AMANDA GOFF: Skin-crawling excuses of 'sex teachers': Predatory and pathetic, these women all share a deeply troubling trait. I'll never forget when one confessed to me...
Read these texts carefully.
'I was sad when you had to leave my room… When other girls talk about you in my class, I could feel myself getting mad.'
Or consider this: 'We almost got caught. I was sad when that student walked in when he did. I wanted you to hold me. I really like being touched by you.'
What comes to mind? Perhaps a lovesick schoolgirl with a crush on her classmate?
What if I told you this was a message sent by a 25-year-old female teacher to her 17-year-old male victim - the same boy she had been sleeping with at her home in Spokane, Washington, in November 2022?
The teacher in question is McKenna Kindred, now 27 - a young woman with a lawyer husband, Kyle, and a comfortable home - the same house where she had sex with her pupil for over three hours while Kyle was out hunting.
Kindred has since confessed to first-degree sexual misconduct. Incredibly, her husband is sticking by her and Lord knows the damage done to the victim.
An isolated case? Hardly.
McKenna Kindred, 27, of Spokane, Washington, pleaded guilty to first-degree sexual misconduct and inappropriate communication with a minor in March 2024
The married teacher's texts read like a lovesick schoolgirl with a crush on her classmate
Closer to home, in Australia, there is Naomi Tekea Craig. She is 33 and also married. She taught at an Anglican school in Mandurah, WA, where she spent more than a year sexually abusing a 12-year-old boy. Reports suggest she gave birth to his child on January 8. Her husband naturally assumed he was the father.
I have seen photos of her proudly showing off her baby bump - the child of a teenager. Every kick must have been a stark reminder of what she had done.
Kindred admitted to what some have generously called an 'affair' and was spared prison, but must register as a sex offender for ten years. Craig has pleaded guilty to 15 charges and is currently on bail until her next court appearance in March.
Craig's case in particular - given the victim's age - is both revolting and almost unbelievable. As a mother, my heart aches for her victim and the child.
Mates of her victim say he still plans to run away with his abuser - yes, let's call her what she is - once 'her sentence is up'.
This has clearly messed with his head. It makes me sick to my stomach.
First, I'll state the obvious: what the hell is wrong with these women?
But there is another, more uncomfortable question: are there more of them out there?
Australian former teacher Naomi Tekea Craig (pictured) has pleaded guilty to 15 charges
In my view, yes, there are.
Just as the number of men convicted of sex crimes merely scratches the surface of the far greater number who go unpunished, I suspect there are many more emotionally stunted Kindreds and Craigs who abuse teenage boys and delude themselves into believing it is love.
Many of those boys become broken men.
We have seen this before - with Mary Kay Letourneau. The Seattle teacher raped her 12-year-old student, went to prison, and later married him. There was even a television film made about it, All American Girl. It was perhaps the first story of its kind - or at least the first to become a tabloid sensation - yet it was softened by many who saw it as a 'forbidden love story', remarking that Mary Kay was 'pretty', her marriage 'unhappy', and their relationship merely 'controversial' rather than criminal.
Well, she's dead now and I'll call it what it is: child rape - committed by a woman who was clearly unwell and receiving treatment for bipolar disorder, but who was still in control of her actions.
These cases are not as rare or isolated as we are led to believe - and the psychological damage inflicted on these boys is far greater than any 'slap-on-the-wrist' sentence these abusers may receive.
Let me explain how I know this.
I worked as an escort in a previous life - Samantha X - and during those years, I met male survivors of child and adolescent sexual abuse perpetrated by women.
I have listened to them. I have held them as they wept like the boys they once were.
These men do not speak publicly about their abuse. They do not tell their friends or their wives. They rarely seek therapy. The memories of their abuse are hazy, confused, and steeped in shame.
Naomi Tekea Craig is pictured while pregnant with her first child, fathered by her husband
Sometimes, I am the only person they have ever told.
At the time, some believed they were 'lucky', as if experiencing a teenage boy's fantasy. But the fantasy does not last.
When a woman uses sex to initiate a child into the adult world, she is stealing their innocence. The scars may not show immediately, but they will surface eventually.
Let me tell you about one young man I met. His experience illustrates the impact this kind of abuse can have on men, especially when it remains unspoken or unreported .
He was abused by an older female teacher at boarding school. She was blonde and, as is often the case, fairly attractive. For years, he convinced himself it was an 'exciting' chapter of his youth. He even felt lucky - chosen - that she singled him out to 'make into a man'. The fact that she provided a much-needed mother figure, especially as his relationship with his own parents was strained, seemed like a blessing.
But after graduating, the knot in his stomach began to tighten.
He tried to silence the voice in his head screaming 'this isn't normal' with drugs, alcohol and sex. In time, his confusion hardened into violence. He ended up in prison.
Eventually, I became fearful of him and had to cut off contact .
I know he wasn't a 'bad man'. He was simply struggling to process the abuse that he had never named, processed or grieved.
He was just one of many I have met. Different lives, same trauma.
I have also met a woman who once took advantage of a boy, though I do not believe she realises the gravity of her actions.
I cannot say much more about her, except that she was lost, traumatised by her own childhood, and spent much of her life in a haze of drugs and alcohol.
Her story is a sobering reminder that trauma may explain behaviour, but it never excuses it.
While she may not be wracked with guilt, I am certain the young man will never forget.
The lesson from these cases is simple: women must be held to account when they exploit boys - and held to the same standards as male abusers.
Yet while their crimes are equally serious, we must also recognise that the motives behind their actions are fundamentally different.
The myriad reasons why men harm women are well-documented: desire for control, sexual gratification, insecurity, anger.
But women who exploit boys are not always driven by sexual desire. Many of them - and I do not say this to excuse their actions - are simply, and pathetically, immature.
Read the texts, study the police interviews - far from being stereotypical monsters, they often act and speak like children themselves.
It would be laughable if their actions were not so devastatingly harmful.
Some appear stuck in an adolescent mindset. They view themselves as schoolgirls with crushes. Perhaps that is why they chose to become teachers.
This disturbing arrested development manifests in seeking validation from adolescent boys, for whom any older woman holds a particular allure.
'Far from being stereotypical monsters, women who abuse adolescent boys often act and speak like children themselves. It would be laughable if their actions were not so devastatingly harmful,' writes Amanda Goff
To these immature 'sex teachers', grown men - with their jobs, moods, and sexual problems - are a burden. If their needs are not met, that teenage boy, sitting in awe at the front of the class, suddenly seems like manna from heaven.
This is the crux of their delusion. From what I have observed, these women confuse a teenage boy's compliance - his eagerness to be desired and his natural excitement at a female teacher's attention - with genuine consent.
But it is not consent. It is confusion.
It is never a mere schoolyard crush, and it is certainly not a 'forbidden love story'. Even if the victim does not realise it at the time, it is exploitation.
And to allow your victim to become the father of your child - as Craig and Letourneau did - is a special kind of cruelty for which I scarcely have words.
We know what male predators look like - and, quite rightly, expect judges to treat them harshly. Yet, when the abuser is a woman in her thirties and the victim a teenage boy, some people - not me - feel something akin to pity.
But this is misplaced sympathy. These women may be deluded and immature, but they are also calculating. One must be, to use their authority as teachers to exploit the natural curiosity of adolescent boys.
These 'relationships' - as some like to call them - do not 'just happen'.
Kindred received a two-year suspended sentence. Craig's sentence is pending. I sincerely hope the court throws the book at her.
