Watershed moment on sexual harassment? Maybe

From Vice:

Today, the New York Times unveiled another investigative story—a little more than a month since its bombshell report on Harvey Weinstein—outlining accusations of sexual misconduct from five women against comedian Louis C.K. Two of the accusers, Dana Min Goodman and Julia Wolov, told the Times that the comedian took off all his clothes and masturbated in front of them.

“We were paralyzed,” Goodman recalled. Afterward, “He was like, ‘Which one is Dana and which one is Julia?’”

In the last few weeks, the sheer number of sexual harassment and assault allegations in Hollywood and beyond has been dizzying. Earlier this week, two women posted on social media that they’d been sexually assaulted by former Gossip Girl actor Ed Westwick in 2014. A Washington, DC-based woman came forward to share her experience of Entourage star Jeremy Piven allegedly rubbing his genitals on her and ejaculating “all over my white turtleneck.” (She’s the third woman to claim being assaulted by Piven.) A former Boston TV news anchor yesterday accused Kevin Spacey of groping her 18-year-old son in 2016. (At least 14 people have alleged the actor behaved inappropriately toward them.) 

Also yesterday, actress Portia de Rossi tweeted her own #metoo story of sexual harassment, alleging that during her last audition for a Steven Segal movie, the actor “sat me down and unzipped his leather pants. I ran out and called my agent. Unfazed, she replied, ‘well, I didn’t know if he was your type.’”

The outpouring of survivor stories and allegations goes well beyond these high-profile accounts. According to RAINN, the country’s largest anti-sexual violence organization, victims of sexual assault and harassment have been reaching out in record numbers. More than 19,000 people—an increase of 21 percent—contacted RAINN for support in October...(Is This Our Watershed Moment?)

Rob's comment:

I guess for an old man I'm naive. This sort of thing---and how apparently widespread it is---shocks me. Before I posted this, I didn't have a label that fit the topic. I thought about just using "Sex," but much of this behavior is really about power, not only sex. Powerful men did this sort of thing because they could get away with it---until now, that is.

When I was a young man before the Civil Rights era, other white men would say shockingly racist things to me on the apparent assumption that, as a white man, I would naturally agree. When I got a little older and during the Civil Rights movement, this stopped happening. Of course living in liberal San Francisco and Northern California made such encounters less likely. Growing a beard was probably also a deterrent.

When I was in prison in the Sixties for refusing to report for military service, creepy sexual conversation by some inmates was routine. I figured that it was not unexpected coming from those guys, since they were by definition a criminal demographic.

I was wrong about minimizing that, just like a lot of us were wrong that having a black president showed that racism in the US was becoming a thing of the past. Millions of our fellow Americans voted for a racist candidate, not to mention one that also bragged about assaulting women!

What bothers many Donald Trump supporters about "political correctness" is that they can no longer count on getting away with talking like that, including calling black people "niggers" and gays "queers."

The only consolation we liberals have: Hillary got almost three million more votes than Trump. Only our archaic electoral college system allowed that creep to become president.

But, dudes, we still have along way to go.