I am pitting myself for sexual harassment. Back in the mid 80’s I was working as a bellhop at a resort hotel. I was 19 at the time and there was a cute girl working at the telephone PBX. I took to hitting on her regularly, even though she had a boyfriend, and would “joke” that she should ditch him and go out with me.
After a few weeks(?) she pulled me aside and asked that I stop. It seems I was making her very uncomfortable and she was dreading coming to work. I apologized and discontinued my pursuit. We had a friendly working relationship after that and went on to live happily ever after.
I have been asking some of the women that I know if they have ever been sexually harassed and all of them said “Yes, many times”. My wife (not the operator chick) has been harassed countless times - Bosses, co-workers, trade show reps, and even some asshole when she was working at the soup kitchen.
So I say lets all talk about it. If the girl at the hotel had not spoken up I would likely never have known what an asshole I was.
I was 20, and a virgin, and by this point kind of obsessed with that status (I wasn’t fond of it, was very tired of being LEFT OUT to be honest) and I intermittently thought “I need to be less nice and more pushy, I guess, and that’s fucked up for sure but that’s what seems to work, based on what I’ve seen and what I’ve heard people say”.
Dlsclaimer: I don’t by any means think that every incident of being sexually forward is an act of sexual harassment. But the way I tried it was seriously awful. I was angry about the notion that I should have to do this, to be sexually overt and risk resentful hostility, in order to not be left out, so I had an attitude.
I found it easier to put the moves on someone I didn’t know: I couldn’t really handle being viewed as disgusting and creepy by someone who knew me. I somehow managed to con myself into believing that utter strangers probably hooked up all the time with a bump and a glance, and that I was letting all that go unexperienced because I wasn’t trying anything. So one day I was on a bus and most of the seats were taken (but not the seat next to me) and a teenaged girl slipped into that seat. So I experimented with sliding my hand ever so slowly a little closer and a little closer and once contact was attained, sought to expand it to a larger area.
I’m really sorry. No one should have to put up with that. I should have been completely able to imagine what that would be like from her perspective without having to see it firsthand. I hope that whoever she was, she hasn’t had to put up with such behavior from other creeps. Every now and then I find myself awake at 4 AM or something and remembering this incident and being horrified at myself.
I came to my own terms with the whole “being sexually aggressive” thing within 8 or 9 months (just not my thing, it doesn’t come naturally to me and I’m bloody awful at it) and I have not been a repeat offender.
I’m still ashamed of it. She was a small person and probably only 16 or so and by herself, and I made it so she couldn’t feel safe on a public bus.
No need. I see no squirming weaseling in these remarks. I see ownership, sincerity and honest regret.
That’s how it should be done. I’m not going to congratulate them for their honesty or anything, I don’t think they need or want that. But I can easily acknowledge the difference, can’t you?
I have good news for you. By the definition sexual harassment is unwanted sexual advances or obscene remarks. Just asking someone out isn’t specifically sexual. What you got there is plain old harassment. Congratulations.
Furthermore, how many men are willing to claim such events knowing full well they’re gonna have their “man card” pulled and be subjected to ridicule and teasing for not “going for it” by peers?
You certainly don’t have a very high opinion of men. Some might do that, but I’d guess the majority wouldn’t. That’s not what the thread is about, anyway. It’s about talking about it HERE, not announcing it to friends. Are you trying to derail the thread?
Of course she’s had to put up with such behavior. EVERY woman gets to experience this, multiple times over her lifetime because society tells young men it’s OK to do that and tells women who complains to stop making trouble and shames them, or out and out calls them liars, even thought this experience is common to every woman on the planet.
That’s what men, especially men like yourself, need to understand - this was an isolated incident for you. For her, it might be just Tuesday and it happens regularly. It certainly happened more than once.
I am certain she wakes up at 4 am or something and remembers the incident with fear and shame.
So, good - you “came to terms”. How nice for you. How nice for all of you men confessing here.
What have you DONE to make it better?
Do you call out other men engaging in that behavior? Because that’s the only way this is going to stop, if men start truly policing themselves.
Regardless, what pisses me off about **Claude Remain’**s answer is the notion that protecting men from “ridicule” justifies treatment of women that keeps them living in fear and shame. It says protecting men’s egos is more important than protecting women’s bodies. Until that attitude changes nothing will change.
Don’t get me wrong - I absolutely am behind men who admit wrong doing and seek to change their ways, but “I’m sorry” is just the first step. They have to change their actions, and inactions, as well.
The common theme here is young men who are desperate and grew up in a culture that assumes that the man will make the first move, and adds two scoops of “sexual aggressiveness will be rewarded” to the message. People are generally clumsy and unskilled when they start learning something. I could hope that young men today are more enlightened, with social media and the internet providing a vast reservoir of knowledge that just wasn’t available before. But the internet is mostly porn, and the antics of the younger generation does not give me much hope.
I really don’t want to come across as downplaying the fact that the women in these stories probably experienced these things as terrible, and their perspective is both valid and more important than Zoo and AHunte3s.
But I really think there is a big difference between a 19 year old that comes across badly when trying to pick up a girls, and a apologizes and stops when he gets told that it is unwelcome, and a man in his 30s who gropes a teen or puts the moves on someone in his chain of command. And if we want to stop this, I think addressing the social message that pursuing the object of your desire will lead to success rather than a restraining order is important.