# Robin Williams was a groper **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [March 21, 2018, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/robin-williams-was-a-groper/810976 "2018-03-21T17:39:37Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Inigo\_Montoya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/inigo_montoya/32/124_2.png) [@Inigo\_Montoya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inigo_Montoya)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2018, 12:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/robin-williams-was-a-groper/810976/61 "2018-03-23T12:06:30Z")
> [@Ukulele\_Ike](#): > > If he was a gentleman in a rock/blues band, he was definitely the sax player. Moose = [Bass Player](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moose_Harris) 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2018, 12:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/robin-williams-was-a-groper/810976/62 "2018-03-23T12:17:58Z")
> [@JRDelirious](#): > > Which however would not excuse the behavior if unwelcomed or exploitative, or if it was still going on 30 years later; and _in hindsight_ sure, we can say that everyone involved was being less-than-professional (as in, c’mon, Gary, it’s not normal for one of your leads to get naked for the sake of rattling the other player during her takes On a tangent, Maureen Lipman tells a story of a young Hugh Jackman performing onstage in _Oklahoma!_. During “Oh What a Beautiful Morning!”, as Jackman sings the line “But a little brown mav’rick is winking her eye” some of his male co-stars just offstage all drop their trousers and bend over to show him their, er, “brown eyes”. Jackman, ever the trouper, keeps on singing. That was 1998. ---
**Author:** ![Pantastic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3bc359/32.png) [@Pantastic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pantastic)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2018, 1:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/robin-williams-was-a-groper/810976/63 "2018-03-23T13:50:06Z")
> [@JRDelirious](#): > > Today we do seem to have moved to a standard that whether the target of the behavior welcomed it or not is irrelevant, and context be damned, which is a justifiable reaction to a culture of excuses – but I can imagine individuals saying “hey, wait, so how _I_ feel is still not what matters?” Where’s the evidence that ‘we’ have done this, and that it’s not just ‘one reporter looking to spice up a headline’? I don’t see any evidence that there’s a general move to such a standard, it’s just a claim repeated by people upset that they can’t harass women anymore. I recall a thread a while back where I went through a list of ‘ousted Hollywood harassers’ shortly after the Weinstein and Louis CK stuff broke. Not a single one of them involved a willing ‘victim’, and in most cases involved multiple protesting victims who were silenced with direct or indirect threats, or simply ignored. > [@Gyrate](#): > > OTOH the former behavior appears to be the main offense against Al Franken and that didn’t turn out well either. Al Franken took a picture, without consent, of himself faking sexual touch on a woman who had previously rejected his advances and avoided contact with him while she was asleep, in what was pretty obviously an attempt to humiliate her in revenge for the rejection. That’s vastly different than simulated sexual acts between two people who both agree that the acts are funny when neither one has told the other to stop. The situations are vastly different. > [@aceplace57](#): > > It was possible to joke around about sex, forty years ago. > > People understood the difference in a joke and malicious sexual intent > > Different time, different world. Those days are gone. I’m going to call bullshit on that, there certainly doesn’t seem to be any lack of sexual jokes in 2018. What is different is that ‘men doing things to women’ is now treated just like ‘men doing things to men’. 40 years ago if a guy grabbed another guy’s ass every time he walked by and was clearly into that guy, or told another guy something like ‘sweetheart, that shirt really highlights your pecs, I’d love to it on my floor tonight’, it was likely to end in a firing (plus bonus beating and/or arrest). ---
**Author:** ![aceplace57](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aceplace57/32/3500_2.png) [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2018, 2:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/robin-williams-was-a-groper/810976/64 "2018-03-23T14:59:20Z")
Robin was a hyperactive, frenzied guy. He was the wildest, fastest thinking comic I’ve ever seen. He’d drop in and out of 10 characters in just a few minutes. Talking a mile a minute. Constantly pacing around, and waving his hands. I strongly suspect he was a back slapper, shoulder shaking guy with everybody he met. Robin isn’t going to calmy have a discussion with anybody. A hour with Robin was probably exhausting. Gender has nothing to do with it. That’s who he was and it made him a brilliant comic. You couldn’t pay me enough money to work with him. I couldn’t take the mania day after day. ---
**Author:** ![astorian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ad7895/32.png) [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2018, 4:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/robin-williams-was-a-groper/810976/65 "2018-03-23T16:41:19Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > One of the things we’re learning nowadays is that many women who “seemed to love” the harassing behavior of certain men who had power over their careers did not actually love it as much as they seemed to. Who’da thunk, right? > > It hasn’t shifted all that much. There are still plenty of women being victimized by, e.g., online troll campaigns sparked by groundless or exaggerated accusations (e.g., Gamergate). I’m guessing, however, that that’s not the particular failure of “due process” that you’re complaining about here. You think you know what you’re talking about, but you don’t. You really don’t. ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2018, 2:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/robin-williams-was-a-groper/810976/66 "2018-03-24T02:12:59Z")
I am shocked that a program as dignified and sedate as _Mork & Mindy_ had such antics going on between takes. Leave such frolicking to _The MacNeil/Lehrer Report_ or _Hour of Power!_ Truly the 1970’s were a different time! ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2018, 3:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/robin-williams-was-a-groper/810976/67 "2018-03-24T03:07:43Z")
> [@astorian](#): > > You think you know what you’re talking about, but you don’t. You really don’t. Yes, I really do. Notice that I **haven’t** claimed to be talking about any hard-and-fast guarantee that the particular women in your anecdote from your own life history (if they actually existed, which I as a random internet stranger have no way of knowing for sure) were being undesirably harassed by the colleagues you thought were so cheeky and popular. If I were to make any such claim, then indeed I **wouldn’t** know what I was talking about. But I’m not. When I make, as I did in my previous post, the general observation that lots of women in the workplace have pretended to be charmed and amused by behavior that they **didn’t** actually find all that charming and amusing—yes, I really do know what I’m talking about. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2018, 3:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/robin-williams-was-a-groper/810976/68 "2018-03-24T03:48:40Z")
Certainly, some women genuinely were amused, and some weren’t amused but pretended they were, and some weren’t amused, and made that fact known. And heck, probably some really were amused, but pretended they weren’t. As well as corresponding categories for women who ignored it or pretended to. Don’t ask me what proportion each was, though. ---
**Author:** ![Cartooniverse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cartooniverse/32/3084_2.png) [@Cartooniverse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cartooniverse)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2018, 2:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/robin-williams-was-a-groper/810976/69 "2018-03-24T14:10:22Z")
> [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](#): > > Getting a ‘no’ doesn’t make it harassment, either. Persisting in asking after getting a ‘no’ is what makes it harassment. Unfortunately, in the current environment, that is not true in many workplace and social settings. You ask someone out. They decline. That’s the end of the encounter, and you both walk away down the hall. The asker walks away angry, rejected, filled with rage, hurt, curious, mystified, wounded, unsure of how to deal with that person in professional settings ( meetings, evaluations, etc. ) as well as social settings ( work parties, entering the lobby/ elevators, heating up lunch in the floor-wide lunchroom, etc. ). The asked walks away feeling pressured, unsure of where it leaves them moving forward, frightened, angry at the imposition, afraid to see that person in the social settings listed above, aware that there is a power dynamic that goes way beyond just Manager/ Subordinate roles. In both cases, there are myriad unspoken feelings and dynamics at play when someone at work asks someone else out. Notice that I didn’t assign gender to the asker or the asked. Because it shouldn’t matter. ---
**Author:** ![BlankSlate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/blankslate/32/80_2.png) [@BlankSlate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BlankSlate)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2018, 2:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/robin-williams-was-a-groper/810976/70 "2018-03-24T14:49:02Z")
[Here is Leann Tweeden](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tdQKe9p5q_s) engaging in the same sort of behavior that got Franken into trouble. It’s far from the only example, too. The volume of evidence against Franken suggests that he was a serial groper, but the raunchy antics on those USO tours was a group effort. The Tweeden take down of Franken was purely political, and most likely orchestrated by her conservative brethren. ---
**Author:** ![GreenWyvern](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/greenwyvern/32/2834_2.png) [@GreenWyvern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreenWyvern)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2018, 3:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/robin-williams-was-a-groper/810976/71 "2018-03-24T15:27:43Z")
Applying present-day values retrospectively: From the Onion: [Damning Evidence Shows Actor Al Jolson Wearing Blackface](https://entertainment.theonion.com/damning-evidence-shows-actor-al-jolson-wearing-blackfac-1823993317) (Al Jolson was [actually](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Jolson#Relations_with_African-Americans) well-known for fighting actively against racial discrimination, at a time when very few were.) ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2018, 4:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/robin-williams-was-a-groper/810976/72 "2018-03-24T16:27:50Z")
> [@aceplace57](#): > > Robin was a hyperactive, frenzied guy. He was the wildest, fastest thinking comic I’ve ever seen. He’d drop in and out of 10 characters in just a few minutes. Talking a mile a minute. Constantly pacing around, and waving his hands. > > I strongly suspect he was a back slapper, shoulder shaking guy with everybody he met. > > Robin isn’t going to calmy have a discussion with anybody. A hour with Robin was probably exhausting. Gender has nothing to do with it. > > That’s who he was and it made him a brilliant comic. > > You couldn’t pay me enough money to work with him. I couldn’t take the mania day after day. I am repeating this for emphasis. Robin was known for grabbing his own crotch. He was probably the most unphoney person ever. And a total comic genius. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2018, 5:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/robin-williams-was-a-groper/810976/73 "2018-03-24T17:13:41Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Certainly, some women genuinely were amused, and some weren’t amused but pretended they were, and some weren’t amused, and made that fact known. And heck, probably some really were amused, but pretended they weren’t. As well as corresponding categories for women who ignored it or pretended to. … Similar to the thoughts of the great philosopher and Cubs fan, [Steve Goodman](http://www.musictory.com/music/Steve+Goodman/Men+Who+Love+Women+Who+Love+Men): > [@](#): > > … There are men who love women who love men > There are women who love women every now and then > There are men who love men because they can’t pretend > They are men who love women who love men > … Seriously that dude was ahead of his time! ---
**Author:** ![Staggerlee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/staggerlee/32/3134_2.png) [@Staggerlee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Staggerlee)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2018, 7:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/robin-williams-was-a-groper/810976/74 "2018-03-24T19:13:59Z")
> [@Pantastic](#): > > What is different is that ‘men doing things to women’ is now treated just like ‘men doing things to men’. 40 years ago if a guy grabbed another guy’s ass every time he walked by and was clearly into that guy, or told another guy something like ‘sweetheart, that shirt really highlights your pecs, I’d love to it on my floor tonight’, it was likely to end in a firing (plus bonus beating and/or arrest). I’m not sure that the standard Seventies response to unwanted male-on-male sexual propositions is a great benchmark against which to measure modern-day encounters. ---
**Author:** ![Gatopescado](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gatopescado/32/5711_2.png) [@Gatopescado](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gatopescado)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2018, 7:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/robin-williams-was-a-groper/810976/75 "2018-03-24T19:41:47Z")
I would have been shocked to find out Robin Williams _wasn’t_ a groper. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2018, 10:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/robin-williams-was-a-groper/810976/76 "2018-03-24T22:10:03Z")
[Moderating] **DSeid** , in keeping with Fair Usage, I’ve trimmed your quote of lyrics down to a short excerpt. ---
**Author:** ![Pantastic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3bc359/32.png) [@Pantastic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pantastic)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2018, 3:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/robin-williams-was-a-groper/810976/77 "2018-03-25T03:03:56Z")
> [@Staggerlee](#): > > I’m not sure that the standard Seventies response to unwanted male-on-male sexual propositions is a great benchmark against which to measure modern-day encounters. I think it’s a great standard to measure whether “People understood the difference in a joke and malicious sexual intent” and whether modern standards of professional behavior are too restrictive. If people were really so great at telling the difference between a joke and malicious sexual intent, why couldn’t they manage it with male-on-male jokes? If modern standards are just too puritan and unreasonable for anyone to keep up with, why have men found them reasonable and kept up with them for decades without problems when applied to other men? ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2018, 9:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/robin-williams-was-a-groper/810976/78 "2018-03-25T09:45:42Z")
> [@Pantastic](#): > > I think it’s a great standard to measure whether “People understood the difference in a joke and malicious sexual intent” and whether modern standards of professional behavior are too restrictive. If people were really so great at telling the difference between a joke and malicious sexual intent, why couldn’t they manage it with male-on-male jokes? If modern standards are just too puritan and unreasonable for anyone to keep up with, why have men found them reasonable and kept up with them for decades without problems when applied to other men? True. Part of the backlash against the current movement(s) opposing sexual harassment and predatory behavior is an attempt to romanticize the mores of several decades ago as allegedly more healthy and robust, when people (i.e., women) could take a joke and weren’t so oversensitive and knew the difference between harassment and harmless fun. Anybody who was actually around and female in that era knows that there was a lot of pressure on women to **treat** harassment as though it were harmless fun, but that doesn’t mean that they necessarily enjoyed it. > [@Cartooniverse](#): > > You ask someone out. They decline. That’s the end of the encounter, and you both walk away down the hall. > > The asker walks away angry, rejected, filled with rage, hurt, curious, mystified, wounded, unsure of how to deal with that person in professional settings ( meetings, evaluations, etc. ) as well as social settings ( work parties, entering the lobby/ elevators, heating up lunch in the floor-wide lunchroom, etc. ). :eek: Jesus. Anybody who responds to being turned down for a date by a co-worker by being “angry” and “filled with rage” should definitely not be attempting to date co-workers in the first place. Maybe not anybody else, either. If your response to rejection of an initial romantic overture in a professional setting is significantly more severe than “temporarily disappointed and maybe somewhat embarrassed”, you need to get some help dealing with your feelings. ---
**Author:** ![DrFidelius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/drfidelius/32/3447_2.png) [@DrFidelius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrFidelius)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2018, 12:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/robin-williams-was-a-groper/810976/79 "2018-03-25T12:48:46Z")
"No, I can’t accept a date with you. First, we work closely together and it would be inappropriate. Second, I’m not comfortable with our age differences. Third, Aunt Edna,. . . " ---
**Author:** ![Cartooniverse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cartooniverse/32/3084_2.png) [@Cartooniverse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cartooniverse)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2018, 2:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/robin-williams-was-a-groper/810976/80 "2018-03-25T14:29:13Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > True. Part of the backlash against the current movement(s) opposing sexual harassment and predatory behavior is an attempt to romanticize the mores of several decades ago as allegedly more healthy and robust, when people (i.e., women) could take a joke and weren’t so oversensitive and knew the difference between harassment and harmless fun. > > Anybody who was actually around and female in that era knows that there was a lot of pressure on women to **treat** harassment as though it were harmless fun, but that doesn’t mean that they necessarily enjoyed it. > :eek: Jesus. Anybody who responds to being turned down for a date by a co-worker by being “angry” and “filled with rage” should definitely not be attempting to date co-workers in the first place. Maybe not anybody else, either. > > If your response to rejection of an initial romantic overture in a professional setting is significantly more severe than “temporarily disappointed and maybe somewhat embarrassed”, you need to get some help dealing with your feelings. Uh. Not me. I was articulating the potential land mines that exist in many of these situations. Yes most of us get it. We have grown up to be mature adults who understand spoken and unspoken Visual and body cues and understand how things are going mom to moment. That doesn’t mean that these situations do not exist in the workplace. Sent from my SM-N910V using Tapatalk [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/robin-williams-was-a-groper/810976.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/robin-williams-was-a-groper/810976.md?page=5)