PC 3: Sexual Harrasment.

[trashcanman]

So lately I've been finding myself accosted with insane political correctness and posting the stories here to see what this fine collection of folks think. Here's my third recent entry and it takes us back to a topic we've graced here before.

www.cagepotato.com/rampage-jackson-could-be-the-impetus-behind-zuffa-implementing-mandatory-anti-sexual-harassment-training/

Now here I'm a bit conflicted. Rampage is one of my favorite sports personalities and he loves to play the clown, but women in general should not have to put up with the kind of behavior that he is known for (there are other videos....several). But I also feel that they need to make it clear when a guy like that has crossed the line rather than laugh and smile and "play along" and then try and crucify them for it later. That is what we call "mixed signals" and some men do not differentiate well. Workplace flirting is not an unusual thing and I can imagine it only gets exponentially worse when the rich and famous are involved. To me, that first video was not that big a deal so much as just goofy and amusingly inappropriate. And when you look a man in the eye and VERY flirtatiously suggest you want to costar with him in a romantic comedy like in the second video, don't be surprised when they take it one step further just to get a reaction. Then again, it's never acceptable to hump a stranger. At that point, she should have thrown him a "down boy" at the very least (I would have gone with "this makes me a sad panda"), if not ended the interview right there. She's got a job to do, but firing or otherwise punishing a female reporter for getting angry that a man is thrusting himself against her crotch is a fat lawsuit waiting to happen, so forget that mess. I'm against sexual harassment, but I think if we want to combat it, we need to stop accepting it and only getting angry about it after the fact. If a couple of guys need to get kneed in the crotch to get the picture, then I'm all for it. But I don't know that Rampage deserves the amount of negative attention he's gotten. As we all know, there's much worse going on when there are no cameras present that people are getting away with. But I will laugh my ass off if he gets a knee in the balls next time.

[nellabella]

OK gals how many of you have had a male co-worker married or not do either or both of those to you in the staff room while no one was looking? I think every guy on the planet has tried those tricks (except the nerds and moralists) more than once and then some but the best that got me was being grabbed from behind scaring the shit out of me. I have to be honest though ... I was flirt. I didnt report anyone for any kind of sexual harassment. I just saw those men as playful and they never went beyond playful. I learned how to wrap the boys around my finger when I was 13 so by the time I was working in a big corporation I knew how to get what I wanted from the men I worked with. So what there was some play time? It was innocent and no one got hurt.

[trashcanman]

See, to me that's no big deal. I never get physically untoward like that (as you said, I'm a nerd), but I'm not going to act like I never say anything playfully suggestive to my female coworkers. Technically, it can't be seen as true harassment unless the offended party makes it clear that they find the behavior inappropriate or is threatened with consequences for not complying with the behavior. But it seems like that last few years, people have been trying to expand that definition to any conduct that implies that people can be attracted to one another or reminds us that people can derive pleasure (gasp!) from physical contact with others. Screw that.

[The Curmudgeon]

Man, that second video is.. disturbing. Ol' Rampage had the horn there, big time (not hard to see why, that girl was smokin'). I think it's easy to say she should've shooed him off, and she did ask for the interview to be cut straight away. That "romantic comedy" shit was obviously a line fed to her by someone else who didn't know what Jackson could be like around women. Still, Rampage looks like a pretty fun guy to hang around with.. if you're another guy, that is.

That's what happens to some guys, though. No-one can touch them physically and they've got all the money in the world = instant asshole.

[trashcanman]

Well, you may not be able to tell this, but Rampage is kind of from the streets and spectacularly outgoing to boot. Black culture on the streets is very physical and pretty much without a lot of the social filters we are used to. If someone is in your face and you don't like it, the correct response is along the lines of "get the fuck up off of me". Plus, when he was fighting in Japan, he said they'd always encourage him to act that way in interviews because the fans over there loved it. Not to say he should go around humping strangers, but just to put it into perspective that he's coming from a different place then we are and clearly means no harm. Here's some old school Rampage weirdness for you.