So, is calling others a cunt just banter and harmless fun? Or should I delete it all because it's offensive, bad conduct, and, as @ProbablyTrue has said, "not just between two people, it's a whole room of people leaving open a whole room of interpretation"?

What do you mean, "bad-natured"? — Sapientia

Not in accordance with moral standards of behaviour. Not the type of behaviour I enjoy seeing.

It was regarded as workplace banter, and they all burst out laughing. Doesn't that context mean anything to you? — Sapientia

Sure, and I have no issue with them doing this if they like it, but I wouldn't like working in such an office, even if I were to actually laugh at such a comment.

Besides, you have zero credibility when you talk about these matters, since you frequently and openly praise Donald Trump, recently saying that he's an inspiration to you. This is the same Donald Trump who made comments that go far beyond sexual innuendo, and who occupies the most powerful position in the United States. — Sapientia

Why besides? I am sort of on your side, I said I don't personally like it, and wouldn't engage in that sort of office humour, but I don't think it can actually be stopped. Compare that with other people around here who also don't like it, but think we can do everything in the world to bring it to an end through the One Supreme Commandment of political correctness...

Can it not also work in reverse? — TimeLine

Yes, I suppose it could in some situations. But, to go back to the example, what business is it of a few twenty-somethings, who were not even there, who have read the anecdote and recoiled in horror at what they see as a roomful of old dinosaurs being “inappropriate” towards their “victim”, to be directing their outrage at those on the inside, who were, as they saw it, just having a laugh?

The "yawn" itself was unnecessary and whilst the act cannot be constituted as harassment legally here in Australia, repeated and tolerance to such negative behaviour breeds a poor workplace environment that can be detrimental to the health and wellbeing of others. — TimeLine

The yawn was an understandable reaction to a judgemental twenty-something sticking their oar in without fully understanding or appreciating the situation.

It doesn't really breed a poor workplace environment, just as videogames don't really breed violence. This is just scapegoating.

Clearly the aforementioned has a toxic culture considering it is openly "male-dominated" which can only mean that a woman' survival would require such supposed "thick skin" and so how many women who do not have this "thick skin" but have more talent and capacity then the men sitting around that table are working elsewhere because of it? — TimeLine

A toxic culture? What about the testimony of someone who was actually there, and therefore knows the culture better than you do? Let's see:

Sue never saw it that way, and neither did I.

For me, it actually showed that they regarded Sue as their equal — a highly respected journalist who could look after herself and engage in the same kind of workplace banter that men do all the time without feeling the need to run off to HR. — Jane Moore, The Sun

That doesn't sound very toxic to me. Why must this culture change, rather than those women who can't hack it? Clearly some women are more than capable. They'd be better suited for the job. Working for The Sun isn't for everyone.

I'm not sure I agree with this attitude that the world around me must change to my liking, rather than adapting myself to better suit my environment.

So, is calling others a cunt just banter and harmless fun? Or should I delete it all because it's offensive, bad conduct, and, as ProbablyTrue has said, "not just between two people, it's a whole room of people leaving open a whole room of interpretation"? — Michael

In an office context, I wouldn't openly call someone a cunt. That's for lunch time fun.

Boys will be boys. http://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/2017/11/11/steven-seagal-accused-telling-actress-to-sit-on-his-face-in-1991.html

So what, once someone supports Trump you can forever attack whatever they say because of their association with an asshole? It's just so ad hom. — Hanover

But it's just so double standard.

That doesn't sound very toxic to me. Why must this culture change, rather than those women who can't hack it? Clearly some women are more than capable. They'd be better suited for the job. Working for The Sun isn't for everyone.

I'm not sure I agree with this attitude that the world around me must change to my liking, rather than adapting myself to better suit my environment. — Sapientia

That's fine that they didn't have a problem with it, but let's say the banter continues, and a third person enters this atmosphere. Instead of taking the joke lightly, the person takes offense. So, maybe the person does have to adapt, but adapt to being less civil than he or she is used to. That is a change for the worse. Professionalism is there usually for a reason.

People are usually forced into work situations by circumstances of economics, not because they want to be buddy buddy with their coworkers. Due to the fact that the market economy forces people into these settings with others they would normally not associate with, professionalism makes sense to try to maintain. Now, I agree that being too "professional" or "corporate-y" is going too far in the other direction (e.g., can't reflect your own personality, forcing people to into group-think points of view regarding the organization, vapidly positive slogans, not able to express political or philosophical views, etc. etc.). That is bullshit, yes. But, trying to maintain an atmosphere of civility amongst people who might otherwise not associate other than the workplace is appropriate.

Not in accordance with moral standards of behaviour. Not the type of behaviour I enjoy seeing. — Agustino

That's not what it usually means. It usually means spiteful, malicious, catty, vindictive... yet they considered it banter - the playful and friendly exchange of teasing remarks - so that doesn't jibe, nor does that constitute a discord with moral standards of behaviour. And whether that's the type of behaviour that you enjoy seeing is neither here nor there.

Sure, and I have no issue with them doing this if they like it, but I wouldn't like working in such an office, even if I were to actually laugh at such a comment. — Agustino

Okay, Agustino wouldn't like working in such an office. Duly noted.

Why besides? I am sort of on your side, I said I don't personally like it, and wouldn't engage in that sort of office humour, but I don't think it can actually be stopped. — Agustino

It could be, in a limited sense, by clamping down on it. The question is ethical in nature, and consists of whether it should or should not be. Do you have an opinion on that? Are you suggesting that you think that it should not be, despite your personal dislike of it?

My position can be summed up with the idiom about not throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

Compare that with other people around here who also don't like it, but think we can do everything in the world to bring it to an end through the One Supreme Commandment of political correctness... — Agustino

Okay, point taken. Our respective positions might be closer together in comparison to the positions of others in that regard.

That's not what it usually means. It usually means spiteful, malicious, catty, vindictive — Sapientia

Okay, thanks for explaining that.

It could be, in a limited sense, by clamping down on it. — Sapientia

People who want to do that will keep doing that if they have power.

The question is ethical in nature — Sapientia

I don't think the question is ethical, your question is political. With regards to the ethical question, I do think it's unethical. With regards to the political question, whether we should clamp down on it, I don't think we should.

Are you suggesting that you think that it should not be, despite your personal dislike of it? — Sapientia

If you're asking whether I think we should use a hammer to put an end to it, then probably not. Using a hammer has its own deficiencies and can also be abused, for example, to get rid of people you don't like. In addition, it will just breed hypocrisy.

You never know what others are bringing to the experience they have at work and it is a place that has to be safe sexually, including but not limited to sexual banter. It can sour in a heart beat and no banter is worth ending your career over. — ArguingWAristotleTiff

Jokes about "pussy" are built into the language. The word references cats, female anatomy, and plants (pussy willow). It can also reference squeamish men.

If a workplace can sour in a heartbeat because someone makes a joke about a broken pussy, (an injured cat) then that workplace has some serious problems, all right.

We literally know only what Tiff told us about that story. Perhaps the worker got a chance to apologize and instead decided to be a douche. We don't know that.

But I'm sure we all know that attributing defective genetalia to people is a no no in our modern age. As far as I'm concerned you all have Brazzers-worthy primary and secondary sexual attributes, and it would be very polite if y'all assumed the same of me, without us ever having to say anything about it at work.

We literally know only what Tiff told us, and maybe she made the whole thing up. Douché touché.

But I am quite certain she didn't make it up. Tiff is pretty straight arrow.

If I had a rooster with a broken leg, and somebody said I had a busted cock, I would not be offended. I would offer to show them just how operational my cock was, and would laugh along with them. My cock may not be Brazzer-worthy (never heard of them before), but it is eminently satisfactory. It has undergone extensive field testing. Most people's genitalia are, if not splendiferous, at least perfectly adequate.

Neither the lady with the injured...pussycat nor I would be injured in any way, shape, manner, or form by going along with jokes like this -- or even more raucous, guffaw-inducing jokes.

My guess is that leaking radiation from the warehouse probably fried her sense of humor.

You peeps have invested too much energy in the bottom head, and not enough in the top one... that is the only way to explain why the one that sits on the bottom actually rules the one that sits on the top >:O

It's like you take pleasure in being completely ignorant in terms of what women feel about this kind of thing. Odd to watch. Have you ever spoken to a woman of the modern age? Let me fill you in, for most women strangers joking about their "pussies" makes them feel very uncomfortable, and possibly humiliated.

If I had a rooster with a broken leg, and somebody said I had a busted cock, I would not be offended — Bitter Crank

Well bully for you. You're a real tough guy and I'd feel the same. But who gives a toss? The discussion is about women and what should constitute sexual harassment not about your comfortable relationship with your cock (albeit which you and your cock are very welcome to).

Well maybe if you don't like certain things, you shouldn't do certain jobs or work in certain environments. It's like me, who thinks sex outside of marriage is wrong. Someone like me shouldn't go into porn for example. I shouldn't open an erotic massage saloon, etc. If I do go into one of those jobs, then I cannot complain that I feel uncomfortable, because I chose it myself!

So if I walked into an office where stuff like that happened, I wouldn't work there. I'd just give my papers in and resign. I cannot force a business owner to run his place by my rules. If I don't like the rules, I'm free to leave.

We peeps, and you, perp, as well, are products of evolution. It wasn't my idea to install the sex driver as the key unit in the operating system. Mother Nature set up the hardware and wrote the operating system. Neurotic Mother Church has screwed up Sacred Mother Nature's work, what with all the stuff about "sex should repulse unless it leads to results" and so on.

But, as it happens, that is the way we work, Sex, or more broadly, libido§ is what drives our personalities, and minds as well. One may not buy a single word of Freud's theory, but it seems pretty clear from experience that the sex driver is pretty central in the operation of our systems. We do have options: We can repress our libidinous drives (which leads to obstreperous neuroticism) or we can sublimate libido, which (Freud says) leads to the production of Civilization.

Whether we choose the Grand Neurosis (which I think a lot of peeps are suffering from -- female peeps in particular -- or the Great Civilization (which not enough people have tried), the broadly defined sex drive is still running the show.

§Sigmund Freud defined libido as "the energy, regarded as a quantitative magnitude... of those instincts which have to do with all that may be comprised under the word 'love'." It is the instinct energy or force, contained in what Freud called the id, the strictly unconscious structure of the psyche.

Bollocks. Offices and other places of work should not be places that effectively exclude women (or the majority of them). And no, as I said before, you don't get to tell women how they should feel about sexism. It would be like telling Bitter Crank not to act like a dinosaur who still thinks it's the 1950s. Totally pointless and counterproductive. ;)

:s I didn't tell anyone how to feel about anything. It's you who is trying to tell some people how to feel about running their workplace the way they want to.

If I want to run my company as a military base for example, who are you or the government to stop me? People who work there will obviously agree with those terms.

It's all about common sense. Sometimes it really is harmless. But the testimony of thousands and thousands of women is that quite a lot of times it isn't. And the testimony of one dead racist woman journalist does not negate those thousands. And if you don't like to hear those shrill complaining voices, then as Agustino implies, you should get off the planet.

Uh, because your business would be nothing without the infrastructure the government provides like roads, education for your workforce etc. Therefore the government has a right to tell you what to do in terms of certain things. If you don't want to be regulated, go set up an acorn selling business in the woods.

Uh, because your business would be nothing without the infrastructure the government provides like roads, education for your workforce etc. — Baden

Yeah, you mean those dummies in the government :-d ... can't do anything with their lives, entirely useless - so they go into politics. If you fail in everything, that's what you do - you go become a politician and enforce your silly rules on others by force. You take their money, etc.

Therefore the government has a right to tell you what to do in terms of certain things. If you don't want to be regulated, go set up an acorn selling business in the woods. — Baden

The government should then do something productive. They can't produce anything, communism proved that. The government failed in running production. When they can finally run an efficient operation, then they will have proved to me they know what they're talking about, and the business owner might listen to them. Until then, they should listen to the business owner.

In Europe, darn socialism is spreading everywhere once again...

So silly. Without successive governments, you'd be hanging out in a cave. Yes, governments have their faults but you owe everything you have to their cumulative efforts over centuries. That's not socialism, that's perspective. And common sense. All this BS about you and your business when you are sitting on the shoulders of the very forces you claim are dragging you down. I mean government was instrumental in inventing the internet the very thing you rely on for your business. If they really could do nothing, you wouldn't be able to spout nonsense about them here or earn one red cent from your business.

Yes, governments have their faults but you owe everything you have to their cumulative efforts over centuries — Baden

The cumulative efforts of people who the governments have for centuries robbed, yes.

So without any government, in a state of anarchy over the past few centuries, we'd still have everything we have now in terms of social infrastructure and technology? Is that really your considered analysis?

Anyway to bring it back on topic, you're wrong about regulations concerning sexual harassment because you don't understand how regulation works or why it's necessary, Bitter's wrong because he thinks everyone else should have the same relationship to their genitalia that he has. That's never going to happen.

(I accept regulation should have its limits by the way. I'm all for allowing cussing in the workplace :-* ).

It would be like telling Bitter Crank not to act like a dinosaur who still thinks it's the 1950s. — Baden

It's not the 1950s? When did this happen? Why was I not informed at once?

Actually, If you followed my example in real life, and not as I write here (in the 1950s vernacular of antiquated dinosaurs) you would never get into trouble.

I don't recollect ever calling a woman a pussy as a cliché, a slur, or a joke. I never touch women inappropriately, (really, not at all), and behave quite respectfully toward other people, both males and females.

The question is what is legitimate interaction between men and women in the workplace (and elsewhere). I am well aware of what will fly, and what won't in 2017 -- but I disapprove of the map of appropriate behavior boundaries.

It reminds me of a "Rosie the Riveter" kind of story from a WWII documentary about when many women took up male occupations in factories. A machinist told his new female assistant to go to the tool room and get him a bastard file. She objected to the bad language he used. ("Bastard file" is a term of art, having nothing to do with the file's parentage.)

Even in 1945 (never mind 1955, or 2017) there was no reason for a woman to object to the term "bastard", whether it referred to the file or the foreman. There is a long string of words to which anyone might take (and has taken) objection.

In principle, I prefer people have few limitations on what can be said, and I also prefer that people not prepare knee-jerk reactions to a selected word list. In principle, I side with the free-speech prerogatives of the speaker, rather than the sensitivities of the hearer.

A lot of women have no difficulty calling every other male they deal with a "jerk" or "asshole". That's fine, speak freely -- but don't flip out if somebody calls you a bitch.

The free-speech prerogative goes for my own sensitivities as well. I know that a lot of people don't like socialists and homosexuals (It's difficult for some people to settle on which one is more loathsome) and in referencing my political and sexual orientation, they aren't going to be especially complimentary. But what is good for the goose is good for the gander, and I want to be able to speak freely too.

You peeps have invested too much energy in the bottom head, and not enough in the top one... that is the only way to explain why the one that sits on the bottom actually rules the one that sits on the top — Agustino

How's that book you're writing?

In pretty much every area except sex I would agree with you. I curse in the workplace and if someone complained I'd think they were being petty and oppressive. Viva the bastard files! I think we do have to recognize though that men and women in general react very differently to sexual talk. I may even be accused of sexism by saying this but I think it's an unavoidable reality.

I sympathize with your views, as a lot of it is context. A manager can say, "This fuckin report is so full of errors, what a bitch this is!". Or he can say to his subordinate, "Get me the FUCKN report NOW!!" in an extremely aggressive tone. Would you say there is a difference there? I would.