WARNING: Jolly Dive boat captain by name of Paul sexually harassed me

[RayfromTX]

As men, we may not be in the best position to determine how far the pendulum must swing in providing safety and comfort for women.

When men, even well intentioned men that think they understand the situation, point to examples they feel are absurd, it shows they lack the perspective to understand how pervasive and culturally ingrained sexual harassment is on planet earth.

Case in point, a young woman posts on a website she had never heard of before to alert other women of a boat captain that went so far towards making her feel demeaned and sexually harassed that she filed a report with the police and on social media. Predictably, she is asked to prove her validity and post a copy of the police report. Someone else actually contacts the police in this small community. A conversation ensues about what level of uninvited personal contact is appropriate with strangers of the opposite sex and if we have gone too far in defining appropriate behavior. I assure you we have not. All of this when the far more appropriate response in my opinion was a simple...

Thank you for letting us know.

 

[Ana]

As men, we may not be in the best position to determine how far the pendulum must swing in providing safety and comfort for women.

When men, even well intentioned men that think they understand the situation, point to examples they feel are absurd, it shows they lack the perspective to understand how pervasive and culturally ingrained sexual harassment is on planet earth.

Case in point, a young woman posts on a website she had never heard of before to alert other women of a boat captain that went so far towards making her feel demeaned and sexually harassed that she filed a report with the police and on social media. Predictably, she is asked to prove her validity and post a copy of the police report. Someone else actually contacts the police in this small community. A conversation ensues about what level of uninvited personal contact is appropriate with strangers of the opposite sex and if we have gone too far in defining appropriate behavior. I assure you we have not. All of this when the far more appropriate response in my opinion was a simple...

Thank you for letting us know.

See? what is soooo obvious to you (a thousands thanks/likes/ by the way), is more complicated than rocket surgery for way too many.

 

[RyanT]

When men, even well intentioned men that think they understand the situation, point to examples they feel are absurd, it shows they lack the perspective to understand how pervasive and culturally ingrained sexual harassment is on planet earth.

A podcast I listened to recently illustrated this beautifully. A woman took it upon herself to confront men who were cat-calling women at a local group of bars. She got this one guy to talk to her and he was telling her that women really like it. When she told him they don't like it, and often feel afraid, his response was that maybe she was the outlier and that other women really like it. After two hours of conversation with him (over several days) and a presentation of survey data (that women really don't like it), she barely made a dent.

 

[hammet]

As men, we may not be in the best position to determine how far the pendulum must swing in providing safety and comfort for women.

When men, even well intentioned men that think they understand the situation, point to examples they feel are absurd, it shows they lack the perspective to understand how pervasive and culturally ingrained sexual harassment is on planet earth.

Case in point, a young woman posts on a website she had never heard of before to alert other women of a boat captain that went so far towards making her feel demeaned and sexually harassed that she filed a report with the police and on social media. Predictably, she is asked to prove her validity and post a copy of the police report. Someone else actually contacts the police in this small community. A conversation ensues about what level of uninvited personal contact is appropriate with strangers of the opposite sex and if we have gone too far in defining appropriate behavior. I assure you we have not. All of this when the far more appropriate response in my opinion was a simple...

Thank you for letting us know.

Or you can dispose of a couple of centuries of implementation of preponderance of evidence and replace it with conviction by hearsay and circumstantial evidence. Or better yet, we could just dunk people in water.

 

[Wookie]

Or better yet, we could just dunk people in water.

.....

 

[Scuba-74]

Predictably, she is asked to prove her validity and post a copy of the police report. Someone else actually contacts the police in this small community...

I think this is where you need to mention that police replied, and according to them the accident got blown out of proportion. The fact of calling police says absolutely nothing about how serious the situation really was. I have hard time believing that an officer would set themselves up by using those words, if in fact there was any ground for allegations.

I have an acquaintance who has this annoying habit of touching the other person's shoulder every time they break direct eye contact during the conversation, which often makes talking with him a tad uncomfortable. He does that to everyone, not just his close friends. Despite the fact that, apparently, in the UK that would be considered an assault, I guarantee you that if I called police on him here in the US, their exact response would be that I'm blowing it out of proportion.

 

[tridacna]

This incident was not a tap on the shoulder.

We had an instructor at our store that constantly called women “honey” and “babe”. Then made inappropriate comments after they tried on a wetsuit. “A nice looking girl like you won’t have a problem finding a buddy, heh heh”. No touching. He was fired. Rightly so.

 

[Scuba-74]

This incident was not a tap on the shoulder.

We don't know what this incident was. We have two written accounts contradicting each other, and a personal opinion of a law enforcement officer. It's not unreasonable to allow for the possibility that a person (especially a paying customer) who is upset with the experience, may exaggerate the facts in their negative review. That's why I tend to trust the officer's assessment more than the other two accounts. Besides, in OPs own words, police "were wonderful and super professional and super good to deal with".

We had an instructor at our store that constantly called women “honey” and “babe”. Then made inappropriate comments after they tried on a wetsuit. “A nice looking girl like you won’t have a problem finding a buddy, heh heh”. No touching. He was fired. Rightly so.

In this case I agree, he should have been fired.

 

[Lorenzoid]

See? what is soooo obvious to you (a thousands thanks/likes/ by the way), is more complicated than rocket surgery for way too many.

We don't know how many are out there, but I'm happy to agree that whatever the number, it's too many. Just consider how many others may have read the original post and chosen not to say anything, because our reply would have been simply along the lines of what Ray said: "Thanks for letting us know."

 

[kelemvor]

Do you not see a problem with saying "let’s put this thing to bed and ask the poster to get a copy and post it" when you have no idea whether that's even possible? And I'm sure you have no idea what a police report in Antigua looks like, so I find it hard to believe that would persuade you. If the OP did as you asked, laying bare her personal info for doxxing, the cavalry of apologists would probably just say it looks fake.

The one time I was involved in such an incident (as the victim's parent) we did not get a copy of the police report. We got a business card from the detective with a case number handwritten on the back. We got a pamphlet on victims rights, and later we got a couple calls and letters from the state attorney to schedule courtroom appearances and such.

Now, I later looked up that stuff on the internet. FOIA and all that makes it relatively easy in the USA. This wasn't in the USA.

I doubt the person reporting it would have a copy of the police report. If it was just a warning, obviously there's no follow-up going to happen for courtroom stuff. It's another country, so who knows if the officer even gave her a card or something with a case number or anything at all. Especially considering the officer just issued a warning.

Being physically touched is no small thing, it’s assault. How was the OP to know that the touch wasn’t going to lead to something more aggressive. The opinion of the officer isn’t relevant, it’s how the OP felt that is.
If it happened in the U.K. the police report would be included on the sexual offenders register, where a search of the register on the individual would reveal the incident. Sounds over the top, but just getting accused in the U.K. has massive implications.

Well.. you guys in the UK have some laws that I envy, and some laws that are an embarrassment. There has to be a lot more detail than just being touched. Do you get handcuffed and thrown in the klink when you touch someone in a train station or airport as you pass? If so, do both of you go to jail? The standard for "assault" should be far higher than that imo. I'll have to look up what the rules are here in the US, but in my mind if there's no injury it seems like a joke to call it assault.

Besides, the report (in the first post of this thread) does not say he touched her. I just reread it, unless I missed an important sentence I don't see anything about touching. Dude made an ass of himself with a bunch of lude and inappropriate comments.

IMO this guy shouldn't be serving time (for this incident as described). He should probably be getting fired, if he isn't the owner. Maybe a warning. If it were my business I'd fire him. Then I'd post on tripadvisor and wherever else and let everyone know the guy was fired and that I'd put some kind of policy in place to try and prevent a recurrence.