Inappropriate Work Colleague

[FragglesRock]

I'm a fairly longtime lurker here but first time poster. I'll try and keep it brief but I'd appreciate some advice.

I work with a group of mainly men and a few women, all of whom are older than me. I've been working there about two years now. Most of us get together socially from time to time, usually having a few drinks round somebody's house or in a pub after work or the odd day out. There's only 14 of us in the office so we all know each other.

So that happens as normal tonight. Gradually people leave and it's left with me and one of the men left, we're at his house because his wife and one-year-old child are away. Bearing in mind I was (am) sober, I think I've had two drinks which normally doesn't make a dent in me (I'm Irish, haha), and I'd never had any reason to distrust him in the past. I've met his wife, and he knows I have a partner but has never met him.

He started hitting on me, so I told him I had a partner and so did he. He then started to talk about how he's fancied me ever since he's met me and started trying to kiss me. I said I felt uncomfortable and wanted to leave. He tried to persuade me to stay over, tried to feel me up and then when I stood up to leave the house he hugged me and I could actually feel his erection. I left the house very quickly and walked the 20 minutes or so home feeling fairly shaken.

He's text me asking if I got home safe, and I replied to say I had, and he's text me again but I think I'm going to ignore that. He doesn't work Fridays so I won't see him tomorrow but I'll have to see him next week. I'm not really sure what to do about it.

Sorry it's long.

Oh stealth please don't...

Sorry but she came back and said she wasn't victim blaming and we were overreacting.

It seems it is finally sinking in what a prick he has been and the wanting to meet up is to sound you out threaten you maybe for what you are going to do.

Good luck today.

YOU did nothing wrong, don't foget that.

I know, I know, I'm just worried about it all kicking off again

stealth on another thread, at another time I would be happy to but the OP has said she feels intimidated by this thread so I think this is now not the place.

Mmm

I think, like anything many people who don't understand the concepts don't actually think they are doing something which has been pronounced to be bad. So there are certain misconceptions (not helped by MNHQ btw) about victim blaming - that it is only victim blaming to say directly "it was your fault". Although flora's first comment was about as close to a directly blaming comment as it could be it was phrased carefully as a question in order to avoid blaming the victim. It is a distinction which is not understood well here; the distinction between blaming the victim and victim blaming. MN confuse the two as well which actually doesn't help.

Mmm?

It is really the same as having "a viewpoint" about whether something is or isn't a sexual assault for the purposes of criminal law.

I find it odd that you are willing to allude something you are not willing to expand on. However I get the message. From both of you. This thread is for support and mild insinuations of wrong doing, not for challenging other poster's views. Let's keep it that way.

Op has said before she can't post in work hours. Hope the meeting with the boss is going ok op and that you come out of this with an outcome that you are comfortable with. However I am very concerned that he has asked you for a drink. If he really was horrified and regretful he'd surely be keeping contact to a minimum, and totally professional?

I don't know what this thread is for anymore tbh, I don't mean that from the OP's perspective but from MNHQ's... I don't understand what is required here... Supporting the op seems to be directly in conflict with actually challenging these things....

Offred I am not going to engage with you because I think you are working through some very difficult issues in your life. These are serious issues both from a personal and political perspective. I am not coming at this from "mahoosive ignorance" but rather from significant relevant experience even though my viewpoint may not reflect the current orthodoxy. I am happy to discuss this but I'm not comfortable discussing it with you if it is going to make you stay awake at night thinking about it (as you said on the other thread).

stealth I don't see how this is odd, the OP was very clear that she felt intimidated. I am very willing to expand on these issues but not here if the OP feels she cannot handle it.

Just spoken to him. He's completely normal with me, and I'd really just prefer to ignore each other for a bit. He's trying to be all nice and chatty.

Most of my colleagues think I'm feeling ill because I'm acting a bit weird. I'm due to speak to my boss at 11 then she's going to hopefully send me off site this afternoon to run errands basically. Going to make sure whoever's going with me is female.

Posting on MN on my phone in the loos, so classy.

Hope it goes well at 11.

Loook how badly it has affected you. He deserves everyting he gets.

Oh Fraggles hang on in there. I hope it goes well with your boss. He's got a bloody cheek hasn't he. Don't let him sweep it under the rug, he should be made to face the consequences.

Hope it all goes well with your manager Fraggles. Can see that there is more to this than it seemed from your earlier posts. Very weird of the guy to text and ask you out... don't delete any of his messages and do show them to your manager when you tell her about this.

I'm not actually going through anything difficult right now flora, thanks for your concern(!) I have been through some difficult times between 17 and 6 years ago.

I get that what you would like to believe and what you want others to believe is that I am unhinged and projecting. This kind of victim blaming that has happened on this thread is something I have experienced and it is a trigger for me feeling bad. It does not mean I am "going through a difficult time" as you put it. It equally does not mean the op needs to "get a grip" or be told to or that what happened to her is not a sexual assault. It is not irrational to be upset by what has happened here.

It is. It is irrelevant that she was the last one left. Being the first one to leave does not protect you from sexual assault.

Maybe I should be clear florafox, I'm studying law and I have experienced varying levels of sexual violence from age 11-21. I've dealt with it well, worked through issues well, have a happy and successful marriage and family and life generally. I'm not a quivering jibbering man hating abuse seeking wreck as you try to imply however nasty things have happened to me and being reminded of them and feeling useless to stop them makes me feel bad.

If you have "significant relevant experience" to qualify the "why were you the last one there?" and the "get a grip" please share it.

Offred, I looked at your other posts before I responded but I will take you at your word that you want to discuss this.

I am concerned that you are projecting your issues onto Fraggle and you may not understand the damage you could be doing.

By way of background, I have been practising as a lawyer for 15+ years. I have had a stint on criminal prosecution, mostly sexual offences, and it was very fucking harrowing, let me tell you. I ended up switching to a different field. My legal education included feminist perspectives on advanced criminal evidence which focussed very much on sexual offences. Also my mother founded our local Women's Aid and our home was the refuge for the first year while they were getting funded. In addition, I have my own experience of sexual assault. I will add your viewpoints to my education.

I'll tell you what bothers me in the current orthodoxy:

• infantilising women: we do not need the police in our bedrooms unless it is a very serious matter. We should encourage women to empower themselves and resolve their problems themselves as much as is possible. That is where we get empowered, not running to the police or HR when something unpleasant happens.
• unrealistic expectations: for example, telling women they can take their clothes off and get into bed with a man then change their mind and withdraw consent to sex and the law will be on their side. It doesn't matter what the statutes say, no matter how strongly you hold the view that a woman can withdraw consent at any time, a jury will not normally send a man to jail in these circumstances. If you want to try to change people's opinions, that's great, but in the meantime, don't tell young women they have a right to do this and the law will protect them. It won't.
• self-protection: we tell our kids that even though they have the right of way at a zebra crossing they must look both ways before crossing. We know that we should avoid rowdy crowds outside nightclubs. We know we should lock our car and house doors to prevent theft. But we are not allowed to talk about safety measures to avoid sexual offences because that is "victim blaming".
• women are not saints and an accused is innocent until proven guilty - although false or malicious reports may be small numbers, no-one knows whether a particular charge is false or malicious until the case is tried. If it was your son, you would want him to be innocent until proven guilty and for the proof to be beyond a reasonable doubt.
• the legal definition of sexual assault does not follow society's consensus. On the legal definition, most married women are assaulted on a regular basis. Every time your DH rubs your boob without asking first, initiates sex without asking first or asks "fancy a shag?" then tickles you into saying yes if you say you can't be arsed, that's a sexual assault. It is useful to have this definition because juries don't like to convict cases that are on the border but don't tell women whose situations are on the border that they have a clear cut case, especially if you don't actually have any relevant experience in the field.
• victim culture. For some situations, the best advice is to put it behind you, take a learning experience, move on. That may not be right always but it is valid advice.

The current situation is so hyper-charged that people working in the field cannot speak freely for fear of committing career suicide. I have no idea whether the DPP agrees with what I have said above but if he said any of that, he'd be out of a job.

Flora

infantilising women: we do not need the police in our bedrooms unless it is a very serious matter. We should encourage women to empower themselves and resolve their problems themselves as much as is possible. That is where we get empowered, not running to the police or HR when something unpleasant happens

Who decides whether it is a 'serious matter'?

How, exactly, should women 'empower themselves and resolve their problems'?

Their problems? Seriously?

'Running to the police' is a nasty term. Again, it's victim blaming.

Since when was sexual assault 'something unpleasant'.

If you worked in law I would not want you on my side. Sorry.

Why are you both discussing this when you seemed to agree this should not be on this thread? Very supportive.
Flora, FWIW your first post said to me "I don't believe you. It was your fault". "Taking care" is fine, but when we don't "take care" and we get raped, it is NOT our fault. If I don't take care, and hide my valuables in my car, and my phone gets stolen, it was not my fault, and the person who took it is a thief, not some poor person who was so overcome with desire for my orange juice-drenched HTC that they couldn't stop themselves just breaking my window a little bit - it's only a window - and taking what they damn well wanted.

oh and your version of empowerment seems to involve telling a woman that there are soem choices she should not make. No one has said the OP HAS to go to the police, just that the option is there should she choose to take it. Because she was sexually assaulted btw.

Was that to me Stealth? I haven't said it shouldn't be discussed, I think it was Offred. I've pretty much stayed out of it but couldn't ignore that post. I hope OP is able to ignore those sorts of comments.

Seriously I don't know how you can have taken your own opinion as an authority above so many institutions and even parliament or how you can misunderstand the law on sexual offences so badly. In order to be sexual assault the sexual attention needs to be unwanted. It is ok not to want sexual attention from a partner if you don't want it it is still assault as a first point. I don't understand what is bad about the idea that a partner should seek permission for groping and sex, sometimes the permission surrounding groping is an ongoing thing, sometimes conditions are set about it in relationships but random groping and entitlement to sex do not form an integral part of a relationship without discussion or permission.

Secondly, it is clear your yardstick is serious sexual offences which clearly is why you are impatient and dismissive about things which you don't see as serious in comparison.

I don't think you should be so smug about that comment given that the first thing you said was "why we're you the last one left?" that is not discussing safety, that is victim blaming.

There is nothing you can do to protect yourself from rape and sexual assault, doing any of the commonly repeated myths about short skirts, being alone, being drunk etc will not protect you because the only factor in the assault is being near to someone who will assault you and there is nothing you can do about that, you can never tell.