I know by the standards of modern day times, the contact between Jefferson and Hemings would be classified as non consensual, for good reason. Not only was Hemings enslaved but she was also a young teenager.
I am wondering if historians classify these contacts as rape, as opposed to how contemporary society would’ve viewed it. I had a heated conversation with one of my professors, a leading Jefferson historian, who disagreed to use the term rape and non consensual because contemporary society “did not view it as such.”
What do other historians think?
There's always more to be said on this throny topic, but you may be interested in my previous answer to Why is Thomas Jefferson’s “long term sexual relationship” with Sally Hemings considered r*pe, but most historical marriages (where women may have been just as young and effectively owned) are not?
It's no coincidence that like /u/mimicofmodes, I turned to Dr. Gordan-Reed's book when I answered a different question about Jefferson and Hemings: Where did Thomas Jefferson have sex with his slave(s)?. The overlap in our answers is an invitation to avoid trying to reduce their relationship to a single construct, which is what, I suspect, your professor was getting at.