1 Evidently, this is Tamara's Myspace site:

http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=82361575

She's soliciting donations to, this is confusing, either sue the school district or have them criminally charged.

Warning: Could be Space Cadet Central Command.

2 Yeah - but where at the pictures?

3 You may not want to see them. Not a pretty sight. Small breasts and huge areolas. Looks like two oatmeat cookies wrapped to the end of a couple of stubby banannas.

4 damn...someone beat me to the crude reference to her nekked photos!!

5 Personall, I don't much care of the gay or lesbian set teaching at the grade or high school level. She can take her "art" to a strip club where it belongs.

6

Sexual teaching in a public school isn't appropriate.  Hetero or homo.  The only setting its halfway appropriate is in health class, but the kids don't take it seriously.  IMO, it's best left to parents. 

So, if a woman or man is putting naked pictures of themselves on the internet where everyone can see them, well, it's kind of like putting those pictures primetime on the alphabet channels.  I think those websites are like people exposing themselves in public.  The school district was kind to her and let her resign with some pay, but firing her would have been more appropriate, IMO.  But the "weird" crowd in Austin, TX would have had a cow.

7 I linked to your article from art teacher Tamara Hoover resigns job but the trackback has not shown up.

8 I read JR daily, and have for two years now. Yours is a wonderful, entertaining, very intelligent blog, and a source for alternative "editorials," if you will. :-) I very rarely completely disagree with the blog entries here, and almost never make a comment (and they have always been quite positive!).

So, with that in mind, I have to say that I really think you missed the boat on the nature of the photographs in question with Ms. Hoover.

I belong to a "True Crime" website with some really talented internet sleuths (snoops, busybodies, hackers, whatever!) and back in early June, the guy who runs it posted links to photos of Ms. Hoover's.. shaved HOOVER!!- that had been posted to her girlfriend's Flickr album, but removed just prior to the news stories going national!

That's right- very explicit photographs of the high school teacher's shaved VULVA had been displayed on that "internet photo album" the news reporters love to cite. Only.... they hadn't seen the "online photo album" before it was edited!

Both Tamara Hoover and her "girlfriend" Celestadanger, who posted the photos to her Flickr album knew enough to delete them before the national media picked up this story. They were removed before then, but AFTER the inquisitive students from her school (teen boys, naturally!!) had been ogling them for months.

Many news reporters who covered the story heavily slanted their reports in favor of Tamara Hoover. They used the bare/shaded/ breasts-as-art/beauty/it's natural defense. It's all natural, breasts aren't dirty, right? Anyone can see a woman's breasts if she is breastfeeding in public, right? Nothing to be ashamed about, right?

Right.

Only, Tamara Hoover's shaved, shiny vulva was also gloriously featured in Celestadanger's Flickr album.

I did not know this, until the Cap'n Fantastic forum guy wrote about it, and linked to the cached versions he dug up of Tamara Hoover's now-deleted crotch-shots.

I kind of wish I hadn't clicked on his links, because he described the photos in almost medical terms for those who may not want to view them.

But I'm a guy, my wife and I have no issues with Playboy or even Penthouse-type photo spreads. So I thought I could deal with it fine, and since I wasn't accessing the photos from work... and Damn! I wanted to throw a life saver to that little man in the boat, if you know what I mean. ;-)

Just DAMN! This is a TEACHER??? Not Jenna Jameson's website? And it's FREE??? ;-)

I was wholly in Ms. Hoover's camp prior to discovering this, and all because the news reporters did NOT DO THEIR job. Cap'n Fantastic has a crime blog but he didn't blog about this, so now I wonder.... if he DID blog about this, would the reporters have done a better job in researching Tamara Hoovers "Hoover" pictures?

I am thinking yes! They would! because so many reporters are turning to bloggers now for their information and research- YOU know this JR!- and not giving bloggers the credit for the "scoop" or finds.

I sent Cap'n an e-mail back in June, telling him that I thought he should blog about this, but he was dismissive and said his blog wasn't about this kind of offense. I think a female sex offender or pedo is just as dangerous as a male version, only more rare and more insidious. But how many times have we seen the "female teacher has sexual "relationship" with student stories in the news? Compare with the male "Teacher MOLESTS students" stories...

"Sexual relationship" Versus "Molestation." Hmm.


That Deborah Lafave is the main one in the last couple years. But because she's really pretty, she isn't treated the same as a male teacher would be under the same conditions??? Come ON!



You can see the postings by Cap'n Fantastic in his Celler forum- he was way ahead of the reporters then (and he's ahead of them now, mostly on other crimes....) This really bothers me, as a father to high school aged teens! Reporters still do not mention the crotch-shots. And the crotch shots are what the teens found early on, and what the Cap'n found after the fact- after they were deleted!- and before the national reporters glommed onto this "spicy" and salacious story. But there is much more to this story than some droopy, skinny-art-teacher boobies, JW. :-)

And, so, nobody knows just how perverse this teacher really was, but some bloggers have an idea. I think she doesn't deserve any money or severance pay at all. I think she should be prosecuted for endangering/corrupting minors. I think she should never teach anyone under 18 again.

I don't care what she wants to do with her "art" but she is not fit to teach children or teens. She may even need "sex offender" therapy and registration. She might need restrictions from contacting people under the age of 18....

What would a school or community or law enforcement do if this were a male teacher whose (shaved, wet) genitals were available to his students via an internet photo album? You get three guesses, and the first two ain't counting.....

David

9 Regarding the shaved vulva: get a life. Those shiny, wet, honeypots are only dirty, filthy things to those who were brought up to think that sex and the human body was dirty. Now, admit it, you would love to spank that shiny bottom of that dirty little girl, wouldn't you?

As for female predators, grow up, ain't no such thing: Female Sexual Predator - oxymoron. Don't you wish you were a teen again in High School with an opportunity to boink one of these women, tell the truth?

Haven't you noticed that civilized men and women all over the world are disgusted and horrified at the way the Taliban treated women in Afghanistan? Aren't you a C*nt's hair away from being precisely that kind of person?

I do not know you and I won't presume to judge you; perhaps I am wrong; I am only asking questions.

10 I'm going to assume thats satire, Bernie. If it isn't, well... then by your logic it would be ok for a teacher to have sex with a 15-16 year old girl if he wore a condom. That would remove the pregnancy aspect. They are MINORS that these teachers have charge over. It is wrong and illegal for the same reason that doctors having sex with their patients is. Incidently, firing a teacher because she appeared nude on a website is comparable to the brutal treatment of women under the Taliban? Well, yeah, I suppose so. In that, "you know, that is in no way like the brutal treatment of women under the Taliban" kind of way.

11 Unfortunately tongue in cheek has a double meaning in our society, but to answer your question.  It is wrong for a man of any age to have sex with anyone against their will and without their consent.
 
Despite your dubious straw man argument about using a condom, that is not 100% safe, and there is also the issue of female viginity.  No matter how you try to spin it there is no such thing as male virginity.
 
Now I suppose you would like to throw in the argument about a sterile male with a pen-shaped penis that could have sex with a young woman without breaking her hymen? 
 
However, you will be hard put [no pun intended] to find a 15 or 16 year old male who was "forced" to have sex with a female teacher against his will or without his consent, or in fact without his very eager, willing participation and encouragement.  To try to pretend that this kind of sex is in any way similar to male teacher/female student sex is ludicrous.
 
The crime, if there is any, is similar to stealing staples from the school; it is a breach of trust. But don't try to make it anything more than that.  These young males are laughing at all of you behind your back.
 
Talk to any normal young male instead of those voices from God in your head.
 
At the pyschological level it reveals envy more than moral rectitude.  Older male prudes wish they were those young kids and older female prudes wish they were that teacher. 
 
Don't pretend otherwise. 

12 I forgot to mention - it is NOT illegal for Doctors to have sex with their patients.  It is only illegal if it is against their patient's  will and without their consent.
 
Many doctors marry their patients.  Many doctors marry other doctors.  Many doctors marry nurses.
 
These are the people they meet.  What you thought doctors only had sex with complete strangers?