I've been working in the same place for three years now. I've had the same supervisor, the same staff, and the same hierarchy of coordinators and policy chiefs. We all know each other, in other words.

Given there are a handful of you out there who know my position and my work background, I'm going to ask this remains somewhat under the radar in terms of anyone making a bigger stink of it than possible. First, because it involves someone's personal sexual orientation, and second, his credibility as a manager in a highly public office.

That being said, all information I provide to you will be in hypotheticals, and should not be assumed as otherwise.

We can all define sexual harassment as a slap on the ass, an unwanted massage, or even a dirty glance. But the big question is the case where, "any unwelcome sexual advance or conduct on the job is present so that it creates an intimidating, hostile or offensive working environment," comes into play. That definition seems loose enough for all kinds of interpretation, as are many laws involving sex or gender rights.

What about the internet? What about pornography?

Our office is given, as standardized, 19" LCD monitors to work with. We do a lot of writing and budget work, it really helps at 3am when your eyes start to go on you. But, this also creates a situation in which people can see basically whatever you are looking at on line. The inevitable, "Hey, what's that?" happens about 2 - 3 times a day for me alone. Usually I'm either explaining my political stance (the Drudge Report), my musical tastes (TSIS), or my school situation (FSU.edu). That's not bad. But that's what I limit my surfing to, if any.

I'm going to name the subject of our conversation "Joe". I'm going to go through the motions of defense on his side, because I completely empathise with someone working in my office maintaining a lifestyle that does not comply with what most people consider the life style of anyone who works in my office. (Those of you who know where I work will understand this more than anyone.)

Joe is clearly in the closet. He takes whatever chance he can get to mock men in sandles, those" Queer eye queers", and Richard Simmons. He has locked himself in the closet, swalled the key, and tied himself to the clothes rack. He is not coming out anytime soon. It's a personal decision on his behalf, and I can kind of respect that. But, openly, he bashes his own people, and I just don't get it. Plus, that's a lawsuit waiting to happen if he opens his mouth on the other side of the building, where the more acceptance-inclined people work.

He takes these painstaking efforts to conceal his identity, even with the stereotypical lisp, the flamboyant walk, and the poorly applied tan-tone foundation. I have, for three years, ignored all these things, much like the others in the office who know what's true, but accept him for who he is because he does an outstanding job, and fulfills his requirements as an employee here daily. That being said, his sexual orientation until recently, while in question, has never put him, or his abilities in doubt. And, I might add, it never should.

However, I wouldn't be posting here if there wasn't some kind of problem. As recent as last year, I noticed his 19" LCD screen contained a lot of 6-8" inch cocks. The subject matter of his pornography, while mildly amusing to a hetero like myself, is a non-issue. The actual pornography, however, is incredibly unethical. People have been fired before because of it. People have been sentenced fines et al for using government issued technology to surf porn. People have been put in jail while working with government agencies for child pornography. The risk is limitless. Joe could be facing a very difficult plight, one much more than he assumes (that of his coming out) by surfing these images daily.

I've ignored it for some time. But I went out Friday night with a coworker, and she says to me, "Everytime I walk into Joe's office, there's like, a giant cock on his screen or something... did you notice this?" I act surprised, and she says, "Well someone ought to do something about it."

She's leaving for Tampa, and I convinced her it wouldn't be good to get wrapped up in something like that before she goes for this big job down south. I also said it may have just been one of those lousy popups, we all get them. She kind of laughed it off, and nothing more was mentioned.

I thought nothing of it until this morning.

I walked into Joe's office, and his screen is filled with cock and men, just FILLED. He has to click nervously 7 - 8 times before he can answer my simple, "Are we having a staff meeting," question. He turns, a little frazzled, toward me, and quivers out a "no". Five minutes later he's pumping out report after report on our printer, yelling for me, "James, get my reports, I printed them off on the wrong printer." I go to grab the stack of excel sheets, and under it, are several 8/11" photo printouts of, you guessed it, nude men. I toss the porn away and act as if nothing happened.

Now, our network is set up so that everything we do is "ghosted", as they call it, or replicated on the servers here. I'm assuming that while Joe deletes his internet history, backups are made of it on the servers, just like our e-mail. (Because everything we do is public record, it must be made available to the State at all times.) This begs the question... everytime we print something, does the spooler send a copy to the servers?

Regardless, he will eventually be in some shit. It hasn't affected me really until recently, when I second guess why he asks me to stay late nights and pick up reports with naked men under them. It appears he has shed his shame for his orientation, and has now decided the only way to come out is to imply interest, or at least, make it look like a mistake, like he wants to be caught, to save himself the trouble of coming out on his own.

If that's the case, fine. But I'm asking, is it sexual harassment in the workplace? Because it's making me goddamned uncomfortable. I have to rattle my keys everytime I go into his office so he has time to close windows, or I have to throw away his porn before I collate any documents he has coming off the printer.

I feel torn here. He does a good job. He's been a good coworker. I do NOT want to get him fired, and confronting him is right out.

What would you guys do?

hypothetically, tell joe to quit printing out my pictures


on a more serious note, what youre experiencing is indeed sexual harrassment. he is creating a hostile work environment by having you pick up his noodie pics he has printed.

the one thing i wont do here, not that we as the IT dept have any rules or regulations per se, is surf for porn. sure friends send the occassional naked pic, and theres an ex-worker who retired from here that sends every wet-tshirt picture he has ever found on the net.

I would confront him and have a talk about how his actions could affect you and your co-workers and not just him. But that's just me.

i would talk to him about it.

tell him you have no problem if he is or is not gay; but it is very unethical to have those pics and to especially print them out! and of course it could lead to him being terminated.


if you value him at the workplace, then sit him down for a chat and tell him how you feel.

Personally I would have to talk with him about it. Maybe not confront him about his sexual orientation, but focus more on the ramifications of his actions. But that's just me and I know nothing about what you do or where you work.

The other option would be to get software that limits internet access. We have some "SurfControl" software here at work that limits certain types of websites from being accessed during working hours.

If you dont want him to get fired, you'll probably have to confront him yourself and tell him he's got to quit his porn surfing while at work. Otherwise, he will eventually be confronted by someone higher up and at that point it may be too late for him.

If this were a straight man printing out pictures of naked women and asking a female coworker to retrieve them, would you be asking this question?

I think the same situation applies.

Mrs. Conspriacy theorist.

I'm saying it's kind of obvious this is a form of sexual harrassment.

good point... arent we all for equality here?

My advice? Repeat after me: Porn boy's problems are not my problems. I wouldn't say anything to him about it. Narc on him to a higher up and let them deal with it. Who's to say if you try to address the situation with him that he won't go into vengeful queen mode and try to make your life in the office a living hell? It's not your problem to solve. Regardless of whatever sexual repression this guy has, anyone with 1/2 a frigging brain knows to stay off the porn at work. Take it to a manager or your HR Dept. and let them deal with it. It's a job, his freakish behavior is not your responsibility to deal with.

Then of course if you're not friends with the guy there is this option.

Which is probably what I'd do honestly. I mean who jerks off to porn at the office. Wait until you get home.

No, the ACLU would be on it before I could get the chance. d-Uh.

It's really driving me nuts. And I've never had to confront someone about something of this magnitude before, not to mention, I fear that my future in this office with this administration may be in jeopardy if I expose this guy for what he's doing.

Seriously, this "personal moral responsibility" thing? It fucking sucks.

Create a yahoo email address and rat the guy out anonymously.

What kind of working relationship do you have with this guy? Do you get along with him etc? If so, and you have no work-type resentment towards him (like he's not an asshole within your working relationship) I'd talk to him about it letting him know you respect the job he does and you are sincere in your desire to maintain a professional work environment for him and for you, otherwise you wouldn't talk to him about it. Let him know a few other (unnamed) people have made comments to you about what they've seen and you felt it only fair to tell him about it so he could take the needed precautions while at work.
I guess I just wouldn't talk terribly openly with him about exactly what's being done or who is seeing what, just for the sake of keeping the work environment exactly that.

Regardless of what you decide, sorry this is even an issue.

Well, we're not friends, really. He does his job, I do mine. We work close once a year during the budget, and he has this temper thing where he can't handle pressure and he takes it out on coworkers, but that's it.



Yeah. I don't like him enough to do that.



There's a conflict of interest here, however, I've failed to mention. If he goes, I am the next reasonable successor for his position.

bada bing... monkey wrench.

Now what would you guys do??

fuck him in the ass and take his job

Do you think you could slip an anonymous note to him telling him you have seen what he does, that it bothers you, and if he doesn't stop it, you'll be forced to take it higher up?

Personally, it seems like a cry for help to me. He seems like he WANTS to get caught on some level because it's the only way he'll be able to come out. It would be bad if that were how he came out though. If you give a damn about this guy as a friend, I'd try to take some action to prevent him from getting caught by a boss. Although it may already be too late.

--PunkDavid