Not one foolish lapse? Constructing sexuality in teacher-student sexual relationships

Abstract

Teachers who engage in (consensual) sexual relations with their students who are between 16 and 18 years of age commit serious offences. While the law constructs the matter as a breach of trust such cases also raise important issues of how female teachers as compared with male teachers are portrayed and treated by the legal system, how such cases can readily give rise to moral panics about child protection and how children's sexuality is constructed. The paper thus pursues a number of themes. Courts often stress that female teachers should not be treated differently from male teachers who commit such offences. This paper explores the extent to which this is possible when female teachers are constructed as the 'mother' figure and as a consequence the breach of trust in such cases is magnified. A further theme explored within the legal construction of such relationships is the extent to which the notion of the 'maturing child' of Gillick fame seems to completely disappear. Finally, in many jurisdictions teacher 'codes of conduct' have been drafted to address such matters. But are these a useful response? The paper investigates these themes through an analysis and comparison of a number of cases in different jurisdictions to determine what they tell us about the law's approach to such relationships and the manner in which particular notions of sexuality inform the law's response.