My Sexual Harassment Dilemma

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

I am 41, male, overweight, and not exactly a Matt Damon clone (photographic evidence) and as such not exactly the prime candidate to be sexually harassed, and I haven’t been for almost 20 years, but I’m getting a refresher course in it. It’s not charming.

The harasser is a faculty member at the college where I work. He’s the type I’ve described before online and in person as a Queer Paw-Paw(QPP), one of those old men who would have been IDd by all as flamingly gay had he not come of age in an era when Liberace was voted the nation’s Most Eligible Bachelor and so rather than break ground and be halfway true to themselves they married and had kids and now live in houses with immaculate begonias and lispingly discussed how “Our little grandbaby came to see us this weekend and wanted to go to Toys R Us but I told her ‘Oh no Li’l Missi, you’re not goin’ anywhere til you let Paw-Paw iron that dress and color coordinate those ribbons, then I’m gonna take you down to the mall and find some better accessories for that jacket!” Their wives tend to range the gamut from completely devoted and benighted regarding their husband’s nature (“I’m so concerned about Walt’s bladder- do you know that when he took our grandbaby to the mall he had to go to the Men’s room and stayed in there for more than an hour!”) to Winston-Churchill-in-drag clones who had some issues themselves to bitter “Don’t frigging dare mention it until I’ve had my morning coffee, peach schnapps, and pre-noon pack of Marlboros” Mme. Thendardier clones" to just regular wives.
Well, this particularly QPP I’ll call “Dr. Arnold”. He’s about 70 and is positively mincing- in mannerisms/grooming/machismo/accessorizing/etc. he makes Liberace look like Randy from My Name is Earl and in general appearance looks like the bastard that would be produced if Mr. Humphries was raped by a leprechaun. He is totally closeted, though he shows Brokeback Mountain to every damned class he teaches (he teaches psychology [including human sexuality where it’s relevant perhaps {though I’d probably go with a documentary}] but has shown Brokeback Mountain to classes on children’s thereapy). He also loves to shock classes by working in male genitalia into Power Point slides or mentioning his gay experiences in the army— before insisting that he’s not gay, mind, but sexuality is a sliding scale and since the army and marriage he’s been completely straight— and is overall a charming old man and an eccentric extremely popular teacher. Who also happens to be a lecherous lying old creep.

He had flirted with me before but nothing that you could say absolutely was flirting- just stuff that he could always claim if overheard or repeated was unintentionally double entendre. Then about three weeks ago he started single entendres. I work every other Saturday in the library and when I was alone one day he stood behind me while asking me to look up an article. While I did that he put his hands on my shoulders, very lightly, and started rubbing them, saying “I’m sorry… I have a tendency to be touchy feely, hope you don’t mind”.

I responded with something like a “Yeah… okey dokey here’s your article…” whereupon his hands went down to my chest and he said “You’re a lot more muscular than I thought you’d be.” I responded by standing upright, saying something to the effect of “then you must have been expecting Crisco then- here’s your article”, and he responded “I’m sorry, I’m making you uncomfortable- it’s just that touch is a very very important part of human communication yet Americans have such a hang-up about it. You know when I lived in Italy and in Puerto Rico it was totally the opposite…”

“I’m from Alabama. It informs my comfort level more than it should perhaps, but informs it nonetheless.”

“Well okay…” (somehow managing to work a lisp into okay- I’ve no problem with effeminate gay men in general, but this one it becomes grating due to the closeted yet obvious nature) “…but you really should lose some hang ups.”

“I’ll bare that in mind.”

“Ooh… I like it when you talk about baring it… is your body as hairy as your arms incidentally?”

“Is your wife’s?” I asked.

“Oooh… bitchy! Well, I probably wouldn’t be the one to ask!” And he left.

Okay, I hadn’t outright confronted him, but the body language and curt answers had to let him know that I was uncomfortable, at least so I thought.

He came back in a couple of hours later to introduce me to a new faculty member in the psychology department and went into some ridiculous rave about how “Jon here is quite simply the most brilliant person here, which is a shame since he doesn’t teach classes. I just really hopes he knows that I appreciate him if nobody else does” and puts his hand on mine (which is on the desk). This I think made even the new faculty member uncomfortable, but I wasn’t going to compound the issue. As he’s leaving he whispers “I promise I’ll be more discreet in the future.”

Okay- I didn’t see the old queen for two weeks. The next Saturday I worked he didn’t come into the library all day, for which I was very grateful, though I did run into him in the hallway when I was going to the restroom and, in front of the security guard, he slapped me on the back just a bit lower than most would- basically slapped the top of my ass, but I’ve no doubt he would have passed it off as an old man’s bad aim. (I should perhaps add that this is a very small campus and the library is not a separate building but in the same building as the psychology classrooms.) I’m pissed, but that’s early in the morning and he doesn’t bother me for the rest of the day, so I get over it.

Then he comes in about 5 minutes before quitting time when I’m working on a bulletin board. Allah be praised there was a student using the library for study space- I’m going to find out her name and buy her a poodle or something.

He came up behind me when I was working on a bulletin board for Computer History and said “Are we quite alone?”

Nope, I tell him, and gesture with my head.

“Oooh… so bad… I was hoping to molest you… hah hah hah…”

There’s nothing the least bit amused about my countenance, but at the same point I’m not going to cuss him out in front of a student.

“Sooooo… I have a personal problem that I was hoping you could give me some advice on.”

“That is?” I sound as disinterested and cold as possible.

“There is this really fine looking young man at my hairdresser’s… light skinned black man with this incredible red hair… who says he wants to have sex with me and introduce me to his world… I’ve never made love with a black man before… what do you think I should do?”

Said coldly with a very obvious “Leave me the fuck alone” tone that nobody could mistake- “That is a har- difficult one. Your wife and your daughter are both professional counsellors too aren’t they? Why not ask for their advice?”

He responds, seemingly not the least bit offended, “Oh, there are things that I ask family and things I ask… others of my kind.”

“Where on earth do you find them? Under bridges perhaps?”

“Whooooo! That was quick! So tell me… what do you like in bed?”

“My dogs. Please leave.”

“Oh c’mon. Everybody has needs. I know this Earl person”

quick aside: my long-ago boyfriend/current best friend Earl has come to my workplace a couple of times and stays with me whenever he’s in town. Earl has MPB and keeps his hair cut very close with a trimmer, about the look of Velcro. Once when Earl visited me at work, Dr. Arnold walked up and began rubbing his head saying “I just had to find out for myself if your hair was as bristly as it looks…”. Earl’s referred to him ever since as “the asshole old queen”. Back to regular story:

“I know this Earl person lives in Atlanta now so you can’t be getting it there and we all have needs.”

“I manage, thank you.”

“Well… how about I give the guy at my hairdresser’s your number? I think…”

“How about not? Thanks for your concern I’ll manage on my own. It’s closing time now… bye.”

For the first time he seems insulted, but very coquettishly, as if this is a game. On his way out the door he turns and says “I just really do hope you know that I’m probably the only person here who really appreciates you.”
TO BE CONTINUED

2

I really enjoy reading your stories, Sampiro, but I’m not waiting for the second half of this one. Report this asshole and do it pronto. He’s clearly making you uncomfortable, he’s done it repeatedly and been garishly overt, and I don’t see any reason to hold back. Don’t put up with this crap, report it to anybody and everybody in charge.

3

So, I haven’t seen the old fart since that day (last Saturday) and I don’t work tomorrow, so I probably won’t see him for another week. I don’t think the student heard the conversation, though Ray Charles could have sensed there was tension (he could still sense it now that he’s been in the ground a few years even). I’m at a bit of a loss as to what to do.

Okay, I’ve thought about telling my boss about this, because this is bonafide textbook sexual harassment, but

1- Perhaps the old queer got the idea that I’m not interested and his non-chalance is a matter of self-protection (“never let them see you sweat” thing)

2- Sexual harassment is a big deal here as it is at all schools and companies (and we’re both) so I don’t even think I could tell my boss in private- I think she actually would be obligated to report it to her supervisors. That means that there would have to be an investigation.

I’ve been involved with a sexual harassment investigation before and they aren’t fun. I wasn’t a party to that one- i.e. I wasn’t the alleged harasser or the allegedly harassed- but I worked with them both and had to be called in by arbitrators and Special Guest Inquisitors and supervisors and answer the same questions over and over about what I’d seen (which was, honestly, nothing- I honestly don’t know which employee was telling the truth- even in the accuser’s accounts she said that the actual harassment was always in private) and had to speculate (“Do you believe that Accused is capable of sexual harassment or intimidation?” to which I responded everytime “I honestly have no idea what he or anybody else is capable of and I’m just not going to speculate”) and the whole thing was a he said/she said and nothing was really done except she became “the woman who you don’t say anything to or she’ll cry sexual harassment” and he became “the guy who sexually harassed That Girl”- basically if he’d been publicly found guilty and she’d been publicly found to be making up charges, the damage would have been about the same. She left the company and he got a transfer and I understand she filed a civil suit that she dropped.

Anyway, I don’t want to be the center of attention in one. Especially a gay one- I’m openly gay (currently the only openly gay male employee to my knowledge) and haven’t had any real problems with it, but there’s a big difference when you’re “the abstractly gay guy” versus when you’re the guy whose sexuality has actually become an issue. Plus, two possible outcomes: nobody believes me and I become the troublemaking fag, or- and probably more likely- they do believe me and the QPP loses his job and gets into all kinds of trouble professionally (and possibly maritally, no idea what kind of relationship they have and I’m sure his family at least suspects) but I’m still the queer who caused it. In short it’s a nazareth situtation no good can come of, and there’s a good chance he’s not going to try to pull anything again anyway if it’s left alone.

But then there’s the other other hand. I told this to a work friend who has taken his classes and who I trust to remain confidential. I knew the old fart was a private counsellor as well as a professor (I know he’s retired from the state university system, I don’t know if he’s still a practicing counsellor), and I even knew that human sexuality was largely his field, but she told me something I didn’t know that damned near gagged me: his private practice was largely devoted to gay youth and to others working on gay issues. I wish I could shake the thought he’s used that as his own private casting couch for many years. And she also said that he’s had a couple of male students here over the years who said he got way too touchy feely, but none ever officially complained.

So, I can’t decide. All Disclaimers in Place, no one held liable, what’s your advice for the situation as it stands right now: tell it to power or hope it just goes away? (If it happens again I am going to tell him flat out to stop or my next step will be to file a grievance; my only debate is whether to file one regardless of whether there’s any further harassment.)

4

I don’t know, I have a weird sense of humor sometimes but that was the funniest damn thing I’ve seen in a while.

Oh, and yes - either report the asshole or have him hung by his scrotum with fishing line on a very windy day.

ETA: I’m the director of a department of over 160 employees, and the guy that handles all the ‘first’ investigations in sexual harassment cases, and yes - your supervisors will be required to run this up the chain of command and document all the Grand Inquisitor interviews. FWIW.

5

Ah, of course - now I see why you’re conflicted. But there’s no reason you should have to put up with this guy’s extremely inappropriate behavior.

6

Maybe you should be frank with him and say, “look Dr. Arnold. You are making me very uncomfortable and I would appreciate it if you would stop being inappropriate. If not, I will have no choice but to report you, because you are making my work environment very uncomfortable. Hopefully we can just deal with this ourselves and not have to involve the university management.”…

7

You should have said he’ll be answering to sexual harassment charges on the first day you encountered this. Be blunt and to the point, so no misunderstanding occurs, and then report it if it occurs ever again.

8

If it’s not you, it’ll be someone else. Someone like a young student who has a hard time saying no. Report him.

As an aside, I had a new cow-orker once who liked to touch everyone as she talked to them - a hand on the arm or shoulder. The second time she did it to me, I said, “I can see that you’re a toucher. I’m not. Please don’t put your hands on me.” it wasn’t sexual, but I don’t have to stand there while someone touches me. She didn’t do it again.

StG

9

I think you’ve got a good plan for when it happens again (as we all know it will). As for what he’s done already, I’d say…it depends on if you feel ready to handle all the consequences, backsplash, etc. Good luck getting rid of the creepy old bastard. :mad:

10

TWEEEEET! Stop right there! Why do nice people always do this to themselves? YOU CAUSED NOTHING. You’re there, doing your job, and this guy is the one who started with the touching and the leering and the speculating on your favorite position.

If he had kept his hands to himself and his mouth shut, he would be fine. He made his own bed, and now he’s going to have to lie in it.

As someone very wise here once said, “I didn’t fire them. They fired themselves. I just filled out the paperwork.” I think it’s an apt analogy.

I’m sure, as the harassee, there should be some sort of confidence kept, correct, once you file a complaint? Which you know you have to do, and will end up doing, but you just need to vent here first.

So vent, away, but next time…

11

Not to take over the thread, but I have to disagree with people saying Sampiro needs to inform Arnold “you’re making me uncomfortable.” He’s already made that quite clear, and the guy refuses to get the message. In fact he seems to be pushing the envelope further and further as a result. Civil warnings aren’t going to get this guy to fuck off. A write-up and departmental warning, I hope, will.

12

In your average sexual harassment handbook, this category is “unwanted sexual advances.” The “unwanted” part, according to some jokers, means the aggressor gets one free pass. After the first refusal, the ratchet starts clicking. You’ve taken notes. That’s good. Add time and date to that, and keep it. You can go to HR now, or you can wait until the next occasion. HR’s ratchet might not begin to click until your first complaint, but with such detailed notes, they might backdate a click or two.

Even if the old boy is tenured with a big iron hasp, HR must follow up. The penalty for ignoring complaints is really costly. If HR is foolish enough to brush you off, keep a record of that, too. Your attorney will chortle in her glee. :stuck_out_tongue:

The usual disclaimer: I’m not your lawyer. This should not be regarded as legal advice. Wear your galoshes in the rain. Do not eat without condiments.

ETA: There were no replies when I started this post, and I may have plowed ground that already was seeded. Now, I’ll go read the other posts.

13

The only other time that I’ve been sexually harassed it was completely different- and frankly, had I been straight, I’d probably have tapped it :stuck_out_tongue: (It was an attractive female supervisor who was constantly coming on to me back before I was out, and I have to say she never once implied there would be consequences if I didn’t comply.)

Anyway, the “should have said” thing has gone through my mind several times too, but it’s one of those things that when you’re going through it these things just don’t occur, plus there’s the whole “don’t make a scene” (not a politeness or etiquette issue in this case as much as a “make a scene and by Tuesday students will be talking about how you two were fighting with knives because you said he fucked your dog” type thing) and just the whole “I clocked this guy as a closet case the first time I met him but I’ve known him a year and a half and never had a problem with him… this isn’t happening!” shock aspect of it.

I also, frankly, have some… major anger management issues. I’m almost incapable of getting just “appropriately mad”- I can go from “ticked” to “full on collateral damage manic rage” in half a second if I let myself embrace the dark side, so I have to keep a lid on temper for my own benefit and for the person I’m mad at. I may not be expressing that well, but there are probably others who can relate to what I’m talking about.

14

I would say that, before you actually report him, make it known that you will if his behavior doesn’t stop. But then, for heaven’s sake, do it. We had a notorious harrasser here (one who got his comeuppance in spades, btw) who, early in our acquaintance told me a nasty joke. I said, “Oh, that’s very funny. Who should I speak to? My husband or Human Resources.” He never behaved inappropriately to me again.

15

I think where part of Sampiro’s quandary comes from in this situation (and I’m sure he’ll correct me if I’m way off the mark) is that it’s not just him that’s at risk here. If this guy is taking advantage of students coming to him for counseling, there’s a lot more to be concerned about that just his own comfort level.

Frankly, given the issues involved, I’m not sure that I can give advice, as much as I’m itching to do so. Assholes like that really irritate me, but I’m not in academia, I’m not gay and I’m not certain that I’d accurately gauge [American] Southern reactions to something like that coming out (as it were). I do hope you get some final resolution out of it, Samipro. Good luck.

16

I can totally understand why you’d be conflicted on this. I’m personally leaning towards reporting him, as there were rumblings before this, so I’ll lay money on him harrassing someone else in the future. But I’m not positive that I’d actually report him myself in the same situation, so I won’t criticize you if you don’t. (Unless he continues to harass you - in that case, please nail his ass to the wall.) (Err, no pun intended.)

However, I’m not sure that we should be making the leap from “sexually harasses openly gay adult co-worker (poorly)” to “molests young men going to him for therapy”. One’s morally lacking and/or lacking a mature sense of appropriate behavior. The other violates morals, the law, and professional rules drilled into him for decades.

17

With that in mind, go to HR now. I’m guessing your complaint about the old prowler will not be the first. If you clock him without first complaining, you’ll be fired. The complaint will give you some CYA, at least in court.

18

Well duh you’re not Matt Damon, you resemble Brad Pitt (around the shoes. You told me that).

This is sexual harassment, and you know it. You should report it, and have done with it. Is there any possible way you can set up a webcam to capture it next time the old (cheating on his wife asshole) troll is around?

19

Or if you do choose to wait to see if he has backed off, pick up an inexpensive digital voice recorder at Walmart or Best Buy. Then if it does come down to you having to report him it won’t just be your word against his.

20

I can understand not wanting to get involved with the whole school sexual harrassment machinery, though if this continues I would suspect you may have to.

I would suggest that you could send him a letter (keeping a copy) noting his conduct, stating that you find it objectionable and requesting he stop or you will file a harrassment complaint. I’d keep it cold and factual, short and sweet (as opposed to your usual detailed and flowery). Perhaps something like:

Dear Dr. Closetcase:

On three recent Saturdays, April XX, April XX and April XX, while I was performing my job duties at the XYZ Library, you approached and made verbal comments and physical contact that I considered to be inappropriate and unwanted sexual advances. I consider this to be sexual harrassment, and I request that it immediately cease.

If you again make inappropriate physical contact with me, or address me in a sexual or sexually suggestive manner, I will have no choice to file an official complaint of sexual harrassment with the college [equal opportunity officer, or whoever the person is].

I trust that this will be the end of the matter.

Very truly yours

SampiroWith a letter like this, you have documented that you found his behavior inappropriate and warned him to stop. If he continues, it will make your subsequent complaint stronger both as a matter of proof and as a matter of showing you are not a whiner who just fires off a complaint without trying to deal with the situation himself.

If he has any sense (which he probably does not), he will get the letter and back the heck off, solving your problem. If not, he’s had fair warning.

Good luck.