Teacher: Sex with students was "casual" and "warm"

A teacher admits having sex with students but says he's "surprised they remember." An expert says that this is typical.

By Tracy Clark-Flory
Salon.com
Originally published June 25, 2012

More startling than the fact that he gave an interview to the media, or even that he admitted to having had sex with his underage students, was that Tek Young Lin described the many-decades-old incidents as “warm” and “casual.”

In Sunday’s New York Times, the former teacher at the elite Manhattan private school Horace Mann, which is now the focus of widespread allegations of abuse, said, “The only thing I can assure you of was that everything I did was in warmth and affection and not a power play.” Of his three former high school students who spoke with the Times about the incidents — two of whom say the sexual contact began at 14 or 15, one of whom said it began at 17 — Lin said, “I’m surprised they remember. It was all so casual and warm.”
James Cantor, a psychologist and editor in chief of the research journal Sexual Abuse, tells me this sort of rationalization is common among adults who pursue sex with minors.

The entire story is here.

Thanks to Gary Schoener for this story.