General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: I can hardly believe the amount of power some here are willing to cede to anonymous or virtually [View all]Ms. Toad
(34,193 posts)When the first story came out, one of the responses that I saw was, "In what universe could this happen?" and described how unbelievable it was the something like this would happen in the open, with the husband around and hundreds of fairgoers. My reaction was that pretty much the exact same thing happened ot me. I was not at all surprised to see the 3rd and 4th accusation - and will not be surprised if there are more.
On the other hand, someone whose butt he grabbed may have had a good long sit-down with him - like I did with my own butt-grabber. The person who fondled my butt in a public setting, like the fair setting of Franken's inintial accuser, had absolutely no clue he had crossed the line, and wanted to know why I was all of a sudden avoiding him like the plague. (He was a gay male, and within at least the sub-population of gay men in which he circulated, butt fondling among friends without consent was apparently the norm.) After our conversation, his behavior dramatically changed - and he became a very strong advocate for checking for consent first. The same may have happened with Franken as he moved from the frat-boy atmosphere of SNL at the time into politics, but it doesn't surprise me at all that there were some growing pains.