We need to peel back the layers of sexual misconduct

I want to state for the record that I have never sexually assaulted anyone, nor am I guilty of sexual abuse, and in the many years I worked as a supervisor in various jobs and as a college instructor, where I held a position of authority over women, I never sexually harassed a single co-worker or student…

…as far as I know.

See, that’s the problem. I know that I never used my authority to curry sexual favors from women who worked for me or college students who took my classes, which is the textbook definition of sexual harassment. Of that I can be certain. But when I made that blanket statement to a female friend of mine recently, she added the qualifier, “As far as you know.”

She didn’t mean that I was guilty of anything. Her point was this: What I thought about my own behavior at various times of my life and what others thought about it could be two different things, and I wouldn’t necessarily know the difference. Speaking from a woman’s perspective, she correctly noted that the way men used to behave toward women and girls is no longer acceptable, and while some men have evolved with changing standards and mores, others still refuse to acknowledge that what they do is wrong.

Take Al Franken, for example. Before he was a senator, he was a comedian and entertainer who apparently stretched the limits of good taste during a USO tour in 2006. He did so to make a joke, get a laugh, present an image, and if you watch videos of others on that tour – including the woman he supposedly molested – you can see that everyone else was doing it, too.

Hell, if sexual innuendo and bad jokes were crimes during USO engagements, Bob Hope would have been locked up decades ago. Hope took the troops things they wanted from home but couldn’t get abroad, including sexy stars, Playboy bunnies and off-color comedians who told sexist jokes. He didn’t take Ann Margret or Raquel Welch along by accident.

Another beloved entertainer, Johnny Carson, was a master of sexual innuendo, if I recall correctly, as was David Letterman. Carson could get away with anything by couching his humor in buzzwords and clichés and then smirking innocently at the camera (google “Easy Caulker” for an example), and I’ve seen Letterman put his hands on the knees, arms and shoulders of female guests on more than one occasion. Drew Barrymore even climbed up on his desk once and exposed herself to him on the air.

Then, there’s another, higher level of sexual abuse that has called out the likes of Charlie Rose for walking around naked in front of women, Harvey Weinstein for masterbating into a potted plant and scores of others, now including Matt Lauer for, well, whatever he supposedly did at the Olympics. Even that doesn’t quite rival Donald Trump’s self-proclaimed history of pussy grabbing and random kissing of women against their will, and none of it comes anywhere close to the sick and twisted pedophilia of Judge Roy Moore.

It all goes to prove that sexual misconduct is a complicated issue with many layers of intent, suggestion, action, revelation, revulsion and response. It’s wrong to try and conflate Bob Hope telling a dirty joke or Al Franken pretending to grab a woman’s breasts with the actions of Rose or Weinstein or the others. That said, none of this behavior is considered acceptable today and we expect the guilty parties to pay the price for it. The only real question is, how much should each level cost?

And that brings me back to people like me. I was a kid once. I was silly and immature and did my share of stupid things, and sometimes large quantities of alcohol were involved. Clearly, I don’t remember everything that ever happened on those occasions, and even after I got older, it’s impossible to recall everything I ever said or anyone who might have been offended by a gesture or a remark.

I do know this for a fact: I’m no longer comfortable striking up a conversation with strangers, especially younger women and children, which probably makes me seem like a grumpy old man a lot of the time. Still, that’s better than being accused of something which may or not be true by someone I may or may not know. The truth is relative these days, and if called to testify, I wouldn’t want to proclaim my innocence and have to add the words “as far as I know” at the end.