What's Going On With Stephanie Ragusa's Smile?

TAMPA When the door opened Monday at the Hillsborough sheriff's office, Stephanie Ragusa walked out wearing handcuffs and a wide grin.

"Stephanie, why the smile?" a reporter asked.

Ragusa grinned more broadly, shook her head and continued walking toward the patrol cruiser that would haul her to jail.

The school teacher's toothy smile — spread across newspapers, TV and the Internet — has become her public trademark. It is there in three booking mug shots that followed her three arrests on charges she had sex with underage boys.

"She doesn't seem like this is serious," said Karen A. Duncan, a sex assault therapist in Indianapolis who has studied women as sex offenders.

Ragusa seems to be a member of a new category of sexual offenders, Duncan said: young, attractive, professional and predatory women who target underage boys. Another in the group is Debra Lafave, the blond former Greco Middle School teacher who was sentenced to house arrest after pleading guilty in 2005 to having sex with a 14-year-old student.

"I think something is going on with a certain group of young women and the media attention," Duncan said. "They seem to be seeking the media attention. Some sort of need is being met for them. … They kind of pose for the camera and they dress up."

Duncan emphasized the word "predatory" in describing them. Female sex offenders, she said, prey on teenagers' vulnerability and sexual curiosity.

Media attention seems to give them celebrity status, Duncan said, even though it's negative. Still, she said, this behavior seems to conflict with their professional lives.

"There's an immaturity I see in these women. I don't think they see the seriousness of the situation or their behavior."

A Desire For Attention?

In a court hearing Tuesday, where a judge was to determine whether Ragusa should be jailed without bail pending trial, she gave short perky answers as the judge asked her questions.

"Do you understand there currently is no bond in your case and that's the way it's going to stay until the court rules otherwise?" Circuit Judge J. Rogers Padgett said.

"OK," Ragusa responded cheerfully, breaking into a smile.

The smile lasted for the remaining moments of the hearing.

Bonnie Bucqueroux, who runs the Victims and the Media program at Michigan State University, wondered whether female teachers who have sex with their students are doing it for media attention.

"It gives them their Paris Hilton 15 minutes" of fame, Bucqueroux said. "Does it spark that sort of behavior or was it there all along? I find that to be a difficult question to answer."

Bucqueroux, 64, said teens and their teachers have been blurring the lines of relationships for years. When she was 13 in the eighth grade, Bucqueroux said, she tried to seduce a teacher. He declined but she said she still managed to get one of his colleagues to kiss her after a dance.

She acknowledged, however, that sex between an underage teen and an authority figure is a "recipe for disaster."

And that is where the emphasis should remain, Duncan said.

At 16, a student might not view himself as a victim.

"He's interested in the sex she has to offer," Duncan said.

Deputies have said the teen and Ragusa may have had sex 20 times or more, and it continued after he knew she had been arrested for it. His sexual values may be forming along negative lines, such as manipulation and his own sexual satisfaction, Duncan said.

"'I was used by a woman so now I'm going to use a woman and not give a care about my consequences,'" Duncan said the teen may reason.

He may not be doing this consciously, she said, but this is how he was introduced to sex.

Duncan said she does not mean to suggest the victim is the aggressor. Rather, she aims to highlight the effects of victimization.

Compulsion And Competency

If the latest charges against Ragusa are true, if she had sex with her victim even while out on bail, she is showing a compulsion typical of sex offenders, Duncan said. When a therapist treats a sex offender, she said, the treatment is similar to therapy for addictions.

"It's the belief that somehow what they're doing isn't wrong, and there is some sort of a love interest here," Duncan said. "Love validates the behavior."

Brian Gonzalez, a Tampa defense lawyer not affiliated with Ragusa's case, said the way she has presented herself makes him wonder whether competency will become an issue as she builds a defense.

"Certainly, as much trouble as she has right now," Gonzalez said, "the fact that in the face of all this publicity she still could not conform and go back and engage in this behavior lends itself to competency issues."

Legally, competency can affect a case in two ways. Attorneys can argue that defendants are not competent to assist in their defense or they were not competent when they committed the crime. In the latter case, they do not realize their actions are wrong, also known as an insanity defense.

"Legal insanity is obviously an extremely difficult defense to lean on," Gonzalez said.

The threshold is high from psychological and legal standpoints, he said. Asked how often it works in Hillsborough County, Gonzalez responded: "Rare to none."

Gonzalez said he expects Ragusa's attorney will have her evaluated by a mental health professional. Even if she is not deemed incompetent, the information could prove valuable in reducing a sentence should she be found guilty.

Kashi frozen meals

I don't have a lot of time to post, but I just wanted to give big kudos to Kashi for their frozen meals. They are a delicious, healthy lunch. Even the men at work comment on how good they smell. They are loaded with protein and fiber. I can't say enough good things about this company. They have really mastered the skill of making healthy foods taste good.

Healthy Snacking

Snacking is probably the biggest issue when it comes to eating healthy. We snack for a variety of reasons: emotional, boredom, PMS, etc. It can be a difficult habit to break. The common misunderstanding is that all snacking is bad. A lot of young women think that the first step to dieting is to eat less and so they completely cut out snacking. Snacking is looked at negatively as simply "stuffing your face." But it doesn't have to be so detrimental. Snacking is actually part of our normal part of your metabolic function.

Your metabolism needs a jump start every day in order to encourage it to start burning calories. Hence the name "breakfast." You are literally breaking the fast from not eating all night. The earlier you eat this first meal, the sooner your body will start burning calories. Then, like the engine of a car, it needs fuel to keep it running. It is recommended that you eat every three hours in order to keep your metabolism going. Most foods will move through your entire digestive tract in four hours, so eating every three hours ensures that food is constantly moving through your body. Gaps in this cycle will actually make your body think that you are starving it, leading it to store calories rather than burn them.

Snacking is important to ensure that your body keeps burning calories. Many nutritionists will suggest six small meals a day. The premise is that eating often will decrease the chances of over eating at any one particular meal, another thing that causes diets to fail. The snacks will have many of the same food groups as meals: protein, vegetable, and fiber. The difference is in what is eaten. Eat granola instead of potato chips. Even pretzels are a healthier option since they are baked rather fried. Pack fruits and vegetables to snack on. I have found the 100 calorie packs to be extremely helpful when snacking. The controlled portions make it easier to snack without risking over eating. I also really enjoy the Quakes flavored rice cake chips as a substitute for chips. I tried the cheddar ones for the first time this weekend and they are addicting.

Healthy snacking can be a gradual change. Each week substitute another healthy snack. You will be amazed at how easy the transformation can be.

Single Women and Suicide

It seems almost ironic that I would hear about this new study on the radio this morning, the day after I started this blog. The unfortunate reality is that it only emphasises the plight of women in western society.

http://www.fmwf.com/newsarticle.php?id=1592&cat=5

I find it interesting that it pin points cohabiting women as well as single women. If it were merely single women, then it would be easy to make the correlation between suicide and a woman's emotional need for a relationship. By showing that the alarming suicide rate also effects cohabiting women it shows that just having a man is not enough. We see it in all aspects of society. If I can have a nicer car, I'll be happy. If I can get a better job, I'll be happy. If I can have a boyfriend, I'll be happy. If I live with him, I'll be happy. But rarely does it actually happen that way. The reality rarely meets the expectation. We usually find that one possession only brings with it the desire for the next best thing. It is the old adage: money can't buy happiness.

So how does that relate to relationships? As soon as women hit puberty, they feel pressured to be in a relationship. All of a sudden the ability to be attractive, be accepted, and be popular all hinge on the ability to get a man.* So you get a boyfriend. The two of you hold hands and eat lunch together. Some of your friends may even be jealous. But you still aren't being invited into the circle of "cool" people. If anything, they are teasing you more. Why? You must be cool because you have a boyfriend, right? Fast forward a few years. You get into high school, emotions get more complicated. Relationships might actually last longer than a month. Now it's not that you have to have a boyfriend to be "cool," but there is obviously something wrong with you if you don't have one. Then no guy will want to date you. So you'll do anything to get and keep a guy. You'll drop everything to spend time with him or do things for him. You'll compromise yourself in the name of "love." You'll become distant from your friends as you spend more and more time with your boyfriend. Your friends tell you that they don't like how much time you're spending with him, but you're sure they're just jealous. Before you know it, you're putting all of the effort into the relationship, but what is he doing? Buying you something nice for holidays? Is that enough? Everyone else seems happier in their relationship than you are. What do they have that you don't?

Even if you haven't started dating yet, I'm sure you've seen what I'm describing. I mean, men are only human. No one is perfect so you can't expect relationships to be perfect. No, I'm certainly not suggesting that relationships are perfect. And few things will ever meet your expectations, but does that mean that you should lower your expectations? Absolutely not. But let's not get too far from the point. Why is it that you don't feel happier after you have a boyfriend? Oh yes, you feel "in love," but are you happier about you? Do you think that you're more attractive, better accepted, and more popular? Probably not. The truth is that you cannot be happy until you learn to love yourself. Learn to be happy with who you are. It will foster a new confidence and self assurance that men truly will find appealing and attractive. And it will give you the ability to judge what is best for you and hopefully keep you away from destructive relationships.

So, back to our study. Why do single and cohabiting women feel a greater desperation than married women? Who is at fault? Society? The woman? Her family? Her boyfriend? There are so many environmental factors in today's society that can effect a woman's way of thinking. There is the pressure from peers at an early age to date. There is pressure when you're an adult from family to get married and start a family. There is society which seems to discourage commitment. After all, if you get married then you might get divorced. Divorce is expensive. Cohabiting is the next best thing. You get all the perks of being married without the red tape if you decide to split up. That might be great if we are dogs, breeding a different mate every time, but we are humans. It is in our nature to mate for life. As women, we tend to feel this instinct more strongly than men. So we enter into cohabitation believing that it is commitment. Yet, what hold him to that commitment without marriage? How much could you stand to lose without the legal protection of marriage. And yet cohabitation is happening more frequently, couples living together for years without ever getting married. It can leave the woman feeling insecure. As in high school, we wonder "why doesn't he want to marry me?" There must be something wrong with you, right? Wrong. There is something wrong with him. Your only fault was loving him more than you loved yourself, which is what we're here to fix. That and to help you find a better man who wouldn't put you in that situation.

*Note: I have not forgotten about the lesbians, I assure you. For them it is even more difficult since social stereotypes hold true more so in high school than in any other aspect of society. It is usually in these early teen years that they will at least try to date boys because their desire to be accepted is even greater due to their unique circumstance. They will feel like outcasts without really knowing why, despite the lengths they go to in order to belong. After high school, you can just as easily substitute the need for a man as the need for a woman. Insecurities remain the same. There is still a deep desire to belong and feel accepted.