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When someone quickly walks by your desk, unless they happen to be a really big surrealist connoisseur, their first thought will not be 'oh, they're looking up M

When someone quickly walks by your desk, unless they happen to be a really big surrealist connoisseur, their first thought will not be 'oh, they're looking up Magritte's Olympia, how lovely'. The first thought of a casual co-worker would be 'oh, they're looking at nudity'. Yes, you can subsequently explain the issue during your meeting with HR, at which point you'll still be told to not view things that can be misinterpreted.

heavenlyblue 5y ago
This is only true for the US.
- oneeyedpigeon 5y ago
  Tbf, a reasonable proportion of this site's readers must be in the US. In fact, given the assumptions made to that effect that I see on here fairly often, it must be a pretty high proportion.
- splithalf 5y ago
  Truly curious, is there no concept of sexual harassment in Europe? Maybe Europeans are less pervy than Americans, like how they don’t have alcoholism or fat people?
  - ithinkso 5y ago
    The difference is the 'can be misinterpreted' part. It's an oil painting
  - dragonwriter 5y ago
    > Truly curious, is there no concept of sexual harassment in Europe? Even in the US, nude art is not per se sexual harassment. Most workplaces will ban (non-work-related) nude art as part of an effort to create a massive buffer space around potential liability (among other reasons that don’t rely on it necessarily being sexual harassment), in part because the US has an unusually pro-initiation-of-litigation legal system (for instance, having a very high bar beyond merely losing before the loser of litigation is ordered to pay the winners legal fees.) (There’s a weird sort of positive feedback loop where, despite distance from the law, people subjected to sexual harassment trainings in which employers, etc., imply that everything within the wide buffer space around liability that they are trying to create is “harassment” drives, if not the law, the public understanding of harassment, leading to pressure to expand the effective workplace definition further to create a buffer space around not only actual liability but the things people are likely to understand as harassment.)

heavenlyblue 5y ago

This is only true for the US.

oneeyedpigeon 5y ago
Tbf, a reasonable proportion of this site's readers must be in the US. In fact, given the assumptions made to that effect that I see on here fairly often, it must be a pretty high proportion.
splithalf 5y ago
Truly curious, is there no concept of sexual harassment in Europe? Maybe Europeans are less pervy than Americans, like how they don’t have alcoholism or fat people?
- ithinkso 5y ago
  The difference is the 'can be misinterpreted' part. It's an oil painting
- dragonwriter 5y ago
  > Truly curious, is there no concept of sexual harassment in Europe? Even in the US, nude art is not per se sexual harassment. Most workplaces will ban (non-work-related) nude art as part of an effort to create a massive buffer space around potential liability (among other reasons that don’t rely on it necessarily being sexual harassment), in part because the US has an unusually pro-initiation-of-litigation legal system (for instance, having a very high bar beyond merely losing before the loser of litigation is ordered to pay the winners legal fees.) (There’s a weird sort of positive feedback loop where, despite distance from the law, people subjected to sexual harassment trainings in which employers, etc., imply that everything within the wide buffer space around liability that they are trying to create is “harassment” drives, if not the law, the public understanding of harassment, leading to pressure to expand the effective workplace definition further to create a buffer space around not only actual liability but the things people are likely to understand as harassment.)