Hypnosis and Sex Harassment
My thanks to Philip Miles at lawffice space for bringing this case to my attention. It’s one of those “just when you thought you’d seen everything” cases. It has been recently filed in U.S. District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania, so it’ll take a while to see how the case unfolds and reaches climax. Sorry about that.
Anyway, here’s a brief summary of what allegedly happened. A female employee was hypnotized by her supervisor as part of the employee’s relaxation sessions. These sessions occurred on the supervisor’s “magic couch.” During these sessions while the employee was hypnotized, “[The supervisor] stroked [the employee's] breasts, and repeatedly brought her to orgasm, utilizing the hypnotic suggestion that he would slowly count to five, and when he reached five, she would experience a rush of pleasure.”
The employee didn’t remember these sessions for about a year. Now, she says her memory has returned, and she has filed a sexual harassment lawsuit in Patroski v. Pressley Ridge. She’s suing for $5,000,000.
I don’t know if this is the first case of its kind, but it’s a head-turner for sure. One wonders if the supervisor will claim that he was hypnotized by The Man Gene, which caused him to hypnotize the female employee.
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Chris Parker's practice focuses on the representation and counseling of companies in matters pertaining to the workplace and the protection of their intellectual property and trade secrets. In addition to serving as an advocate for clients, Mr. Parker is also trained as a mediator and frequently serves as a third-party neutral.
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It puts a new twist on the repressed memory issue, that’s for sure. The premise of this ‘relaxation therapy’ isn’t necessarily new, though. In the late 1800s, it was a common practice for physicians to use manual stimulation or clockwork-driven vibrators to treat women for ‘female hysteria’, a diagnosis that has since been discontinued. In fact, vibrators were commonly advertised in magazines and catalogs at the turn of that century. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Female_hysteria Of course, the major difference is obvious – one assumes these women sought treatment with an understanding of what it involved, while the plaintiff in this case didn’t fully realize what was going on and couldn’t provide an informed consent.
Frank,
Your knowledge continues to astound. As always, I appreciate your comments.
Perhaps the supervisor was familiar with 19th century medicine. The differnce you point out is valid, although since the 19th century doctors didn’t understand the treatment for “female hysteria,” I’m not sure the women did either.
Thanks again.
John
I don’t think it’s my knowledge that astounds… it’s my willingness to publicly admit what I know.
Yes, that too.