Pamela Ann Smart, who still claims to be innocent (albeit indirectly complicit), is serving a life term at Bedford Hills Correctional Facility in New York for being an accomplice in first-degree murder. She was accused of seducing a fifteen-year-old boy, getting him so involved that when she threatened to leave him if he did not kill her husband, he agreed to do it. By the time he killed the man on May 1, 1990 in New Hampshire, involving three of his friends, he was sixteen. Upon his conviction, he received a forty-year prison term. Smart had met him at Winnacunnet High School where she was the media services coordinator. They had both volunteered at an event, and the attraction grew, despite the eight-year difference in their ages. (In an interview, she insists that she's not as culpable for this situation as a teacher might be, since she was not in a position of authority.) Some claim that Smart's part in this murder was misrepresented, but she has exhausted her appeals and in 2005 was denied a pardon.

One thing stands out in this case and those that follow: the women are generally self-centered and needy, in contrast to caring about the children's vulnerability and probable inability to make adult decisions about sex. These women seek their own goals and many seem unable to comprehend what they are doing to the child or to their own families. Most, in fact, were married when they decided to sexually abuse an underage minor. Afterward, they often describe how good it felt to be admired by these boys.

Dr. Patrick McGrain, assistant professor of criminal justice at DeSales University and an expert on sexual deviance, says that such women often suffer from low self esteem. "Something's missing from the puzzle and they're looking for it," he commented. "You won't find abuse in their background, such that you could say they're in that cycle of abuse where they then become the abusers. Often they're controlled in some aspect of their lives, like in their marriage, so they're looking for a way to control someone else. Some of them are sexually immature and it's probably just a need to feel desired. These boys will compliment them all the time and make them feel sexy. They don't consider what might be at risk; they're looking for something, whether it's to 'create' a young person into an adult or just trying to fill in something that's missing, they'll think only about their own goals."

A recent case appears to support the notion of sexual immaturity.

Allenna Williams Ward, a middles school English teacher, age 23, has been accused of having sex with five different boys, ages fourteen and fifteen, in the space of two months, starting in December 2006. The investigation began when school officials at Bell Street Middle School in Clinton, South Carolina recovered a note, given to them by a group of students. Its author was the teacher, Allenna Williams, and she had passed the note to one of the seventh grade boys. Since it contained sexually inappropriate messages, the principal summoned Ward to her office.

Surprisingly, Ward admitted to writing it and added that she had written others as well. She was placed on administrative leave, pending further investigation. Once officials started asking questions, they learned quite a lot from the students. This wasn't just a troubling incident involving a single student, but a number of such transgressions had occurred with others. They called the police.

Clinton's chief of police, John Thomas, came to the school himself to look at the letters and listen to the various accounts. It was clear to him that this was a criminal matter and he initiated his own investigation. On February 28, 2007, Ward was arrested as well as dismissed from her school employment. Charged with five counts of criminal sexual conduct with a minor in the second degree and six counts of lewd acts on a minor, she sat in a jail cell, refusing to talk and relatives got her released on a $110,000 bail.

As are most of these women, Ward was married but she nevertheless pursued sexual encounters with underage boys—allegedly five of them. While the typical such relationship involves an older female teacher and only one of her students, in this case, there was more than one. Supposedly, Ward had sex in a variety of places, from a park to the school where she worked, to a motel.

The school board was quick to issue a release, claiming that they screen potential employees with a criminal background check and instruct new hires on the school policies abut inappropriate behavior. They were shocked and saddened by Ward's behavior.

The Internet message boards were abuzz with comments about how Ward had been raised a preacher's daughter and had presented herself as a good Christian. People who knew her stated that they would not have predicted this kind of behavior from her. Yet the women who keep such secrets are generally good at developing a façade so that no one discovers what they're doing. The boys in this case apparently were making no comment.

Only the year before, in the same area, another female teacher approached an even younger boy.

The boy was only eleven years old and he said he was scared. The alleged offender, Wendie A. Schweikert, was thirty-six. A fifth-grade teacher at E. B. Morse Elementary School in Laurens, South Carolina, Schweikert was arrested in February 2006 and charged with two counts of criminal sexual conduct with a minor. Despite the prosecutor's insistence that she was a danger to the community and a flight risk, according to the associated press, a judge initially set her bond at $100,000.

The victim's mother, horrified over her son's treatment, told the court that he was "terrified that the defendant will go out on bond." She was the one who discovered the abuse after she became suspicious of Schweikert's overly friendly attention to her son. She removed the boy from Scheikert's class, but it was too late, as the alleged incidents — sexual interactions at school — had already happened.

The boy told his mother that he and the teacher had engaged in intercourse on her desk in the classroom, as well as two other acts. On one occasion, she had allegedly fondled him when six other students were present. The mother immediately contacted authorities. When the police confronted Schweikert about the allegations, she confessed. They also collected physical evidence from her desk, and she was taken into custody.

While Schweikert's bond was later lowered to $50,000, she faced charges in another county, because she allegedly took the victim to an amusement arena, Frankie's Fun Park, in Greenville, SC and there reportedly performed oral sex on him. Her bond in that county was set at $100,000, and conditions of bail were house arrest and no contact with the victim. Her case has not yet come to court.

State authorities suspended Schweikert's teacher's license, and since she had been employed at the school for nine years, they questioned whether there might have been other such incidents involving her but had turned up no evidence. Schweikert was married and had previously owned a gym for training cheerleaders.

Among the most famous cases is that of the teacher who refused to quit seeing her young lover, destroying her own family and defying society to achieve the ultimate union with him. Despite the attempt to keep them apart, in the end, they got what they wanted.

In 1992, Mary Kay LeTourneau noticed an eight-year-old boy in the second grade at Shorewood Elementary School where she taught in Burien, Washington. Part Samoan, Vili Fualaau's dark features were exotic and he seemed to show artistic promise. She liked him as a pupil and as he developed, she grew attracted to him as well. By the time he was twelve and in the sixth grade, she was ready to make her move. Despite being married and having four children at home (as well as being 34), LeTourneau was enamored. She offered him a reward for good grades by taking him to a restaurant. Once there, she grew bold and he was ready.

There has been extensive coverage of this case, from a made-for-TV movie to several documentaries to articles and several books. This is due in part to the fact that LeTourneau is pretty, vulnerable, and wrecked the lives of her adoring family, but also to her peculiar persistence in defying court orders to resume her forbidden relationship.

In a deposition interview aired on Court TV's documentary Forbidden Desire, at this restaurant, LeTourneau slide her foot under the table toward her prize student to play "footsie" with him. After the meal, they sat talking in her car and she claimed that Vili told her he wanted to kiss her. Within days, they were full-fledged lovers, convinced they were soul-mates. There was just one problem.

LeTourneau became pregnant, and she wished to keep this love-child. But that meant she would have to reveal the situation: Given Vili's distinct features, it would not be difficult for Steven, her husband of eleven years, to see that this child was not his. In fact, in 1997, he discovered love letters they had written and confronted her. His cousin reported the couple to child protection services and on February 26, she was arrested on a charge of child rape.

Mary Kay insisted it was love, and four months later gave birth to a girl. It came out, according to Gregg Olsen, author of a book on the case, If Loving You is Wrong, that Mary Kay was the daughter of a once-famous California Congressman who had disgraced himself. John Schmitz, a prominent member of the John Birch Society and profoundly right-wing, had two illegitimate children with a campaign worker—also a former student.

On August 7, 1997, Letourneau pled guilty to two counts of second-degree statutory rape. While the prosecutor insisted that this was a serious crime, Judge Lau accepted her interest in getting psychological help. He sentenced her to 89 months in prison and then suspended the sentence in lieu of her taking medication, attending a sex offenders treatment group, and having no further contact with Vili. After five months, she was free to return to her family.

Yet she was apparently not convinced she had a problem, as she took up with the boy once more and had yet another daughter. This time she received seven years in prison. She served it, found Vili again, and married him in 2005 (giving Entertainment Tonight exclusive access to the ceremony). He and his mother sued the school system for allowing the situation to happen, but lost.

Although Letourneau's fairy tale ended the way she hoped, despite the parenthesis of prison, we can question the nature of an obsessive love that exploits immaturity and vulnerability, as well as a position of authority and trust. Letourneau appears to have been concerned largely with her own needs, even violating the court's order as soon as she possibly could. Vili admitted in a televised interview that the situation probably should not have been allowed to get out of control. While he and his wife have now published a book on the subject, published in France, one can only wonder what will become of a twenty-something young man with a forty-something wife who has manifested such extreme need. That remains to be seen.

There is also a theory that Letourneau suffers from a mental disorder and thus had no control over her actions. Psychiatrist Julie Moore examined Mary Kay for the defense and diagnosed her as having bipolar disorder (the disorder most commonly claimed among these cases). In other words, she showed periods of intense energy and activity—including hypersexuality—-coupled with short periods of depression. That can induce inappropriate behaviors, impulsivity, and impaired judgment. She might find reward in high-risk behavior and remain unaware of the consequences.

A psychologist who treats sex offenders, Susan Moores, was quoted in an article about this disorder as saying that Letourneau showed a deviant sexual arousal pattern. Moores resisted the notion that a bipolar disorder caused the act; she placed the responsibility squarely on Letourneau's shoulders. The female teacher had made a decision that she knew was wrong.

Nevertheless, her behavior was different when on medication than when off, and she admitted to having stopped her medication once she was out of prison. She did not accept that she's bipolar and she insisted that she and Vili would spend the rest of their lives together.

Letourneau is just one among many female teachers in recent years who committed sexual abuse on a pupil. A few of them have received an abundance of media attention because they were quite pretty, young, and sexy.

It was another boy's mother in 2005 who discovered the relationship going on between Debra Lafave, a reading teacher at Angelo L. Greco Middle School in Temple Terrance, Florida, and her fourteen-year-old son. This woman notified the police and they set up a sting. After recording phone conversations between teacher and pupil that clearly implicated them in a sexual relationship, authorities moved in to make the arrest as Lafave went to the boy's home.

Now that the relationship had ended, the boy provided accurate details about Lafave's private parts and described how she had initially seduced him. Lafave's former husband, Owen, who divorced her shortly thereafter, wrote a book about the affair, indicating that Lafave, 25 (stated as 23 by Dateline, but her birthday was August 28, 1980), cultivated the relationship for several weeks until she finally had a chance to get her target alone. She took him to her home and performed oral sex on him. Soon they were fully engaged in a sexual relationship, apparently choosing her SUV as the liaison vehicle. Stories emerged of how his cousin drove the vehicle around while they had sex in the back.

In her defense, Lafave claimed that when she was thirteen, she had been raped, and during high school, she had undergone therapy for being involved with another girl. She believed her bipolar disorder had skewed her perception during manic phases, and thus she had acted inappropriately. Nevertheless, she appeared not to have improved greatly, as she entered her professional life without having a solid set of standards. Reportedly, she often dressed provocatively around the children.

While the prosecutor offered a deal, it included prison time, which Lafave refused to accept. Her defense attorney made a statement for reporters that drew national attention to the case: "To place Debbie into a Florida state women's penitentiary, to place an attractive young woman in that kind of hellhole, is like putting a piece of raw meat with lions." Apparently, because she was pretty, her safety concerns outweighed her crime.

When it appeared that Court TV would be allowed into the courtroom, the boy's mother, wishing to keep her son's name and likeness out of the press, reluctantly agreed to a plea deal that took prison time off the table. On November 22, 2005, Lafave pled guilty and received three years of house arrest and seven years of probation.

However, she had made the mistake of having sexual contact with a minor in two different jurisdictions, and the judge in the other county was not inclined to let her off the hook. He set a court date for 2006, but then the prosecutor dropped the charges.

On September 13, 2006, Lafave did an interview with Matt Lauer on the evening news program, Dateline, in the hope of explaining her side of the story.

The stated reason for the program was so that Dateline journalists could discover how and why a 23-year-old woman would seduce a 14-year-old boy and whether or not, in this case, an offender had paid the price of committing what society has deemed a crime. It's a trick to get such a person on these programs, to let them believe they will have the opportunity to tell their side of the story while also giving the public what it wants — satisfaction...and a bit of voyeurism. Dateline seemed to pull it off, as they showcased Lafave's immaturity.

Lafave began by admitting that she's recognized in public and often gets snickers and stares. It bothers her. She understood that her case got so much attention because she's pretty and "sex sells." But the intensity of the media interest seemed daunting. She admitted that she's troubled and that the long string of problems she had experienced over her lifetime influenced poor decision-making. Lefave revealed that she had experienced anxiety disorders ranging from panic attacks to obsessions. A boyfriend had also raped her when she was in eighth grade. "I kind of developed this idea that it was my role," she said in response to the question of why she did not report it or ask for help. "In order to make a man, guy, boy happy, I had to do my part."

Over the next couple of years, she developed a substance abuse problem and eating disorder. She tried to kill herself as well, but when she turned eighteen, she acquired a modeling job. It lasted a short time before she went to college, majoring in English. She hoped to become a teacher. Yet at school, she developed depression and then her beloved older sister was killed in a car accident by a drunk driver.

Finally, Lafave graduated and became an eighth grade teacher at Greco Middle School outside Tampa, Florida. According to what she said in her interview, she wanted to educate children about rape. Lauer pointed out the grim irony, but she side-stepped it. They went into the fact that she got married in 2003 to Owen Lafave. However, Lafave says she associated sex with sin and filth, and had a difficult time being a wife. Nevertheless, she appreciated the friendship, especially during recurring periods of bipolar disorder, with stretches of deep depression and periods of exuberant mania. Her energy apparently caught the attention of many of the boys in her class: she was considered "hot."

Then she chaperoned a field trip to Sea World, and the boy with whom she got involved was in her group. He'd already noticed her, she said, and became flirtatious. In addition to liking the attention, she did not feel much like an adult, although she had been a teacher for two years. She seemed to think she was not altogether responsible, but then she admitted to Lauer that she had "crossed a line that should've never been crossed."

It wasn't just sex, either. She seemed to become inappropriate in many areas, including substance abuse. She claims she felt confident and beautiful, and she wasn't about to stop what she was doing. She felt invincible. Finally she told the boy she could not stop thinking about him, an obvious open door for him. In her own classroom, she kissed him. Not long afterward, he approached her with a friend and forced her against the wall, exposing her breast to the other boy. She claims she tried to stop him, but his story was that she willingly flashed him.

Soon thereafter, Lafave drove one hundred miles to pick him up for oral sex, making her side of the story difficult to accept. She apparently thought other rape victims — and only rape victims — would understand. She also blamed her father for not being emotionally engaged with her. Apparently she believed this was an appropriate excuse.

It wasn't long before she had a sexual encounter with the boy in her classroom, after school was over. Then they carried on sexually while the boy's cousin drove her car. By now her husband suspected her of having an affair. Despite all of this, Lafave insisted that she was a "modest" woman. She also said she was in a fog and never considered the possibility that other boys who knew about this affair were telling people. "I felt that I was a peer of theirs," she said. She also mitigated her offense by stating that fourteen-year-olds today are different than when she was fourteen. Her lack of insight is telling, and many viewers were probably relieved to learn that she is now a registered sex offender who will not be allowed to work with children again. The boy said Lafave was aware that what she was doing was wrong. In fact, the wrongness was erotic for her.

Her final words to Lauer were that, despite the label, "I am not a sex offender." She's just a woman who made a bad choice.

Lafave got off lightly, although her teaching certificate was revoked. Because she was a pretty blond, the Internet was rife with chats about her indiscretion, including comments from many young males who wished they had such a teacher. One Internet site asks visitors to vote on which of the teacher-predators is the "hottest." The double standard in judgments on this case were pronounced, and even Lafave believed she should have gone to jail. Yet she ended up with a job as a waitress and a new relationship.

The next case involves an equally stunning woman, but this one also exposed her inamorato to graphic images. Some experts have referred to this kind of seduction tactic as an "erototoxin."

A pretty physical education teacher who made a lot of news from her antics was former beauty queen Pamela Rogers in McMinnville, Tennessee. Her brief marriage ended early in 2005, by which time the twenty-eight-year-old had already seduced a thirteen-year-old basketball player. She told him via a text message she thought he was cute, to which he responded that he thought she was "hot." They started to meet secretly for about three months at school, her home and his, but the affair was discovered and in February 2005, Rogers was in court.

She faced fifteen counts of sexual battery by an authority figure and thirteen counts of statutory rape. She initially pled not guilty but on August 12, 2005, she agreed to plead "no contest" to four counts of sexual battery and to serve about nine months in the Warren County jail (she was out in six). With a suspended eight-year sentence, Rogers had to serve just over seven years of probation, wherein she could not profit from her crimes, she had to register as a sex offender, and she had to leave the boy alone. In addition, she had to give up her teaching certificate.

Defying the court, Rogers sent a video image of herself in black lingerie to the boy's cell phone (which made it online to several Web sites). Some sources indicate she also sent nude photos, and she communicated with the boy and his sister via MySpace Web site blogs. A close acquaintance of the boy told a reporter for the New York Post that Rogers had become obsessed.

This activity was a blatant violation of her probation, so Rogers was arrested again on April 24, 2006. This time she received seven years in prison. She pleaded for mercy and apologized to all she had harmed. She admitted that what she did was wrong and said she was willing to rehabilitate herself, but the judge did not believe her. He ordered her to serve the rest of her sentence — seven years - at the Tennessee State prison for Women, and later added two more years when Rogers pled guilty to sending nude photos of herself to the boy.

Mental health experts indicated that Rogers was sexually immature, as well as addicted to sex. She's apparently not alone among female teachers: http://www.anonym.to/?http://www.freerepublic.com/~jasoncann/

In Minnesota, thirty-two-year-old Julie Feil indulged in a three-month affair with a 15-year-old boy from her English class. She stated, quoted by Matt Bean, that she "loved him the best way I knew how." Her situation, which occurred in 1998, seemed almost innocent in contrast to another teacher who can hardly claim poor judgment or even immaturity as an excuse. She could not have believed that what she was doing was justified.

Beth Friedman, 42, was convicted in Florida of contributing to the delinquency of a minor, because the boy she seduced claimed that after they met in a study skills class when he was only 14, she offered him gifts of alcohol and drugs in exchange for sex. Their affair lasted eighteen months and Friedman's defense was that the alleged victim was extorting her for money by making up lies about her.

But it's not just boys who are victims. Several female teachers have been caught having unlawful sexual contact with girls. Amy Gail Lilley, 36, got involved with a fifteen-year-old in Florida, receiving house arrest and eight years of probation. In Michigan, Elizabeth Miklosovic (pic related) pled no contest to assault a fourteen-year-old girl, whom she apparently "married" in a pagan ceremony in 2004.

Among the more desperate cases is that of Angela Comer, 26, a middle school teacher from Kentucky who actually took her young lover to Mexico, allegedly to try to marry him. He was fourteen. Among the charges against her were two counts of third-degree sodomy*.

There was actually a school psychologist who committed this crime as she got sexually involved with a sixteen-year-old boy, kidnapping him and his sister and giving them alcohol and pot. She was 45, and proceedings against her have yet to be completed.

*there are degrees of sodomy? I wonder if it goes by number of fingers inserted?

Even teaching interns get into the act as Margaret de Barraiccua went after a special-ed student, 16, seducing him in her car where she had her two-year-old child strapped in. The cops saw the steamed-up car behind a school in Sacramento, California, and stepped in, arresting her. Her attorney wanted to reduce the charges to misdemeanors, but the judge rejected his proposal. The intern was sentenced to a year in the county jail on four counts of statutory rape, also receiving five years of probation.

Carol Flannigan, an elementary school teacher in Boca Raton, Florida, apparently approached the eleven-year-old son of the man with whom she was having an adulterous affair (both were married), keeping the various sexual encounters separate but maintaining both at once. The boy said that Flannagan's husband was sometimes present. The victim's mother found graphic text messages so had the phone tapped. Flannigan was caught making a deal with the kid to lie for her, and the case was turned over to the police. She received five years in prison as part of a plea deal.

In California, serial predator Sarah Bench-Salorio, 28, had numerous sexual encounters with an eleven-year-old student at Santiago Charter Middle School before he ended it. She went on to a new school and took up with another thirteen-year-old, but this boy confessed the whole thing to his mother. She informed the police, who caught her before she could complete the conquest of yet a third young man, age thirteen. The second victim testified against her, but she reportedly mouthed "I love you" to him in court. Her MO was to send them numerous emails, have them to dinner and gradually get them under her power. She claimed she suffered from bipolar disorder and depression. On September 29, 2005, facing a possible term of 64 years in prison, she pled guilty to twenty-nine lewd acts with the three boys and received three to six years. She will also be required to register as a sex offender. Bench-Salorio was married and had three foster children. She viewed herself as a "good person" who made "terrible mistakes."

Three female teachers in Australia got involved recently in sexual relationships with fifteen-year-old students. Bridget Mary Nolan, Sarah Jane Vercoe, and Karen Louise Ellis all had unlawful sex with a minor.

Nolan was convicted in December 2005 in South Australia on three counts. In this case, there was a victim impact statement from the boy and his family to the effect that as a result of the encounter, the boy had been mercilessly teased at school and the family had undergone an extensive and difficult ordeal. The relationship began with a kiss on a school bus, which then turned into a full-blown affair. Nolan supposedly told authorities that she agreed to the sex so the boy wouldn't feel rejected or go to the authorities about the kiss. She received a suspended sentence because Nolan apparently showed "genuine remorse."

Only eighteen months of Vercoe's four-year sentence was suspended in 2005 after she pled guilty to eleven counts of having sexual intercourse with a person under seventeen. Once a science and math teacher at Rose Bay High School in Tasmania, she lost her teaching privileges as well, and parents of two of the victims spoke publicly about the impact of her crimes. They said the boys had not been willing participants, contrary to the stereotype about what boys want, and these parents were outraged that some people discounted them as victims. Vercoe, they said, had acted against the boys' wills.

Married a short time, she said she had experienced stress in the relationship, so she'd sought other sexual encounters, according to The Australian (which reported on all of these cases). The person she picked was a boy she was supervising at a school camp in 2004. She called him and left text messages, then invited him home when her husband was away, having him lie to his mother so he could spend the night. After a few weeks, it was the boy who decided it was wrong and ended it. When Vercoe wrote him a letter to persuade him to protect her, he went to the police.

Then Vercoe took four students, ages 14-16, to a party, drank with them, and engaged in sexual activities. She apparently threatened them if they told, but she was finally arrested a month later, in May 2005. She pled guilty to eleven charges. The judge called her a predator and the education minister in Tasmania instituted a new code of ethics for teachers, which would include prohibitions against such sexual violations.

Married and a mother of three, Karen Ellis taught high school and initiated a relationship by kissing a student in secret meetings on the school premises. She soon invited the boy home, where they engaged in sexual intercourse. In this case, it was the boy's mother who made the discovery, when she found Ellis's text messages on her son's cell phone. Ellis pled guilty in 2004 to six charges of sexual penetration of a child under 16. The boy was upset, stating that the affair had not only been consensual but he'd been the pursuer, yet the court took a dim view of Ellis' authoritative status in relation to him. By Australian law, he could not consent. Despite his public campaign to make the public understand he was not victim, Ellis was sentenced to twenty-two months in prison. The sentence was then suspended, but her name went on the register for sex offenders and she was prohibited from teaching again.

The prosecutor lodged an appeal, viewing this as unacceptable, which brought Ellis back to court in 2005; this time she received a longer sentence of two years and eight months. The appeal court took note of the fact that had she been a male teacher engaging thus with a female student, she would have served time, so she spent five months in prison before she was released in October 2005.

Let's look in more detail at what experts have to say about the psychology of such offenders. Not everyone agrees with how to view them.

In the February/March 2007 issue of Scientific American Mind, sex researcher Klaus M. Beier, at the Institute of Sexual Science and Sexual Medicine in Berlin, states, "There is no such thing as a pedophile woman," even if females commit child abuse. "I have never seen or heard of a single case over the course of my career."

Yet how would he explain the female predators who repeatedly target children of a specific age for sexual abuse? Their activities are similar to those of males, as are their erotic attractions. Can it make any sense to state so definitely that a female cannot be a pedophile? The opinions on this issue are mixed.

According to a list of twenty-one characteristics and behavioral indicators of a pedophile from the Department of Justice, if we eliminate the requirement that the offender be male, many of the other characteristics apply:

Usually married
Relates better to children than adults
Prefers children in a specific age group
Usually prefers either males or females
May seek employment or volunteer in programs that allow them to be near children in their preferred group
Pursues children for sexual purposes
May furnish narcotics or alcohol to child to lower inhibitions
May go to great lengths to conceal their activity
Is usually intelligent enough to recognize she has a problem
Often rationalizes her illicit activities, emphasizing the positive impact on the victim
Talks about children in the same manner one would use to talk about adult lovers
Is usually nonviolent and has few problems with the law.
Access to pornography
We left off association with pedophilic organizations and correspondences with other pedophiles, which are primarily male behaviors, but many of the other behavioral and personality symptoms attributed to male pedophiles are true of these female teachers, especially those who target more than one victim. The difference appears to lie primarily in the intensity of the fantasies about children, perhaps motivating more frequent voyeuristic activities. Looking at this list, it seems safe to say that at least some of these women fill the bill.

This same publication from NIJ insists that the conception that child molesters are strangers who go out and snatch children off the streets "couldn't be further from the truth." The majority, it indicates, are adults who seduce children through subtle intimidation and persuasion, and they are usually people the child knows.

Whether or not we can classify a female offender as an outright pedophile, according to the DSM-IV, there seems little doubt that they are sex offenders of some variety.

Usually married ?? doesn't seem too specific, does it?
Relates better to children than adults about the same
Prefers children in a specific age group Uh-oh
Usually prefers either males or females wtf? Is/is not heterosexual??
May seek employment or volunteer in programs that allow them to be near children in their preferred group too much effort, no, wait, OH SHI-
Pursues children for sexual purposes aww, c'mon, this test is rigged
May furnish narcotics or alcohol to child to lower inhibitions hmm... good idea...
May go to great lengths to conceal their activity uh-oh
Is usually intelligent enough to recognize she has a problem I don't have problems with what I do, it's other people who get hissy
Often rationalizes her illicit activities, emphasizing the positive impact on the victim uhh... oh dear
Talks about children in the same manner one would use to talk about adult lovers OH DEAR
Is usually nonviolent and has few problems with the law. Uh-huh
Access to pornography DUH

Females apparently represent only ten percent of sex offenders, and many of these are mothers molesting their children or female relatives of the victims. Yet the number of female teachers targeting students is increasing. These women initiate the activity with some type of flirtatious overture, taking advantage of boys who were sexually stimulated and flavoring their crime with a romantic tone. There was no violence involved, some of them rationalize, and the boys were willing, so what is the problem? These offenders apparently feel entitled to cross the line and take whatever they want. But they're abusing their roles to satisfy themselves. Romantic or not, they are female sexual offenders.

Some have only one victim, but many have several, and it's often not clear that those with one victim had actually limited themselves; it could be the case that they're just not talking and neither are their victims. Those who view the relationship as "love" and convince themselves that they're soul mates with the boy generally do stick to one victim.

Psychologist A. J. Cooper points out that the reasons why some women become sex offenders is incompletely understood, but he thinks that it might result from a combination of hypersexuality, associations with early sexual experiences, and imitation of abuse perpetrated on them (although only a few of the teachers have said they were abused). Most are immature, dependent, and sensitive to rejection, so they gravitate toward younger people who are not their peers. The risk of rejection is less likely and they create situations in which they can be in control.

Psychiatrist Janet Warren and psychologist Julia Hislop also researched female sexual offenders, and in Practical Aspects of Rape Investigation, they offer a typology:

Facilitators — women who intentionally aid men in gaining access to children for sexual purposes
Reluctant partners — women in long term relationships who go along with sexual exploitation of a minor out of fear of being abandoned
Initiating partner — women who want to sexually offend against a child and who may do it themselves or get a man or another woman to do it while they watch
Seducers and lovers — women who direct their sexual interest against adolescents and develop an intense attachment
Pedophiles — women who desire an exclusive and sustain sexual relationship with a child
Psychotic — women who suffer from a mental illness and who have inappropriate sexual contact with children as a result
In some cases, women who lacked ongoing relationships with men put their male children in the role of substitute lover, and there are cases in which the sexual contact is used as revenge against a male partner. These female perpetrators generally come from chaotic homes. "Not only does this have long term effects on the children," these researchers note, "but it also serves as a contagion that follows victims into the next generation with repetitious and cyclical traumatization of others."

There are increasingly more studies that focus on potential long-term effects on the victims of these associations. Frederick Mathews, Ph.D. writes in The Invisible Boy about studies since the 1980s that attempt to quantify the cases. Generally, the percentages are small, but they range from 1% to 24%, apparently (one study even had female offenders at 50%). That's a fairly wide range of findings, which indicates, perhaps, that the studies have not been rigorous as yet. As Mathews states, "These extraordinary differences tell us we need to start questioning all of our assumptions about perpetrators and victims of child maltreatment."

At the very least, it's fairly clear that the female teachers generally use a style of seduction known as grooming, in which they gradually get a child into position to respond to their overtures. Sometimes they're even encouraged by tolerant social attitudes.

It's generally the case that when an adult male gets sexually involved with a child, especially a female child, he is immediately charged with a crime, jailed and if convicted, labeled a sex offender. When the stories of females committing the same crime began turning up in the media, there was often less outrage, accompanied by the perception that boys were willing accomplices while girls were genuine victims. (Even some criminologists hold such beliefs.) Television comedians made jokes that they wished they'd had a teacher like Mary Kay Letourneau, because they wouldn't have minded being seduced. Michael Kuehl penned a long article, posted online, in which he states that boys are not victims and the idea that they can be harmed by this behavior is absurd.

Cathy Young calls attention to this double standard in an article for Reason. Responding to the fact that Vili and his mother had lost their civil suit against the school district and local police department in the Mary Kay Letourneau case for not protecting him, Young suggests that there is some hesitation in society for viewing boys like him as true victims.

We can only wonder what the parents of such boys think of these jokes, because some of the boys were actually frightened of the teacher's sexual attention. Yet it will be difficult to get society in general to see the problems with the attitude that boys cannot be victims of sexual assault by females.

In fact, Young noted a case in which the teacher received only probation for a similar offense in New Jersey: that of Pamela Diehl-Moore. At the age of 40, she entered into a sexual liaison with a thirteen-year-old male student. But it wasn't just her behavior that seemed questionable. It was also what the judge did.

Diehl-Moore was a schoolteacher from Lyndhurst, New Jersey. She met the victim, a seventh-grader at the Woodrow Wilson Middle School in Clifton where she taught, and they commenced an affair during the summer of 1999. Diehl-Moore took him back to her Lyndhurst home, where they had sex. She claimed it was consensual, but by law, a child that age cannot legally give consent. After her arrest, Diehl-Moore blamed depression for her lapse in judgment. She pled guilty to sexual assault, a second-degree crime punishable by up to 10 years in prison. However, prosecutors agreed to treat it as a third-degree crime and seek a minimum three-year sentence. But when the case came to court in Hackensack, New Jersey, they were in for a surprise.

Bergen County Assistant Prosecutor Martin Delaney argued that Diehl-Moore had egregiously violated the trust of a teacher-pupil relationship and committed sexual assault. "We need to send a message to these people that this is unacceptable," he insisted, "and you will pay with your liberty.''

But Diehl-Moore made a tearful plea to the judge not to separate her from her two daughters, promising not to ever do such a thing again. She insisted she had been trying to help the boy and it had grown into something more. Her attorney, Richard Galler, entered her history of mental illness: a suicide attempt by medication overdose and two hospitalizations since her arrest. She had a lifelong history of depression and had suffered through a divorce and her mother's recent death.

Superior Court Judge Bruce A. Gaeta was apparently moved by Diehl-Moore's emotional problems, as well as by his own opinion about such cases. "What good is it sending her to state prison, where she's not going to get any help for her problems?'' he asked. "This is an exception where society is best served by having her treated.''

He noted the lack of a victim impact statement, since the boy's father had declined to subject his son to the proceedings, and changed the terms of the deal by sentencing Diehl-Moore to five years' probation, ordering her to continue intensive counseling.

But there was more. Gaeta was quoted as saying, "I really don't see the harm that was done here and certainly society doesn't need to be worried. I do not believe she is a sexual predator. It's just something between two people that clicked beyond the teacher-student relationship, that evidently the help was lacking in his own family."

The judge also noted that he had seen no evidence that the boy suffered any psychological damage from the liaisons. "Maybe it was a way for him, once this happened, to satisfy his sexual needs,'' Gaeta said. "People mature at different ages. We hear of...newspapers and TV reports over the last several months of nine-year-olds admitting having sex.''

He noted that the affair had evolved from mutual consent, although he conceded that, by law, the boy was too young to actually give his consent. To this the judge commented, "Some of the legislators should remember when they were that age. Maybe these ages have to be changed a little bit."

After Gaeta made these statements, the Advisory Committee on Judicial Conduct received a complaint that requested a public reprimand. The committee found that the judge had violated the code of conduct by "making statements expressing a bias that indicated lack of impartiality in the course of a sentencing proceeding in a criminal case." Their published report indicated that the judge's statements expressed stereotypical views regarding the sexual nature of young boys, as if "a young boy's feelings about sex equate with a 'need' that should or must be met; that such needs may acceptably be met through sexual acts with adults; that a young boy has maturity, experience and understanding intelligently to consent to sexual acts with adults; that a young boy is not vulnerable or prone to psychological or emotional harm from sexual experiences with adults, and, further, that an adult participating in sexual activity with a young boy could be behaving naturally and normally." The committee found such a view contrary to the impartiality, open-mindedness and objectivity necessary to determine whether the boy in question had been sexually victimized. Such views were also inconsistent with the meaning and policy of the law that criminalizes sexual activity between adults and children. Gaeta's sentence was thus determined to have been erroneous. While noting that he was attempting to be fair to the defendant, his attitude about the victim was considered an inappropriate basis for a decision.

Young questions whether this judge —or anyone — would adopt the same position if it had been a 40-year-old male teacher with the 13-year-old female student. In fact, she points out, a male teacher in Virginia received a sentence of twenty-six years for the same acts, while a female coach having sex with an eleven-year-old boy, along with two other students, received only thirty days.

Traditional stereotypes are clearly at play in this issue, with a bias against the idea that males can be victims, and Young points out that before the 1970s, seduction by a female of an underage person did not even qualify in most states as statutory rape.

But the question remains: what effect does this behavior have on the boys?

According to the Child Molestation and Research Prevention Institute, sexual abuse causes harm that carries over into the child's adult life. On the Web site, they claim that studies show that this damage includes:

difficulty in forming long-term relationships;
sexual risk-taking that may lead to contracting sexually transmitted diseases, including AIDS;
physical complaints and physical symptoms;
depression, suicidal thoughts, and suicide;
links to failure of the immune system and to increases in illnesses, hospitalizations, and early deaths.
In a 2004 study, commissioned by the Department of Education, author Charol Shakeshaft indicates that nearly ten percent of U.S. public school students have experienced sexual advances from school employees. While not all of these abusers are teachers, and certainly a small percent involves female offenders, it's still a disturbingly high number. The report was titled "Educator Sexual Misconduct: A Synthesis of Existing Literature," and within this ten percent are students who have reported unwanted sexual innuendo, as well as groping, inappropriate invitations, and even outright rape.

Shakeshift insists that educator misconduct is "woefully understudied." Among their seductive behaviors are deception, gift-giving, isolation, understanding, gradually increase in inappropriate touching, and other methods to make them feel complicit in sexual activity. "Often the teachers target vulnerable or marginal students who are grateful for the attention." It's a desensitization process that works more quickly with boys, and includes tests to see if they will remain silent and secretive. Often the teacher will provide additional help that leaves the child alone with them, creating the aura of a special relationship.

When children do go to authorities, they might find they're not believed, which adds another level of harm. Now they'll really feel isolated. The report states that this fear is top on the list of reasons why children say they don't come forward, and so the abuse continues perhaps longer than it might.

Mathews states that many adolescent boys abused by women become rapists and sex offenders, targeting girls. "There is an alarmingly high rate of sexual abuse by females in the backgrounds of rapists, sex offenders, and sexually aggressive men." He cites one study finding 59%, another 66%, and a third from 1993 stating that it is 80%. The implication is that they are expressing rage against women for being at least psychologically violated themselves.

Hislop and Warren agree. "A number of researchers have found that children who have been abused by females have often experienced significant difficulties." In one study, the boys said that the immediate effects of being molested by women were devastating. Other studies indicate that they experience adjustment disorders and have problems in relationships or parenting. Many also experience sexual identity issues.

Issues that have not yet been addressed with this population of victims involve the way the boys are maneuvered into becoming sexual accomplices. We can look at another study for that and apply those findings.

with the teacher/offender situation, while it may be true many boys are willing to have a sexual relationship, it's also clear that the superior position of the teacher, her authority and her seduction tactics have some effect. These women apparently feel entitled to do what they're doing and they engage the boy in a shared secret that feels exciting. They target them, use enticements, reshape their thinking about the appropriateness of what they're doing, and isolate them as a way to make them keep the secret. Those who threaten would then be taking the final step in this process.

Journalist Michael Clancy cites a study undertaken by Donna Vandiver at Illinois State University and Jeffery Walker at the University of Arkansas, who analyzed 40 cases of female teacher offenders. They were largely young and white, and without prior criminal records. Several had abused drugs and a few (no percentages cited) suffered from some form of mental illness, such as depression or bipolar disorder. Some had abuse in their history.

Clancy also indicates that in Arizona, dating back to 2002, ten female teachers had lost their teaching certification due to sexual offenses. Three faced criminal penalties.

On May 30, a second student came forward in this case to say that he'd had sexual contact with Mally. By this point, she had been charged with seventeen counts of sexual contact with a minor. However, this student was 18, so he was not considered a minor, although he was a student (not illegal but unethical).

At this time, the police report was made public, revealing the victim's admission that he was the one who had initiated the encounter with Mally. He'd initially sent her questions about an assignment via text messaging and he soon began asking about sexual activity. She apparently responded in detail, getting personal. They developed an attraction and agreed to wait for sex until after he graduated, but then went ahead with it.

At the request of police, the victim participated in a sting, calling Mally and getting her responses on tape. She admitted she knew his age, that what she was doing would land her in jail, and that she was indeed having sex with him. According to the Mesa Tribune, Mally had repeated sexual contact, in both of their residences, in her car, and at other locations in the area.

Despite the fact that some* of these teachers are getting harsh sentences, this activity will continue, prompted in part by society's shifting attitudes.

Female sexual predators rarely give much evidence of forethought to what they would do once they seduce their target. They're often too immersed in romantic fantasy to grasp what may lie ahead. Kelsey Peterson was a 25-year-old girls' basketball coach and sixth grade math teacher at Lexington Middle School in Lexington, Neb. She allegedly became infatuated with a thirteen-year-old boy in the eighth grade, who was taking math with her in her lower level class. By some reports, they were involved for months.

Eventually officials received complaints about Peterson's behavior, presumably in relation to the boy, and confiscated her school-issued computer and placed her on paid leave. According to the Associated Press, authorities opened an investigation based on revealing e-mails between Peterson and the boy, which precipitated the pair's flight to Mexico on October 26, 2007. Police searched Peterson's home and found several love letters. The FBI was called in, and a nationwide manhunt was on for yet another female teacher turned predator involved with an underage child.

The boy himself revealed in emails that their relationship was sexual, so there was solid ground for charges. Peterson had written her own incriminating messages, assuring the victim that she was being "100% faithful." The boy's family said that the relationship had begun last year, becoming obsessive as the two spent increasingly more time together. Relatives had reportedly tried without success to end it, although there was no word that they had reported Peterson to school officials. One relative told reporters that Peterson had given the boy a cell phone so they could secretly call each other.

On October 28, a judge issued an arrest warrant, charging Peterson with kidnapping, child abuse, and contributing to the delinquency of a minor. Two days later, an automated system at the border between California and Mexico registered the license number on Peterson's car. Now she faced federal charges of transporting him over state lines for sex, and into foreign territory. The boy, revealed to have been an illegal alien, had relatives in Mexico. From the border town of Mexicali, he phoned a relative from a shopping mall to ask for money. The family alerted authorities, who went that Friday evening to the mall and spotted Peterson's car in a parking lot. She was in it alone.

A special unit from the Baja California state police approached her, but she denied being the woman they sought. They showed her the "Wanted" poster that featured her photo, and she then surrendered. The boy then came out from his nearby hiding place. He told police that their plan had been simply to keep driving deeper into Mexico and eventually set up a life together somewhere. They had no specific plan and little money — about $400 — so he had called to get more.

Peterson was arrested and returned to the U.S. The boy, however, remained in Mexico, in the custody of his relatives, and it's likely he will be unable to return legally to the U.S. He would be able to re-enter as a crime victim on a special visa if he agreed to assist the prosecution, but once the case were resolved the visa would expire.

Peterson, an unmarried native of the area, herself graduated from Lexington High in 2000. As a student, she had been a member of the National Honor Society and the Future Educators of America. She had a child while in high school, now eight, who did not reside with her at the time of her flight.

Several MySpace watchers pointed to Peterson's page, which ironically carried the advice, typed all in caps: "Watch your thoughts, for they become words. Watch your words, for they become actions. Watch your actions, for they become habits. Watch your habits, for they become your character. Watch your character for it becomes your destiny." At her first court hearing in California, she remained silent.

So... yeah... what do we feel about this sort of thing? When is consent to be considered co-ersion in general, for example?

The central theme is the inbalance of power in the relationship, yet that is prevalent in Western Culture, promoted as desirable to a large degree.

Or perhaps you have a teacher fuck story you'd like to share with us? Or even tips on how to seduce jailbait? Quid pro quo, Clarice...

>>30
same way I feel about men imposing on young girls. If she's pre-pubescent it's wrong. Post pubescent, it's not really rocket science to tell an exploitive relationship from a real relationship. Then again I often see older people in exploitive relationships (male and female) and hold the same anger frustration to the situation as I would if they were pubescent/adult relationships.

>>25
where do i find ppl like in the pic irl?

>>32
Seriously? In theatres during intervals, the best place to chat-up jailbait/young women. It's where they are all hiding. Your season ticket is a pass to warm teen kisses and tight, tender bodies.

Failing that, you'll need to get a job at a video store (very difficult these days due to diminishing numbers), and they come in mob-handed to rent one film together and you will quite literally be the only non-school, non-blood relative a lot of them talk to at all. But definately try the theatres in your locale, they land you many more dates and you have the added bonus of not having the clingy ones you get caught by hanging around your place of work.

Striking up a conversation is very easy (the play that's on), and you'll be out-numbered four to one by young women suddenly interested that there's a guy about, so if you get brushed off by the first few, you'll almost certainly be chatting to a more pleasant one in the next five minutes or so. Also, the sort of girl who hangs around theatres is almost certainly going to be a bit more interesting to talk to, and be more likely to want to talk to you than, say, a girl who hangs around in shopping malls.

Another good spot for a certain type of jailbait is art museum foyers, but it very much depends on what's showing, and they won't want to know if you don't have the arty vocab/prominent sketchbook.

For the more obvious cutter-types you can find them in outpatients, absolutley no joke intended, but you'll more likely be chatting to the much older ones as jailbait is usually accompanied by very pissed off relatives.

And in all honesty, cutter girls who need serious medical attention are fucking mental anyway, quite a few steps up the needy, attention-seeking scale than the teen-fad emo types.

>>33

>the sort of girl who hangs around theatres is almost certainly going to be a bit more interesting to talk to, and be more likely to want to talk to you than, say, a girl who hangs around in shopping malls.

Usually you give good advice, but theatre-bait are realistically identical to mall-bait. The difference is, there's a wide cross-section of bait types present at a mall due to the diversity of retail offerings there.

>>34
It is precisely the consumer-orientated nature of retail palaces that limit conversation along purchasing lines, never a good place to start chatting someone up.

Granted, there is more opportunity to snatch handbags and children at the mall, so they're not all bad.

>>35

>limit conversation along purchasing lines

Never ran into that problem.

>>36
Well there we go then, another great spot for lolitics is the mall, pick a store and lurk.