I was talking with Valerie (popcorn) on the walk yesterday and she 
mentioned to me the following occurence.  It seems that at one time 
whenever a new person logged onto M-net and identified themselves as 
female, that person would before long get a note from a certain male 
member of the M-net community.  The note was a paragraph which rarely 
varied and always ended with the line, "Do you like ice cream?"  In 
other words, it was a pick-up line, and a well-worn one.
   I bring this up because Valerie referred to the incident as
"harassment".  It was a loose usage of the term, in her words. I have read
enough of Valerie's opinions on Grex to respect them.  It being the case
though that harassment is a serious charge these days, I wondered if most
people agreed with that assessment.  If so, my mind is even more unsure of
what constitutes harassment than it was before.  How does one notice and
pay attention to someone without harassing them?  That's too broad a
question to answer easily, but can someone suggest some guidelines for
avoiding getting into a situation where someone feels harassed? 
   (BTW I did get Valerie's permission before quoting her.)

19 responses total.

With today's definitions you cannot.  Merely asking someone out is not
harassment.  Harassment is unwanted sexual advances, a date does NOT mean
sex.

This response has been erased.

Harassment is persistent and consistent verbal or physical overtures which
are clearly not wanted bu the harassee.  E.g. the person being harassed 
should make clear that he or she does not want the attention being given
(spell it out).  Then if the behavior persists, it becomes harassement.
Jason, harassment refers not only to sexual behavior but to all behavior.  For
example, you could harass someone verbally because you dont like their race
or sexual orientation or their politics.  I think Valerie was using harassment
in lieu of the word annoyances.  To me, harassment goes one step further.  If
someone called me once and asked me to chat and I said no, that would be an 
annoyance.  If they called me right back, it would be annoying persistence. If
I told them no, and they called back a third time, it would start to be
harassment.  

I dunno.  Your right of course about harassment, I was thinking of sexual
harassment alone.  When I go on these MUD's and see descriptions like "Hot
and Sexy" it makes me wonder if women just pretend not to like the attention.
I know some of it gets carried away.  I just think alotta women go way
overboard about yelling sexual harassment.  Like if any guy asks them out
they can say 1) yes, 2) no, or 3) its sexual harassment.  Blows my mind!

I'd consider the kind of interruptions Valerie described as annoyances. 
Harassment is something quite different.  It's intentional, usually
involves someone attempting to exert some type of power or control over
another, and by definition happens more than once. 

But women are using the term to their advantage.  By calling annoying
behavior harassment it gets the annoyer's attention real quick and sane
folks will backup ten feet, pronto.  Kinda like if a guy takes mutual
petting a little to far and instead of the woman saying, "Stop it, I don't
want that", she instead yells "Rape". Most guys would stop real quick and
consider themselves lucky not to have become more involved with someone
who communicates so badly. 

Not a good reason to ruin a guys life.

This response has been erased.

Still, word gets around quick.  You may not ruin his life but you could
damage his reputation.

My point is that women should choose their terms very carefully
and for a lot of reasons impacting both genders.  

I couldn't quite see how response #6 connected to my response so
I let it scroll by assuming it fit in somewhere, somehow.

I agree with your point completely.  What I was refering to in #6 was how
mentioned women would us the term harassment to scare off men.  That could
easily have detrimental effects to the guy, esp. if he was NOT harassing.
But I see that you understand the severity of it, so in those immortal words
I'll ....let it be.

I'm not sure harassment need necessarily be repeated or persistent,
depending on what it is.  That is, if it CLEARLY violates societal
norms (not the original example, but a boss walking up to an employee
with complete seriousness and saying, "So, you wanna fu** or what?")
can and should be viewed as harassment even if no sexual advancements
have been made before.

Harassment, obviosly need not be sexual, and sometimes it can be as simple as a
few comments. Basic ally it is unwanted attention, of any sort , that makes the
recipient  feel uncomfortable, and possiblely vulnerable. It especially become
serious
 if the initiator will not stop when they are told (preferable clearly) that
this attention is unwanted.
There a definately different degrees of harassment.  People will always,
have always been, able to say or do something that offend another person.
Minor , accidental harassment is not really a major problem, as long as 
a person stops when they are told or it become obvios the attention is unwanted
 It really seems like this whole problem has gotten blown so far out of
preportion that the people least likely to harass are now even a fraid  to say
almost anything.Meanwhile, the people likely to harass still don't get it.

Definitions:  FLirting:  He's cute and you'd like to get to know him better.
Asked out on a date:  You'd  enjoy spending some time with him.
Made a pass at you:  What a dufus/dog/lech; you don't like him at all.
Annoying:  He's asked you twice and you said no both times.
Harassment:  He's your boss.

So there can be no relations between a boss and an employee?  Me thinks 
not.  Harassment must also include an implied abuse of that boss 
relationship.  Surely, if bot h parties can let go of the relationship and
have sex with no strings attached (and such things ARE possible between 
mature adults), then it's not really harassment is it?]
Obvious harassment:  "Screw me or you won't get that promotion."

No, no paul, you missed the full content of #13.  simca indicated that the
whole process taking place (including the boss asking you out repeatedly
after you've said no) is harassment.  He/she did not say that there can be
no relationship at all between a boss and an employee.  When a boss makes
a clearly unwanted pass at an employee, it is harassment because of the
differential in power.

Oh.  O.k., just checking.  :)

While Audrey got my intent right (I interpret harassment as what happens
after you say no once), Paul is right, in guessing at my underlying 
thoughts:  Absolutely NO relationship between the boss and subordinate.
I've seen a lot of it and the possible scenarios are 90% bad.  Not
worth it to either party, in my opinion:
   ...relationships have to end or evolve sooner or later.  They 
generally end messy (how many people work and sleep together can part 
friends?)  Or they evolve into marriage...what do all the other 
subordinates see their role as?
   If the subordinate gets pissed off during the relationship, there is
always the cry of "harassment!" in reserve (boss has a lot at stake here).
If the other subordinates don't like their roles in the org, they can all
scream favoritism.
   How often does subordinate influence the boss  during pillow talk?
No, I've seen lots of (at best) awkward situations and strongly think
that boss-subordinate relationships should be off limits.

ps Audrey, I'm a she!  :)

I'll agree with all that, Simcha.  It's unfortunate, but true, that
sex is much abused in our culture.

so is icecream  :(

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