Yeah this is something I have noticed also. And what bothers me a lot is the fact that society very clearly sees it as MUCH worse when a man has an affair with a female student. It is actually quite mainstream for people to think that this shouldn't be a crime because "the boys want it". Really? Well, who's to say a girl can't also want it? I think society still holds double standards about how males and females are and how they should be treated. I always hear people talking about how they would torture/castrate/kill any man who slept with their daughter, but you would never hear someone saying this about a woman who sleeps with a teenage boy. I would actually go so far as to say many people have more hatred towards a 30 year old man who sleeps with a 22 year old woman(which is legal and morally ok) than towards a woman who sleeps with a teenage boy.

With that said, I do not think that having an affair with a 15-17 year old teen should be looked at the same as pedophilia. Pedophilia is when someone is attracted to CHILDREN, meaning prepubescent and early teens to some extent. I think this is on a whole different level and should be classified as rape. When we are talking about 15-17 year old teens, I don't think it is the same. In many countries 16-17 is actually legal. If it is illegal, then it certainly should not be classified on the same level as rape or pedophilia. I would actually go as far as to say that it should not land a person on the sex offender registry. It is pretty much the norm for 16-17 year olds to be having sex these days. I think a lot of the stigma is really just the same as the stigma towards men dating younger women in general. It's because people see young women as pure and innocent and think they need to be protected from sexually driven males. This is why you see a much bigger stigma towards men sleeping with underage females than the other way around. This is an outdated medieval mentality, reasonable people realize that females are just as capable as men of making their own decisions about sex.

However, with that said, teachers caught having sex with students should definitely be fired and never allowed to teach again.