A teacher–someone society tells you to trust, someone who looks out for your well-being, someone you have repeatedly been told to obey. Someone to have sex with?

–––

‘Bloody hell,’ says Tom the Pom, looking out at the drizzle of winter rain next to me. ‘Reminds me of England.’

‘Our’ café is closed today and for some unexplained reason there was not even a note on the door. We’re all cold from the surf, so Andrew’s suggested we grab takeaway coffees and come up to his place instead. We’re in Andrew’s apartment, the front of which you might recognise if you’ve ever seen a picture of Bondi Beach. Any closer to the ocean and you could jump off the balcony and land on the sand. Looking out at the view, the damp and desolate beach filling his living-room windows, I wonder why we don’t do this every week.

Michael is stretched out on the thick cream carpet behind us, reading the papers. Tom’s in his kitchen making noises which have us hopeful of food.

A teacher has just been sent to prison for fifteen years for having sex with a fifteen-year-old kid in her class.

‘Look at this!’ says Michael suddenly, and Tom and I turn from the window, our cardboard coffees bumping into each other. ‘This teacher has just been sent to prison for fifteen years for having sex with a fifteen-year-old kid in her class.’

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‘Fifteen years!’ Tom and I say together. I’ve been in Australia long enough now that I can hear the Englishness in our accents, more Austin Powers than James Bond. Michael reads out the story.

‘Kathryn Ronk, of Michigan, pleaded guilty to third degree criminal sexual conduct with a student. They had sex in classrooms, a car, and a third location in a nearby county, whatever that means.’

He turns the paper and holds it up so we can see the photos of the teacher.

‘Not bad’ says Tom. ‘Did someone examine the kid’s back to see if was damaged from all his mates patting him on it?’

‘What?! So rape’s a joke now?’

◊♦◊

None of us has noticed Andrew entering the room. He’s carrying a tray of buttered toast with jars of jam and marmalade. And, I kid you not, he’s wearing an apron. The expression on his face tells me not to make a joke about this last point.

‘Statutory rape’ says Michael, reading from the paper again.

‘Rape is a big ugly word’ says Tom, taking a piece of toast from the tray before Andrew’s even put it on the coffee-table. ‘Rape for me implies violence. Is there any indication here the kid wasn’t willing?’

The point is, he’s a child. Therefore, it’s rape.

‘The child’ says Andrew testily ‘probably wasn’t in a position to decide if he was willing or not. But even if he was, the point is he’s a child. Therefore it’s still rape.’

I ask what the age of consent is in the States, hoping a concentration on the facts will help. Andrew crosses to a huge oak desk, picks up his iPad and starts stabbing at it with his forefinger.

‘In Michigan it’s sixteen’ he tells us.

‘She should have waited a couple of months’ says Michael from the floor, where he’s now turned to a sports story. ‘Given him a legal birthday present.’

‘None of you are parents’ says Andrew, dropping the iPad heavily onto the desk. ‘You don’t understand. If anyone ever touched one of my boys…’

He looks at his watch, and I suspect he’s just remembered he has to pick them up in an hour or so.

‘Your boys are nine and eleven’ says Michael. ‘That’s different. And no, none of us are parents, but we were all once fifteen year old boys. We all remember how willingly we would have had sex with a woman who looked like that. Apart from you, Ged.’

I tell him not to worry about me. I spent a lot of my sixteenth year fantasising about sex with Mr Breckenridge, my maths teacher. Most of that was in the classroom too, come to think of it. Tom laughs out loud at this but Andrew is not amused.

The law was there to protect you. Your teachers were there to protect you too.

‘Maybe you’d liked to have driven a fast car or got drunk or taken drugs’ he says. ‘But you didn’t because the law was there to protect you. Your teachers were there to protect you too. And, for the record, I don’t know what it’s like in Michigan but in New South Wales the age of consent is sixteen too. Unless you are a teacher or other form of guardian, in which case the other person has to be eighteen. So if she wanted to give him a “birthday present” she’d have had to wait three years.’

He’s not quite shouting this but he’s not far off it either. If Tom’s around, this normally this leads to a fight. No matter what side of the argument he’s on, Tom can’t resist responding in real shouts before storming out in a huff. Michael and I look at each other nervously.

◊♦◊

But Tom just puts down his cardboard coffee cup, wipes his mouth free of crumbs and walks slowly into the kitchen. I’m pretty sure he meant to go to the bathroom but that’s on the other side of Andrew.

‘I think we all agree she shouldn’t have done it,’ I say to break the embarrassing silence we’re left in. ‘We’re just shocked at the fifteen year sentence. What’s the point in that?’

“They were all about you and what you were going through. Poor you. Nothing about the victim.”

Michael has flipped back to the article in the paper. ‘Says here the judge was distraught and angered over receiving so many letters supporting the teacher. Quote: “They were all about you and what you were going through. Poor you. Nothing about the victim”.’

Michael’s pronounces the last word so ironically that I jump in before Andrew can.

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‘Come on, Mikey, we don’t know the facts. Sure, this kid might be mature and confident, and he might have wanted it. But it’s just as likely he’s gentle and easily-led and she might have really screwed him up. We’re reading a news story, not the court transcript. If the judge describes him as a “victim” she probably has her reasons.’

‘He’s a child’ says Andrew. ‘In a sexual situation, of course he’s a victim.’

‘I had sex when I was fifteen’ says Michael. ‘It was great.’

‘Who with? With someone in authority, who you weren’t sure if you could defy? Someone who you had repeatedly been told to obey? Someone society told you to trust, someone who’s job it was to look out for your well-being?’

Mikey doesn’t have an answer to this and, I’ll be honest, I hadn’t thought of it that way either. It occurs to me for the first time that Tom is wrong, we don’t remember what it was like being fifteen years old.

Andrew sighs heavily and sits down on the nearest sofa, his feet near Michael’s paper. He looks worried and I suspect he’s wondering what Tom is up to. He notices his apron, swears and starts pulling himself free of it.

If the judge was pissed off at getting the letters, she should punish the people who wrote them – or the lawyer who encouraged them – not the person they were written about.

‘Either way,’ he says when he’s finished, ‘the letters are a ridiculous justification for any sentencing. If the judge was pissed off at getting the letters, she should punish the people who wrote them – or the lawyer who encouraged them – not the person they were written about. And a fifteen year sentence is just stupid. Sounds like a headline to me, read on and you’ll probably find she’s due for parole in five or something. You two going to eat this toast or what?’

◊♦◊

It’s fifteen minutes later when Tom joins us again. We’ve moved on to discussing the imminent arrival in Australia of Netflix and all the toast has gone. Tom must have washed his face in the kitchen sink, his face is damp and his hair is stuck flat to his forehead.

‘I did it’ he says, plumping himself down on the sofa beside Andrew. ‘I bloody well did it!’

Andrew obviously knows what he’s talking about and gives Tom a smile and congratulatory punch in the arm. I’m not sure I want to ask, so I let Michael do it from the carpet. Did what?

‘I breathed myself down My anger-management guy’s teaching me this technique for when I get angry. Even though at that moment at least one of you is a complete idiot deserving a slow death, I have to go away and breathe and stuff and….ha, I did it!’

Learning the difference between what you want to do and what’s right to do is what being an adult is all about.

‘It’s called taking responsibility for your actions’ says Andrew. ‘Learning the difference between what you want to do and what’s the right thing to do. We all have to do it, that’s what being an adult is all about.’

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‘Easy’ says Tom.

‘Don’t worry,’ says Mikey from the carpet, flicking back through the paper to find the right page. ‘He’s not talking about you. He’s talking about….HOT TEACHER!!!’

And so it all kicks off again. But this time Mikey’s on his own.

5 Bad Surfers take on social issues of relevance to the modern man.

Photo Credit: Getty Images

