An acquaintance of mine, who oddly enough happens to be a therapist and gives talks on sexual assault and women's rights, recently took to Facebook to rally the troops around her recent "sexual assault," going so far as to name the perpetrator and everyone involved. She initially used the phrase "sexual assault" and then used the phrase "sexual abuse" later.
The gist of the story is, she was at a club dancing and some guy asked her inappropriate questions about her nipples. She got mad and told the manager. The manager didn't respond. She then phoned the police with the intent to press sexual assault charges. Nothing came of it. The police told her she was not assaulted, but she insists she was and is now calling out everyone who "wronged" her that night by name insisting they're further victimizing the victim of an assault. Every single person (and now there are dozens) who responded is supporting her, and now the discussion has changed into "This is why women don't report rapes."
I'm obviously not going to kick off a you-know-what storm and offer my thoughts there, but I think the whole thing is insane. Sure, the guy was a jerk. What he did was sexual harassment and the manager should have taken some kind of action. But, in my opinion, what happened to her was NOT sexual assault or abuse. Her pushing the issue like she is trivializes genuine assault and abuse cases.
Curious to know your thoughts- do you consider harassment, assault, and abuse to be the same thing? And/Or how should this incident have been handled by the management and the woman?
What your friend experienced was sexual harassment. It would have been sexual assault or sexual abuse if he had put his hands on her in any way. I think your friend made a mountain out of a molehill although the manager should have asked the guy to either leave or move far enough away so as not to be able to communicate with her.