Mary Kay Letourneau, made famous for her affair with her former sixth-grade student who is now her husband, has hosted a night out at a Seattle bar with the theme “Hot for Teacher”. The Seattle Sports Bar and Grill Fuel is hosting the event and Seattle’s KHQ is reporting about the story here.
Mary Kay Letourneau and Vili Fualaau
This case drew a lot of attention for the fact that she began a sexual relationship with a former student of hers who was 12 years old at the time. Mary Kay spent over seven years in prison after being charged and convicted of rape. In my mind that wasn’t nearly enough time, but that’s just me.
This case drew a lot of national attention because of how sensational this story is. Here’s the problem, we’re all fueling the fire with this one. This woman only spent 7 years in prison and is now going to be discussed and profit off of this story for years to come. She married the boy, who is the father of two of her children, after she got out of prison. Think about this for a minute, she spends 7-1/2 years in prison for this. The child was 12 when the affair began, and if I remember correctly he was 20 or 21 when she got out and they immediately started up their relationship again. Basically she was denied 2 years of having a legal relationship with this kid. Two years?!? Really? Her punishment was that she couldn’t see this kid for two years while it was legal for her to be with him? Sounds like a pretty sweet deal if you ask me. While the affair was going on she was married and had children with her first husband. Nobody talks about them through all of this. They don’t get any book deals, or fun nightclub parties for what they have gone through. She lost her first family, but it doesn’t seem to bother her much. It might, but you would wouldn’t know it by her actions.
It makes me sick that she is out of prison for this. The kid was 12 years old. Do we really believe that a 12 year old child had any sort of control in this relationship? I understand that they are both adults now, so they can do what they want with their lives, but I think that she should have been forced to spend a lot longer in prison than she did, and I sure hope that her child support that she should be paying to her husband takes into account events like this. The real victims in this case are her original children. What do you all think? Should she have stayed in prison longer, or am I just up in the night? The real crime is seeing her in that Kangol hat.
May 29th, 2009 at 8:21 am
I’m certainly not an apologist for pedophiles, but I think this case is really blown out of proportion. There are still a number of places in the world were girls are married against their will to older men, and there has been a tradition of men marrying girls as young as ten or eleven for centuries. I find that somewhat repugnant, but I hardly think that a love affair between these two rises to the same standard. The fact that their love for each other withstood 7 years in jail and resulted in marriage should indicate that there is a significant dedication to each other. Was it WEIRD? Yes, but love, and the things people will do for it, inspires all sorts of truly bizarre behaviors. Duels over a lover…murders…murder/suicide… By comparison, this seems pretty trivial. She did her time and that didn’t stop their love. I do think it’s rather distasteful that she’s promoting a program called “hot for teacher”. That seems to advocate pedophilia, and I’m perplexed that this is legal. It’s certainly immoral.
July 12th, 2009 at 3:33 pm
This woman needs to be put away for a long time. 7 years was not long enough. 99 years might come close, but 7? Not nearly enough.
Where was the therapy before release? Mandatory no contact with the victim? Female pedophiles need to face the same prison terms as males…maybe more.
July 12th, 2009 at 3:54 pm
A lot of issues here, Curtis makes a valid point too, and in my simple book, if they got married when older that should be a mitigating factor even if “we” don’t approve. I see marriage as solving societys problem of picking up the pieces as they are self correcting their own “thing” and finally being responsible. You don’t have to be friends with her. English, French, American literature are replete with asymmetric age relationships thru-out history so its been apparently part of “some” people’s nature. A teacher who does this violates all trust and its certainly upsetting when you are counting on them to be responsible gaurdians. We all know the redlines and why she didn’t obey them makes some people madder than hatters. But my criteria is if whatever they were involved in grew into a mutual relationship, there was no violence etc, they married, and took responsibility for their family unit as they became of legal age, then as a society we should probably show some flexibility. The school district failed in this case, so did the system, but simply condemning someone to jail forever just cause we can, isn’t necessarily the best public policy or Christian redemptive attitude. It comes down to then, it all depends. I would rather be shaking my head then see another person rotting in prison when now they have evolved into being a couple.