By Tom Purcell
Well, the blond-haired, blue-eyed teacher got off.
Debra Lafave had relations with a 14-year-old student – what we refer to as rape, particularly when male teachers do such things – but she’ll not do any jail time.
She was charged in two separate counties. The first sentenced her to three years of home detention and seven years of probation. Last week, the second decided to drop charges.
As it goes, the victim is suffering severe anxiety due to the unwanted media attention. His mother wants Lafave to do time, but she wants to protect her son more.
It’s just as well the charges have been dropped. Lafave has striking blue eyes, a perfect complexion, perfect facial symmetry. She’s way too good looking to prosecute.
If she was a homely teacher, they would have been able to throw the book at her. This is because her face would never have been plastered all over the evening news. Thus, the victim wouldn’t have been overwhelmed with unwanted media attention. He might have been willing to testify.
In a nutshell, Lafave’s looks got her off.
Attractive people have always had it licked in America. Consider a study by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis last year. It found that attractive people earn, on average, 5 percent more than homely people do. Obese women earn 17 percent less than trim ones.
What’s worse is that homely people are more likely to be criminals. According to the Washington Post, another study has determined that homely teens are more likely to turn to a life of crime than their good-looking peers.
Looks open doors in America. Homeliness slams them shut.
Last autumn, John Roberts was nominated to the Supreme Court. Despite his reputation as a conservative, he sailed through the nomination process. But another conservative judge, Robert Bork, was assailed during his nomination.
Where Roberts is congenial, fit and has the looks of a JC Penny mannequin, Bork looks like a guy who would eat a ham sandwich while pumping out your septic tank. I’m confident that if Bork looked like Robert Redford, or even John Roberts, he wouldn’t have been “borked.”
Looks are showcased on the evening news every night. In a country of 300 million, tragedies happen every day, but the ones to make the news generally involve good looking people.
Take Laci and Scott Peterson. Laci was cute and bubbly, whereas Scott looked like one of the twits in GQ. Despite the fact that Scotty whacked his wife and his son, a lot of women found him likeable and handsome, and so he was featured on the news each night for months.
Every day in America a young woman is abducted and killed, but the victims who make the news are the good looking ones. Natalie Holloway had long blond hair and was very attractive. The recent murder of a college student in New York, a young woman who was also beautiful, is also being heavily reported.
Just last week in Pittsburgh, an odd story came to light. A woman who disappeared ten years ago when she was 14 has been found. For 10 years she’d been locked in a bedroom by her abductor.
Now 24, she has long blond hair and blue eyes and is, by any measure, an attractive young woman. But if she was short and obese and had a pimply complexion, do you think this unusual story would stay in the news as long as it is going to?
To be sure, we’re addicted to beauty in America, the superficial kind, anyhow. We’re always giving beautiful people breaks, too, so it’s only fitting the hot-looking teacher got off.
At her press conference she said her actions weren’t her fault. She admonished the press for underreporting her bipolar disorder. She said she’s a good Christian, that she’s engaged and that she just wants to get on with her life.
But of course. She’s way too good looking not to be getting on with her life.
(Tom Purcell’s e-mail address is TomPurcell@aol.com; his Web address is www.TomPurcell.com)
