Back in the mid 70s when I was starting out in business, there were no anti-harassment laws in place; this kind of thing UNWANTED sexual harassment used to happen to many female employees in many industries. One of my friends told me her boss asked to take her to lunch on her last day of work before her materinity leave, when she was two weeks from delivering her baby. Her boss took her to a restaurant with little private rooms and “took it out” during lunch, saying lewd things. She dumped her drink on “it” and got up and left.
I had a number of disgusting encounters with sexual harassment through the late 80s, until some of the legal protections started to have effect. Fortunately, I don’t frighten easily and was lucky to escape a number of incidents. Being a writer, I left several of them with the lesson not to mess with a sharp wordsmith.
Anger after the fact was a given. Typically, if you refused an advance, you were called a lesbian or a ballbuster, or that you had asked for it by working in a man’s world, or whatever. In most cases, your chance of advancement at that company was now effectively over. It’s why I started my own business and worked it for decades, giving me the ability to avoid this disgusting behavior. When they are paying you by the minute to do your job against a screaming deadline, you have more leverage.
Tease!!
Just kidding. My wife always gets a nickname where she works like Ice Queen or similar because she doesn’t play the flirting game. We actually met at work and she basically didn’t talk to me for 3 years because she knew I had a girlfriend. Best move I ever made ditching that girl.