ruby sparks
Contributor
Well, in principle, sexual harassment can be verbal, or even totally silent*, yeah? I might have said or done non-tactile things which felt to the other person like I was harassing them. I'm not saying I did, but you don't always know when you've caused offence.
* A man could overtly stare at a woman's breasts across a dinner table, for example.
The scenario I was describing was him on a night out, without a prior date, and him going around trying it on with a sequence of women. Knowing him, I'd guess he wasn't always put off at the first attempt, and he probably indulged in some of the usual flirting techniques, such as positioning his body in close proximity, or touching an arm or whatever.
Bear in mind that here I am trying to examine the grey areas, not the more clear cut areas. Or to put it another way, the situations that 'ordinary people' have to negotiate on a day to day basis in their interactions with others. Interpersonal sexual politics if you like, and how that relates to the possibility of harassment and assault.
Did you watch that Carol Tavris video? I thought it had a lot of interesting and relevant things to say on the issue, about confirmation bias and self-justification and miscommunications for example. Also that some research shows that women sometimes say no when they don't necessarily mean it. Controversial? Possibly. But in a social context, part of the picture. A woman, for social/cultural reasons that still unfortunately pertain in a lot of places, may put up a token defence rather than be seen to be a pushover and by extension possibly a slut. Guy knows about this possibility and doesn't give up. We are starting to get the ingredients for miscommunication. If both are drunk it's potentially worse. If both are drunk in the privacy of a bedroom it's potentially even worse again.
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