XX Factor: the blog

The Socratic Ideal of Student-Teacher Sex

Willa, it’s funny that you view the Jenny-David relationship in An Education as unskeevy because she’s precocious. When I tried to understand why I wasn’t bothered by the 16-year-old dating a man twice her age, I came away with sort of the opposite answer.

This is one of those things I’ve tried to float in conversation before and it always ends with people silently avoiding eye contact (for the shy ones) or telling me I’m a perv (for the more outgoing), but I’ll try again: I kind of like the idea of the older, knowledgeable tutor type sleeping with his young, eager acolyte. When I learned in college about the relationships men like Socrates had with their attractive young male followers, I had a sense of—what? Nostalgia? It’s not envy; I certainly don’t want to sleep with every man who can teach me something. But I envy the relationship those Greeks had, back when terms like “statutory rape” didn’t exist. It strikes me as so perfectly symbiotic: The beautiful blank slate of a student takes knowledge from his wise and wizened mentor, and in exchange gives the joy of fresh enthusiasm. And sex. I won’t be so flip as to ask “What’s wrong with that?” (Obviously, there are many unpleasant examples of the Socrates figure taking advantage of someone vulnerable and non-consenting.) But I will say that, in its idealized form, doesn’t that sound kind of nice?

Tags: An Education, movies, Rape

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Samantha Henig is the associate editor of Double X, and can be reached at samantha.henig@doublex.com.

Comments

I can definitely understand

By: law school sophist | Wed, 10/14/2009 - 18:04

I can definitely understand this. I'm a law student and I find myself immensely attracted to older male lawyers in a way that's beyond physical. I'm actually seeing an older man who is a lawyer right now and we have this sort of lover-mentor type relationship. It's kind of an interesting relationship. Granted, I'm 23 so there's not the statutory rape issue, but I sort of like the fact that he knows more than me. There's a very very fine line between admiration and sexual attraction.

Not until College

By: Sharon Pretty | Sun, 10/11/2009 - 21:31

I'd dated guys at high school but it wasn't until I got to College that I met my Hypatia and first found my role as an amanuensis.

She was in her late thirties; married; absolutely gorgeous. Our relationship had no sex in it for some time, but gradually went that way - as much at my bidding as hers I think.

As far as I know, her husband never found out. He was a good looking guy who worked outside the college, so maybe it would have been kinda fun if he had found out ... but I must control myself now.

Sadly, the relationship came to an end. I moved on, got married, had kids. After I left, we never had any more contact with each other.

Weeelll..

By: anon for this | Sat, 10/10/2009 - 22:50

Having spent a good deal of time in academia, I'd suggest that the reality is both more common and a good deal ookier than you might imagine. I've known a handful of professors who were serial lechers and quite practiced at preying on the young ladies in their classes. "Sex for grades" was the usual acusation when some jilted young lady blew the whistle, whereupon the rest of the faculty expressed extreme surprise that this could have been going on, even though the students knew exactly what these guys were.

I suppose I can't really blame the faculty. They couldn't very well admit that they knew they were harboring a sexual predator. After all they were supposed to be acting as 'loco parents' for these young ladies. Perhaps they really were that blind. Who knows?

Bottom line, these weren't bittersweet, April/August relationships, these guys were charming, they were smooth, and they were sexual predators, pure and simple.

Socratrick

By: boredwell | Sat, 10/10/2009 - 16:23

Well, I was tutored in sex by an person 20 years my senior. Though I was the one who initiated the proposal, he wanted nothing to do with me. He told me pointblank, "I don't find youth (I was on the cusp of 18) attractive." "My body may not be mature but my mind is," I countered kissing him. That must have convinced him. We both learned a lot about ourselves during our year-long dalliance.

Is this right?

By: olderorwiser | Sat, 10/10/2009 - 12:54

I went back to school in my mid 30s and was more than 10 years older than the bulk of my classmates. Many young women very much want to have a relationship with an older man (at least with me). Many people made comments to me similar to Samantha's: you should "teach" these young women. Ironically, I am a person with a conviction that sex should not be casual, or self-indulgent. Perhaps this was a part of my attractiveness to these young women: maybe Samantha's comments are based on fantasy, rather than any realization of these longings. Perhaps this is a fantasy of a kind of relationship that can hardly exist in reality.

I (and I think many men) have had another fantasy: the "mature" relationship with a woman based on sex, with no marriage or children or promises. My experience is that this is not realizable in the positive way that my fantasy entailed. Instead, women long for a deeper commitment and meaning to their intimate relationship.

I think Samantha's suggestion would enable men who continue to have the fantasy I had earlier, and lead to unhappy results for both. Both of these fantasies are shallow.