To get back to the original point of contention:
solastalgia wrote: ↑Tue Aug 02, 2022 5:56 pm
From what I understand having researched sexual misconduct and power differentials in religious community, there is no such thing as consent when it comes to the type of power differential that exists between a spiritual teacher and student.
This is flat-out wrong.
Whether or not consent exists depends, in all jurisdictions, on two questions: (1) did the individual give consent, and (2) was the individual capable of giving consent. Different jurisdictions have different definitions of what qualifies as giving or withdrawing consent. They also have different categorizations of people unable to give consent, but those generally include children, the mentally impaired, prisoners or wards of the state, etc.
We're talking about a scenario here where a mentally competent, free, adult layperson has their own income and means of subsistence and has voluntarily entered into a teaching relationship with a lama. The lama has no financial, legal or material control over the person. It is almost certain that the student would be capable of giving consent. That's pretty much the end of that discussion.
The complaint usually made in these situation is - the student could consent, but the teacher shouldn't have made the request. The reasons given for why they shouldn't have made the request usually boil down to an indefinable feeling that it's a bit unsavory if person A looks on person B as a spiritually enlightened person and person B takes advantage of that to have sex with person A. However that argument doesn't deny the existence of consent, instead it argues either that it was consent under false pretenses. Perhaps the request reveals that B really wasn't what he/she claimed to be, or was something he/she shouldn't have done if he really was what he/she claimed.
However that argument is a bit thin. As a hypothetical - guy rents an expensive sports car, borrows an expensive suit and a watch, turns up at a bar claiming to be rich, and seduces a woman on that pretext. Can the woman consent? Yes of course she can. Her consent may rely on false representations that she's received, but that's her problem, not sports car guy's problem.
So we're well outside the territory of "can't". Are we in the territory of "shouldn't"? Are some forms of teacher/student relationship permissible but undesirable? Well, if we're making a moral and not a legal judgement, that should be from the perspective of the moral framework that the teacher and student have agreed to. Nothing in the Buddhadharma generally or the Vajrayana specifically prohibits these relationships, except in situations where it involves breaking vows or procuring others to break vows. They have existed and have not been disapproved for a very long time. In the Buddhadharma and the Vajrayana we are responsible for the vows we undertake, and our upholding of those vows (including those with respect to teachers). So basically, there's no viable argument that these relationships are undesirable, but clearly those entering into them are responsible for the outcomes of so doing. It's quite possible for consent to be coerced - but that can happen in any relationship, not just a student/teacher one.
So we can't really make a legal or a moral argument against these in principle.
That isn't to say that there aren't relationships that are either illegal or immoral. Mukpo father and son engaged in behavior that was probably illegal (underage partners, rape, etc.) and definitely immoral. Lakhar engaged in behavior that was definitely immoral. The discussion on these things needs to be around the specifics of the situation.
