Saw this comment on her blog, pretty much sums up my sentiments exactly:

twisted says:

Since this entered public debate i feel the need to leave my own remarks.

- Unfortunately, since we are fallable human beings, awkward situations will always happen. It’s mostly about how we behave during these and how we confront these afterwards that makes the ‘story’.

- The chance for such awkward situations rises even more so when intoxicated, which everyone seems to have been, by their own chosing, and when reflecting on such situations one should always be aware of the fact that they might not have been in that situation or avoided some of it, had they been in full control of themselves (and even influence others).

- There are multiple ways to deal with such an incident, both to resolve the awkwardness between the parties invloved as well as with any personal trauma.

- Drinking those troubles away must not have helped your own mental condition and you should seek some kind of outside help & support. Putting this in the public space, i hope you are prepared to deal with this for a while longer and not only on your own terms.

Don’t pull the ‘in a mens field’ argument as to why you agreed to do body shots. It was a conference, they were colleagues, you were drunk, it was a bad idea. Could group dynamics have been playing a role there? It would surprise me if not. It was a bad suggestion by him, and it was a bad decision by you to do it. Even if things didn’t spin out of control from then on, i think anyone that’s had a few drinks too many or witnessed someone who had, on a company / wedding / other semi-official party has done things that they would later have to digest in one way or another. Be it because they were just plain embarassing, or because they lead to inappropriate actions with potential consequences. This could be smashing in a window, violence, emotional outbursts, just plain old puking embarassment.. or, well, sexual things, for the sake of my point let’s assume the choice here is random. We’ve all been there at least once, or witnessed it with others at least once in our lives.

So who’s to blame? All of you are, to some extent. This was not a case of planned, deliberate, sexual assault. It was a gathering of intoxicated people that spun out of control and produced a consequencial situation. In the key-turning points leading up to it both of you made bad decisions. In the disarming-phase both of you made bad decisions. And in the resolutions and consequences both of you made bad decisions.

Key turning points leading up to the event, where BOTH of you could have made better decisions?
- stopped drinking earlier
- remained more distanced & in control, perhaps parting with the group to ‘freshen up’
- neither suggest not participate in body shots
- not touch & not tolerate touching, BEFORE it got too weird
- realize the own error (Joe), standing up for yourself immediately (You)
Please note how each involved could have changed the outcome here. There is no single person at complete fault here, up to the point where you should have clearly said NO and he should have clearly accepted that and apologized.

Of course it is obvious that it is wrong to start touching in the first place.

Joe shouldn’t have started with the inappropriate touching. He shouldn’t have done that.

As ‘the guy with the company credit card’ he should have been more responsible in getting everyone drunk, including himself. Apparently even he lost control of his proper judgement and he will have to deal with the consequences in a – i dare say – similarly difficult way. He has a family, they too will probably read this. Add to this that ‘men are usually at fault’.

In your report i do not see any mention of you telling him a NO because of YOUR concern for yourself. You should have done that.

Inappropriate things happen when drinking. Don’t get me wrong, i’m not defending Joe here but i want to be bluntly realistic. Wether we like it or not, and wether anyone wants to name this sexist or not, the fact remains that we reproduce by pairing male and female, involving a not-so-hard-to-understand set of triggers, acts leading up to conception.

Drinking lowers the threshold of control over inappropriateness. And drinking out of someones navel is a bodily undertaking involving visual, physical stimuli and smell, which transports very powerful hormonal agents. Compare this to sitting across desks in a semi-sterile restaurant setting, it’s inarguably A LOT FURTHER into our pairing process.

This makes the potential for such an incident not only incredibly obvious but also forseeable. Both of you should have known better. Despite all the gender discussions, equal rights movements, sexist-calling and so forth, we won’t refute biology just by force of will and most of our society is based on certain ‘agreements’ to keep basic primate instincts under control. Wishful thinking won’t change that, neither will blaming men (or women if you will, although there is a clear bias here in current times). I’m not saying that inappropriate actions are OK, neither am i promoting that sexual assault should be tolerated, what i’m saying is that under these circumstances the former will continue to happen (and this is only such a big issue as we let it become and make of it) and we have to deal with it, while the second, the assault, is not really applicable here if you ask me.

The way this whole situation has played out is only one of many possible and i would assume, also based on how public this has become by now, this is easily one of the worse cases of dealing with it.

I will leave you with two hints.

The first is, you should stand up for yourself more. In a healthy way. You worried about his wife, your job, while you should have acted in yor own best interest. With enough self confidence i can easily envision turning this into much less of an incident than it has – both for yourself and for Joe.

The second is, that you should confront yourself and then others earlier. Drinking during the conference, the time after it, letting it rot your own mental state, that of your relationship and ultimately your desire for ‘justice’ regarding Joes exit seems an unhealthy way to work out issues, no matter what kind.

Welcome to Berlin. People get drunk here too, and people undergo the mating circus here as well. I hope you will recover from your trauma soon. And i hope you can accept your own role in this as well as distinguish and define Joes mistakes. I also hope he will manage the same things and will be more respectful and responsible in the future. Maybe the two of you can one day have the conversation over this that you should have had the next morning.