I don't know which is more productive...

[paranoiddork]

Today I bought a new car (2007 Nissan Altima! in navy blue) and read a little over 200 pages of Restless Virgins, a book about the 2005 Milton Academy oral sex scandal and written by two recent Milton alums/journalists. It has turned out to be my ideal type of light reading - the style is simple but still eloquent (the authors are obviously well

Comments

[paranoiddork]

Thankee.

I think not only the greater freedom of prep schools, but the fact that these sorts of acts are just not as closely associated with the prim-and-proper prep school image as they are with the more mainstream middle/public high school image, make this particular case so worth investigating. The authors also seem to argue that at prep schools, every student is trying to climb a very very steep social ladder, and this intensifies the pressure for sexual promiscuity (the more girls a guy can sleep with, the cooler he is; the more guys a girl can seduce and the more willing she is to press her sexual limits, the more attention she gets from guys which, as far as the rest of the girls are concerned, equals social power/leverage).

The book itself did break down a little into the prurient/lecherous, and a couple of the main "characters" (the authors based the book on the stories of 7 Milton students, 4 girls and 3 boys) have already said the authors focused far too much on sex and not enough on the rest of the students' lives. The girls said they feel misled, as though the authors spent so much time asking questions about all sorts of issues, sex being just one of a long list, but then focused squarely on sex and promiscuity.

As far as the trial, there wasn't much discussion, and it was pretty objective. The authors tried to cover as much of the differing opinion as possible, including thoughts from both the people who supported the girl involved (the "victim") and the people who thought the girl was treated too lightly and should have received the same punishment as the 5 boys. Much of the discussion of the trial focused on student reaction, how shocked and saddened some of the students were while how outraged (but silently outraged) were the rest. The very very last few moments of the trial were discussed in detail, but only to give closure. The interesting thing was -- and this was the only time objectivity seemed to wane -- the authors described the guys in the courtroom as if they didn't really care that much and they weren't truly sorry. But most of the discussion about the trial was just about students reacting at school and students' parents reading about it in the Globe.

The authors fell just short of blaming the school; their focus was more on how students will try as hard as possible to get around rules and laws, and how they usually can get away with this and then some. I'm a bit unclear on how exactly the act was uncovered, but it seemed like it just got around by word of mouth until it reached the administration.