Thirded. <<< Not an actual word - but the intent is clear.
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Fourthed…
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So was Gary Ridgway https://www.seattlepi.com/local/article/Life-with-Gary-Ridgway-Police-reveal-wife-s-story-1130715.php.
His wife is quoted as saying he was “so, so gentle and caring”. Now, I’m absolutely NOT saying that any of the people banned under safesport are equivalent to the Green River Killer. I just chose a very extreme example for not being able to judge a person by whether they are happily married.
People can show one face in public or to their spouse, and then do horrible, terrible things when they think no one else is looking. Some of the worst people I’ve known, lying, cheating, thieving people, are considered quite charming by their acquaintences.
Those who prey on others do not have the same level of concern for people’s feelings as us regular folks, so have an easier time lying and pretending without seeming nervous or dishonest.
I don’t know Tommy Serio, am not even close to his world. I am just here to say that you abosolutely cannot determine that someone is innocent because they have manners, are charming, donate to charity, didn’t abuse every student they had, did a nice thing for someone you know, adopted a puppy, patted their horse while leaving the ring, are a gentleman, are old, or are happily married.
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^^^
YES.
I do NOT trust charming men.
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To blame GM for most of today’s atrocities in hunterland, is going too far. Because the “atrocities” must include the widespread doping of horses, something the hunters still have a difficult time steering away from. GM isn’t forcing anyone to drug their show horses. It’s the grooms, trainers, riders, owners who do it on their own. You know who I mean… some of them are lauded in COTH pages. When caught, have any of them said “George made me do it !” ?
Yes, he brought genius to hunt seat riding. And that’s something that is certainly missing in today’s hunter division.
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Puh-leeze. George was busted for doping while a member of the AHSA drugs and medications committee.
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If you dont understand why George Morris helped promote a climate of doping, inappropriate sexualizing of minors, and overall abuse of people and horses within the contemporary usef hunter world, there’s not really anything more to say to you on this subject.
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Not just a member, he was in charge.
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I just watched Harry & Snowman on Amazon Prime and the comment from George about how riders were rock stars and the parties in that era took on a whole new sinister meaning knowing what he’d been doing. It was also not pleasant to watch Harry teaching young riders and poling the horse as it jumps right in front of the camera, like that’s just normal.
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…and I believe he paid off another trainer to take the fall.
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and I believe he paid off another trainer to take the fall.
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and I believe GM paid off another trainer to take the fall.
and he paid off another trainer to take the fall
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Four non identical posts. Strange.Nah, some people were posting earlier about having problems posting, receiving field empty notices when they hit post reply. Then clearly try again and again, only to have all of them show up, different, cause god knows I cant remember exactly what I wrote before when something doesn’t go through.
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That explains it. Can’t get it to post, then all attempts suddenly show up.
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Yes. But, hey, she was able to set up a nice business in California as a result.
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My friends daughter was recently married. A couple of years ago as a grad student in her late 20s she became involved with the professor for whom she was serving as a teaching assistant and who was supervising her quest for a Ph.D. She married that prof. Sitting at the table next to the bride and groom was the dean of the university. Under their rules, both the prof and the student should have been terminated but there was dean in an honored seat. In practice, we all know that these rules are are invoked inconsistently. Had the school had a beef with the prof or student, they’d have used it to oust them.
I tend the think that if an adult enters into a relationship with another adult and at the end of the relationship that one person has the ability to make an accusation that will cost the other their livelihood, the there is a power imbalance but it’s not the one you think it is. Had the above woman been jilted and scornfully reported the prof to the dean with intent to cost him his livelihood, how is that a moral or excusable thing?
i support the idea of SS but detest that anyone questioning anything they say or do is in league with the molesters. No one wants to see young people abused or taken advantage of. My issue is when private ( if somewhat immoral) becomes against “the rules.”
It seems that an adult client engaging in a relationship with an adult trainer is their business. A student who is paying their trainer thousands a month in horse related fees is hardly the victim of a power imbalance. In 2020 with men and women engaged almost equally in most work settings, the workplace is where people meet. Who gets to define “power imbalance” on the margins?
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FWIW if the client never complains it’s unlikely SafeSport would ever be interested. However, the professional-client relationship issue is real, which is why many professions have strict ethics codes against it. Doctors, lawyers, psychologists, any situation where the professional is privy to intimate details about the client it is deemed unethical for the professional to allow a sexual relationship to occur. Any of those professionals can lose their license to practice for doing so.
A coach is maybe a bit less intimate than a lawyer on paper, but in practice it’s more like a teacher-student relationship even outside of the constraint of a university setting, where for example the professor holds a fair amount of authority over the student and the student cannot easily leave. So it has aspects of both, even if the client is an adult and paying thousands a month. Even an adult paying the bills can have their reputation and their ability to continue to participate in the sport diminished if the trainer with Big Reputation spreads the idea that the person is unstable and difficult.
So the answer, I think, isn’t look the other way; it’s that the professional has an obligation to look out for the interests of the client first and to choose either the romantic relationship or the professional relationship. It is the responsibility of the professional to ensure that the client’s needs are met and that the client isn’t hurt by actions of the professional. If the romantic connection is there, it will still be there when the client is training with another professional. It’s perfectly ethical for any of these relationships to restart and grow after the mentor or professional relationship has terminated.
In general, workplace romances aren’t considered a safe or good thing in most organizations. Supervisor/subordinate relationships are pretty much never allowed, and peer relationships will often result in companies choosing to separate the pair professionally even if both are employed by the same company.
These ideas of power imbalances aren’t new and aren’t fresh ground that we need to discover in Equestrian. There are extensive writings, experiences, and policies out there honed over years and years of experiences and good and bad examples in just about every other sport and every other field. We may end up putting our own special nuance on them here and there, but if you’re wondering “who gets to define” I think there would be benefit from doing some of that research to better understand the space of how those situations can go very very badly and why and how different groups act to limit them. It might be helpful for figuring out what part of the wheel does not need reinventing and which parts we could polish a little differently, maybe.
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@Linny I guess the answer I can give to your query is that the complainant in the Serio case obviously did not feel the situation was consensual, hence the report to safe sport, and that after a protracted two year investigation, safe sport agreed that there was enough evidence in support of the allegations to warrant a suspension of Serio.
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