Serious question, have you ever been sexually harassed at work?

[Connonym]

In the 80s it happened several times to me. Do you think the work place has really changed?

[bluethruandthru]

1. It's changed.

Sexual harassment at work was rampant in the 80s...at least where I worked. It's not tolerated now. Or...maybe no one wants to sexually harass me anymore! :cry:

[havocmom]

2. Left a decent job in the early 90s due to it.

Sentenced myself to several years of real struggle but would not put up with the shit that a couple gentlemen thought they were entitled to pull.

[ThomCat]

3. That depends. does anti-gay harassment count?

x(

[Connonym]

4. I think anything sexual that makes you uncomfortable counts n/t

[Left Is Write]

5. By today's definitions, I'd say probably yes.

Back then I was young and naive and occasionally flattered by the attention. I know better now.

[RebelOne]

6. I've been in the work force for a long, long time and was

constantly sexually harassed. Now that I am a lot older, they keep their hands and dirty thoughts off me.

[amitten]

7. Yes. I always put them in their places though.

It never happened more than once with the same person. I guess being a real bitch is kind of a turnoff! :P

[ForrestGump]

8. I guess, though I never really thought of it that way

A nurse -- blonde and very tall with a chest that would have seriously presented a real smothering hazard to anyone intimate with her -- took a liking to me, when I worked in a medical center, and not only told one of my colleagues (Leroy, who thought it was cool and wished it was about him...Leroy was ultra-smooth-and-cool, basically channeling Shaft, complete with the theme music, and we were quite a duo at times) exactly what she wanted to do with him but, one day when she had me in a room all alone, she told me to my face. This was after she'd been dropping not-so-subtle hints (and poses) for quite a while. She had an imaginative love life, by the sound of it, and her plans started with basically throwing me on a bed or on the floor and essentially attacking me, a thing she could have accomplished because she probably had more muscle mass than I did at that time and from memory I'd say she was maybe right around 6' tall. Xena, the Warrior Nurse, you know. The Nordic version.

I'd noticed -- as many others have expressed to me, and as is fairly regularly posted here -- that the frequency and overtness of romantic and sexual approaches by members of the opposite sex took off as soon as I got married (where the hell were these women when I was single?) and when she stood there very frankly telling me what she wanted to do with various parts of my body -- mostly one part, of course -- I found it very hard...um...difficult...not to just go with the flow in a "tell me more" way. But instead I surprised myself by cutting her off and telling her that I was married (she knew that, full well, and my wife worked at the same medical center), that I took that commitment seriously, and that I was very flattered but that I could not and would not consider being with her in any way, no matter that nobody would necessarily know. Not like me, at that time, to speak so curtly and openly, but it was an emergency. I meant it, too, though part of me (yes, you know which part) was undeniably disappointed in my resolve. She was always cold to me after that. No way I could've talked my way into her nurse's uniform, after that, I think, if I'd wanted to. And, given what transpired a decade later, its arguable that I should have borrowed Nike's slogan and just done it. But I couldn't, I wouldn't, and I won't act any differently in any future relationship. I passed the test but, sure, I always now and then idly wondered what it would have been like... :D

I don't know if sexual harassment is strictly defined only by an asymmetry in power or position (not that kind, you perverts) but she was higher on the medical center's food chain than I was, so an asymmetry existed with me the low man on the totem pole. And I felt uncomfortable around her or in her department ever after. It hardly scarred me, or cost me in my job, but it was uncomfortable.

I wonder where she is now? :-)

[jpgray]

9. I had my ass grabbed once, and was forcibly kissed another time

But I'm a guy and therefore a whore. So long as I don't initiate it and have no time to escape it I don't really care. But of course even though I didn't want this attention it was all done in fun and is probably not what you're talking about. Certainly my job was never at risk... though she may have said "it's your ass!"

[sniffa]

10. yes

it was not too pLeasant.

this was the mid-nineties.

[Midlodemocrat]

11. You promised not to tell!!

:cry:

J/K. And, I was harassed in the 80s. No fun. No fun at all.

[lizziegrace]

12. Yes

I was cornered in the stockroom at a restaurant by a cook. Back then, you got out of the situation and kept your mouth shut. I still get freaked when a man I don't know well gets too far into my personal space.

[lukasahero]

13. Yes

A few times by a few different guys. Most of the time they waited until we were the only ones left on the floor. This was in 1999 - 2001.

[idgiehkt]

14. I think so

I can think of three jobs where I was either innappropriately touched or something like that. Once, get this, by a female who was friends with some men that I had complained about because their behavior was harassing. She thought it was cute to try to provoke me by running her hands all over me whenever she was near my workspace. It was pretty upsetting because it felt like betrayal being that she was a woman and should have understood. I pretty much just ignored her. What she was trying to do was to get me to complain that she was harassing me as well so that it would invalidate my claims against the men there who were her friends. I liked her as a person but it was disappointing behavior. I never complained about her, though.

[judaspriestess]

15. yes, more than once

but just recently, about two months ago, I had a guy tell me "I made his dick hard" at work. Yes, I reported him.

[GalleryGod]

16. Sure. Back in the 70's

Back Then,we called it:"Your Female Boss Getting What She Wanted "

[Lethe]

17. yep, twice that i can remember

coworker grabbed my ass a few times....

one of my bosses did everything but proposition me with sex, and when she eventually found out i wasn't interested she was verbally abusive a few times


i am a guy btw, and these incidents didn't bother me much, except the inappropriate name calling

[Manifestor_of_Light]

18. yes in the 70s

I had an assistant district attorney corner me in my office at work and take it out of his pants. It was hard and he flashed it around like he was a proud four year old.

I was scared to death. He wanted me to "touch it". He committed indecent exposure at me. I should have gotten him fired but it was the late 70s We did not call it sexual harassment. We called it "stupid shit that horny men do to women at work".