I’m a feminist.

My wife told me to be one and who am I to argue.

But the truth of the matter is that I am a feminist. As a true liberal I adhere to the French motto of ‘libertee, fraternitee, egalitee’, and I really do. Most of the time. There are exceptions to my otherwise unbending sense of equality but its not really based on gender or race. More on ‘football team supported’. But that’s me.

And when I find myself in an inner discourse involving double standards I almost hate myself, except I’m really too lovely and wonderful to do that for very long.

One such problem is statutory rape. Underage sex.

If I’d read in the paper that a 30 year old teacher had been caught having sex with a 15 year old girl pupil I’d have been outraged. Abuse of trust. Abuse of power. Disgusting bastard, castration the only option.

Yet when I read today of this woman, 30 year-old Caroline Berriman, a teacher who’d been shagging a 15 year-old boy she taught at school, I didn’t instantly internally demand her castration. And not for the rather obvious reasons.

Instead I remembered what I was like at 15. When, at the boys only grammar school I attended, every waking moment (and plenty of sleeping ones too) that wasn’t used for football was dedicated to sex. To girls. Women. Birds. Tarts. Just talking about it. Obsessively. All of us. All of the time. You’re 15 years old and pumped so full of hormones that your body and mind are trying to cope with them but generally fail miserably. Yes, most of it is ‘big talk’, but its rooted in but one thing, the desire to have sex. Call it ‘animal’, call it ‘natural’, call it what you want, but every 15 year-old boy I knew would give his… something very important, to have sex with someone who looked a lot like Caroline Berriman.

Who narrowly avoided prison for her act of educational copulation.

We want every child to receive sex education, well this was a private practical session. Almost as much fun a putting a condom on a banana. And for that this woman is reviled.

Double standards be damned, the boy involved will not be ‘damaged’ by this, nor ‘scarred’, nor emotionally impaired. He’ll be fine. He’ll be happy. He’ll be over the fucking moon.

Caroline Berriman has taken over from Sylvio Berlusconi as my new hero.

Happy Friday

A xxxx