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Sexy Time: Yoga Student-Teacher Relationship Ethics Debate

in Ethics, YD News

This past Sunday’s New York Times Magazine’s“The Ethicist” tackled the nebulous subject of the yoga student – teacher relationship. Anonymous instructor from San Francisco writes in wondering if ratting out an associate’s unethical liaisons with a student is the proper thing to do. Good question. Of course, in this particular instance, a promotion is involved, and this relationship had been suspected for a year without anyone saying a word. What does the ethicist say? Keep it to yourself.

Now we thought about this and have to agree with mister ethics maven on this one. If no one reported any suspicious in-class romantics then there’s probably nothing wrong with a teacher dating a student. The writer-in does mention it being unethical for their “particular discipline” and we’ve found murmurings that it’s against Yoga Alliance Code of Conduct. But checking the Yoga Alliance website we couldn’t find anything distinctly prohibiting teacher-student relations granted there is consent from both parties.

We’ve definitely seen some controversy when comes to yoga love-ins, namely with overly friendly Rodney Yee dating his students, and most recently a Hong Kong yoga teacher stepping way over the line and getting slapped with molestation charges. So teachers, we have to ask, where do you draw the line?

And to all yogis, what do youthink about teachers dating their students? Is it unfair? Unethical? A beautiful union of two people who’ve found love, as long as the PDA doesn’t become Pervy Dirty Asana?

Student Teacher Relations [NYT Magazine]

Photo Greg Gallum Photography

7 comments… add one
  • The question of “yoga teachers” dating their students shows just how low is the bar for what it means to be a teacher of any aspect of Yoga. Not only must one be a Hindu to be a true teacher of the various aspects of Yoga/Hinduism but also a real Yogi or Yogini is celibate!

    Swami Param
    Classical Yoga Hindu Academy

  • Well,I believe that the relationship between two people,is their bussiness as long as they are not hurting anyone.like if you are married and you are dating or having sexual relationship,that is very wrong,and
    does not matter if you are a yoga teacher ,or anything else.but the problem with yoga is we forget about yamas and nyams.,as much as
    we practice yoga posses,we got to practice ,yamas and nyams.

    unfurtunatelysome yoga teacher are stock in 1st and 2nd chakras in their life and they don,t want to move up their level of their conciousness to higher level toward other chakras,and they miss the beauty of spiritual world.we have to learn how to balance these two worlds ,to increase the awareness around the globe.

    Om Namaste,Shanti,Om

  • Nobody

    Salam
    Emrooz barname Shoma ro dar time tv didam man
    Morabi yoga hastam va bish az 10 sale k toda dars midam
    Mishe bedoonam hadafetoon az ejra in harekate namaieshi
    Chi bood ?
    Namaste

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  • Henry Grant

    It is quite interesting:) Nowadays you can find partner for sex almost everywhere, including on yoga classes! But I think it will be better to use special applications to save your time. For example I spend time on Colombian Cupid dating app(https://pure.dating/article/colombian-cupid-review/), very cool!

  • Max Couper

    I agree with Henry Grant. There are so many possibilities to meet partner for dating now. But still it is quite difficult to modern people to create healthy relationships. I’m from California and I want to try online dating via https://dating-in-california.com/ how do you think it is good idea?

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