There are wingnuts, and then there is Tucker Carlson. Joy Morsi, a thirty eight year old gym teacher was charged with raping a sixteen year old student in a school closet. In Tuker's brain, that's not rape because the kid was hot for teacher.

The kid is going to have to live with this forever.

Carlson: Live with what?

Oh, here we go.

Carlson: Are you being serious? I'm not joking not even a tiny bit. It's ludicrous we're calling this a rape. Are you being serious? The kid is sixteen. He pursued her and they are calling it a rape? I'll tell you where she was wrong to this extent. He went and tattled to the police and destroyed her life, are you kidding me? Are you joking, what a whiny country it is. I'm not kidding. You're this by and then all of a sudden you're a rape victim. Pursue an older woman and have a relationship with her and you're a rape victim? it defies common sense.

Tucker's idea of common sense is seriously delusional on many topics including sex crimes. And he's also delusional about what happened in this case. Did he even read the particulars before opening his mouth? Amanda Marcotte sets him straight:

In fact, the student did not "tattle" on the teacher. According to NBC New York, the 38-year-old gym teacher from Queens carried on with a 16-year-old student over the summer, and he told a friend about it. That friend told a parent, who then reported it to the police. Which was the right thing to do, since adults who take sexual advantage of minors, regardless of gender, are engaging in criminal behavior.

Nobody was whining, Tucker, you flatulent gasbag. These laws have been on the books a long time for good reason and if they weren't needed, I'm sure by now some conservative judge would have overturned them already -- in, say, Mississippi.

Being an adult in an authoritative position is a powerful one for underage students. Being sixteen doesn't mean you are a matured individual obviously -- because, as everyone with a brain knows, they are not. I was a substitute teacher in my old high school in Queens, NY, when I graduated college (I was in my early twenties) and one reason why (not the main one, though) I didn't pursue a teaching career was because students were coming on to me so frequently. Even though they were physically striking, after a few seconds, you know how childlike they still are and anyone with an ounce of decency or integrity wouldn't do what Morsi did. At that young age, kids don't understand the consequences of their decisions at all, especially when it comes to their budding sexuality. It's how teenagers are.

Amanda makes a similar point too:

But just because minors might want to have sex with adults doesn't mean that the adults are right to exploit them. After all, minors also want adults to provide them with alcohol, but that too is illegal. And to assume that boys of a certain age are more equipped than girls to consent to sex with an adult assumes that boys, by virtue of their gender, are smarter and more capable of handling themselves than girls are.

A teacher always has an obligation to maintain a teacher/student relationship at all times and it's not asking too much for them to do that.

Tucker, can you imagine what would go on in any school system if we didn't have these laws on the books protecting underage students? I shudder to think about it, but I imagine that's what Tucker Carlson dreams of at night before he falls to sleep.