Sexual Harassment: Here's What's Not Ok

Charles Darwin didn’t piss off God with his Theory of Evolution for us to go and turn back into apes every time we see an attractive person, and yet towards the end of last year we found ourselves in the midst of an unprecedented sexual harassment scandal.

Here's what Courtney Act has to say about consent...

From Hollywood to Westminster, fresh claims of misconduct began emerging daily, and #MeToo is still far from over. Yet the question still on many people’s lips, if only one of them, is what exactly constitutes harassment?

Well, here is a rundown of when someone’s behaviour is a cause for concern...

An ass grab

I admit I may hold some of my frustration in my ass but that doesn’t give you permission to squeeze it like a stress ball.

Our bodies are the only thing in this world that we own unconditionally. They serve to identify us, protect us, and empower us, yet with one unwelcome touch, a person can lose the sense that their body, their only real possession in life, was ever truly theirs.

A wolf whistle

Our sexual instincts may be animalistic, but free will means the need to act on them is not.

People are not pieces of meat to be leered at or salivated over; they are siblings, spouses, friends, and professionals and they don’t deserve to be dehumanised by a whistle. And, to be perfectly blunt, blowing noisy air from your mouth is about as flattering as blowing it out your ass.

A throwaway remark

Give a person a filter and they will happily distort the way they look, but ask them to filter what they say and they will choose to remain an idiot.

There is a fine line between complimenting someone and objectifying them, and if people were as willing to shut up as they were to speak up, it would not be crossed as often as it is. The fact that no thought went into the comment doesn’t mean no consequences will come out of it. The deepest of scars can come from the most fleeting of comments, so sometimes the best thing to say is nothing at all.

A wandering hand

Let Sir Michael Fallon and knee-gate be a lesson to us all that sneaky strokes make for guilty blokes and a saucy wink can lead to a media-shamed minx. Rhymes aside, life is not a petting zoo so we can’t just touch people at will.

Be it a brush of the arm or a hand on the lower back, an unwanted touch is an indefensible action. So if you ever see someone get the desire to fondle another person, make them sit on their hands instead; otherwise they risk making someone sit on the moment for years.

Anything that makes the person uncomfortable

Sexual harassment is not a solitary act. It does not end when the hand is removed, does not stop when the sentence is finished, does not leave when the perpetrator does. It is a sequence of events - an impulse, a display, a consequence, a loss.

The recent allegations show that harassment can manifest itself in a number of different ways, but it is not just about what is done to someone. It’s about what is taken from them - something they can spend a lifetime trying to get back. So, if you know a sceptic, tell them to take the broomstick out their ass and stop calling it a witch-hunt.

- Lauren Dorling

Click here for our basic guide to sexual harassment.