Someone called Bernadette Rooney writes well in the Guardian today about the Jeremy Forrest case, and her own relationship, aged 16, with her English teacher, aged 27.
Rooney writes, "There is a massive difference between accepting that Forrest should be barred from his chosen career for life and accepting the kind of narrative being drawn around this story. He is being widely talked about as a "paedophile" or "pervert" who "abducted" a 15-year old girl . . . child protection experts are vying with each other to find ever stronger language to condemn him. He had "groomed" his pupil, exploited his position of power, and committed "abuse" . . . while the teacher is being presented as a monstrous sexual predator, so the pupil is painted as a vulnerable victim who will suffer long-term "damage" . . . The experts' concern for the girl, however, does not extend to listening to her side of the story or respecting her repeated claims that the relationship was loving and consensual . . . (they) state that her positive view of the relationship is "an illusion".
About her own relationship, Rooney says, "I was not damaged by the experience, and have thrilling memories of the excitement of a relationship with an older intelligent man who inspired my love of literature . . . But such is the hysterical framing of this case that none of us are even allowed to say that . . . I was not a child who was damaged by an abusive relationship with a paedophile. I was an intelligent young adult with the power of reason who knew what I was doing and I don't regret a thing".
On the whole I'm on Rooney's side. Forrest did of course deserve to be sacked, and while he may not have harmed his pupil, there will be other pupils who could be harmed and who deserve to be protected. But Rooney is bang on the money when she says, "The experts' concern for the girl . . . does not extend to listening to her side of the story or respecting her repeated claims that the relationship was loving and consensual".
In this respect the law is on the experts' side; but the law strikes an inevitably arbitrary distinction between 15 and 16 - it assumes no 15 years olds can give mature consent but all 16 year olds can. The reality is more complex - some 15 year olds are mature enough and some 16 year olds aren't.
Sentencing guidelines which took into account what Jeremy Forrest's lover had to say about their relationship might have resulted in his getting a more realistic sentence than five and a half years in prison. Stuart Hall, remember, recently got 15 months for offences including a sexual assault on a nine year old girl.
I'm increasingly coming to the view that we are suffering from a Janus-faced attitude to sex. We are so concerned about protecting minors that Forrest gets five years plus. Yet pornography is widely available for free at the click of a mouse for the delectation, if that's the word, of young children, giving them a view of relations between adults which is misleading if not outright dangerous.
I would like to think that the experts who condemned Forrest and his lover are at the forefront of a campaign to do something about that, but I am not holding my breath.
As for Ms Rooney, it turns out that in her Guardian article she used a pseudonym to protect her husband. He is a teacher.
