As many of you know, I've been reading quite a lot of yaoi recently. One thing I've noticed about this is the proliferation of plots involving students and teachers that litter yaoi manga in particular. Now I suppose this fits nicely into the yaoi genre because usually there is one older guy with a lot of authority and a younger guy who gets taken advantage of (only to turn the tables later, I've noticed). Occasionally it's the other was around with the teacher as the 'cute young thing' Uke and the student as a younger, yet still more dominate Seme.
There are a lot of m/m books based on yaoi and yet I've yet to read one where there is a teacher/student relationship. I've read a couple like The Professor's Passion by ML Rhodes which have a university professor and a post-grad student but non with an 18 year old high school student and a teacher (which are the ones which crop up the most in yaoi and sometimes the students are younger than 18). This made me wonder why.
- Is it because there's a faint whiff of seediness about an older man in authority who has an affair with one of his students?
- Is it that western readers are uncomfortable with teacher/student romance?
- There are a number of romance books which have teachers getting together, including one of my favourite m/m romances Caught Running by Madeleine Urban and Abigail Roux, so it can't be that the school environment is considered unsexy.
I don't mind the whole teacher/student storyline and I wish that there were some m/m books which use that plot. Or maybe there already are some books like that, but I haven't heard of them. In which case I'm sure you'll correct me!
I'd imagine there aren't more teacher/ high school student relationship books because of the age thing. And even if the student is 18, there's still something a little squicky about it as you said-- especially if the older man is still the younger's teacher.
ReplyDeleteI do like the teacher/ student storyline once it moves to the college age, though. I just read Bound and Determined by Jane Davitt and Alexa Snow in which the protags were a professor and a former student, and I enjoyed it muchly (highly recommend it). That's the only teacher/ student story I can think of that I've read besides the ML Rhodes story that you mentioned.
There is a book called The Coming Storm by Paul Russell which I've eyed on amazon, but haven't read, which deals with the relationship between a high school student and a teacher, but it doesn't look like a typical m/m story.
In a similar vein, I also like the military stories with a relationship between an officer and someone they're training. If you like that kind of story, I'll Be Your Drill, Soldier by Crystal Rose is excellent.
Well, most Western publishers won't publish books that involve sex between anyone under 18 and and an adult I don't think. I don't have a problem with college student/professor but I do find the yaoi student/teacher thing a bit odd. I just finished the one where I'm not sure how old the kid was but I got the impression he was 15 or 16 and the teacher blackmailed him into living with him and more (not shown). In Canada he'd be arrested for that. LOL Our age of consent may be 16 UNLESS you are in a position of authority over the youth. Ding ding, homeroom teacher fits this category. So I think for me it squicks me out if the kid is underage. But once they are in college it's okay.
ReplyDeleteI think that one story in the Bravo Brava anthology is a college professor/student and in Sean Michael's The Tutor it's a grad student-teaching assistant/student. Vic Winter also has Bachelor Auction but again, its professor/grad student and nothing happens until the student has graduated. Maybe it's a Western sensibility but I know if my daughter started dating one of her teachers now I'd be calling the police and suing the school board. LOL
Richelle: I can see how it make people feel uncomfortable, but if the student is over 18, then technically that's an adult and wouldn't it just be the same as dating your boss?
ReplyDeleteI haven't read the Jane Davitt/Alexa Snow book. Thanks for the rec on that.
Tam: Yeah, I think yaoi do take it a step too far when the student can be as young as 16, especially when quite a lot of yaoi is dub con.
ReplyDeleteI'd forgotten about the Jet Mykles story in Brava Bravo. They didn't get their hea though until the guy was no longer teaching the student. The student was also the one coming onto the teacher in that story rather than the other way around.
It's not unheard of for teachers to get together with sixth form students (ie. your senior year - I think) but it generally frowned upon.
Did you read Bad Case of Loving You by Laney Cairo? That's a WONDERFUL teacher/student story. YUM.
ReplyDeleteJane Davitt has another teacher/student one out from a while back...Drawing Closer, I believe. I haven't read it, so I'm not sure how solid the romance is. Seems it might be more of an obsession story than a true romance.
Also try You Can Leave Your Hat On by Lena Matthews.
(Dunno if you were actually looking for recs...just thought I'd toss those in there.)
Anyway, I love the teacher/student theme. I think we westerners (particularly Americans) are just too prude as a society to accept this theme. No idea why. Must have something to do with the inner power struggle we deal with.
Without reading the replies, age was the first thing that popped in my mind and I see that I was not the only one.
ReplyDeleteBlogger ate my comment the first time, so I'll try again.
ReplyDeleteI believe the difficulty has to do with the authority figure/young person dynamic. In much of America, even tho' 18 is the age of consent, kids that age still live at home, dependent on parents. It gives the perception of not-yet-responsible-for-self.
I think it is also a little squicky to think of the teacher and student in the classroom if they are in a relationship also. Cause then - are you lovers, or something else? The power balance is way off.
Now, if the kid were truly independent - a street kid, or just out of foster care or raised by a sibling, or a rich inheritor, or, heh, a vampire who only looks 18 - and if the teacher were not directly responsible for the student - working a different grade level or as a tutor or club moderator - then it might be more 'acceptable'.
I'm all for the older teen getting involved in a romance with an older man (Queer as Folk - yum!) but I think the teacher/student aspect is a difficult hurdle to breach.
I agree with others that it is probably a western perception of the young adult being taken advantage of by a person of authority.
ReplyDeleteI think one of the reasons why I like the theme so much in yaoi is that it is usually the teacher who is the uke and the student the seme, which turns the whole issue of power in the relationship on its head.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteThe UK age of consent is generally 16, unless the older person is in a position of authority over the younger one, in which case it's 18. Student-teacher is one of the relationships specifically cited in the law, and there's a reason for that -- there is too much potential for abuse of a position of power. "Have sex with me if you want good marks" is a very real possibility, and even if it's not what's going on in the teacher's head, it may be what's going on in the pupil's.
ReplyDeleteEven at university level, where it is not illegal as such, there are questions about consent. That power imbalance can make it feel icky even where it's genuinely consensual.
I deliberately made the younger man in my tycoon/secretary someone just finishing his PhD, rather than someone just finishing his BSc, because of this. There's a mentor/student relationship there as well as the more obvious boss/employee relationship, and I thought that with both power imbalances in play Mark needed to be just that bit closer to being at least Steven's potential equal. Making Mark 25 rather than 21, with a few years of experience in a real job and the potential to be a high-flyer with or without Steven was what *I* needed to be able to write Steven as accepting that Mark was entitled to make up his own mind what he wanted.
JenB: Bad case of loving is still on my tbr pile. I will get around to reading it soon.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the other recs!
Ingrid: If a student is over 18 then age shouldn't really matter.
Kris: I liked that inversion of power too - although in the one I've just read the teacher was the Seme and it was a little creepy.
ReplyDeleteHi Jules
ReplyDeleteI loved the balance of power in your Lord and Master books. I don't think the book would have worked as well had Mark been younger.
The abuse of power is a serious issue, especially with young, impressionable uni students who may be away from home for the first time. I knew of many young women who had affairs with their uni lecturers because they were attracted to that power and the lecturers took advantage of it, despite the fact that everyone was over 18. Plus there is the issue of the student who thinks that having sex with their lecturer is one way to get good marks - how many times has that been shown in films and TV?!
However, I think a pairing between a student and teacher could be done well in a m/m book if the feelings and intentions of both protags are covered in the book. Just like with Mark and Steven in your books, everyone assumed that Mark was sleeping with the boss for ambitious reasons, yet we the reader knew differently.
I think over here in America we have had so many cases in the news concerning teachers and young students that we have come to cringe at even the idea of a romance between the student and teacher in a high school setting.
ReplyDeleteHi Wren
ReplyDeleteOops I missed you out!
There was a really good story by JL Merrow in the Sindustry anthology where 2 men had sex (one was a prostitute) and then later one of the men went to college and his teacher was the other man. In that story the difficulties of the teacher/student relationship were covered only briefly, but enough that I was happy that they could make it work.
I understand your concerns though, it would be better if the older man didn't have any direct responsibility for the student but instead just worked at the college or school.
Hi Amanda
ReplyDeleteThat sort of relationship is quite common in this country but doesn't get that much publicity unless its a clear case of either abuse or the student trying to blackmail the teacher. Funnily enough a relationship like that is more likely to hit the news if the teacher is a woman who is seen to have taken advantage of a male student, rather than the other way around.
I think you can make teacher/student work, but it requires careful writing not to push squick buttons for a lot of readers. But exploring the issue of what makes for meaningful consent is something that can be interesting for writers, and the teacher/student dynamic is one way to do that.
ReplyDeleteJules: I think that accidentally setting off 'squick' is probably the main thing which puts many writers off writing books about teacher/student relationships.
ReplyDeleteJenre, that and very real concerns about someone deciding to brand you as promoting paedophilia.
ReplyDeleteI have a teacher/pupil short story which is staying in the trunk. It is about the teacher waiting until the last day of school, which is also the pupil's 18th birthday, and is a very deliberate message about that being the right thing to do -- but if I tried to publish it I would be running a significant risk of someone accusing me of promoting teacher/pupil relationships in real life.
Jules: yeah, I can see how that might be a tricky one.
ReplyDelete