As I understand it, any employer who creates, or through negligence allows to persist, a “sexually hostile work environment” can be sued for sexual harrassment. However, there are many industries, such as stripping, porn, and prostitution, in which a “hostile work environment” seems integral to the nature of the job. Are these industries exempt from sexual harassment laws? Or is a higher standard required?
I would think that by accepting the job, you accept the ‘harassment’. Not to mention, that alot of these jobs (stupidly) border on illegal to begin with.
Working as a stripper or as a porn star are both protected, at least legally, from harassment. A stripper is not required to engage in sex with her employer, not is she or he required to submit to lewd and innapropriate conduct from an employer or co-worker.
This is only slightly different with a porn film actor/actress. They can be required to engage in sex as part of the job but it is on a case by case basis. For example, I may be the produce and also an actor in the film and therefore require a star/starlet to give me oral sex but it has to be in the context of the job and be covered under the performance contract unless it is an audition which I presume is a very “grey” area. After all you don’t need to be a porn star to work on a “castin couch”. One would however assume that people who choose to make a career out of sex work are a little less thin-skinned than whoever is showing up on Ally McBeal to sue over something a radio announcer says regarding sex.
There was a case in which a woman sued because a co-worker had pornographic photos in his office. IIRC, she won. If the guy had had a stripper in his office, I’m sure the woman would have won even more easily. So a striper works in what would, in other circumstances, be a “hostile work environment”.
What if I place the following want ad:
Wanted: a sexually attractive woman. Duties: wear revealing clothing with the intent of enticing male customers to stay long enough to make a purchase.
If a woman answered that ad, and accepted a job from me, could she sue if I later suggested that she should wear a shorter skirt?
I sell c-band satellite porn channels.
We had to sign a stack of releases about a 1/2 inch thick as part of our orientation. They included forms that said:
[ul]I’m not offended by our content.
I’m not offended discusing our content.
I understand that I may have to describe our content to potential clients and this does not offend me.
I understand that in some areas of the office I may have to be exposed to our content and I’m OK with that.[/ul]
And on and on and on.
We are allowed, even encouraged, to surf adult websites at work as it’s work related material. One of our subsidiaries owns over 2500 adult domains - all of which we are free (woohoo) to surf.
Adult videos and other items are frequently given out as sales incentives in my department.
Once for the purposes of filming a commercial, an adult movie star who is heavily featured on our premier network was in the office, unclad, sitting on the lap of one of our male reps.
We are not allowed to have items in our cubies that are adult oriented. Our office looks just like a regular office. Employees should be and mostly are perfectly comfortable bringing their children (or parents) here.
We are absolutely allowed to make judgement calls regarding “clients” who just want the female reps to read them the movie titles. Some of these are icky and just calling to hear us say risque things so we hang up on them.
There is a more heightened sense of what exactly constitutes sexual harrassment in this environment than in any other office I’ve worked. Every employee has been through S/H training and is required to “refresh” that training twice a year.
In my younger days I was a stripper. To add to zen’s remarks, it could also be considered sexual harrassment if the management allows the clientele to behave inappropriately. Touching for example, or verbal abuse of a sexual nature if not dealt with swiftly and firmly by the club management is also S/H.
On the touching strippers thing. That conduct is unlawful in this county. YMMV.
Um, Commander Fortune we need links, please!! And is your company hiring??
The Ryan can I ask why you want to know this?
Commander Fortune- Can I get a job with your company?
“On the touching strippers thing. That conduct is unlawful in this county”
True, BUT the strippers can touch you if they want to.
yummmmmm.
A husband can be accused of sexual harrassment of his wife but it isn’t prosecuted much.
Context is everything. If your boss wears a speedo to work and you’re lifeguards, it’s acceptable; if you’re stockbrokers; it’s inappropriate. By the same token, if you’re applying for a job as an exotic dancer, your potential employer could legitimately ask you to take your clothes off as part of your interview; this would clearly be harassment if you were applying for a banking job. In the most extreme case, I suppose if you were applying for a job in one of Nevada’s legal brothels, your interviewer could legitimately ask you to have sex with him (or her) as an audition of your ability to perform the job duties.
I haven’t been able to dig up a reference for it, but I think the porn star Annie Sprinkle said in an interview that she was never harassed while working in porn movies, porn magazines, strip clubs, or massage parlors. She said that the only time that she had ever been sexually harassed was on the first day of the job while working as a secretary. On the other hand, Linda Lovelace claimed in her book Ordeal that she filmed Deep Throat while she was in an abusive relationship in which she was repeatedly raped. However, as far as I know, Lovelace does not claim that she was raped or harassed on the set of Deep Throat.
I think an interesting parallel can be made between working as a waitress and working as a stripper. Both are predominantly female occupations. Many waitresses get their butt grabbed by customers while doing their job, but management might ignore or discourage any complaints because they do not want to lose customers. At a strip club, on the other hand, the customers are not likely to grab a stripper’s ass, because a 300-pound bouncer will rough them up if their hands start wandering where they’re not supposed to.
I don’t think so handy.
Where I danced, inappropriate touching was considered solicitation on both sides. I have seen both dancers and the men they were dancing for arrested.
Regarding the OP…
In the two clubs I danced in, there was very little, if any, sexual harassment going on between employees or management. There will always be isolated cases of workplace romances, but I would hardly call that sexual harassment.
jonp is correct in that bouncers go a LONG way to discourage harassment by the clients. One wrong touch, one proposition and they’re ejected and told not to return.
They’re also there to fire the girls who DO go too far. One bad apple can bring a whole club down.
We were regularly visited by the police, both uniformed and undercover. They’d even bring in a female officer to check the dressing room for illicet drug use.
I had to be licensed by the city, and renew it yearly. We had to have a felony court clearance (any felonies = no license), traffic court clearance (all tickets paid or no license) and finger printing.
For such a sexual atmosphere, it was a helluva tight ship.
illicit…dammit!
It seemed like sexual harrasment laws could be used to effectively make all sorts of jobs illegal. It seems to me that if a woman is willing to be paid more in return for working in a “hostile environment”, the courts shouldn’t get involved.
Sue Duhnym, you can dance for me anytime!