I read the news today oh boy! Page 1,419

Quote: sootyj @ 22nd January 2014, 10:47 AM GMT

Well if it's someone doing it out of a sense of power and authority over someone else.

Then that's a whole other area of what frankly is assault.

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Well yes, but there is power and there is abuse of power, and the lines are blurred. Many women are attracted to powerful men, and welcome advances from them. Doctors marry nurses, and bosses marry secretaries. You cannot legislate to criminalise sexual attraction in the work place. Should an unwelcome sexual advance from someone in a position of authority be in itself an offence?

Surely it should be necessary to be able to demonstrate either that a) the advances persisted beyond the point where it was made clear that they were unwelcome, and b) that the refusal of the advance resulted in negative consequences.

In some of the DLT incidents it does not seem that the women made clear that the advances were unwelcome, apparently because they were concerned, rightly or wrongly that this might result in negative consequences. That is where the world has moved on; if this happened to day the women would be far more comfortable standing up for themselves. But back then deluded old DLT may have been genuinely oblivious of the offence he was causing.

There are obvious wrong-uns, and I have no real view on which side of that line DLT stands, but I suspect the more prevalent issue is middle-aged manchildren refusing to grow up, and persisting in an outdated self-image that leads them into the delusional belief that they are still attractive to women half their age.

If its unwelcome then yes obviously

Maybe you get a one off hands off warning

But honestly just take the sex off of sexual assault and hear how it sounds

Quote: sootyj @ 22nd January 2014, 12:25 PM GMT

But honestly just take the sex off of sexual assault and hear how it sounds

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Ual Assault.

Quote: sootyj @ 22nd January 2014, 12:25 PM GMT

If its unwelcome then yes obviously

Maybe you get a one off hands off warning

But honestly just take the sex off of sexual assault and hear how it sounds

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But remove the sex and just touching someone isn't an assault!

I mean supposing the thuggish new work experience chap punched you on the nose, or your office manager whacked you in the back of the neck with a box file.
And the HR lady said, oh it's just assault, everyone has to put up with it, it's because they like you.

And then kicked you in the bollocks.

Quote: Matthew Stott @ 22nd January 2014, 12:35 PM GMT

Ural Assault.

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You'd sexually harrass a whole region of Russia full of bears and violent, drunken hard men.

I don't know whether to be horrified or admiring.

Quote: sootyj @ 22nd January 2014, 1:21 PM GMT

You'd sexually harrass a whole region of Russia full of bears and violent, drunken hard men.

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Harasstroika

The men's restroom cubicles in the Winter Olympic venue of Sochi have got a pair of toilets side by side.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-25830617

This has immediately sparked a Twitter storm. 'I couldn't give two shits', 'that's what I call two-bog-aning' and 'if I want to sit next to a foreigner having a shit, I'd get a night bus' quipped desperate stand up comic Gary Nobody, quickly adding 'please follow me on Twitter' and 'I'm performing at the Lewisham Chuckle Hut on Friday, tickets only £4'.

Hey Gary Nobody is really good, I just stumbled across his podcast

www.shitpodcast.com

nb how did they manage to blow 50 billion bucks on the olympics?

Dunno why, but seeing a pair of toilets made me think of New Years Eve:

Quote: sootyj @ 22nd January 2014, 1:21 PM GMT

I mean supposing the thuggish new work experience chap punched you on the nose, or your office manager whacked you in the back of the neck with a box file.
And the HR lady said, oh it's just assault, everyone has to put up with it, it's because they like you.

And then kicked you in the bollocks.

View original

The difference is that I doubt I am ever going to welcome a punch in the face, whereas there are circumstances in which I might appreciate being touched on the bottom.

As it happens, have been touched up by a female manager; I explained that I was flattered but not interested, and the matter ended there.

If she had done it again, or she had been trying it on with all the boys, or she had suddenly started giving me a hard time, that would have been different, obviously.

But as it was, it was no a big deal, and I would have been a total tosser to have made a complaint.

Do you have a job or did you wonder onto the set of a Confessions film in the 1970s and never left

In most offices people are going at it like rabbits.

most the ones I worked at like Rabbis

but theres nothing wrong for meeting a colleague for a drink after hours, or I dunno snogging someone you're dating

what you're suggesting seems a little closer to what gets you a black eye off a bouncer with sensitivity training these days

Tursiops, your argument is sounding a bit 'but some women like it when some men do sex on them, so surely it's okay for any man to do sex on any woman'.
Which is obviously thoroughly mental, I'm sure you'd agree!

Anyway, sooty's got my opinion covered on this thread, so I don't know why I'm piping up really.

I must admit it is not like the old days. Back when I first joined, the civil service was pretty much Sodom and Gomorrah; it is all much more politically correct these days. Besides, downsizing means that we have not had a recruitment exercise in over a decade, so the average age is about on a par with the House of Lords; frisky we are not.