If you’re a woman who is alive in the year 2021, you absolutely know what I am talking about. You’ve been out at a concert or a bar when a man you’ve never met introduces himself to you with a hand on your ass.
Or you’ve had to work with that one guy HR warns you about, who turns everything you say into an off-color joke, or unexpectedly slips his arm around your waist and plants a kiss on your cheek.
It’s just a little trickier when that guy is in charge of the entire state government.
But really there is nothing in New York State Attorney General Letitia James’s damning investigative report into Andrew Cuomo’s conduct that will seem unfamiliar to modern women.
“Gentle but accurate, I’ve heard that before,” Governor Andrew Cuomo told a Director of the New York State Department of Health as she was about to test him for COVID on TV.
Heh heh heh, get it? Wink, wink.
He then told her in front of the media that she made “that gown look good.”
One female state trooper who had been assigned to the governor’s protective services at his special request recounted that the governor would touch her or kiss her in front of colleagues and initiate sexual topics of conversation with her, including his desire for a girlfriend who could “handle pain.”
I almost injured myself rolling my eyes yesterday at Governor Cuomo’s pathetic litany of excuses, upon the finding by James that he had violated state and federal laws by persistently and flagrantly harassing women in his orbit.
He said he was misunderstood and mischaracterized, that he merely suffers from an excess of empathy towards sexual assault victims, showed a slideshow of himself hugging and kissing other people who haven’t yet accused him of sexual harassment (including, absurdly, his mother) and claimed that he comes from a different generation when making suggestive comments and sticking your hand up your assistant’s shirt was considered acceptable office behavior.
Give me a break.
Cuomo is many things, but he is definitely not a confused, traditional-minded old man who just doesn’t understand the complex social rules today. The man has pierced nipples for crying out loud.
The guy is a nasty dirtbag who obviously gets off on making the women around him put up with his kinky tastes.
And no, many aspects of being a nasty dirtbag are not illegal. But wielding your political power to force state employees to suffer through your freaky mind games most definitely is, and rightfully so.
I realize of course that Cuomo should probably see jail time first and foremost for his deadly nursing home policy early in the pandemic, that likely killed tens of thousands. Not to mention the misuse of state resources for personal gain and the special access to COVID testing and medical resources for his friends and family.
But that doesn’t mean he shouldn’t face consequences for these other offenses, which include making dirty jokes to staff, a groping habit, and generally ruining the day of any attractive woman unlucky enough to work nearby him.