In a public dialogue that PMX Anwar Ibrahim was having with some university students, a student stood up to ask him a serious question about the economy and the ringgit.
Anwar began his answer by praising her for relaying her question before saying: "Kalau saya muda, saya dah minta nombor telefon dah."
This has got people up in arms against Anwar.
Sexist! Sexual harassment! Unbecoming of a statesman! Accusation after accusation is being hurled out against him.
I once asked my godfather, who is in his 60s, whether his heart still skips when he sees a beautiful woman.
He unequivocally said yes.
Then I pointed to his father and some people he knows who are in their 80s and 90s before asking him whether he thinks his heart will still skip a beat when he sees a beautiful woman when he is 80 or 90 years old.
He said, "If I say no, I am lying."
All of us, males or females, wish to be sexually attractive. At the risk of sounding sexist, I would even go so far as to suggest that from the amount of time, effort and resources that we spend in trying to make ourselves attractive to others, females probably enjoy being attractive more than males.
After food, sexuality might be the thing that gives us the most pleasure in life.
If we went out today, and not a single soul we passed by looked at us in a way that made us believe they would count themselves lucky to have us, we would not have a good day.
We don't have to say or do anything overt to behave in a sexually suggestive manner. Just holding our gaze at someone for a second too long is enough.
To be seen in a sexual light is not inherently a negative experience. I put it to you that 9 out of 10 times, to be seen in a sexually suggestive light might even be something that most of us enjoy. If you have been going to the gym regularly and people look at you in a way that makes you feel attractive, you would actually feel great.
If we create a law that makes it so that no one is going to behave in a sexually suggestive way to anyone other than their spouse, I put it to you that not only will most of us end up guilty, but to uphold this law, all of us will have to turn into hypocrites!
Imagine how it would be if we made it illegal to even look at an attractive person for too long because it is sexually harassing. How will any of us pull it off with a clear conscience?
The appreciation of the beauty of a person is not always sexually suggestive.
Sometimes, we appreciate beauty simply because that is what you are supposed to do to beauty. If there is a world where the right thing to do when you see beauty is not to express your appreciation for it, I put it to you that that is not a world worth living in.
Sometimes, for males, (I believe it is true for females too, but I can't assert it for obvious reasons), we appreciate the beauty of the opposite sex just because it makes us feel like a man. It is not a man who cannot appreciate a woman's beauty. One day when I become an old man, I would still like to look at a beautiful woman and marvel at her beauty, not because I wish to possess her, but simply because I am still a man, old as I may be.
Understandably, when appreciation of beauty, especially in the form of sexual suggestions, is taken to the extreme, it turns into a case of sexual harassment.
As a rule, flirting is a dance that takes two to tango. If you are the only one having a good time in a flirtation while the other person is not having fun and is downright distressed on account of your good time, it means you have crossed a point where your flirtation has become harassment.
To determine when a flirtatious suggestion has become sexual harassment, however, is a nuanced affair – even fully grown mature adults sometimes make mistakes as to where the line is.
Looking at some people for a moment too long might make some people feel great, but others might become distressed. When it comes to this sort of thing, the time, place, your status, their status, your level , their level, your circumstances or their circumstances also matter. The matter is so nuanced that the same person that felt great when you expressed your appreciation of their appearance today might take offence to it tomorrow.
The only way that we can arbitrate the matter of when a sexual suggestion becomes sexual harassment is to keep the subject open so that everybody will have a ballpark idea as to where the line is and what signs you should not cross.
If you raise somebody in a society where people are not dishonest or closed off about their feelings about sexuality, they will likely become "well-raised" or "cultured." They will understand where the line of normalcy is and what is the appropriate thing to do instinctively and intuitively. If enough people see the line of normalcy, to be on the right side of what is acceptable will be a culture, and then we will have a society where sexual harassment will not be a problem.
Mishaps may still happen even in such a society, but in a well-cultured society with well-raised individuals, the worse that will likely happen is that some people's feelings are getting hurt a few times. That is all.
But as much as we have to accept that there is such thing as crossing too far across the line when it comes to the matter of sexuality, we also have to give the subject some leeway so that we don't end up slapping ourselves with a sledgehammer just because we are trying to kill a mosquito!
Recently, the Public Service Commission has come out with a circular that says calling a co-worker "dear" or "sayang" can be considered sexual harassment. That seems quite justified and reasonable.
There is money, power, responsibility, prospects, and opportunities that are at play at a workplace, and when all these things are at play, bringing sexuality into the picture will leave you open to the accusation that you are using sexuality as a form of unfair advantage, coercion or blackmail.
If you are under 50, you should know better than to call your co-workers "sayang" or "dear". If you did it, you deserve all the trouble you might get.
If you are above 50, you should try not to call people "sayang" or "dear", but if you do, we should give these old timers more than a couple of chances because it is hard to teach an old dog a new trick. They come from a different time. It might take them a while to get used to today's norms.
As for what Anwar did when he admired the intelligence of a university student by saying that if he were younger, he would have gotten her phone number, I am going to object to it being called sexual harassment.
I don't think the honourable Prime Minister should be pilloried and made into an example so that no man will ever dare to do what he did to any woman again. I object to it because it is too extreme a reaction.
I think before we accuse somebody of sexual harassment, other than assessing the level of stress a potential victim might have endured on a psychological basis, we also have to determine whether anything tangible like money, prospect or promotion is involved. Other than that, we also have to see the action's intensity, duration and frequency.
Suppose we catch someone looking at us for a second too long, once or twice every couple of months, in a situation where things like money, prospect or opportunities are not involved. In such a case, we should refrain from calling it sexual harassment because that response is too extreme.
Just because some fun and games become out of hand, you cannot ban all fun and games altogether. Our society will be inching too close to extremism if we do that!
If Anwar is at fault for what he did, his fault lies in trying to flatter his way out of answering a serious question.
As for him saying that he would have asked the student for her number if he was younger, I do not see it as an act that has crossed the line because 1) it didn't push too hard 2) he just said it once 3) he was not trying to secure anything tangible through the expression 4) it is most probably the results of him speaking his mind so freely that words came out of his lips in a flow and 5) because if we can't even accept this in life, it means we cannot accept life.
There are three things that Nehru Sathiamoorthy holds to be true in life. The first is that the purpose of life is to pursue happiness, the second is that you cannot be happy unless you carry your fair share of the world's weight and the third is that you can never underestimate your ability to take your own side.
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