It's important to understand and prioritize intention or else: >increases [in our] our sensitivity, which is not universally positive: sensitivity increases both our tendency to take offense and our self censorship, leading to authoritarian policies.
This means distinguishing between a well-meaning comment and a maleficent or predatory remark.
Could you elaborate on
>Usually if it takes work to distinguish it's not worth it within a work environment.
"That's why professional environments are effective and make a pleasant place to work for all."
If there's a missing "if" before the "it's" in his first sentence, I can only assume he means it takes effort to restrain oneself from being unfiltered, but there's an uncanny taste of an insult I can't pinpoint.
I think for clarity I'd add a comma:
> Usually, if it takes work to distinguish, it's not worth it within a work environment.
Such that it's read as:
> Usually, if it takes work to distinguish [whether it's worth it,] it's not worth it within a work environment.
The idea is that in a professional environment, part of "being professional" is avoiding those situations where your comments might be read as unwelcome. With a viable rule of thumb being to just err on the side of assuming they'd be unwelcome in any case where you have to think about it.
I see now looking through that lense it makes sense. After re-reading my comment he was replying to I think I understand exactly what the OP was trying to convey.
"If you have to consciously figure out if comments are malevolent or not, you should find a new workplace."
And that "that's why professional environments are effective and make a pleasant place to work for all," implies more real work is done when you're not playing office politics, and everyone comes out happier because of it.
In retrospect, it seems like a silly thing to try and figure out.
if you really didn't intend to say something that made someone feel disrespected, your response should be "Oh, I am so sorry, I won't make that kind of comment in the future", not "Well you're wrong for being offended." that kind of response is basically saying "your feelings don't matter, all that matters is what is going on in my head and not what I actually did and how it actually made you feel"
You'll find that the U.S.A's EEOC does not label one-off remarks as sexual harassment.[0]
[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_harassment#EEOC_Definit...
And is the primary authority's (EEOC) definition of harassment in general: Offensive conduct may include, but is not limited to, offensive jokes, slurs, epithets or name calling, physical assaults or threats, intimidation, ridicule or mockery, insults or put-downs, offensive objects or pictures, and interference with work performance.[1]
Neither of which make the remark in-question constitute of sexual harassment or harassment in-general. I'm sure there is a proper word that accurately describes unwanted remarks about a person's body, but by calling it sexual harassment you are marginalizing the serious cases of sexual harassment that fit under the legal definition.
[0]https://www.eeoc.gov/laws/types/sexual_harassment.cfm [1]https://www.eeoc.gov/laws/types/harassment.cfm
That said, I acknowledge it's very situational whether something might be read as unwelcome. Which is why avoiding these things in a professional context seems pretty wise.
Anyway, since we're replying here to door's comment... I think they're right regardless of whether we want to call it "sexual harassment". If you offend someone in a way which feels creepy / harassing to them, even assuming that you absolutely meant it in a non-sexual non-flirtatious entirely-platonic matter, your should apologize, maybe clarify your intentions, and say you'll do better in the future. Attempting to argue that you didn't mean it that way so they shouldn't be offended is counterproductive.
My only gripe was with semantics, which have the potential to do more harm than good.