there is no way though to protect girls without "disempowering" them, so we will all just have to pretend that up is down. So much for male emotional self awareness, oh well. It might be NICE but it isn't ESSENTIAL obviously and can be sacrificed if necessary, which it clearly is at least according to polite society.

If a sexy teacher had come on to me when I was in high school and initiated me, I would have been the world's happiest adolescent. But she probably would have been caught, because my mother would have grown suspicious about the constant, shit-eating grin that suddenly appeared on my face.

But if I had been sexually solicited by an attractive teacher even at an age as young as 14 I can guarantee that it would have helped my development, made me happy, and given me a lot of nice memories.

I think inherent gender differences do create a status of 'victim' when a girl that young is solicited by a teacher as opposed to when a boy is.

I don't know how much of that is unconscious sexism talking but it's how I feel.

Such as in the case of adults having sex with teenagers. Like the other male letter-writers, I too would have relished the chance to be seduced by one of my attractive 30-ish female teachers. Perhaps women simply can't understand how unbelievably erotic that fantasy is for us guys.

Has anybody studied the psychology behind things like Sharia law? I just assume that religion gets inside the human mind and demolishes it, but *how* does it do this? It just doesn't make sense.

Maybe all of this testimony from guys who would have been happy to be deflowered by their teachers in high school makes sense when we consider that historically, relationships between men and women place women in a relatively powerless position and men in a relatively powerful position. Even setting aside all of the cultural baggage that often makes (made?) men relatively more powerful, there is still the biological reality of men's greater strength, and therefore power. So, sex between a female student and a male teacher makes that power inbalance that much more extreme, while sex between a female teacher and a male student results in less of a stark differential in power?

Just a thought.

But, also, who had sexy high school teachers? I didn't!

Ok, so it's a little different for boys. Yes, they don't get pregnant. Yes, the whole virgin thing.

Still, I know a couple of guys who were seduced by older woman as teenagers, and it hardly left them well-adjusted. It really screwed with their heads. You can talk about what a great fantasy it is, but for some guys, the reality is that getting taken advantage by an adult, no matter how pleasant it is, really messes you up. You figure out you're there to be used. And to some folks, that bothers them a lot. YMMV.

until that hot teacher ends up on your thirteen years old doorstep and announces she's pregnant. Or she passed along an STD. Or until her husband finds out and tells the school board and then your son is dragged through the embarassment of a scandal. Or what happens when hot teacher is a man? Is that okay? Even if your son is gay? I mean in that case he's just being initiated into the way of love, right? Isn't that the excuse abusers use to justify themselves? I'm really aghast that any parent thinks it's okay for their CHILD to be molested by an adult. That a mainstream publication would celebrate child abuse. Thoroughly disgusted.

The editors of Details are idiots.

We're not talking about a music video fantasy scenario. These are boys who are too young, very likely confused and conflicted, and who are being taken advantage of by someone who knows she shouldn't be doing what she's doing.

I wonder what Details thinks about the studliness of boys who are propositioned by their male teachers.

Also ... I can't quite figure out what parts of the first poster's post are sarcastic, so I'll just throw in this: the risk of pregnancy is not the reason statutory rape is wrong.

Or at least, few men who comprise the Broadsheet Mysoginy Executive Board. If we can all them "men" at all.

I think more than one or two men out there is threatened by admitting the victimhood of a man (14-year-old boy) who somehow managed to to attract the attentions of a teacher, who was so magnetic at 14 that the teaacher would risk breaking the law to be with him. Nevermind that maybe he didn't knowingly attract anyone, and was manipulated. Not necessarily, but very possibly.

Isn't that what we always hear complaints about here, that women have their choosing of men all around them, whereas men (unless they are 'rock stars') have to prostrate themselves to even get a woman to look at them? A 14-year-old boy who managed to bring a grown woman to desperate, illegal measures -- he's a HERO to the troll board, not a victim. At 14, most of them were probably pitiably akward and pimply, not sex studs. This boy is everything they've ever wanted to be.

I find it hard to believe that posters here are saying it's different because boys don't get pregnant. I guess you wouldn't have to worry about a baby if your son's older sex mentor were a man, but otherwise some people need to go back to biology class. Boys can impregnante and become fathers. Would any father really love for his 13 year old son to find himself a father with a much older woman? The days when men and boys could walk away are long gone, and even a child conceived by a boy in an illegal relationship has a legal right to her father's support- or should I say grandfather's support? The fact that there are grown men out there looking at what is an exploitive relationship through the prism of their old sexual fantasies is really, really distasteful. After all, 13 year old girls fanatsize about older men too- many would be thrilled as well to be 'awakened' by an older sexual mentor. I hope that the men who think sex between a 13 year old boy and a grown woman is a great idea would actually see things clearly if it were their own sons in that situation.