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One of my students is an escort/stripper and she has offered me (and other faculty in my department) her "services". I am pretty sure my initial reaction of "thanks for letting me know, now can you answer the question about how to calculate the standard deviation", may not have been the best reaction. The offers have continued. My head of school is aware of the issue, and has asked if I want him to do anything.

Is the student doing anything wrong by offering her services to me? For what it is worth, prostitution is legal in the UK. Is this any different then a student telling me she works in a restaurant?

What is the correct response in a situation like this?

einpoklum
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StrongBad
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    Did she offer her services free of charge, or is she simply advertising her craft? – gerrit Feb 25 '13 at 14:40
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    @gerrit: Does it matter? – JeffE Feb 25 '13 at 14:40
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    @JeffE I think it might, as one could be interpreted as a bribe, whereas the other cannot. I'm not saying either is appropriate, but the severity of a misconduct can be different depending on what is the case, perhaps (I'm not sure). – gerrit Feb 25 '13 at 14:41
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    Is this any different than a student telling me she works in a restaurant? If she was not your student, and she asked you to eat at the restaurant where she works, would you say yes? If she was not your student, and she offered you her "services," would you say yes? I think the two instances are different. I think more people would frown upon the second instance. – JRN Feb 25 '13 at 14:44
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    @gerrit I took it more as an advertisement and not a bribe. – StrongBad Feb 25 '13 at 15:26
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    From her point of view, she's just advertising her business, the same way you might leave fliers around the college for your cupcake sale. I don't see what this has to do with academia as the answer could apply to any organisation (assuming she's over 18...). –  Feb 25 '13 at 16:12
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    @LordScree The fact that they are in a student-teacher relationship makes the situation rather unique. If she was handing out fliers at a construction sites' lunch break it would be a different situation. – gerrit Feb 25 '13 at 16:19
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    It's worth asking whether she said it in such a way that it could be construed as advertising to her classmates as well, or whether it was explicitly directed at you. Not that it's appropriate for the classroom in either case, but if it was intended as a general announcement, the student/teacher crossover is less relevant. – Bobson Feb 25 '13 at 16:38
  • @Bobson it was during my office hours. My door was open, but there were no other students. – StrongBad Feb 25 '13 at 16:59
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    You know, I knew a couple girls who stripped to pay their way through college, and both of them would have been mortified if any of their classmates found out, much less their prof. To them stripping was a fun, well-paying means to an end, not something they wanted to bleed over into their "real life." They wouldn't offer their services to friends or acquaintances outside of work. Maybe it works differently with escorts, but I'm inclined to say that it's not just "advertising her business." She's hitting on you. – Alexander Gruber Feb 25 '13 at 22:26
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    @AlexanderGruber: it could also mean she probably thinks nothing of it, it's a job and a legal one at her place; there is no objective reason she need to keep it a secret especially if she is the type that don't really care about other people's reaction. You're probably reading too much into it. – Lie Ryan Feb 27 '13 at 06:09
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    The offer is inappropriate because it could jeopardize the objectivity of the teacher/student relationship, which is important for a teacher to do their job properly. Let's not assume malice, she's probably just ignorant about when is and is not appropriate time to advertise a business, and classroom is never the right time to do so. – Lie Ryan Feb 27 '13 at 06:25
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    Prostitution is not legal in the UK. – Matka Jun 02 '15 at 09:56
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    @Matka According to wikipedia "In Great Britain (England, Wales and Scotland), prostitution itself (the exchange of sexual services for money) is legal". It is only since January 2015 that it is illegal in Northern Ireland. I have not heard about any changes in the rest of the UK. – StrongBad Jun 02 '15 at 10:08
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    Even if it's legal in the UK, even if she's not simply interested in you, even if you don't feel sexually harassed, she is soliciting the same as if she were trying to sell you encyclopedias. Treat her like any other salesperson who doesn't have a contract with the school. Rain the fury of the bookstore down upon her. – candied_orange Apr 17 '16 at 10:47
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    It depends on you actually:) – Hadi Sep 21 '16 at 07:50
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    I believe a clarification is needed in order to answer the question ("what is the correct response in a situation like this?") properly: is the OP interested in her services, or not? – Dilworth Sep 21 '16 at 13:56
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    I have edited the title so that it reflects the content of the question more closely (I think), but I am not 100% satisfied with the result; if you have improvements feel free to do so. I have also removed the tag:sexual-misconduct, because "misconduct" already implies a judgment which is not crystal clear in my opinion. – Federico Poloni Sep 25 '16 at 07:07
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    @Federico I think the tag "sexual-sphere" is somewhat ambiguous and may not be a useful tag. I also think it makes sense to have a "sexual-misconduct" tag on a question asking if the behavior is misconduct, without implying judgement, just as we could have an "ethics" tag on a question asking if something is ethical - even if the answer is that there's no ethical problem. I suggest raising the issue on [meta] if you feel strongly about the tag. – ff524 Sep 25 '16 at 07:12
  • @ff524 I don't feel strongly about this. I don't object to you reverting the tag edit, but in addition to that I'd like to edit the tag wiki to specify that it is used for cases of possible sexual misconduct. I will do it right after writing this comment. – Federico Poloni Sep 25 '16 at 07:31
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    @Federico I approved the edit, but removed the line This tag is intended to be used mainly in questions of the form "is doing this OK?" because there are many other potential uses of the tag: for example, questions about creating a sexual misconduct policy for a university, or about impact of sexual misconduct accusations on future career, or about how to protect oneself against accusations of sexual misconduct in certain situations... etc. I don't think the tag is primarily for "Is this OK" questions. – ff524 Sep 25 '16 at 07:43
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    @ff524 After a little thought, I have suggested a different solution in http://meta.academia.stackexchange.com/questions/3477/rename-tagsexual-misconduct-tagsexual-conduct (renaming the tag "sexual conduct"). – Federico Poloni Sep 25 '16 at 08:06
  • If one of the faculty accepts her offer, perhaps she can use a hidden camera to record it and later on blackmail the teacher for a better grade. – Daniel Dec 05 '16 at 15:15
  • @peterh except students are not employees (at least undergraduate ones). – StrongBad Oct 31 '17 at 15:14
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    @StrongBad Even if she would have an ice shop and would want to call the prof to visit, it would be problematic. But this student wants to sell sex. The decriminalization of the prostitution happened to defend the prostitutes from the misuses of their "managers", and not make such serious ethical misconducts legal. – peterh Oct 31 '17 at 15:20
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    It's an interesting asymmetry as if the situation were reversed, you would be fired on the spot. But as a student, in practical terms the university is very unlikely to do anything about it unless she physically assaults you. As it is your only option is to say you are not interested firmly and change the topic. I would ask your head of school to step in if it happens again as well. At least that way the problem can be shared. – Simd Nov 03 '17 at 10:09
  • Did you talk with your collegues about this and did she also advertise their service to them? – User Sep 24 '19 at 22:14
  • @gerrit: handing out fliers is so 1990s... reminiscent of a Soho phonebox back in the day – smci Dec 09 '19 at 20:40

4 Answers4

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First, “thanks for letting me know” is not an unambiguous no. I suppose most people would actually get it, but she already appears to have boundary issues, so you should make it much clearer. The best thing to do would be to make it clear to her that you consider her propositions to be out of line. You can add, that while you don't think badly of her because of it, such offers have no place in the classroom (or in a student/teacher relationship).

In fact, you would probably do the same if she insisted on asking you to come have dinner at a restaurant she worked at: you'd be annoyed by it, because it is detrimental to her (and others) attention. I regularly have students who ask out-of-line questions, and I try to be firm: while I'd be happy to discuss if we were friends, we are not and my class/practicals/whatever is not the right place for that.

However, there is a distinction between talking about sex and dining: the law makes a distinction in many countries, including UK. From UCL's HR webpages (as an example):

Sexual harassment can take the form of ridicule, sexually provocative remarks or jokes, offensive comments about dress or appearance, the display or distribution of sexually explicit material, unwelcome sexual advances or physical contact, demands for sexual favours or assault.

which clearly covers your case, whether the sexual advances are of a paid or an unpaid nature.

Finally, regarding your head of school: the student clearly has boundary issues, probably for making the offer in the first place and definitely for renewing it multiple times after you declined. So, yeah, I would suggest your head of school or a counselor having a talk with her about it.

aparente001
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F'x
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    I agree that the student clearly has boundary issues — all examples I've read about of students doing such work went at great length to avoid ever running into a teacher while working. Whether advertising to sell sexual service is sexual harassment I'm not sure, though. – gerrit Feb 25 '13 at 14:51
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    I'd add that you should make sure any further conversations with this person are conducted in the presence of a counsellor or other third-party, just to be safe. – Suresh Feb 25 '13 at 16:35
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    @АртёмЦарионов I disagree: there are boundaries, set forth by laws, regulations and university policy. I strongly advise to set one's behavior according to one's employer policy, obviously. – F'x Feb 25 '13 at 21:31
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    In the OP it was not claimed that he didn't want to accept her offer. So maybe his answer 'thanks for letting me know' was perfectly fine. – Adam Sep 26 '14 at 11:24
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    Why quote from UCL's policies? How do you know what OP's university is? Did I miss something? – aparente001 Sep 25 '16 at 15:11
  • @aparente001 It's an example of an English university's policy on sexual harassment. Since all English and Welsh universities operate under the same laws and Scotland's and Northern Ireland's laws are generally similar, it seems likely that the asker's university has very similar policies and definitions to the one quoted. – David Richerby Feb 12 '17 at 11:07
  • In practice universities set a high hurdle to cross before they are willing to entertain complaints about student behaviour towards faculty. The safest bet is most likely just to never be alone with the student. (How many cases of sexual harassment of faculty by students have there been recorded in the UK, for example?) – Simd Nov 03 '17 at 15:59
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Your initial reaction was thanks for letting me know, now can you answer the question about how to calculate the standard deviation.

This answer is ambiguous and at risk for misunderstanding. I guess you mean no, but you're not saying no. If taken literally, this answer says neither yes nor no. Myself, earlier in my life, would have interpreted thanks for letting me know as an expression of interest, which explains the repeated offers. In sensitive cases like this, I think it's important to be very explicit:

I am not interested in your professional services and please do not offer them again.

Like this, at least it is beyond doubt that you have replied negatively.

gerrit
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    No question, my initial answer was ambiguous and could have been better. I was so shocked that I didn't handle it as well as possible, but at least I didn't give my standard reply of "why don't you swing by my office to chat about that". – StrongBad Feb 25 '13 at 15:24
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    ^ Which would have been both hilarious and very, very disturbing at the same time. – Joe Z. Feb 25 '13 at 15:29
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    +1 i agree, i struggle to tell apart refusals and ambiguous answers, some people take everything literally, and taken literally the above sounds like a remark of interest –  Feb 25 '13 at 16:41
  • +1 Ambiguity can mean flirtatious, though it's clear from the OP's question that it wasn't the intention. – Fuhrmanator Feb 25 '13 at 16:49
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    Big +1. I've mistaken things like "thanks for letting me know" for a sign of interest when I was a student. It can be very ambiguous. In a case like this you need to make it perfectly clear you're not interested. – Rena Feb 26 '13 at 00:02
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    @StrongBad I think yours was a fine response, especially on the spur of the moment. Most people will get the message, which is that what you care about is how she is doing in math. You can save the blunt response for people who can't get a message otherwise (like this one). – Ellen Spertus Sep 24 '14 at 23:26
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    "Possibly adding as long as you are my student ;)." isn't that direction slightly dangerous as well? – Blaisorblade Dec 14 '14 at 15:55
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    This is the UK, right? "Thanks for letting me know" is a very clear signal of disinterest there. "We do offer xxx" - "Thanks for letting me know" [meaning, "I couldn't care less"] – Captain Emacs Dec 18 '15 at 14:50
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    It is a mild sign of disinterest, followed by a clear but polite "no" if she offers again. The OP has nothing to worry about. – kleineg Mar 30 '16 at 17:33
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    @kleineg: No, Captain Emacs is correct. In the UK it's more than a mild sign of disinterest. – Lightness Races in Orbit Apr 10 '16 at 22:33
  • This is only a partial answer. I would not vote it down if not for the slightly lecherous footnote. – aparente001 Sep 25 '16 at 15:09
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I think her offer is more than just a simple bribing. It is an intentional act to jeopardize your career and put you in trouble. Unfortunately it is a method used by some women to disturb and manipulate men and when they get disappointed they can easily pretend they are the victims of sexual abuse. Due to the fact that sexual relationships between people are not as simple as other relationships, her offer cannot be compared with inviting you to a restaurant. I think it is better you not only reject her offer but also report her offer and try to document it.

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    Depending on the region, it may or may not jeopardise his career as long as it is not a bribe. See also this question, although I recognise this is not about a relationship. – gerrit Feb 25 '13 at 14:38
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    I agree with Vahid. Further, I think, technically she probably didn't do anything wrong. At least not as long as you can't prove she offered her services as a bribe. Known professional or not doesn't matter. I always assume: those who offer such services also would not hesitate to accuse YOU of inappropriate behaviour and uninvited sexual advances and where I come that can destroy your life instantly, even if there isn't a shred of truth in that accusation. From now on never receive her without at least one fellow worker, best female, around. And report the incident! Just in case! – user1129682 Feb 25 '13 at 22:13
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    +1 Even if Vahid is wrong, what he is telling you to do is not wrong. Better to be on the safe side. – KK. Feb 27 '13 at 04:53
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    Conjecture is being presented as fact: -1. Good advice, though. – aparente001 Sep 25 '16 at 15:08
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From what you say, the student's actions are not illegal in your country. Most people, including most administrators of educational institutions, would consider this "wrong." The reason is very simple; it could constitute bribery, or a at least a conflict of interest. Apparently, this has happened to a number of people, your university is "wise," and is willing support you (and others).

The next time it happens, give her an uequivocal "no," and tell her that you don't expect to have to tell her again. You might add that you are "happily married" or "in a good relationship" if that is the case. The "second next time," you might threaten to report her to the university. In any event, whatever you do, make it clear that her behavior is inappropriate, and will not be tolerated.

Tom Au
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