I'm so tired of moving backwards...

and the fur that would have flown.

back in the line than we even are now.

I wrote here, awhile back, about my own encounter with Gloria Allred. She stood behind me at a rough point in my own career when I was still fairly new in broadcasting. She never pushed or advocated. She took me to lunch and essentially let me cry on her shoulder. She sympathized and empathized and she listened to me. She offered to help if every I needed it but never ambulance-chased. She had total class and a heart as big as the planet Jupiter, and amazing discretion. She kept my secrets and my fears when the station manager insinuated I could be blackballed for making trouble. She was there when/if I needed her. She was there when/if a LOT of women in the L.A. market (and elsewhere too) needed her. JUST KNOWING THAT was enough.

Gloria Allred is worth her weight in gold-pressed latinum to me. She's a tower of strength and a flaming sword of righteousness, and I will never waver from feeling that way. She's a joke to some. A nuisance, and worse, to some more - mainly because they deserve it. And she's a saint to me.

For crying out loud.

K&R

I should know that since I have a friend there.

The GOP and all the evil people who are right wing people are ALL THE SAME. They may be of different religions or something but they are all linked with their EVIL and HATEFUL actions.

We have met the enemy and he is us.

which is understandable. She probably felt that the older she got the more irresistable the dental tech became.

him to fire the woman. Ridiculous. Not knowing the history of their marriage, I have to wonder why the wife is so insecure and feels she cannot trust her husband so much that she wanted to force him to fire an employee. And I have to wonder how or why a marriage that has no more trust in it than that can survive, attractive dental asst or none. IOW, I don't think, still, the dental asst is the problem. Why should she have to be made to pay for this issue with her job? She did nothing wrong. HE did.

When a man/men/company can fire a woman for simply being a woman or being attractive, that's Taliban as hell. And it's unacceptable that the IA supreme court (all male) agreed with the decision is particularly unacceptable.

The woman herself is married with 2 kids and she made no advances towards him nor did she respond to his suggestive texts. SHE did not do a damn thing wrong. By all accounts, she was a good employee.

HE texted her asking "how often she experienced an orgasm." HE is the one who feared HE would "have an affair" if he didn't fire the woman.

The problem was with HIM, not her. The man has issues. Too bad Nelson had to pay for HIS issues with HER job.

Jeeze.

Don't do the hard work of self control and working to make your marriage stronger. No. Do the easy thing and get rid of the evil temptress. What happens when he has these feelings again? Will he fire every employee he has desires for?

Whether it constituted gender discrimination for a male employer to fire an at will female employee at the insistence of his wife, because she believed something was going on.

It sounds like the pastor was brought in to make sure he stuck to the prepared script that he made at the insistence of the wife, who had found that the two of them were texting about personal matters.

The dentist doesn't actually allege that he was attracted to the assistant, and the assistant never alleged sexual harassment in the suit she brought.

And if you are an older worker, and you learn after you were hired that your boss just fired another older worker and that worker accused your boss of age discrimination, watch out.

If a few years later your boss calls you in and tells you that he is firing you because he thinks you aren't as sharp as a younger employee would be -- you've been used. Your boss doesn't want older workers. He hired you to avoid a law suit threatened by the first employee. You've been used. And chances are that you won't get any job after this guy fires you because now you are a few years older than you were when he hired you and generally older people have a hard time getting a job especially today.

There is no fairness in the American workplace. Employers hire lawyers to tell them how to avoid lawsuits. Employers take special courses and receive newsletters that tell them how to fire people, how to do whatever else they want and avoid lawsuits.

Watch your employer. Keep notes. Write dates and statements down and don't throw them away. Keep a record. Create a file on your employer. All criticisms, all compliments, whether justified or not. The slights. The insults. The new people hired, dates, qualifications and job assignments. Keep track of demands that you work late and weekends especially on short notice. Short paychecks? Sign your boss is having a problem and may want to save money on your salary. Personal favors you did for your boss? Don't give anything away, not even your time. Trust me. Personal texts from your boss? Texts of any kind when you are not being paid to work? Good Heavens. If there is anything sexually suggestive, watch out. Start filling out job applications. That's a sure sign you will be filed and then fired. If a male boss has sent you, a woman, a suggestive e-mail, touched you inappropriately or made off-color jokes, prepare to move on. You are trapped. If you respond, you will be fired. If you do not respond, same result eventually. And you will suffer in from the nagging feeling that you are prey and your boss the predator in the meantime. That's the emotional distress that sexual harassment causes. It is very painful. Male bosses harass women to feel powerful. You will never be able to make your boss feel powerful. If he has to harass you to make himself feel powerful, he has a problem about his potency. He has to cure himself. Your attention won't help him. Your days in that job are numbered. Check with a lawyer about how to react no matter how much you like your job or your boss. And write your resume and look for a different job or a different boss even if the pay is lower.

Any insults? Write everything down. Everything. After all, your employer is keeping a record. So should you.

Your job is never secure. Your employer is not your friend. He or she is your boss. He or she sees you as expendable no matter how "nice" he or she is or how many extra days you are given off. The workplace is not a good place for romance or talking about very personal things. Watch out.

There is a war in the workplace. Your boss wants to make more money, build a better resume, promote his grandson, sell the company to a Romney-type or climb the corporate ladder. You are a tool he can use and discard as he wishes. Your only weapon is keeping a record, my friends. Keep names, dates, places. Don't be careless about this.

It isn't paranoid to be professional about defending your reputation and place in the workforce. You would be surprised at the depths to which employers will sink. Imagine what utter idiot (male) would admit in court that he found his former employee (female) and opponent in court so sexually attractive that he had to fire her to save his marriage? And this bozo got by with that? This is the same mentality that rapists have. Only the employer has a little more self-control. Not much. He is willing to ruin the life of the object of his unbridled lust.

What if the woman who was accused of being overly alluring and was fired was your mom or your daughter or your sister or, heaven forbid, your wife?

As for the woman herself, she has all my sympathy. She should have the sympathy of every woman in America. She sounds like a very courageous woman.

Keep records. Keep notes. And good luck.

Thanks!

really?

you think that is any better blaming the wife?

the man behaved inappropriately. he had the issue.

but, you prefer to blame his wife.

yup. that is about how it works. thank you for the example.

So yeah, I'd blame her, too. A lot.

I was a touring musician. I know how jealous and backbiting musician's wives/girlfriends can be. It's stupid. It isn't just the guys.

from his pastor.

...interestingly Taliban as well? Oh boy.

could have advised him to work on his lust problem instead of firing a woman with 2 children, but she was of no consequence. Apparently her children weren't a consideration either. Just his marriage because he has a problem keeping things professional.

He did everything he damn-well COULD to try and initiate an affair with this woman, and when he got caught being a Bad Little Boy by his WIFE, the EMPLOYEE had to pay the price for HIS inability to not be a dick. (it's in the trial transcript, link posted below).

http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2012/images/12/21/11-1857.pdf

It may not be, strictly speaking ILLEGAL to fire her (espically if Iowa is a Right-To-Work State), but holy christ is it unethical and immoral as hell. If I were sitting on that Court, I would have AT LEAST required his office to issue her a STUNNING letter of reccomendation, and damn-well re-imburse the State for every PENNY of unemployment compensation she might have comming her way.

That his PASTOR consuled him to do this as a "fix" is just asinine. I hope that BOTH of their "businesses" suffer greatly for this little stunt.

...No words for this tug into the past. What is wrong with people who want to go backwards? If we have a psychiatrist on DU and you see this, I wish you would pipe in. Please explain this campaign for anti-progress. For regression into the past.
Heck, we all love to look back, but 99.9% of us don't WANT TO GO BACK THERE! Geesch!

I teach high school, and I explain to my sophomore students that there is no such thing as instant lust, attraction or whatever you prefer. If men were simply victims of their hormones, the perfume counter clerks at JC Penney would be constantly assaulted by men jumping the glass counter and raping them on the spot.

Since that NEVER happens, then it comes down to choices.

HE is the asshole here, and HE is enabled by ANOTHER asshole posing as a spiritual adviser, and backed up by a group of old assholes posing as guardians of the law.

Wonder if he insists all his patients be un-attractive to him as well?

Well, I live in Texas, and I must put up with the brunt of all sorts of jokes and snarky remarks, so here I'll have to say, "There but for the grace of Iowa, goes Texas."

...until the biggest worry will be that strong women have guns.

(no..that's probably not true but I'm just pissed off right now.)

I hate seeing another class of people running all over another class of people, whether it be the Jews, Blacks, poor,
Indians, women or what have you..

They also execute woman for being raped. I think the point can be made without making comparisons to this grotesque group of people. Fuck them.

VERY highly recommended.

no matter where on the globe. Some males need to get a life.........

It is Iowa.

I'd hate to be one of this guy's patients. I mean, what if you are attractive? Do you have to worry that he's going to molest you while you're in the chair? Since he has so little self control, I think all women should stay away, and he can just have a male only practice.

That you thought you might end up sleeping with them, and they wanted to, what would you do? I'm not sure if you are male or female, but some men find sexual urges for some people really difficult to control. Men don't will erections, they just happen when the body is attracted to someone. You can't just will it away. You can leave the situtation, but they work together. What if it happened on a daily basis? It was obviously such a problem that he, his wife, pastor, ex-employee, and quite possibly others knew about it. To make matters worse he is a professional and the boss.

without any sexual thoughts or attractive people around, doesn't mean we go around humping blue jeans at Old Navy all the time. Also, there is no evidence that she wanted to sleep with him, she viewed him as a father figure, so this was strictly one way attraction on his part. He's a creeper, and has probably slept around before because he can't control himself, I imagine he had to pay for it too.

Also there are pheremones. You're right the article states that she was not interested in a relationship. She could be lying (I would in her case). From the article it suggests there may have been a sexual current between them. I wouldn't be surprised if she felt attracted to him but who knows.

Once again I'm not trying to argue the morals of the case just hashing out the situation. Really.

you don't need to satisfy the urge with that source that second. Hell, I watch a movie with a hot and heavy sex scene, or just have horny thoughts, or even glance at someones ass, and it gets me in the mood, well, my fiancee is more than happy to help fulfill those urges when asked, when the time and place is appropriate, like when I get home.

Or, if for some reason, she's not available, then I always have my hand, and again, always at the appropriate place, at home, its called impulse control, use it.

It was a professional environment featuring his wife and a coworker he worked with intimately. Apparently he was exercising impulse control: he had not slept with her yet and likely would not have, but it still placed a lot of strain on his work AND marriage. The couple literally would never get away from it. I'm not suggesting that he is a victim and I think the situation sucks for the employee. And I also am not saying the court was right or she had no case.

some planning will have to take place to "end up" sleeping with a coworker. I find quite a few coworkers I work with attractive, doesn't mean I'm going to step out of my fiancee. All it takes is impulse control.

People are attracted it is not unheard of to just sleep together without really giving it a lot of thought. Alcohol could lubricate the situation. (No pun intended). There are probably situations where people spontaneously sleep together without really being consciously aware of an attraction despite one existing. This includes strangers as well as acquaintances, friends, coworkers, etc.

I've never done this and never will. But everyone is different.

Last edited Wed Dec 26, 2012, 04:34 PM - Edit history (1)

Many if not most marriages start in the work place. This suggests that sexual dynamics in the work place are quite common if not pervasive in some work environments. The boss sleeping with his secretaries or other professional sexual relationships is an age old tradition so to speak, and not just in America. Going away on a business trip and having a drink with a coworker and having a sexual "encounter" in not at all uncommon.

And why expect any different. Some professionals work more closely and are in a sense more intimate with coworkers than their own partner, sometimes spending more time in more intense situations with people with similar views, similar life situations, and of course similar career paths and goals.


I don't think you are taking into account the whole situation. He was obviously attracted to her and perhaps there was mutual attraction unstated or otherwise. Take into account a jealous spouse.


Also consider that this was not a rash and callous decision. He had obviously discussed the situation with his wife. And when I say discussed, I should say marriage rending, all out shouting matches. This is a situation dealing with the most sensitive and raw emotions. These feelings almost certainly entered the work place.

He also worked with his wife. Imagine the problems in a professional environment this would create. Supposing the wife hated the ex-employee and vice versa, which is probable, would make a very difficult and destructive work environment. It's also possible that he had had affairs. The wife may have known about these or not but either way it would have made a working relationship difficult to say the least.

He also took council with his pastor. This suggests that it was really something that he felt was beyond his ability to control. He was just flat out attracted to her. He also wasn't taking the decision lightly. He didn't want to fire her. She was obviously a good employee. But the marital and work place dynamics were just too obstructive to maintain a work relationship.

That all said,I know I am going to get a lot of flack for writing all this, but I just feel like it's not as simple as a discrimination case, although I understand why the case was filed. I'm not going to judge the court decision itself. I'm not saying she had no court case, or the court ruled incorrectly, but this was certainly not a simple situation with an easy answer for any of the parties involved.

Woman kills husband...

Context 1. She shot her husband. She had two choices. Murder her husband or not murder her husband. She chose 1 and therefore is guilty.

Context 2. Husband was abusive, physically and emotionally. He was sexually molesting their kids and had threatened her life on numerous occasions. She feared she would be murdered at some point and feared for her children's life. One night during one of his drunken rages she grabs the gun and kills him. Court rules justifiable homicide. Not guilty.

I'm not trying to glibly define the context as guilty or not guilty but compare your simplified "context" to the broader context. I think that it is possible that all three were "immoral" in some way (Man, wife, employee). Iow we are not privy to almost all of the specific circumstances. Also I think the most important factor is the work relationship. All three worked together. Imagine the stress. The couple would face this virtually all the time (at home and at work.) Imagine the nightly fights that carried over into the next day's work. It was an either me or her dilemma. Who would you choose your wife or your employee? If you were the wife would you demand she be fired or perhaps suggest another remedy? What if you considered her a threat? There probably were other ways to handle this situation but severing the working relationship made sense to them and the pastor.

honestly

Here is 59.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=2074141

Here are some suggestions for what a man should do instead of firing an employee whom they lust after:

1. Seek professional help. This will probably need to be long term.

2. Find a better job for your employee and encourage them to go there. Find them such a good job that they will take it. Finding something with a significant salary increase and better benefits would be a minimum. If necessary, make it clear to them that you have psychological problems in order to make sure that they leave.

3. Find employment where you will not interact with members of the public. Do not work in health care, in police work, or in any type of work where you have authority over individuals whom you might find "irresistible." Innocent people do not deserve to be exposed to you. No employee deserves to have such a creep for a boss.

4. Recognize that no response to a suggestive, vulgar, or extremely intimate comment means that the person is politely telling you that you are a jerk and you should not repeat that behavior.

The bottom line is that if your brain is not in control of your behavior, you need to recognize this and take the necessary precautions so that other people are not injured by your psychological problems.

Certainly not completely unreasonable but certainly not easy either.

I think 3 is silly. There is no suggestion that he had an inherent problem that required him to find a new line of work. He was a doctor after all. His training and skills are highly valued.

4 is not really a solution but a rule. I'm not sure it fits at all.

In retrospect I think I probably didn't formulate the response quote right. It had a lot more to do with marriage and work place dynamics than the sexual attraction specifically.

46 years, in banking and in education, both occupations where women are a majority of the employees, as much as 90%. So here I am, a 10% minority, have grown kids, grandkids and great-grandkids.

I didn't meet my wife at work, never dated a co-worker, never had or wanted to have a sexual experience with a co-worker, not ever.

I go to work to do my job and get paid so I can support my family. Never felt work was a dating service, an escort service, or a peep show. That's professionalism, I believe.

I've never worked anyplace that did not have strict rules against fraternization of any kind, violation of which would be a firing offense.

I cannot imagine where you are or what industry you toil in.

I must disagree with you on his need to find other work. He's unfit to deal with the public. I mean, he went to his pastor, so why didn't they just pray his hard-on away? Instead of praying his employee away?

"Four-in-ten (40 percent) workers reveal they have dated a co-worker at some time during their careers, with 18 percent admitting to doing it twice or more, according to CareerBuilder.com’s annual office romance survey of more than 8,000 workers. More than three-in-ten (31 percent) said they went on to marry the person they dated at work.

Office courtships may be stemming from current workplace crushes. Ten percent of workers currently work with someone who they would like to date, with more men (14 percent) than women (5 percent) reporting they would like to do so.

Workers aren’t just interested in dating their peers. Among workers who dated a co-worker in the last year, thirty-four percent admit they have dated someone with a higher position in their company. Of those who have dated a higher up in the last year, 42 percent have dated their boss; female workers more so than males, at 47 percent and 38 percent, respectively."

http://www.careerbuilder.com/share/aboutus/pressreleasesdetail.aspx?sd=2%2F10%2F2009&id=pr481&ed=12%2F31%2F2009

Just because dating a coworker is not generally suggested doesn't mean it is always, or even in general ends poorly.

I met my wife at work, have dated people at work, my wife's parents met at work. It's really common.


In general democrats supported Bill Clinton to keep his job, although he was undoubtedly immoral in several ways, because he was good at it and his work was important.

So 60% never dated anyone from work ever.

I don't know why you think it is "not generally suggested." It's grounds for dismissal in the school district in which I work, and also was at the First National, Western National, and Permian Bank, where I worked previously.

Bill Clinton did not "date" anyone he met at work, nor marry them. He cheated on his wife. She didn't leave him. I was content to let her make the call, since it affected her more than anyone else.

6% marrying someone they more than twice from work is not really common. It's 94 per cent uncommon, and I would never mix my personal and professional life like that. But that's just me. And at least 60% of everyone else. carry on.

We can push that number well over 50% The actual number is 12.5% marry a partner from work. That's about 7.5 million people.

The more valid statistic is 40% date someone at work. That's 120,000,000 people. I can see how work place romance can be a problem but it can also end happily. I remember the two 5th grade teachers in my elementary school got married: a workplace romance.

I am not a professional and most people in this country are not. They're blue collar workers who don't have rules against work place fraternization. I'm going out on a limb but I'm guessing that people would only get fired if it poisoned the work environment, or embarrassed or could embarrass the company.

Dating and sexual attraction in the work place is pervasive in society and there is nothing inherently immoral about being attracted to someone. Attraction has much more to do with genetics than personal choices.

I don't want to appear that I'm defending his actions. I'm not. I think he was attracted to a woman and found it difficult to keep from flirting. You could easily see this as immoral and it probably was. Certainly his wife did.

I just think it was a very challenging situation. His wife worked with him. He was attracted to his employee. He flirted. His wife got pissed off. He knew he was wrong. His wife and him were probably fighting day and night, at work and at home. She felt threatened and there was probably a tremendous amount of animosity between the two co workers in a small office. I think that perhaps there was another route. Perhaps he should not have taken his pastors advice.

Your statistic said that only 18% dated more than twice, but even the 40% that dated once is around 63,000,000 or about half your number. Your assumption that some have not been asked is not addressed in your data set, so please don't use that here.

So the 18% of repeat daters adds up to 25 million or so. Your stat said that 6% of those ended up marrying - that's north of a million people, short of two million people, so the number of marriages is half that, or somewhere between half a million and three quarters. These are all small numbers, minorities in the workplace.

Genetics has to do with attraction? Really? I'll pose a bit of a challenge, then. Please find the common genetic traits between Julia Roberts' husbands. Or cite a study, please. Attraction is strictly a learned behavior, whether modeled for us by those who raised us, and we haven't examined that, or by being influenced by other folks we wish to impress.

The only reason it was challenging is because the dentist made it one. That's sad. He needs to lose his license and his practice, because he is unfit for the general public and is unwilling to change.

Change that to 62 million have dated someone at work. Also we are not talking specifically about stats but about the general state of working relationships. I don't think there is anything at all wrong with speculating that the number of people that would date someone at work, is much higher than those that do. I could look for specific information, but I doubt it's available and I think it's self evident.

You're misreading the stats for those that marry. It is 31% of 40% not 18% which gives you about 12.5%.

Try telling your gay friends that who they're attracted to is modeled by their parents.

http://m.guardiannews.com/education/2005/jun/16/highereducation.uk3

I don't think being attracted to someone and flirting are grounds for losing your license or should be. There is no suggestion that the doctor has this problem with other people. And I'm not defending his actions, or saying he acted ethically at any time.

In addition people have different levels of willpower in different areas. Some people can't say no to a drink. Some people eat too much. Some people are sexually provocative. It doesn't mean they are bad people.

To anyone reading my posts. I'm not suggesting that the doctor was ethical or that the woman wasn't discriminated against. At no time have I claimed either. I am just analyzing the circumstances and playing devils advocate. I find this to be a really interesting philosophical discussion.

Nothing I can do with that assumed level of acceptable shallowness.

And I was a teenager in the 60s.

Well, go on and make your assumptions to anyone you like. You have misread your data. But I have to cut you some slack, because if you are not a degreed professional, as you say, then you've never had to take any statistics, unlike the battery I needed during my master's study.

We're really at an end point here. See ya around DU.

I found another source that gives the number at 18% of married couples meet at work. This would seem to support the idea that the stat is a bit off but, in the other direction.

I'm really not sure why you got snotty all of the sudden.

You must feel really important with that masters degree. Or is it a doctorate now. Enjoy it.

You yourself said that you have no college degree, and hence, no education in statistics.

Please look at my journal and other entries. I do have a BA in English and Economics, and a MAEd in education. I have three decades in education, working solely with at-risk and inclusion students at the high school level, grades 9-12. Can't be snotty and do that. My parents are 8th grade dropouts. I'm the first high school graduate in my family, never mind college graduate.

But when I give you an actual correct way to read your numbers, you just buck up and insist on them. I can't deal with that - it's willful ignorance, and I don't have the time nor proclivity to show you how to overcome it. You admit you have no convictions on the subject, just playing devil's advocate. But I do. My students have a hard enough road ahead of them without believing they are slaves to their dicks.

That kind of victim thinking will keep them poor and uncared for. I won't have that.

I dispute that you "gave" me a correct way of doing anything. Do you see how condescending you are being? Go back and read your last two posts if you decide to answer.

I did get the 120,000,000 wrong, but not because i misunderstood statistics; I multiplied an incorrect figure. But you clearly attained the figure 6% incorrectly. I provided data that indicates the percentage is actually substantially higher than I suggested. Further readings give numbers between 12 and 18%. You're not even in the ballpark. Willful ignorance?

I would have liked to learn what you had to say about attraction being modeled by your parents and not genetic, since you claimed it was your specialty. You never replied.

Fair journey.

YES, you CAN control yourself sexually, including an erection, and most of all, you can control what you do even with one.

The evidence? Never heard of a rape at a nude beach. Even at the local pool, folks wear all kinds of revealing suits with no sexual consequence. Strip joints have no incidence of tape. And so on. Now, if 15 year old males can understand this, any male should be able to, because that is the age when many boys think they may touched a girl's breast at the movies, or it may have been her elbow. Either way, she ends up unraped, and he's excited. (After all, it would have been her NAKED elbow, right?)

This man is no professional, and yes, he is the boss, whatever superior morality that grants him. I wouldn't be his patient under any circumstance, because there is little telling when he may find 60 year old white men irresistible, and it would be real trauma for me (after I finished laughing my ass off, and after he picked himself up off the floor). He needs his license lifted - certainly unfit for any job in public.

If my wife rubs me in a variety of ways I will likely get an erection. It is not a conscious decision. It's a reflex.

I remember my wife talking about this certain very attractive man at the gym that would make her wet just from looking at him. Once again a reflex.

If I see a picture of a naked woman that I find attractive and I am "in the mood" I would likely get arroused.

Also consider that sexual urge builds and makes control more difficult.

Do we make choices that may change our exposure to the stimulus. Sure. There are also enviromental, psychological and emotional factors. But to suggest that attraction and sexual arrousal can be controlled is simply not reasonable.

Having this conversation with a sophomore class reminds me of the abstinence only folks having this conversation with their kids. It goes in one ear and right out the other. Upwards of 80% of Americans have sex before age 19 and 90% gave premarital sex. I think you'll have a more receptive audience amongst the catholic clergy but i'm sure it's still a struggle. I'm not trying to put down your job or your curriculum but you did bring it up after all.

Also, I don't think "people don't rape at a nude beach" is a very good argument. People make choices. Most people choose not to rape and those that do, do it so they won't face consequences.

What you are really saying is he had a choice of whether to sleep with her. Yes. He chose not to. However he did not have a choice on whether to be attracted to her. He just was. He didn't see her body under her clothes and think "erection".

Is he a creep? Maybe. Neither of us know him. Was Bill Clinton a creep? I guess. He had sexual fantasies and acted them out in immoral ways. I still respect the hell out of the man. I'd hire him again. People are sexual. We have realms of sexual attractions, fetishes, and preferences.

I think that this is also about circumstances and not completely about control. I'm getting tired of making the same reply as to context. See post 59.

Please ask a behavioral scientist, a doctor who specializes in sexual function, a psychiatrist or any number of other professionals who work with this for a living.

It's learned behavior. (How do you think some people get erect from wearing a leather mask with a container of another person's shit attached to the breathing path? Or from beating someone to a pulp? )

Refusing to change a learned behavior from ignorance is learned helplessness. Same thing for people who won't study for exams (I'll just fail anyway), or engage in any number of harmful and hurtful behaviors.

Anything learned can be unlearned, replaced with another behavior. This is MY specialty.

Otherwise, we see comments in the paper like, "Oh, he just snapped and couldn't help it and killed 20 babies." "We can't judge because that's just how people are." "It's only natural, can't blame him." and before you know it, "She was asking for it." "She deserved it - she should have known how men are." and a thousand other excuses for sorry behavior that people do not want to change because they do it and want to justify it. This is why I'm an atheist - I don't just go get forgiveness from Jesus and run out and kill 20 more people so that Jesus can forgive me again.

Anyway, whatever works without harming others is fine. But in the case at hand, the woman was harmed, so that's not okay.

This thread needed that missing fact-based component.

things. Nt

You don't fire someone because you are having difficulty not acting on your sexual impulses. That's just madness. That's on you, not her. No need for her to suffer.

He didn't fire her just because he was attracted to her he fired her because of the factors surrounding his work and family life. See post 59.

. . . have I ever found a person i worked with to be sexually attractive? Yes. Have I ever acted on such attractions? Absolutely not -- it's called "don't shit where you eat." The notion that men are slaves to their sexual urges is preposterous!

See post 79 for some stats related to work place relationships. Note that about 15% of marriages start at work according to these stats.

Of course people make choices about their response to attractions but what attracts people is not clear cut and people vary in their ability to control urges.

He needs to take responsibility for his own behavior, not punish someone else for it (or for the potential of it).

In other words: He needs to GROW. UP. If the man cannot control himself then whose problem is that? It's his, of course. Why is he punishing his employee for it? She did nothing to deserve it. Other than be female.

Last edited Wed Dec 26, 2012, 04:07 PM - Edit history (1)

If he had hired a MALE to do that job in his office, would this even be a problem? This WAS discrimination based on Sex (maybe not on gender per-se) but sure as hell it was based on Sexual Attraction (that is gender-based) THAT HE DIDN'T KNOW HOW TO DEAL WITH.

NOT calling this Discrimination, (no matter what the legal technechality you use) is a bullshit "way out" on the part of the Iowa SSC.

What's REALLY telling is that his attorney's moved for SUMMARY JUDGEMENT instead of a Jury Decision; they knew damn-well that any jury would have found him, if not criminally Guilty, at least liable for a shitload of Civil Damages for what he did.

And don't even get me STARTED on the so-called "pastor"...

Last edited Wed Dec 26, 2012, 08:42 AM - Edit history (1)

Was one of those paranoid states that banned Sharia law.

I guess not. It seems they are beginning to implement it.

If your boss finds you irrestable and you resist, you're fired. Or that's how the power-rapists will see it anyway.

I am not sure that's what really happened in this case. If I understand it correctly, this case was less about sexual harassment and more about an owner's ability to fire a good employee without cause. Or, in this case, for a ludicrous 'cause'. Fortunately, I suspect that this clown's business is going to suffer tremendously over this. If I was a patient (like I can afford to be a patient anywhere for anything) I would look for a new doctor immediately.

The last paragraph of the news article sums it up:

"Although people act for a variety of reasons, it is very common for women to be targeted for discrimination because of their sexual attractiveness or supposed lack of sexual attractiveness. That is discrimination based on sex," Fiedler wrote. "Nearly every woman in Iowa understands this because we have experienced it for ourselves."

In this case, she showed no interest at all. She is married with two kids. He asked her about orgasms and he brought up a "bulge in his pants" and he complained about her wardrobe. The issue was clearly with him. She did not respond to his suggestive comments. But...though she did nothing wrong and was a good employee - she is the one who is paying for his inability to control his own behavior - by losing her job.

It's really despicable.

Even in the Bible, the Original Sin was Eve's. Thus punishing women is a God supported activity. Actually it's a mandated God supported activity.

sigh....

It is Taliban-like. They can dress it up, or refine it or define it some other way to make it more palatable. But it's still Taliban. And it's frankly, immoral.

punished for it. If he found the work environment so intolerable, then he should have talked to her about it and possibly find a way to have her transferred, with equal pay and benefits, to one of his colleagues offices, or something equivalent, not fire her, that was just wrong.

He's showing the maturity of a middle school kid who doesn't know how to talk to girls without flubbing things up badly and making everyone uncomfortable. That should NOT be considered baseline male behavior.

from outsiders, gays, men and women flaunting themselves at you (and most people can put an end to that immediately by firmly saying they aren't interested), your marriage was already in trouble before whatever you latched onto as a cause did.

This woman in the church liked this guy.She assumed he like me cause he was attentive to me but I never responded.So she felt the only way she could get him away from me was to tell a lie.She reported to the church that she saw him rape me in the church.Our church was going through renovations and I was helping him paint a side corridor.So the church big whigs went after me over her lie as if he was the victim.they never questioned him.Even though he never did anything to me I found it strange they were after me and not him since they believed he raped me.So I asked them doesn't it concern you a bit that there is a "rapist" in the church? Iasked them why were they so "angry" with me the "victim"? Of course I didn't get an answer. Just proved to me that some men look at females as a whole this way..were always the blame it seems even in cases where nothing happened. Imagine if it did.

By the way..I left that church and wrote them a scathing letter as to why.

.....there isn't a war on women!

but it looks like misogynist rape culture is alive and well. It's mind boggling that we're steal dealing with this shit in the 21st century. Too many men have yet to grow some fucking balls and stop trying to blame or diminish women because of their own shortcomings. And some women aren't helping, because they are still so many who are all to willing to participate in this severely out-dated nonsense.