[Vision2020] [Bulk] Re: Repentant Sinner my ass!

[Paul Rumelhart]

The word "abuse" implies, to me anyway, that something bad was done to 
someone else.  A professor and a student having a consensual 
relationship, regardless of who initiated it, is not abuse.  It's 
unethical, sure, but it's not abuse.  Abuse would involve the professor 
refusing to pass the student unless the student had sex with him or 
her.  Or, conversely, the student seducing the professor then 
blackmailing him or her into giving the student good grades in exchange 
for not telling the professor's significant other.

 From what I remember of this whole escapade when it was happening, 
there was no coersion involved on either side.  Just two adults engaging 
in sex in one form or another. 

I do remember trying my best to avoid the whole media frenzy, though, 
because I thought there were more important things that the media should 
have been focusing on at the time.  Such as the Digital Millenium 
Copyright Act, or the migratory habits of nocturnal owls.

Paul

g. crabtree wrote:

> Why is the relationship between former President Clinton and Ms. 
> Lewinski "consensual" when the tryst between a collage professor and a 
> student is not? A boss and an underling? A guard and a prisoner? I was 
> of the impression that any time there was such a huge disparity 
> between the status of two people with regard to their stations in 
> life that the concept of "consent" became at best vague and at worst 
> unattainable. What divide could be greater than the gulf between a 23 
> year old naif and the nearly twice her age leader of the free world? I 
> would content that the gulf between them far exceeds that of the rift 
> between a 17 year old girl and her 21 year old boy friend and we all 
> know where that lack of restraint leads. While the actual acts that 
> occurred in and near the oval office may have been technically legal, 
> there is no doubt that the concept of abuse is not out of the 
> question. What is also certain is that it was an absurdly ill 
> considered, vulgar, and characterless move on the part of someone who 
> might reasonably have been expected to know better, even by liberal 
> democrats. I very much agree with Tony in that when Ms. Lewinski looks 
> back on this glittering moment in the spotlight it won't be with pride.


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