Gerrie

There's a disparity in sentencing for sex offenders. For sex crimes women get off lighter than men. A recent article in my local newspaper, with stories of teachers in trouble for having sex with students, showed that men usually get years in prison, women might get a year or so, or more likely probation.

I thought about it: why? Is it still part of the old double standard? Or is it more that when men pick victims they can pick girls too physically immature to have sex, whereas a woman would have to pick a young man past puberty. They need a guy who can get it up! I think the men with the longest jail times are the ones who have sex with kids in elementary school. It's completely different for a woman of 35 to have sex with a 14-year-old male than it is for a 35-year-old guy to have sex with a 14-year-old female. Don't call me sexist, but in most instances the women I've read about in these jams had some sort of emotional connection to the boys. Men don't need that emotional component to have sex. A judge or jury could look at a weeping woman who said, "I loved him!" and be more likely to go easier than to a man who got off on 10-year-old girls, or boys.

I think comedian George Carlin had it right when he said they ought to call boys who have sex with their teachers what they really are, "lucky little bastards." I had a real crush on my 8th grade English teacher, Mrs. S. Her first name was Gerrie, and I thought she was the sexiest thing ever. It was 1963; she wore spike heels, nylons with garters--I sometimes saw the tops of her stockings when she sat down; no pantyhose in those days--tight dresses…ah, the memories are hard for me. Very hard, if you know what I mean. If I would pick a moment that desire for a woman first overtook me, it would be during that year in Gerrie S.'s class. Had she chosen to indoctrinate me into the world of sexual pleasure I wouldn't have called it abuse. Maybe the law would call it illegal, but I'd call it a gift from God.

Of course it didn't happen. I was a little boy, and about as interesting to Gerrie S. as the eraser for the blackboard or the furniture in the room.

Don was a classmate who also had the teenage hots for Gerrie. We'd talk about her; locker room guy talk. Don also hero worshiped a custodian, whose name was coincidentally, Jerry. Jerry was a tall guy who worked out at the gym. When Don wasn't talking about Gerrie, he was talking about Jerry. In retrospect I wonder about Don... Jerry swaggered when he walked; he was surrounded by students when he'd be in the lunchroom. The kids thought he was great. It turned out that Jerry got arrested when, one weekend, he got into the school with his key, stole all of the TV sets, and sold them to a motel in the southern end of the state. He was one of America's dumbest criminals. The cops went right to him because he left a trail that was easy to follow.

Don said he went to visit Jerry in jail. I wonder now whether it happened, or whether it was just his imagination. In those days I didn't question what people told me, just accepted it, like the young, naïve kid I was. Don told me, "Jerry said he's screwed every woman he's ever went out (sic) with. He said he screwed Gerrie S. And she loved it."

In my mind a nuclear bomb went off. This was information that was so devastating, so awful that I practically shut down. It incinerated all of my fantasies. My beautiful, my sexy, gorgeous, sexy--have I already mentioned sexy?--Gerrie…with that TV-stealing janitor? No freakin' way, man! You're lyin', man! She's perfect, man! She's saving it for…who…? Me? Ulp. Errrr, uh, well, never mind. I realized it didn't really matter, because no way was it gonna be me.

We never saw Jerry again, obviously, and at the end of the year Gerrie S. was obviously pregnant. I didn't know anything about pregnancy except that it took a sex act to cause it. Mrs S. was married, after all. I didn't think Jerry the Janitor had gotten her pregnant, because I just didn't think like that in those days. In retrospect who knows? If I believe Don that he talked to Jerry, if I believe Jerry that he had sex with Gerrie, maybe Gerrie's baby came out with a mop in his hand. In those days married teachers who got pregnant quit. Maybe a few years later Mrs S. came back, but I was gone by then. I never saw her again, but in my mind I can see her now. Green eyes. Blonde hair, tight black dress, black 3" spike-heeled shoes. That first one who lets you see a little bit of paradise, puts the ideas in your head, that's the one who's hard to forget. Very hard, again if you know what I mean.