Dan, what is it about sex that makes it seem "dirty" to you? How are pics of dick sucking "dirty"? I don't get it. I've never understood equating sex with filth, unless it's sex between active filth fetishists, in which case yes, it's pretty filthy. But otherwise, what is intrinsically "dirty" about sex or pictures of sex?

I would get a friend to post it as a Yelp review. "Nice place but this one Busboy could be observed..."

@1) Do you REALLY need an explanation of why "sex" in our puritanical society is termed "dirty"? Hmm, gee Wally, why would that be?! In trying to give Mr. Savage an ethics lesson you have cleverly explained to us how you failed your GED.

@1 Dan writes his columns in English, a language in which sex and particularly sexual images are associated with dirt. So, when he refers to dirty (sexual) pictures, he often uses the word "dirty," which really shouldn't be a surprise to anyone who speaks and writes English as well as you do.

Glad I could help.

Modern liberalism: OK for me, not for you. But I digress

1) Do you want to know where busboy got those photos? From someone you sent the photo to. Does it matter who? Of course your pics got around. The internet never forgets. How else would busboy get the pictures get the pictures except for from someone who knew you might be a coworker? Unless you sent them directly to Busboy himself.

2) Philly is pretty fun. It's like New York without the sense of overwhelming dread and pointlessness. Continue slutting it up, you are hurting no one.

3) You tacitly gave busboy the OK to view and discuss personally explicit images. If there's an issue, it's Busboy breaking the manager-worker boundary and "fraternizing". But it seems like it's NBD, honestly.

4) Take busboy aside, and say "hey, i regret sending those photos out and I wish I could take them back. Be a good dude to me and delete them from your phone, and that's OK for me. Thanks!" (you don't even have to believe it, just say what you need to say to get the result you want). If Busboy is decent, he'll comply, otherwise, you're out of luck either way.

ITMFA is in the bind of anyone who has been harassed at work, but I'm not sure that the bit of misdirection encouraged by Dan is the best advice for dealing with problem. If ITMFA is going to speak with senior managers or the owners, then I think he needs to come clean about the provenance of the photos, as any internal investigation by management or their lawyer will uncover the truth anyway. This doesn't mean that ITMFA needs to discuss the photos in extreme detail, but he should not actively mislead management.

Was ITMFA provided an employee handbook for any workplace rules covering harassment? If so, he should consult that document first, as it may explain the steps he should to take in this circumstance.

ITMFA might also consider reaching out to a local, state, or federal agency that deals with workplace discrimination for assistance. For instance, in New York the city agency is the New York City Commission on Human Rights (CHR), state administrative agency is the New York Division of Human Rights (DHR), and the federal administrative agency, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). The city and state where ITMFA works should have equivalent agencies.

If ITMFA does speak with management, he should be prepared for the fact that not every employer behaves lawfully in the aftermath of a complaint. ITFMA should find a way document his performance in the workplace. For instance, arrival time and departure time, tables served, tips received, a log of complaints about his service, etc. Management can over a period of time create a paper trail of reasons to terminate an employee deemed a legal risk, by claiming poor performance, and ITMFA needs to be armed with his own paper trail.

@5: Privacy, dipshit. Workplace sexual harassment.

You really are a winner.

...I've sent and received dick pics thousands of times in 16 years so imagine my surprise when a few of them turned up to haunt me!...

10

Sorry about the italics, folks, tried to close the style but can't seem to get it to work. Sure has been glitchy around here lately.

@5: Your point #4 is a good way to handle it.

What good is it going to do telling Busboy to delete them when Busboy can just ask Busboy's Cousin to send them again?

The problem is busboy was asking manager if he recognized the person in the photos. If busboy knows that LW was that person, then he is definitely being malicious, at the least he is trying to embarrass and harass LW, or busboy might even be trying to get LW fired. I think LW should get a lawyer to help him write a cease and desist letter to busboy, this shouldn't cost much money, and should get bus boy to delete his pics. I've never worked at a place where any worker shows pornographic materials to a manager while they were working! It isn't it at the least very inappropriate?

However, I'm wondering if it might be risky to approach management directly, maybe LW should make an anon report? Restaurants often have those comments boxes, drop one in there. The owners can't want the staff to be drooling over dick pics while they're supposed to be serving diners! Maybe not be too specific about who was doing what though, LW won't want to get anyone formally reprimanded or fired, and make enemies for himself.

@12: That's not the point. It's appealing to the busboy's better sense of valor - no harm in that.

I call bullshit on the story. He happened to be perfectly positioned in the right place at the right time to see and recognize himself on the screen being showed to his manager by a coworker? It's fishy and I don't know what he's trying to establish by telling the story that way but it is highly unlikely he witnessed it

If there's a lesson to be learned here, it's this: the internet remembers all.

Nudes that I took nearly 20 years ago (with a film camera!), scanned, and shared online with potential hookups occasionally show up to this day on Tumblr and other sites. I have no idea who released them, but nonetheless they are out there, forever.

To be fair I was, and still am, a bit of an exhibitionist. It's a weird thrill to "rediscover" my naked self from my college days. I suppose always knew it was a possibility that my nudes would get out of my control, but truth be told that's probably half the reason I shared them. (I wish I still looked as good now as I did then, but age takes its toll.)

I have to disagree with Dan on this one.

IMO, the threshold for workplace harassment has not yet been crossed. Dan does not work in a corporation, so he has zero idea about how much shit is going to come ITMFA's way if he raises a ruckus and goes over the manager's head at this moment.

I am not even talking about the gay angle here, I'll just assume it to be a non-issue. By his own account, ITMFA voluntarily emitted a metric fuckton of private photo material into the web. It doesn't take an Einstein to figure out that it's circulating out there, even right now. Two of his work colleagues apparently shared some of that material, which is not exactly good, but they are not really hostile about it. No one seems to be giving ITMFA shit about that material. There's zero harrassement yet. Just people gossiping.

People have been and will be gossiping at work forever, period. Up to a certain level of discomfort, the object of gossip just has to suck it up and wait for the rain to pass. A shitty hairdo, an ugly divorce, private porn material, all of it will always be a reason for people talking at the water-cooler, until they find something new to talk about.

Now, if ITMFA goes to his supervisor, that supervisor will either ignore it and chalk ITMFA up as a weirdo, who spreads porn material and then whines about people sharing it, or he will indeed have a serious talk with the manager. Which THEN will create a properly hostile work environment.

TL:DR version: wait for the gossiping just to blow over. If you feel shitty about it, and the co-worker in question happens to be a human being, approach him openly and ask him as a colleague not to circulate that crap anymore, because you made a dumb thing anr regret it now somehow. No escalation, no aggression, no asking for people's phones (WTF, really?!). Unless they really start the harrassing, in which case all bets are off, go ballistic, and search for a new job just in case.

Freestick @17: Seriously??
Showing porn of ANY sort in the workplace is highly inappropriate, unless you happen to work in the adult film industry.
If I had ever wished, for any reason, to be a youngish gay man, this letter has cured me of that.

My suggestion LW is don't do anything. Are these gay men, the busboy and the manager? I assume cousin is as well, unless your photos have crossed over. So what's the problem? These guys obviously have no shame about viewing such pictures at work, then just take it as a compliment. They find you and your pictures hot.

Good points, Sublime and Iseult.

@3 @4 etc. No, my question wasn't about the Christian theological influence on the perception of sexual activity in Western culture. Despite your snide assumptions, I'm well up on the history of sex and I understand how language works.

My question was to Dan. He is usually a sex-positive writer, so when he uses "dirty" as a way to describe sex which is ordinary, normal sex, I wonder what's going on in his head. Is he being ironic, even though he knows that irony does not usually work well in writing? Is he being obtuse? Is he revealing his own beliefs that sex is "dirty"?

I know how language works and evolves. Using "dirty" to describe ordinary sex is like using the n-word to describe African Americans, to take an example everyone should be able to relate to. Even if you don't, personally, subscribe to the traditional meanings and implications of a word, the word carries those meanings and implications with it in the minds of your audience, and if you use it, you are helping the word to continue it's damage.

ECarpenter @21: My guess is that it's a very innocent explanation. The phrase "dirty pictures" is in widespread use as a synonym for pornographic ones, yes? If someone says "dirty pics" you know exactly what they mean, yes? That's a far more likely explanation than the gay, sex-positive Dan shaming the LW -- particularly given the content of the rest of the response, yes?

By that token, you're helping the misuse of the apostrophe to denote a possessive pronoun to continue its damage.

If I sent out thousands of pics of me performing various sex acts the last emotion I would feel if I saw someone I didn't know viewing one is surprised.

No adult in this age should have any doubt in their minds that pics will get shared on the internet, especially if they're spicy.

@ECarpenter: Do you also object to "indecent" and "naughty," to list just a couple? A lot of people enjoy the taboo aspects of sex, and the fact that those taboos are built into our language can be an upside for them. I mean, I get your point, but I think this is a case where the ship has sailed--long, long ago.

@ 6 - my experience with government agencies is that once they are involved, they kinda have to do something, at the very least just open a file. Considering that it's entirely possible that this whole thing might just blow over and never be mentioned or repeated ever again, that's a can of worms that it's far too early to open.

If this were me, I'd write down everything that happened, in detail, and hang on to that documentation - do a James Comey. If anything further comes of this, something can be done then. If it all just goes away - which it really might - then it can be chalked up to an awkward encounter and left at that.

@17: I have friends who monitor pornography a living and if someone showed porn of one employee to another it would be sexual harassment.

I don't know where you bros work but it sounds like a legal nightmare and an incredibly hostile envIronment.

Also, if your manager is participating in sexual harassment, it is right and just to go over their head and straight to corporate. There's a fucked up work culture.

@23: Shared at work? Jesus Christ, you all must work in the dungeons of Mar a Lago.

@19: They were mocking the LW.

Just let it go for the moment, LW. The manager witnessed some of the exchange re cousin being the sender, and many people have pictures out there being seen by more than the intended viewer, so what really is the problem. These guys' pictures may crop up on your phone one day.
Wait and watch and say no more to the busboy or it will become an issue. He's in the wrong for showing these pictures at work as is the manager for viewing them.

@22 @24 Words have meaning, and long term use of them doesn't change the meanings of those words, although sometimes it blunts their emotional impact. I don't object to using "dirty" or "indecent", I just note them, and if it's someone I'm getting to know I dig a little deeper to see how strong and how accurate those words are for them, and what they think they mean when they use them. It's not a deal breaker, just another thing to know.

But when someone is giving public sex advice to an audience from very mixed backgrounds, I want to know what's leading them to decide on "dirty" insted of "erotic" or "sexy" or a more sex-positive term. I don't understand doing that, if you say you're writing a sex-positive advice column.

Yes, I know the history of sex in the West, yes I know that a lot of people have fetishized the nasty dirty filthy attitudes their mommies and daddies and nuns and youth preachers beat into them. But what's in Dan's mind when he uses the word? Why does he choose that one?

correction
male doc slides his hand up the RNs THIGH....

Helen, you are getting really tedious. BOTH are sexual harassment, and anyone with half a brain can see that.

What word substitutes for "dirty" that doesn't have the negative connotation? Explicit? Nude? Sexual? X rated? Pornographic? I can't think of the right word that's neutral in value judgment, brief, descriptive, and doesn't imply a sort of nudge-nudge-wink-wink.

@30: "Let me tell you about REAL sexual harassment."

I appreciate how you're trying to one up and normalize sexual harassment instead of defining anything as inexcusable.

Great, you "win", good for you.

@29: "sexy" and "erotic" also create the context where sexual harassment is expected to be viewed more positively.

If words have meaning don't be blind to the meaning you are conveying.

Sexual harassment is not sex-positive, so don't try to redefine it as such. Unwanted sexual activities in the workplace are unacceptable.

@32 BiDanFan: Tedious is good word for it. Three sentences into Helen's comment I scoff and think "this isn't a real story, plus it's one of those comments about how X can't matter when Y is a thing instead of both X and Y being true", and then I continue reading and see the username. I am somehow a little impressed with the specificity of the character, and I wish this performance art or whatever it is were less obnoxious.

Jeez, BDF / Aynn Rayd, both of you must be a real pleasure to work with. Maybe you are just freelancers or students and don't have to get along with other human beings.

People at work do all sorts of annoying and semi-legal stuff, including but not limited to: gossiping (potential mobbing?), overly long toilet/cigarette breaks (potential breach of contract re: work time), using their corporate phones for their private calls (potential breach of contract again, probably an income tax issue), doing groceries and weekend retreats with their corp cars (same as above, plus possible issues over the company-paid gas) and the like.

Showing to each other pictures of an overly Internet-active co-worker (mind me, without making dumb remarks whatsoever towards that co-worker) is a pretty shitty and tasteless move, but IMO scores pretty damn low on the sexual harrassment scale (yes, it is a scale. There is a difference between making a single off-hand sleazy remark and groping someone's genitals). If you are rule-lawyering bastard you CAN fire the big guns right away, and make everybody's lives a lot more interesting. Or you can, you know, let it slide sometimes.

Freestick @37: I do, in fact, work for myself! And I hope you have a good employment lawyer on speed dial. One day, you're pretty certain to need one.

Sigh. Yeah. And while we're here, anything else you have zero idea about, but would like to lecture me about it nonetheless?

@37: "both of you must be a real pleasure to work with"

Because I know beyond a doubt that sharing sex tapes of coworkers in the workplace is a legally inappropriate act? That can and should result in corporate firing the parties involved?

Employment much more fun without creepy people like yourselves doing creepy things.

If the height of "fun" in your mind is sharing sex tapes of unwitting coworkers in a business context, I question whether you know how to have "fun" without a large amount of cocaine boosting your already intolerable personality.

On some level you must not be as bro-dumb as you come off to actually DO these things, I suggest you ask HR how fun it would be for your workplace culture and do be sure to let us know the response. I'm sure they'll agree that you're totally not a creep and that people who disagree are "lame" and probably not fun at a party, which is what work is, brahhhhhhhhh.

@39: Yeah, what are you, his MOM? Nobody tells this guy what to do, he is too a grown-up! Not a sad baby-man who doesn't understand nobody wants to talk with him about sex unless he forces them to at the workplace.

Freestick @39: Oh, so I guess I learned nothing in the 20+ years of my life when I did work in offices and in retail...