Comments on: “The rights of desire”: a professor-student romance makes the local news

By: Ahpla Ateb

Ahpla Ateb — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 03:16:33 +0000

I can see your point - I have read through your blog on Student - Professor relationships. However I am interested in further complicating your model of student-Prof. relationships. I am saying this for experience, because I have had crushes on my math professors continuosly, and only recently had an interest in someone outside the department.
I would argue, that its not what we want to learn from Professors, instead, that most of them seem on such a pedestal to us, that there is simply no other way for us to feel equal, to feel also needed in the society, but to sleep or have a social relationship with a professor. And I agree that a lot of students simply can’t accept that friendship or mentorship may be enough in place of sexual desire, but a lot of professors are just as scared of that as students desire that. Partly because it could destroy their reputation, and possibly - even worse - their career.
I think you simplify students beyond anything and take out the simple fact that they may be seeing a teacher for the first time as some one different to who they usually meet.
For me teaching is a completly selfless career, and someone pursuing it with passion and conviction, in my eyes is already cut out about the normal guys of the world.
It’s easy to brush it off and say - she is just seeing what he is teaching. But I truely believe it’s more. One wants to be near someone who believes in what they are teaching, who loves what they are talking about with every bit of their heart. In this world it is so rare, and incredibly attractive. Definetly it is not just the class, it is the particular qualities of the person.

By: ex wife

ex wife — Sat, 08 Mar 2008 00:41:09 +0000

Well I was with him since 2001, I can tell you that the relationship my last for a while because he knows how to manipulate specially someone young that not have enough experience in life and probably in relationships ting that he have. Losing wight is what probably drive him to do this because in our last e-mails 7 months ago he stead that he feel better about himself than even when he was in college. This is my last comment about this what ever i said wasn’t for paint was for been amassing how people change when they loose wight and for having a daughter that is this girl age.

By: Martin

Martin — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 15:22:25 +0000

Boy, my spelling was atrocious in that one. Too early for me to be commenting, obviously.

By: Martin

Martin — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 15:20:54 +0000

Well, I’m not an advocate of marriage in the first place, though I admit it seems to work for some people, so I don’t judge. But show me a couple (age disparate or not) who rush to the altar after knowing each other for just two months, and I’ll show you two blithering idiots.

As for the whole professor/student thing: while I have no problem with dating outside your societally-approved age bracket, I do think romantic entaglements where the two principals already have some kind of working relationship (whether student/prof, boss/secretary, whatever) are just dumb and frought with too much hazard to be worth the trouble. The working realtionship will inevitably impinge upon the personal one, and it will come down to having to choose between one or the other. And then, people being generally irrational, one partner will want the romance to continue while the other will decide that staying platonic in the first place probably was the better choice. Then you have the weird atmosphere that permeates the work/classroom environment as everyone else in the building knows what’s going on yet has to go on prentending they don’t, leading to all sorts of whispered jokes behind backs.

Just not worth it.

I give the marriage six months.

By: ex wife

ex wife — Sat, 01 Mar 2008 06:37:31 +0000

I agree with all of you because I am an educator too but with small kids, he forgot that we were together 6 years, I have 3 kids from a previous relationship a boy 17 and 2 daughters 15 and 18 year old. My 18 year old daughter 3 years ago was introducing him as a dad to her friends. His wife graduated with my daughter ( my daughter was at Sierra High because she was in a dual program at Rio Hondo school that she still attending ). I hard to go to Rio and see how faculty see you even though we got divorce 2 years ago not 3.

By: Hugo Schwyzer

Hugo Schwyzer — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 16:28:18 +0000

Myth, I was thinking of the geology prof dating the English major, rather than the English prof dating another English prof’s student. And if the Lothario in question is tenured, and his lover is in a class taught by an adjunct or someone untenured whom the professor can pressure, there’s a whole other set of problems.

Note I said there was a “difference” considering the age issues — that doesn’t make any such circumstance good, only potentially less toxic.

By: mythago

mythago — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 16:00:06 +0000

Hugo, a professor of any age has an enormous amount of power over his or her students. And “not directly my student” doesn’t solve the problem if you take a moment to consider how (pardon the expression) incestuous many departments are.

By: Hugo Schwyzer

Hugo Schwyzer — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 05:47:07 +0000

I’m so glad, Shauna; I appreciate your feedback that this was helpful.

By: Shauna

Shauna — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 05:30:44 +0000

I think your comments about professor-student relationships are right on. I especially identified with your statement, “my right to exercise my desire stops at the point where it interferes with the desires of those whom I serve.” I find myself in the uncomfortable position of being attracted to a much older, married professor. Not only do I understand how unhealthy it would be for me personally to act on this desire but I also realize how unethical it would be in that I really respect his wife and family. Your statement about how your desire stops when it intereferes with the desire of whom you serve really hit home for me because I’ve come to realize it would serve no one but me (if that). While my professor has shown no evidence of interest in me whatsoever, I find myself having a hard time shaking this need for his attention. I’ve found myself questioning what’s behind my desire, realizing the unhealthy ramifications of acting on the desire if the opportunity ever presented itself, and finding strength in your posts about the peril of when a mentorship turns romantic. I thank you for your insight. It has proved invaluable to me in my moment of ridiculous confusion.

By: Hugo Schwyzer

Hugo Schwyzer — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 15:35:48 +0000

I have no problem at all with professors dating students — as long as those students are not their own, nor likely to be in the future.

And there is a palpable difference, I think, between a 28 year-old tenure-track prof dating a 25 year-old grad student and a 40 or 50 year-old prof hooking up with an 18 year-old undergrad!