Sexual harassment

You'll miss it when it's gone

by Kris Frieswick

At my first job after college, my male co-workers sexually harassed me. Matt, Dave, and Richard told rude, offensive jokes, made lascivious comments about how I was dressed, commented on my weight loss or gain, joked about my various body parts, and asked me personal questions about my sex life.

God, how I miss those guys.

Matt, Dave, Richard, and I bonded -- I mean bonded -- thanks to the glue of sexual harassment. We were a bunch of young, frisky wise guys, and we enjoyed nothing more than attacking each other with our hormonally charged wits. As confident people and professional peers, we didn't get freaked out or threatened by these verbal jousts. Perhaps another woman would not have enjoyed it as much as I did, but in my opinion, we practiced safe sexual harassment at its finest. Even after all these years, I consider those days among the happiest in my life.

Unfortunately, sexual harassment has been given a bad name by a few rotten apples who think it's okay to play these reindeer games with people whose paychecks they sign or with whom they are not friends. For the record, this is not okay -- it's illegal. What is okay, however, is for people who like and trust each other to say completely disgusting, inappropriate, and sexually oriented things to one another in the workplace. For many, it is the most interesting part of the day.

Perhaps I should say used to be the most interesting part. Yet again, society has gone and thrown the baby out with the bath water. A plethora of increasingly restrictive sexual-harassment laws, corporate policies, and anti-harassment initiatives has created what I call "the fear." The fear is the look that a male co-worker gets on his face when a tantalizing straight line has been lobbed directly at him (Say, Bill, have you seen my form?) and he is rendered speechless by the knowledge that if he utters the extremely funny thing that has popped into his head, he could lose his career, his family, and his reputation. Fear of lawsuits has created an environment in which I could walk into work buck-ass naked and no one would say a word. My workplace and millions of workplaces around the country have been bled of life, vitality, joie de vivre, the pulsating sexual tension, the double entendres, the dirty dozens, the Hepburn, the Tracy, the snappy, edgy repartee that made America great. Today's workplaces (except, apparently, certain state agencies that will remain nameless) have become bland, passionless places where workers are legally denied their basic human right to get jiggy with each other on the job (in a strictly verbal sense, of course). The result? An American work force that looks nervously around the conference room whenever someone uses the word abreast.

One local company is so concerned with its employees' jigginess that it recently held a mandatory sexual-harassment workshop. A three-tiered sexual-appropriateness scale was unveiled: green-light comments or actions -- such as holding open a door or saying hello -- were deemed acceptable. (Gee, thanks.) Yellow-light actions (which, I assume, include such potentially dangerous statements as "You look nice today" and "Excuse me, miss, but I think you've accidentally tucked the hem of your dress into your underwear") are cause for reprimand. Red-light actions or comments -- which describe the bulk of the conversations between my former co-workers and myself -- can get you fired, as will the national pastime of e-mailing dirty jokes.

Thanks to mindless, one-size-fits-all rules such as these, a new generation of American workers will never know what it's like to watch a strategy meeting devolve into a game of "weirdest place I've ever done it." They will never enjoy the camaraderie of planning a practical joke involving a blow-up doll. They will never feel the love that comes from an office-party birthday cake shaped like male genitalia with the words Another birthday? Cum on! written in chocolate frosting. These laws are based on the ludicrous misconception that we can and should check our sexual selves at the door when we walk into the office. These laws perpetuate the mantra for the new millennium: Sex is bad. Be afraid of sex. Sexual-harassment laws, while protecting men and women from malicious, unwanted sexual advances and job-related retaliation, also prevent employees from forming the bonds of friendship that only a daily dose of sexual tension, vulgar conversation, and bawdy verbal taunting can create.

In fact, a sexually charged workplace has many positive qualities, qualities that have been overlooked by legislators (who are too busy inventing new forms of sexual harassment) and human-resources directors (who are too busy devising punishments for people who use the word "engorged" indiscriminately). For instance, a department that allows safe sexual harassment is a conflict-free department -- no one wants to piss anyone else off because they all know too much about each other. Engaging in lewd and witty repartee hones one's conversational skills and ability to think quickly on one's feet. Morale improves and attendance is higher because workers are actually having a good time. A recent article by sex columnist Susie Bright in Utne Reader even proffers the notion that creativity stems from sexual tension. So, to recap, a sexually tense workplace isn't just good for me -- it's good for
America.

But not everyone enjoys this type of banter, and some are even offended by it. I encourage them to not participate, but to please not spoil it for the rest of us. Although some protections are absolutely necessary, can't we at least implement them in a reasonable, fair, and commonsense way? Can't we all just lighten the hell up a little?

I'm afraid it may be too late. Just the other day, our young IT administrator nearly threw up on his shoes when I mentioned that I wanted him to strip me down because I wasn't fast enough -- referring, of course, to my computer's hard drive. Back in the day, that one comment would have launched a half-hour of wicked, ribald fun. Instead, the young man just mumbled something incoherent and walked quickly out of the room. I recognized the look on his face. It was the fear.

He hasn't come near my office in a week.

Kris Frieswick is a finance-magazine editor and writer living in Newton. She can be reached at krisf1@gte.net.