Working with Participants

I had a tutorial the other day to look through the work i had done over the summer, and it led to some interesting questions about why i don't involve my participants in my work. My initial response was that i don't want the people that i work with outside of college to feel as if i am using them for my own discourse. Of course thinking about it i do in some ways use these people for my own gain of knowledge, experiences but i would say only as much as you would be using someone by listening to a conversation to see what they have to say.  I would say that this is an interesting boundary though.  It leads to questions that have been raised in my thesis about artist intention and when socialising with someone starts to become 'using them' my thought of this from my thesis is that at the beginning of the year Boris Johnson employed a friend to have a key arts Job. Was that an intention of knowing Boris or an intention to get a good Job with a happy coincidence?
I'm still not keen on the idea of making participatory pieces of work for the people i work with. In some ways I see it as un-ethical and it would be like using them as Guinea Pigs in an experiment. I would invite them to an exhibition and if they were too ask to be involved, they could defiantly be involved- that has happened in the past and everyone seems happy at the end of the work.
I was also told in the tutorial to try and make a mends with my studio, and use it for what it is. To be honest it is not the end of the world that the Blue Room has gone. I just slightly despise the fact that now i have to book space from my own studio, its time consuming...