‘The upside of office flirtation? I’m living it’

I've got a case right now. I'm working on my reply brief for it as I chatter with you foofs. It's ridiculous. It's insane. The State is alleging that our clients did something wrong. They so obviously didn't.

I wish I could just write, this is fucking ridiculous. But I can't.

 

I'm with Dick. The entire issue is black-and-white and there's absolutely no nuance involved.

 

Of course there is. That's why prosecutors have discretion.

But by the letter of the law ...

 

God, does Slate have any editors? Maybe they can hire that woman's husband.

 

I'm not much of a Twitterer, but it looks like the bit about looking down his future wife pant's might not be playing well in Twitter-land.

 

For what it's worth, the husband in question is John Cook of Gawker fame.

 

In more ways than one now.

 

So You Married Your Flirty Boss

Benedikt extracts universal principles from her story, but there are so many contingent factors influencing her story to which the reader is not privy. There are nonverbal and verbal cues that are not in her piece that undoubtedly clarified the pair’s attraction to one another. There is the element of atmosphere, the intangible flavor that defined whether she, the inferior in this power dynamic, was or was not afraid. There is the personality of John Cook himself, who was interested in her as a partner and not as a victim. There was the enthusiasm of her nonverbal consent, which changes everything. In fact, “enthusiastic consent” is used as a standard in some colleges.

These contingent factors made Benedikt’s individual experiences okay. But because those factors are so various and so unpredictable, they cannot possibly be legislated for in harassment rules. When women say “do not kiss a junior colleague without consent,” they do so to protect the people who could be harmed by that action and are not otherwise empowered to protest.

 

What is “nonverbal consent”? (“Getting a condom from the nightstand” is how a law school classmate answered that question in a class discussion.)

I understand what the author is saying, and that’s real life as we’ve known it. But it also runs the danger of converting social awkwardness into something darker. John Cook’s not a harasser because he can read non-verbal signals. That just feels unstaisfying. “I know it when I see it.”