Frosstbyte

I've typed and re-typed a response to this thread and I seem to devolve into hyper-specificity. Essentially, I think people need to develop thicker skin and need to be able to stick up for themselves. A compliment, particularly in the workplace, can be just a compliment. People should be astute enough to differentiate between conversations, compliments, casual flirting and inappropriate behavior and the first step should be to try to take care of it yourself. Defining harassment in the workplace as "any unwanted contact" forces people to make ridiculous guesses about what will be wanted and what won't be and removes from the equation any responsibility on the behalf of the person being approached to make it clear to the other person that the behavior should stop.

If it continues AFTER an initial inappropriate conversation, that's much more what I would call harassment. Isolated incidences don't seem to fit that definition to me. Unless there is some power pressure in play (i.e. a boss threatening to fire you if you don't sleep with him) or an obvious inappropriate sexual reference, I think that the flirting should be the time for the other party to step up and say that they aren't interested. For most people, I think that will be that. Maybe I have too much faith in people not being douchebags.