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The following is a reproduction of a blog written by the Chair of our Board back in 2018 (not much has improved since, unfortunately!):
Let me come right out and say it – having sex with a 17 year old school pupil, when you’re their teacher, is completely unacceptable. Morally… professionally… ethically… You’ll not hear me argue that point.
But I do have to admit that, after 6 years of being slut-shamed by the tabloid press, I now feel justified in saying it’s gone too far.
Typically speaking, the tabloid press deal with female offenders in one of two ways, either they’ve lost their minds or they’re wicked. We never hear the whole story and we’re never provided with a balanced picture. These representations generally relate to the fact that the offender in question has, by breaking the law, defied one of the many female gender stereotypes our society holds so dear because the perpetrator of crime is no longer subservient to society. Throw sexual misconduct into the mix and it’s suddenly as if everything that our male-, hetero-, white-centred society is built upon might collapse at any second if the woman in question isn’t well and truly made an example of.
As the option of a Game of Thrones public shaming isn’t practical, who better than our nation’s tabloid editors to take responsibility for holding this woman to account? And, of course, if the woman in question just happens to be young and blonde, why miss the opportunity to sexualise every element of her life for the gratification of your readers?! After all, she did have sex. She’s practically asking for it!
Now I’m not deluded. I know that an illicit sexual affair is always going to grab headlines but was it really juicy enough to warrant a 6-year long story?! My offence happened in 2012. It’s now almost 2019. Is enough not finally enough?
3 years after my offence, did the public really need to see a photo of the inside of my bedroom (taken from the sales particulars of my house)? An intrusion into my privacy that meant every single one of the thousands of men who contacted me were able to go into graphic detail about exactly what they wanted to do to me in that room.
5 years after my offence, was it really in the public interest to publish the details of the business I had set up? Encouraging some of those same men to phone and e-mail me describing the “services” they would like to receive from my business. This meant that, when new clients contacted me, I had no way to know whether I would be walking into a genuine business meeting or a meeting with a potential rapist.
It’s 6 years on now and I can’t find one example of a male teacher still being written about so long after. It’s possible my googling skills are poor and maybe there is a male teacher somewhere out there with his very own Polish fan-site (yes, distressingly I really did have one of those!), but I doubt it. Because men abusing their positions of power, even when sex is involved, doesn’t disrupt the male gender stereotype. It isn’t condoned of course. It isn’t encouraged. But society isn’t surprised. Society isn’t shocked. In fact, as Donald Trump has taught us, they can still hold the highest office in the most powerful country in the world!
Instead, editors focus their efforts on shaming fallen women, jezebels, temptresses; on reminding the masses of exactly what society will do to any female who steps out of line; on ensuring all women understand that there is no time limit to the punishment inflicted by society for mistakes made.
I, for one, am exhausted by the constant sexualisation. I don’t know how many more times I can bear to see my face plastered across the tabloids with the words “sex miss” and “working girl” next to my name. As Marilyn Monroe taught us when she took her own life, being made into a sex symbol is not all it’s cut out to be. So, editors, from now on can you pretend that I wasn’t the first woman in the world to ever have sex illegally and let me take my “body for sin” to a quiet corner of the world and get on with my life!
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