‘I said nothing when stars dropped their trousers while alone with me’

OPINION: Women must learn to flag the smaller low grade incidents of sexual harassment as they occur, or become co-conspirators in allowing such abhorrent behaviour to snowball.

‘Don’t ever assume we’re OK with it.’

DURING my 30 years in the media two famous Australian men have taken me surprise by dropping their pants while alone with me.

The first was a news personality, a big star at a leading television network who, were I to reveal his identity, would completely stun you.

It happened during one very cold Canberra day after I had been despatched to the nation’s capital in the second-year of my cadetship.

I was then probably 19, and he was a household name and then in his 40s.

It had been arranged by a TV publicist that I would meet the star in his dressing room and interview him after he had recorded his show.

The TV legend was in an excellent mood and mid-sentence discussing the delights of his job when he suddenly loosed his belt and let his trousers fall to the floor. Because he is not a tall man, the drop didn’t take long.

My jaw, I’m sure, fell at a slower rate than, if memory serves me correct, my interview subject’s caramel slacks.

I have no doubt I blushed crimson and started to sweat as I rapidly assessed the threat at hand.

The moment passed,
I recovered my capacity for speech and the interview proceeded, the star in his underpants for much of it.

A novice to celebrity interviews, I didn’t bother to report the bizarre pants-off moment in my story — probably because I hoped the television network would continue to feed me stories and also because I was still in a state of shock and frankly didn’t know what to do or say about the incident and to whom. Most of the men in my Wollongong newsroom would have laughed anyway.

A few years later I was working as a television publicist when an internationally famous sportsman whipped off
his daks.

He too was in his 40s and like the other star just coming off the peak of his sexual powers. I, by then, was about 26.

We were in a locker room at a major sports stadium preparing to take publicity photographs when the man started to disrobe.

For him, it may have been the most natural thing in the world — to take his clothes off in a locker room. He’d done it thousands of times in his career and probably in that very room. We were on his patch and I was a colleague.

Yet it made me deeply uncomfortable and with his pants off he was like a rooster, strutting about, proud and cocksure.

He clearly enjoyed the exhibition and, I’m sure,
my embarrassment. He was the star, appointed by the network proprietor. I had none.

At the time I told myself the incident may have been a test of my character, my resilience, my prudishness — a test I was determined to pass so I absorbed and concealed my shock, put it aside and believed I would forget it. I valued my job and wanted to keep it.

And yet I haven’t forgotten it.

It should be stressed that in both cases and much to my relief both men kept their underpants on.

The sight of the news identity standing before me in large white Y-fronts will likely never leave me. It was, in hindsight, fairly comical.

The rangier sportsman decked out in more fashionable brightly coloured hipster briefs showing his rock star self-regard is less funny upon reflection.

I am sure both men believed they had cause to be getting their kit off in front of a young woman who was somewhat vulnerable and whose parents and the nation idolised these gods of television and sport she was alone with.

Neither man placed a hand on me nor said a word that was sexually inappropriate.

Yet on both occasions their actions made me uncomfortable. Deeply so.

All these years later
I believe both were making sexual overtures and had
I responded more positively (and not with a white-knuckled stare), matters could have progressed quickly.

In the current environment, both men would have left themselves open to sexual harassment allegations.

Predatory animals of the stature of Harvey Weinstein thankfully don’t come along every day and while I have met my share of predatory men in power (one star locked me in a car) and also non-predatory ones who might best be described as egotistical arseholes, I remain deeply cynical of the current #metoo movement.

As women we have overlooked so much bad behaviour for so long, we must be careful now to make plain our feelings when a sexual line is being crossed. Immediately, plainly and directly.

The local name and shame movement gathering momentum under former Channel 10 newsreader Tracey Spicer, which may or may not reveal 40 or more names of people who have sexually harassed others, will destroy people.

Of course if these men and improbably women have done what Weinstein has done and are still in powerful and influential positions, they should be exposed.

Most incidents of sexual harassment are relatively minor and can be hard to process when taking place.

If we, as women, don’t learn to flag the smaller low grade incidents as they occur, then we become complicit in allowing the harassment to continue and snowball and become, with our silence,
co-conspirators.

Sexual harassment can be defined simply — if one person feels uncomfortable with a sexual comment, display or physical contact, a line has been crossed.

You don’t have to be raped to feel violated.

In Cocaine City (Sydney) where there have never been more men and women walking around in a permanent state of arousal, the lines on sexual harassment have become hopelessly blurred.

But for those of us holding tightly to simpler and possibly more naive values, they remain clear.

If you are going to drop your trousers — or worse — in front of a young woman gentleman, ask first.

Don’t ever assume we’re OK with it.