John Tory is gone as Toronto mayor, leaving in his wake the fraught issue of how to unpack sexual affairs in the workplace.
The 68-year-old mayor was involved in an extramarital affair with a 31-year-old junior colleague, who no longer works at city hall. After my rather excellent colleagues dug out the details, Tory, too, resigned.
The news of Tory’s illicit liaison sparked animated conversations in real life and in digital public squares: Should we care about this affair or is it purely a private matter?
Now, Tory had far greater failings as mayor than having sex on the side, as I’ve written previously. Yet the circumstance of this affair has multiple threads that are worth untangling, if for nothing more than a better understanding of the ethics and complications of sexual workplace relationships.
Considered by itself, each thread could be seen as innocuous; but when they are all woven together, they form a pattern that warrants public interest, and a robust discussion.
Laid out individually, they are: Extramarital. Workplace sex. Mayor. Age gap. Power gap.
Of these, “extramarital” is easiest to strike out of the public domain. The nature of that dynamic is entirely between Tory and his partner/partners. Tory may have called the relationship “an error in judgment,” but I personally don’t believe a man wakes up to experiment with extramarital relations for the first time at age 65 Still, that is not my business.
How could it happen, the puritanical pundits ask. What kind of a man does this to his wife of more than 40 years?
The framing of those questions shows that even the puritans have largely moved on from penalizing the woman for a man’s transgressions in heterosexual extramarital relations.
On the whole, we’ve gone from shaming and degrading then 22-year-old White House intern Monica Lewinsky, failing her horribly as a society in 1998 and applying labels such as “BJ queen” all because U.S. president Bill Clinton abused his power, to now protecting, or trying to protect, the identity of the woman with whom Tory had a relationship. Meanwhile, the word “slut” is finally going the way of “harlot,” becoming quaint and powerless. Be gone. It’s not a moment too soon.
So, is it the “workplace sex” that makes Tory’s affair of public interest? Office relationships seem anachronistic in a remote or hybrid working world, but somehow our mayor managed it. All office sexual relationships become the office’s business, not just as a source of titillation, gossip or jealousy, but for genuine concerns around favouritism or conflict of interest.
There’s no way for workplaces to regulate sexual chemistry and romance. Banning them makes the forbidden fruit more appealing, an invitation practically to break the rules. Requiring employees to declare romantic relationships can mitigate conflict of interest issues to some extent. Perhaps remote work automatically takes care of the office philanderer. In general, creating a culture of safety and care is likely the best antidote to potential clashes.
What about “mayor”? It is the cherry on top of a situation that takes an intensely personal liaison into the public realm. The “workplace” in question is the City itself and the man in question, an elected official, is the top honcho. When an illicit affair involves high public office, of course the public will stop to look. It is bound to raise questions of breach of public trust.
How much does “power gap” matter?
The #MeToo movement of the past five years brought new notions of consent within the dynamics of power and position. Some will have you believe that no free consent is possible when one person has far higher power or positional authority, thus taking relations into abuse territory. But the concept demands nuanced interpretation in a world that insists on a quick-and-dirty, simple-to-understand, right-vs-wrong analysis.
It’s not a given that men with positional or political power are the holders of power in their sex lives. It’s equally possible for women to come into the relationship in their full power only to lose it in the course of a relationship. Yet certainly many women, particularly junior women, may not be able to freely give consent in a relationship with high-status men who hold sway over their prospects in their current job, as well as future opportunities. It doesn’t take a genius to see how a break-up is worse off for the lower-status person.
Thanks to #MeToo, we now know not only that “no means no” but that only a continuous or ongoing “yes” means “yes.” (Netflix miniseries Anatomy of a Scandal makes this point effectively).
As for the last thread, “age gap”, one as wide as 37 years in the mayor’s case, can be grounds for potential exploitation.
But in cases where there is equal power between the two parties, ageism factors into unkindness around age gap for men, and sexism creates suspicion around the motives of a younger woman in a relationship.
Some sociologists point to three motives for sexual relationships at the workplace — love motive, ego motives (thrill-seeking), reward or job motives.
Viewed within this framework, an office romance is least likely to ruffle insecurities and concerns when it’s a relationship between two people of more or less equal power.
Bring in a power and age gap and that grace starts to disappear.
Observers can be skeptical about others’ relationships on the basis of their own biases and insecurities — most of which end up being harmful to the woman involved. Attractive women of all backgrounds fall victim to the trope of the evil seductress. Racialized women can be reduced to fetishes.
One silver lining of the Tory affair is that it showcases the success of #MeToo and the significant representation of women in public life. At least in high-profile issues, we have broken past the restrictive view of women through a Madonna/whore lens.
The affair also illustrates that if sexual relationships are inherently, gloriously messy, and illicit ones thrillingly so, then the same in a workplace risk being fraught with toxicity. Add to all that a publicly elected leader as protagonist, and it becomes very firmly the public’s business.
