biting
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biting
| Sun, 01-29-2006 - 10:38pm |
I have a very young male friend, and although we are sexually attracted to each other we cannot act on it because of our professional relationship (he is my student). The closest contact we have had has been to hug (no kissing, etc) with one exception....he bites me. When he goes out and gets drunk, he bites me on the arm. It used to be gentle (and I admitted to him that I liked it) but has evolved into hard biting leaving some nasty bruises. I have also seen him try to bite (but gentler) two other women when he was messed up. What is up with this kind of biting? Is it related to sex, and if so, why would he bite me so hard? He has also pinched me hard enough to leave bruises. Is all of this a substitution for sex????

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It does sound as if it could be a psycho-sexual issue. Because of it's aggressive nature, my guess is it's quite possibly a reaction to some form of abuse that he experienced in his past, likely physical, perhaps sexual.
In his head, you (and the other women you mentioned) may be surrogate mothers with whom he is trying to perpetuate or resolve these issues. In your case, this wouldn't surprise me since you're already an authority figure to him.
This kind of biting or pinching behavior is not uncommon in abusive relationships.
Please tell him that he is hurting you and that you're not comfortable with it!
E
Edited 1/30/2006 12:18 am ET by mr_e_steubing
Excuse me? You're a teacher, and you're out drinking with one of your students? Exactly how hold is he, and how old are you? Regardless of ages, teachers don't socialize with students in bars!
Who knows why a drunk does anything? If he makes a practice of biting people when he's "messed" up, there's something wrong with him, and if you think that's an invitation to sex.......then you've got a problem, too.
I'd suggest you leave your students to their peers.
You've already crossed the line here but I think you need to focus on doing what's right for this student as opposed to doing what feels good to you!
If he's "messed up" often then he obviously has drinking/drug issues and he needs your HELP, not your sexual overtures. As his teacher, you shouldn't be worried about his sexual habits or problems anyway unless they could cause harm to him.
Be a responsible adult and do your job.
Edited 1/30/2006 5:50 pm ET by katmandoo2001
Edited 2/1/2006 6:46 am ET by mr_e_steubing
Regardless of his age, you, as a teacher and authority figure, ARE breaching the student-teacher trust by allowing this type of familiarity. He isn't there to develop an intimate relationship with an instructor OR a mentor.
The "sermon" as you called it was completely warranted.
Edited 2/1/2006 10:02 am ET by katmandoo2001
"Uncalled for?" In light of the student/teacher scandals that are rampant these days, I would think that any person in authority would be extra mindful of their positions of trust.
As a parent, I would be very disturbed to find that my son was being given THIS type of inappropriate attention outside the classroom. Grad student or not. I suspect that this young man's parents would feel the same.
>> Grad student or not. <<
Grad students are beyond their first four years of college/university and are often in their late 20's and even 30's, so I don't think there is too much of an issue here. Many times the teacher and student are of similar age and on occasion the student is actually older than the teacher. It would have been simpler had the original poster made this clear in message #1...
Meanwhile, to the original poster: I agree with another that there seems to be something psycho-sexual going on with your friend and I would personally find this disconcerting, to say the least. If it were me, I would begin slowly and carefully distancing myself from this person, doing my best not to antagonize him...
"Very young friend" indicates to me that he isn't an older grad student though.
I'm well aware of what a grad student is and made my comments accordingly. I have a son who's graduating this year and will stay on for his Master's, and regardless of his age, as long as he's in school, I would not be happy if a teacher was involved in his personal life. It's inappropriate and unethical.
Kat, you're one of the more eloquent and valued posters here, and I always appreciate your intelligent commentary. But in this case you're projecting your personal ethics/opinions as what is right or best in every case, regardless of the individual situation, and that is simply not being reasonable, in my opinion. A simple "IMHO" would have been sufficient.
I have been connected to the academic community for many years now, and this kind of thing is commonplace, non-scandalous, and rarely if ever does it garner serious attention within these organizations. Often it is even advantageous in ways, but that's going further off-topic. Once again, the situation involves 2 grown, consenting adults.
By the time I was in my twenties, I'd long-since been making relationship decisions that were free of parental influence, and my parents--while they knew they were free to share their feelings about my GFs, and shared positive ones, of course ;)--respected my sovereignty and discretion enough to hold whatever misgivings they had about my relationships to themselves and let me be to wrestle with and learn from them whatever life lessons were being presented, as difficult as that might've been for them.
Best,
E
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