Beyond predators and victims

[David Steinberg, writer, photographer, and political activist:] Fortunately, it was a time before concern about teenage-adult sex had been raised to the level of mass hysteria. As a result, Miss Klein [pseudonym] was able to be personal and real and vibrant and sexy and emotionally expressive to me and to many of the other students in a way that would be professionally dangerous today. [...]

Miss Klein and I never expressed our appreciation for each other, or our shared appreciation for passionate life, in any kind of directly sexual way. I was very young at 15, had not so much as kissed a girl in a sexual way. It never would have occurred to me that the bond I felt with Miss Klein had anything to do with sexual attraction, although I can clearly see it in retrospect. I certainly never experienced any kind of sexual energy coming from Miss Klein toward me.

But what if she and I had taken our mutual excitement and appreciation into the realm of physical sex? What would have changed for me, in terms of my subsequent sexual development, self esteem, personal identity, and experience? What if I had been more mature sexually, more interested in physically exploring my sexual feelings, as Debra Lafave's student clearly was? Would the forbidden nature of sexual contact with an older person, with a teacher, have shrouded any sexual activity in guilt and shame, or would the outrageousness of such a connection have been a source of additional excitement and attraction? Would a sexual overture from a teacher have felt like an intrusion, even if she genuinely cared about me and understood the distance between her life situation and mine? Would it have felt like a demand that I could not say no to? Or might I have experienced it as a positive statement about my desirability, a confirmation to hold up against sexual self-doubt as I began to be sexual with other people my own age?

I have heard many stories from people whose first sexual experience was as teenagers with adults, many of whom have said that these experiences taught them things and gave them positive feelings about themselves that served them well throughout their lives. One woman friend talks of a middle-aged man who hung out in the park next to her high school when she was a girl. All the girls at her school knew that this man enjoyed initiating girls into sex. Those girls who wanted to be initiated by him would approach him in the park and see what would develop. My friend had her first sexual experience with this man who, she says, was sensitive, caring, considerate, and knowledgeable. She credits her still vibrant sexual relationship with her longtime husband to this man, who would certainly have been locked up for life if he had ever been discovered.

source: Article 'Beyond Predators and Victims: The Not-So-Sensational Story of Debra Lafave and her 14-Year-Old Student' by David Steinberg (writer, photographer, and political activist); www.nearbycafe.com/loveandlust/steinberg/erotic/cn/cn158.html; Comes Naturally; 16 January 2006