Articles Posted in Sex

So captivating that, at 35 pages long, it held my attention for 24 of them. Winning! 

I’ll whet your whistle with the opening paragraph of EEOC v. The McPherson Cos., Inc.:

This Title VII case revolves around repeated churlish, childish, gross, sordid, vulgar, foul, disgusting, profane utterances in the workplace. The question in the case, however, is not how vile and obnoxious this workplace language was. It was vile and obnoxious enough to score nine on a scale of ten. This will become apparent as the story unfolds. The question for the court is rather whether this verbal mayhem morphed from a competition to see who could beat whom in the foul-mouth game into a cause of action under Title VII by an offended employee for same-sex sexual harassment.

After jump, I’ll keep my babbling to a minimum and, instead, highlight the matter-of-fact prose of Judge William M. Acker, Jr. from the Northern District of Alabama. And we’ll answer the question: Does the reach of Title VII preclude same-sex sexual harassment where offensive workplace language is not directed at a man because he’s a man?

Continue reading

A federal court described Charles “Chuck” Wolfe, a crew superintendent in of an all-male construction crew, as a “world-class trash talker” and a “master of vulgarity.” One of the members of Wolfe’s crew was Kerry Woods, a straight male. Woods claimed that his supervisor, Wolfe another straight man, had engaged in unlawful “same sex” harassment, in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, by referring to him in “raw homophobic epithets and lewd gestures.”

A jury heard Woods’s claims and awarded him nearly $500,000. The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals heard the employer’s appeal, threw out the jury award, and dismissed the complaint (in this opinion).

Why? Find out after the jump…

Continue reading

When Harold Wasek signed on to work at an oil rig in Pennsylvania, he had no idea what lay in store for him, especially when one of his co-workers discovered that Wasek would get easily riled with sexually explicit stories, jokes, fantasies, and names.

• “You’ve got such a pretty mouth.”
• “Boy you have pretty lips.”
• “You know you like it, sweetheart.”

Wasek complained to his supervisor. But the harassment worsened. He was touched in a sexual manner: grabbing his buttocks, poking him in the rear with a hammer handle and something described as a long sucker rod.

So Wasek sued claiming sex discrimination. And he lost. Why? Because his harasser was a straight man.

Seriously.

I’ll explain after the jump…

* * *

Continue reading