The Time I Spoke Up About Sexual Harassment

Did I get involved in the “correct” way? I don’t know…but I went with my gut, and used my best discretion

I’m going to preface this article with a candid revelation. Despite being a White cisgender male person, I have been the target of sexual harassment constantly throughout my life (which, in some ways, is mind-boggling to me, because I don’t consider myself to be very physically attractive).

Conversely, I’ve gone out of my way to avoid sexually harassing other people — or, if I realize I unintentionally did, to then make sure I apologize to someone if I’ve ever slipped up and misspoken.

This article isn’t a gold star showcase where I expect to be praised for my interventive actions…or for maintaining a polite demeanor around others.

It’s a meditation to reflect upon the fact that I possess male privilege while I, simultaneously, regularly also face oppression due to the intersections of being gay, autistic, Millennial, “ugly,” and gender nonconforming.

If someone is Black, Indigenous, or another Person of Color — or a woman, nonbinary, or female-presenting — they might be inclined to sneer, “Oh, well Eichy is getting off easy, compared to me!”

Never mind how most of the terror during my childhood and adolescence — and some of it, during adulthood — has been due to me falling outside of heteronormative and neurotypical lines. It’s a battle I fight on a daily basis.

For that reason, I go through life with the proactive desire (however paranoid it may actually be) to avoid the type of sexual exploitation prominently in the back of my mind. This is why I rarely, if ever, bring up amorous topics when I’m around complete strangers. Amongst a friend group, I’m usually one of the last people to broach the subject (if at all).

In fact, the only times I can recall having insulted other people with obscene sexual comments were when I was using them as a defense mechanism — because the person had already been explicitly bullying me.

But, for a moment, let’s jump three years back in time. It was nearly two years after the #MeToo movement took off. As somewhat of a social hermit, I finally found myself in a rare (for me) situation where I had to make a split-second decision as to whether or not I would “Say something” or “Do something” (as opposed to remaining silent)…

Sidewalk Sycophancy?

It was the Summer of 2019. With the ’19-’20 presidential primary season just heating up, I would be frequently mass-producing political advocacy letters to civic-minded public figures. Three or four times per month, I’d walk them down to my local post office to mail them out in large batches.

As I approached the roadside mailbox in front of my city’s post office, I passed by an older gentleman who was standing out in front of the nearby laundromat. He greeted me in an outgoing manner. I cordially acknowledged him, but I was more preoccupied with getting my four-dozen or five-dozen individually-sealed letters inserted into the streetcorner drop box.

I zipped up my insolated carrier, which was now empty. As I started walking back in the direction I’d arrived, Sidewalk Guy randomly struck up a conversation with me. I don’t remember all the details, but they were probably fairly mundane.

Why was I dropping off so much mail? Did I live around here? Was this something I regularly did? He wanted to know everything about me.

Since I was in no immediate hurry to get home, he and I just started talking casually. I began describing the nature of my political activism, and he seemed genuinely intrigued. For our minute or two of interaction so far, I was getting the sense that he was a real “people person.”

Then, all of a sudden, a movement in the distance caught his eye. I followed the gaze of Sidewalk Guy (I’m just going to call him “Larry,” from now on), straight over to…

A conventionally-attractive young woman, probably in my “Xennial” age range (late-Millennial or early-Xer). She was crossing the street from the library, headed toward her car — which we would eventually realize was parked almost directly in front of us.

Larry had stopped, mid-sentence. Since I’d followed his gaze, it was obvious to me that he was admiring the young woman’s beauty.

“Hey! You’re hot!” he called out to her.

Immediately, I cringed.

I could see the young woman was disturbed, based on her body language. She physically shrunk into herself, picking up speed as she approached her vehicle.

Snubbed by her silence, Larry turned to me. “Oh. I guess she doesn’t like compliments,” he said, with a bit of an annoyed twinge to his voice.

At this point, I saw she was reaching to unlock her car door. I knew it was important to speak up and see if I could get through to Larry. With a microsecond to figure out precisely what I should say, I replied to him:

“Well, she doesn’t know you. Some people don’t feel comfortable talking to strangers.”

Larry appeared almost dumbfounded by my response. “YOU talked to me,” he reminded me, still smiling and matter-of-fact in his tone.

“Yeah, but I’m more gregarious than most people,” I said.

By now, I was just stalling for time. Since the young woman was already in her car and getting ready to drive away, my focus was on keeping Larry distracted for as long as possible.

To my surprise, it actually worked.

“Gregarious?” he repeated, sounding a bit awestruck by my choice of vocabulary. “I’ve never heard that word before. What does it mean?”

Fake it ’till you make it, right? Although I felt for this young woman and the unwanted attention Larry had foisted upon her, I’d fully committed to my role in assisting with her getaway.

“It refers to someone who is a social butterfly,” I explained. And I kept babbling. I was just diverting his attention until her car had fully driven away.

Not that it was very difficult. Larry was distracted by this impromptu conversation with me. Like a puppy retrieving its owner’s frisbee.

What I didn’t tell Larry was how scary it is for me to hold prolonged conversations with strangers…especially when those strangers’ behavior is unsettling. We ultimately bid each other adieu, on a congenial note. I continued on my way.

During the entire walk home: I agonized over what I coulda/shoulda/woulda said differently to him.

I could have verbally shredded him in an aggressive manner. But I didn’t know anything about Larry. What if he was psychologically unstable? He could have been putting on a good front for me, because he happened to be in an upbeat mood in that moment.

Or, I could have given him a sanctimonious lecture. However, I wouldn’t have been true to myself, if I’d gone that route. And there’s no guarantee he would have listened to me, anyway.

Contrary to popular belief, White guys don’t have this automatic universal affinity toward one another just because we happen to be both White and male.

So, in hindsight, I felt I handled this situation in a fairly reasonable manner. I civilly expressed to him how some people just want to be left alone. I accomplished this without coming off as a pompous hyperwoke caricature.

And, because Larry and I had developed a quick rapport (even though I’d been faking a lot of it), then perhaps my words gave him something to chew on, afterward?

Yes, I realize that I had privilege during this interaction…in the respect that Larry had no sexual interest in me, and I wasn’t the one whom he was objectifying. But, in the absence of additional background information about him, I stand by my decision to navigate his chauvinism.

In the years that have passed since then: it did, on the other hand, impel me to examine other times when I could (and should) have taken a more interposing role, as a bystander.

Food Service Fatigue

There was one evening, in college, when myself and a bunch of other students were waiting for the cafeteria to open. It was at UW-Eau Claire’s Hilltop Center on upper campus. Probably a dozen of us earlybirds had arrived right before 4:30 P.M. so we could beat the 5:00 P.M. dinner rush.

I didn’t know anybody there. On nights when I had dinner at the cafeteria, I usually ate alone in a remote corner of an alcove far away from the larger suppertime crowd. Sometimes I would bring a book with me to read, Rory Gilmore-style.

As we waited for the doors to be unlocked, two boys around my age were positioned on the steps in front of me. They were making extremely crass and disparaging comments about Ruth, one of the cafeteria workers whom they could see through the windows. She was setting up the card-swiping machine at the entrance; and, because they were hungry and cranky, they were complaining to each other.

It would have been one thing if they’d just been “hangry” and stewing about how long it was taking the staff to open the cafeteria doors, in general.

But, no…they were actually making crude and obscene comments berating Ruth’s appearance. Physically, she fell way short of their fantasies as far as what made a woman “hot” in their eyes. If it had been a “hot” woman prepping the area (instead of Ruth), then I suspect they would have been ogling her…rather than complaining about how slow and “ugly” they considered her to be.

I’m still ashamed of myself for not having spoken up and told them to knock it off. Based on their loudness, it appeared as though Ruth could probably hear them from behind the doors…but, obviously, she remained quiet so as to avoid a confrontation.

Why didn’t I say something to the two lewd guys, in that moment?

I suspect I was probably flashing back to all of the times I’d been taunted and harassed by other kids in grade school and middle school. My desire was to get away from that, in college. I was letting irrational fear consume me.

In reality, maybe they wouldn’t have taken me seriously if I’d checked them hard? Maybe, indeed, they would have verbally turned on me? But, since I wasn’t going to physically escalate things with them, what might my follow-up reaction have been?

Knowing me, I probably would have told them off even more harshly, and then stormed away down the stairs…finding another place to grab some food, that night? Or, since I was a co-chair of the Dining Services Committee, maybe I could have found another staff member (once the doors opened) and exposed those scumbags?

But would making a scene like that really have made Ruth feel heartened that someone was standing up for her? Or would it just have caused her even more embarrassment?

I’ll never know.

About five years later, I was living in Los Angeles. My buddy Jeff took me to a taqueria that was two minutes away from my apartment building.

We were reading the menu board above the cash register, and our server told us to take our time deciding what we were going to order (since she was busy frying up homemade tortillas on their skillet).

I noticed Jeff gazing at her, longingly. It was almost as though he was in a trance.

She noticed his attention, and I could see her flinch. I knew she was trying her best to ignore him.

“You’re pretty,” Jeff told her, almost in an innocent way that a child might compliment his playground crush.

Our server just remained silent. From my perspective, I could see her body language grow even more tense.

But when I looked back at Jeff, he was still captivated by her beauty…practically in a dreamlike state.

She made eye contact with me, for a few fleeting moments. I tried to give her a sympathetic smile, each time, as though to tell her, “Don’t worry; he’s harmless.”

It was true, by the way. As socially awkward as Jeff was when it came to flirting, he revered women and often put them on a pedestal — sometimes, to his own detriment.

Soon, he and I ordered our food and had dinner together.

But I’m still holding onto that memory…wondering, once we’d left the restaurant, what I could have said to Jeff to help him understand our server’s discomfort.

Unlike Larry (who was mostly a stranger to me) or the two cafeteria dudes (who almost certainly would have turned on me)…in this case, I think Jeff would have respected me for speaking my mind.

Here, I feel that my hesitancy was because our friendship was still relatively new. He was treating me to dinner — and I was afraid I’d succumb to my tendency to repel people, due to my clumsy social skills and self-conscious hang-ups.

Final Reflections

Remembering these incidents is just a reminder to myself: what if humans were more willing to embrace fearless tenacity, whenever we see another person being victimized in ways that we ourselves have previously experienced?

In my freshman year of high school, I was physically (and repeatedly!) molested in public by one of my classmates (and I will write a lot more about this, another time). Very few people stood up for me, spoke up for me, or helped me to fend off my assailant.

That wasn’t the only time it happened to me…but it was the most vivid, and more gut-wrenching than all of the other times combined.

#MeToo has been led by — and fueled by — women. At the root of this is systemic misogyny being entrenched in workplace environments and other formal settings. That behavior then proceeds to spill over into social and cultural realms.

But too many men and nonbinary people also get preyed upon, and our experiences whack us — over and over again — on psychological and spiritual levels.

So, if I want people to stand up for me in settings where I feel unsafe or marginalized…then I need to be willing to do the same for other people when I witness it happening to them.

#MeToo still represents me. People wrongly assume that, because I have a penis, I’ve only received “a little taste” (ha!) of gender repression and sexual objectification.

No. I carry it with me, every day of my life.

Whether it’s a memory of something bad happening to me where nobody appeared to give a shit…or where I was the one who stood by, failing to take action — and then I proceed to replay the scene over and over again in my head, second-guessing what I coulda/shoulda/woulda done differently.

To everyone who is reading this — what have been some of your #ILetItHappen moments?