[fishnchips]

Those accusations can come from weird places. I was once accused of sexual harassment by a male coworker (I'm a straight male, and a father of two). When summoned by HR to face the victim it turned out that he felt that touching his screen (when explaining something) violated his personal space. Not that it is necessarily relevant to your case but if you feel innocent then you probably are - unless you're a psychopath, that is.

[fjfkdjfjfjd]

Wow! That is a crazy story! I am not justifying the person who falsely accused you at all, but at least in the end, there was some "closure"/mutual understanding of how to reduce any tension. I wish something like this could have happened with management bringing me and them together to determine any problems and resolve them. I hate this feeling that I do not know what if anything I did wrong.

[fishnchips]

From what I know HR brought us together because they couldn't figure out what actually happened. My coworker was not a very social person and could not coherently explain his accusation. When they finally figured out the whole story... you should've seen the HR director's face. She left not long afterwards to a much more 'conventional' environment. Definitely not related to my case but I'd imagine she never looked back. Anyway, if the accusations were clearer and more coherent, or a female was involved, I don't think HR would organize a confrontation like this.

[tom_mellior]

Wow, that's quite extreme. But it doesn't have to be a crazy person like that.

Some more everyday activities that might make someone uncomfortable in the workplace even without direct interactions:

- wearing T-shirts with scantily clad women in the workplace (http://edition.cnn.com/2014/11/13/living/matt-taylor-shirt-p...)

- wearing other T-shirts deemed inappropriate (heavy metal T-shirts with pentagrams or whatever; once, in the US, I wore a T-shirt referencing marijuana to a casual restaurant and was told off)

- displaying political preferences or religious ideas not shared and potentially considered dangerous by others

- having a desktop background image deemed inappropriate (scantily clad women, again)

- visiting websites or watching YouTube videos deemed inappropriate during your breaks

I'm not saying complaints about any of these are justified (although I don't think the workplace needs to be sexualized), but these are things people do complain about, in the real world. If you "feel innocent", and even if you pass the famous "I asked my female friends and they said it was OK" test, that still doesn't mean that nobody can complain about these things.

[fishnchips]

I wouldn't call him crazy, just... peculiar.

Displaying scantily clad women in the workplace in any shape or form would most certainly warrant an HR action. As a manager of an offending individual I'd certainly be the 1st one to react.

[rl3]

While I can see being peeved about screen touching, the fact it was construed as sexual harassment is absurd.

Then again, perhaps displays have sexuality too.