Despite the recent case brought against her for “sexually exploiting” a 16-year-old student, Erin Osmond is not a sexual predator. Her entire career as an educator has probably been ruined because of this situation and perhaps that’s justified. People will see that indictment on her resume or a background check and judge her for it. Friends will abandon her; people on the street will denigrate her. She will be a pariah in her community. And for all that, she deserves sympathy.
Before I explain why, let me first clarify what the findings of her trial mean. Osmond was found not guilty of sexually exploiting a 16-year-old boy. That doesn’t mean she didn’t have sex with him; that just means that it couldn’t be proven beyond a reasonable doubt that she was in a position of authority to take advantage of him (i.e., compel his compliance). The reasoning for this is twofold: first, she was no longer his teacher when they had sex. Two, the circumstances suggest that the teen was as equally compliant as her, if not more so. Yet in the end, she’s the one who ends up the injured party.
To fully explicate that, let’s draw a comparison between this situation and that of former ice hockey coach and real sexual predator, Graham James. James was convicted of sexually assaulting the teenage boys he coached. The crimes he committed have been following him around like a virus for the past two decades. Should anyone feel a lick of sympathy for him? Absolutely not.
James had many teenage boys relying on him, trusting him when they were miles away from home with no family but their teammates. They had nobody else they could turn to and James took advantage of that. There was no talk of love or emotions.He was using his position of trust and power to sexually exploit young men. Not just once, or even a handful of times. Hundreds of times. When he found a new target, that boy was known as “Graham’s new favourite.”
When we look at the case of Erin Osmond, we see an entirely different picture. Osmond was having marital problems. She was depressed and going through a rough time. During this rough patch, along comes this teenage boy. He’s only 16, but they start texting and a relationship is formed.
“I felt like he was one of my best friends,” Osmond said during her trial. They continued communicating over the next few months and feelings started to form. Still, she did nothing except continue personal communication with the boy. When school was about to end, it was the teenager who asked to make the first move. He asked if he could kiss her. By this point, Osmond already had feelings for him and her marriage was falling apart. School was about to end and soon she wouldn’t even be his teacher anymore.
“I was sad. I thought I was losing the person I loved,” Osmond said. She never thought they were going to have sex. In fact, HE was the one who said it was going to happen and SHE was the one who hesitated.
He was definitely no innocent young dove. How do we know this? Because aside from initiating the sexual advances every step of the way, he bet a friend $400 that he could have sex with his teacher. Talk about crude.
I understand that teenagers are still minors and the age of maturity has to be drawn somewhere. There’s no question that Osmond should have known better. Right from the beginning, she should have cut off contact with him when it was getting to be less than professional. She behaved stupidly and made critically bad errors in judgment. But that’s all she did.
After initiating sexual advances towards his teacher multiple times for a bet, that teenage boy will disappear with nary a scratch from this incident. And Osmond? Her life is in ruin because she made a stupid mistake. She crossed the lines of professionalism and fell in love with an underage boy. Weird? Yes. Criminal? No. And yet, she will forever be blackballed because of it.
I’m not saying she shouldn’t suffer some consequences, but this time it feels like the repercussions society will dole out might far exceed any legal ones that could have been applied.
