Teachers, Children and Sex--Jamie Floyd, Court TV Anchor
Today we have the latest in the Lafave mess -- as in Debra Lafave, the Tampa teacher charged in 2005 with lewd and lascivious battery on a child after she performed oral sex on a 14- year-old student and had intercourse with the boy several times in a single month.
Today she is back in court owing to a conversation she allegedly had with a minor, in violation of her probation. This alleged victim is a female, however, a co-worker at Lafave's new place of employment, a Tampa restaurant.
The behavior may be different this time around, but our fascination with Lafave is the same. The media loves Lafave, and we loved Mary Kay Letournou before that. I've thought a lot about this and why. And I think it goes back to the fantasies of boyhood. I mean think about it: Whenever an adult man (or even not-so-adult boy -- e.g., Genarlow Wilson) has sex with a girl, the outrage is manifest, on cable and elsewhere, about said pedophile.
But let it be a pretty blond woman seduce a teenage boy and the reaction is entirely different. In the community, sympathy not outrage. In court, a slap on the wrist not prison. And on TV my colleagues, most of the men at least, are singing a very different tune: Hot For Teacher.
