'Dawson's Creek' comes to life
Campus Times
February 13, 1998
What in the hell does a 32-year-old lady want with a 14-year-old kid?
Has Mary LeTourneau gone out of her mind?
What 32-year-old teacher falls in love with one of her 13-year-old students,
has sex with him and then has his baby?
Well, LeTourneau, of Seattle, Wash., did just that.
Last spring, LeTourneau, who was an elementary school teacher, had a
continuous sexual affair with one of her students who was 13 at the time.
The child, (who remains unidentified because he is a minor and is now 14)
and LeTourneau have an 8-month-old baby girl who is taken care of by the
boy's mother.
LeTourneau, who was released early on Jan. 2, was ordered by the court
to stay away from the boy. However, last Friday, she violated those terms
and was found in a parked car with the boy, more than $6,000 in cash, a
passport, men's clothing and a bunch of baby clothes. AP reported that the
windows were steamy. Police believe that they planned on running away and
possibly taking their baby girl with them.
The more I think of it, the more angry I get. It is totally disgusting
to imagine them kissing, let alone having sex and having a baby. At 13,
I didn't even think boys could come to the point where they can climax and
produce a baby.
What can she possibly see in him? What sort of pleasures does a child
give her that any man 18 years old or older and legal could not?
When I think of how one of their Friday nights would be, playing Play
Station until the sun rises and drinking milk and eating cookies, it sure
sounds romantic to me. Or what about those long intellectual talks that
they will have with each other with his junior high education? For God's
sake, the boy cannot even get his driver's license and he has a baby girl.
He is just a baby himself.
The boy still has a lot of growing up to do in more than one way, if
you know what I mean. His body and mind have still not matured to be the
man that he will become. If he is pleasuring a 32-year-old women now, just
think what he will be able to do five years from now.
What could they possibly have in common with each other, other than
sex? Either LeTourneau must be really immature, or the boy must be really
mature. But whatever the case is, it does not make it right for them to
be together. It is sick that they are together, whether or not they think
they are in love.
The same sickness exists in situations on Jerry Springer, where 14 year
old girls and 25 year old men profess their love for each other. In both
cases, the younger parties are being used because they are too naive to
understand their lover's feelings or even their own feelings.
Sure the boy thinks he is in love. Here is a women who probably pays
for everything (he cannot have any type of job-the child labor laws only
allow children to begin work at the age of 16), probably lets him do what
he wants when he wants, has a vehicle to drive him around and has sex with
him. At 14, that would sound like the perfect situation to any boy.
When he says he is it truly in love with her, does he even know what
love is? Kids think they know everything, but do they know that the brain
does not fully develop until the individual is about 18? How could he understand
the concept of love if his brain is not fully developed?
Maybe he does and maybe he does not, but nevertheless, the whole situation
is still gross and should not have continued to go on.
The state of Washington should have given LeTourneau a strict restraining
order against seeing the boy.
She does not have it all together upstairs, in my opinion. She must
have some sort of chemical imbalance, because this sort of thing is just
absurd.
LeTourneau was ordered to prison for seven and a half years when she
violated her early probation by seeing the boy. She should not have been
released early in the first place.
Whether it is an older woman with a much younger boy or an older man
with a much younger girl, both instances are sick and should be taken care
of the appropriate way in the first place.
Laura Czingula, a senior journalism major, is editor in chief of
the Campus Times. She can be reached by e-mail at czingula@ulv.edu.
