HARASSMENT

November 21, 2017

Rep. Dana Rohrabacher,

101 Main Street #380

Huntington Beach, CA 92648

Dear Congressman,

Re: Harassment

I don’t know about you but I’m sick at heart, hearing all these accusations of sexual harassment. Have you, as I have done, looked back at your life and asked yourself if you have ever done anything that might cause someone to accuse you? Anything? Have you, for instance, patted someone’s behind, unaware of the intrusiveness of your action or the offense that might be taken? Or worse? Have you presumed to use the power of your office to obtain unwilling compliance for, say, a stolen kiss? Have you even made tasteless jokes of a sexual nature in front of your staff or colleagues?

This current phenomenon has required me, correctly I think, to examine my own past in order to hold myself accountable for moments of inappropriate or boorish behavior. And I realize that to say that I myself have found none does not mean that some other person I unwittingly offended might still not find something to accuse me of. On this issue I admit I’m caught between my genuine outrage at the crass behavior of some men toward women and alarm at the mass hysteria that seems to have taken hold. Where are the lines to be drawn between the grave, unforgivable offense and the peccadillo—or are there no peccadillos any more? Are there only grave and unforgivable offenses?

It’s a condundrum, Congressman, and an uncomfortable one at that. I hope for your sake that you’re squeaky clean. I disagree with you on virtually every issue, but even so I would take no joy in seeing you pilloried—unless for truly gross and repeated patterns of behavior!

Respectfully,

Peter Clothier, Ph.D.