Today I said farewell to a group of young men who I will miss a great deal. While there were of course, as with all groups, some individuals less amazing than others, on the whole they were one of the finest cohorts I have ever had the pleasure of teaching.
I fell in love with each of these young men a little bit. I fell in love with their youth, their humour, their energy. I fell in love with the way I felt when I was in their company. And I feel wary about admitting that, knowing full well that suspicions do arise when teachers and their older students become 'too close'. And while I know there was absolutely nothing untoward about my relationship with any of these wonderful young men, I am also aware that for some teachers and their students, THAT line does get crossed.
Let me be the first to state that for an intimate relationship to develop between a student and a teacher is an abuse of power. It is wrong. It should never happen. There is absolutely no excuse and the teacher, as the adult, as the one who holds the balance of power, is totally, completely and utterly responsible for any breach of their professional duty. I would love to say that all teacher-student relationships are pure and innocent and that the suspicions which befall teachers are unjust and a product of media sensationalism. However, I can't say that. I can't say that because THAT line does get crossed. I have seen it happen. And it will continue to happen. And this is why.
The physical differences between an eighteen year old boy and a younger man is negligible in most cases. And when disparities are apparent in their physique it is normally the older man that is on the wrong side of those differences. We are bombarded by the media with images of lust-worthy, washboard stomached men, with chiseled cheekbones covered in designer stubble. And in all honesty, the latest Calvin Klein model bears a far more striking resemblance to the captain of a high school football team than to the man who lies next to me every night farting in his sleep. The same goes for the opposite sex. Eighteen year old girls are, on average, far more physically attractive than a thirty-five year old woman, stomach riddled with stretch-marks, thighs dotted with cellulite and boobs sagging from breast-feeding three children. We are programmed to find that youthful confidence and strength attractive. And let's be honest, no matter how much we love our partners, no matter how devoted and faithful we are, there will always be moments when we just want to fuck someone new, someone different. Not because we no longer love our better-halves, but because we want to fall in lust again. We want that first kiss, that urgency, that desperate, aching need to feel those hands. Just for a moment we want more than the once-a-week, I-suppose-we-should-do-it-because-you'll-have-your-period-next-week sex.
High schools are hot-beds. Hundreds of teenagers, hormones raging. They are places of action, of intensity. High school students are for the most part, creatures of the immediate, living today for today. Many are hedonistic, acutely aware of what the years can do thanks to the images of their parents, and determined to devour as much pleasure as they can. Most of the time the teachers are not part of that. But then comes those blurry lines.
A colleague told me the other day that every high school boy has, at one stage or another, had a fantasy about their female (or in some cases, male) teacher. So there we are, the object of lust. Most who become teachers are not accustomed to occupying the role of the desired. At heart we are nerds, geeks, who often have painful memories of being the sullen semi-goth at the back of the classroom, ignored by the opposite sex, unless it was for the purposes of torture or torment. And in some cases we are vulnerable, vulnerable to our own weaknesses, our own desires, vulnerable to the charms of a good looking young man paying us greater attention than we've had in years from our partners.
But that is the line. Crossing over that very fine but very precise line is where a good teacher can go bad. It is one thing to be flattered, to blush, to even at the very extreme have a fleeting thought of 'what if', but stepping over that line is a whole other story.
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