A Fossilized System 

by Paul Hein

A recent offering on CourtTV was the trial of a schoolteacher accused of seducing one of her male students. In typical fashion, the prosecutor had brought every conceivable charge of sexual misconduct against her, in the  reasonable hope of getting a guilty verdict on at least one of them. If convicted on all counts, the woman faced over 70 years of imprisonment. And all about sex! A slap on the wrist for Clinton, 70 years of incarceration for a teacher!

Although it is unseemly for a teacher to have sexual relations with a student, the boy involved--a sullen, unpleasant, ignorant lad, was no shrinking violet. He’d been sexually active prior to the affair with the teacher (according to his own testimony) with several 13-year old girls, and had mentioned to his mother (!) that the girls were superior to his teacher at administering oral sex.  A lovely family! The mother only became concerned enough to involve the police when the teacher (according to the boy) told him she’d like to have his child, and would give him the $25,000 adoption fee she would thus save. The boy, cunning in the ways of the world, became concerned about the issue of paternity, and its resulting obligations, and at this point went with his mom to the cops. The teacher denies everything.

My point isn’t whether she is or isn’t guilty. It’s more “who cares?” It’s only sex, right? The legal system is as fossilized in its thinking about these matters as the Church.

But the Church has no social force or influence, especially where its teaching on sex is concerned. Even a substantial portion—perhaps a majority—of its own members disregard that teaching, and many of its clergy dissent from its adherence to antique standards of behavior, preferring to devote their efforts to making the churchgoers feel good about themselves, and reassured about their salvation. Times change, after all. It’s hard to believe, but at one time, killing a child in utero was a crime!

The legal system is different. Disagree with its doctrines, and you can find yourself in jail. That would seem to be good reason for the lawyers, legislators, and judges, to keep abreast of things. Evidently our ancestors thought sex was a big deal, entitled to all sorts of legal protection.  Not now. Wake up, legal system! You’re still hung up on sex: rape, for example. It’s no big deal! Uncouth, of course. Bad manners, definitely. Maybe a misdemeanor, if there was bruising or a sprain or strain, but nothing more! It’s only sex, after all.

The message from the media, in all its forms, is clear and unambiguous. It is declared unanimously and without dissent: Sex is about having fun. It’s like hugging, but more intense. Of course, if a couple actually wanted a child, sex could bring that about, but that sort of thinking was probably responsible for the seriousness with which sex was once regarded. We’re past that. The determination of some to link sex with procreation, as its primary function, reminds me of a similar determination of some people to associate eating primarily with nutrition. Haven’t they heard of the vomitorium? No one is contending that the sexual encounter left the boy diseased, or damaged in any other way. The sex wasn’t as good, perhaps, as he’d gotten from his prior girlfriends, but that is hardly offensive enough to justify incarceration. Perhaps some remedial sex courses for the teacher would be adequate punishment.

If the teacher, as she claims, is innocent of this “offense,” the boy and his family should be punished for wasting the court’s time on a trivial matter. In fact, the entire case should have been dismissed as beneath the dignity of the court. Or, maybe, above it.

Surely the legal system has better things to do than huff and puff about what people do for a good time. There are significant issues of social importance to consider: the proper labeling of ice cream products, the number of gallons of water allowed to flush a toilet, and the unspeakable iniquity of a businessman hiring workers based upon his own idiosyncratic preferences, to just scratch the surface.

Let’s stick to the important stuff, and bring the legal system up to date! It’s just sex, after all.

February 10, 2002