“There was a special energy about her.”
Authenticated
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PR-03 - Source: David Steinberg. Beyond Predators and Victims: The Not-So-Sensational Story of Debra Lafave and her 14-Year-Old Student. Comes Naturally, January 16th, 2006.
http://www.consentingjuveniles.com/Case_Narrative?case=David_Steinberg |
One of the cases that Marshall Burns includes on his Consenting Juveniles website concerns writer, photographer and political activist David Steinberg.
As a teenager, Steinberg had a platonic bond with a high school teacher, he calls “Miss Klein” (not her real name).
Here are a few highlights of this testimony:
“She was young, attractive, vivacious, full of energy that she expressed with her body as well as with her mind. On top of everything else, she didn’t maintain the professional aura that seemed so much a part of all the other teachers’ personalities. She was down-to-earth, she talked to us students about her personal life, she didn’t create a sense of separation between herself and us.
[…]
We all knew that there was a special energy about her and we enjoyed being near her so we could feel the radiance of it, share it, reflect it, imitate it to some degree.
She had a boyfriend, I think he was her fiancé, whom she adored. She was quite open in talking to us about their relationship, about their being in love, about places they would go and things they would do together.
[…]
We all knew that she enjoyed our company, enjoyed joking with us, enjoyed telling us stories, enjoyed telling us stories about sexy things, enjoyed hearing our stories, enjoyed us. And I knew that, of all the students, I was her favorite. There was something special between us, powerful and unnamed, a vibrant mutual appreciation. It was exciting and it felt good.”
One day, Miss Klein visited Steinberg:
“I have no idea how she came to be in my house, but that’s where she was. The one thing I remember about that time is that I took the opportunity to play her the music that I found the most thrilling in all the world – the pure liquid voice of Joan Baez, and the majesty of Handel’s Messiah. Playing that music for Miss Klein was my unconscious, unspoken way of showing her what I had discovered so far about the wonder of ecstatic feeling. Somehow I knew that she would appreciate what this was about for me.
[…]
Miss Klein grinned at my passion for the music and I felt confirmed, felt that she understood and respected my pubescent passion, and could see that my passion was not entirely unrelated to the passion she experienced in her life, in her body, with her fiancé, even though it expressed itself in very different ways.
Miss Klein and I never expressed our appreciation for each other, or our shared appreciation for passionate life, in any kind of directly sexual way. I was very young at 15, had not so much as kissed a girl in a sexual way. It never would have occurred to me that the bond I felt with Miss Klein had anything to do with sexual attraction, although I can clearly see it in retrospect. I certainly never experienced any kind of sexual energy coming from Miss Klein toward me.
[…]
For better or for worse, Miss Klein and I kept our delight with each other strictly in the non-sexual realm."
When I graduated from high school (still not quite 16), Miss Klein wrote in my yearbook:
"David, keep enjoying life, people and discoveries always as you do now – life will be great."
She was right about that.
Under the yearbook photo of the cheerleader squad, she felt free to add:
"I wish you great success here too!"
   
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