Pulitzer Prize Winning Author Gets Accused of Sexual Harassment

It seems like every segment of society is getting rocked by the #MeToo movement, and publishing isn’t immune.  A couple weeks ago a kind of famous author was accused  by multiple women of sexual harassment and inappropriate behavior.  I usually don’t write about current events and social issues, but this guy who’s been accused wrote a novel that won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. He might not be a rich and famous author like Stephen King or James Patterson, but a Pulitzer Prize is prestigious and forever.

I’m not surprised that authors are getting accused of sexual harassment stuff.  There’s a hierarchy in the book business, and every hierarchy has the potential for abuse.  Plus, a lot of male authors are kind of homely looking awkward guys who might have struggled romantically until they became successful authors, and maybe being a successful author didn’t help much.  Being a famous homely author isn’t the same as being a famous actor or singer or athlete.  Most people don’t read much, so most people don’t know who the famous homely author is.  They just know that he’s homely.

Women who are into literature probably don’t expect to get hit on (or be sexually harassed/assaulted) by a Pulitzer Prize winning author.  Women who read books are going to be smarter than the average woman (or man), but they still might not know what to do right away when they’re being sexually harassed/assaulted.  Instead of going public right away, they might want to be polite and keep quiet, but that won’t stop the inappropriate/illegal behavior from happening again.

At first, I thought maybe the Pulitzer Prize winning author was just an awkward guy who was clumsy at romantic gestures (until I read more about it).  Some guys need a little help at that kind of thing.  A normal clumsy guy will stop when a woman tells him to.  Some might not get the hint right away but will stop when a woman yells out: “DON’T TOUCH ME, YOU F***ING CREEP!”

It’s probably tough for a polite woman to tell a guy that he’s a F***ING CREEP!!!  Polite women like to be precise with their language and follow social norms.  Calling a guy a F***ING CREEP to his face (preferably in public) causes a scene, and polite women often don’t want to cause scenes, which unfortunately is why a potential F***ING CREEP would get overly aggressive.  If a guy is making unwanted advances, women shouldn’t feel the need to be precise with language or be polite.

DON’T TOUCH ME, YOU F***ING CREEP is a socially acceptable response to an unwanted overly-aggressive advance.

Calling a guy a F***ING CREEP to his face immediately is more effective than waiting a few years to say anything or writing a tweet.  Again, I’m not blaming the women for waiting.  It’s tough to respond immediately to surprise situations.  I’m just saying now that everybody is aware it happens, there’s an effective immediate way to respond.

Just so you know, I was never called a F***ING CREEP in high school… or… uh… any other time in my life.  I saw it happen to…. uh… a friend of mine.  And it changed… his behavior forever.  It even changed mine, and… it didn’t even happen to me.

Sexual harassers aren’t just the average clumsy guy, however, and they might be a bit selective with their potential victims.  For example, a former president’s daughter recently interned with a famous Hollywood producer who has been accused of a lot of bad stuff.  The Hollywood producer knows to leave a former president’s daughter alone.  That producer would instead go after a young woman (or guy) from a no-name middle class family with little money and no clout.  A woman (or man) from a family with no clout can often be intimidated into not saying anything.

Victims might feel guilty for making an accusation of sexual harassment or inappropriate behavior.  Even in the case of the homely Pulitzer Prize winning author, victims ( or at least one of them) might have been hesitant to say anything because the author was too important to a certain demographic community (just to be clear, it was NOT the homely guy community.  The homely guy community as a demographic has no power).  If a guy is a F***ING CREEP, then it shouldn’t matter what other demographic group he belongs to.  The F***ING CREEP part overrides everything else.

The thing is, I kind of liked the Pulitzer Prize winning novel that author wrote.  I don’t think his Pulitzer Prize should be revoked or anything.  Maybe an asterisks (or three) should be next to his name.  After all, it’s not the Pulitzer Prize’s fault that the author might be a F***ING CREEP.