Originally posted by TheDean:
There are some things we are not free to decide on our own. For instance, sexual harassment. If any person feels uncomfortable by what someone does, says, jokes about etc. the person who is uncomfortable needs to say; "STOP, I do not appreciate what you are doing and you are not to do it again!" Anything done after that is sexual harassment, according to the law.
This may make us really angry. We may think it is not fair. We may want to work really hard to change the law. But, at the seminar I attended, I was told that harassment is harassment, it is defined and explained by others and we have to obey those laws or be willing to suffer the consequences.
I have had women tell me some jokes that really embarassed me. I did not tell them, and did not ask them, to stop it. When they told some more, really salacious stories, it was not harassment because I had not told them that they were to cease and desist. Had, I done so, it would have been harassment, not because I said it was harassment, but because the law says so. I do not have to report harassment against me. But if I do, I do not get to call the shots--the law has already done that--at least in so far as the workplace is concerned.
Dr. Gartner, in his book speaks about people being betrayed and violated, but not FEELING abused, nor traumatized. e.g. the 15 year old boy who has wild passionate sex with his 32 year old female teacher. He will insist that he was not abused, that he wanted it and it is no one else's business. He's in LOVE!
Sorry Lad, that is not your call. The law in almost all, if not all, 50 States of the USA, says that, until one is 18 years old, they can not statutorially make a decision to have sex--not with a 32 year old teacher and not with his 15 year old girl friend.
I am sorry if you were angered and disillusioned by my remarks godsrabbit. I admit, I had a very visceral reaction. I feel badly that you are feeling so misunderstood here, and certainly by me. I try to understand and see what the picture is of what a poster is saying. I did feel, apparently very incorrectly, that you did not feel yourself abused, even though you had said that he should not put his arm around you and that you were uncomfortable. My reaction is based on my own experience of thinking that some of what occurred in the 50 or 60 rapes I had, was not abuse. I have come to see that it was all abuse in my case. It would be abuse if it happened to any teenage boy. So, I reacted strongly, probably being overly protective of you and just the opposite happenen you felt denigrated and talked down to. For that I am certainly sorry. I never meant to imply that you are an idiot. But I really do not think that we have the right to decide what is and is not abuse. That would get very dangerous indeed.
We do not need to loosen what is deemed abuse, we need to make it emminently clear, what the boundaries are that society has set. And it appears society may well want to loosen or broaden those boundaries.
I do not watch a lot of TV. I am not a parent. If I were a parent I would give myself over full time, to trying to have a class action suit brought against dozens of so called "sit coms" that pervert the morals of our children, who make kids think that sex is no more a moral matter than drinking a glass of water. Words, sooner or later, have to mean something or we cannot communicate.
I may not have felt betrayed and violated in certain aspects of the abuse I endured. However, as kind and understanding and compassionate as I want to be, I could not say that it was ok, because I say it was ok, and I really didn't mind all that much. The man broke the law in a serious way and deserved to be punished for his crime.
We have been told many times that if we have a hard time seeing what happened to us as abuse, just ask ourselves if it would be abuse, if it happened to someone else. I have found that helpful.
godsrabbit, I may well have not understood well enough what you were saying. I may well have reacted without thinking it through. If you feel good about what happened to you with your fellow employee and are satisfied by the results of the mediation then it apparently did you no harm. I do have to tell you though, that if the same thing, under the same circumstances had happened to me, I would have filed charges and insisted, after his admission that he had indeed violated your boundaries, that he be penalized in some way as stated by the law. I do not think that makes me right and you wrong, I think it just means that we have different attitudes towards people touching our persons. For me, that is VERY limited.
Discussions like this certainly broaden my mind and point out to me the differences we all have in boundaries. I think it is helpful for me to see that some of you give much more latitude than I would. I probably have some work to do on that.
Bob
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