Monday, September 16, 2013

I was sexually harassedish -- maybe -- kinda

Once upon a job in a galaxy far far away...

Day 1: I was talking to a female employee in a different department, we're equals there and I was talking to her about something. As she left the office she slapped me on the ass as she walked by. I was like *hunh* That's odd. Then I thought, maybe it's a football team member thing like we're both on the same team and hooorah! or something right? Don't read too much into it.

Day 2: She's coming into work and I ask her how she's doing as I did everybody starting that shift and she put her hands up on my neck and she said, "Brrr... I'm cold. Cold hands warm heart!" I was like, "That's odd. But I've got a long-sleeved shirt on, that's probably the only skin showing. Don't read too much into this."

Day 3: I'm putting things on a lower shelf and someone walks up behind me and runs their fingers through my hair going backwards from neck to the top of my head, "Hey sexy." Now, I've watched a LOT of football and that almost never happens!

Now, I worked in retail for the adult industry (Read that as at a really big chain of dirty book stores lol) for almost 20 years. I've been hit on, flirted with, teased, and groped as both groper and gropee by porn stars. This lady is flirting way out of her league when she barked up this tree. She had no way of knowing that though. So, instead of being intimidated (There was no power disparity at all, we were equals.) or uncomfortable (Seriously, after having Jill Kelly's girls molest me & depants me in front of an audience it's going to take a lot more than hair ruffling to ruffle me & having a porn star scream my name and run across the floor at the LA Erotica show and hurl herself into my arms, yeah... hair ruffling isn't that big a deal.) But it was not exactly wanted really. It's easy to shrug off for all those reasons... but I'm gay. I was really not terribly interested in picking up what she was so obviously putting down.

So, maybe I was being sexually harassed. But maybe it's just flirting. In my opinion it's just flirting. I hadn't told her to stop. If she kept doing it after I'd told her to stop that'd be sexually harassment. There was no power disparity so there'd have been no repercussions if I had rebuffed her. So... can it be harassment if we're equals and before I told her no? Or no? The touching is all weird and a definite violation of personal space and all that. I'd never do it... but is that much contact a normal part of the flirting game? What do you think?

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