So Your Sex-Ed Teacher is a Rapist
You’ve Gotta Love High school
It was during summer break, July, when I got the text message from my old friend Eve. I had scoffed when I saw that I had been added to a group chat. The rare occurrence had never ended well for me.
But instead of finding the all too familiar conversations of people I didn’t talk to, I just saw one message. A link that took me to a Daily News article with the headline:
And right below it was a picture of my health teacher, Mr. Azurmendi. A selfie, interestingly enough. The man who had once stood in the front of a small, dimly lit classroom, now stood in Criminal Court.
At first, I just felt nauseous. That’s one of the main symptoms of my lovely anxiety. I just feel like throwing up when things get too much. I think this was the textbook definition of too much.
I scrolled through the article slowly, trying to digest the words. I admit to saying more than a few “oh my gods” out loud as I learned the details.
The messages had started to pour in.
Another friend of mine had written an essay length speech on how Eve was spreading rumors and how nothing had been confirmed. It was speculation, disrespectful and hey anything could’ve happened.
But the articles kept on being written. More and more were posted within a matter of minutes.
As they flooded in her response seemed increasingly invalid.
Then we found out that the girl went to our school.
I don’t think any of us were ready for that.
No, it wasn’t every day that there were think pieces written on your ‘posh’ school. No, it wasn’t every day that the teacher that had walked you through all the ways you could get an STD was arrested.
But, that had just brought it really close to home.
I watched the group chat silently fill up with shock and disbelief.
She was 16, not that much older than us when she walked with a married man with two kids to a club bathroom.
Apparently she had given ‘consent’. She wasn’t legal, but she had said that she wanted it.
I attempted to try to not think about it too much. When school came back last September, I was almost surprised how little it was discussed.
The head of the upper school sent out an email apologizing to the students that had attended the year before and that was it.
They apologized for the man who was friends with all of the seniors.
For the man who was my basketball coach in middle school.
For the man who explained to me what the legal age of consent was.
Who talked about healthy eating habits, while letting us eat greasy chips in the back of his class.
Who had a loud laugh and bushy eyebrows.
Who raped a 16-year-old girl.
They apologized and they should’ve. I still don’t really know I feel about the whole ordeal, but that I am sure of.
It’s back in the news again, as he’s recently gotten probation. The hushed conversations have started once more. We will never have a real dialogue about it but, for now, it’s good enough.
So I guess this is what you do when your Sex-Ed teacher is a rapist, you send your heart out to the victims’ family and try to forget.
