[jammies]

A teenage boy doesn't care about a betrayal of trust because trust is not usually a relevant issue in deciding with whom he will have sex. Availability and attractiveness are pretty well the only criteria important to a teenage boy (and quite a few men, for that matter). I think this is the root of the double standard - a man can't empathize with the "victim" if it is a boy, as he knows that he would have done the same thing as the boy and been glad of it.

However, a male teacher seducing a female student is taking advantage of and violating the trust that has developed, and she is likely to be deeply hurt by the exploitation of that vulnerability, whether she realizes it or not. Obviously neither is an iron rule - I'm sure there are teenage boys who form a deep emotional attachment within a teacher-student relationship, and teenage girls who remain emotionally disengaged while physically engaged.

This is not to say that the legal consequences should be different between the sexes. However, I question the advisability of having any legal consequences at all for consensual sex between adults, as the students in this case apparently were.

-edit- although I fully support such teachers losing their jobs and any benefits (pension, etc) accrued from that job due to violation of policy. Not everything needs to be punished by the law, economic punishments and social ostracism can be sufficient.