I was reading a story on Reddit and the situation was explained between 18 year old male and female siblings going at it. The brother overheard his sister talking about getting breast implants. The brother started teasing his sister about having small breasts. Like siblings are wont to do he pounded this into the ground.
The question is is a brother teasing his sister about breast size sexual harassment?
In my day, sexual harassment required that role power be involved. As in a direct supervisor using their role power to imply or convey negative consequence if the harassed did not comply. Is tat still a thing?
Yes, the example cited is verbal abuse and creating a hostile environment, but I voted no based on the definition above.
That was my feeling as well but a lot of people thought differently so I wanted to see what the expectation is.
Honestly I have a hard time separating it from any other type of adolescent sibling taunting and teasing.
Power was definitely a key component of sexual harassment when it first came into wider usage. I don’t necessary know if that is how most people use it today. I am basically trying to check myself.
At my work “any unwelcome advance” is part of the definition. So of course people are like, how do you know if it’s welcome or not without trying. And the answer is that it’s much safer to not try. Obviously, that kind of definition can only apply to the workplace.
I don’t recall ever insulting my sisters about physical appearance. Guess something like that never entered my mind.
I’m pretty far removed from fighting with my siblings but it’d normally be about how clumsy they are if they fell or something like that. But I got just as much as I gave. We kinda grew up heckling each other.
If she got really upset about it and repeatedly told him to stop yet he kept going, it could be harassment. If she acknowledged that it was a part of typical brother/sister teasing it wouldn’t be.
Interpretation and perception are the key aspects here more so than the technical details.
Yeah I continue to think society needs to do a much better job changing this dynamic. It’s a two sided street, men need to make the first few changes (and they need to be significant), but women need to adjust to those changes so that a new dynamic works. Like it’s common for both genders to be coy or playful as a natural form of flirtation, but that leads to persistence. In a romcom that’s cute, in real life if a guy can’t read the situation (and let’s be fair it’s not easy with emotions involved), it’s sexual harassment.
Grown ups should be able to have the following conversation:
Guy: Hey Jane, I think you’re pretty cool and I’d like to get to know you better. Would you like to go out sometime?
Girl: No, I’m sorry Joe, you’re a good guy and all but I’m just not interested like that.
Guy: OK, no worries, I understand. Nothing ventured nothing gained, right? Hey did you see that accidental reply all Jack sent? Crazy, right?
But that involves a significant change in how these interactions go and what expectations are. It’d be helpful to train kids not to take “no” as a personal rejection, and to teach them healthy ways to react. This would free up women to be more direct without fearing a threatening situation from an angry man. Also the dynamic probably works best if physical compliments are considered a no-no until a date has been accepted.
But obviously we’re a million miles from there.
I think if we worked in a normal workplace and was really fond of someone, my play would be:
“Hey Jane, I don’t want to make this weird so I’m only going to ask once. But I think you’re pretty cool and I enjoy our chats, so I’d like to get to know you better, would you like to go out sometime?”
Then be ready with a new topic to smooth over a no by immediately moving on to some friendly topic like sports or tv or whatever. So if she says no, I can shift quickly and demonstrate that a normal dynamic will be a-okay and nobody needs to feel uncomfortable going forward.
I guess one of the problems in society is that saying “Well cuse can do that respectfully so it should be considered okay,” is like saying “I can blow a .12 on a blood alcohol test and drive safely, thus the legal limit should be .13.”
And that’s assuming women would agree I did it safely. I could be wrong about that.
No, that definition is everywhere. The majority of attempts to get laid amount to harassment. This is one of the reasons I put ~zero effort into getting laid. A lot of dating advice 20 years ago was to keep trying and put yourself out there as though it’s a freeroll, but it’s not.
Of course it’s not. There is absolutely nothing wrong or illegal about asking a person out, even if you get turned down, i.e. - it turned out to be unwelcome.