In his “New rule” comedy-and-news/opinion segment of Real Time, Bill Maher argues that there’s been too much disapproveal of romances in the workplace. (He mentions the draconian rule proposed by AOC, which demonizes romances between people in Congress and any staffer, no matter who they work for, even though Congresspeople are already prohibited from dating someone who works in their office.)
I agree with his view that we should “not throw out the babymaker with the bathwater”, so long as the romance does not result from a power imbalance that could affect careers, was consensual, and does not involve two people in which one is the other’s boss. I’ll add, though, that Maher’s notion that “consensual” relationships are okay becomes problematic when “consent” is given to avoid angering someone who has power over you. That’s solved by prohibiting romances in Congress (or in universities) when such a power imbalance exists.
Feel free to weigh in here. Maher notes data from Forbes that 43% of workplace romances end in marriage, and his defense of Representative Chuck Edwards, forced to end his campaign for no clearly improper behavior at all, is both sensible and funny (“the only thing this guy couldn’t keep in his pants was his credit card”). The point, which others have made before, is that wokeness often goes hand-in-hand with puritanism.
The guests shown are author Ryan Holiday and Republican pollster and writer Kristin Soltis Anderson.