agonyaunt | The Ethicist: Military Ex-Boyfriend Slept with Subordinates

I recently ended a romantic relationship with a military officer. One sticking point was his revelation that, before dating me, he had sexual relationships with multiple enlisted women who served under him and were in his direct chain of command. He said that he wished he hadn’t engaged in these relationships, as knowledge of them could lead to significant disciplinary action and possibly a dishonorable discharge; he disagreed, however, that they were wrong or potentially harmful or compromising for the women involved. He asked me to keep those relationships secret. I agreed, but that decision has weighed heavily on me ever since. I’m struggling now to reconcile my responsibilities to preserve his confidentiality with my responsibility to reveal information that might help protect other women. Your thoughts would be most welcome. Name Withheld

There are a number of ethical issues here, and they pull in different directions. First, what you plan to reveal was confided to you in the context of an intimate relationship. Confidences of that kind are especially important to respect because the possibility of intimacy depends on being able to make yourself vulnerable to someone — including by revealing what you don’t want others to know.

Second, however, it’s unsettling that your ex doesn’t grasp the wrongness of what he was doing. He was betraying an oath; he risked undermining good order and discipline in the ranks; and above all, his institutional power would have made the genuineness of his partner’s continuing consent hard to assess. Yet he is evidently deterred only by the knowledge that he could get in trouble if his conduct were exposed.

A third consideration is that the women he had relationships with in the past have decided not to report him. Although they may have refrained because they were afraid for their careers — which is one reason he shouldn’t have had the relationships in the first place — you should be cautious about second-guessing their decision. And in outing him, you risk outing them, too, and exposing them to punishment.

Without more information, it’s hard to resolve the clashing considerations here. What evidence do you have of what he did? Do you know who any of these women were? Can you contact them to seek their consent? If not, he might be able to brazen it out, insisting that you were just an ex-lover seeking to punish him for leaving you.

Which brings us to a fourth ethical issue. You’ll want to be clear about your own feelings here. Revenge is an unattractive motive, especially when clothed in an expression of concern for others. And it may distort your view of the situation. Given that he at least recognizes that those previous relationships were imprudent, how should you appraise the likelihood that he’ll continue to offend? All this counsels deeper reflection on your own state of mind before you address the balance of the other considerations.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

I don't really know anything about military courts or systems of promotion/demotion, but my guess is that it's a moot point anyway. Without the names of the women and their testimony, I don't think a disciplinary body would – or should – take action against someone based solely on the uncorroborated testimony of his ex-romantic partner, especially since LW can only testify to what Ex told LW, not anything LW personally saw.

Yeah, I don't think anything would come of that either. It's highly unlikely that there would really be any way forward TO investigate formally if LW doesn't have any more information than that! Although of course that presumes LW doesn't have any further information - maybe she does.

And if she does, I think it's pretty easy to say that while he was definitely wrong and the relationships were definitely coercive, it'd still be wrong for her to report anything that could lead to identifying any of his past partners without their agreement. And like the answer says, they haven't come forward yet, which probably means they wouldn't agree. There is a slight chance that they might though: some women want to come forward when they know they are one of a series, and they might not know it already. OTOH, if the LW does know enough to track down some of them, even approaching them about it also seems bizarre and kind of creepy. Maybe not ethically wrong, but definitely creepy. And also like the plot of a thriller.

I know at least one circle of people who have sought each other out to come forward together semi-anonymously about a mutual harmful ex, but those people also have some baseline of (queer) community in common, and perhaps a greater expectation of community accountability outside of institutional punishment within that shared context.

LW, I am glad you left this predatory asshole. I wish I could tell you to go report him, but without names you don't have any real information and with names you'd be overriding his victims' decisions. IF someone (esp. military) comes to you and says they are investigating him I think you could tell them what you know and let them put the puzzle together, but I don't think you can by yourself.

(That said I thought the Ethicist's bit about jealousy was a bit scoldy and unnecessary)

agreed on every single response point you have.

Yes, yes, yes, and yes. There was nothing at all in the letter that sounded like jealousy, just dismay on behalf of the women in his command and a sadness that her ex was not the kind of empathetic person she could have hoped he was.

I'm not that into institutional reporting on other people's behalf, but if the LW has the ability to contact the women in question, as others have mentioned, to let them know they are part of string of others, and ask if they'd like to be put in touch with each other to figure out what they'd like to do about it (whether that's an informal support circle, a whisper network among other women subordinate to the officer in question, or a formal complaint process) that might be valuable. The military is not the only entity that could do something with this information or necessarily the best entity to do it.

LW's ex has completely missed why relations involving power differentials are forbidden. He says there was nothing harmful about the relations because he views them as consensual. He doesn't realize the women involved may not have felt empowered to say no. The relations felt consensual to him, the individual in a position of greater power, and he isn't thinking about how it might have felt to them.

That said, I find the columnist's third consideration most compelling. It is the right of the women involved to decide to report this guy—or not. They have not, and LW can't know for sure why not. Better to respect their decision.

...And in outing him, you risk outing them, too, and exposing them to punishment.

IMO this should be the first most important ethical issue but /shrug/

The Ethicist: Military Ex-Boyfriend Slept with Subordinates

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