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Students at Oxford university traditionally have tutorials in their tutors’ “rooms”. Sometimes that just means an office but often he (the tutor is usually a he) hangs out a lot there. In short, the teaching space is also a private space. Add on the power imbalance between tutor and student, and Oxford in my student days (1988-1992) might have been designed for sexual harassment.
牛津大学(Oxford university)的学生们以往都在导师“房间”里接受辅导。有时房间就是一间办公室，但导师（一般是男性）往往很多时间都在那里呆着。总之，教学场所也是一种私密空间。另外，导师和学生之间的权力并不对等，而且我念书的时候（1988年—1992年），牛津也许就是为性骚扰设计的。
Students swapped harassment stories. There was the tutor who emerged from his shower wearing only a towel to greet a female tutee. Another tutor, who often discussed his interest in young men, once (probably when fogged by his sherry) groped a female student’s knee. When someone overdid it at one Oxford college, he was usually quietly shunted to another. Written rules about sex would have been considered humourless, even “American”.
学生们交谈着性骚扰的传闻。有个导师只裹着一条毛巾就从浴室出来见一位女生。另一个经常说自己喜欢年轻小伙子的导师，有一次（大概因为喝了点雪利酒）摸了一名女生的膝盖。如果某人在牛津某个学院做得太过份，通常会被悄悄地调到另一个学院。有关性的成文规定会被认为太一本正经，甚至有点“美国”。
It was a different world. But most of us who inhabited it — and grew up thinking its codes were normal — are still around today. The sexual revolution of 2013-17 — gay marriage, transgender rights, and now the uprising against harassment — has been a wonderful thing. But I fear that many men and even some women of my age and older will spend the rest of their lives fighting the new codes.
那会儿的情况跟现在完全不同。但我们这些从那时候过来的人大多数都还活着——并且我们在成长过程中都对那时候的行为规范习以为常了。2013年至2017年的性革命——同性婚姻、跨性别人士权益以及当下舆论对性骚扰的激烈声讨——令人拍手称快。但我担心很多与我年龄相仿、或稍年长于我的男性，甚至部分女性，都将用余生与各种新的行为规范作斗争。
My generation reached adulthood with scarcely even a concept of sexual harassment. During my last year at university, Anita Hill made her accusations against her former boss Clarence Thomas, who had been nominated for the US Supreme Court. I watched the hearings on TV, and remember fellow students mocking her, but I struggled to understand exactly what she was alleging. She wasn’t accusing Thomas of physical attack, so what did “harassment” mean? My ignorance wasn’t unique. A contemporary tells me that at the time she was trying to help write her college’s first-ever legal code on harassment.
我们这代人直到成年时对性骚扰都没有一点概念。我大学毕业的前一年，安妮塔?希尔(Anita Hill)对其前上司克拉伦斯?托马斯(Clarence Thomas)提出指控，那时托马斯已被提名为美国最高法院的法官。我在电视上观看了听证会，我还记得我的同学们嘲笑希尔，但我努力想弄明白她到底在控诉什么。她并没有指控托马斯对她实施了身体攻击，那么“骚扰”指的是什么呢？无知的并不止我一个人。一位同龄朋友告诉我，当时她正试着协助他们学院撰写第一部关于骚扰的法律规则。
Over the next two decades, western countries progressed a bit. Codes got written. A new moral rule emerged: relationships ought to be equal. That meant that homosexuality was OK, whereas unequal relationships — such as paedophilia and sexual harassment — were taboo. Slowly, people’s behaviour changed. Harassment probably declined, from a very bad base. In 2002, 6.5 per cent of American respondents to the University of Chicago’s General Social Survey said they had been sexually harassed on the job in the previous 12 months. The figure fell to 3.6 per cent by 2014.
接下来的20年，西方国家进步了一点点。有了一些相关的成文法规。新的道德规范出现了：人与人之间的关系应当平等。这意味着同性恋也没有问题，而不平等关系——如恋童癖及性骚扰——则是禁忌。慢慢地，人们的行为发生了改变。相较于以往极其恶劣的情形，骚扰或许减少了。2002年，在芝加哥大学(University of Chicago)所做的《综合社会调查》(General Social Survey)中，6.5%的美国受访者表示在过去12个月他们曾在工作中遭到性骚扰。到了2014年，这个数字下降为3.6%。
Meanwhile, a group of new movements bubbled up in the US, most of all on campuses. From Black Lives Matter, through transgender activists, to It’s On Us (“to stop sexual assault”), they had different origins but shared a basic idea: our group has always been violated by others. In particular, the white patriarchy has hurt us, and stamped on our identity. Our duty is to speak out. In this battle, it’s sometimes OK to deny the other side free speech.
与此同时，美国出现了一系列新的维权运动，其中大多数发生在校园里。从“黑人的命也是命”(Black Lives Matter)，跨性别活动者，到It’s On Us （“抵制性侵”），这些活动有着不同的缘起，但都基于一种理念：我们的群体总受到别人的侵犯。特别是，白人父权制伤害了我们，践踏了我们的身份。我们的责任就是大胆发声。在这场战斗中，有时可以否认对方言论的自由。
When these groups spoke out against violation, they were often mocked. However, they have been startlingly influential. The moment that their worldview went mainstream was in September, when the Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein was exposed as a sexual predator. Women the world over began speaking out against violation. That has changed gender relations.
当这些群体高声反抗侵犯时，常常遭到人们的嘲笑。然而，他们的影响力却不容小觑。他们的世界观成为主流是在今年9月，其时好莱坞制片人哈维?韦恩斯坦(Harvey Weinstein)被曝性骚扰。世界各地的女性开始公开反对侵犯。这改变了性别关系。
This will infuriate lots of people. In male-dominated societies, rules against sexual harassment won’t easily triumph. Rebecca Traister, who is writing a book on female anger around politics, says in a podcast: “I fully believe that a backlash to this moment of exposure, and this conversation, is imminent.”
这会激怒很多人。在男性主导的社会中，反对性骚扰的规则不会轻易取胜。丽贝卡?特雷斯特(Rebecca Traister)正在写一本书，讲的是女性对权术的愤怒。特雷斯特在播客上说：“我完全相信，此次曝光和这场谈话很快就会遭到强烈反弹。”
Most people now in middle age and older learnt to live their intimate lives by the old standards: gays were bad, transsexuals absurd, women should be seen not heard, and harassment was never discussed. Men policed the public space, through practices like wolf-whistling, “slut-shaming” or plain assault. Sexual codes existed chiefly to regiment women.
目前，大多数中年人及年纪更大点的人都学会了墨守成规地过自己的小日子：同性恋不好，变性更是荒谬，妇女应当噤声，骚扰不应该被讨论。男人掌管着公共空间，他们惯用的手段有吹狼哨、“羞辱荡妇”或直白地侵犯。性守则主要是用来严格管制女性的。
Now those generations are being told they lived wrong. The two harassing tutors I mentioned are dead. But there’s another man I recall who made so many moves on his female students that the college finally did something: he was barred from tutoring women one-to-one. That man is now an emeritus professor. He won’t want new sexual codes to regiment him. When a single accusation of harassment anywhere is shown to be false, or an attempt at blackmail, he’ll be crying foul.
如今这些人被告知他们的活法不对。我在上文提到的两个骚扰女学生的导师都已不在人世。但我记得还有另一个男导师多次对其女学生动手动脚，学院最后不得不采取措施：他被禁止一对一指导女生。此人现在是位名誉教授。他不欢迎新的性规范来约束自己。每当哪有一起性骚扰指控被证明是诬告，或企图敲诈，一准儿会激起他的强烈抗议。
Even some older women have shown little enthusiasm for new sexual codes. It’s notable that weeks after Donald Trump was caught boasting about sexual assault, he beat Hillary Clinton by a double-digit landslide among white women aged 45 and over. The US now has a generational divide unprecedented since the 1960s sexual revolution.
甚至一些上年纪的女性也对新的性规范没多大热情。值得注意的是，就在唐纳德?特朗普(Donald Trump)鼓吹性侵犯的几周后，他在45岁以上的白人女性选民中，以两位数的绝对优势击败了希拉里?克林顿(Hillary Clinton)。目前美国存在着一条自上世纪60年代性革命以来未曾见过的代沟。
Both sides agree rape is criminal but, beyond that, there’s no consensus. What about a pass at a colleague after work? Or complimenting someone’s looks? Or a surreptitious ogle? Every organisation will now write strict codes, but what happens if these butt up against stubborn everyday practices? The genders and generations will be fighting about this for years to come.
双方都承认强奸是犯罪，但对于除此之外的行为，却没有任何共识。下班后撩一下同事可以吗？或者恭维一下别人的长相行吗？又或者偷偷抛个媚眼呢？每个组织现在都要编写严格的行为准则，但如果这些准则与顽固的日常习俗相抵触又会怎样？未来许多年里，两性、各代人都将为此斗争不已。
