Letterman and workplace sexual ethics

So it's all over the news this morning that David Letterman "had sex with female employees." He even got funny about it on the show. "Dave had sex." No Big Deal, right? We're all adults here, blah bl--

But wait! What is that loud BLEEP BLEEP BLEEP sound? Why, I do believe my shit detector is going off. The phrase that's highlighting itself in my mind is "sex with employees." That's an ethical problem. Pardon me while I state the blazingly obvious.

Having sex with one's employees is generally recognized as not being ethical. This is true regardless of the sex and/or gender of any of the people in question. This is not because employees are fragile, defenseless, sweetly fluffheaded, or unable to make their own choices, and therefore need to be defended from their own freedom by draconian Puritans in HR or by a nanny state: this is because employers and higher-ranking employees have direct power over the jobs, and therefore the lives, of lower-ranking employees. If someone can fire you or have you fired, they have power over you which you do not have over them. We have workplace rules, legal options, and sometimes even (gasp) unions because rank and power are not equivalent to wisdom and ethical behavior.

This built-in power imbalance makes it much more difficult for an employee to say a resounding no or a clear and clean yes to a boss than to someone they don't work with. It muddies the issues of attraction, of consent, of refusal, and of stopping once you've started. The question of how the sex and the work affect each other is always there, and the effects can never be known in advance.

Pressure and power games need not be as explicit as "do this or lose your job," just as the firing or promotion of an employee can be accomplished by the most delicate nuances of approval and suggestion, well outside the formalities of the performance review. Workplace culture forms around these nuances; more experienced workers tell less experienced ones what the unwritten expectations are, or the new worker sees who goes, who stays, who moves up, who doesn't, and who's doing what with/to/about whom. This creates an environment that makes it even more difficult to say a clear no or an untainted yes. An employee can find out the job description didn't include all the actual duties that are expected, or that the benefits and promotions are reserved for others who are providing services not normally expected of persons pursuing the profession that goes with their job title.

When workers of unequal rank are involved with each other sexually, the workplace is fatally messed up, not only for the people engaging in sexual behavior but for those not doing so, because the ones who are doing extracurricular activities are seen as having an advantage in influence and access to the boss which others don't have--influence and access based not on work performance but on sexual performance. Resentments develop. Intrigues flourish. Cliques form. Dysfunction grows like kudzu on MiracleGro. Everyone's work suffers. This is true no matter how mature and responsible everyone tries to be about a situation that began precisely because people weren't being mature and responsible.

I have no way of knowing what went on in Letterman's workplace, devoutly hope to be spared the details, and am not accusing him of anything. I'm just pointing out that in the twenty-first century, "having sex with employees" is not a No Big Deal situation. I'm also wondering why there's no coverage about CBS's policy on sexual involvement between employees of unequal rank (if such a policy exists) in all the fuss and bother going on. Is there such a policy, and if so, is it being enforced? That would seem newsworthy to me.