> One woman said she was riding a Ferris wheel at Coney Island after a company event when a co-worker suddenly took her hand and put it on his crotch.
I have absolutely no idea why someone would think this is OK to do. Generally I can try to piece together how someone might rationalize their behavior but the best I can come up with on this one is: alcohol.
Me too. I've heard the "he grabbed my hand and to put it on his crotch in public" story before. Did people learn this from porn? Was it done in some John Cusack movie?
Apparently penis in popcorn is a thing and it's from a movie.
Schools should probably start teaching kids how to appropriately make a pass at a girl. Most movies seem to show guys “courageously” lunging in randomly for a kiss. The advice a kid gets from his friend’s older brother is going to be much worse. I’m sure 12 year old boys would appreciate learning how to know if a girl likes them, how to get a girlfriend, how to go in for a kiss, etc. as that’s 97% of what they think about. And doing things the right way early on and seeing success would probably translate well to good behavior later on.
I wish this could be taught. But, sadly, given how many religious conservatives are rabidly against teaching children anything about anything that could maybe lead to sex, I can easily see there being a major defense against this because schools are "trying to get young kids to have sex."
The fact that this happened isn't surprising. There are always creeps in the world, and unless we all live in bubbles that separate men from women, there always will be. What matters more is what happened afterwards. Did the woman report it to HR? Was there a response? Was he fired?
Sorry I wasn't implying she shouldn't report to HR. I was responding to previous comment which said "What did HR do?". So like you are suggesting it could have been the first report against him and HR might not have not done anything, which doesn't necessarily imply they are complicit in harassment.
That incident happened after a company event, isn't that considered private time? I mean, she would have had to agree to go with the co-worker, during their off-hours, in the first place and he might have interpreted her willingness to go along as a signal of mutual interest (romantic, sexual) in each other?
That isn't meant as an excuse for such creepy, if not straight up criminal, behavior.
But as somebody with some social issues of his own, I can relate quite a bit with not being able to properly interpret social and body cues.
To me, the vast majority of people are walking blackboxes where I have no clue how they would react to most actions of my own. Which boils down to me acting rather passively in most social situations out of fear I might break some unspoken rule, misinterpret the current mood in the room/between people.
Where did I suggest that's anything to go by?
But I can easily relate to a situation where signals are misinterpreted, which goes both ways: Missing out on advances by others because you don't realize them as such or you interpret them as such and fear of having it misinterpreted and as such don't act on them.
The last time I had "body contact" with a woman she literally had to rip my clothes off and throw me on her bed, even tho I wasn't comfortable with that situation at all and stated as much to her, that I'd rather not have intercourse on the first "date".
She didn't care and I was overwhelmed by that situation, only way out there would have been to handle her roughly. But she assumed I was at her place exactly for that, while I was at her place for exactly the reason we talked about: Seeing how much stuff she had because I wanted her to help with moving out. Sorry for not sticking with the old stereotype of "if a woman invited you over it's to have sex".
That wasn't pleasant at all, she supposedly didn't remember much of it due to being too drunk. I probably could push charges, if anybody would actually believe me, but to what end?
I'm only writing this to put context to my previous statement: People are complicated, social is complicated, for some among us even more so than for others.
In that regard, I find it really sad that we readily apply Hanlon's Razor to all kinds of problems but rarely, if ever, to social interactions.
The EEOC says the company is responsible for things that happen at company events and on the way to and from events. I'm not a lawyer but I hear lingering after the event qualifies.
> I'm not a lawyer but I hear lingering after the event qualifies.
That sounds so undefined, I wonder where the cut-off point is? Considering that co-workers can also be friends in private, so private social gatherings following up on company events are not really that rare of a thing.
There's a very good rule here: unless you have done action X on at least 3 occasions with a given person, ask them before you do it. "May I hug/kiss/grope/whatever you?"
If you've already done this on several occasions in the past, sure, use your discretion and interpret body language or subtle signs. Otherwise, ask. Period. No exceptions.
That isn't a very good standard to go by because many people don't instantly voice their concerns about behaviors making them uncomfortable, some even prefer to voice such concerns only to third parties when the "offender" is not around.
That's why you can end up repeating mistakes over and over again and annoy/intimidating people you don't even realize you are annoying/intimidating, even tho that wasn't your intention at all.
> use your discretion and interpret body language or subtle signs
Making it sound so simple disregards the fact that this isn't natural to everybody and it's not really an easy skill to learn when it's not natural to you, especially not on your own.
Sure you can ask about all the things that everybody else considers "normal", but do you really want to stick out even more as the "oddball" than you already feel for being insecure about such seemingly "normal" things?
That’s not even close to what I was getting at. If you are interested in someone there are a million non threatening, non aggressive ways to signal it. If it’s purely sexual the same applies. If the other person wants the same they will make it obvious.
In the context of the story about the man forcibly putting the woman’s hand on his crotch, there didn’t seem to be any precedent (from the story that was published) that would have indicated that she would want to touch him like that. If there was some conversation that happened where mutual interest was expressed and the conversation turned sexual, then if she wanted to touch him she would.
Grabbing another person and forcing their hand to your genitals is not okay. I don’t understand how that is ambiguous.
I have absolutely no idea why someone would think this is OK to do. Generally I can try to piece together how someone might rationalize their behavior but the best I can come up with on this one is: alcohol.