By defining sexual harrassment as you have, you've taken away the ability to describe the sort of menacing "unless you put out, I'll do damage to your career" that some people experience.
It's as if you've defined "capital offense" so broadly that brushing up against someone in a crowd situation is equivalent to brutal assault leading to death.
Sexual harrassment, in my own lexicon, is defined as sexual advances made in such a way that the advance is designed to be nearly impossible to turn down without harm to the object of the advance.
Now, you can argue that it's a sort of Schroedinger's situation, where asking at all changes the relationship, and saying "no" does affect the course of the relationship. But that's not the same as "if you don't say 'yes', I'll ruin your life".
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Date: 2004-03-25 05:51 pm (UTC)It's as if you've defined "capital offense" so broadly that brushing up against someone in a crowd situation is equivalent to brutal assault leading to death.
Sexual harrassment, in my own lexicon, is defined as sexual advances made in such a way that the advance is designed to be nearly impossible to turn down without harm to the object of the advance.
Now, you can argue that it's a sort of Schroedinger's situation, where asking at all changes the relationship, and saying "no" does affect the course of the relationship. But that's not the same as "if you don't say 'yes', I'll ruin your life".