As a heterosexual woman, I agree with the sentiment. No one could coerce me into giving blow jobs by threatening to fire me, either. In fact, MOST women would HEARTILY agree with that! I'd quit a job like that. You'd quit a job like that. Most people would quit a job like that.

It's not being a man or woman, being straight or gay, being compatible or not with an abuser, that makes the difference here. Unwanted sex is soul-destroying for everyone. Routine sexual abuse is a horrible, unbearable prospect. For everyone.

It's the implication of the "most" that you're missing.

Most people would walk away from that job. Most people would run!

But that's most. Who else is left?

Who wouldn't run from a situation like that?

I don't know why the particular lady described above didn't run sooner. But I can think of some people who wouldn't.

Someone for whom that job represented their one and only opportunity to break into their chosen field. Someone for whom what was at stake was not just one source of a paycheck, but their entire livelihood. Their entire chosen career. It might be worth it, then, to endure the abuse until you could safely move on.

Someone who was too young or inexperienced to understand their options. Who didn't know this isn't just the way the world works. Who didn't know what resources society offers to fight back with, who didn't think the community would help or back them if they left. Someone who literally sees no way to fight back, for whom leaving represents a public humiliation they see as even more painful than the private humiliation. It might be worth it then.

Someone living paycheck to paycheck, who can't afford to miss even one without seeing their family plunged into immediate misery.

Someone for whom the job represented access to health insurance that was keeping their daughter alive, that they couldn't afford another way.

Someone suffering depression, with such a low sense of self-worth that no abuse feels undeserved, without the will to fight anything in any way.

In short, someone vulnerable.

Yeah, most people don't need a job badly enough to be worth selling their soul and dignity for. Those people aren't raped under the threat of losing their job. It's everyone else who has to worry about that problem.

It is a cruel truth that the people who can leave, the people who can fight back, the people who have the will and resources and personality to retaliate . . . are the ones who are left alone.

This isn't a situation you could find yourself in now. It's not a situation you probably ever could find yourself in. Maybe, though. Life is crazy. Imagine yourself five years of hell from now. Imagine you're diagnosed with cancer, put your life on hold for a grueling year or two, lose all your health, all your savings, and the currency of your skills. Imagine an overzealous state prosecutor comes after you for a crime you didn't commit, and after two years of stressful court battles, you're convicted and serve some time in prison. Imagine you forget what financial security ever felt like. Imagine the stress results in crippling depression, and thoughts of suicide prompt you to seek medical help. Imagine the medication you're given comes with side effects, and you experience severe mood swings, alienating everyone but your closest family and friends. Imagine as you start to recover from all of that, you move two states away from anyone you know to get a new job and start over.

I don't know what it would take for you to become so vulnerable that someone thought they could take advantage of you to that degree. I do know that whatever it would take for you personally, life can be that cruel, and more. Rape is not a female problem, and it's not a male problem. It's a vulnerability problem. If someone ever does take a look at you, and think to themselves, "that guy is so completely under my power that I bet I could get him to blow me" . . . it won't matter a bit that you're a heterosexual man. Getting someone to put up with sexual abuse requires extreme vulnerability. If someone ever thinks they see it in you, for whatever reason, for whatever combination of circumstances is necessary to make that true, there's a good chance they'll be right.

It's true with most kinds of attacks -- the strong aren't the ones who have to worry. The powerful, even the merely self-sufficient, are left alone. The vulnerable people are the ones who are targeted. It's extra true with abuse in general, and sexual abuse in particular. The ones who are targeted are the ones who would need extraordinary outside help in order to stop it. For whatever reason.

That is why it is so important to intervene aggressively if you see a problem. The people who can help themselves are already not targets.