Well, yes. Technically it is sexual harassment. I am a bit leery of using the term like this though. Sexual harassment is a fairly serious term to me. If we set the bar for what is referred to as sexual harassment so low that some flirting that comes off badly, and asking a girl to go out with you more than once is sexual harassment…
-then sexually harassing a girl becomes part of growing up for a boy. I mean, it kind of normalizes it. Whats more, a lot of men that really needs to be onboard with stopping serious sexual harassment is going to reject it. They’ll all have some awkward encounters in their past.
I think generally the term should be saved for the more serious cases.
When a salesperson begs me more than once to buy their product after I have already told them I’m not interested, I always feel like they are harassing me. Doesn’t matter if they are begging with a smile on their face. If I’m saying “please stop” and someone doesn’t stop, then I don’t know what’s a better word than “harassment”.
So yeah, boys sexual harrassing girl HAS been normalized in our society. Boys get it in their heads that they can ignore a girl’s “no’s” since they are taught it isn’t all that serious to do so. Meanwhile, girls start thinking that having their “no’s” ignored isn’t the sign of total disrespect that it actually is, so they tell themselves that it is silly to take it seriously. Creepy Boy then grows up to be the kind of guy who has to be brought into HR on a regular basis because the grown-up world isn’t like high school. Asshats are a legal liability in the grown-up world. And Harrassed Girl grows up to be the kind of woman who fails to report shit because she doesn’t realize she doesn’t have to put up with it.
I had my own Creepy Boy in high school. He would follow me to class. He would call me at home. He would leave letters and presents for me on my desk in homeroom. He would try to talk to me during lunch and invite me on dates in front of other people so that I’d feel pressured to say “yes”. Over two years, I must have told the guy “no” twenty-five times, in the same number of ways. I said “no” politely at first, but eventually I had no choice but to be really mean (I once told him that he looked like a gorilla in front of his friends). It didn’t matter how I said “no”. He just wouldn’t let up. You better believe he was harassing me. If I had known that this wasn’t normal, I would have filed a complaint and had someone more powerful than me put a stop to it.
This is what’s wrong with Frankin’s apology. Right here. You are NOT your intentions. You ARE your actions. He groped an exhausted female soldier. For yucks! Had it photographed! Think he showed that photo to anybody?How many anybodies? Did they all get a good laugh? At an exhausted soldier being sexually assaulted! They are all scum, everyone of them.
I no longer care how this compares to others. Or what fine work he did, or could do in the senate. Al Franklin is a very smart man. These actions show everyone who he REALLY is. Whether he likes it or not. Scum.
Why do young black men have to do the time for doing the crime, but not well positioned white men. He CHOSE this action. And the consequences should fall on him like a ton of freaking bricks, in my opinion. He should be on the sex offender list, at the very least. All of them should.
Look, I don’t doubt the sincerity of your feelings, but…
First, he did not actually touch that sleeping woman. He pretended to - this is confirmed by both the photographer and the fact you can see shadows under his hands/fingers in the photo confirming there was no actual physical contact. This may or may not make a difference to you, but it does to some people.
Second, STOP repeating the untruth that either touched a sleeping woman (when there is proof he didn’t) or touched a soldier - that woman was a fellow performer, NOT a soldier. You’d look a lot less hysterical if you stuck to the facts and the truth here. Seriously, elbows STICK TO THE ACTUAL FACTS instead of letting your emotions alter confirmable truths.
Third, not all of us think Franken is either scum, irredeemable, or should be on a sex offender’s list. What he did was bad, but I’m not interested in throwing him under the bus when far, far worse people are walking around not only without consequence but being actually endorsed/promoted by the PotUS. I want to go after the big fish first, not last.
To build on this: the problem with putting it on the harassed person to say “no” is that people have an unlimited ability to ignore input that contradicts their own impression. Take the sex out of it: I’ve known a shocking number of people that were told by their boss “don’t do X” and they kept doing it. They get written up for it. They keep doing it. And I don’t mean things like “Don’t be late”–people can intend to be on time and mess up. I mean, your boss tells you to quit doing this very specific behavior and you just keep on. The only thing I can figure is that once you’ve decided something is no big deal, words to the contrary just go in one ear and out the other. It’s literally impossible to believe that anyone really cares if you wear those pants or say that thing to customers or whatever.
It’s even worse when it’s sexual interest, because boys are really socialized to believe women are into them. I think it starts in like, middle school, when you get social currency for telling your buddies “So and so is totally into me! Ewwwwww”. It’s never confirmed or denied, so you get this gross little feedback cycle of boys reassuring themselves of things they don’t even understand.
So if we teach boys it’s open season unless and until they get a clear, unmistakable “No, sir, I do not wish to be romantically or sexually involved with you, now or in the future”, it’s likely that boys will ignore plenty of what are objectively clear denials because they don’t want it to be true. Better to make the standard (for both sexes) that you should be actively monitoring for reciprocal interest, because it’s on you not to miss the other person’s discomfort.
In terms of “flirting”, I think that part of the problem is that “flirting” covers a huge range of behavior. In my mind, things like going over to sit with someone at lunch (after asking if it’s okay), teasing them about the singing bass in their office, sending them a link to an article about a show you both like . . . that can be flirting if both people are single. But I don’t think it’s objectionable, provided you give the other person plenty of opportunities to signal their lack of interest–and you respect those signals entirely (i.e., you don’t think it means you have to back off and try later–you understand that you just have to back off entirely.)
What’s not okay flirting are sexual jokes, overly gallant behavior that is only directed at you, personal compliments, disproportionate gifts. Basically, if you’re interested in someone romantically it’s okay to do the sorts of things that you’d do if you were interested in them as a potential friend–but not things that are exclusively romantic/sexual.
Having raised two kids, I can tell you that there is a stage in development where hitting people is completely normal. But we don’t minimize it by not calling it hitting. When your four year old whacks someone, you give them a time out and say “we don’t hit people.”
Before the hitting stage is the biting stage. We don’t say “oh, toddlers who bite aren’t really biting - lets call them “puppy nips” instead.” We immediately identify and correct the behavior “no biting!”
If we call the minimal behavior what it is from a young age, than we will teach boys (and girls - because chasing the boys on the playground to kiss them isn’t good either) that not only the extreme forms of this are socially unacceptable. We won’t stop the psychopaths, but we might reduce the number date rapes and subway feels.
Now, you might not want to tell a first grader girl that chasing boys around the playground to kiss them - or a boy that lifting a girls dress - is sexual harassment - those are kind of big words - but you can call it what it is - bullying. And then later get into the different kinds of bullying.
“We don’t do things to upset people”. “It’s not funny to embarass others”. Yes it doesn’t have to get into the legalese.
And of course “no means no” which can apply to any situation.
That “No” or “Please stop” must be respected is definitely something we work on at our house. It’s a hard one for kids, especially because they feel that they are not always respected. It doesn’t matter. They must respect the wishes of others. We also try to work on reading body language, just in case words aren’t used.
Strongly disagree. A nazi’s intentions to ‘make the motherland pure again’ are just horseshit he and his believers use to excuse and explain their heinous actions. His intentions didn’t kill millions, his actions did.
Yeah, I killed your kid while texting, but it wasn’t my intention!
Like it or not, in the end you are your actions. Intentions are just wordplay, a form of psychological misdirection to help you live with yourself.
What? Your lover means to pick up milk at the store, that’s exactly the same as willfully deciding that you can get it yourself? Your waitress dumps a cup of coffee down your back on accident, that’s exactly the same as willfully pouring it down your shirt?
Indeed. But if said Nazi never killed a soul, but still wished he had and I knew it, I am well within my rights to consider him trash( apologies to Richard Parker ).
Conversely if someone accidentally pushes someone off a cliff but actually had intended to pull them away from the edge and save their life, it is at least partially exonerating. A person has still died and that has to be dealt with, but there was no intent to kill.
We’re all a bundle of intentions and actions, you can’t seperate them out neatly and say only part of that is the measure of a person.
We aren’t talking about accidents, but ‘good’ intentions. These men didn’t intend to humiliate or harass, so it’s okay? Don’t try that in a court of law! It’s not that intentions mean nothing, it’s that, in the end it’s your actions that supersede.
Do you care if my intention was not to mow down your child? Or will you judge my action over my intent?
Certainly not. Though I wasn’t actually even referencing your complaints, specifically. I just didn’t agree with your general statement.
I believe that is exactly what I said above. It appears we now agree ;).
I’d hope I’d judge both and forgive if appropriate. But who knows - I’ve never been in that kind of situation. Could be I’d just strike out in blind rage and I’d understand someone who did. Hopefully I’ll never have to find that out about myself.
Those Buddhists (and others) teach the concept of Body, Speech and Mind.
Thoughts have weight. But not AS MUCH weight as speaking those thoughts, which in turn lack the weight of carrying those words out in action. There is a continuum. The place to start watching yourself is at the level of your thoughts.
I’m thinking of making a post about all of the times I have been sexually harassed and assaulted as a man, the few times I think I am guilty of doing it to women, and the time I was wrongly accused as a 4 year old, maybe the time I was molested by another kid as a kid, too, but I don’t know where to do it.
She turned around, shoved me, and then a guy - possibly her boyfriend, or a brother, or a friend, or a complete stranger, I do not know - stepped up, ready to beat me up. A friend of mine, who did not know what I had done, got in between us. No fight broke out.
I was in my early 20’s. I have done nothing of the sort since, nor have I witnessed other men do so. I would certainly like to think that, if I ever do see something like that I’ll do something about it, but I guess I won’t know until it actually happens.