Who's Preying On Whom?
This is a story of the older-man professor and the younger-woman aspiring writer -- but it's like many similar stories in other professions and arenas.
In a world in which women are being schooled to see themselves as men's victims -- even when a man has done nothing wrong -- my author and professor friend Susan Shapiro takes a more honest and accountable view in New York Magazine.
"Are you okay?" I asked my 22-year-old smart, pretty student Debbie last spring during office hours. She often had questions about class or the ambitious book she was working on. But tonight she'd rushed over -- still in a minidress, high heels, heavy eyeliner, and lipstick -- upset about a bad experience she'd just had with a famous older novelist now teaching at my alma mater, whom she'd befriended on Facebook. "What happened?" I asked, worried.She nervously combed her long, dark hair behind her ears. "He wanted me to be his date for this fancy award ceremony tonight. I was excited, got all dressed up. It was fun. But then he asked me to go home with him. Gross. I said no way."
"What did he do?"
"Nothing. I got the hell out of there. It was creepy. There was another girl there he was flirting with."
All the harassment, sexual-assault, roofie, and rape cases in colleges across the country were not distant news. Many of my students had shared similar sordid encounters, which scared me. I'd sent several distraught women to school authorities, to the police to report crimes, to therapists, and to editors who'd published their stories. Because I was a female professor and outspoken women's-rights advocate who'd championed Debbie's work, I knew she wanted me to be angry on her behalf, toe the conventional feminist line, take her side, see her as an innocent victim, and call the guy a harasser -- or worse. Yet this time, I couldn't.
"I'm confused," I said. "Why go on a date if you weren't attracted to him?"
"I admire his writing. And I hoped he'd blurb my book," she admitted. "But that doesn't mean I was going to bed with him."
"Of course not," I told her. "Yet his proposition -- and taking no for an answer -- sounds fair. We don't have to vilify every man on the planet with a functioning libido."
"Wow," she said. "You're taking this so personally."
She was right. It wasn't her actions that troubled me. I feared I'd done what I was accusing Debbie of doing when I was her age. She didn't know that I'd had an affair with an older professor and tried to make him the villain. The truth turned out to be more complex.
...Now, after two decades in a happy union, I've learned I can be a feminist who loves men and marriage. This involves not lumping all men into the enemy camp, or labeling someone "sexist" or "predatory" just because they express desire.
In retrospect, my professor was not a Svengali seducing an innocent rube -- or a skirt chaser abusing his position, like other infamous men in the news. I was never victimized. He was a gentleman who'd postponed our romance until I was no longer in his class. I'd been a consenting adult who'd actually initiated the relationship. I'd wanted him, went for him, got him -- and his connections. When he'd pushed for more, I set the limits I needed to, and not all that gently. Then I published a book telling my side of the story.
Ultimately, he might have been more of a victim than I was.
This is an essential bit:
Amid debates of older men harassing, seducing, and manipulating female students and subordinates, it was tempting to see myself as the innocent prey and injured party, another young, impressionable protégée manipulated by a powerful man. Yet as easy as that narrative would be on my ego, it wouldn't be psychologically accurate.
And this is another essential bit:
We each harness whatever power we have to get ahead, whether overtly or subconsciously. I'd once been a hot 22-year-old using my looks to fuel my ambition. Yet here I was, wishing my students would own their roles in this clichéd, coquettish game while I hadn't been honest either. I suddenly saw how I'd deceived myself years earlier. If my professor was drawn to my youth and beauty, I'd been enticed by his experience and status, which I wound up usurping. It was a trade-off I'd chosen, a barter that launched me, benefitting me most in the long-run.
Doesn't anyone like----not fuck at work? Seriously I feel like I'm the only one.
I've been propositioned by both my bosses and guys I manage (I work in a male dominated field). Like......it is extremely common for women to say yes and that is why guys try in the first place., that is why they try with ME.
It has been one of the most annoying, rage inducing aspects of my career. I just wanna make a fucking dime, not suck a dick.
ppen at May 17, 2016 12:07 AM
If you think you are going to be judged by your ability in xyz then you need to do the things that enable you to do xyz (mind, body, spirit).
If that's fighting or competing for a musical chair, then you work out/practice, spar/play in a band, and "fight" (compete locally) w/your peers, and then really fight/compete with non-peers throwing who knows what at you.
You get your ass kicked and then asked a coach what the hell you did wrong? (Typically nothing the guy was MORE EXPERIENCED than you.)
If it's writing then you write (music, code, technical stuff, etc.).
Part of all of this is taking flack for wanting to do xyz (you're not going to earn a living writing, you are not good enough to be my date/hookup.
So big boys gotta do what big boys do.
Don't take it personal negatively ppen. Take it as a compliment on your personality, you make men feel comfortable enough in their own skin to take a deep breath and ask that they learn from you.
That's a pretty nice thing unless they treat you like a piece of meat then kick 'em in the balls.
Bob in Texas at May 17, 2016 5:20 AM
People spend most of their time at work, so yes that is where many single people find partners. If you aren't interested just politely decline. If they become asses about it keep a record and talk with HR. You are a woman so 90% of the time you will win any HR fight. But keep that record just in case it is that other 10% of the time.
Ben at May 17, 2016 5:43 AM
I found partners at work and through work. I sure never called any of it predation or harassment.
Amy Alkon at May 17, 2016 5:49 AM
Women — especially very young women — do not as a rule understand the line in dress between "cute" and "sexy". They do not understand male libido, do not understand they are being mentally undressed and sized up a hundred times a day. And that place of profound ignorance is where the author's narrative comes from.
Rob McMillin at May 17, 2016 6:25 AM
So the author flirted with a high-status man in her field, used him, got what she wanted, and then re-virginized herself by making him out to be a predator. This sort of story reinforces why I generally keep my distance from young women. They are trouble with a capital T.
Cousin Dave at May 17, 2016 6:58 AM
I get that alot of people spend alot of time at work and hence why they partner up. But thanks to the internet it is dying out, because work romantic relationships are one of the most annoying messy aspects of a job.
You're an idiot, a full blown fucking idiot, if you attempt it as a man in this day of age. And I consider you unprofessional if you attempt it as a woman and question your judgement. Both of you know the legal risks you pose for a company.
This is for us regular people, who have regular jobs. Which writes rarely do---I can honestly rarely relate to a writer including the one who wrote this article despite most writers self-importance on their career and life experiences. They live in their own artsy bubble. Like cool have that conversation with an actual 22 year old in a real 9-5 job and see how good HR sees your epiphany about fucking older dudes.
Ppen at May 17, 2016 7:02 AM
+1, Cousin Dave. When a man studying at or associated with a university or other institution sees a woman who works or studies there coming toward him, he needs to turn & run. His career and his future are at risk.
Lastango at May 17, 2016 7:59 AM
I find the older man / younger woman dynamic icky, perhaps because I'll never be Alpha enough to attract those young hotties. I thought the very best part of Ms. Shapiro's story was that her BF apparently loved her and wasn't just getting off on the Svengali thing.
DaveG at May 17, 2016 8:05 AM
Geez, I wish some hot 20 something would prey on me.
Wut? I'm older, not dead.
I R A Darth Aggie at May 17, 2016 8:33 AM
Might as well re-run this Miss Manners column from 1991 (I can't find a place where I can really cut and paste it):
https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1320&dat=19911216&id=AEFWAAAAIBAJ&sjid=UOoDAAAAIBAJ&pg=3593,5220347&hl=en
...This is a problem Miss Manners can solve.
But first she must ask the question: What is welcome sexual attention in the workplace?
Welcome to whom? Even if the two people involved are as happy as can be, with themselves and each other, and the beauty of love — is sexual attention in the work place welcome to the client who is waiting to get business done? To co-workers who may have to cover for preoccupied lovers, and who are given grounds to suspect that personal feelings could influence promotions and raises?
To the employer who is paying two people for the time during which the sexual attention is being welcomed?...
lenona at May 17, 2016 9:36 AM
I remember maybe 10 years ago it was the fashion to tell us that women are "the empathetic sex".
Much like including "science" in the name of a discipline makes neither political nor computer and actual science, or how I went to count the actual amount paid when told by the customer that she was a "very honest person", the ladies then protested too much, too.
It's very difficult for women to have empathy with men. Now, with the news this week that certain painkillers can impair the empathy center of the brain, and that western women are so overwhelmingly drugged up, they start out without much empathy, and then they lobotomize themselves at those parts of their brains, meaning that they really are incapable of being in another person's shoes if he happens to have external genitals.
The fans of having government able to control your life should reflect on the ability for yet another bloc of narcissistic psychopaths making decisions for your life when, at best, you are a non-person, and, more likely, you are a target of some constant abstracted hate for made-up grievances to cover her own bad behavior.
ElVerdeLoco at May 17, 2016 10:11 AM
The author admits to having a long-ago affair with an older man. She saw herself a victim, so she "...published
a book telling my side of the story."
Did she give the man's name? Was her side slanted to make the reader believe she was a victim ? Does anyone reading this blog know? What happened to the man ?
Nick at May 17, 2016 10:24 AM
Thank you lenona. That is exactly it.
The problems caused by these liasons are the fucking worst.
Firstly I thought we as women fought long and hard not to fuck our way to the top...
The fact you as a man can't keep your cock intact when a 22 year uses you is on you. Early 20 something year olds do not have the experience to know their little career dreams are nothing but ego fueled fantasies. Is it surprising they play with fire? Parents (especially moms) just dont school them the way older women used to on the importance of boundaries with the opposite sex.
And by a certain age I expect a man to keep his libido in check..and yet I see it often enough how they risk their livelihood for pussy.
I will fire your fucking ass (both men and women) who dare stir my workplace up with your fuckery of romance. Risking everyones livelihood. See how much your partner will love you unemployed.
And sexual harrasment is real amomg the Hispanic immigrant workers I have. It has been a fucking nightmare managing the immigrant communities when it comes to this stuff. The men are clearly predatory and there is no HR for this kind of real world stuff.
What an awful piece. I fucking hate writers (Alkon excluded).
ppen at May 17, 2016 11:03 AM
I agree with ppen.
The fact you as a man can't keep your cock intact when a 22 year uses you is on you.
Yup. I'm not George Clooney. When an attractive woman in her twenties flirts with me, I know there's more to it than actual physical attraction (although some people do like to flirt, regardless, and that's fine; I'm adult enough to know it doesn't mean anything).
Parents (especially moms) just dont school them the way older women used to on the importance of boundaries with the opposite sex.
That's the crux of it, but since we all know raising a child is The Hardest Job in the World (TM) today's parents can't possibly be expected to instill the most basic emotional lessons in their children.
Kevin at May 17, 2016 11:26 AM
Sex makes men stupid.
Now, when a childless woman hitting 30 has baby rabies you dont see men, women and society at large calling these women pigs, or stupid, or having no sympathy for their bio urge to fuck.
In fact most people complain that spineless me arent lining up to be a nameless sperm donor and fulfill this womans needs for no other reason than she is a woman who wants something.
Take strip clubs, men will shell out hundreds of dollars to watch marginally attractive women take off their clothes even when they can get high quality porn for free in the privacy of their own homes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_DQv2GxFHt4
Men, most of them anyway, are hardwired to seek out and take what ever sex they can get.
So who are the real victims? The guys subject to the biology nature saddled them with, or the girls who use that to further their careers?
lujlp at May 17, 2016 12:45 PM
The dilemma men are in is that they are in the position of being expected to form relationships with women (a societal expectation, supposedly as part of being a "mature adult")and also they're expected to take the initiative. Unfortunately, some young women are capricious and/or manipulative and can be hard to read. As a result, it's no wonder these situations develop, yet it's almost always the man who is blamed in the current cultural milieu.
Yet I seldom see calls not to put conflicting pressures on men.
T. J. Patriarch at May 17, 2016 4:34 PM
"And sexual harrasment is real amomg the Hispanic immigrant workers I have. It has been a fucking nightmare managing the immigrant communities when it comes to this stuff. The men are clearly predatory and there is no HR for this kind of real world stuff."
That's a different issue from dating co-workers and I bet it's a stone cold bitch to deal with. Lots of issues going on besides simple dating. I think firing quickly and often is probably the best you can do 'cause I don't think a HR film on sexual harassment is going to do much good.
I think anyone "dating" a twenty-something AT WORK is asking for trouble. Are they a girl, a woman, an adult, a pouty princess, ... Do they know?
A party girl, boat bunny, _____ groupie, etc. are different entities entirely and just the thing if all you are looking for is young ass. Otherwise ignore them until they get some experience at someone else's expense.
Bob in Texas at May 17, 2016 4:50 PM
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