I have some questions.

How do you define the difference between sexual harrassment and 'just being friendly'?

Are boys harrassed by girls as much as girls are by boys?

Is it possible to be sexually harrassed when somebody hasn't even touched you?
Example: a boy once whispered that he was going to stick his **** in my ear, and it made me feel terrible, does THAT count as sexual harrassment, despite him not even touching me?

What counts as sexual harrassment? Is it a serious problem and how should it be treated?
Where should we draw the line?
Any thoughts?

[This message was edited by YNLissa on October 28, 2002 at 12:46 PM.]

this year this boy who i had a crush on, asked me if i wanted 2 b his gf. i told him i'd talk 2 him at lunch. i said yes. but he wanted 2 touch my ***. if i said he couldn't, he wouldn't b my bf. so i let him, but it made me feel uncomfortable. i gave him a back off look, and told him that i didn't like it. but he said that if i didn't let him he would leave me. the next day i broke up with him. but he still harassed me. he would say i had a really big u-g-l-y but (which looks like j.lo's, acculy) , which isn't true. he would generaly harass me and my best friend. when he moved i was sooo glad i'd never see him agen. i say f*** whoever thinks that he was just being friendy, and f*** him 2.

Oh ok..........Well Thanks Bex
Um........................
Bye N Have a nice day

All of those things are harrassment.

Bex

Oh thanks, penmagic!!!!!!!!!!
Ok is this harassment?

Um........When a girl goes to a chatroom and lets say this one guy starts talking really nasty to her, like what he wants her to do to him or what he will do to her or just questions about her body parts. The girl feel a little uncomfortale but she answer him back really friendly and says, "you want to chat please ONLYm let's not talk about that please" and he say, "ok" So they chat, at first the guy was chatting about other things but later he came back to the same old thing that made that girl uncomfortbale to begin with. The girl doesn't know how to put him on ignore and she felt bad about just putting him on ignore...........so she trys to change the subject again and again but he keeps up until finally the girl deals with it and just closes ever window when he trys talking then it's really uncomfromable that she leaves.
Is that harassment or the girl just being too dumb and thinking she could change the guy by being really nice to him?
Is being touched the wrong way sexual harassment or just harassment?
Being rape is sexual harassment, right?
Sorry, I know I should know the answer to these question and I think I do know but I just want to make sure I'm right.
Ok, Bye N Have a nice day

Sorry, that's definitely harrassment. Whether it was 'sexual' harrassment depends on what kind of things the guy was saying. If he insults her but without making sexual references, that is harrassment.
If he's talking about sex and stuff then that would be 'sexual' harrassment.

Quit the 'Nobody of Importance' thing would you? Your ego really needs inflating!

if you'd like the technical definition of harrassment, it is as follows: anything that makes one uncomfortable.
so if you take time to consider that, you'd realize that anytime you do just about anything, it can be considered offensive harrassment to some person out there. sexual harrassment is just harrassment with a sexual innuendo incorperated into it. it could be something as simple as a guy winking at a girl or visa versa. or something as serious as rape. either way it can be taken ambiguously. as the saying goes: you can't rape the willing. just as you cannot harrass those who aren't offended by it. however, if you are offended by it, i say bring the issue up to an adult of some level of athority. depending on the seriousness of the harrassment, the offender may receive anything from a simple scorning to jail time. but weigh the consequences before you act on it.
god bless
~snoopyD~

I'm not sure what you think harassment is? So could soemeone help me out,please. Let say a girl was walking her dog and the dog stopped to smell the flowers and stuff and while the girl was waiting, a car stop right in front of her, and he was saying all thses things, that made her uncomfortable, is that harassment? not sexual harassment, just harassment. Or lets say this guy which was this girls friend was saying all thses nasty things to her and she tried to change the subject but he only wanted to talk about that( at one point to make him happy she tried talking about that too because she was scared he would get mad) and at one point the girl felt so uncomfortable that she thrown up but shallowed it before it came up? Is that harassment? Just things like that, is that harassment, please say it's not.
Well, Bye have a nice day
Signed No One of importance

quote:

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Big up to the person who made this subject, cuz sexual harrasment is a big issue.!

---

It is! One of the things that infuriates me is that people don't take it seriously enough. I'm disgusted by these teachers who just stand by and do nothing. How incompetant can you get?

A boy I sit next to told me that some of his female friends looked at his privates when he was asleep.
He was clearly bothered by this because he sounded all high-pitched and indignant, but I still don't know how he took it so well! If a boy had done that to me I would have been incredibly freaked out…
So boys do get sexually harrassed sometimes, not as much as girls do, but it does happen. I doubt they could do much about it either, because if girls have that much trouble getting taken seriously then just think how hard it is for guys!

I think the line between sexual harrassment and just being "friendly" is a lot harder to define than most people expect, especially to teens. You don't know if the other person is just "kidding" or if they are in fact trying to sexually harrass you. I would consider any unwanted physical or sexual behavior to be harrassment, but also any unwanted sexual comments. What that guy said to me would absolutely be considered sexual harrassment, he might not have meant it to be that, but if it made you feel uncomfortable it was and he needs to realize that. As far as the guys/girls issue of sexual harrassment, I would consider it probably about equal. However, guys I would imagine (these may not be facts) are more likely to do physical sexual harrassment while girls are more likely to do the sexual comments.

In some countries whistling to a girl is sexual harrassment. So yeah, if someone tells you anything like asking you to do sexual favors or whatever, that IS sexual harrassment. And you shouldnt put up with that. anything that makes you feel bad is wrong.

I believe boys arent sexually harrassed as girls, because most of them, dont care a lot or just like it. Of course not all boys are like that, i have friends who hate it when girls they almost dont know go up to them and tell them crazy stuff. But they dont react as us girls, because, i guess, theyd lose respect if they complained about a girl telling them this kind of stuff.

I had this friend right, and he emailed me once and told me he had IM at his grandma's and this was his sn, etc. So I talked to him there and stuff, until one night, exactly one year ago yesterday, he started taking dirty, saying that technically, we were old enought to have children (13?!) and all this crap. Naturally, i was shocked and I deleted his sn and email and proceeded to hate him. I didn't tell anyone - except of course my ever loyal friends - becuz I think that someone like my mom would have laughed it off, becuz she liked this guy and all. Anyways, I hated him until August, when we were at summer camp together, and I realized i really wanted to forgive him, taht i had forgiven him long ago. So I went up to him and apoligized,saying, Can i apoligize for the way I've bene treating you the past nine months? and, SOO sensitive, he gave me a blank stare and said, How have you been treating me the past nine months? THAT was fabulous. But later in the week, I wanted to get to the bottom of it, so i asked him, what did you mean that one night? He goes what? blah blah blah, anyways, after a long conversation, after I burst into tears and slapped him, I discovered that IT WASN"T HIM. SOMEONE had sneaked onto his account, emailed me, and then created an AOL account at his house pretending to be my friend, and talked to me! I still cannot believe it. I wish I had saved the sn so i could find out who it was, so i could pound him, the little rat...but do you think taht was sexual harrassment?

And I think that girls do get harrassed more than guys do. I mean, come on, have you ever heard of a GIRL raping a guy? Seriously...

Lots of love,
Lynne

i've been sexually harrassed three times in my life, twice in person and once online...
it never ceases to amaze me that guys seem to think that such lewd behavior is okay. And some females put up with it! Come on girls, we gotta get together and realize we are worth a lot more than society seems to think!!!!

The first time, i told many teachers repeatedly and NOTHING was done about it, until one teacher found me crying. He finally went to the principal, and that's when they found out that he took it outside of class, was making me late, was telling my entire class that i was F^^^ing him, and having all his friends spread rumours of the same.

The second time i was the only girl in autoshop. That happened last year. COME ON GUYS, IT'S 2002, NOT 1950-OKAY!! i wound up having a fight with one of the purpotraitors IN FRONT OF THE TEACHER, and no one did anything about it till i went to the assistant principal. They said i was easy, they made me feel out of place and they constantly made fun of my size and my being a supposed tomboy. <Just cuz i prefere some grease over makeup, come on now!>

The online incident really pissed me off, because this person constantly IM'ED me and said that he wanted to date me- he was more than just a creep...

anyway, don't get me started on sexual harrassment cuz it just p^^^es me off big time, esp. when ppl say "oh, they were just playing"
or make light of it... grrrrr!

okay- this is my second novel tonight...lol
i'm done ranting, i think...
~K8

LuckyKaren, do you have an attorney?

If not, do you have a way to get in touch with a local newspaper reporter?

I can't stand that kinda crap (teachers not doing anything)

I use to think there was something wrong with me because It seemed like I attracted all the perves! I've been harrassed (sexually/verbally) a lot, one happend recently but I didn't do anything about it. (How stupid of me) cuz if we don't do anything about it it's going to keep continuing. We have to take a stand! And not be afraid to stand up to what we feel and believe in, if you're getting harrassed don't let up do whatever you take to get heard and dealt with and make sure the person is punished. For ex: I remeber in summer school, this one guy alwaysed harrassed me! Asked me person q's, sexual q's, and I told my mom, and my teacher! (My teacher didn't do anything though) so my mom called the school and threatened that if nothing was done she'd write a letter to the newspaper, etc. Well the boy got kicked out of summer school, at least something was done, but if anything TELL SOMEONE! I told my mom, and my mom was there for me! Big up to the person who made this subject, cuz sexual harrasment is a big issue.! Thanks, love, bye!

When the teacher didn't do anything, and the principal didn't do anything you should have went to the superintendent.


*remember EVERYONE has a boss so if all else fails, go over there head to someone with more power.

I know I was sexually harassed at my school during my sophomore year. This boy kept on approaching me and asking me forcibly for sexual favors, at which I was very disgusted. But what bothered me the most was that the teacher knew about it but didn't do a damn thing.

I was sexualy harrassed when i was in the 7th grade.I was in math class and this boy kept bothering me,I told the teacher so many time's but he just kept telling me to shut-up.I felt so frustrated that he would listen to me.I left the class with out permission and went to the princapls office.I told him everything that happened then I told him the boy's name.Noone did anything to punish him because he was "popular" .It still make's me sick to think that he got away with it.

I think some boys don't know how to get positive attention from girls so they harrass them instead because they want some kind of attention, even if it's negative. This girl at my school was repeatedly harrassed by one boy (the full extent of it only came out when she told a teacher the whole thing) but it was obvious that he was doing it because he had a crush on her. Trying to grope her wasn't exactly the most impressive approach! She was seriously upset by the repeated incidents, and actually felt threatened by the boy too, in fact it was part of what makes me so angry now when boys treat it like it's just a joke. They don't know what it feels like. When you see a friend in tears over something like that, it doesn't seem so funny.

I have a close friend, who is a boy. We sat by each other in English last year, and we got to be pretty good friends.About half way through the year, he started making growling (like not thretaning,like sexual growls so to speak) noises at me. At first I thought it was the weirdest thing, and he was being really weird, and sometimes it was annoying. I told my best friend about it and she said he had been doing it to her at track practice sometimes. I totally disgregarded it as something "disturbing", since I considered it a joke.

Then for our end of the year trip, we went to the zoo up in Chicago. It's about a 2.5 hour drive from school, and at that time he had sort of layed off the growling, and I kind of had a small crush on him. So, naturally I sat infront of him. The whole ride there he was talking about sex and it was uncomfortable for me (I was probably bright red blushing, sex has always been an uncomfortable subject for me). Of course, I took it as a joke. But then on the way back it got really disturbing. He was talking about us getting a room in California and having sex all week. I just laughed it away at that point, but I think this boy needs serious help.

This year I don't have any classes with him, minus band, but he plays trumpet and I play flute so I never talk to him. When I see him in the hallway sometimes he will wink or lick his lips. I have just learned to deal with it, he's a friend and I know he's not being serious (he says it to alot of girls). Now that I don't like him anymore I think someone should talk to him about this. I know his brother (a junior) is a really bad influence, he goes out and gets drunk and acts just like "J" (Don't want to reveal names) does. I wish I could get him help or something, but he wouldn't take anyone seriously. Any suggestions?

Thanks