In passing, I’ve touched on the issue of perversity in animé before. In hentai (animé porn), you expect a lot of it, but too many times, non-hentai shows will step over the line into treating pre-teens as sexual objects. In part, this is a cultural difference in Japan, which is facinated with youth; an unmarried female of 26 would be called “Christmas cake” (as in, no one wants to eat the leftovers after Christmas) and considered over the hill. It’s not uncommon for adult women to dress and act like teenagers; it’s considered sexy there.

(I mean, you can buy a high school girl’s used underwear from vending machines in Japan. No, I’m not making that up. A part of me wishes we’d had that when I was in high school; it was about the only way I was going to get into any of those stuck-up . . . . Ahem. Never mind.)

But just like our television reflects American society and mores, only exaggerated, Japanese TV does the same thing for theirs. So, with that kind of fixation, it’s not surprising that there are a number of series that suddenly start treating pre-teen kids as sex objects, just out of the blue. It’s not an integral part of the plot, it’s just there. Usually the character is a foil for the hero (although s/he is not necessarily the villian) and it’s played for laughs, but to American sensibilities, such can be painful to get through. Examples: Yumeria, Kiddie Grade, and Azumanga Daioh

There’s even one series where it is a major story element, involving a female teacher marrying her student in order to keep it a secret that she’s a space alien (Please Teacher!, although now we’re stepping into the realm of teenagers). Seems like that’s complicating the hell out of things. But while the actual loli’s are played for laughs in some series (like Yumeria), I’m just finding it less and less funny. Why? Because it’s hard to laugh at the reality:

Teacher accused of sexually assaulting 14-year-old student

This is “old” news locally, but I’m doing a bit of catching up, and this caught my eye.

A substitute teacher is facing charges of sexual assault of a child. Police say the man assaulted a 14-year-old Milby High School student on three separate occasions.

Thing is, she didn’t report it, but some other girls stepped forward to complain about how he acted towards them. KTRK never quite explains how the case got from “pervert” to “statutory rapist” but one can assume that one or more of the other girls was aware of what was going on.

Another group of girls came forward to high school administrators saying that the teacher had been rude to them. They released a tirade of complaints against him.

“To (a student) it seemed that this teacher would confront her in private, or confront her in the halls, trying to groom her, basically, and to get into a sexual relationship,” explained Jeanette Perales with the HPD Juvenile Sex Crimes unit. “Many of the students came forward and stated that this teacher, in their words, was a pervert.”

Then there’s another story out of Fort Bend.

Investigators say a former teacher’s aide in Fort Bend County crossed the line. They say he had sex with two students at his high school. Regardless of their age or whether or not anyone consented, police say the former teacher’s aide broke the law by having sex with students.

Mike Harvey with the Fort Bend ISD police said, “I think Mr. Martin took advantage of a situation that he shouldn’t have.” Harvey says he can prove Martin had sex three times with two girls. One girl was 17 years old and the other was 18 years old. “None of the incidents occurred on campus,” Harvey said. “We don’t have any allegations that that’s the case. But they did occur in a neighborhood that’s nearby.”

Ok, I have to roll my eyes at that one. It’s obviously aggravated circumstances that there was a school in the neighborhood where he was screwing a student. To be thorough (I don’t want to say “fair”), teenagers aren’t pre-teens, and at 17 or 18, now we’re getting to the point where people are more likely to shrug and go, “oh, come on, 18 is an adult, and 17 is damn near.”

“Grass on field! Play ball!” (Now that’s ecchi.)

Somehow, I don’t think the parents of the girls involved would say that. And they’d be right not to.

Authorities say Martin used his position of authority to seduce the young women. Under the law, that’s an allegation of an improper relationship between an educator and a student. Martin faces three such charges.

“This seems to be happening so often now that we’ve almost become numb to it,” said parent Darrell Robertson.

That’s something to remember the next time you’re tempted to laugh at someone yelling “ecchi!” in animé. (He says, just before popping in DVD2 of DearS, which has a very inappropriate relationship going on that doesn’t even have anything to do with the main plot. Edit: finally watched all the way through. Turns out the guy is an upperclassman, not a teacher.)

Teaching is harder than it used to be. It’s more politicized, more bureaucratic, and more difficult. The result is that teachers tend to burn out within a few years, and move on. When I was in high-school, teachers tended to be old wrinkled old women and bald men–except for the coaches. Nowadays, the teachers are highly likely to be MILF’s. (Warning: link NSFW!) Worse, now the “old-timers” with 30+ years of experience are not around to ride herd on younger ones they think might be about to make a mistake.

Something else to think on is this. Recently, I had a conversation with several co-workers, ranging in age from 23 to 50. Of six people at the table, four had teachers in either their own or their kids’ high school or junior high either arrested or suddenly transferred due to “inappropriate relationships.” And in a fifth case, everyone suspected, but there was never enough evidence to make an open accusation. (That teacher’s contract was not renewed for the next year, however.)

Those are disturbing odds, and the time span suggests that it’s not a recent problem, by any means. Sometime after I get through playing with the page setup, I’m going to do a full review of DearS–and it will have more cheesecake of that very inappropriate teacher. (Not like I’m fourteen, after all….)

Update 6/5/06: Once more, with feeling.