Sorry if this topic has been bludgeoned to death here, but am just looking for thoughts from what I assume is a mostly male audience of people with a background that is somewhat similar to me (well, at least Hokies)

Basically, a 42 year old pastor at a church in Memphis had a woman go public about an alleged sexual assault that occurred 20 years ago when he was a 22 year old youth pastor at a church in Texas and she was a 17 year old member. Her account is that driving her home from bible study one night, the pastor pulled off onto a dirt road, stopped the car, pulled his penis out, and asked her to suck it. She did, after which he asked her to unbutton her shirt and fondled her breasts. He then abruptly stopped, got out of the truck, ran over to passenger side, dropped to his knees, begged her forgiveness, and then asked her not to tell anyone.

The girl told the senior pastors at the church within a couple days and there are bad details of her story that make clear the senior church leadership did not handle the situation properly (which is not the part of the story I'm interested in for the purpose of this post). A wrinkle to all this is that there is a Texas statute that specifically codifies as sexual asault a clergy member using his position to sexually take advantage of a member, regardless of the age of the victim.

Here's my question, when and where does context matter here? Not thinking legally as much as morally (although the two often intertwine). As written in the victim's account, it appears there was no flirtatious relationship prior to the event, but the account doesn't really frame the prior relationship in any way. The pastor, who is now at a mega-church and was set to have a book released prior to this news, has admitted to a "sexual incident", but hasn't provided any other details from his viewpoint.

I had a friend who had a sexual relationship with a 23 year-old youth pastor that started when she was 16 and lasted for 5-6 months, during which time she turned 17 (this was also about 20 years ago). But it was something that began with small flirtations, and progressed in what felt like a typically slow manner, given our age at the time. (Of course, this is from what I can remember being told, which was limited given I'm a guy and she didn't share too many intimate details with me.) I know they eventually had sex after 4-5 months of sneaking around and were talking about continuing to date in secret until she turned 18. It ended up fizzing out when she met a guy closer to her age over the summer and started dating him, and the youth pastor took it well and wasn't creepy about it.

Do these type of details change the analysis at all? Or does the mere existence of the power dynamic make this inherently wrong and illegal? I read the linked story and immediately thought of my friend. At the time, I remember knowing there was something improper about the whole thing (i.e. I understood why they kept it secret), but I also remembering feeling like he was an equal in maturity and experience (if not a little innocent and naïve, as many youth pastors are). I haven't talked to her in years and couldn't/wouldn't reach out to her just to get her thoughts on this, but given the current climate it makes me wonder how I would react now, or as a father.