When The Boss And The Staff Sleep Together

Another male in power had an affair with a subordinate at work. This time she reported
to the wife. The man, a sportscaster is "taking time off" as well as dealing with
"unspecified disciplinary actions."

Sound a lot like David Letterman? Here is a link to pretty much everything you might
want to know about that case.

Sound a lot like President Clinton and Monica Lewinsky? Since this is old news, you can
get a pretty complete online guide.

Despite the fact that this is a veritable social phenomenon, the formal academic
psychological literature is thin, indeed.

This lets us infer that males who have higher status might be more likely to initiate this
kind of behavior than females who have higher status.

This also lets us infer that "manipulativeness" as a personality aspect is somehow playing
a role. This is not something everybody in high status does.

I can tell you little from personal experience. I was so focused on academics that I was
generally confused when a male preceptor or professor may have made reference to this
sort of thing. When I was a trainee, I would have laughed, and if I were actually
solicited, I would surely have refused. Now when I was in medical school, I do
remember speaking with at least one wildly attractive (although not maybe quite the
sharpest knife in the drawer) medical student, who was involved in this sort of thing. I
told her I thought she was crazy.

I said it would not help her on the test. She did not answer me, so I inferred then that it
would indeed help her on the test in some way she did not particularly want to tell me
about. I also told her that once she got her degree, he would surely not be standing next
to her helping her see patients. She had to agree with me, although she looked at me
confused. Maybe it never occurred to her that not only was being a medical student
tough, but being a doctor could be tough, afterward. I never heard about her finishing up
and going in to practice; I do not know if or when she did.

I have been called "morally rigid," and I will admit to that. The only way I could figure
out way back then, to get through both premedical studies and medical school, goes by
the primitive name of "abstention." There were few dates for me, usually with people
wildly ineligible for any kind of future association. Mostly my passion for medicine was
so great that I was absolutely determined not to become one of those women who
temporized their careers because of love, marriage, or even pregnancy. I think men are
wonderful and I did ultimately marry one. I waited until my late thirties, when it dawned
on my that I had simply forgotten to get married, to find him, and he is perfect, and I
teach other people how to find their perfect men.

Maybe my decisions were justified in the past years, with the culture of those years. I did
have at least one women professor who said quite openly, "a serious professional woman
cannot be the mother of a family, too." It may have been true at that point in history.

I have not met anyone of the present generation of students who agrees with them,
although there are some people who abstain for other religious or cultural reasons.

The reality of the situation is that as long as men and women work together in the same
workplace, there will be men and women who are physically intimate with each other
within that workplace. People are always making rules against it. Making rules against
things tends, in general, to make them "Forbidden Fruit" thus more interesting, and more
likely to happen.

Strangely enough, the only reference around now about forbidden fruit syndrome talks
about alcohol, not sex.

But as far as I am concerned, the "forbidden fruit" idea covers a lot of rules about things
that are no help. I can't think of a better example than Prohibition (also alcohol) which
did not work.

I know many examples where women have idolized and fallen in love with male bosses,
only to find out that they were not as interesting outside of the work context. These
examples come from academic or medical settings, mostly because that is where I have
hung around the most.

I know many examples where men have used their power to seduce lower-ranking
women with promises of advancement. The casting couch still exists in Hollywood and
other places in Southern California. Not to pick on California, when I practiced in
Oklahoma, there was one notorious psychiatrist who actually had a bed in his back room.
He traded sex for prescriptions and was never busted, that I know of.

People are encouraged to report things -- and actions that are illegal or more subtly
exploitative should be punished. I am most impressed when the victim of any kind of
sexual exploitation does the reporting, as this is very healthy and is expected somehow to
help that person recover from the status of victim to some kind of a fuller status of being
a powerful and effective person.

I am not sure how to prevent this. The one academic study I found would suggest to me
that pre-employment personality testing might could help some.

Having more females in more positions of authority might help, too.

But true equality is a tough thing to legislate. Besides, there are lots of other cultures
where male dominance seems to be stronger than in the U.S.A.

When someone is male and a celebrity, there is often a sense of entitlement.

I am not even sure how the male public reacts to this. Are some of them thinking "Good
for him -- I would have done it if I had the chance?"

Other kinds of prevention ... well, I have suggested to a lot of people that they try to
generate social interests and groups of friends outside of work. Work presents itself to
most people with an employer as a treadmill, promising rewards it may not be able to
deliver. It is what you do, not who you are.

How about ethical education. Not on any high school curricula I know about. How
about teaching people to be whole people? I am not talking about religion, which has
often assumed this role. I am talking about non-sectarian education in how to make the
world a better, "righter" place.

I guess I am still kind of "morally rigid."

This is about as conservative as I get.