Crosspost "I had to report a man for sexual harassment and it was terrifying" from /r/MensLib:

So maybe I'm being a bit dramatic here. I play dungeons and dragons a lot. I'm currently on reduced hours at work and running games 4 to 5 days a week in a decent sized community. We have a few women players, but by no means a lot. Some of our group used to meet in person regularly, but we have suspended IRL games and joined a wider discord community.

In a game I was running a male player decided it would be funny to slap a female player's character on the butt in order to cast a buff on her. Let's just say it didn't go well. The offender is someone I knew pretty well. We've sat across a table from each other many times and shared many laughs and jokes. The game concluded pretty awkwardly, but I felt it was necessary to try and talk with the guy. I explained how it was inappropriate and I tried to appeal to the decent person inside of him by adding that he's a good person deep down who was out of line at that moment. His response was less than stellar. He argued it was just a game and that if the woman who was harassed (he put harassed in quotes) really cared she would have said something instead of me saying something. It was then that I realized that if I didn't say something this would probably never be addressed. So I decided to report him to the admin group on the server.

In that moment, I didn't know what would happen next. Would they believe me? What if they didn't care? What if they decided I was the problem for causing drama? I posted the conversation I had with him along with the general story. I watched agonizingly as people began reading it. In five minutes I had a response. It was, "We have a zero tolerance policy here. I'll let him know he's banned from all future games here and in person. Sorry you had to deal with this. I will also apologize to the affected players and reaffirm our policy to everyone."

I certainly don't think my experience is equal to those who are victims of harassment, but just reporting someone was nerve-racking. It's important that observers in the middle speak out when we see bad things. Even now I'm still a bit worried that this guy might show up when we meet in person again, or do something to hurt me or the girl, but I think if men and women are ever going to truly be equal we need to correct other men and if needed report them to protect others. Sorry for the rant and stuff, but it's important for us to police or community and use our places of power and privilege to push for equality. Even if it's scary, even if it doesn't affect you directly, even if it could end badly for you. You might be surprised at how many other people want to do the right thing.

Edit: Obligatory thank you to the amazing human who gave me an awesome award, and to the person who called me a homophobic slur via private message you really suck.

Posted by soulofsilence | 25 April 2020 | Link