
Sexual Paranoia Strikes Academe - vilda
https://chronicle.com/article/Sexual-Paranoia-Strikes/190351/
======
jseliger
"I'm a liberal professor, and my liberal students terrify me" is a good
companion piece to this one: [https://www.vox.com/2015/6/3/8706323/college-
professor-afrai...](https://www.vox.com/2015/6/3/8706323/college-professor-
afraid) . Laura Kipnis wrote a follow-up essay about a Title IX witch hunt,
but it's behind a firewall: [http://chronicle.com/article/My-Title-IX-
Inquisition/230489/](http://chronicle.com/article/My-Title-IX-
Inquisition/230489/) .

In 2000 Francine Prose wrote a hilarious and sometimes sad novel called _Blue
Angel_ ([http://www.amazon.com/Blue-Angel-Novel-Francine-
Prose/dp/006...](http://www.amazon.com/Blue-Angel-Novel-Francine-
Prose/dp/0060882034?ie=UTF8&tag=thstsst-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957)),
which is worth reading both for its own sake and because its story and themes
are compatible with Kipnis's. Decades of academic satires seem to have had
near zero effect on campus politics.

(I taught as a grad student at the University of Arizona and have been
teaching as an adjunct at Marymount Manhattan College.)

~~~
api
This stuff really isn't liberal at all. Our culture is Protestant, Christian,
Puritan. Always present beneath it is a deep subsurface ocean of sexual
paranoia, prudery, and holier than thou moral crusading. Overt religious forms
of this are out of vogue, so it creates a sort of pressure that must be
released. Campus PC ideology forms an easy framework for a good old fashioned
Protestant moral crusade.

~~~
happyscrappy
That is a clever way to try to pin the PC craze on conservatives but it
doesn't hold water. PC nonsense is wholly owned by the left.

~~~
api
"Left" and "right" are pretty superficial things.

------
danso
Speaking as a college faculty member...this essay is just fucking absurd. The
problem is not _just_ the power dynamic that the professor wields over the
student, but that an intimate relationship creates an uncomfortable, likely
_hostile_ environment for _everyone else who is not fucking the professor_.

Think about it...assuming that you (like most HNers) are male, you'd be at a
distinct disadvantage -- especially in engineering and CS -- if your
(presumably male and heterosexual) professors felt OK to pursue sexual
relationships with the relatively few women in their classes...while the males
have no chance to boost their grade with such favoritism. Even in a more
egalitarian scenario, where the professor is bisexual and has no problem with
being intimate with anyone in the class...well, the students who are less
attractive, or choose to pursue a monogamous relationship with a non-
professor...again, they're going to get screwed by the curve.

The OP comes off as a self-involved brat who has been tenured so long that she
doesn't remember what it's like to have to spend $20,000 to $80,000 a year
(obviously, she doesn't...that kind of money for tuition is a recent
phenomenon) for a college education. The rules against professor-student
relationships aren't there to baby the students, they're there to protect
against incentives and dynamic that fuck everyone else over, not just the
student who manages to score with their professor.

edit: In the rare chance that your true love coincidentally happens to be in a
class you teach...OK, stranger things have happened in life. So do the _adult_
thing: quit your job, then continue the relationship. True love should be
stronger than the benefits of a tenured position. Don't screw it up for all
the other poor students whom the gods did not make to be your soulmate.

~~~
arcanus
> So do the adult thing: quit your job, then continue the relationship. True
> love should be stronger than the benefits of a tenured position. Don't screw
> it up for all the other poor students whom the gods did not make to be your
> soulmate.

Fellow academic here. I'm shocked a member of faculty would suggest that is a
realistic option. You of all people know how difficult it is to find a tenure-
track position. Yet you are suggesting voluntary career suicide for a
consensual relationship between two adults? This is both unrealistic and
complete overkill.

You seem to believe that an adult is not able to differentiate between
romantic feelings and objective grading criterion. I think anyone who is
unable to do so not only is a poor faculty member, they would be a poor spouse
and a terrible scientist.

That is to say nothing of the edge case we are discussing. Unless
students/faculty are gotten much more frisky, this is a negligable fraction of
the interactions between students and faculty, and is lost in the noise of
much more pressing academic grievances, such a treating grad students like
human beings, or giving increased consideration to the role of teaching in
promotion, instead of the pure emphasis on research at tier-1 institutions.

~~~
s73v3r
I would think that, regardless if the professor is capable of separating their
feelings, it's always going to look like favoritism.

~~~
TeMPOraL
Then I guess we should ban being human. Even the most egalitarian people are
not free from biases, nor they have consistent and stable mood. And even if a
perfect egalitarian demigod were to be making decisions, someone would still
find something to misinterpret in his/her actions in order to build an
outrage-inducing story.

Reducing negative effects of human nature is hard as it is, but it becomes
pretty much impossible when there are people with malicious intentions looking
for you to do a single wrong step.

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lectrick
The victimless-crime police strike again

Seriously though... Unless there is an _evidentiary, demonstrable_ long-term
negative/harm to any given voluntary adult human interaction (say, to an
institution, or to society at large, or to the educational process)... I think
we need to live and let live.

Distaste and offense are not rational arguments against something

~~~
wodenokoto
It is not distaste that is the argument against professors dating students. It
is blackmail as well as academic integrity.

Did she pass just because she did a sexual favor? Is she being lenient on the
argumentation of this paper just because she is dating the student?

These are legitimate arguments and concerns, and while I think the rules set
up to stop these problems are stepping well over their bounds, let's not try
and act like there wasn't a problem to being with.

~~~
lectrick
Conflict of interest is arguable, but these regulations paint a false portrait
of an "all-powerful professor" picking and choosing students to deflower as he
pleases, which is most definitely the furthest thing from how it actually
works. They also make "inappropriate humor" against policy, which is frankly
ridiculous. Having gone to Cornell, which made John Cleese of Monty Python
fame a "Professor at Large", it would appall my every sensibility if the vast
swathes of inappropriate humor in Monty Python were banned.

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mbrutsch
> For the record, I strongly believe that bona fide harassers should be
> chemically castrated, stripped of their property, and hung up by their
> thumbs in the nearest public square.

And the author wonders why things are like they are.

~~~
afarrell
I'm pretty sure that was a rhetorical technique designed to make people think
"okay yes, I clearly do recognize that justice demands limits here."

As an aside: did anyone else immediately think of acid baths rather than
hormone pills back when they first read the phrase "chemically castrated"?

~~~
navait
In this sort of writing, such rhetorical techniques should be used sparingly,
especially if you want to be taken seriously. Policy editorials need to stick
to evidence, clear writing and solutions, not go off the rails with the
polemics.

~~~
afarrell
yea, I'm going to agree. This piece is pretty disappointing in that regard.

------
mistermann
I feel sorry for what the various special interests groups are increasingly
doing to girls growing up, so many conflicting ideas pushing and pulling them
in contradictory directions.

Boys have it so much easier in this respect - yes, the downside for them is
they are often the victim of trumped up "rape" charges, but at least they
don't have to contend with the mental health aspects of being simultaneously
told that they are both all powerful (you go girl, you can do anything) and a
perpetual victim (misogyny everywhere, all the time, etc).

Adolescence and young adulthood is confusing enough without experiencing it as
if in a house of mirrors.

~~~
NoMoreNicksLeft
> yes, the downside for them is they are often the victim of trumped up "rape"
> charges,

How often? I've seen little evidence that this is very common.

~~~
msandford
It might not be that every man is falsely accused of rape, but that the false
positive rate might be high. Which would mean that the existence of an
accusation provides little predictive power regarding the guilt of the
accused.

If 90% of rape allegations resulted in convictions then the existence of an
accusation would usually be meaningful. If only 10% of accusations result in
convictions, the existence of an accusation would not be very meaningful
statistically for the guilt or innocence of any one alleged perpetrator.

What makes the situation even more difficult is that there's often little hard
evidence of a crime. There can be evidence of sexual contact, but that doesn't
ipso facto make the accusation true, because statistically sexual contact in
overwhelmingly consensual.

When police find a body that's been shot or stabbed that's generally hard
evidence that a crime has taken place. There's often no question as to the
existence of the crime (except when suicide is a possibility) and it's their
job to figure out who did it and bring them to justice.

But many rape cases start with the identity of the perpetrator known, and the
objective is to figure out who is telling the truth in a situation with no
hard evidence to back up either party. It's very different from a murder, but
with just as much import. And since prosecutors don't like to lose cases
(their job is to win them, and they are judged on their conviction rate) they
often don't prosecute unless they have a strong case.

So what happens is that it's very difficult to tell if most accusations are
false, or merely not provable-enough to win in court. And because there are
conflicting motivations by a number of parties in the legal process it's very
difficult to suss out the actual truth and then measure the error from the
actual truth that the legal system achieves, and then use that to reform the
process.

Because of all this, it's entirely possible that people who are accused are
"often" the victims of trumped up charges while at the same time, only a very
few people are accused.

~~~
DanBC
Your answer is weirdly confused.

You describe the problems of obtaining a conviction - proving lack of consent
beyond a reasonable doubt such that jurors will return a guilty verdict. But
you start with

> If 90% of rape allegations resulted in convictions then the existence of an
> accusation would usually be meaningful. If only 10% of accusations result in
> convictions, the existence of an accusation would not be very meaningful
> statistically for the guilt or innocence of any one alleged perpetrator.

Which seems to miss the obvious point that "not guilty" sometimes means "not
guilty - didn't do it" and sometimes means "not guilty - not proven beyond
reasonable doubt". (Obviously all not guilty verdicts should be interpreted as
"Not guilty - didn't do it". It's important to protect that legal principle.)

~~~
msandford
Yeah, you're right! So I guess there are maybe three (or four) data sets?

1\. the actual truth (rape or not rape)

2\. what a prosecutor decides to prosecute (reasonably provable case versus
not provable case)

3\. what is claimed by the accuser (this is always rape, else there is no
accusation)

4\. what is not claimed by a could-be accuser (a person who gets raped but
doesn't report it)

In order to get a conviction you need someone from set 3 and set 2. That
completely neglects set 4 and should have some correlation with set 1, but
this correlation probably isn't going to be amazing because there are both
false positives (people who claim to have been raped, but were not) and false
negatives (rapes which did happen, but that go unreported or unprosecuted).

What really sucks about everything surrounding this particular category of
crime is that unlike many other crimes, there's a lot of possibility (not
necessarily probability though!) for false accusations. I don't honestly know
what the underlying probabilities are, and in fact they might well be
unknowable.

As an engineer the idea that you can't even measure the error to figure out
how well the system is performing at its job is deeply troubling. I certainly
HOPE that the error rate is low and that innocents are being jailed and
criminals aren't walking freely. But keeping up with the news certainly causes
me to have some doubt that the error rate is truly low. I'm not saying that
there's a pandemic of false accusations or a pandemic of unprosecuted
criminals. But it's hard to hear about a few high profile accusations gone
wrong (Duke, mattress girl, etc) and not wonder.

Anyhow thanks for pointing out the contradiction in my post!

------
GFK_of_xmaspast
You wouldn't think 'don't fuck your undergrads' would be as controversial a
statement as it is.

~~~
jseliger
You wouldn't think an alternate perspective like "People, including
undergrads, should be free to do what they want" would as controversial a
statement as it is, but neither your statement nor mine are fully germane
because they're broad principles that don't necessarily cover the minutia of
every situation.

My (abandoned) dissertation was on academic novels, and one thing I found
interesting is the way feminists in the 1950s, 60s, and 70s fought
relentlessly to argue that women were adults who could make their own choices,
sexual and otherwise, and didn't need institutions to act like their parents.
Lynn Peril's book _College Girls: Bluestockings, Sex Kittens, and Co-eds, Then
and Now_ has an okay but not great account of this.

Sometime in the 80s or 90s, though, the script flipped, and now there is a
small but loud minority calling for colleges to do the thing a lot of women
wanted colleges not to do! For those of us with a sense of history, the
results are entertaining.

------
gadders
It's not hard, is it? Don't have relationships with students you teach. If
you're teaching Maths and you have a relationship with a History of Art
student, fair enough. However, dating one of your own students is as bad as
dating a subordinate at work. Just don't do it.

~~~
TallGuyShort
Agreed. This is no different than any other conflict of interest. Do you think
bosses should be able to have sexual relationships with their direct reports,
or with customers and vendors? There are safeguards in place to deal with such
situations that remove the potentially biased individual from key decision
making processes.

------
Steuard
I've been a professor for close to ten years now, and I can't tell you how
strongly I disagreed with this essay. Maybe it's a generational thing: a
perception of what's acceptable in life even outside academia. For instance,
she says,

> "Somehow I don’t see the publishing industry instituting codes banning
> unhappily married editors from going goopy over authors,"

but from my perspective, the story she relayed showed exactly why publishers
should (and, I think, often do) fire or strongly sanction any editor who
abuses his or her position in that way. Part of the author's point seems to
be, "We need to prepare students for the dangers of the world out there,"
which I think is entirely sensible. But her proposed solution appears to be,
"Make sure that college provides practice fending off unwanted advances by
people with power over you," while I'd much prefer, "Make sure that college
teaches them those advances aren't acceptable."

Don't get me wrong: I think sex can be _awesome_ , and I think a whole lot of
people are way too eager to make rules about what other consenting adults
ought to be able to do. But the thought of a professor putting a student in a
position where they fear the consequences of saying no (when they might be
counting on that professor for a good grade or a recommendation letter) just
horrifies me. Professors: if you want to get it on at work, you've got plenty
of colleagues to choose from. And if there's some student you're convinced is
your soulmate, just cross your damned legs for a couple years.

------
rpiguy99
This article fails to note that a lot of the paranoia is driven by the slow
infantilization of 18 year-olds since the author was in college. When the
author of this article was in college, pre-AIDs, therefore probably late 70's
or early 80s, an 18 year-old was allowed to drink and would largely be
considered an "adult." If you weren't in college, you were likely working full
time, and not living with your parents until you were 26. You probably had an
older brother, cousin, or uncle who was drafted sent to Vietnam at around
18-19 years of age.

So back then when you hooked up with a professor, people probably thought you
were stupid, but you were an adult and you owned your stupidity.

Today colleges totally infantilize their students and it has become more like
extended high school (lots of homework, attendance taken, strict rules of
social conduct, etc.) than what the author experienced 35 years ago. But to be
fair, it is not just colleges, what society expects out of an 18 year old has
changed dramatically as well - so the way power dynamics are looked at on
campus today sort of makes sense.

------
nateabele
> _Personally I’d start by promoting a less vulnerable sense of self than the
> one our new campus codes are peddling._

Not possible.

A less vulnerable sense of self runs dangerously close to the idea that
students are accountable for their actions, which is directly antithetical to
the culture of adolescence that is being dragged into ever-higher age groups.

------
eli_gottlieb
I'm sure everyone will now fly into a moral panic about not being allowed to
have sex with whom they please. All I wish to point out is that, seemingly
unmentioned in this article, the power relation between professor and student
really _has_ changed, as the academic job market has gotten that much more
difficult.

Other than that, carry on. Happy moral panic, and may the odds be ever in your
favor!

------
stefantalpalaru
> [...] popularized the use of the term "survivor," previously reserved for
> those who’d survived the Holocaust.

I agree with the author that it's wrong to use "survivor" instead of "accuser"
when the guilt has not been established, but you can not reserve such a
generic word as "survivor". It simply means somebody who survived something
life-threatening.

------
jessaustin
If the adverbial phrase "stupidly and inchoately" appears, it must be the
Chronicle.

