[Aurelius3]

Power imbalances are a fact of life, where do you draw this arbitrary line of people being equal enough in power to interact certain ways? It's not obvious and seems nebulous to me. Furthermore, consider the possibility that many of these situations benefit and/or are consciously intended by both parties specifically because of the "power imbalance", like the parent poster described with undergrads trying to get in with higher level faculty, while the higher level faculty reciprocate for their own reasons.