One of my colleagues from college married a former student of his

[RealSNR]

I found this out via facebook.

I went to grad school with this guy. We were acquaintances, but never really friends. Ideal facebook friends, in other words.

He got a job teaching at a college. In his first year he would have taught her when she was a freshman. She's two years removed from being his student. He's 12 years older than her.

There's nothing immoral about this, but am I wrong in thinking this is just a taaaaad bit creepy?

I mean, if they were doing this the right/moral way, they wouldn't have had any romantic involvement with each other whatsoever two years ago. Meaning they had two years to decide they wanted to elevate the mentor/mentoree relationship to something intimate. Then they had to get engaged and married. All in two years. That's it. Two years.

Whatevs. They're happy, I guess. Just... oh who am I kidding. That's gross. That's ****ing gross. It's weird and disgusting and I don't like it. Blech.

EDIT: Not that this matters since the conversation is dying down now, but to be clear my issue with the relationship is NOT about age. She could go marry a 100-year old incontinent man. I don't give a shit. My issue is that there was very likely stuff going on between them while he was still her professor. No, it's not a big deal to me. It's just off-putting and sets off the alarm.

The next person who posts, "there's nothing wrong with that my dad was 34 years older than my mom..." gets a big fat **** you.

[wazu]

Originally Posted by the_spatula

I agree, in principle, with this policy. However, I regard human love as an extremely complex phenomenon, and one that transcends bullshit "policies" and "ethical perspectives" and what not. Good on them that they were able to wait two years after the teacher-student thing. Shame on OP and the rest of you for judging them.

Intelligent people talk about ideas. Average people talk about things. Small people talk about other people.

Their love is not of your concern.

Wisdom found here.

[pr_capone]

Originally Posted by Ultra Peanut

You know how upsetting and intensely personal this subject is for you? Now imagine it's the most painful thing you've ever dealt with in your entire life, and then imagine that people brought it up all the time, completely at random, simply because they remembered that about you -- and that they frequently brought it up to try to score points when they disagreed with you. That is why my responses to you have been so clipped and annoyed.

Also?


Acting like people who face open bigotry on a regular basis have an obligation to act in a certain way as a result of having faced said bigotry is unbelievably absurd.

Oh ****ing WHAAAAAH. You aren't obligated to act any specific way... you just didn't act the way I anticipated you would based on your experience based on my how the people I know in similar shoes would have acted.

I wasn't trying to score points against you... I was trying to have a conversation, not win an argument. I can understand why you are defensive about it, or maybe I don't... who the **** knows with you. Not everyone you talk to on here is trying to beat you over the head with it. Tell you what though... you "win". This argument that this shit turned into is all yours. You can treasure it as the day you beat down the guy that thought you just might be be more understanding of others doing nothing wrong yet doing something socially unacceptable because it made them happy and complete because of your personal experience.

/10 internets for you

[ThaVirus]

Originally Posted by BWillie007

I saw grad student/TA's banging students in their discussions when I was in college.

Ohreally?

[ghak99]

Originally Posted by BWillie007

Don't find anything wrong with it, hell, I saw grad student/TA's banging students in their discussions when I was in college. Not like it was a high school teacher and then a high school student, that would be creepy

You just reminded me of a certain biology TA from back in the day... Her morals were more than just a little warped!



... wonder what she's doing now? ---> (facebook/google)

[cdcox]

Originally Posted by the_spatula

I agree, in principle, with this policy. However, I regard human love as an extremely complex phenomenon, and one that transcends bullshit "policies" and "ethical perspectives" and what not. Good on them that they were able to wait two years after the teacher-student thing. Shame on OP and the rest of you for judging them.

Intelligent people talk about ideas. Average people talk about things. Small people talk about other people.

Their love is not of your concern.

Ok, lets talk about ideas. Tell me how you would feel in each of the following circumstances:

1. You are in a class. It is a tough one and the instructor is tough. You have to do well in the class to compete for one of a few limited slots in the program. You are on the borderline into making it into the program. One of your fellow students, who is below you academically, is screwing the professor.

2. You are a dean. You answer to the chancellor, to the public, to all the faculty and to the student body. One of the faculty members you supervise seems to be having a relationship with one of the students. This faculty member has a past history of making advances toward students. Some of them have ended badly and there have been rumors that some of the students were coerced into the relationship. These past rumors were related to incidents under a former dean. You have no idea about whether the relationship is completely consensual or not. If it is not, and you have no way of knowing, the school could be open to a sexual harassment lawsuit.

3. You are in a class and you need to do well in it. You are in a good relationship, Your professor (of the sex you are attracted to) makes a move on you. You aren't really attracted to this person and besides you are already in a relationship. This professor is persistent in their advances. You can't go to the department head or the dean because they all treat their students the same way.

There are darn good reasons for ethics. They aren't bullshit policies that someone pulled out of their ass just to beat down other people.

[RealSNR]

Originally Posted by 58-4ever

I think it's more creepy that you're Facebook stalking an acquaintance and the "creepy" factor is actually jealousy..

1. My acquaintance sent me a wedding invitation. I'm not "stalking" shit.

2. I'm married.

3. Get AIDS.

[pr_capone]

Originally Posted by cdcox

Ok, lets talk about ideas. Tell me how you would feel in each of the following circumstances

yet none of your examples are relevant to this situation

1. You are in a class. It is a tough one and the instructor is tough. You have to do well in the class to compete for one of a few limited slots in the program. You are on the borderline into making it into the program. One of your fellow students, who is below you academically, is screwing the professor.

There is nothing in this entire thread that states that they had any sort of relationship while she was his student... much less one of a sexual nature.

2. You are a dean. You answer to the chancellor, to the public, to all the faculty and to the student body. One of the faculty members you supervise seems to be having a relationship with one of the students. This faculty member has a past history of making advances toward students. Some of them have ended badly and there have been rumors that some of the students were coerced into the relationship. These past rumors were related to incidents under a former dean. You have no idea about whether the relationship is completely consensual or not. If it is not, and you have no way of knowing, the school could be open to a sexual harassment lawsuit.

There is nothing in this entire thread that states that this guy has a history of making advances, failed or successful, on his students. Nor is there anything that states that these "relationships" ended badly or that the students were coerced into anything. In fact, their getting married 2 years after she was his student points to the opposite.

3. You are in a class and you need to do well in it. You are in a good relationship, Your professor (of the sex you are attracted to) makes a move on you. You aren't really attracted to this person and besides you are already in a relationship. This professor is persistent in their advances. You can't go to the department head or the dean because they all treat their students the same way.

If you happen to attend a school full of creepy student fondling janitors, teachers, department heads, deans, and board of directors... you probably need to file a lawsuit and find another school to go to.

There are darn good reasons for ethics. They aren't bullshit policies that someone pulled out of their ass just to beat down other people.

There are. But when she was no longer his adult college student, his ethical responsibility to not have a relationship with her ended.

[cdcox]

Originally Posted by pr_capone

yet none of your examples are relevant to this situation



There is nothing in this entire thread that states that they had any sort of relationship while she was his student... much less one of a sexual nature.



There is nothing in this entire thread that states that this guy has a history of making advances, failed or successful, on his students. Nor is there anything that states that these "relationships" ended badly or that the students were coerced into anything. In fact, their getting married 2 years after she was his student points to the opposite.



If you happen to attend a school full of creepy student fondling janitors, teachers, department heads, deans, and board of directors... you probably need to file a lawsuit and find another school to go to.



There are. But when she was no longer his adult college student, his ethical responsibility to not have a relationship with her ended.

My first post in this thread was #58. You'll notice that I was talking about the ethics of such situations in general and didn't mention anything about the specifics of SNR's case. Spatula fired back about bullshit ethical policies. I was demonstrating that policies are in place for a reason.

I still have not made a single comment about the specifics of SNR's acquaintance. So the fact that none of my examples pertains to that situation is irrelevant to the context of my slice of this tread.

Now, specific to SNR's case, if they were having a sexual relationship while there was also a student-teacher relationship, it was unethical.

[pr_capone]

Originally Posted by cdcox

My first post in this thread was #58. You'll notice that I was talking about the ethics of such situations in general and didn't mention anything about the specifics of SNR's case. Spatula fired back about bullshit ethical policies. I was demonstrating that policies are in place for a reason.

I still have not made a single comment about the specifics of SNR's acquaintance. So the fact that none of my examples pertains to that situation is irrelevant to the context of my slice of this tread.

Now, specific to SNR's case, if they were having a sexual relationship while there was also a student-teacher relationship, it was unethical.

Agreed

[mikeyis4dcats.]

I see nothing wrong with it. She's his FORMER student.

As far as the time frame, a good friend only knew his wife for 5 months before they got married. They've been married 11 years now.

[Bowser]

For what it's worth, my dad was 12 years older than my mom, and they were married 30+ years.

[Pasta Little Brioni]

Good for them.

I've already responded to the former student/professor thing but now it seems there's another elephant in the room.

I understand that UP just wants to feel and be treated like a normal person. Unfortunately, transgender operations aren't something that is normal for the average person. We don't have any way of processing it. So no matter how many times we're told how to be sensitive and respectful, it's impossible to phrase anything at all in a way that isn't deemed offensive to a transgendered person. I feel like the best policy is to probably just avoid any aspect of that discusssion. If we had a rape survivor on the planet, we wouldn't say - "you probably feel this way about abc because of that brutal rape you survived in '97". Ultra Peanut just wants to interact here without the crap about her former peanus. I don't blame her for that. I'm extremely proud that I can even naturally call her "her". That took years for me to rationalize. I'm not trying to be a dick about any of this - just explain in 10,000 words or less that I think it's probably a topic that should just be avoided. Finally, I'm not taking any mod action or making any rules about it. This is just my random observation from where I sit as a user of this site. Please correct me if I'm wrong about something, Ms. Peanut.

[Titty Meat]

Did the **** in the pool?

[Al Bundy]

I didn't realize Ultra was a chick. I learn something new every day.