Thursday, September 20, 2012

The Tony Stewart Pit Road Ass Grab - Get A Grip People (No Pun Intended)

We're nearly a week beyond the first race of the Chase for the Cup and the NASCAR news that's making rounds in the rest of the world is the single moment where Tony Stewart grabbed Delana Harvick's ass on pit road.  Seriously?

And people are in a tizzy about sexual harassment because of it.

I'm fairly surprised people are going on and on about this.  Or maybe I'm not.  And poor Tony is taking some form of heat.  But what you're looking at is the division between the rough and tumble world of real people who don't have as tight a set of personal limits and those who want to sit in a zone of safety in their cubicle and not be exposed to this kind of rough housing.

This was a funny thing between friends.  I'm not sure I'd like to be in a circle of friends that smack or grab asses, but it's no skin off my back if other folks are like that with each other in their own circles.

I think the phrase is let bygones be bygones.  Or "sticks and stones can break my bones, but words will never hurt me."  Or at least that's how it used to be played before lawyers starting procreating.  Ah, the good 'ol days.

So I'm not sure why folks want to get involved and jump and shout and run about, regarding Tony grabbing ass.  Though it did get on national television at a bad moment in time during the NASCAR pre-race show.

So does that mean more people are closet NASCAR fans than meets the eye?  Or is this drawing more people in to now watch NASCAR for the fortuitous and one-time grab of ass?  Or are the folks that never watched NASCAR now threatening to never watch NASCAR?  Not sure where the threat is in that one.

Be it as it may, Tony probably should have been a bit more careful.  But my having been on pit road with the teams and drivers on occasion, it's a very family and friends oriented situation.  It's like seeing your buddy at the water cooler, or seeing them off to work... except your buddy suits up with safety gear and climbs into a hole to get strapped into something that is about to haul ass at 200 mph. Your buddy is hurling off into a realm many will never get and on a rare occasion, could get hurt doing.

There's a different mindset going on here that many who grumble will never, ever get.  Period.

-

DO NOT MISTAKE this glib take for an ignorance of the existence or need for rules regarding sexual harassment in the work place.  I do get it.  When someone repeatedly grabs or touches you inappropriately or says things to you repeatedly that are of an uncomfortable and unwanted nature, the legal workspace protections that are in place are there for noise like that from creepy people like that.

But this situation is being taken totally out of hand and I think many of you should just sit back, understand what this is, and let it go.  We've got bigger fish to fry in the world like fighting and beating the evil of cancer.  Or rampant starvation around the world.  That is where our focuses should be.  That seems more constructive to me.

But that's me.  And then again, I find the rough and tumble camaraderie of Sons of Anarchy a fun kind of environment too where an ass grab probably won't ruin my day!

-

No comments:

Post a Comment

Sorry, but I need to moderate to keep my spammer fans out of the comment zone....