I applaud your support of Professor Chavez and I appreciate Professor Goodyear's balanced comments. I wish the issues were clearer to me because all the lines seem unusually fuzzy when dealing with the incident and subsequent consequences. The issues are important and tug at my emotions and involve freedom of speech and action in all things legal sexually (and to press boundaries when needed), moral responsibility to one's self and students and/or institutions while championing individual rights. It does not seem to me that any student was harmed or coerced and the picture I saw of Chavez and her former student seemed nonoffensive. I agree with the University's position entirely. However, I visited the website involved and found it somewhat sleezy to my tastes and even more so when I realized its mantra that all "our beloved PEP phone counselors —
REAL PEOPLE! REAL COMMUNICATION! were selling their "loving counseling and advice of dominant/submissive 
ladies for intimate fetish dialogue.
($119/hour, $99/45 minutes, $89/30 minutes.
Higher rates to speak to Nancy.) 
P.S. Many of our counselors will consider meeting with 
you privately, passionately. Please inquire about rendezvous."

As a member of the bdsm community I recognize the enormous variety of information available on the web, much of it very helpful. I subscribe to a site myself where I can share information and meet others. I may find Dr. Chavez's reasoning about the good money she got for "telephone counseling" to supplement the poor money from her teaching salary somewhat questionable in my mind but certainly her right. Unethical -- probably no by my standards. Questionable in light of her position if the University had invoked a previous morals clause about sex work for profit among faculty, sure. And people (some faculty) might be equally (and equally unfairly) irate, Elizabeth, if she were an abortion counselor, but I doubt she'd be proclaiming she was making $40 a hour for her "help".

I agree with Dr. Goodyear that "there are a number of very important issues here that require careful examination and consideration of their implications for the proper conducting of the roles and responsibilities of an educational institution. Let us hope that constructive wisdom and energies will prevail and that all will learn from what happened here and put in place procedures and policies to prevent it happening elsewhere."

I agree with Dr. Wood when she defends sex workers and the legitimacy and value of their work.

I even agree, in part, with Dr. Chavez when she said she "found this work as a dominant incredibly empowering--first in that older women were valued for their sexuality, and that I was able to explore my own dominance. I also learned to be even less judgmental than I had been before about other people’s sexual choices. So many callers had felt years of shame for their particular interests, and often it was a relief for them simply to be able to talk without being judged."

I'm glad she learned these things. From personal experience (without using money as an issue and in free exchange with like-minded others) I've found such experiences rewarding, I hope more people find less costly ways to value their sexuality in all its ramifications.

Lady J