Rana Reider, 44, had consensual relationship with 18 year old UK sprinter. Gross, but how is that worthy of him being banned?

Meanwhile, we put Alan Turing on our bank notes as a gay martyr- an Oxford professor who seduced a 19 year old factory boy when he was 40. The age of majority in the UK at the time was 21.

I don't see the problem. I don't get why people gatekeep relationships so much between adults. Minors do it to themselves too, they make fun of freshman dating upperclassmen for instance. But, its one thing to look down on it and make fun of people who do it, it's another thing to punish people for having these consensual relationships.

For the same reason that relationships between teachers/professors and students are always dubious. There's a power relationship and the relationship therefore has the potential to be exploitative and abusive. The younger party is often not mature enough to understand that. In this case, the coach was a gatekeeper to the British sprint team. He had influence over the selection process which he could have exploited in his relationship with a teenager (I'm not saying he did, the article does not suggest that). A regime that is interested in the welfare of its athletes will want to prevent that from happening. Given the cases of abuse that have emerged across many sports, I think it's appropriate that organizations have these safeguarding rules in place

High hopes wrote:

There's a power relationship and the relationship therefore has the potential to be exploitative and abusive. The younger party is often not mature enough to understand that.

So to be consistent, raise the voting age to 21 or 25, not lowering it to 16 like the same leftys who make these arguments are doing in places like Germany and Scotland.

Where's the power relationship in your example?

High hopes wrote:

For the same reason that relationships between teachers/professors and students are always dubious. There's a power relationship and the relationship therefore has the potential to be exploitative and abusive.

Oh, so like Katie Hill and Bill Clinton. I guess that makes sense.

High hopes wrote:

Where's the power relationship in your example?

Err...the millions of dollars spent on campaign advertising for a start. Politicians are the most expert, seasoned, professional liars that exist in a modern society. An 18 year old can't understand if a coach is manipulating her desire to please him (get ahead in her career) in order to have sex with her? But she can pick apart the lies and deceit of political parties led by billionaires to make the correct choice over fundamental globally important political issues?

The same logic, BTW, makes interracial relationships iffy. If we accept 'white privilege' and the inherent structural social disadvantage of black people, white/ black dating is intrinsically exploitative (or 'has the potential to be abusive') and ought to be outlawed (again).

Most upvoted comments underneath the article :

"Consenting adults"

"Whys this a problem? She's a 18. If it had been 51 year old woman and 18 year old man no one would care and all the feminists would be singing her name......"

"NICE"

"Jammy B"

'Shes 18......and? Apart from also being very fit...."

"Ah! If only!"

"44 & 18 are the correct ages. Now what's the problem ?"

"So the 51 year old was 44 at the time but again the d m has to sensationally make the age gap seem bigger. Consenting adults, get over it."

etc. etc.

Now c'mon y'all. Don't let me down LetsRun. Surely the average LetsRun poster is not more puritan, jealous, spiteful, illogical, and deceitful than the average Daily Mail reader?

Recently they've brought coaching into line with the rules that surround teaching.

How would you feel about a 44 year old teacher and an 18 year old pupil?

Age gap per se should be irrelevant >18.

(It's mind boggling to find so much hypocrisy around age gaps when lots of relationships considered scandalous/immoral/illegal until a few decades ago are now supposed to be not only tolerated, but celebrated)

teacher - pupil should be relevant (there are usually explicit rules against or severely restricting this), even in case of 19 yo student and 23 yo teacher, i.e. regardless of age gap. (I think with adult students there should be some hurdles but once it has happened there should be a reasonably easy way to deal with it, e.g. student or teacher transferring to a different class/school asap so that the relation could continue.)

coach - athlete should be evaluated on context but regardless of age. There have been quite a few athletes coached by spouses (and/or espousing their coaches). There can be situations that are like teacher - pupil but it is not necessarily implied by a mere coaching relation. Some athletes are clearly more famous/rich/powerful than their coaches, so the power differential would be in the other direction. There can also be hardly any relevant power differential.

Well, she wasn't just seventeen, if you know what I mean. Paraphrasing some other famous Brits.

That's hot.

i'm glad it wasn't my daughter, but.... wrote:

Anyone see this?

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/sportsnews/article-10289719/Renowned-coach-Rana-Reider-alleged-affair-18-year-old-British-athlete.html

Dude, should be ashamed as I believe he was married at the time but how in the world does that result in top UK sprinters being told they can't be coached by him? I thought we no longer told adults whom they can and can't have sex with.

Seriously, if you are an administrator how do you legislate this? Remember, sometimes in a coach athlete relationship, the athlete actually has more power as they pay the bills.

LRC Note. We've made this thread for registered posters only as we know it's going to be very hard to moderate as we had to delete the first reply.

Your assessment of the power dynamic is poor but it's okay. You can't really legislate something like this because there is too much grey area, but I think it was wrong to do morally.

You shouldn't be screwing your athletes, students, employees or underlings, "legal" or not. Period.

Do you really want your coach to try to screw you? No matter how "legal"?

Then when you say no, all of a sudden you're cut from the team. Or you're benched and the person that agreed to screw the coach gets your playing time?

Your boss tries to screw you and it becomes obvious if you don't, you'll never get a raise or promotion ever again? And the one who does, who's worse at their job than you, gets all the raises and promotions?

A coach having a sexual relationship with one of their athletes is classic sexual harassment, it's wrong, it's bad for the other teammates and it's bad for everyone involved. The same goes for any teacher, boss, religious leader or other person of higher authority.

If they're of legal age and they want a relationship, because of "love," that's fine. Resign from your coaching job and quit the team. Live happily ever after and don't poison the environment for everyone else that wants no part of it. But no, people want to have their cake and eat it to. Its messed up and wrong.

TLDR: "Don't s**t where you eat"

Well, the article says he's 51, but he looks every day of 60.

What a dumb@ss. What the hell would a 51 year old want with an 18 year old? Yeah, sex...man, no thanks. I'd rather stick a Tabasco-socked finger in my eye than spend 10 seconds alone with any 18 year old. To be fair, the 18 year old should feel the same way.

If you've never used a rotary phone, I have no use for you.

I banged a 16 year old at 23, all legal but you're mad about it and that's way closer than 44-18

Coevett wrote:

High hopes wrote:

Where's the power relationship in your example?

Err...the millions of dollars spent on campaign advertising for a start. Politicians are the most expert, seasoned, professional liars that exist in a modern society. An 18 year old can't understand if a coach is manipulating her desire to please him (get ahead in her career) in order to have sex with her? But she can pick apart the lies and deceit of political parties led by billionaires to make the correct choice over fundamental globally important political issues?

The same logic, BTW, makes interracial relationships iffy. If we accept 'white privilege' and the inherent structural social disadvantage of black people, white/ black dating is intrinsically exploitative (or 'has the potential to be abusive') and ought to be outlawed (again).

Dude, are you OK?