It seems to be the case in England that once a man has donned a clerical collar he is left in a state of perpetual sexual arousal and henceforth must have his wanton way with at least one female choirmaster or half the knicker-wearers in the parish.
It doesn’t seem to matter to this priapic parson that he is married or she is, in terms of avoiding making the proverbial “beast with two backs.” So much for the old Seventh Commandment, which has something to say about such shenanigans.
These stories are immensely popular in the UK press, and are popularly known, according to a journalist of my acquaintance who cut his teeth in the trade in the less reputable rags of Fleet Street (back when there still was such a thing), as “randy vicar” stories. They were in huge demand by the readers of such publications.
We don’t seem to go in for transgressing pastors quite as much this side of the Atlantic, Jimmy Swaggart and Jim Bakker (‘member them?) notwithstanding. “Ah have si-yunned!!” amidst a torrent of tears of repentance.
No, we’re much more transfixed by the naughtiness of teachers. Not just by horny male teachers getting much too cozy with yummy little high school coeds, but also female teachers who tend to take down their academic underpants at the drop of a wink by some overcharged fullback on the varsity team.
Seattle’s Mary-Kay Letourneau was the one who said the latter phenomenon in motion. She, a comely lass by any standard, and fully married, decided she had “fallen in love” with a 12-year-old Samoan-origin boy under her tutelage. Ick, by any standard of liberalism about consenting congress between folks.
Anyway, Mary-Kay ended up doing time for her extracurricularity. But, after she was sprung she, still professing her true love, and who are we to judge? ultimately married her erstwhile young charge. And they lived happily ever after. Oh, I don’t know that they did, but who are we to judge? But, if you were taking odds, you know.
But, Mary-Kay’s misbehavior seemed to start a trend of hot-bloodedness in female teachers all over the continent. Such incidents lead me to think at the first instant how that never happened in ‘my day.’ But, considering most of my female teachers, I’m very happy that none ever professed a desire to address me about anything more than why I hadn’t completed my French homework yet again.
But, ‘do it’ they did, a whole passel of young teachers. We even had one in this town and it was pretty darn scandalous. Truly it was. I recall a young reporter at my paper (she covered the school board beat) coming back from a story at a local high school. “Have you ever seen Miss X?” she asked. I replied I had not. “Well, you should,” she exclaimed with a hint of astonishment in her voice. “She looks about 18, and like a whore, with bare midriff, low-cut top, tits almost hanging out! I was stunned.” And remember, she who was stunned was a reporter, and reporters generally don’t shock very easily. I made a mental note to cruise up to the school on some pretext, but never got around to it.
Anyway, a few months later the ca-ca hit the fan. Seems Miss Slutbunny had been having her wanton way, in every way imaginable, with a senior at the school and this had been. Oddly enough, the principal had already known the matter but he never quite got around to doing anything about it until the boy in question sued (huh?) for having been corrupted by the sexy schoolmarm.
Long story short, she was fired, newspaper readers got thoroughly titillated (this kind of real-life smut really sells), and I never did hear what happened about the lawsuit. I kind of think her marriage broke up, too. Yep, she was married at the time.
Now, I was a high school teacher. I spent my days surrounded by nobility, and I was only in my early 20s and cut a fairly passable physical swathe at the time, if I do say so myself. That I liked the female company with which I spent my days goes without saying. And if I were to suggest I was never tempted, I would by lying. Yet, I unequivocally never did go in that direction. I honestly thought it would be a hideous abuse of my position. Later on, long after a girl has graduated, and conditions being equal, such a consummation might take place. But that would be a matter between two adults making an adult decision.
One of my more charming and lovely students once told me, again long after she’d finished school: “Ian, if you had wanted to, you could have had almost anybody.” Intensely flattered as I was, and indeed I was, I still have no regrets that I need to suffer no guilt in that area.
I’m old fashioned enough to believe that is as it should be, despite the fact I enjoy a good randy vicar, or horny schoolmarm story as much as the next person.
And I still think so 
A randy vicar or schoolmarm is guaranteed to sell papers. Unfortuneately, the randiness in Qc seems to be restricted to priests who really like little boys and girls.
Of course, this being Quebec, I suppose priests doing their parishioners wouldn’t get much airtime.
A favourite passtime of mine is reading about these people in the BCCT monthly nagazine where they publish disciplinary decisions. Incidentally, do you think the boy truly wanted to sue? Or did the impetus for that come form parents?
Dear Get: I strongly suspect it came from the parents.
One of my aunts was a real bible basher…but, as children, we discovered that when the floors were washed in her house, the sheets of newspaper laid over them were from that horror of horrors ‘The News of the World’…the kingdom of the randy vicar.
While we were quite young, there was a rumour amongst us that ‘I made an excuse and left’ was something to do with the sex act….
Later on, I supposed that her cleaning lady brought the paper with her, but my father would have none of it.
According to him she sent her husband out for it to different newsagents shops very early on sunday mornings and read it before going to church to get up a good head of disgust.
I absolutely believe that teachers having sex with students is a heinous abuse of power, and that goes for college professors, too, even though the students are often over the age of consent by then. A teacher and student are not equals, and therefore the one is always taking advantage of the other. Period.
Ah Ian! You take me back to when I was 18 and that long hot summer I had between finishing high school and waiting to go to university, when I succumbed to the considerable charms of my rather gorgeous economics teacher. He was 28! Although he was technically not my teacher any more, it’s something I chose not to share with anyone, as I knew it was very naughty !!
Re the British press and its obsession with wayward clergymen – it’s not so much the randy vicars that I object to, but the paedo priests whose misdemeanours are then hushed up by the bishop and sometimes even by the man running the Holy See itself. My cousin’s ex-husband was abused by priests when he was a youngster growing up in Australia. The tales he has told – well, they were dreadful.
As for you teaching all those nubile teenagers – I bet they ogled you as much as you tried not to look twice at them. When I was at school one of my friends went out with our art teacher (who I went out with some 20 years later). He told me that I was about the only girl in the class that he didn’t sleep with – I felt quite spurned – although I made up for it at a time in my life when it was probably more pleasurable for both of us.
Your first two paragraphs made me roar with laughter. Alas, adults who abuse their power with those who are younger and perhaps hormonal are less mirth-inducing. It makes one long for the days of the dashing older teacher who was well aware of the giggles and cow eyes cast behind his back, but who nevertheless made a safe crush for the schoolgirls.
I hope that made sense. My son is prattling about delivering pine cones to the neighbors and I can feel my sanity slipping down the drain.