Frankly, it never occurred to me that I could be accused of sexual harassment, probably in the same way that my dad couldn’t understand why his secretary was displeased when he kissed her in the office stairwell during an earthquake. To me, the difference is that he operates in a creepy and delusional way, whereas my requests (plural, mind you) to “move that box…AND TAKE OFF YOUR SHIRT!” were simply, awesomely, hilarious. I have recounted my favorite work-stories to friends and family, and it took a good ten years before someone spoke up and told me that I was lucky that no one ever filed a complaint.
Why would John have complained that I asked him to take off his shirt and move a box?
See? I still don’t get it. Which, goddamnit, is also just like how my father still doesn’t get it, despite the revolving door of his female office staff.
But, shouldn’t this be something in which everyone is well-versed? Annual sexual- harassment training is a requisite for all jobs. We’ve all seen the cheaply made video of a poorly constructed office setting with doors that lack hardware, and curly-haired women in neutral-colored clothing fighting off unwanted touching (which basically describes all of your basic porn. NOT HELPING, PEOPLE!). But still, here we are, two smart people (me and my dad), who struggle with this concept.
Then, in the training video, there’s always this (supposedly) ambiguous exchange between coworkers, and even in those examples, it is totally obvious that the interaction is STILL SEXUAL HARASSMENT. And yet, this seems to be where I get tripped up, this “hostile” and/or “offensive” work environment type of sexual harassment.
This chick was asking for it.
Let’s start with Leah and the many ways in which I, her supervisor, was wildly inappropriate with her:
- The first time Leah invited me to join her and her girlfriend for happy hour, I asked if they would be “finger-banging” in the booth. This was via instant message, in the office, across the room. I saw her bury her head in her hands, red hair cascading (dear god, her hair actually CASCADES) down like curtains, blocking me out. I think I neatly sidestepped a lawsuit by then singing the South Park song “FingerBang” to her, as way of explaining my comment.
- Our first rape-joke: I compared something mundane and work-related to being ass-raped, to which Leah told me that someone close to her was raped, but (in a hurried way to avoid hurting my feelings), it’s okay! We can still joke! Which sounded fair to me.
- Twitter had just become a ‘thing,’ and Leah suggested I set up an account. With my follower of one, I began reporting on how my new panties which I just bought at Target felt so dirty and cheap in a kind of poor farm girl wearing scuffed white shoes but still feeling fancy kind-of-way.
- Sitting too close during photo-time during a party at her place, which was preceded by me drunkenly “trying out” her bed.
I just want to add, though, that this relationship (which mirrors the complicated and thinly-veiled-homeosexual relationships found in an EM Forester novel), was consensual. To wit: for a housewarming gift last year, Leah sent me a couple of dollar-store picture frames (one of which is cracked, which seems awfully suggestive, at least to me), with the “notification of release” into her neighborhood of a level-three sex offender, and his picture. “For your guest bathroom,” Leah says.
Sigh. Such a special friendship.
In my current job, I have the pleasure of being able to rework some family of origin issues by playing out the relationship between me and mom with my co-worker, Lily. Lily is my mom’s age, and I am Lily’s daughter’s age. We enjoy each other’s company, and we push each other’s buttons. When I think of Lily, I think of the “how many Jewish mothers does it take to change a lightbulb?” joke (“don’t mind me; I’ll just sit here in the dark”). With her large, soft bottom and even softer sweaters, Lily flaps her hands dismissively in the general direction of whomever has just offended her, her voice fluttering, “Don’t mind me; I’m just an old lezzie. What do I know?”
Indeed. What does Lily know? Well, she knows a lot about breasts. And collapsed cervixes (I feel like autocorrect should be kicking in right now… cervicae? Cervices?) with rust-proof iron mesh slings or some such thing, but not because she has one, mind you (then why do I know that she knows about this? Because there’s a group of ladies who I have coffee with everyday, including Lily, and eventually someone is going to mention “prolapsed uterus.” Trust me, it is bound to happen). But more importantly to this story, she knows breasts.
Part of our job involves auditing local treatment facilities. Lily and myself were in the midst of one such audit, tucked away in a back office. I was tired, dragging for days, and that morning I found a lump in my armpit. Naturally fearing the worst, I would duck into the bathroom sporadically to feel the lump (further antagonizing it). Lily finally asked what I was up to. I told her about the lump, and about feeling so crappy for so long (practically a week!).
“You probably have breast cancer.”
Obviously, this occurred to me over and over and over. I have been prepared for this diagnosis for years, having watched Terms of Endearment repeatedly from an inappropriately young age (“I know you love me, Teddy!”). So it wasn’t that, because I was already thinking that. But it was her cavalier way of saying it, not even looking up from the file she was reviewing, just saying out loud what I feared the most. I went into the bathroom and cried. When I returned, a third co-worker, Don, had joined us, just returning from coffee or some such bullshit excuse to leave the room for awhile. So, there he is, glancing up at me as I walk through the door, and he does a Danny Thomas spit-take (god, I wish!) when he notices my tears.
“Lily told me I have breast cancer.”
Don, wide eyed, now looks at Lily.
Lily: “Well, I just wanted her to be realistic.”
Me, still standing, slightly behind Lily, eyebrows raised at Don, like, Can you believe this shit? “Because there’s a lump in my armpit.” I clarify.
Don looks to me, looks to Lily, then looks back to the file, then his notes, blushing, adjusting uncomfortably in the crappy fold-up chair, in what I think is safe to assume was his way of hiding from the concept that is BREAST.
BREAST. COWORKER. SHIT.
Is it fair to mock him, though? Because maybe the smart person runs from any hint of anything that could potentially, possibly, perhaps, be sexual harassment. Not that I think Lily was sexually harassing me, but it’s this kind of thing that crops up with me repeatedly. Was it only a month ago that Lily allowed a tableful of women to touch her breasts over our morning lattes in Diva Espresso? She just had breast-reduction surgery, and the temporary outcome was the horrible solidifying of what remained of her breasts. I ask you, how can anything done over a latte with an old lezzie be sexual harassment?
Can you now understand why sexual harassment is so muddy for me? Because, boom, proof, I’m not always the perpetrator (is it wrong to be relieved to know how rampant sexual harassment is in the workplace because it frees me from any accountability?). I understand the big ideas, what’s right and what’s wrong. I worked at a halfway house for awhile, which is part of the federal penitentiary, and I had no problem ratting out my friend and co-worker for HAVING SEX WITH AN INMATE, even though it meant that she could lose her job (she did), do jail time (the power differential means it’s considered rape), lose her career (maybe she should have taken an ethics class when she studied criminal justice?), and her pride (this is a good story. Let’s explore this later). So, I guess I’m saying that, sure, maybe the issue is that I’m the common denominator, and maybe it’s because our family is so loosey-goosey with the sex-talk at the family dinner table (“Girls, do you know what a transvestite is?”). Or maybe part of it is that it’s not sexual harassment, per se, but more of an aura I give off, a comfort that tells people, this is a safe place to dialogue about sex.
Come, sit, have a latte, and tell me about your most recent gynecological exam.