Putrid breath hits the back of your neck as cold and clammy hands try to catch hold of you and vicious, irrational eyes with an almost inhuman gleam look down at you— this is a typical mental depiction of sexual harassment. What most people do not realize, though, is that the definition of sexual harassment includes a lot more than just physical assault. Sexual harassment is defined as any unwanted sexual attention. This includes spreading sexual rumors, sexual derogatory comments, and graphic verbal comments about an individual’s body, among other forms of forbidden conduct. This means that many students have been harassed sexually, or have done the harassing, without realizing it.

Here is an exemplary incident. A girl is walking down the hall with some friends. A group of guys walks by and, look her up and down, and whistle appreciatively. That is sexual harassment, under a section on sexual leering in the Student Handbook. We can also imagine that a guy is walking down the hall and a girl purposefully steps in front of him, forcing him to bump up against her and walk around her. That is also sexual harassment, under purposefully cornering or blocking normal movements in the Student Handbook. Incidentally, this is statewide policy.

Sometimes, the line between where sexual harassment begins and ends blurs. Take the first example; what if the girl approved of the guys’ attentions and it wasn’t unwanted? Alternatively, in the second example, what if the girl honestly wasn’t looking where she was going and it was pure accident? Is it then sexual harassment?

Sexual harassment is a very delicate subject because it is a very subjective issue. Any single incident or instance may become horribly convoluted because you will always have slanted stories from every individual involved. In today’s society, the media does not tend to look at both viewpoints. Nevertheless, our society should begin to realize the importance of considering a second story, because making a judgment while ignorant of the facts is one of the highest forms of arrogance. In many of the witch-trial like scenarios that we have spectated from our recliners, the victim may have been over dramatizing, or the accused party may have been oblivious to the supposed wrong they committed. No one should disclaim any case made in the name of sexual harassment, but our nation does have a disturbing history of making mountains out of molehills.

This also doesn’t mean that individuals aren’t or can’t be hurt over something you were unaware of or didn’t mean to do. So where does that leave us? Wellness Center Coordinator Jennifer Kenny-Baum says we should all just be more conscientious of what we are saying and how we are behaving.

 “Sometimes I hear the things students say to each other and they’re being really flippant because they’re ‘just playing.’ This is really dangerous when you don’t know the other person that well. You could be making another person feel really uncomfortable or unsafe,” Kenny-Baum said.

She also said that the offended party usually keeps quiet because either they don’t know how to deal with it, or they try to laugh it off.

 “It is especially hard to confront someone if they are your friend. If it is just some guy on the street, you feel more comfortable saying, ‘back off!’ But when it is a friend, it is difficult to know how to say something without tainting your relationship,” Kenny-Baum said.

While we don’t want to blow things out of proportion, we also don’t want to ignore a problem when there is one. The Abraham Linclon High School policy on sexual harassment is no-nonsense. There is no tolerance for sexual harassment of any kind, no matter the degree, and according to the Faculty Binder, “It is no defense to a claim of sexual harassment that the alleged harasser did not intend to harass.”

This leaves very little wiggle room for most of the cases that Principal Ronald Pang sees, which he understands to be students merely playing with each other.

“All of a sudden the playing gets serious and someone involved gets uncomfortable. Or, the other most common occurrence is between boyfriend and girlfriend, where they get into a disagreement, or someone gets too physical,” Pang said.

The last serious case the administration dealt with was between a girlfriend and boyfriend last year, where the boyfriend was making unwanted advances. In this case, the girlfriend didn’t even report it; the administration noticed what was happening and pulled the boyfriend in to talk with him.

“A case, when is brought in, is handled by interviewing both parties separately, then seeing if we can come to a resolution, making sure the harasser knows that this is the only warning. If it is ignored, we may bring in a district mediator, or even resort to expulsion, Child Protective Services, or the Police,” Pang said.

This is a game that has high risks. What we need to remember is that every day there are many, many people around you, and anything you say, anything, could be hurting someone else.