been going on since the Summer of ’42 – maybe even longer. All teenage boys (yes, all) hear titillating tales from their peers about lustful encounters with older women. I was pretty sure – at the time, at least – that these stories were the work of liars or overactive imaginations.
It seems I may have been naive.
The question is, would everyone be so lighthearted about a similar case involving a grown man and a teenage girl?
“I know that society looks at these cases as being less harmful. They are just as harmful. This woman, who was almost 30, has control over a teenager,” says Tamika Payne, executive director of the Colorado Coalition Against Sexual Assault. “The standards are the same for both men and women. I think we do a real disservice when we sensationalize these cases.”
On one level, society is pretty firm about teachers and students consummating Mrs. Robinson-esque relationships.
For good reason. A parent must be able to send their kids to school without having to worry that a scene from “Last Tango in Paris” is going to break out.
Then again, we all realize a 17-year-old teenage boy is hardly defenseless. Some boys even seek out relationships with older women. In most states, these two could be married.
“I think that responsibility falls on the adults. I’m sure most high school students want to drink, but we have laws,” Payne says. “… I think it doesn’t get reported as often as it should and the media picks and chooses what looks good.”
She does have a point.
I just finished viewing an online photo essay, complied by a respected news agency, featuring pictures of all the fetching women caught in sexual relations with high-school-age students in the past few years.
(One woman even served her jail term and then married the former sixth-grade student she was accused of assaulting.)
But you can’t always blame the media. Gender has a lot to do with it, as well. And it’s not always men and women who are treated differently.
Case in point: Last year, middle-aged Colorado “cool mom” Silvia Johnson was sentenced in Jefferson County to 30 years in prison for contributing to the delinquency of minors, sexual assault and violating a restraining order.
This woman was not well.
But around the same time, a Florida teacher named Debra Lafave – a younger, eye-catching blond – who had admitted to having sex with a 14-year-old, was sentenced to house arrest, not prison.
Frankly, I was surprised the judge didn’t apologize to Lafave for the inconvenience of having to come down to the courthouse. Poor thing.
Should teachers, placed in positions of trust in the community, be punished for having carnal relationships with underaged kids regardless of gender or beauty?
Of course.
But let’s keep in mind, cases like this are rare in the larger scheme of things.
No matter what your buddies may have told you in high school.
David Harsanyi’s column appears Monday and Thursday. He can be reached at 303-954-1255 or dharsanyi@denverpost.com.
