Fowlkes, who taught anatomy and physiology at Lockhart High School, was accused of engaging in “sexual content with the intent to arouse or gratify the sexual desire” of the student in March 2017.
Fowlkes was charged with having an improper relationship with the lad after turning herself in to cops in March last year.
Lucky lad, wish I’d had a teacher like that when I was at school.
It’s different. Evil male teachers abuse their position of responsibility and take advantage of emotionally immature girls.
Female teachers f’nar, f’nar.
#metoo
#iwishitwasmetoo
“engaging in sexual content with the intent to arouse or gratify the sexual desire of the student”?
Hang on; surely that’s better than just doing it to gratify her own desires?
Philanthropic, really.
Why the smile? I suspect she thought she was in Rotherham.
This is really a technical rule. Had the lad been one year older there would have been no crime committed.
@Paul
Try that one when the teacher is male and the pupil a girl.
But even if the pupil had been a year older, there’s still the abuse of a position of responsibility. Or can every psychiatrist shag away with his/her emotionally disturbed patients because they are adults?
And, yes, the law is a bit technical isn’t it? If I’d have been doing 8 mph less I wouldn’t have been breaking the speed limit.
Dennis the Peasant:
Perhaps the smile is because she is not in Rotherham…
Basically though if I had been 15 and she came on to me then it would have been Wahey! Even though my logical part of my brain knows it would be wrong you would have a hard time persuading any 15yo straight boy of The wrongness
Even though my logical part of my brain knows it would be wrong you would have a hard time persuading any 15yo straight boy of The wrongness
And you’d have had serious emotional scars and difficulty forming healthy relationships for the rest of your life. That’s why it’s illegal.
“Had the lad been one year older there would have been no crime committed.”
I don’t see anything in the penal code for that:
https://statutes.capitol.texas.gov/docs/PE/htm/PE.21.htm
She is charged under Section 21.12. which is about educator – student relationships at primary and secondary schools.
So if a student is 18 and enrolled in the secondary school, it’s still a crime for a school employee to have sexual contact with them. It looks to be possible to still be attending school at age 26 in Texas:
https://nces.ed.gov/programs/statereform/tab5_1.asp
If so, still a crime. The age of consent in Texas is 17, so it’s not an underage sex issue. It’s definitely an educational trust issue. The only get outs seem to be if educator and student are married, or if they were already in a relationship before the educator was employed at a school (provided 3 years max age gap).
Although the Sun story says she had sex with the student, their activity was limited to her touching his genitals and him touching her breasts (it’s not clear if they were even unclothed). It’s sexual contact, not sexual intercourse.
@Henry Crun
#iwishitweremetoo
Tut, tut. See me after class.
And you’d have had serious emotional scars and difficulty forming healthy relationships for the rest of your life. That’s why it’s illegal.
I bow to your greater mental health credentials, Daniel, but, while accepting that it should be illegal, I think it is far from a given that it would have any lasting effects on the average teenage schoolboy. In fact, one could even grow up to be president of a major European country.
Doh!!
I know this:
“And you’d have had serious emotional scars and difficulty forming healthy relationships for the rest of your life. That’s why it’s illegal.”
..is a received wisdom, but I wonder strongly just how true it is. And in particular, whether the degree of ‘trauma’ received isn’t in larger part from the received wisdom than the act.
Naturally, this doubt rather suggests the “Ford Interpretation” – one realizes late that one’s life is a catastrophic ruin, but has the good luck to recall the one and only root cause, that root cause being illuminated clearly by the received wisdom.
But I’m not even an economist, so what do I know?
Tosh.
Any teenage boy who is seduced by an older woman and who subsequently develops “serious emotional scars” has other issues. Most would rightly consider themselves the lucky dogs they are.
It’s like blaming the break-up of a marriage on that final argument about who has the TV remote.
Huh, Americans. I thought it was to do with us and not Texas.
@wat dabney: You’re not there, you don’t know what the more powerful party is actually doing to the less powerful party. Depending on what actually happened, it could be really harmful stuff that’s goes on. There is some potentially some horrific psychological harm that took place. Doesn’t make it any different if the more powerful party (that tends to be older) happens to be attractive or not.
Now you see the Patriarchy inherent in the system, comrades!
Yes, the emotional damage can only be legally applied by a female in an appropriate age group.