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As the title implies, this is a study of the intrusion of sexual feelings and contacts into relationships of trust that are—or at least, should be—nonsexual. After attempting to prove that, in fields ranging from the mental health professions to medicine, law, religion, education, and business, sexual relationships between what the author terms “men in power” and their patients, clients, parishioners, students, or prótegées are far more pervasive than is generally thought, the author goes on to consider various aspects of such forbidden sexual relationships from the separate perspectives of men and women. Among the topics discussed are the emotional needs and conditions that give rise to such relationships, their dynamics and destructive effects, how men and women can prepare themselves and their children psychologically to avoid or mitigate the effects of the forbidden sexual relationships, and, finally, the healing effects that, the author believes, follow for men and women who fight off temptation.
The book contains many interesting insights and, in a number of respects, is a significant work. Unfortunately, it also has significant flaws.
First is the author's uncritical acceptance of, and heavy reliance on, rumor and gossip. Thus, after observing that reliable statistical analysis of his subject is impossible, he states, in a tone that seems to herald a new breakthrough in research techniques, that
fortunately, there is another way to measure and study reality, one that long predates our servitude to numbers: It is called “asking around.” I invite you to try it. If you do, chances are that you will hear, within one or two instances of asking the question, about one woman, then another and another, who had a sexual relationship with a man who had power over her. Once you start piecing together all of these stories, it becomes clear
Page 568from the experience of women that sexual exploitation of professional relationships is epidemic in our society. (p. 12)
Moreover, he is