| I've always found the power dynamic issue troublesome. So often it can be turned into "Well they might have consented, but they really didn't truly have the power to because of the power imbalance." There might be some truth in that in a purely psychological sense, but it also is a massive legal issue. Do you really have agency as an employee, and what are those limits? Say a manager gets into a relationship with a subordinate. Yes, it's a bad idea, of course, but both of your emotions get away from you and you say you love each other. If things go south, could the subordinate say he or she didn't feel like they had a choice? Heidi Matthews is a Canadian law professor who asked this in relation to the metoo movement and Monica Lewinsky. During the 90s, the debate was over Clinton lying, but no one ever challenged that Lewinsky consented. But today, people retroactively look back at that time and ask if she had the ability to consent. Maybe if US unemployment was setup like other countries where you could leave a job and still get on the dole, there's less of a dynamic because you could "just leave" (even though it makes it more difficult to get hired later). I dunno; there are a whole lot of deep factors here. Life is about learning from doing things that are uncomfortable and asserting agency when you feel like you have none. |