Sexual (Office) Politics - The Morass of Harassment, part one One doesn't need to be a scientist or even a well-read political commentator to have noticed the modern rise - and rampant abuse - of the concept of "sexual harassment." Movies have been made out of this social phenomenon, TV shows have exploited it for script fodder, the major media have gleefully made ratings hay out of it, and many promising careers (a certain Supreme Court justice, for instance) have been hindered, tarnished, compromised, or outright halted because of allegations of it. And as non-PC as this is to say, my conclusion is that the vast majority of sexual harassment cases and allegations aren't about victims' rights or even punishment of sexual predators - they're about workplace leverage, political power, or just plain revenge for a relationship that didn't work out. Sorry, but that's the way it is. For every legitimate victim that gets justice for a bona-fide case of sexual harassment, there are countless other "victims" on the other side of scale: Normal, decent folks who are just trying to couple up in one of the only forums in which they are exposed to members of the opposite sex: Work. Think about it. Where are adults most likely to meet? Only three places: School, work, and randomly in bars or at public social events. Most folks are out of school in their 20s, so that leaves only work and social events for the bulk of adulthood matchmaking. And until recently, people were making the most of their office time. Studies show that a third of all relationships begin at work… And according to 1998 data from the Society for Human Resource Management, 55% of these result in marriage - while even in these hyper-sensitive PC times, less than half as many (24%) result in charges of sexual harassment. To my way of thinking, this means that if we're worried about the continuation of our culture and our species, we should be ENCOURAGING workplace romances. Or at least not suing them out of existence! But all this is academic. What really tweaks me about charges of sexual harassment is this: It's only a crime if it doesn't end up a match made in heaven. No one prosecutes participants of successful couples who happened to meet at work - only those that end badly, or that never begin. In other words: If she (the "victim" in 99% of hetero cases - what man would claim to be one?) doesn't find him attractive, he's a criminal cad who's abusing his position the second he makes an honest overture toward her… However, if she DOES find him attractive and a relationship ensues, his advances are not considered illicit - until the relationship ends, at which point he can still be called on the carpet for his indiscretions! It's a no-win for the one who takes a chance on romance, unless things end in marriage. That's quite a gamble for men to take. Bottom line: The current political climate is throwing cold water on a huge amount of romance in this country. No wonder the bar culture is booming in America - along with rates of unwanted pregnancies and STDs. No wonder online dating is booming. No wonder the porn and prostitution businesses are booming… There are a lot of lonely folks out there who might not be if they weren't afraid of losing their jobs for asking Julie in accounting out on a date! My reasons for talking about this today are numerous: One, because nobody else is standing up for the real victims of today's sexual harassment policies: Men in the workplace… Second, and even more disturbingly, because the universe in which sexual harassment charges can be leveled is expanding far beyond what could conceivably involve consenting adults (or even the few that are coerced)… As you can probably guess, I've been building up to something with all this. You simply won't believe the details - get them in the next Daily Dose. | 
