Double Standards

It was great to have Barry Lyga discuss his book and the impact that a book that makes people so uncomfortable has. It seems to be a theme that many of the books we have read in class seem to bring us back to. One aspect that Mr. Lyga mentioned was the fact that a boy being molested by a female teacher was something that wasn’t viewed as serious but would be if the genders were reversed. While reading the book it reminded me of Living Dead Girl and even though the circumstances were much different the way the reader felt about what was taking place in Boy Toy was drastically different compared to Living Dead Girl. While reading the story one thing that I had in mind was an episode of South Park which examined just this situation of how boys that were abused were viewed as lucky instead of victims. When the police were told that a teacher was having a relationship with a student, the police were outraged screaming “what’s his name?” when they were told it was a female teacher all they said was “…nice.” (http://www.southparkstudios.com/clips/155304) Boy Toy does a great job of really making the reader address their own personal views on the matter and think about why male victims tend to viewed in such a different way especially when the molester is a young and attractive woman.