Arnold and Degrees of Harassment
If you haven't read the LA Times' Thursday story about the Arnold "groping" incidents, you should. The summaries you've been reading don't do it justice. I only read the story because Matt Welch quoted one of the most raunchy lines from the story. So raunchy, that most papers won't print it.

But the thing that's important here - and a lot of men don't understand this - is that there's a difference between a little groping that can be misconstrued as "playful" and actually saying something really dirty to a woman you barely know. And he did it not just to women he barely knew, but women who were often working at the time so they were supposed to shrug it off.

I'm pretty certain the female Arnold supporters wouldn't be saying "he can grope me" if they read the full Times story.

For me, these are the lines that really cross the line:

"Have you ever had a man slide his tongue in your [anus]?"

'I want you to go in the bathroom, stick your finger in your [vagina], and bring it out to me.' "

In the comments section over on Matt's posts, Henry Copeland writes: "What started out sounding like it could be a long-shot hit job strung together from anonymous sources and a couple of wackos ended up giving you the feeling you really knew Arnold... and didn't like him."

The L.A. Times has said they weren't fed the story by the Davis camp, but what I'd like to see is for them to explain, as soon as possible, how they developed the story and why the timing is the way it is. I suspect the women in the story aren't unlike Anita Hill -- in that they didn't feel pressured to tell their stories publicly until the offender was likely to fill a high office. Here's another: Maj. Gen. Larry G. Smith was up for the Army's deputy inspector general job - giving him full oversight into investigations of sexual harassment. That's when Lt. Gen. Claudia Kennedy, the Army's highest ranking female, said he kissed her against her will in her office several years earlier. He decided to retire.

So my guess is that these women had these troubling Arnold incidents and told their friends, who told other friends over the years. As Arnold shoots up the polls, more people start talking about those old stories and instead of being an incident or two, it starts to feel like a pattern. So the Times tells all its reporters to start asking their friends if they've heard these things - still not sure if it will turn into a story. But they get six women to go on the record - with pretty consistent stories and each has friends to support the women were offended by it at the time and talked about it.

This also reminds me of the Demi Moore movie "Disclosure" where she sexually harasses Michael Douglas and he complains to his unsympathetic wife after he admits to getting sexually involved with his boss. The wife says something like, women are sexually harassed all the time, but we ignore it. And he's so surprised. Women do put up with a lot and ignore a lot. And it's a whole lot of trouble to file charges over something that is merely humiliating, rather than a full-blown rape or something that actually caused you to lose your job. So I find it perfectly reasonable that these women are only speaking now, after the latest polls show there's a good chance this guy might become governor of a state with the fifth-largest economy in the world.

I don't usually rant about politics in this blog - but I'm making an exception here because I think this is a problem of journalism. The Times did a good story, but they're letting it be undercut by not fully explaining how they developed the story. Normally, they shouldn't have to do it, but it's important now, before the Tuesday election. Also, I think it's a failure of other media outlets to summarize the LA Times story as he "touched them sexually against their will or otherwise humiliated them." I suggest reporters should use terms such as graphic, lewd, raunchy, raw or obscene to give readers a better sense of the degree of what was said if they are too uncomfortable running the full quotes.

More women come forward with similar stories in today's LA Times.
- posted by Amy @ 10/05/2003 11:12:00 AM