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This is not an excuse. Stop. Just stop. An acquaintance is not a coworker, period. It's not even a question. Most of the time an acquaintance is fully empowere

This is not an excuse. Stop. Just stop. An acquaintance is not a coworker, period. It's not even a question. Most of the time an acquaintance is fully empowered to tell you to fuck all the way off if you make an unwanted advance. And their life goes on as normal afterward. The equation is vastly different if people are coworkers, especially if there is any sort of difference in authority, seniority, connectedness, or anything whatsoever on the line (deals, employment, career advancement, mentoring, opportunities, etc.) Even something seemingly as banal as interactions between coworkers who are perfect peers with the same level of seniority and authority in a company and work under widely separated management structures is potentially problematic. Because of the pressure to "not cause a scene" or "not hurt anyone's feelings". As I said, it's not about not doing it, it's about being absolutely, positively ensuring that everyone is 100% fully empowered to respond to an advance with absolutely zero fear of any negative repercussions no matter how minor. Sure, many marriages are made between people who met through work, but many people already follow these rules, it's the people who don't that are the problem. Ask all of your female friends, if you have any, how many of them have been sexually harassed in some way at work. I don't have a single female friend who has not experienced it, because it's absolutely ubiquitous. That doesn't mean every guy in the workplace is doing it, it means that it continues to be tolerated and ignored enough in the workplace to make the few who do it be able to harass a huge number of people. It has to stop, and the way it stops is with changing the norms of what is expected behavior.

narrator 9y ago
I read a recent account on the net in a NSFW forum written by a woman who wanted to have casual sex with a co-worker on a business trip. She gave several very obvious hints to the guy she was interested in with no response. She finally had to resort to flashing her boobs at the guy to get him to acknowledge and fulfill her desires. Me personally, it would take that level of chutzpah from a female co-worker before I'd even consider and I still might be worried about the whole thing ending badly. Kind of funny where we're at with male/female relationship dynamics these days.
- gjjrfcbugxbhf 9y ago
  If the genders were reversed then that would be sexual harassment...
  - narrator 9y ago
    This is actually an interesting legal problem. How would two * willing * co-workers initiate casual sex on a business trip? Certainly this situation has cropped up before! Neither would want to risk their careers on making an unwanted advance toward the other! Presenting a coworker with a long legal document giving consent to be propositioned, signed with a notary present of course, wouldn't work. It would be sexual harassment to even present the contract for consideration! They would have to use something like Tinder where they could be both unaware of the others interest until both parties had signed the legal agreement consenting to be propositioned by the other. They would then be directed to do some sort of custom secret society hand sign in the others presence to verify that they had actually consented. The hand sign would be innocuous when seen by someone who hadn't actually signed the contract via the app and seen the secret hand sign the other would display to acknowledge they had signed the contract. The next billion dollar startup idea?! A cross between Linkedin, LegalZoom and Tinder. The idea would at least make for a hilarious episode of "The IT Crowd" or "Silicon Valley".
    - _pmf_ 9y ago
      > The next billion dollar startup idea?! A cross between Linkedin, LegalZoom and Tinder. Well, there has been this Slack app[0]. [0] https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2017/05/slack-doesnt-want-people-using-it-for-romance/525975/ https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2017/05/slack...
  - sundvor 9y ago
    How is that not sexual harassment? (Full stop).
  - marvin 9y ago
    Wow, I'm normally pretty sensitive to "this would look bad if the genders were reversed", but I missed this one even though it is absolutely ridiculous and should be obvious. "He gave several very obvious hints to the woman he was interested in with no response. He finally had to resort to flashing his muscled chest at the woman to get her to acknowledge and fulfill his desires."

narrator 9y ago

I read a recent account on the net in a NSFW forum written by a woman who wanted to have casual sex with a co-worker on a business trip. She gave several very obvious hints to the guy she was interested in with no response. She finally had to resort to flashing her boobs at the guy to get him to acknowledge and fulfill her desires. Me personally, it would take that level of chutzpah from a female co-worker before I'd even consider and I still might be worried about the whole thing ending badly. Kind of funny where we're at with male/female relationship dynamics these days.

gjjrfcbugxbhf 9y ago
If the genders were reversed then that would be sexual harassment...
- narrator 9y ago
  This is actually an interesting legal problem. How would two * willing * co-workers initiate casual sex on a business trip? Certainly this situation has cropped up before! Neither would want to risk their careers on making an unwanted advance toward the other! Presenting a coworker with a long legal document giving consent to be propositioned, signed with a notary present of course, wouldn't work. It would be sexual harassment to even present the contract for consideration! They would have to use something like Tinder where they could be both unaware of the others interest until both parties had signed the legal agreement consenting to be propositioned by the other. They would then be directed to do some sort of custom secret society hand sign in the others presence to verify that they had actually consented. The hand sign would be innocuous when seen by someone who hadn't actually signed the contract via the app and seen the secret hand sign the other would display to acknowledge they had signed the contract. The next billion dollar startup idea?! A cross between Linkedin, LegalZoom and Tinder. The idea would at least make for a hilarious episode of "The IT Crowd" or "Silicon Valley".
  - _pmf_ 9y ago
    > The next billion dollar startup idea?! A cross between Linkedin, LegalZoom and Tinder. Well, there has been this Slack app[0]. [0] https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2017/05/slack-doesnt-want-people-using-it-for-romance/525975/ https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2017/05/slack...
- sundvor 9y ago
  How is that not sexual harassment? (Full stop).
- marvin 9y ago
  Wow, I'm normally pretty sensitive to "this would look bad if the genders were reversed", but I missed this one even though it is absolutely ridiculous and should be obvious. "He gave several very obvious hints to the woman he was interested in with no response. He finally had to resort to flashing his muscled chest at the woman to get her to acknowledge and fulfill his desires."