March 26th, 2008

I forget the exact quote, but it runs something like this: "I dared not be too liberal as a youth for fear I'd be too conservative as an adult." Or something like it.

But, having said that, I too was caught up in the 1980s- and 1990s-style "victimization bandwagon" that was part of the academic and, um, socially elitist zeitgeist. So were the most of us.

And that is why, in 1988 when I was asked by a friend to write a letter to my local university newspaper discussing how she was sexually harassed by someone nominally in a position of somewhat power, I did not stop to question the veracity of her story, her ultimate reasons for getting me to write that letter, or the broader repercussions of exposing someone as a sexual harasser.

So I wrote my letter, but (thank God) stopped short of naming names. And pretty soon calls started coming in for me to identify the abuser and the victim. Because I didn't identify either to anyone, the calls changed to making sure I gave messages to the victim from the university Victim Services. I never heard from the RCMP (again, thank God) because things would have exploded into a complete mess.

* * *

Anyhow, it is 20 years since I wrote that letter, and I can tell you that I now have serious doubts about the truthfulness of that story of harassment. My friend's inability to be specific to me, just that "something happened" is a part of that suspicion. The fact that she wanted me to write that letter without telling me exactly what she hoped to get from it (or my writing it) draws an even darker cloud in my mind.

I think back to her personality: She was really young (well, so was I for that matter) and she probably felt the same way about herself that I did: "It's a big world, I feel pretty small, I am unnoticed in all the people and noise around here." And maybe this was a way of her getting some attention turned to her.

There's another reason that I wouldn't ever discuss in detail, but it casts the largest and deepest shadow of doubt: She twice manipulated a situation when we were both alone into an almost entrapment that, if my gut hadn't been crying, "Danger, steer clear!" I might have participated in and become accused of sexual harassment myself.

Or, maybe she was just hitting on me and I missed an awesome opportunity because I was too suspicious.

I don't know. But better safe than sorry.

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