voice
Lessons in
LOVE
g3 Readers’ Poll: In the wake of the recent conviction
What do you of music teacher, Helen Goddard,
think about Georgina Voss looks at student/teacher
teachers having lesbian relationships.
affairs with
their teenage A confession: I never fancied any of my teachers. Ms Large age differences between partners in LGBT
students? Masters (English) was too giggly, Miss Palmer (PE) relationships seems to be prevalent: with a smaller
39%
had terrifying pearly pink talons for nails, and Mrs group of potential lovers to choose from than our
Aniston (Further Maths) was deliciously strict but a straight peers, maybe age matters less when fi nding a
little too old for me. When the story broke about partner on the queer scene, especially as biological
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Helen Goddard, the London teacher who had an a age doesn’t always map on to emotional maturity.
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affair with one of her 15-year-old female pupils, I was Armistead Maupin, author of the Tales of the City
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therefore excluded from the discussions between books, coined the term ‘gay age’: the age at which
37% of you think it
my mates about which of their teachers their you come out. A 50-year-old may have the same ‘gay
depends if the student teenage selves had been hot for. age’ as her 30-year-old girlfriend if they both came
is over 16 or not and
Although both are castigated publically, female out ten years previously.
14% of you think that
teachers who get a little too close to their pupils are So if age isn’t the problem, what is? Even affairs
if they’re in love,
they’re in love…
treated differently from their male counterparts. between university lecturers and their undergraduates
To vote on next
Predatory male teachers are a menace to female are frowned on by most higher education institutions
month’s poll, visit students, whilst male students are often considered (although students themselves can rate the sexiness
www.g3mag.co.uk
lucky to get lessons in lovemaking from saucy older of their teachers at RateMyProfessors.com). The fact
ladies. In Zoe Heller’s Notes on a Scandal the that teachers are older than their pupils comes
difference is clear: whilst Sheba Hart is ‘offi cially’ torn second to the power balance between them. In
apart for her behaviour with a younger male student, 2001, the law was changed to refl ect this – teachers
men in the pub still see her as a ‘dirty desirable girl’. are now banned from having sexual relations with
So far, so tabloid. But what about same-sex any pupil at their school who are aged 18 or younger.
relationships between teachers and their charges? As Dr Petra Boynton, expert in sexual health and
32
Sarah, "' Hayley, "
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“It seems worse if its a 7\T]`[ObW]\ Sally, &
male, as men seem more /RdWa]`  /aaWabO\b;O\OUS`
predatory. But, society is “I don’t think the gender ObO1O`S6][S
probably more shocked of the teacher makes any “People in their mid
by a woman doing it. diff erence. Both male teens are vulnerable
Overall, gender makes no and female teachers are – and either a male or
diff erence, as it’s simply authority fi gures and female teacher would
an abuse of a position of should not abuse the be equally to blame for
power.” trust put in them.” taking advantage.”
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