Talk:Mary Kay Letourneau

relevance of media role and unusually strong interest

Pincrete, I'd like to revert a change you made. You ask in the comment about relevance, which is a reasonable question. It's important that we understand how much media scrutiny was placed on this particular subject and situation. I've recently become aware of a different person who committed a very similar crime. Her name is Brittany Zamora, but the only thing Wikipedia says about her is where she currently resides.

What we say today:

• The case received national attention. (Actually, it was international)
• She became the subject of an international tabloid scandal, and experienced symptoms of degraded mental health according to acquaintances.
• Passing unnoticed past hordes of reporters and gawkers...

What we don't say, but possibly should:

• subject gained "notoriety".
• Considered the "most famous" example of this crime with similar details.
• Subject received harassment from other prisoners due to subject's 'celebrity' status.
• Subject's marriage ceremony occurred Amid "Media Circus" with "camera crews and a news hellicopter" and "metal detectors"
• News about subject was often filed under "entertainment" as with this URL.
• Subject "registered [as a sex offender] in a locked office of the King County courthouse while media swarmed outside."
• A book (Olsen, G.) about the subject says on its cover, "story that stunned the world."
• "The case blended the universal intoxicants of sex and crime with the novelty of gender." - speculation about appeal
• "Her four older children, ages 3 to 12, were sent to live temporarily with relatives in Washington D.C., to protect them from the media glare."
• continuing fascination: "People can't take their eyes off a train wreck like that"
• "By the end of February 1998, only President Clinton's relationship with former White House intern Monica Lewinsky was prompting more letters to the editors of Seattle newspapers. The Seattle Times put the tally for the month at 197 letters on Clinton and 93 on Letourneau."
• Note the publication of four books, including Gregg Olsen's If Loving You Is Wrong: The Shocking True Story of Mary Kay Letourneau (published in 1999, reissued in 2004, and so far translated into 11 languages)"
• Letourneau left prison under the same spotlight that shone on her when she arrived. Representatives of the Today show, Oprah, Primetime, Inside Edition, and news organizations in Great Britain, France, and Germany were among those on stakeout when she was released from the Washington Corrections Center for Women near Gig Harbor on August 4, 2004.
• Fualaau sold some of the letters to tabloids.
• "international headlines"
• around the world
• public's decades-long fascination, "tabloid fixtures"

Many commit similar crimes. Few receive this degree of intense, sustained, global attention. Nor can the story even be understood without these details. There are multiple instances where the unusual level of attention caused unusual results. Said Salon, "The scandals on the scale of Letourneau... expertly catalogs the corrosive role the media played in the affair."

We need to acknowledge the unusually high visibility of this criminal. I've tried to describe this appeal as notoriety, though I'm not 100% sold on the term. The article says in 3 places what that level of attention meant in concrete terms. We used to say it in 4 places, but you had concern about relevance. It's relevant! Mcfnord (talk) 03:21, 1 August 2020 (UTC)

I don't have a strong opinion on media coverage - my removal was itself 'tabloidy' detail, as I would say is the 'gawkers' above. If the level of attention was in any way unfair, that is for others to remedy, we simply reflect the big bad world, not fix it nor comment on it. I would object to you restoring 'painting a scene' details. Pincrete (talk) 08:12, 1 August 2020 (UTC)

I also wish to revert this eliding. She was indeed a staple of tabloids. And media coverage is one thing, but when media coverage changes what's going on, that's a different thing. Could you tell me which of these citations do seem noteworthy in your view? You say you have no strong opinion about covering the coverage, which we did 4 times, but now do 2 times, after your changes. Can you articulate how "painting a scene" is problematic, in your view? As a technical writer, I "paint scenes" with facts all the time. There are facts, and there are noteworthy facts. Which of the citations/facts listed above seem possibly inclusion-worthy to you? Does Wikipedia cover stuff like "story that stunned the world" but not stuff like "amid a 'media circus'"? Are you saying that reporting and level of interest is never part of the story? You reflect the big bad world except that part of it? I don't know if I think any of the coverage was fair or unfair, but it was massive, and that had consequences far beyond the printed pages. Why wouldn't we include those kinds of details? Locked in a police office while media swarmed outside? That's unusual. Her children relocated across the country due to media attention. Is that a detail you omit? Things like some book some guy wrote seem weaker to me than specifics about 100+ reporters at a court hearing, because it gets at what a lot of people were involved in (maybe a best-seller is comparable). We should reflect those unusual details, as they help explain the unusual international response to this criminal vs. very many others. Let our collaboration start! Mcfnord (talk) 14:38, 1 August 2020 (UTC)

Slightly off topic, but I just removed the information about Brittany Z. It's unsourced and libelous. For all we know that may have been added by a high school kid as a prank. I would also request that her last name be removed in the original post above, per WP:BLP. Sundayclose (talk) 16:06, 1 August 2020 (UTC)

I don't know, after reading through all of that, what the point is that we are trying to convey. What are the changes that are being suggested? What I infer from this is that we should portray her as somehow a victim of the media? Is that correct? I have no doubt that this was a high-profile case. That's extremely evident, so I don't know if there's much of a point in stating that, because pointing out the obvious can become condescending to the reader.

While true, every case does not come close to achieving this kind of publicity, you cannot blame that solely on the media. (And believe me, I am no fan of the MSM these days.) There is also public interest that plays a major role, because if the public is not interested the media will quickly move on. It's the same reason a handful of rock bands make it big and most don't. Her reactions and inane responses didn't really help her either, as that only fueled the interest.

That's the risk you take when you commit any crime. As an analogy, people commit murders everyday, yet very few of those reach the level of infamy as the Charles Manson murders. In retrospect, there have been many murders committed that were much more gruesome and deranged than the Manson case, and if it happened in, say ... Somewhere Nebraska, it would likely never had seen the type of coverage that it got. But, as it turned out, it happened in Beverly Hills, and all the ingredients came together to make it an extremely high-profile case. You can blame that on the media or public interest, the timing and the place, or any combination of the those, but the people ultimately responsible are the people who committed the crimes. That may be unfortunate for people like Bobby Beausoleil, who have served their sentences and would like to forget it and get on with their lives (and make it a footnote in their Wikipedia article), but that is never going to happen. These are names that achieved infamy, and Letourneau has achieved a level of fame that parallels theirs. (And for anyone that feels like jumping in and saying that child sexual abuse is not on the same level as murder, number one, that's not what I'm comparing, but rather the level of coverage they got, and number two, I would argue that it most certainly is.)

Now it definitely caused a controversy, and if we have sources specifically covering that controversy, then this may be one of those few articles that should actually have a controversy section (since "controversy" refers to a widespread public interest and debate, not just any old dispute or criticism or dirty laundry). But, from what I've read above, I have no clue what the actual proposal is beyond presenting a bunch of sources that together provide in inference not directly implied by them individually, so I'd be very careful of straying into the realm of synthesis. Zaereth (talk) 21:22, 3 August 2020 (UTC)

A "Controversy" section wouldn't be needed in this case (and often is not ideal in general). The whole reason she is famous is because of the Fualaau matter, which we cover in the respective sections. Flyer22 Frozen (talk) 21:46, 3 August 2020 (UTC)

Child rapist, a sort of revisited topic

TheXuitts wants to call Letourneau a child rapist in the lead.[1] I said to TheXuittsts that she wasn't Jimmy Savile, and that even his wikipedia article doesn't have the first sentence say "child rapist." By saying she was a child rapist, an onlooker might think there was more than one victim (before reading more, if they read more) and that she was a serial offender. But there was one victim, and editors have previously pointed out that she didn't seem to have a sexual preference for children. See Talk:Mary Kay Letourneau/Archive 1#Child rape not statutory rape (2010 discussion) and Talk:Mary Kay Letourneau/Archive 3#statutory child rape (2019 discussion). So I think saying "child rapist" isn't true to MOS:ROLEBIO. And the lead says already "second-degree rape of a child." I told TheXuitts that the consensus is to continue to say "second-degree rape of a child" while pipelinking to the statutory rape article. TheXuitts also wanted to say that Letourneau's motivation for the crime was pedophilia. I told them that "based on Talk:Mary Kay Letourneau/Archive 5#BRD discussion, you shouldn't add 'pedophilia' as a motive to that page. Pedophilia as a motive isn't in sources on this topic." So far, TheXuitts has dropped "pedophilia", but they really want "child rapist" in the lead. Is it better to say "convicted sex offender"? Valjean, in the most up-to-date discussion about using the term statutory rape in the article, you said, "I agree that we should continue to state 'second-degree rape of a child' while pipelinking to the Statutory rape article." Do you still hold this view? There's also things said at Talk:Mary Kay Letourneau/Archive 5#suspended prison term by Masem that I don't completely understand. Should I ask WP:NPOVN for their opinions? 195.226.154.42 (talk) 07:37, 9 December 2021 (UTC)

She was convicted of second-degree child rape. Someone convicted of child rape is a convicted child rapist. If someone is convicted of murder we say they are a convicted murderer, so I don’t know why you see this as different. She was a convicted child rapist and it is accurate to say she is one. TheXuitts (talk) 08:52, 9 December 2021 (UTC)

"Child rapist" and "second-degree rape of a child" are practically synonymous, but have very different connotations in the public mind in the United States, where, unlike France and many other nations, this would barely have been a crime, and certainly not have been punished as severely because it was consensual and he was so precocious.

Although this is the English LANGUAGE encyclopedia, we should not write only to the American or British mindset. The image created by those two words is the actions of a pedophile on an unwilling prepubescent child. In neither sense is that the case here. Fualaau was a large, fully developed, sexually precocious, 13-year old young man, there was no violence, and there is no evidence that Letourneau was a pedophile or sexually attracted to prepubescent children. He was a minor, and the relationship was illegal because it violated statutory rape laws in the state of Washington, and they are determined by the age of consent. The ages of consent in the United States vary between 16 and 18, depending on the state. It used to be lower in some states. IIRC, Mississippi or some other such southern state had it down to 13. At least marriage is legal at such low ages in some states.

Some countries go much lower than 16, and in France, sex with older children was previously legal as long as it was consensual. That's what got Roman Polanski in trouble. He did what was legal in France, but he was in Hollywood. Oops! The laws in France have also changed to older ages of consent. This article gives an interesting glimpse into the French mindset: French petition against age of consent laws.

Ages of consent in Europe vary between 14 and 18, with it being 14 in Albania, Andorra, Austria, Bulgaria, Estonia, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Liechtenstein, Montenegro, San Marino, and Serbia; 15 in Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Greece, Iceland, Monaco, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia, and Sweden. So that gives you an idea of how widely this is interpreted. Some go with the natural sexual development of the child and their impulses, and others go as high as 18, which goes completely against the natural order, but are thus according to the nation's own religious laws and repressive attitudes toward sexuality.

In summary, Fualaau was one year younger than the legal age of consent in many European countries, and we should keep the international mindset in mind and not create an unnecessarily harsh image that would be a BLP violation. That's why we pipelink the legal conviction "second-degree rape of a child" to the statutory rape article. Otherwise, people will end up at articles related to pedophilia, and that would be very wrong and violate our "easter egg" MoS guideline for wikilinks. -- Valjean (talk) 16:51, 9 December 2021 (UTC)

the public mind in the United States, where, unlike France and many other nations, this would barely have been a crime, and certainly not have been punished as severely because it was consensual and he was so precocious.

What are you talking about? The defendant literally, factually, was tried and punished as a child rapist in the United States. And are you saying Americans are more tolerant of child rapists than the French? Brusquedandelion (talk) 01:30, 13 December 2023 (UTC)

I have restored the consensus version and added a couple improvements. He was 13, not 12. Allowing that to be there at all was a huge BLP violation. -- Valjean (talk) 17:04, 9 December 2021 (UTC)

Valjean, I'm confused because you restored one consensus format, but you removed another.[2] See Talk:Mary Kay Letourneau/Archive 4#Should the article state that Fualaau was "12 or 13" at the time that Letourneau was sexual with him, or should it choose an age? If choosing an age, which one? (2019). "12 or 13" was chosen by Flyer22 Reborn, Pincrete, and Colin M. While Colin M did say "or just '12' if that's overwhelmingly favoured in RS", you voted "12 or 13, or only 12" in bold. Votes were for "12 or 13" because sources report both, which has caused a back and forth on the topic (as some editors will switch in "12" and others will switch in "13"). So what's changed? Maybe you need to place a Template:Note beside the age?

Cunard's close said, "The consensus is that the article should state Fualaau was 12 or 13. Some editors suggested that if sources disagree, then the disagreement should be added to the article. And that if sources lean heavily to one side, that should be noted in the article. There was little discussion of this suggestion, so there is no prejudice against discussing this approach further." 195.226.154.9 (talk) 03:05, 10 December 2021 (UTC)

I added a ref of the trial document that said: "was having sexual intercourse with V.F., a 13-year-old student at the school where she taught". That's as RS as one can get. Can any argument or other RS top that?

IIRC, there was uncertainty because popular RS sent mixed messages. It seems they weren't sure, but the trial document should seal the deal for 13. -- Valjean (talk) 04:02, 10 December 2021 (UTC)

I have to dig deep into my memory here, but vaguely remember that it was never established with precision when the relationship became 'actively' sexual - as opposed to merely flirtatious. Thus some sources go with 'still 12' if I remember correctly. BTW many of the European countries which you mention above make specific exceptions for a substantial age gap between parties and/or for those in a 'pastoral' role, such as teachers. Pincrete (talk) 07:45, 10 December 2021 (UTC)

Valjean, the leagle.com/ document which says 13 explicitly says "In early 1997, the King County Department of Public Safety Special Assault Unit received information that Mary K. Letourneau—a 35 year-old sixth grade teacher and mother of four children—was having sexual intercourse with V.F., a 13-year-old student at the school where she taught" ie he was 13 at the time 'ongoing' sexual relations were reported to authorities. The source does not appear to mention the age when relations began, nor the age when the two counts to which she pleaded guilty occurred. This really doesn't resolve the age question at all.Pincrete (talk) 08:02, 10 December 2021 (UTC)

Ugh! That muddies the waters. Where are the other court records which discuss the actual beginnings of the relationship? -- Valjean (talk) 21:52, 10 December 2021 (UTC)

I know this isn't a RS, but it mentions existing police reports, and it should be possible to find them cited in court records. According to it, "Fualaau later told police that the two had their first sexual encounter shortly before his 13th birthday, in Letourneau's home, after her husband had left for work and while her four children were asleep." With such documentation from those RS, we should be able to put this to rest as "12 years old when they started a sexual relationship". -- Valjean (talk) 22:02, 10 December 2021 (UTC)

I haven't found a police report, but a TV news source, and they are usually considered RS: https://abc7chicago.com/mary-kay-letourneau-vili-fualaau-student-teacher-lovers-teacher-sleeps-with-student/647483/ Is that good enough? -- Valjean (talk) 22:27, 10 December 2021 (UTC)

Okay, I have found a better one, although it's just an archive of a WDBJ news broadcast. It's still a RS that explicitly states: "FUALAAU WAS JUST TWELVE YEARS OLD WHEN THE AFFAIR WITH HIS TEACHER BEGAN." That should be good enough. -- Valjean (talk) 22:42, 10 December 2021 (UTC)

References

Request edit on 5 January 2023

• What I think should be changed: - Factual Error - 2020 minus 1962 equals 48 not 58 [Born Mary Katherine Schmitz January 30, 1962 Tustin, California, U.S. Died July 6, 2020 (aged 58)
• Why it should be changed:
• References supporting the possible change (format using the "cite" button):

24.180.215.80 (talk) 23:14, 5 January 2023 (UTC)

Not done. The content is correct. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 02:33, 6 January 2023 (UTC)

I am not logged in so I cant edit it right

sorry 103.71.77.84 (talk) 02:51, 12 January 2024 (UTC)

First paragraph is all in bold

I think that's a format mistake but I'm not sure, so, I'm just mention it.

Kind regards! riveravaldez (talk) 08:35, 27 January 2024 (UTC)

It's fixed. Thanks. Jauerback^dude?/_dude. 13:14, 27 January 2024 (UTC)

Last-ish Line—People Mag 2020

I realize this might be a controversial suggestion, so I figured I'd just flag it here. People Magazine is obviously ... not a great source, and while I'm ambivalent on whether that last comment is removed, I do think the current end of this article is a bit misleading. The People Mag source is from 2020. But, in a September 2020 interview with Dr. Oz [3], Fualaau seemed to defend his ex wife, saying, "That is my wife and she is my best friend and we had our kids together and we did get married and we had a whole life together." At the same time, Fualaau also said that, were he attracted to minors, he would "seek help." It seems like that commentary, which is directly attributable to Fualaau (rather than unnamed sources) and also more recent than the People Mag report should probably be featured in the article instead of or at least after the People Mag report.--96.94.213.161 (talk) 15:23, 8 February 2024 (UTC)