Chapter 5 Exercises: The Ethical Compass — Consent, Power, and the Boundaries of Influence

Exercise 5.1 — The Consent Spectrum (Individual or Small Group)

Purpose: To develop nuanced judgment about where different scenarios fall on the spectrum from genuine affirmative consent to various forms of coerced compliance.

Instructions: Read each scenario below. For each one, place it on the following spectrum and, crucially, justify your placement in 2–3 sentences. Pay attention to what information you feel you need that is missing from the scenario — that absence is itself analytically useful.

Genuine Enthusiastic      Reluctant/Conflict-      Ambiguous/              Fear-Motivated         Explicit
Agreement                 Avoidant Compliance      Unclear                 Acquiescence           Refusal
|_________________________|________________________|_________________________|______________________|

Scenarios:

A. Alex and Sam have been on three dates. After dinner, Sam leans in to kiss Alex. Alex kisses back and smiles. No words are exchanged before or after.

B. Jamie and Morgan have been texting for two weeks. Morgan has been pursuing enthusiastically; Jamie has been friendly but slower to respond. After the third date, Morgan suggests going back to their place. Jamie says "okay, sure." They go.

C. A college sophomore has been seeing a graduate teaching assistant from a different department. After six weeks, the TA invites her to spend the night. She says yes, feeling happy about it.

D. An employee attends a work happy hour. Her manager, who is generally well-liked and not aggressive, makes clear over the evening that he is interested in her. As people leave, he asks if she wants to get a drink somewhere quieter. She says yes, because she is uncertain what a no would mean for their working relationship and she does not want to find out.

E. Two people match on a dating app, message enthusiastically, meet for coffee, and both feel immediate chemistry. At the end of the date, one says, "I'd really like to see you again this week." The other says, "Definitely — text me."

Discussion Prompts: - Which scenarios were easiest to place? Why? - Which were hardest? What made them ambiguous? - In scenarios where you placed something as "ambiguous" or "reluctant," what additional information would change your assessment? - Notice the structural features that complicate consent in scenarios C and D. What are they, and why do they matter?

Exercise 5.2 — The Power Audit (Paired Activity)

Purpose: To develop the habit of identifying power differentials in courtship contexts before evaluating the ethics of specific behaviors.

Instructions: Working in pairs, analyze the following scenario. Complete the Power Audit table by identifying who has power along each dimension, and then discuss how that power map affects the ethical analysis of the situation.

Scenario: A 32-year-old man with an established career meets a 23-year-old woman who is his company's new junior hire, not on his direct team. Over the next month, he asks her to lunch several times (always paid for by him), compliments her work in team meetings, and eventually tells her that he has developed feelings for her and would like to take her on a real date.

Power Audit Table:

Discussion Questions: 1. Is this situation definitively unethical, or is it more complicated? What would make it more or less ethical? 2. What obligations does the person with more structural power have in this situation? 3. How would the analysis change if the genders were reversed? If the age gap were reversed (older woman, younger man)? 4. Does the fact that they are not on the same direct team meaningfully change the power analysis?

Exercise 5.3 — Debate: Is Persistent Courtship After Initial Reluctance Ever Acceptable?

Purpose: To practice structured ethical argumentation and to develop a nuanced position on a genuinely contested question.

Setup: This is a structured debate exercise. The class is divided into two groups. Group A argues: "Persistent courtship after an initial soft rejection is sometimes ethically acceptable." Group B argues: "A person has an obligation to stop pursuing after any signal of disinterest, no matter how ambiguous." After the debate, both groups work together on the synthesis questions.

Group A — For Persistence Under Some Conditions: Build your argument using the following considerations (you are not required to use all of them, and you may introduce others): - Real-world evidence that initial hesitation sometimes reflects anxiety or social norms rather than genuine disinterest - The distinction between different kinds of "signals" (genuine discomfort vs. social scripting) - The difference between persistence that escalates and persistence that maintains a respectful steady presence - Romantic narratives in culture that celebrate persistence

Group B — For Clear Stopping Points: Build your argument using the following considerations: - The autonomy principle established in this chapter - The epistemological problem of interpreting ambiguous signals under motivated reasoning - The differential safety costs of being pursued vs. pursuing - The pattern research showing how often persistent courtship is experienced as harassment even when the pursuer experiences it as romance

Synthesis Questions (both groups together): 1. Can you articulate specific conditions under which persistence is acceptable and specific conditions under which it crosses a line? 2. Does gender, power differential, or prior relationship history affect your answer? 3. Who should bear the burden of uncertainty in ambiguous signaling situations?

Exercise 5.4 — Personal Reflection: Your Own Ethical Compass

Purpose: This is a personal, private reflection exercise. You will not be asked to share this with the class unless you choose to. The goal is genuine engagement with your own principles and their sources, not a performance of the correct answer.

Instructions: Write 400–600 words responding to the following prompts. Write honestly — the value of this exercise is proportional to your honesty.

Prompt Set:

1. Think about a time when you were pursuing someone romantically (or imagine such a situation, if you prefer). What principles, explicit or implicit, guided your behavior? Were they principles you would explicitly endorse, or were you operating on unexamined habits?

2. Think about a time when someone was pursuing you in a way that made you uncomfortable. What made it uncomfortable? What did you wish they had done differently? What did you do in response, and why?

3. Of the four ethical commitments described at the end of the chapter (orienting toward the other person's actual experience; treating uncertainty as a reason to ask; owning the power you have; working to influence through who you genuinely are), which do you find most natural? Which do you find hardest? Why?

4. The chapter argues that "the goal of courtship, properly understood, is genuine connection." Do you agree? Is that your goal when you pursue romantic interest in someone? Should it be?

Instructor Note: This exercise works best when it is framed explicitly as ungraded or graded on completion only, not on content. Students who feel they are being evaluated on the "rightness" of their values will perform rather than reflect.

End of Chapter 5 Exercises