For me, I've had healthy attachments with authority figures, male and female, and unhealthy attachments. The unhealthy attachments are easy to see in retrospect: the ones who took advantage of me, sexually (although I thought at the time it was mutual) or in other ways (free labor, adoration, etc). I think my significant relationships, romantic or not, are always first grounded in an intellectual connection before there is any other kind of connection. I like to talk about ideas and books and how the world works. In college and in graduate school, I had male mentors who were very healthy attachments-- they validated my smarts, they spent time with me and taught me academic things in the context of close relationships in advising and research. Both men were fundamentally important at the start of my career. There were limited personal connections while I was still in school, i.e. we were friendly but the boundaries were appropriate. The attachment was healthy because I saw them as real people-- I always stayed away from the guru-types-- and neither side wanted anything more.