Title: Why Professors Should Not Sleep With Their Students – The Epistemology of Consent and Professor-Student Sex

Abstract: My main interest is explaining the wrong involved in professors (or any teaching staff) sleeping with their students, and to consider the viability of explaining at least some of the harm in a consent framework. While alternative explanations for the wrong of professor-student sex have been offered (recently: Srinivasan 2021), I argue here that professors ought to not sleep with their students due issues relating to sexual consent and the lack thereof. I argue that apparently consensual professor-student relationships are either (1) actually non-consensual or (2) minimally involve unacceptable moral risk. To establish this, I consider relevant sociological and psychological research regarding those relationships, including student self-reports, and studies of the phenomenon of delayed disclosure (and recognition) of sexual violence.