Mary Kay Letourneau has died

[DawnM]

https://www.q13fox.com/news/mary-kay-letourneau-dead-at-58-after-cancer-battle-attorney-says?fbclid=IwAR0l5BpUOExoxRYRcnx1a_fdHHmOdtb5fcFqc4mDBqma08eMkhTtpTVZ3rM

[Selkie]

I hope the four kids from her first marriage have turned out okay - the ones that she basically abandoned along with her husband.

[PrincessMommy]

wow, that is a surprise.   I feel bad for everyone.  She left quite a mess in her wake.  But, still - that is so young to die. I hope she was able to reconcile with her older children. 

[marbel]

Always sad when someone dies young, particularly if they are leaving children behind, but the quotes (in the linked article) about what a wonderful woman she was, all the good she did... ugh. I wonder what her older children would say. 

Edited July 8, 2020 by marbel

[gardenmom5]

I remember her first trial, when she was pregnant with her first child by vili.  I was left with the impression she would have passed off the kid as her husband's if she could have. I couldn't understand why the judge only gave her three months.  She disgusted me then.  I hate how hollywood has romanticized this case.   She still didn't 'get' why what she did was so wrong - it wasn't that long ago she tried to get her teaching license back so she could go back to teaching.    

[marbel]

The other thing about this that bothers me - if it was a male teacher and a younger female student... imagine the (justified) outrage. So many people laughed this off as every boy's dream to be seduced by his teacher.  He has always maintained he was not a victim, but isn't that the plan of the abuser in the first place? 

 

[gardenmom5]

12 minutes ago, Seasider too said:

He was 12 years old. 

TWELVE

People should really let that sink in. 

And she started teaching (grooming) him in the second grade.  when he was eight.

 

People should let that sink in too.

[katilac]

45 minutes ago, gardenmom5 said:

 She still didn't 'get' why what she did was so wrong - it wasn't that long ago she tried to get her teaching license back so she could go back to teaching.    

Yes, she never expressed remorse for her crimes. She did say she would not have done it had she understood the legal percussions, and that she would be separated from her children 😐

36 minutes ago, marbel said:

 He has always maintained he was not a victim, but isn't that the plan of the abuser in the first place? 

Exactly, plus he had two kids with her by the time he was 15. I think he always wanted to protect them from the fact that their mother was a criminal, and for them to have the stable upbringing that would have been much harder for him to provide on his own at such a young age. He grew up poor, without a father in his life, and he wanted his own kids to have two parents and a house, the whole white picket fence American ideal. Of course, his hard times as a child made him all the more vulnerable to his rapist. 

He filed for divorce as their kids approached adulthood (16 & 17). 

So, I definitely think he maintained that he wasn't a victim in order to protect their children. Even when he was still married to her, he was very vocal in stating that he didn't support young people having relationships with adults. 

11 minutes ago, Dreamergal said:

I did not even know boys that young could make someone pregnant. 

That was part of her gross defense - that it wasn't really child rape because he happened to be physically mature at a young age. 

 

23 minutes ago, Æthelthryth the Texan said:

What is still shocking to me though is it's like she was the tipping point for where it became normalized. 

 

I don't think it's become normalized, I just think that we stopped sweeping it under the rug, and starting publicizing it. If anything, I think this kind of publicity denormalizes this activity.

I saw this sort of thing happening (mostly with male teachers) in small towns all the time growing up.  I was just reading about a minor political figure whose parents married when the mother was 13 and the father was 28 in the 1940s (!).  Newt Gingrich married his high school math teacher.

[katilac]

57 minutes ago, GGardner said:

 

I don't think it's become normalized, I just think that we stopped sweeping it under the rug, and starting publicizing it. If anything, I think this kind of publicity denormalizes this activity.

I agree - it didn't become normalized, they just finally quit smirking and saying 'lucky boy' and starting arresting the criminals! 

[fairfarmhand]

My son is 12.

Absollutely horrifying. My son is still such a little boy in so many ways.

And I think the young man had his life seriously screwed up and she shouldve been in jail a lot longer than she was. Despite the fact that the boy may have been sexually mature, he was still a child with immature thinking and he shouldmt even have been considering that his TEACHER could seduce him. 

I will say that I believe that the "eternal youth" culture is giving young people mixed messages. However, just because you look 16 and "feel" 16 doesnt mean that you get to bed the young men you teach. There's something wrong with women (and men) who think it's acceptable to fraternize with students. I would think that the young looking teachers would want to be doubly careful about their interactions. Can;t these young women who are seducing their students find a real live adult man to play house with? Whats the matter with them that they;d find a middle schooler or high schooler appealing? I see my dds age-mates and think "awww. What sweet little boys." and I can see how they'd appeal to my girls but there's nothing that I, as an adult woman, would find romantic about them.

[gardenmom5]

1 hour ago, GGardner said:

 

I don't think it's become normalized, I just think that we stopped sweeping it under the rug, and starting publicizing it. If anything, I think this kind of publicity denormalizes this activity.

I saw this sort of thing happening (mostly with male teachers) in small towns all the time growing up.  I was just reading about a minor political figure whose parents married when the mother was 13 and the father was 28 in the 1940s (!).  Newt Gingrich married his high school math teacher.

I think it is much more common to day - for *female* teachers to be sleeping with their students (male and female).  Most of them aren't as young, but some of them have still been made pregnant by them.

 

Macron - the president of France, got together with his live-in? wife?  when he was 15.

At least Goldie Hawn refused to get together with Kurt Russell when they met when he was 17.   She went off and lived her life and left him to finish growing up.  five years later they got together.  They seem to have a very good relationship.  an unusually long one for hollywood too.

3 minutes ago, Æthelthryth the Texan said:

It seems like social media and kids having cell phones was the tipping point. 

 

2 minutes ago, gardenmom5 said:

I think it is much more common to day - for *female* teachers to be sleeping with their students (male and female).  Most of them aren't as young, but some of them have still been made pregnant by them.

 

I think more cases are more widely publicized now, but I don't idealize the past.  I'm sure this was going on long before cell phones or color television.

[gardenmom5]

13 minutes ago, Æthelthryth the Texan said:

I think I would agree more if most of the women got more than a slap on the wrist. Some only get probation. If it was become more of an outrage I think fewer women would be doing it instead of more. I’m not sure if teaching is attracting some mentally unstable group or what the issue is now days, but I can say at least locally- before they shut the schools down it was happening a lot in the state and these were young, usually very attractive women. If the publicity was a deterrent I don’t think near the amount of women that are would be doing this. Likewise probably holds true for men? I just think it’s nuts than you need to worry as much these days about a female teacher as a male teacher when it comes to student safety. 

some of them, certainly not all, seem to think of themselves as still teens - or that teens are grown-ups, so they think it's all good.

I was so frustrated by the number of men who thought there was nothing wrong with female teachers violating male students.  - so it would be okay if your 12 year old son's teacher had two kids by him before he was 15?  why is that ok, but it would be wrong for your 12 year old daughter to have her teacher's baby?

[gardenmom5]

12 minutes ago, GGardner said:

 

 

I think more cases are more widely publicized now, but I don't idealize the past.  I'm sure this was going on long before cell phones or color television.

I didn't say it wasn't happening - I said I think it's more common.

I do blame hollywood romanticizing this case for that.  For the judicial system still giving women a slap on the wrist for this increase.

[mommyoffive]

29 minutes ago, Seasider too said:

She was a pedophile, plain and simple. 

YES. 

[mathnerd]

52 minutes ago, fairfarmhand said:

Can;t these young women who are seducing their students find a real live adult man to play house with? Whats the matter with them that they;d find a middle schooler or high schooler appealing? I see my dds age-mates and think "awww. What sweet little boys." and I can see how they'd appeal to my girls but there's nothing that I, as an adult woman, would find romantic about them.

Pedophilia is classified as a mental disease (or disorder). From Wikipedia:

Although what causes pedophilia is not yet known, researchers began reporting a series of findings linking pedophilia with brain structure and function, beginning in 2002. Testing individuals from a variety of referral sources inside and outside the criminal justice system as well as controls, these studies found associations between pedophilia and lower IQs,^[49][50][51] poorer scores on memory tests,^[50] greater rates of non-right-handedness,^{[49][50][52][53]} greater rates of school grade failure over and above the IQ differences,^[54] lesser physical height,^[55][56] greater probability of having suffered childhood head injuries resulting in unconsciousness,^[57][58]and several differences in MRI-detected brain structures.^[59][60][61]

Such studies suggest that there are one or more neurological characteristics present at birth that cause or increase the likelihood of being pedophilic. Some studies have found that pedophiles are less cognitively impaired than non-pedophilic child molesters.^[62] A 2011 study reported that pedophilic child molesters had deficits in response inhibition, but no deficits in memory or cognitive flexibility.^[63] Evidence of familial transmittability "suggests, but does not prove that genetic factors are responsible" for the development of pedophilia.^[64] A 2015 study indicated that pedophilic offenders have a normal IQ.^[65]

There is therapy and treatment for it, but, there is no guarantee that it would work. Which might be why Letourneau did not change while in prison (therapy provided by prison psychologists probably was not helpful to her) and she went back to her old ways. 

[mom2scouts]

I remember how disgusted I was when I first heard this story. I had boys the age of the boy she abused and they were definitely still children. Yuck!

We recently had a local school *superintendent* who was sent to jail for relationships with multiple teen students from her district!

Edited July 8, 2020 by mom2scouts

[PrincessMommy]

21 minutes ago, mom2scouts said:

I remember how disgusted I was when I first heard this story. I had boys the age of the boy she abused and they were definitely still children. Yuck!

We recently had a local school *superintendent* who was sent to jail for relationships with multiple teen students from her district!

I wish there was a descriptive that could distinguish these two types of pedophilia. Mary Kay clearly had mental health issues but she didn't seem to prey on multiple young boys... whereas the superintendent clearly did this.   

[sassenach]

I think the linked article in the OP shows we haven't exactly turned the corner on female pedophiles. Can you imagine attorneys talking about a male pedophile this way? “He accepted that it was a crime and that he had to serve his time, but when he got out he didn’t dwell,” Bremner said. “He moved forward in a very positive way and raised those girls. He was somebody I rooted for. I really wanted him to do well, and he did.”

[gardenmom5]

2 hours ago, fairfarmhand said:

 Can;t these young women who are seducing their students find a real live adult man to play house with? Whats the matter with them that they;d find a middle schooler or high schooler appealing? I see my dds age-mates and think "awww. What sweet little boys." and I can see how they'd appeal to my girls but there's nothing that I, as an adult woman, would find romantic about them.

This isn't about lack of a "real live man" - (consider how many are married.)  But that would require them to have a two-way relationship where they don't dominate an impressionable mind.

[gardenmom5]

7 minutes ago, sassenach said:

I think the linked article in the OP shows we haven't exactly turned the corner on female pedophiles. Can you imagine attorneys talking about a male pedophile this way? “He accepted that it was a crime and that he had to serve his time, but when he got out he didn’t dwell,” Bremner said. “He moved forward in a very positive way and raised those girls. He was somebody I rooted for. I really wanted him to do well, and he did.”

a lot of people didn't have an issue with a certain feminist politician having defended a male rapist of a 12 year old girl.

[OH_Homeschooler]

42 minutes ago, PrincessMommy said:

I wish there was a descriptive that could distinguish these two types of pedophilia. Mary Kay clearly had mental health issues but she didn't seem to prey on multiple young boys... whereas the superintendent clearly did this.   

 

There are different classifications of child  abusers, with different motivations. I used to have a good concise resource listing at least 4 different types but I can't find it. Here are a couple of resources though:

https://www.abusewatch.net/pred_sex.php

https://smart.ojp.gov/somapi/chapter-3-sex-offender-typologies

 

[katilac]

3 hours ago, fairfarmhand said:

 Can;t these young women who are seducing their students find a real live adult man to play house with?  

MKL was married, four kids, and a house in the suburbs. She wasn't even what I would call a young woman; she was 34.

[Laurie]

3 hours ago, GGardner said:

 

 

I think more cases are more widely publicized now, but I don't idealize the past.  I'm sure this was going on long before cell phones or color television.

A girl from my high school married a coach from our school.  This happened in the early 80's.   I don't think anything happened to the coach other than he moved on to teach and coach in a nearby school district. 

Today after reading this discussion about MKL I wondered if the girl that I knew was still married to him.  When I googled his name I found a disturbing article from back in the 90's where he's quoted because he had taught with a male teacher who had been shot at school by a former male student accusing him of years of sexual abuse.  (The article doesn't include anything about how this coach had married his own young student, though, just that he was shocked about his colleague's murder and how the guy taught at-risk students and would take them under his wing.   And shame on one of the reporters who wrote the story.  He must have known about the coach's past behavior since his son was also a student at our high school at the same time!  It makes me wonder if people are more willing to look the other way if the teacher is involved with the sports program rather than the Math Olympiad!)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[katilac]

1 hour ago, peacelovehomeschooling said:

She committed horrible crimes.  But she was a daughter and a mother and died way too young.    I feel sympathy for all of her children, family, and friends that cared and loved her.  

Yet I also think that her victim and her kids may have more peace in their lives now.

 

[fairfarmhand]

1 hour ago, katilac said:

MKL was married, four kids, and a house in the suburbs. She wasn't even what I would call a young woman; she was 34.

Oh yes, That is true.

 

I was more referring to the young twenty somethings that I see in the news who have slept with students.

[Selkie]

1 hour ago, fairfarmhand said:

Oh yes, That is true.

 

I was more referring to the young twenty somethings that I see in the news who have slept with students.

I’ve seen some 20-somethings, but plenty of 30- and 40-somethings, too. Boggles my mind!

[marbel]

2 hours ago, Laurie said:

A girl from my high school married a coach from our school.  This happened in the early 80's.   I don't think anything happened to the coach other than he moved on to teach and coach in a nearby school district. 

<snip>

 I have known a few people who married a teacher from their high school. They embarked on the romantic relationship after the student graduated, no big deal.

A new high school teacher can be, what, 23, 24?  A senior can be 17, 18, 19.  Not a huge age difference. 

[mathnerd]

34 minutes ago, marbel said:

 I have known a few people who married a teacher from their high school. They embarked on the romantic relationship after the student graduated, no big deal.

A new high school teacher can be, what, 23, 24?  A senior can be 17, 18, 19.  Not a huge age difference. 

 

 

7 hours ago, GGardner said:

I think more cases are more widely publicized now, but I don't idealize the past.  I'm sure this was going on long before cell phones or color television.

The President of France is married to his much older school teacher (and his parents tried really hard to break them up and keep them apart). But, news at that time said that he was having an affair with her (she had kids who were older than him) and they were sleeping together when he was 14 or 15 , I think. 

Edited July 9, 2020 by mathnerd