HR rejected grievance I made against Colleague

It is hard to prove.
IME, don't share personal information about your cosmetic procedures with colleagues, keep your business to yourself and you won't receive a mocking response.

He was rude, but that is not sexual, why do you think it is sexual??

It is quite an accurate description of what you were having done...but rude, he shouldn't have said it.

It wasn’t his only comment. It’s part of a pattern of behaviour, tolerated by his colleagues and boss.

Yes I agree, it could be taken that way. But it would entirely depend on the tone he used when he said that. As a stand alone comment without a wink wink / nudge nudge, it's fairly inocccuous.

If you pump yourself up for something, you prepare yourself for it mentally, especially by telling yourself that you can succeed.

Definition of pumped-up from Collins Dictionary. Not ghastly at all. The wonderful thing about English is that it's so flexible.

I'm with all the posters who think that you can read 'having her lips pumped' several different ways, with the sexual connotation being quite far down the list. There has to be unambiguous evidence and this is very ambiguous. With a bit of luck he'll watch his behaviour from now on, but otherwise you'll need to wait for him to say something really unambiguously sexist and offensive.

Also agree with the posters who've said that no one can expect to get through office life or life generally without occasional offence. The price of freedom of speech is having to put up with people we don't like saying things we don't like.

We must move in different circles. People I know and associate with just don't talk like that.

I'm surprised that you think everyone does, especially as a significant number of posters also don't either.

How is ‘she’s getting her lips pumped’ maliciously sexual ? And is OP sure he didn’t say ‘plumped’ ? These laws were made to protect people at work from actual sexual harassment, not as a stick with which to beat colleagues you don’t like, or find irritating. The worst the man did was answer a question not directed at him. Maybe he has said inappropriate things to others but that’s up to them to report if/when he is being offensive. I wouldn’t have gone to HR with this, it smacks of over sensitivity and looking to be offended, and l think they made the right call.

There is a sexual connotation there. I can't believe so many people don't see it but given most people don't see it i guess that's how HR have taken it.

pumped/pump is common slang for sex e.g. pumped and dumped, she's getting pumped tonight, im gonna pump yer maw etc. There is no words for how cringe worthy this is. If anyone said that to you IRL you would run a mile.

lips as in fanny...

He sounds a bit too clever to get caught out crossing a line. I understand that after a lot of jokes this might have seemed wrong, depending on his delivery but I would a) not tell anyone about private procedures you're having and b) just ignore him.

What you've done is now possibly a mark against you in the HR books.

Surprised many people don’t see ir or make anything of it.

Because not everyone automatically thinks that way. I'm surprised you don't see that either TBH.

Clearly, everyone's minds work differently.

Just wondering, OP, what were you expecting to happen?
HR have investigated, they’ve spoken to him, he has explained himself (and has probably had a shock in realising how your mind has taken his words to a dark place).

He should be more careful with his words in future, especially around you, so you have a win-win situation.

Did you expect him to be “punished”, if it wasn’t meant in a sexual way? If so, you come across as vindictive and childish TBH, especially since so many others, me included, needed the sexual “nature” of the comment explaining.

Ugh what a creep. I hope the investigation means he will realise people are on to him even if he kept it just ambiguous enough to persuade HR

If is difficult to prove by HR but according to the other sexual comment he made to the other colleague this was certainly meant vaginal lips.

Surprised many people don’t see ir or make anything of it.

He is not sexually harassing you but these comments are rude and unnecessary.

I wouldn’t quit for it but it was certainly a malicious sexual comment and glad you complained to HR. Hopefully he will stop; otherwise keep pulling him on these sort of comments

me neither she literally was getting her lips pumped....

I saw nothing wrong with that comment either, so I’m with HR on this one. I don’t think that was sexual harassment.

And it was a bit of an over reaction to raise a grievance about it, let alone try and move teams! If it really is a common thing and he does make actually inappropriate comments on a regular basis then I’d understand it, but I also honestly think people go through life choosing to find things to be offended about these days, and I don’t really understand why…

Exactly.

The KGB would have wet themselves over such a piece of legislation.

It literally means ANYTHING can be twisted to mean sexual harassment.

Had a look at ACAS.

'To be sexual harassment, the unwanted behaviour must have either:

violated someone's dignity
created an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment for someone
It can be sexual harassment if the behaviour:

has one of these effects even if it was not intended'

That seems a wide net. Someone can unintentionally create an 'offensive' environment and get done for harassment.

Somewhere, some men's rights group will be quoting this as an example of why you should never talk to women in the workplace.

No, there is a sign outside a beauty therapist in town that quite literally says "get your pump". It is referring to a lip filler discount.

The man said NOTHING wrong.

Legislation makes it very clear that intent isn’t necessary for sexual harassment to exist

Is this true?

Nope, YOU are.the one making the connection to genitalia.

YOU are the one being inappropriate.

Wow!

How toxic are you!

So you think that women who get lip filler are doing it for some sexual reason?

How can you possibly conclude that giving a description of her procedure is somehow sexual?

The OP was getting her lips pumped up with filler.

People go to gym to "get pumped".

I'm afraid if I had any of these obvious procedures intended to make myself sexually alluring, like a boob job, lip filler etc, then the comments would have to be more dodgy than that to cause me to create problems for a colleague with HR. I would feel I had moved the context somewhat and would have to accept that others might also change how they viewed or responded to me.