Comments On: Savage Love by Dan Savage

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06/08/10--11:17: Re: Savage Love (chan 1595258)

1. WAFFLER's girlfriend should dump him. Period.

2. I hope that male coach sues the pants off not just the school, but his girlfriend's mother.

Although I recommend him NOT to date someone not old enough to drink--especially someone whose MOMMY still monitors her computer usage. I'd say that's definitely not mature enough. Think with your brain, coach--not the other part. Don't follow Nicholas Cage's path.

And yes, Allison M., you will and should be flamed.
Posted by SheQuon


06/08/10--12:09: Re: Savage Love (chan 1595258)

@180

"Why is Jason Robinson the one injustice out of thousands we decide to care about?"

You don't have to choose to care about one over the other, it's possible to care about all of those things but that's not the point. The specific situation here is mute, it's the principle and that principle is that I (and many people here AND in the town this transpired in) don't think that someone should be fired/have they contracts non-renewed solely b/c the teacher engaged in a consensual, completely legal activity that the principal doesn't agree with and I, personally, am going to go to bat for anyone who falls into that category regardless of my personal feelings of the situation.

For example; I have no interest whatsoever in participating in a "Tea Party" rally or becoming a tea party activist or any of that stupid shit HOWEVER if someone did participate in one and didn't get their contract renewed specifically b/c they had (without any consideration of their work performance) then I'd go to bat for them too. In the same way that I feel that everyone should have free speech, not just people that I agree with, and I'll defend someone else's freedom of speech regardless of how onerous I find that speech to be. If you give a pass on situations you don't agree with personally it makes it MUCH harder to make your case on situation you do agree with. Moreover, it's the situations that you don't agree with that really define where you stand on an issue which makes it MORE important to stand up at those times.

"A new teacher was let go when I was in high school after he had an affair with another teacher's wife and I suspect the one had something to do with the other...etc."

And I'll go to bat for them in each of those situations (assuming there wasn't a specific breach of contract.) What makes this different (and why Dan posted it) is this is part of a trend of prying into teachers lives and firing them for legal activity. Email Dan the specifics of those situations and I wouldn't be surprised if did a post about them and we can all rally in defense there too.

"Not because she doesn't care what people think of the school, but because when it comes to Jason Robinson-esque teachers, getting flamed by Dan Savages fans is far from a worst-case scenario. "

You can make the say the same thing with regards to Constance McMillan. In her specific situation it didn't help her avoid getting hosed by the school but, once again, this misses the point. The idea is to let school administrators that they no longer work in a vacuum and hopefully the next administrator will think twice about administrating based on their morality instead of performance.
Posted by bassplayerguy


06/08/10--12:13: Re: Savage Love (chan 1595258)

@189

"but losing a cellphone (or having it stolen) is not uncommon"

Yes and disseminating information on a lost/stolen cell phone is illegal and can net you some jail time.

http://www.tabloidcolumn.com/paris-hilto…

As to how much privacy can be expected if her parents were paying for it is an interesting case for the courts to decide.
Posted by bassplayerguy


06/08/10--12:29: Re: Savage Love (chan 1595258)

@183

"That said, he quit. He wasn't forced out, fired, terminated, or any other word that means "the school got rid of him". Chances are that they offered him resignation without fuss, and probably some money, and he took it."

Wrong. He was removed from his duties, barred from campus, and his contract wasn't renewed.

"If you can claim any form of maturity or overwhelming logic and reason at 20 (or even 25), you're a damned liar."

So your suggestion is.....what exactly? Redefine "adult" to be 25? And you missed the point; of course young adults make stupid decisions (as do old adults) but at the age of 18 it's assumed that you're old enough to take responsibility for your decisions. Yes, lots of young adults are going to make stupid decisions but many are going to make excellent decision and making stupid decisions and then "paying the piper" is how you learn to make good decision. And btw, if you think that you miraculously start making excellent decisions at 25+ then you're a damn liar.

"If I became a teacher, and decided to date/fuck a fifteen-year-old (not one of my students, no one who went to my school), would you accept it with the same air of "it's all good"?"

If that's the law then that's the law. If you don't like the law (which it seems like you don't) then you should do something to change it instead of just bitching about how bad the law is and then do nothing about it. Trying to do something about it is exactly what I do when faced with a regional/state law that I find objectionable and if decide to NOT do anything about it then I shut the fuck up.


Posted by bassplayerguy


06/08/10--12:32: Re: Savage Love (chan 1595258)

@188

"let's pretend Robinson did not coach football, but the women's swim team. No impact at all on how that would or should affect the administration's take on the situation?"

No. If the administration has a problem with that as a concept then they can put it in the contract that "no teacher over the age of....shall date non-students under the age of........if they coach an opposite sex such and such."
Posted by bassplayerguy


06/08/10--13:43: Re: Savage Love (chan 1595258)

WET: ShamWow!
Posted by Suggestion Author


06/08/10--14:03: Re: Savage Love (chan 1595258)

"she took his desperate suggestion at face value and did something she knew was the wrong thing to do."

Exactly how is calling someone's bluff automatically the wrong thing to do? Kudos to this woman for calling this douche out on his bullshit!
Posted by XiaoGui17


06/08/10--17:11: Re: Savage Love (chan 1595258)

And so is identity theft, but it happens every day. Law enforcement can't prevent it and doesn't have the resources to identify and prosecute the guilty or even the jurisdiction since a lot of it originates overseas in places that don't like US. Just how much time and effort do you think would have been expended if Paris Hilton hadn't been rich and (in)famous?
Posted by a skeptic and a cynic


06/08/10--17:12: Re: Savage Love (chan 1595258)

@195 Interesting suggestion, but then I suppose the administration's contract should probably also read"A teacher who completed an M.E. and a B.A. concurrently and is only 23 years old can still date his 20-year-old girlfriend. Maybe his 19-year-old girlfriend too, but only if she has, you know, 'life experience,' etc."

My point is, not all inappropriate behavior can be explicated and delineated in a contract and it's silly to think it can.
Posted by Schreiber


06/08/10--17:19: Re: Savage Love (chan 1595258)

@198

Well we're in luck! We know EXACTLY who went into the phone and disseminated the pictures; the GF's mother. *whew* That was a close one.
Posted by bassplayerguy


06/08/10--17:26: Re: Savage Love (chan 1595258)

@199

And my point is that if you're going to have an arbitrary set of "inappropriate behaviors" that will prohibit you from continued employment then they should spell out exactly what it is so you can avoid said behaviors and keep your job. If 32 is too old to date a 20 year old and will cost you your job but (I'm assuming) that 20 is ok to date a 20 year old then should figure out exactly at what age the "inappropriateness" begins IF it's going to cost someone their job (although I still maintain that it was the video and not the age that prompted the "non-renewal.")
Posted by bassplayerguy


06/08/10--18:02: Re: Savage Love (chan 1595258)

@200

I don't particularly like defending Mandarin High School. Though they didn't break the law, they took private information about the coach's sex life and determined that he should not have his job any more. It crosses an ethical boundary that I myself would not cross. Let's stop to ask why they did it.

Maybe you're right and the principal is just a total "beee-yatch" who likes to throw her weight around. Maybe it was a short-term move to placate the 20-year-old's unhinged mother and prevent a shitstorm that would have lasted maybe a year and probably have no effect on the school in the grand scheme.

There's a third possibility. Mandarin High School could have decided that having had someone bring the coach's proclivity for younger women to their attention would prove to be catastrophic down the road if he ever DID do anything illegal or in violation of his contract, like, oh, sleep with a high school student. The public would see a pattern, whether it was there to be seen or not. Think that scene in Jaws ("You knew! And you kept the beaches open anyway!") I imagine Mandarin High School didn't particularly want to know who the coach was banging or how or why and would have been perfectly happy not knowing. But the mom went ahead and told them. And in this day and age, knowing is enough. We don't just go after pedophile priests. We go after the men of the cloth who fail to turn them in. We don't just go after senators for sending their aides dirty IMs. We go after the Speaker of the House who tries to cover it up.

Are any of these examples particularly analogous to Jason Robinson? No, not really. If he did wind up sleeping with a high school kid, it would be because he chose to break the law presumably for the first time. From a law and a public policy standpoint, the one will have nothing to do with the other. But this is the age we're living in. Outrage over an unrenewed contract doesn't outweigh the possibility of a predatory coach who you "knew" about it but kept employed anyway. That's kind of just reality.

Posted by Schreiber


06/08/10--18:18: Re: Savage Love (chan 1595258)

Should Mandarin High School have taken the risk? Sure, in my opinion. Should they have been legally bound to take the risk? That's a tougher question, and not nearly as straightforward in my mind as whether Constance McMillen should have been allowed to go to prom in a tuxedo with her girlfriend.
Posted by Schreiber


06/08/10--18:48: Re: Savage Love (chan 1595258)

Precisely. Just because it was illegal didn't stop the mom and do you really think any jury in Florida that included parents would convict her. The parents would be more likely to give her a standing ovation. Can you say jury nullification (i.e. O J)

Say he was a PE teacher (many coaches are), how many nerds would sell their souls (or unused parts of their anatomy) to be able post the pictures on the Internet and the smarts not to get caught at it. So much easier to upload something anonymously than do a hack. Gee look what I found on the net. Or ones the GF dissed in high school or college.
Posted by a skeptic and a cynic


06/09/10--08:45: Re: Savage Love (chan 1595258)

@ 22 - i totally agree about any kind of sexual weirdness increasing with the passage of time (i speak from experience). Religion aside, if the bf is not fucking her NOW, he will find all sorts of excuses after they are married to not fuck her. She should move on. BTW, I know of no religion that ok's all sex except penetration. WAFFLER must think we just fell off the turnip truck yesterday.

To do with the teacher-student relationship, they should have known that theirs was a "special" type of relationship, so they also should have known that sending dirty pics over the internet is a no-no between a teacher and ANY student. That being said, still, a person's cell phone is their own property, not the property of a nosey mom. The nosey mom had no right to snoop, and even less right to forward the pics to anyone! I don't understand why people don't use phone codes (locks) on their cell phones so that no one else can access their phone. That said, the mom is in the wrong, for sure.


Posted by Bluejean Baby


06/09/10--11:55: Re: Savage Love (chan 1595258)

Although the following story is not precisely the same situation, it's good the coach wasn't in S.C. where they apparently take things far more seriously.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/37589451/ns/…
Posted by a skeptic and a cynic


06/09/10--13:07: Re: Savage Love (chan 1595258)

What's great about the WAFFLER one is imagining what is going on inside his head. What does he think is going to happen once he finds a bride and penetrates her vaginally? Jesus is going to jump out of her vagina with multi-colored pinwheels blowing in the wind with a marching band to serenade them both? I don't get that at all. Religion.. I think that the only "religion" this cat is worshipping is the kind who prefers not to dabble in vagina. But then, it's different for everyone, isn't it? It makes me sad that others will bend to the will of others at the genuine expense of their own soul. You are what you are, and some people cannot, or won't, accept that. Even in and of themselves as they more or less condemn you for not fitting their vision of who you should be. Religion just destroys people more than they realize. The WAFFLER guy should find a Jesus lick-on tattoo (or create one) and put it on his current chick of choice. If he should settle down with a beard, I mean, a broad ;) , then he can opt for a permanent memento of her newly-minted and christened Jesus Pussay! Go with The Devil and get some dick WAFFLER! Jesus said it was a good idea. I just got off the phone with him. He sends his love ;) .
Posted by Andreas375


06/10/10--00:30: Re: Savage Love (chan 1595258)

@120: Gloria: I agree: @92 ROCKS!!!!
Posted by auntie grizelda


06/13/10--18:51: Re: Savage Love (chan 1595258)

in my teacher's contract, i'm not allowed to be with someone under the age of 21, because that is the oldest one of my students could technically be. i wonder if their contract has anything like that?
Posted by mellythepirate


06/14/10--17:03: Re: Savage Love (chan 1595258)

I am currently dating and about to dump a WAFFLER. He eats pussy, he fingers, gets head but thinks saving his penis for Jesus will bring him closer to heaven.

I have doubted myself more in this relationship than any before. 3 years later, I have had so many sexual "breakdowns" that I put myself more at risk with a virgin than if I had just dated someone else.

I suggest he find a woman who is more compatible with his choice and let her find someone who can fulfill her needs.

I also think men like this only get worse and less able to perform as they age.
People's interpretations of religions are so twisted.
Posted by Naoki9