You are wildly misinterpreting my comments. I did post a long explanation giving the details of the situation as best I could, but have deleted it because your very long comments here are a reaction to things you think I said that I never said. So I retracted it in part because I think it just muddies the waters.

I did not say two consenting adults were fired. I have not said there is anything wrong with people dating colleagues at work and just a great many other things that you assert that I said.

If you would like to go back and reread my comments and rethink your concerns and rephrase them, I would be happy to discuss your concerns with you. But you are so wildly misinterpreting what I have said, I think it only deepens the misunderstanding here to try to "rebut" or "clarify" things in your statements.

EDIT:

This is my retracted comment. I am rather tired of the discussion and the degree to which people are wildly misinterpreting my remarks and "rebutting" policy suggestions I never made, amongst other things. Please read it carefully before responding further. Thank you.

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Mz said that two consenting people in their (Mz's) department were fired for an "inappropriate relationship" outside of work, so I asked this poster how, in fact, HR found out in that case.

That strikes me as insane. I am open to other alternatives however. In particular I'd like to hear the details of the case Mz. just reported to us.

This was not a dating situation. I don't know the exact details. It was handled discreetly, which I think is appropriate.

The man that was fired was a middle management type. He was married. The rumor mill suggested either that he was having an affair with a particular lower ranking female or that he had been found to be sexually harassing someone.

I discussed this with both a male friend who was rather high ranking in another department and with a female friend who had been an employee of the man who was fired. She and I had been teammates at one time.

The man in question was someone who had called me "doll" and "babe" at one time under circumstances where there was absolutely nothing wrong with that as I had no idea who he was. I only knew him socially as someone who worked in my department of about 500 people that I ran into sometimes in the cafeteria. And then, days after he began calling me "doll" and "babe," I learned that he was about to become my boss.

I arranged a private meeting with my boss and explained the situation. I told him the man was not guilty of doing anything wrong and his intentions were ambiguous and I did not even know if he was married or not. I was told he was married. My boss suggested trying to trap the man into a guilty reaction. I told him that seemed like a bad idea and I asked him to just go talk to the man. I told my boss "He has done nothing wrong. Worst case scenario: I get moved to a new team and do not work for him."

I was not told what happened in the meeting between my boss and the man who was about to take over the team. After the meeting, the man would not meet my eye for a month and I was quietly moved elsewhere when he took over the team.

Shortly after he took over the team, my female former teammate asked me why I was moved. I kind of shrugged and indicated "You go where you are told" and did not give her the back story. After he was fired, she told me he had been saying inappropriate things to her, loading her up with work and giving her so-so reviews/ratings. She was an extremely attractive, busty woman who dressed well.

I have no idea of the exact nature of the "inappropriate" activities he engaged in. It was company policy to not disclose such things. I am confident he was doing something wrong and finally got caught and I was thrilled to pieces when he was fired. He was very popular and the department had a funerary atmosphere and I was trying to hide my desire to dance in the aisles and hand out kazoos.

The Q&A talked about the fact that you cannot assume everyone is cis het monogamous. So if you allow "dating," no holds barred, then a married man can swear he is polyamorous and sleep with whomever he so desires and perhaps his wife goes along with the claim so he can keep his job because the family needs his income.

You need to make policies that protect the company from scandal and protect the other employees from potential predators. If you require everyone to prove "guilt" of something like rape, coercion or whatever, then the policy is broken. The line needs to be drawn at "dating." (for people with specific business relationships, such as boss-underling)

I am an older woman. There were a number of men at the company who were my age, plus or minus a few years, who seemed to like me. Some of them were married, some not. They tended to be men in positions of power due to the age bracket we are talking about. (I had been a homemaker for many years and this was my first full time paid job acquired at age 41.)

So, for a lot of different reasons, this is a problem space I contemplated a lot while at the company and I continue to contemplate.

You aren't required to agree with me, but I am expressing my support for what I understand to be a "best practice." The company in question has an excellent reputation for diversity, employee quality of life and for being ethical. I think people who are in a position to be making such policies should take that under advisement.

I do not know if you are familiar with my blog. I write sometimes about the types of things you are expressing concern about. I do not believe that saying that someone cannot date their boss makes the problem worse. This is a problem space I have put substantial thought into, fwiw.