No time for a longer post, but my reader Sumana sends me a note about a new free, online fantasy/sci-fi anthology which she has co-edited: ThoughtCrime Experiments. She suggested I take a look at one story, Jump Space, by Mary Anne Mohanraj. It features one scene in which a student asks out a teacher, and Sumana noted that it featured a particularly fine example of an ethical way for that to be done. Here’s an excerpt:
“I was wondering…” Sarita looked up then, her eyes meeting his for the first time in the conversation — the first time that semester. “…would you like to have dinner with me?”
Joshua drew in a quick breath, his face flushing. Her eyes were astonishingly dark brown, almost black. Dark like the empty spaces between the stars; the vertigo was dizzying. Before he could answer with the obligatory no, a response Joshua was surprised to find he did not want to give, Sarita had gone on, speaking quickly, her eyes locked on his.
“You’ve graded everything except the final exam, and I’ve gotten straight A’s. I’m going to get an A on that too, and I know you have to have a second-grader on the final anyway, so even if you wanted to give me a better grade than I deserve, you can’t, so it wouldn’t be a breach of ethics to go out with me. I would have waited to ask you until the semester was over, but I checked the flight records and you’re scheduled to leave Pyroxina the day after finals, so if I waited it would be too late. So I had to ask now.”
I’m not a sci-fi fan, but agree wholeheartedly with Sumana that yes, this short vignette does offer one particularly good example of one right way for a student to approach a teacher. My views on the general inadvisability of older men/younger women relationships aside (this story suggests that Joshua is only a handful of years older than his student, in any case), I’ve never opposed students asking out their (single) teachers at the end of a semester. It’s better to wait a bit longer than Sarita does in this story, and it’s best for both to be sure that the student isn’t likely to re-enroll in a future course with that particular professor. And of course, if the professor has been actively mentoring the student (in office hours, or in a student club of some sort), then a romantic relationship (even once the grades are turned in) is much more transgressive and problematic. Good mentoring often continues past the period when a student is in a class (I have former students who still contact me for advice, or letters of rec, on a regular basis); if a student feels inclined to ask out his or her professor or TA, it needs to be clear that there is no “planned return to asymmetry” in the future. And good mentoring can be friendly and warm, but is almost always “definitionally” asymmetrical.
I do get emails from folks wondering about the ethics of asking out their teachers. While I take a fairly strong stance these days against professors ever asking out their students (even former ones), I do think that the reverse situation is less prone to potential exploitation. The student needs to be reasonably sure that the professor is single; the student needs to wait until the semester is over (or at least to the point that Sarita waits). And in general, I’m much less troubled by a 21 year-old student asking out her 28 year-old single instructor than by that same student asking out her 38, or 48, or 58 year-old professor. (Those instances are of course rarer, but not unheard of.)
In any case, enjoy the ThoughtCrime collection!
Not commenting on the story or anthology at all, but no, this isn’t a “right way” to ask out a professor - since he’s still going to grade her final exam.
You never learn, do you?
Huges, so what you’re saying is that the person with the less power always has to do the asking? Is that really fair, though?
But reading the story, Sarita seems to be much more confident than Joshua is, and I think this points to something you might want to add in somehow. A lot of sexually confident young women are attracted to nerdy, geeky guys, particularly if they’ve got that “nerdy in a hot way” thing going. I’m in a relationship with a woman, but sometimes get crushes on this sort of guy myself! Does the sexual confidence differential that favors the student somehow compensate for the academic power differential in this case? Something to address, anyway.
Thank you for the link. I know you don’t love sci-fi or fan-fic, but some of us really do adore it.
Lotta thin negations in this comment thread. I wish mythago and Marco would expand on their theses a little, so I can gain a better understanding of their argument.
I’m much less troubled by a 21 year-old student asking out her 28 year-old single instructor than by that same student asking out her 38, or 48, or 58 year-old professor. (Those instances are of course rarer, but not unheard of.)
Yeah, like my best friend who, when she was 21, pursued our 56 year old sociology professor. Two years later, she left him for her 52 year old grad adviser.
Good times!
This reminds me of a couple of years ago. I ran into my TA after the semester ended. He hinted that we should get coffee, I explicityl asked, and he accepted. We chatted for almost two hours over coffee and then parted ways. When I bumped into him later that year, I suggested that we meet up again and he said that he would contact me or I should contact him. He never contacted me, and I never contacted him (even though people said I was ‘mature’ for my age, I knew it could be a drag hanging out with younger people; I was 19, he was in his late 20s and single then).
I still don’t know if he was just being nice or if he liked me or if I was boring. Oh well, I learned to stick with people in my own age group!
Yay for ThoughtCrime! I read that story earlier today, so it was particularly interesting to see your thoughts in my RSS reader. I think that the story avoids skeeviness for two additional reasons:
- earlier, the power dynamic between the Joshua and Sarita is revealed to be one where she has the upper hand.
- Joshua doesn’t accept that offer, but puts the question off until after the semester (he changes his plans to make this possible).
In a real-life analogue of this situation, I can only see it working with very clear boundaries - I agree that the asymetrical relationship needs to be fully over before another one can be started. Luisa, I know you were asking Hugo and not me, but IMO, the person with less power *does* need to be the one asking. Hinting that an invitation would be welcome, as Autumn’s former TA did, would strike me as fine, but I feel that the person with more power should not be the one to redefine a relationship. (Exceptions exist, of course - the TA from 10 years ago can become the colleague of today, which means that the relationship is already redefined.)
Re: A lot of sexually confident young women are attracted to nerdy, geeky guys, particularly if they’ve got that “nerdy in a hot way” thing going. I’m in a relationship with a woman, but sometimes get crushes on this sort of guy myself! Does the sexual confidence differential that favors the student somehow compensate for the academic power differential in this case? Something to address, anyway.
Yes, this makes a lot of sense to me! It’s true that people vary a lot in their sexual confidence as well as in other, more visible axes of distinction like age, wealth, or power. Sometimes I feel like Hugo is unable to grasp that there are some of us, men and women, who have very little sexual confidence, regardless of how much ‘power’ we might have in other regards.
NBarnes, I’m not sure why that was ‘thin’. If you’re a student, you don’t hit on a professor whose class you’re in; if you’re a professor, you don’t try and hit on your students.
Luisa and Hector, there’s something to what you’re saying that I will respond to — if I can find the time!
As a sexually confident woman who has dated her share of “nerdy” guys, I have to say, dating someone who is less sexually confident can be a real downer, and is something I would never do again. A lot of those “geeky” guys who think they can hang really can’t, and end up resenting you over your love, enjoyment, and freedom regarding sex — even some of the ones I never slept with. Just a cautionary tale.
I never had a crush on any professors, but got starry-eyed over a couple of my TAs. However, I think if they would have “responded” to me in any way, I would have been really put off. This may be because my family includes many teachers and I grew up having had many close teacher relationships that were both appropriate and productive.
Hugo, I’ve really liked how you recognize that sort of mentor-transference, if you will, where you crush on someone you want to be like. One of my TAs, Josh, was smart, snarky, and pushed me, and it became clear after the class that the crush was about the qualities I admired in him.
Anyway, I don’t know. I do think that maybe it’s okay to ask out your young, single professor, but I would argue that you should maybe take a few weeks to think about it instead of going for it right away … when the class is over, some of the charm wears off:)
Re: As a sexually confident woman who has dated her share of “nerdy” guys, I have to say, dating someone who is less sexually confident can be a real downer, and is something I would never do again. A lot of those “geeky” guys who think they can hang really can’t, and end up resenting you over your love, enjoyment, and freedom regarding sex — even some of the ones I never slept with. Just a cautionary tale.
How charmingly insulting, Nav. It’s nice that you’re telling your friends not to waste your time with those of us who are not sexually confident. Of course, it merely confirms my long-held opinion that liberal feminists are not known for their charity or empathy.
You can keep your ‘enjoyment and freedom regarding sex’, I don’t want it, and I certainly don’t desire the company of people who think that liberation means sleeping with whoever you feel like at any given moment.
mythago: I think a big part of what I’m looking for is an explicit statement to the effect that even Sarita’s approach to asking out a teacher-mentor-figure is wrong. I think I disagree with you strongly, if that’s what you’re saying.
Sarita’s a fictional character, and the story is written in a way to try to defuse the obvious, real-life problems with asking out a professor. It reminds me a bit of those manga translated into English where the youthful-looking characters assure each other they’re over 18, so as not to potentially offend American readers.
Sarita doesn’t *know* she’s getting an A on the final; she may be pretty sure, but there’s a reason it must be graded. If it’s an objective exam (like multiple choice) then there would be no need for the professor to grade it, much less have a second grader. So it’s probably a subjective test, like an essay. That means a second grader reviews the professor’s grading, but isn’t superfluous (or why have a second grader at all?); so of course the professor could, slightly, alter her grade, as long as he didn’t do it so radically that it would be out of line with the second grader’s interpretation. (Odd that it doesn’t occur to her that he could LOWER her grade, too.) Also, again why this is highly artificial, he’s grading the papers AND leaving right after finals AND she will never see him again?
And then there’s the issue of appearances, frankly. Even with all the imaginary safeguards, there is a reason that it is a breach of ethics: because you still have authority over that student and are still grading their papers, backstop or no.
Hector: it’s really, truly not always about you. Nav related her own experience, and talked about “a lot” of less-confident men; she did not say ‘they’re all like that, nobody should ever date such a man’. In any case, you’re going to wait until marriage to have sex (being as you’re a Christian) and you’re going to marry a much-younger, fertile woman, who presumably will be a virgin or at least less experienced than you, so what’s you’re beef?
“Your”. Gah.
I didn’t imply that I had slept with a lot of people, or that I did so indiscriminately, so how “charmingly insulting” back at you. I meant that, personally, I’ve dated some guys who weren’t sexually confident, and they ended up resenting me for being that way. I think there are plenty of people who lack this kind of confidence who would, I’m sure, enjoy a slow and mutually amiable track to pursuing confidence together. Personally, I don’t want to have to reassure someone — what was cute when I was 22 is plenty frustrating now, and that applies to lots of areas of a relationship. There is nothing wrong with lacking sexual confidence, I’m just too old to shore someone’s up.
I have a boyfriend of the nerdy, afraid-of-women type, so I know whereof I speak. I don’t think it changes the power dynamics, though, really. If I have a nerdy, shy professor (which I actually do, at the moment, I think), I still may not recognize his shyness as being power in my favor because I still look to him as a professor. He has that power over me even if he’s not capable of wielding it. It’s…I don’t know. I don’t think it makes enough difference.
I also think that unsolicited student mentoring is not a good idea.
Not a scifi fan - I guess that’s why you don’t like geekiness.