The boy who cried sex

It's a bit unusual for me to blog twice in one day, but I thought this was worth commenting on. There have been various experiences in my tenure as a femgineer where a man/boy made strange and uncomfortable sexual comments or sexist comments to me. I am differentiating between the two because in case (a), sexual comments, the intent is generally solicitous. And in case (b), sexist comments, the intent is generally to put me "in my place." Of course there are many examples of sexual comments where the intent is also to put someone in their place and make them feel weak.

I may blog at another time about some of the other situations I've been in, but a couple recent examples come to mind. These occurred at a professional networking event.

Scenario 1. A senior male professor telling me about the raunchy sexual exploits of faculty he knows, and on a separate occasion asking me my age and saying that it was sexy (I think his point just being that I was younger than him).

Scenario 2. A post doc sidling up next to me and addressing me with a tone and body language I didn't much care for. Sometimes these things can be quite subtle. There was a recent Forbes article about "The 'New' Sexual Harassment" (8/6/09) that discusses some of the new workplace power plays. Generally, if your instinct says something is wrong, then I think it's probably a good idea to distance yourself from the person.

Now for my reactions in the above situations (note, this is not meant to be advice on dealing with these situations, but rather me documenting my response in both scenarios):

Response 1. Began with nervous laughter and trying to play the conversation off. At some point his story got a bit too far for my sensibilities and my expression and body language conveyed complete shock. That sent him the message and he stopped immediately. Thank goodness, because I think there are scenarios where the person never gets the message. The worst part for me is that this professor is a key figure at a university I'm quite interested in, which may be the reason I didn't just pour cold water on his head.

Response 2. I was much less patient with this young fellow even though he did nothing overtly sexual. I steered the conversation to research and began questioning him about his topic. He went from being hesitant to engage me, to being shocked that my questions where intelligent, to being eager to get my ideas and saying "you seem very knowledgeable about this." That was a pretty successful conclusion for me. He not only got the "buzz off" vibe but also hopefully has a sense that women are worth taking seriously on academic topics.

Some women I know are more confrontational in these types of situations. I always think of the phrase "Would you rather be right, or would you rather be effective?" And I try to behave accordingly, even if it means trying to reason with someone who does something unreasonable.

Does anyone else have examples of sexist / sexual comments from their peers?