Sexual Harassment?
A
few years ago there was a story in the national news about
a little boy from North Carolina kissing a girl in his
first grade class. He was given an in-school suspension,
which isolated him from his classmates for a period of
time, as punishment for violating the school’s policy
against sexual harassment.
This brought back the memory of an incident when I was in
the first grade. Several months had passed since the
beginning of school. I had made many friends, mostly boys,
and had begun liking school. However there was a new
attraction, a girl who sat on the other side of the room.
She owned the only football in school and could kick the
fool out of it. She always wore jodhpurs which were very
appropriate for a girl playing the football game we called
“setback.” This game involved kicking the football back and
forth between teams until one team was pushed back to a
designated goal. She was the leader of the team that
usually won and we always hoped that she would choose us
for her team. She had thick brown shiny hair that she wore
in pigtails, big blue eyes, and a kind of giggly laughter
that made chills run up my spine. I had always liked
football but now there was an extra “kick” in it for me.
After giving it much thought, I concluded that no doubt
this was love, but what should I do now? I thought that if
I told my best friend he might know what to do next. That
was my first big mistake. He didn’t understand the
seriousness of my situation and thought this was the
funniest thing he’d ever heard so he told all of the other
boys. Now the trouble started. The boys seemed to
thoroughly enjoy teasing me every chance they got. My life
became miserable!
One day shortly after confiding in my friend, a group of
the boys grabbed me at recess. Holding me and pushing me
toward the little girl, they declared that they were going
to make me kiss her. Now I was big for my age, bigger than
most of the other boys, and I gave them quite a fight.
But as I was knocking them away from me, I had a brilliant
idea! I would continue to fight but I’d let them gradually
take me to the girl and let them make me kiss her. They
would be to blame and I’d get the kiss. Hot dog!
When we got within a few feet of her, the boys chickened
out and let me go. By this time I was no longer conscious
of the boys. I continued toward the girl and kissed her on
the cheek.
The boys ran to the teacher and told her that I was kissing
one of the girls. The teacher sent for Mrs. Hewell, the
principal. Mrs. Hewell came and took me by the hand and in
a loving but very firm manner gave me a lecture in front of
the class (it seemed to me the whole world) about the
purpose of school. I had to apologize to the girl and
promise Mrs. Hewell that it would not happen again. That
was effective punishment and I never kissed another girl...
at school.
I’ve given the harassment issue a lot of thought over the
years. In my case the girl didn't run away when I kissed
her. Would this be considered consent on her part? Maybe
she just didn’t see me coming. The only clue that I have is
that at the next recess she chose me first for her team.