Q: Is it ok for a professor, TA, or RA to sleep with a student?
This is a challenging question because these categories of people possess varied levels of power over a student, not to mention age and physical proximity. It’s generally a good relationship rule of thumb for two people to share equal power when they decide to enter into any form of romantic exchange or relationship. The degree of the power imbalance is directly proportionate to the likelihood negative, unhealthy outcomes will occur. Simply put, the more influence someone has and could wield over another person, the higher the chance bad stuff will go down for the less powerful one in the relationship.