Double Standard

Ok I am just a little steamed about this one. 25 year old teacher does the horizontal mambo with a 14 year old student. If this were a Male Teacher and Female student they would put the guy under the jail and throw away the key damn near. But in this case it is a woman and if it were not for a single judge balking at the current plea bargain she would get house arrest only. Obviously this hasn't happend just yet. But such a plea bargain would have been laughed out of court if the teacher had been a guy instead of a very attractive woman.

Now I more than understand that society places different values on protecting young women vrs young men. The problem is that the law does not claim to make any such distinction between gender for sexual offense. Obstensibly treatment is equal. But if you just listen to the late night show jokes it is easy to see that the cases are viewed as anything but equal. Jokes about older guys having sex with underaged girls are scathing and condeming. Jokes about the same break in age with reversed genders are congratulatory to the underaged boy. At worst they suggest the older woman is less than picky in choosing her sexual partners (call her a slut). Where the men are caled sick/demented perverts you often hear jokes from guys of "Well where was this teacher when I was in school".

Perhaps such double standards are an unavoidable part of life. But a law is ultimately about an ideal. As such if it proclaims equal justice then the best effort needs to be made to dispense equal justice. If this leads to unfair rulings then perhaps, just perhaps, this means that the law is flawed and must be re-evaluated. And no where is this more apparent than the laws surrounding sex in the United States.