I mean, I guess I get it a little, but when you said that you "wouldn't stand for it," if a colleague flirted with a younger colleague, that struck me as very enthusiastic cooperation with interfering with people's private lives.

I think the only people who should have a say in their own relationship are the people in the relationship.

I don't have any experience with the kind of problems you're talking about, so I guess I just have to take your word for the fact that they could potentially exist.

But still, I don't know think I could ever help a company I worked for enforce policies that interfered with employees' private relationship lives. To me, that's just beyond the pale. To me, it's unacceptable authoritarianism.

The idea that one human being, because of his position at work, could would exercise power stop a romantic or sexual relationship is just anathema.

It seems contrary to everything I've ever worked for as a queer activist.

But again, when I was 25 in the Air Force working as an intelligence officer, I was a criminal just for not having divulged that I'm gay, which would have disqualified me from working there in the first place. So my instinct when it comes to work rules, is only to follow them if I agree with them.

So to me, when somebody suggests the possibility of controlling somebody else's sex or relationship life, my instinctive response is to say, "over my dead body."

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