As far as the legal response, the point is to make the penalty tough enough so that those who might be influenced by witnessing the results will be deterred and those who commit the crime can suffer only as much as is necessary to correct the behavior. It is a very tough balance to hit and rarely do the results have full agreement. If we start tailoring too much, then we have what there is already too much of, injustice -This teacher was hot, so let’s not punish her. That teacher was fat an ugly, so she should get more jail time because the kid surely didn’t want to sleep with her without being manipulated. You see how it doesn’t work? So in the end, one rule, everyone follows it, and justice SHOULD be blind.

In the end, she knew better but ultimately she broke the law and destroyed her career over sex with a teenage boy, something that most women will tell you is usually way below par. What does that tell us? It tells us that she either has no regard for the law, no regard for the kid’s personal boundaries (as mentioned above), no regard for her career, poor judgement, some form of mental illness, or some combination of the above. Whatever the case may be, something is rotten in Denmark and it is a good thing it was caught and is being dealt with.

And I cannot imagine what it would be like for this kid, at 16, for the rest of his highschool career. What has he learned? Should he hit on any teacher he has a crush on? How confused will he be when this is discouraged to the point that he finds it is EXTREMELY inappropriate? Bad enough to be thinking of your math teacher’s thong at that age, but to be thinking she rejected you, and then you only got a 72 on the final- is it because she doesn’t think you’re good enough to sleep with- was she insulted? Maybe you should have sent flowers first? Hormones also have a way of screwing with anger and rage, and those are the years we’re supposed to be getting that under control. I would not want to be in this kid’s head for the next few years.