It’s easy for you to say this. But this is exactly how people in authorative or custodial positions use their power to take advantage of people. And they count on arguments like this to shield them.
Without question he crossed the line ethically. What I have some doubts about is his motivation. Some guys are not good at reading signals or will read what they believe to be signals. He most certainly was unprofessional and will likely at some point end up in trouble over this. Once a man starts thinking about sex his signal reader starts to go a little haywire. I would not press charges but would report him to his boss and probably call him on the carpet for a long talk.
One time I misread what I am still pretty sure was a signal and set myself up for some embarrassment. I was giving a girl bow making lessons. I was trying to teach her how to use a draw knife. This is a two handed knife we pull across the wood while sitting on a bench we call a horse. She just wasn’t getting it so I sat behind her and put my hands on top of hers guiding the knife across the wood. It was obvious she was responding so I quickly readjusted my position behind her as to not make so much contact. She kept asking me to show her this move over and over again and came back the next day wearing perfume. Now I started getting turned on and kissed her on the ear. She immediately acted insulted. I was highly embarrassed and ended the session right there. learned my lesson.
Dedicated to GreenWyvern.
“Silence indicates consent” is from Roman Law. It refers exclusively to suits: if two people are in a suit and one doesn’t appear, that one is understood to yield. It does not refer to freezing when someone is grabbing you.
Easy to say and easier still to act on.
I’m not familiar with “authoritative and custodial” oversight a yoga instructor has over another adult voluntarily attending his class. A yoga instructor? “authoritative” maybe. “custodial”? Not seeing it.
But I can ask how you or some reasonable adult would have handled things.
After the first instance which involved unwanted genital contact, I think most reasonable adults would have thought, “I’m not going to find myself alone with this guy,” and then the OP does just that.
Coming back for a second class taught by the same guy, most people would probably say, “Fuck it, this guy again? Well I’ll take the class, and then I’m out.” But she stays after class, is alone with him again, accompanies him to a private room, notices he is sexually aroused and allows him to give a back rub.
I ask again, come on.
Whatever “authoritative and custodial” influence this guy wields, a reasonable adult needs to step up and address the situation.
Well, no offense, but it is not the job of the criminal justice system to decide who is telling the truth. It can only decide if an accusation has been proven beyond a reasonable doubt.
All the things in the OP could be true, but unless there is proof that they are true, the criminal justice system has to acquit. That’s how it’s set up.
This is IMHO, and the question in the title is “is this clearly illegal”? IMO it is illegal, but not clearly so. If I were on the jury, and there was no more evidence than was presented in the OP, I would vote Not Guilty. But this isn’t a jury, just the Internet, so I vote The Guy’s a Creep and agree that you should report him to the yoga school and get him fired if possible.
And also the advice that I gave to my women self-defense students a thousand times - people tell you who they are. It is up to you to listen when they do. If the guy gives off a creepy vibe, leave.
Regards,
Shodan
It is still her word against his. If he says, “No that’s not what happened” (and don’t miss that word ‘if’), he’s now given his testimony. And that, too, is evidence. And by your point, it’s strong evidence.
At that point, whose testimony has more credibility?
All this talk about getting the creep fired is wrong. There would only be 1 person’s unsubstantiated and uncorroborated accusations against him.
If there is nothing more than that, then a strong entry into his personnel file is all that should be done here.
GreenWyvern, you are certainly allowed to question what someone is sharing, but you’re crossing the line with this post into being a jerk, particularly with your last line here.
Lamia, if you’ve got a problem with a post or poster, report it or take it to the Pit. This particular response is out of line.
No warnings issued, but if folks want to question the OP or anyone else’s posts, do it civilly.
Yes, exactly thank you. I don’t know where people are getting the idea it’s a weak case, since while it’s not a sure shot it’s fairly strong. Especially since she probably does have witnesses to the fact she was asked to stay back.
That proves nothing other than she was asked to stay back.
andrea, I am really sorry this happened to you. I truly am. How has the studio and its managers responded? I hope they have been supportive and reticent. Did they say anything about other women complaining against that creep?
(my bolding)
Much like “hearsay”, “reticent” is another word that you clearly have no idea of the definition of.
No. That would be bad management.
One person’s credible account of inappropriate sexual touching of a client is a perfectly sufficient to fire an employee, and indeed the failure to do so may well open the owners of the studio up to liability for any future assaults.
The prudent thing for the owners to do would be to ask the instructor for his side of the story and then, absent a very credible and compelling story that basically denies everything the OP said (which seems pretty unlikely), fire him. They should lean toward firing him, since the likelihood of some random person inventing this story to get a yoga instructor fired is much lower than the likelihood of it simply being true, all else being equal.
Absolutely agreed. If a customer complains about unwanted sexual contact from an instructor, and his defense is, “Yeah, I held her for a private lesson and gave her a back rub, but it was perfectly innocent, and she liked it,” his ass needs to be out the door. They should also be talking with the cleaners who were there on the last occasion and find out what they saw.
Thinking about it, GreenWyvern is right. Maybe this guy thought he was getting consensual sexy times with one of his students in the back room of his employer’s yoga studio. Why should his boss need to worry about that?
Huh, when I read her story my first thought was that it was a brave thing to post. “Strange” never entered my head.
There was just a local case in the news in my city where a massage therapist was convicted of assault. The victim made a report and the studio/parlor cooperated with the investigation. I don’t know exactly what that entails, but I doubt there was video of the massage, so I’m thinking there might have been other complaints. That could be the case here and then it wouldn’t just be him vs. her.
I don’t think people realize that it’s not uncommon to get a creepy/weird vibe from a guy, ignore it, and then it goes away because it turns out you were mistaken. That’s common. It’s part of normal caution about the world. I swear to god, we have had thread side-by-side where the same people were arguing “It’s appalling and sexist to assume a guy is a threat” and “Why didn’t you trust your instincts? You shouldn’t put yourself in a position to be assaulted with a guy you don’t trust.”
As a woman, if I avoided every person who gave me a bad feeling, or did something that seemed off and potentially inappropriate/threatening, I’d have meaningfully limited my personal and professional life. And most of the time, what seemed like a potential problem melted away. So don’t chide a woman for taking a “wait and see” attitude with a guy who had some questionable behavior the first time. It’s a pretty reasonable reaction.
I corrected hearsay. Reticent was incorrect, what I meant more was solemn.
Let’s just run with that for a second. If we just assume that he thought he was getting the green light. The studio may want to know that one of their employees is banging students in the back room. That would be just cause to get rid of him. Even if it’s 100% consensual, he can do that on his own time at his own place. Plenty of people have had sex at work, but you do it knowing that you may lose your job if you get caught.
On the other hand, if he thought he got the green light, but didn’t, he’s still, at best, having sex in the back room and at worst, raping students back there.
She felt violated by an employee, she was on company property, he was on the clock, this was part of class that she paid money for. Nothing about this says ‘don’t tell his work’.
FTR, I’m generally not a fan of people on the internet tracking down where someone works and shaming the company into firing the person when they’ve done something stupid (usually racist/sexist) that has nothing to do with work. But this is different since it happened at work and he made it appear to be part of the class.
I don’t think it’s so much “authoritive and custodial” influence as the fact that this is a person that you have hired in a professional capacity to perform a service that involves touching you in a way that might not be appropriate if this person was not a trained professional acting in a professional capacity.
Another such example might be a massage therapist. When I get a massage I’m alone in a room with a man, voluntarily. I’m lying naked on a table with only a thin sheet on top of me. As he touches me I may make sounds of pleasure and tell him how good it feels. None of this is an invitation for sexual contact. Even if I felt like some sexual contact and requested it a legitimate professionally trained massage provider would refuse. This scenario isn’t really a hypothetical- apparently it’s common although more so with female masseuses and male clients.
A physical therapist is another example, and maybe one that is a little closer. If I am in a PT session, the therapist might ask me to do something that I think is a little weird, such as wrap my legs around his waist while he pushes on my shoulders. But I’m probably going to do it, because I am placing a certain amount of trust in his professional training. “Authoritive and custodial” aside, it’s not like my math teacher asked me to wrap my legs around his waist.
Or take the GYN example. What if a woman, maybe not completely emotionally stable, is getting a pelvic exam and tells the doctor that she is becoming aroused. Would that mean that it is OK for the doctor to drop his pants and screw her right there because she consented?
And I can definitely see being uncertain about the initial inappropriate contact, because I might assume that the teacher was going to adjust my upper leg but maybe I moved in a way he didn’t anticipate causing him to “miss”, especially if the touch was glancing.