Getting the skeevy-jeevies

I’m proud to announce that sexual harassment is alive and well. On a business trip to a conference a few months ago, I experienced an attack of the skeevy-jeevies (this is what I call getting grossed out by shady pervs). Earlier in the day, the Perp was perfectly professional when he had met during a conference luncheon. That night, though, there was a party a-goin’ on to close the conference, and all of a sudden, just cuz there’s salsa dancing and drinking involved, it suddenly becomes okay to try and touch my hair. Being a polite person, I gave him the psychological stiff-arm (i.e—dirty looks and maneuvering out of his grasp) instead of doing what I really wanted to do—break every finger on his hand and laugh menacingly as I relished in his pain, much like the hired leg-breaking mafia thugs you see in the movies.

I know my Pantene-commercial-worthy locks are irresistible, but that doesn’t make it okay for the Perp to try and run his skeevy hands through them. And by no means did I give off any signals; in fact, I’m quite known for my invisible force-field superpowers that keep men at bay. I had an early flight the next morning, but decided to stay awake and pack instead of going to bed right away to burn off a lot of the feminist rage I had that night. I was especially mad at myself for letting him off easy. (He did try to convince my colleages to grab a beer with him when we got back to the hotel, but left us alone when they refused. In the hotel elevator, my friends asked me jokingly if I wanted to grab a beer with him. I told them only if I could shove the beer up his ass. Too bad I didn’t actually get to do it.)

Even though it’s the twenty-first century, and even though there’s more finger-wagging toward sexual harassment than in the past (I’m convinced it’s still hardly more than finger-wagging) one thing hasn’t changed—women are still hesitant to do say what we really want to when it does happen, especially in a business situation. This episode made me think of other instances of sexual harassment I’ve heard, which were so shocking to me that I could barely believe that they happened. For instance, my friend who works at a law firm said that at some company social event, she was standing in line for the women’s room, sucking on a lollipop, when one of the older lawyers took the lollipop out of her mouth, sucked on it, then proceed to stick it back in her mouth. And one time my boss told me that at some dinner at another conference (where there was a lot of alcohol involved, as usually happens in these instances) someone proceeded to tell her while piss drunk that he wanted to "push her down in the grass and take advantage of her," or some such nonsense. In both instances, the women told me they were in such states of shock they didn’t quite know what to make of the situations, and ended up not saying anything.

I don’t consider myself one who necessarily needs to shout about social justice and women’s lib, but I find it hard to swallow that none of us could say what we really wanted to: "Get your paws off me, you dirty, stinkin’ animal."

A few things did sort of interest me about this whole incident, however. 1) Apparently, at this conference, there are a lot of hook-ups, in which otherwise married folks pretend they aren’t married once a year in order to liaise with their conference lovers, so I think this guy was looking for a recurring hook-up; 2) most of the attendees weren’t American, and I think the definition of sexual harassment is more liberal in other parts of the world than in America—or maybe they just really don’t care. Maybe they see it as more of a personal choice: If you’re interested, don’t let work stop you from getting lucky; if you aren’t, you have all the right in the world to say: "Get your paws off me, you dirty, stinkin’ animal," and 3) some guys are really clueless; they probably think that your efforts to dodge their affections with the deft of an all-star running back means that you really want to be chased harder. Or maybe they just don’t care.

Too bad we can’t do what we used to do on the playground—kick boys in the nuts when they got on our nerves.