All Comments on 'Sex Harassment, "Mike" and I'

I agree with this essay. First, however, the joke about the banana <i>is </i>funny and just a little crude. I think "Mike" was not offended - he was just putting the author back up on her pedestal (which is where many men keep women that they respect) and then politely letting her know. Second, there is a double standard. One of my colleagues is very flirty and dresses quite provocatively - deliberately distracting - however heaven help the male who ever even gets close to the line.

I had a close woman friend explain something to me one day that has kept me thinking for years. She said women dont begin to mature sexually and mentally until about 30 and by that time most of them are trapped in a marriage and have kids and cant pursue the life they want. She said most young women confuse love and lust and grow up thinking having wet panties means they are love with the guy when all they really want is sex and sperm biologically. She indicated that around 30 divorces by women multiply becuase they try to find what they really want in life and in many cases this is love. My present wife left her husband at 33 and moved in with me, she loved me and greatly resented what her husband had become. We have a wonderful life and two young children, she wanted children he didnt, lied about it to her early on. Yes women are more sexual in their thoughts and conversation. Many are afraid to show this side of themselves to men and especially their husbands as they want to be respected and not thought of as sluts. Some of this is the natural course of the biological urge to procreate beginnniung at puberty and usually ending around 40 or so. And the rest is hormone driven by the womans own body. The human female animal has instincts to have the largest, strongest man impregnate her to have good offspring. She naturally wants the best provider to live with, marry, to give her offspring a good "nest". Very often those two people are not the same. Thus many marriages have cheating wives that get impregnated outside the loving caring home. Until the woman matures she cant control these biological urges and thereby have a successful marriage. While we are on it the male has a natural tendency to have sex with many females to try and guarantee his sperm produces as many children as possible to guarantee his genetic structure moves forward. Thus women who cheat on their husbands actually betray them by not providing a continuation of the genetic line. One line in cheating wife stories is you get a hard on knowing I had sex with someone else therefore you like it. They forget at male can get a hardone at any sex including dogs in heat or horses mounting a mare. It isnt her committing adultry it is the sex act itself and most writers dont realize this. I really in nonsexual situations dont want to hear woman make sexual comments, it does offend me to some degree and when it happens I tend to walk away. I think your essay is wonderful and I hope I have given you fuel for another. RB

Denise Noe is one of the most thoughtful writers that I have had the pleasure to read. Her thoughts on sexual harassment (a usually painful subject.... painful to read about, that is) does her credit as a member of the human race.

I found her story about Eve and the banana amusing enough, and I rather doubt that "Mike" sustained much injury from her telling it. Not all men enjoy raunchy jokes, and some men do not enjoy discussing sex with even casual friends.

Yes, it is possible for women to sexually harass men, or at least to behave in the same fashion that women have been castigating men for, especially in business, education, government, and military environments, a point that Denise Noe certainly did not miss.

That written, Denise is pointing out that men's feelings DO matter, a fact that too many members of our society forget.... that is, if they have ever learned that critical point in the first place.

Denise Noe displays her humanity in such musings as this one as unselfconsciously as always. And I give her full credit for her observations about men and women, not to mention how they interact in our society.

I look forward to reading more of her literary works.

Denise Noe, thank you!

Actually I probably would have ignored the banana remark but privately I would have been a bit surprised. I am of the opinion that women rarely think about or discuss anything vaguely sexual. It's just not on their considerable agendas