"confused, shaken, and ashamed" - victim of sexual assault by journalist Mark Halperin describes how she felt

So apparently it's the season for speaking up about sexual harassment incidents from decades ago. Now I don't give a shit about any of these guys and I don't think sexual harassment is acceptable. Investigate it, try them, jail them, kill them, whatever the law feels is necessary. That's fine with me. But I cringe every time time I read these accounts.

One of the latest in the news involves journalist/political analyst Mark Halperin. A woman who worked with him at ABC News in 1994 alleges he sexually harassed her and describes her encounters.

See the relevant snippet here: https://imgur.com/a/A3sE7

I'm just trying to imagine this. She needs help on a story. She goes into his office, he asks her to sit on his lap, she does, and he has an erection. She felt "confused, shaken, and ashamed" yet still continued to do it 3 or 4 times afterward?

Are you a 5 year old? Retarded? You're a grown ass adult working for a major news organization. What the hell were you confused about? The guy asked you to sit on his lap, he was horny, and you sat on it. Is there something I'm missing here? That seems pretty cut and dry.

Imagine her discussion about this with female coworkers afterward.

"Gee it was just the strangest thing Martha. I needed help with my story and he offered to help. For some reason though I had to sit on his lap. I'm so confused, I don't understand what that has to do with the story. But I trusted him, I thought maybe it would all make sense later. So I did and then I felt something hard on my butt. Jeez Martha is that what they call an erection? Oh my gosh now I'm even more confused, and ashamed."

This isn't getting molested by a neighbor when you're a kid and you don't know what the hell is going on. You were professional adult (and now a lawyer. Who would want this idiot as a lawyer? You didn't know sexual harassment when it was occurring right under your butt?).

Could you imagine if a guy came out with something like this? "When I came into her office, she had me massage her breast area. I walked away feeling so confused and shaken. This occurred another 5 times" Oh come on get the fuck out of here John. I'm sure you were really shaken there that you went back for more.

I don't doubt these guys are pervs and I actually do get some sort of thrill out of seeing them fall sometimes. But these grown ass women are acting like babies and everyone just accepts it like it's normal. Aren't other women secretly snickering at this stuff though? I've worked in several offices, I know the shit that goes down. In my personal experience, the women are much more forward sexually than the men because they don't have any fear of getting pulled into HR about it.

[–]tirelessdinosaur1 point2 points3 points 8 years ago (1 child) | Copy Link

[–]chipsarefine[S] -2 points-1 points0 points 8 years ago (0 children) | Copy Link

He was not her boss. In theory sure his level of power was higher than hers. But her story is that she asked him for help on something. This encounter doesn't seem like a power situation. It's one colleague helping another.

If I go to someone for help and they're being annoying, I'm going to either just do it myself or ask someone else. There's not going to be a feeling of "I need to ask John for help because he has power". In fact, the reverse would be true because higher-ups don't like to be bothered helping new people with shit, especially if it's not a direct report. When I need help at work, the last people I go to are people in power. For one, I'm annoying them, and secondly it makes it look like I don't know what I'm doing. I understand your point but I don't really that that is this situation.

Also, let's say you are 100% right, he's towering over her with his power and can fire her at any moment if she doesn't do what he wants. If that actually happened, do people not know how to report things? You're going to get fired because you didn't sit on the boss's lap? Bring it up at the employment hearing, I'm sure they'd love to hear that.

Lastly, at the level of pay and skill of these people, worst case scenario you can get a job somewhere else. This isn't sweatshop labor where you either give the boss a BJ or your whole family starves to death next week. Those are the people I really do sympathize for. Not these high paid crybabies.

We're all talking about this power dynamic, but are forgetting that most of the people involved are highly educated and financially well off. Don't talk to me about power dynamic when you're making 6 figures plus. Because your argument then is basically well I had to sit on his lap to keep making 6 figures. No one is entitled to 6 figures that bad that they need to degrade themselves like that, and if they do, then that's on them. The real power imbalance is the level no one ever talks about. Uneducated labor work, places where people really have no opportunities at all and are scraping by to make ends meat. You won't see me mocking any of those stories.

[+][deleted] 8 years ago* (8 children) | Copy Link

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[–]chipsarefine[S] 0 points1 point2 points 8 years ago (2 children) | Copy Link

thanks for your comment. I'm just posting my own perspective here and I'm sure many here have other perspectives. I'm not trying to speak for others or have this be some sort of official MGTOW view or anything.

I think you raise a good point that a predator goes after the weak who are less likely to do anything about it. So that then makes it harder to point the finger at the victim in any way because their passive disposition came before them being a victim and is the reason they were the victim. So it's not really something that they could control or foresee going in.

My main point here isn't to victim blame. I'm not one to say things like "she was asking for it, look how she was dressed". If someone is a victim legitimately, they will have my support and I won't attempt to place any blame on them.

My point is more is that I'm suspicious at the extent some of these people are victims to begin with. Here's what I see a lot of: people mutually flirting at work and it eventually getting sexual. From this point there's two possible paths: either they fall in love and live happily ever after and it's a feel-good "we met at work" story, or eventually there's a falling out. When there's a falling out, there's always the risk that one day one party misconstrues the whole thing as unwanted sexual harassment. And then there's no proof anywhere. Isn't it sort of BS to come out with a story no one can confirm or deny decades later? 1) the suspected perpetrator has no way to defend himself from hearsay and his integrity is forever put into question, and 2) if it's actually true, you had an opportunity to stop a predator and did nothing, allowing him to continue. Now he's an old man, on his way out, and it's a bit too little too late. Of what value is it to anyone to bring something up that no one can act upon productively, other than to tarnish someone's reputation? If someone is a victim, they should report it quickly.

[–]SYL3NZR0 points1 point2 points 8 years ago (4 children) | Copy Link

[+][deleted] 8 years ago* (3 children) | Copy Link

[–]SYL3NZR0 points1 point2 points 8 years ago (2 children) | Copy Link

[+][deleted] 8 years ago* (1 child) | Copy Link

[–]SYL3NZR0 points1 point2 points 8 years ago (0 children) | Copy Link

I do yes, being victim of such things all i needed was a little push, i got lucky and got it, a certain girl i know got this push from me, so yes i absolutely do firmly believe in it.

Either you take stuff in your own hands when you can or you don't have any grounds to complain.

Also false equivalence, children are young, stupid, no life experience or knowlege, manipulated by the people they are supposed to trust most, with no "choice" for the most part.

"We" are talking about degenerate adult women, of full age, in jobs or whatever, actively seeking out "abuse" AND after walking away from it, having any and ALL options to completely be free of it, GOING BACK VOLUNTARILY to get it again? You want to tell me there's any justification beyond SELFISHNESS (and the assurance that with any outcome they'll get away with it)? Trying to sleep their way up, pathetic. If these people had to fear ANYTHING, they'd be dead now, suicide with 2 shots in the back of the head, like anyone speaking out against government officials, anyone speaking out against shillary clinton or witnesses of the Las Vegas shooting - go google it

You want to put that to equal with children who don't even know of such options? yet fear VERY real, VERY hard consequences if they do it and it goes wrong? (and i know of cases where it did)

[–]SnapshillBot0 points1 point2 points 8 years ago (0 children) | Copy Link

Title	"confused, shaken, and ashamed" - victim of sexual assault by journalist Mark Halperin describes how she felt
Author	chipsarefine
Upvotes	4
Comments	10
Date	October 28, 2017 8:15 PM UTC (8 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/MGTOW
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/MGTOW/comments/79cbhq/confused_shaken_and_ashamed_victim_of_sexual/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/MGTOW/confused-shaken-and-ashamed-victim-of-sexual.542689 https://theredarchive.com/post/542689

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