hotstepgranny.com

In this age of “Me too” accusations and defensive reactions (I.e., women stepping forward to declare sexual harassment or abuse that happened in the past and men denying it), I would like to tell you some things that happened to me many years ago in a professional organization in Colorado.

I am intentionally not naming names and I have already spoken to one of the parties who says he does not remember the incident. I actually believe him. It is probable that he had a fair number of other encounters that he does not remember because he was following his modus operandi at the time. I don’t believe he does this kind of thing anymore but that it is conjecture.

Incident one: I was at my very first meeting with this group. I was standing in front of a counter, talking to someone on the other side. A man who was prominent in the organization walked up beside me and proceeded to run his fingertips slowly up and down my spine through my dress. This was a very intimate kind of touching, the kind I would associate with a spouse or lover. I believe he was testing to see if he could hit on me later. The tightening of my body under his fingertips told him “No” and that was the end of the encounter.

Incident two: I was sitting next to another man at one of our end of year banquets. At some point during the festivities, this man put his hand on my leg, also in an intimate way that I would only expect from a spouse or lover and not in a public place. I was fortunate that another man saw what was happening, walked up to us, and said, “You don’t know her well enough to do that.” The first man stopped touching me after that and we both acted as if nothing had happened. I was relieved and able to enjoy myself after that.

Both of these incidents took place many years ago, before all the emotionally healing work I have done on the early sexual abuse in my life that left me vulnerable to men’s untoward advances and at a loss for how to take care of myself in public gatherings as mentioned above. I am so much older now that I would most likely be considered less desirable by both of these men but if anything happened today, I know how to speak up and stop misbehavior either toward myself or anyone else in my vicinity.

I’m not the only person who has experienced this sort of thing. May it never happen again. If you have an experience you would like to write or talk about, I would be happy to listen.

It’s important that every person who enters a meeting or event feels safe and secure in this community. Let’s make this happen together.

Love,

Lynn Grasberg

The first car I ever owned was a beautiful powder blue Ford Es**rt. I had spent years without a car and it was amazing to now be driving cross country from Colorado to California to see a long distance boyfriend.

It was such a joy to drive really fast along the long, flat straight highway of the desert in Utah. It started raining and I was surprised to pass a much fancier car going slower than the speed limit. “What’s with them?” I wondered. In retrospect, the driver must have been a local, or at least, someone who knew the road, because suddenly the road curved and I was going much too fast for the conditions.
http://hotstepgranny.com/2020/12/28/angels-and-seatbelts/