Missing Schoolgirl Megan Stammers.

Well aren't I glad I am not on that governing body. It seems strange if allegations being investigated that the parents were not informed. Child protection/safeguarding trumps confidentiality of disciplinary issues every time in my book!

They certainly are - one woman teacher got eight years!

absent I'm glad to hear it. I'm probably just thinking of public perceptions which annoy me as the mother of boys.

I remember when my daughter was in 6th form. One of her friends was openly dating a young teacher. No one seemed to think this was wrong. They married and as far as I know it worked out ok.

It would be considered unprofessional at best these days. Like bosses dating junior members of staff. only more so.
Should women and men be treated equally in this regard - interesting.
Shall we debate?
Here's an argument:

The age difference represents one imbalance of power, with older person being potentially more powerful
The teacher-student relationship is another one, with teacher holding more power
Due to physical differences men have more power in a sexual relationship and that is a third. A man can rape a girl but a woman cannot rape a boy.
I would therefore treat women a little more leniently.

I fear though that women are treated more severely as it is seen as more wicked and abnormal when women transgress the norm of femininity that says "women should always be good - not very sexual, predatory, violent etc" - men are forgiven for sexual misbehaviour or violence because it is more normal for a man and they are not transgressing societal norms of masculinity

It depends Jess. I have supervised predatory female sex offenders, who have offended without the coercion or incitement of any man, including several female teachers who received a probation sentence rather then prison, although they were often remanded in custody before trial. Some of them were resistent to treatment and reoffended after being returned to court to be re-sentenced, or to have a spender sentence activated. They were prevented from working or living with children under the age of 16, and the risk assessments carried out on them indicated they were equally dangerous to children as men with the same offending history who were imprisoned.

Female sex offenders don't take themselves seriously because our society regards men as more threatening to children than women. They don't generally believe that they need treatment for what, to them and their social circle, is regarded in a benign way. Therefore, it is harder to control the risk to children posed by a woman. For example, a woman in the company of a teenage boy is not examined for her motives in the same way as a man in the company of a teenage girl.

Jackie Craissati is a consultant forensic psychologist who has interviewed nearly every notorious female sex offender and conducted research, comparing each offender with a control group of women with matching, non-offending profiles in terms of social circumstances, number of children and several other variables. She talks about women beng able to hide abuse because of society's perception of them as caring, safe, vulnerable and feminine, and found concerning behaviour amongst the control group e.g. 'cougars' targetting teenage boys.

Not spender, but suspended sentence. This iPad will go through my window one day if it doesn't stop changing words I have checked!

Female teachers have been known to prey on girl students as well as boys.

Two interesting posts. Thank you, jess and when.

when, you can turn spellchecker off on an iPad. I have. I'd rather make mistakes than have non mistakes 'corrected' incorrectly.

Bags I turn the flipping' spellchecker on and off with boring regularity! It's faster to type with the spellchecker, then I get complacent and it plays tricks on me I should review my posts more often but I still blame the iPad

Hope you're feeling better today, by the way

Yes, you're right absent. Significant numbers of predatory females in positions of trust who have abused girls.

Not too bad, thanks, when. Probably "normal" (for me) today.

I am not condoning or excusing Jeremy Forrest's behaviour in any way, but in my opinion it is not in the same league as that of the women who sexually abused children at a nursery in Plymouth a couple of years ago and took photographs of what they were doing.
Megan Stammers was/is not an innocent child, as evidenced by the texts and tweets she sent, nor has she been exploited (as far as we know) in the way that the girls in Rochdale were, who were abused by the gang of Asian men.

He was in a trusted position - in loco parentis actually. He has taken a child away to have sex with her.

Why would there be degrees of peadophilia?

From what you say Jane she needs protecting and guidance. She's not getting that!

JO4 - did he 'take her away' ? Or did she ask him to? Or did he ask her and she went willingly?
We don't know, do we.
But most 15 year old girls don't consider themselves children or behave like them, most of the time.
I'm not going to be drawn into defending him.
I felt pure hate for those women at the Little Ted nursery in Plymouth, whereas I think in this case we should perhaps reserve judgment.

Just seen your second post JO4
Absolutely agree, it appears that the Child Protection procedures were severely lacking.
Even the Chairman of the Governors at the school had a dodgy CRB check!

If anyone having sex with someone under 16 is a paedophile, that would make my first boyfriend aged 17 one. Too late now to put him on the sex register, it was 55 years ago and he's been dead for 25.

I'd like to see paedophilia broken down by severity of the offence otherwise you are doing a big favour to men who form gangs to abuse six year olds and post photos on the internet.

In my opinion they are worse than Jeremy Forrest.

I don't think it matters at all whether he took her away, asked her to go, or responded to her request to be taken. He was in a position of trust and power and he abused that power. jingl is right, he's a paedophile. They come in many guises.

petallus the difference is there was no abuse of power in your relationship with your 17 year old boyfriend.

Well, I was besotted.

Obviously I agree about paedophiles being totally undefendable.

I was wondering about those cultures where young women are forced into marriage at an early age to much older men.

There you have an example where the woman may well be under 16, the age difference is great and the woman has little power.

I was relying on you when to come back with an informed response. To turn it on its head though - what about the harm done. Is there or is there not a greater degree of harm done to a teenage boy or a teenage girl or are they equal And is there evidence on this?

That's a really interesting question Jess. I have met many young offenders who said that their 'initiation' into sexual activity with an older woman did them no harm, and they felt they had some status amongst their peers. If the same had happened with an older man when they were under the age of consent, they would have seen the experience in a very different light. I only know anecdotally how it impacted on them. Some felt, on reflection, that they had been abused, just as many didn't. Other practitioners will perhaps know more than me about this. I used to tread very carefully about 'enlightening' a young man about such experiences, not wanting to impose a sense of having been harmed by an older woman, but feeling a sense of responsibility to instil some knowledge about being protective when they have children.

Equally, when training multi-agency staff, I and my colleagues heard private disclosures from men who had had the same experiences as boys with adult women. They said they had regarded it as exciting, scary, a rite of passage to brag about (several examples of fancying their friend's mum, being exploited by the woman). Often, the examples were like the schoolgirl/teacher scenario. Pennies dropping like mad when boundaries were clarified i.e. it doesn't matter how provocative a child is, they need guidance not exploitation.

So, I don't really know enough about those who say they didn't feel harmed, but those who did had varied ways of dealing with it, some lashing out, seeing women negatively, some needing counselling or just to talk things over. I wouldn't offer counselling to someone who felt he didn't need it when he recognised he had been harmed, but I would keep a weather eye on him.

It used to be a rite of passage for a lad to be taken, often by his father, to a brothel to get his first experience. No doubt the business ladies there were quite understanding of their nervousness.
I may be quite wrong, but to me there is a difference in the roles of the genders in the sexual act with the male being dominant by the very nature of penetration. Perhaps this is why we view older woman/young man in a different, less culpable light, than older man/young woman. After all, if a boy did not feel physically ready for sex, it couldn't happen.