But when the Adelaide high school student said he did not want to die a virgin, Bettina Schmoock’s empathy crossed the line into criminality.

In a series of text messages, Schmoock began counselling the boy on matters of the heart — and edging him toward a sexual encounter.

“Masturbation is a completely normal and healthy part of one’s life,” she said in one of the earliest messages.

“I even thought of telling you to sleep with someone as it helps to get rid of aggro and tension, but then I realised you had probably not slept with anybody.

“You should not do it with a young, unexperienced girl, because she might need you to make love to her, not have sex.”

She said she would be “willing to do that”, meaning have sex, for his sake and that intimacy would not be compulsory but would be for his sake, not hers.

The boy, however, declined her invitation and chose instead to start a relationship with a girl his own age — a decision Schmoock took poorly.

“I’m so amazing (sic) you threw your virginity away like this, wow,” she responded.

“You must have been so very desperate ... I just hope you managed to use a condom as no one likes STDs.

“I forgive you your poor choice of first-time sex. I hope you got something out of it, at least.”

What Schmook got was a jail sentence. But she was lucky, the 22-months was suspended and she was threatened with deportation instead. That decision is still going through legal processes.

The manipulative language teacher is not the only female educator to run foul of the law in the pursuit of thrills with teenage boys.

Store room sex. and a ‘delight’ to teach

In 2018, a pregnant ex-teacher at an exclusive Sydney boys school was convicted after having sex with a student.

The 34-year-old pleaded guilty to five counts of sexual intercourse with a person under her care over three months in 2016 while she worked at Sydney Grammar School.

The teacher performed oral sex on the student on school grounds and in a store room as well as in her home. Their relationship turned sexual after she showered him with gifts, including books of poetry, and told him personal details of her life, including problems in her relationship with her husband.

The court heard “she made him write sex fantasies for her and they exchanged sexual fantasies”.

The teacher met the 17-year-old victim at her home, a classroom and a school storage cupboard as they embarked on what she thought was a “very mutual love affair”.

She also wrote in a report to his parents that the boy was “a delight to teach”.

The then-teacher bombarded the student with text messages for months after he ended their sexual relationship, apologising, telling him she loved him and referring to herself as a “f***ing monster”.

When the teacher found out a friend of the victim knew about the relationship, she asked, “Am I going to jail?”

The student replied: “No, you’re not.”

But she was jailed for 15 months, though she was freed after seven.

She seduced an autistic boy

In 2015, a female teacher in Brisbane was jailed for seducing an intellectually impaired student and starting a lengthy sexual relationship.

The then 23-year-old special education teacher invited the student to her home in 2011 and seduced him after the breakdown of her seven-year relationship left her feeling alone and depressed.

Over the next 18 months she and the autistic boy met frequently for consensual sex in the back of her car, at her home, and before class in a park across the road from the school.

The woman’s barrister, Liam Dollar, said the relationship “made her feel like she was no longer alone and she was still somewhat desirable”.

The court heard she bought the teen gifts such as an iPhone, an iPad, and a season pass to a theme park, and supplied him with alcohol and cannabis.

Then the relationship ended in mid-2012 he began self-harming and eventually told his mother the truth.

So, what is going on here?

Andrea J. Darling, writing in The Conversation, said that the attractive female teacher “seducing” the wide-eyed teenage pupil trope is often portrayed as a “coming of age” experience but legally, a teacher engaging in any form of sexual relationship with a child under their care is abuse.

Women involved in teacher-pupil sex cases do not fit the mould of what many consider a “predatory paedophile”.

“Unlike other sex offenders they do not specifically enter their professions to access children. Instead my research has found that many (though not all) of these women appear to abuse because of their own unmet intimacy needs resulting from relationship problems and feelings of loneliness.”

But, she argued, while abuse by a woman is seen as being less harmful than abuse by a man, it was still abuse and can cause harm to the victims.

Mary Kay Letourneau

But that didn’t seem to be the case with primary school teacher Mary Kay Letourneau, who was 34 when she began an affair with her then-13-year-old student Vili Fualaau in Seattle in 1996.

The pair had already been caught together once in LeTourneau’s car but managed to convince authorities there was nothing in it before Letourneau’s husband discovered the affair, and in February 1997 she was arrested for rape. It then was revealed she was pregnant and that the father was Fualaau. The story immediately became international news. In May of 1997, Letourneau gave birth to a girl, Audrey. In August of 1997, Letourneau pleaded guilty to two counts of second-degree child rape, and was given a suspended seven-year jail sentence, serving six months and required to enrol in a sex offender program.

Then, in February of 1998, she was found in a parked car with Faulaau, along with cash, baby clothes, and a passport, and was sent back to prison to serve the remainder of her term. Letourneau and Fualaau’s second daughter, Georgia, was born in October of 1998. In August 2004, Letourneau was released from jail and, in May 2005, she and Fualaau were married.

In 2018, an unnamed friend told People magazine: “They what everyone thinks about their relationship ... and they don’t care. They really never have. The wrong stuff that happened was so long ago. They are two grown adults who are living their lives now.”

But in February 2019, the couple filed for divorce, which was due to become official in August.

Dori Myers

In 2018, Bronx high school teacher Dori Myers admitted to performing oral sex on her 14-year-old student but escaped jail time — and even kept her teaching permit.

Myers, 30, pleaded guilty to criminal sex act for the November 2016 incident at her former workplace, New School for Leadership and the Arts in Kingsbridge, where she taught social studies.

The incident came to light when a friend of the boy’s told another teacher. Myers was sentenced to 10 years’ probation. As part of her plea agreement, she got to keep her teaching certificate.

Laura Bucy

Ohio high school teacher Laura Bucy said the 17-year-old boy she had sex with “looked and acted” like her ex-husband.

They swapped raunchy photos and videos of each other.

The 32-year-old Home Ecomics teacher told police she had sex with the teen in a classroom pantry. The offending was discovered when Bucy told her ex-husband’s father about the illicit relationship, saying she needed to “confess her sins”.

Bucy was placed on administrative leave following her arrest on charges of sexual battery and disseminating matter harmful to juveniles. She is due for sentencing in August 2019.

Sarah Fowlkes

She became known as the smiling predator after her mugshot, which showed her with a wide smile, was widely circulated.

Sarah Fowlkes, who taught anatomy and physiology at Lockhart High School, Texas, was accused of engaging in “sexual content with the intent to arouse or gratify the sexual desire” of a 17-year-old student in March 2017.

Fowlkes was charged with having an improper relationship with the lad after turning herself in to cops in March 2018.

Her all-American smile led her lawyer to say she must have been innocent.

“This isn’t a guilty person sitting there like they just got caught,” Jason Nassour said at the time. “When everything’s fleshed out, it won’t be as it appears.”

Oops.

Fowlkes pleaded guilty and avoided prison, instead paying a fine and getting four years’ probation.

Alexandria Vera

The former Houston middle school teacher pleaded guilty to having sex with a 13-year-old boy who impregnated her.

Alexandria Vera was an English teacher at Thomas J. Stovall Middle School when she met the boy during summer school in 2016. She told investigators they grew close during the following school year, when he was an eighth grade student. The relationship went on for nine months.

Court documents say she was introduced to his family as the boy’s girlfriend, and the woman said that his parents supported the relationship and invited her to family gatherings. She reportedly said she told a school district investigator the family was “very supportive and excited” when she disclosed her pregnancy. She allegedly said she and the boy “love each other.”

Vera had an abortion. She was originally charged with continuous sex abuse of a child but pleaded guilty to a lesser charge of aggravated sex assault of a child.

Abbie Jane Swogger

When police knocked on the door of a hotel room at the Clarion Inn, in Lancaster, Pennsylvania in February 2009, what they found left them aghast.

Inside was Abbie Jane Swogger, a 34-year-old teacher’s aide at Highlands Senior High School. Also in the room was a lot of beer, marijuana, an open condom wrapper, and several 14 and 15-year-old boys, many of whom were friends of Swogger’s son.

When police went to arrest Swogger, they found a 17-year-old boy hiding in her bedroom. Soon a picture leaked of Swogger, a former exotic dancer, naked and being groped by at least six underage boys. It was also revealed that Swogger had had sex with another 16-year-old student weeks before.

By the time Swogger made it to trial, she was accused of 39 separate charges, including providing crack cocaine to the teenagers at the Clarion Inn, and luring two other female teenagers to her room in order to have sex with them.

In May 2009, she pleaded guilty to 11 of the 39 charges against her, and was sentenced to three to six years in jail, followed by 36 years of probation.

The list goes on ...

... Debra Lafave who was 23 when she had sex with a 14 year old student then tried to plead insanity; Pamela Rogers Turner, who was 27 and had an ongoing affair with a 13-year-old boy and went to prison; Stephanie Ragusa, a maths teacher arrested three separate times for having sex with two different underage male students, one 16 and the other 14; Lisa Lavoie who, when police came to question her about her affair with a 15-year-old boy, took off on a two-week road trip with the teen before being arrested; and Traci Tapp, a gym teacher who had a relationship with a 15-year-old wrestler, and had the case written up by Rolling Stone magazine.

And one to die for ...

Then there is Pamela Smart, who seduced a high school boy and goaded him into murdering her husband. Smart was jailed for the plot and her story was made into a movie, To Die For, which starred Nicole Kidman and won the Aussie actor her first Oscar nomination.