Harassment

When I hear the stories of women (and girls) being harassed and abused by men, it sickens me. It reminds me of when the President said, “I don’t even wait. And when you’re a star they let you do it. You can do anything…Grab ’em by the pussy. You can do anything.” This is men (historically) with power, abusing women (historically) for their gratification, or more likely, for the purpose of subjugating them.

But as I pondered this topic, I was reminded of several occasions in my life when the shoe has been on the other foot.

The first was at a new home community, and while talking to a female homeowner, she laughed at something I said, and grabbed my wrist and pulled my hand to her crotch. I drew back and thought, “what the…?” She carried on with the conversation like nothing had happened. I later learned that there was spouse swapping going on in their neighborhood.

The second incident came at a job. I was new there and was waiting to give the payroll lady my tax information when a young, attractive, female co-worker from the office approached from behind, grabbed my waist, and rubbed her breasts on my back. I turned around, shocked, and she smiled with a ‘what, can’t you handle it?’ smirk, stroked my chin and strutted away. The payroll lady buried her head in her hands and shrugged.

Several years after that, I was at a company Christmas party. A woman in a position of power came up beside me and proceeded to rub her breasts on my arm several times as she made light party banter. I recoiled in surprise, but she did not seem to care. She smiled a knowing grim. I was not horrified, just really surprised. She was a young, attractive, married woman, and her husband, as well as my wife were both at the party.

Not long after that, we were at another Christmas party (is there a pattern here?), when a woman in a position of power walked up to me and rubbed her breasts on my arm in a manner eerily similar to the previous Christmas party breast rub. Once again, I recoiled, but nothing came of it. And once again, my wife and the perpetrator’s husband were at the party at the time.

The ‘grab my wrist and rub my hand on her crotch’ incident was blatant enough that anyone close by would have noticed. The Christmas party breast rubs were more subtle, but make no mistake, were intentional sexual actions, meant to illicit a response. The new job breast-rub was noticed, but nothing was made of it. I’m not sure if these were ‘come-ons’, power grabs, or just alcohol-fueled indiscretions. In any event, I was not in the market and not persuaded by their actions.

I have not been scarred by these incidents, but they were certainly surprising and somewhere between shocking and amusing at the time. In all four incidents, the perpetrator (that sounds so criminal) was in a position of relative power over me, but not a direct and consequential one. And maybe, that is the point. I did not feel threatened in any way, as a woman who was on the receiving end of such unwanted contact may have.

I cannot remember ever having perpetrated such actions against anyone. I do not think that it is selective amnesia. I would like to think that it is because I have had enough of a moral compass to not participate in such actions. I hope that is not that I was too shy or intimidated by women. or was not in enough of a power position to do so.

In conclusion, I am 0 and 4 on the grope versus being groped scoreboard (maybe I need a halftime pep talk…nah; it is a little late for that anyway). But, I am not scarred by my victim-hood. That is not to say that women are not more susceptible and vulnerable to such actions. Men and boys have more power with which to inflict sexual dominance. But I am saying that it happens both ways. And when men are the ‘victims’, they do not tend to make a big deal out of it.

Egregious actions like those of the alleged pedophile Senate candidate Roy Moore, Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein, and self-professed molester President Donald Trump are certainly worth ‘making a big deal out of’ . But maybe lessor infractions by men to women (or vice versa), like that of Senator Al Franken or those inflicted on me, could be viewed more as minor events, and not made a ‘big deal of’.