[0815test]

We don't know what OP said (or rather, mumbled out) about her body. From what OP states, it's reasonable to infer that they said "Your body is in my personal space, you're making me uncomfortable" or something to that effect. And then they got in trouble for that, which seems quite indefensible!

[pwinnski]

> my confused reply, which I didn't mean to say it loud but being exhausted it slipped part my filter and I mumbled it out loud, was cited as sexual harassment

Whatever he said, he immediately apologized for it, and still to this day blames fatigue and confusion and says he didn't mean to say it out loud. So no, it is completely unreasonable to infer anything other than an inappropriate comment.

There is not a real world in which people are making innocent statements innocently and losing their jobs. That is a fantasy world that exists in the fever dreams of men who have trouble treating women as people.

[0815test]

That depends on what you mean by "inappropriate", of course. People say all sorts of things they don't mean to when they're made uncomfortable by something, and the line between "discomfort", "confusion" and "fatigue" is itself quite fuzzy. And yes, they apologized for it immediately afterwards - but apologies themselves can be strategically unwise, and leave one open to manipulative behavior in response to a perceived display of weakness. Their wife certainly didn't seem to think OP's behavior was inappropriate in the way you're implying, and she'd obviously care if it was!

All in all, I'm not sure why you seem to be willfully ignoring the whole part where OP explains what prompted their remark (whatever that might have been) in the first place; whether intentional or not, it seems that a somewhat "inappropriate" situation had already occurred by that time.

[philonoist]

"apologized either way."

You have( maybe or maybe not purposefully) left out "either way" which means it need not be inappropriate by intention. Even then sadly, an apology is not enough for some weird concocted subjective self victimization and the eyes of OP's woman start putting off fire until the life of the OP gets totally ruined.

"brought up her ass to me", "She shook her ass at me despite us having no real relationship","but they are all adults who don't behave like this to me." are as clear as sunny day.

Sounds like that stupid woman came up to him and tried to seduce, sexually harass, or pull a cheap attention mongering stunt in the name of "part of fun time at office". You may find this ridiculous but there are women who do this. I have had to push a woman off of me in not so tightly packed elevator while she was "having fun" with her butt rubbing my genitals. She in fact, laugh out loud explaining this experience with colleagues in the office as 'first time an anal' and her boyfriend later.

I was mortified and violated, fresh in the memory till date, but hey! since I am a guy, I am some closet monster prowling on women with a magical magnetic genital, who has total disregard to my sweat and blood to barely hope to lead a dignified life, have intact family and be a dedicated earner of higher promotions. Nobody should care if all of these require just one domino to start falling with, eh? Everybody can just paint me defensive and accept whatever non-sense as consequences of "my" acts.

We must just believe and be at mercy of these women or risk all that we earned if we speak up against in these situations. In the mean time, those who did, just deny deny deny and gas-light them and brush them of as liar who genetically are incapable to treat women as fellow humans.

The problem with us human beings is we have ingrained the gynocentric justice system in our minds where perhaps the women can never be wrong at all. Its always the guy's fault. Firstly we start by dismissing their experiences In the mean time, we start assigning them some "responsibility" they didn't need to burden themselves with in this misandrist new world. This is insulting to men and greatest injustice to other women as well.

The OP's situation is also the time where people in same page say acceptable light-hearted comments which otherwise would be inappropriate or lewd. These comments are passed by women themselves routinely and accepted very well by bosses. For I have seen women spank a guy's arse and praise "sexy!" in stationary rooms or pull tie and ask something work related with innuendos, etc. I mean obviously an action gets a reaction, however confused or exhausted it may be. In fact, many do have a slip of tongue in exhaustion, how so ever we press hard to deny them of their own life experiences. We should not treat men like they don't matter, they are constantly doubted, they are not valued and be dismissed just because the opposite party in the situation happens to be a woman.

There should be laws that outright fire these women with a code of conduct stamp as sexual harasser. That is the supposed real world we should give women to train them to treat men with respect and stop gas-lighting them.

[pwinnski]

I was addressing the commenter, whose life was not totally ruined. In fact, it seems he didn't lose his job or face any consequences other than a conversation with HR, if that. You are clearly talking about a completely unrelated conversation and projecting quite a bit here.

You describe being sexually harassed in the workplace, and you had every reason to complain to HR yourself. I hope you did so, and I further hope you weren't dismissed when you did so--which does unfortunately sometimes happen.

As for the rest, yes, bad actors exist in some workplaces. Don't be one of them, try to handle those you encounter professionally, and maybe ask yourself: why the women you see acting badly prompt you to throw around ridiculous terms like "gynocentric justice system" while the men you see acting badly don't seem to register at all.

[philonoist]

The more I read your posts, the more it feels obvious for guys to facepalm and continue to defend their dignity and stop mentoring. Time has come now to make you contemplate on why bad supporters like you are more dangerous than bad actors. I beg you to stop being one of them.

No where did he say he made an inappropriate comment except for your premature judgemental attitude. Are we so incapable of being more nuanced to differentiate awkward[1] from sexual comments? Sure they both come under 'inappropriate' but not all inappropriate comments deserve taking up with HR. And only matured people understand that.

You got to get your facts right first of all. "I was let go due to "financial reasons" because a co-worker brought up her ass" [0]

He was fired. The company was so coward that it couldn't even come forward and say what he was fired for, had it been truly about - sexual harassment. That means the company didn't follow due procedure just like mine. Now I know what feminists typically say - that it is us men who should run pillar to post and fight against big powerful corporates in the courts, while make themselves unemployed, potentially unemployable and leave their own families starved.

Its rarely lucky that he got benefit of doubt in another company to join when he searched without protest and and his female boss knew how he fell pray to the woman's scheming[1]. But most don't. Just look at #metoo accused guys who said more benign and non-sexual things. Most of them didn't get another job for far too long and are in the wait. Many got divorces because running a one sided family becomes unsustainable.

The depressing problem with our society is it don't recognize that a guy does feel the psychological trauma, emotional and mental distress because of not just us twisting his facts, but his friend and family circle that leave him in lurch usually because they don't want to associate even with a criminal accused. All because he is a guy. Your comment is a live example of it.

Not only do we not recognize the gravity of such stupid misuse of power, but gaslight him as not seeing "his" problems. We just keep parroting its all his fault. This is the textbook example of victim blaming.

And how is unconsented twerking of arse somehow acceptable when unconsented exhibition of penis is called sexual harassment? On top of that, we encourage women to complain against him?

"Dude, you have a problem. You clearly cannot see it, but you have a problem. I'm not making assumptions based on anything but your own words, and in your own words, you have a problem. Maybe less of a problem than you once did, but still a problem."

You said its his problem four times without backing up any of it. That speaks volumes about you than me and further proves my point of "gynocentric justice". I don't understand from where you get such magical clues that it doesn't seem to register men acting badly in me. That's totally straw man argument and doesn't even deserve a dignified reply.

He clarifies - "but it wasn't in any way sexually suggestive"[2]

So you cannot even imagine something even in alternate world that a sexual act of her's can't be replied with something awkward and without involving any sexually suggestive in it? Now we doubt the one who speak up and try be honest, huh?

If this is not ruining, then I guess you have ruined it for women having undergone sexual harassment for real and its just nothing as much to avoid the contradiction in your own belief.

The OP's life is never representative of the bigger picture. In fact, #metoo movement is, where the complaint was in same intensity of acts and the consequences were overkill.

> You describe being sexually harassed in the workplace, and you had every reason to complain to HR yourself. I hope you did so, and I further hope you weren't dismissed when you did so--which does unfortunately sometimes happen.

Yes I did complain to HR, a woman. She smirked and said that it will be immediately dealt with. I was not followed up what happened finally. I was purposefully kept in the dark. The accused continued the job as if nothing happened. Nothing happened. The HR begrudged me for taking it to her higher ups. She instead spread that incident as a rumour to the whole department( I work in) that I won't whine and complain for such a lucky chance and the accused got support of her female friends that it was nothing wrong among her female friends. Some of them who listened to HR tried to implicate me as a lech pulling a victim card.

My location of the office: New York. Yeah, New York!

He clarifies in another comment[2] - "People who know me think this is funny, because they know me and how easily mortified I get when I say something I don't intend to."

So people who know him find it funny and people who don't know him like you find it unbelievable, huh!

[0]https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19969673 [1]https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19975794 [2]https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19975728

[0815test]

I understand where you're coming from, but still, please don't blame women at large for manipulative/narcissistic/sociopathic behavior that a minority in both genders, without distinction, might engage in. This stuff is just as bad no matter if it's coming from women or from "male sexist pigs".

[microwavecamera]

That's a straw man argument built on pure conjecture. We're all educated adults here, that not going work.