An IMF employee...warned the organization about D S-K's behavior toward women...three years ago.

[WinkyDink]

http://abcnews.go.com/Business/wireStory?id=13619631

The woman, Hungarian-born economist Piroska Nagy, voiced "doubts about Dominique Strauss-Kahn's suitability for running an international institution," according to the person, who was familiar with the letter's content but declined to be identified, citing the sensitivity of the matter.

Nagy, who had worked at the IMF for decades, left the organization after the affair with Strauss-Kahn in 2008. Although the relationship has long been public knowledge, and an IMF-commissioned investigation into the case cleared Strauss-Kahn of wrongdoing, it is back in the news after the 62-year-old Frenchman's incarceration on sex crimes charges in New York.

The New York Times published an excerpt of the letter, along with an account that alleged Nagy had been aggressively pursued by her boss, who sent her sexually explicit messages and at one point even had her summoned from the bathroom to speak to him.

[DCBob]

1. This guy sounds like a scumbag who cant control his urges.

Needs some time in jail to cool his jets.

[jwirr]

4. No he sounds like a man who thinks his position entitles him to take

whatever he wants and who has little respect for the rights of others, especially women. Imagine what happens in a deal with a developing country with a man like that?

[malaise]

9. Ding ding we have a winner

He's been raping developing countries for ages.

[seabeyond]

2. meh... the french are so much more sexually sophisticated than us. we are prudes to think

a woman has the right not to be molested. all french know that men have absolute right to molest... silly american

[Cali_Democrat]

5. The two are not necessarily mutually exclusive

You could be more sexually sophisticated (less prude) and still think a woman has the right not to be sexually molested.

Sexual sophistication does not necessarily preclude thinking that a woman has a right not to be molested. Also, I'm sure the vast majority of French people are opposed to sexual assault.

[seabeyond]

7. the vast majority are appalled that their man would be flanked by cops

they are appalled that accusations are being made public.

so what does that leave? do they have a twist on sex we in the u.s. does not know about? a position? or just that, assault is a joke and screwin around is sophisticated?

[Cali_Democrat]

10. Some French media stories and individual commentators are expressing outrage over DSK's treatment

I don't know whether you can come to the conclusion that the vast majority of French people are outraged and I'm sure opinion is pretty partisan there as it is here. You might be right, but we can't jump to that conclusion yet. Would you like it if people in other countries analyzed American sentiment based on Fox News reports?

Do the French have a twist on sex that we don't know about? I wouldn't know for sure, but I do know that Europeans are generally more accepting of nudity and sexuality than Americans. At least that's the impression I get as I've been there several times. That does not mean they are more accepting of sexual assault. Far from it.

[seabeyond]

11. their more used to male rule doing whatever the fuck they want and women cowing

cause it is a mans world. liking assaulting and raping ..... there only difference i see is the french men have cowed the french women into accepting any and all of their behavior.

i am so god damn tired of people telling me the french are opposed when everything i see, read and put out says otherwise then...

you tell me, not everyone

there is a problem. the man assaulted. has assaulted in the past. was known. was allowed. not he can pay for the crime

[Cali_Democrat]

12. French men have cowed French women into accepting crimes like sexual assault and raping...

You believe this and you don't think the French are opposed to this?

[reggie the dog]

15. his past assaults have just come out now that he has been busted

in the usa, we in the public didnt know about that before. french women are in many ways more liberated than american women. hell there is no question here of banning abortion, the abortion pill and morning after pill have been legal here for a long time, years and years before they were in the usa. women are not expected to accept anything. assholes with power use sex in france and the usa, sometimes, in abusive ways. there are people in the usa who do this shit too. where have you read that french people think what he is accused of doing is acceptable? if it is true his political career here is over. many people here are stunned that someone with everything would throw it all away like this and dont know if they should believe dsk or some american. believe me, if he did this, he will be hated by the left and the right french for tarnishing our reputation. This would be like having a top democrat accused of the same kind of crime, a lot of people would think "no way, no way could x have done something that stupid" but if the person were found guilty it would be "i hope he likes jail, he is toast, never voting for him again" and that is just what is happening in france.

it was know known he assaulted in the past, at least not to the general public.

[reggie the dog]

14. of course we are appalled

there was a high profile sex abuse on kids case in which people were accused, even found guilty, then found innocent because the prosecutor conviced the kids what to say but they had not been abused. most people thought the parents guilty from the get go and were shocked when the were found innocent later on. here in france we do not show photos of people in handcuffs be they rich or poor famous or not. it is not how stories like this are covered in france, seeing someone paraded around in handcuffs is not what our news looks like here in france. this is about differences in journalism too. people are not appauled that the accusations have been made public just appalled that the us news shows photos of cuffed people surrounded by cops before they are found guilty as our news does not cover stories in the same manner as american journalists do.

screwing around is not sophisticated, we just dont care if people do it, that is between them and their spouse. on the other hand assault is serious, if he is guilty this guy is toast here, political career over.

[seabeyond]

8. this is where i got my info

2007: After he IMF managing director in 2007, Jean Quatremer, a journalist at Libération, wrote: "The only real problem for Strauss-Kahn, is his relation to women. Too forward, he often brushes with harassment. It is a problem known to the media but that nobody talks about (we are in France)."



"Like all great political animals, he has trouble controlling himself." The French press quote President Nicolas Sarkozy as warning Mr Strauss-Kahn before his Washington appointment, saying: "You know, over there they don't joke about this sort of thing. Your life will be passed under a magnifying glass. Avoid taking the lift alone with interns. France cannot permit a scandal."

[reggie the dog]

13. french men do not have the right to molest

you dont know what you are talking about here. the imf is not a french organization so if they knew this is international in scope. france and the usa have assholes who try to force themselves on women. they are shunned in both countries. here in france most people would not care if dsk cheated on his wife, if his wife cheated on him, if he was a flirt or if he used the service of prostitutes. those actions would have little if any effect on his political career. but if he indeed tried to force himself on a woman and forced sex acts out of her then his political career here in france is over.

you are prude in the usa. i get laid much more easily here in france. hardly any french women wait until marriage for sex, purity rings are unheard of, sex is thought of as recreation and thus safe sex is taught from the beginnings of middle school.

sex, like wine or weed or good food, is thought of as one of life's pleasures over here in france, so long as it is consensual. women can have their breasts out on the beach but you damn well cannot just walk up and grab them!

[seabeyond]

16. You know, over there they don't joke about this sort of thing... assault. u.s. does not joke

around about assault. explain it. the rest of your post is full of it. french are full of it.



2007: After he IMF managing director in 2007, Jean Quatremer, a journalist at Libération, wrote: "The only real problem for Strauss-Kahn, is his relation to women. Too forward, he often brushes with harassment. It is a problem known to the media but that nobody talks about (we are in France)."



"Like all great political animals, he has trouble controlling himself." The French press quote President Nicolas Sarkozy as warning Mr Strauss-Kahn before his Washington appointment, saying: "You know, over there they don't joke about this sort of thing. Your life will be passed under a magnifying glass. Avoid taking the lift alone with interns. France cannot permit a scandal."

[reggie the dog]

18. they dont joke about cheating

they dont joke about flirting with people
they dont joke about trying to get laid and hitting on women all the time

in france this kind of activitiy is not seen as having anything to do with ones job.

assault on the other hand, forcing a woman, is seen as a negative thing which would lead to difficulty finding work, in dsk's case if he is guilty his career is over whereas if he had been caught with a prostitute or three it would not have mattered.

[seabeyond]

19. are you fcking serious. do you listen to our news. you really think pres was worried about flirtin

talk about naive

kinda like the pres pressured obama not to prosicute the child rapist polinski?

[reggie the dog]

21. the press in the usa had a field day with clinton over a blow job

that was consensual, that is what sarkozy is talking about.

the usa went after polanski recently when he was in switzerland. i really dont know why in the hell france never gave him to the usa but neither did switzerland.

[Hubert Flottz]

3. If this guy wasn't wealthy he'd have been marked as a sexual

predator.

[Kind of Blue]

6. I'm not too sure about that, IMO.

From living in France for a little while back in the '80s, I was warned not to be too friendly with men as I am in America. For instance, returning a smile that led to a couple of scary incidents. It sunk in when my host broke it down saying there is no rape here, especially for a foreign woman. No means Yes because many men think you're playing the "coquette."

I just hope this incident helps to raise awareness and women there can finally do something about blatant harassment of women, I thought was rampant.

[reggie the dog]

17. the france you describe is nothing like the france of 2011

i am 32 and when the women of my generation here say no they mean no, for some reason they say no less than in the usa but i think that has more to do with my accent than anything else. this shit may have been the case in the 80's, but by the time gen x grew up it changed. i arrived here in 2003 and today french men are often more reserved than american men. i have a friend who is from france and lived in the usa for 8 years. in the usa she said guys often whistled and cat called at her whereas in france that wasnt the case, she was in the usa in the late 90's early 00's. i live in the south of france, by the med, where the men are supposedly still the most macho and men here are not running around forcing themselves on people. my friend has 2 teenaged daughters and i have never heard tell of any problems so far.

it does seem to me that a higher percentage of women in france like random sex than in the usa, sort of like "free love" never went totally out of fashion over here.

[seabeyond]

20. there you go.... here a woman experience it, yet still.... nope. the only difference

i have gotten in this sexual freedom is males rule. and tits on the beach. hooyah. what i am looking for as a liberated woman.

[reggie the dog]

22. yes, breasts on the beach

why not? guys here dont make a big deal about it and cheer when a woman takes her top off like they do in the usa. it goes nearly un noticed. how do males rule? women here in france like to have sex for recreation as much as men do and what is wrong with that? here a woman can have safe sex for fun without being called a whore or a slut. fuck we have nude beaches here all over the place where the men and the women wear nothing.

[seabeyond]

26. i was raised in calif, teen late 70's and 80's.

i was on a swim team for almost two decades, both genders not in much of a suit.

we stripped down, both genders and there was no fan fair at all. no one would act stupidly or all guys would be on their ass. we had hot springs we would go out to as a group and the same.

that is what i was raised with.

that is why i get so angry today. for exactly your explanation with behavior of nudity. it seems the the young females today has become our mens whore, and they are looked that way, treated that way, and talked to that way. our girls are being conditioned this is the way they are suppose to be treated and the boys today are being conditioned this is their way of being a man, to see girls this way. i am so tired of listening to men say "i could hit it". it. and what, do these men really think they are cool.

i have read all three of your posts. i do think that europe is behind in womens autonomy in some ways. i believe the patriarchy is stronger in europe in some ways. you have not convinced me that this general behavior is not accepted in the culture.

i saw an half hour clip of italy tv of various shows. show after show of naked young women making fools of themselves at the entertainment of the middle aged, ugly man giggling. demeaning and treating them like animals.

there is no way to convince me this is progressive sophisticated mature perspective on sexuality. then again, also saw the "sophisticated" pres walk up on a female cop as she was bent over a hood, writing something down, and he pretended he was fuckin her from behind as he and the guys laughed. oh so funny. she realized what he was doing and was pissed.

i am not impressed with that sexual maturity and sophistication.

BUT

BUT

i am listening to you. i dont know how much i buy, but i do see so many more similarities in what you posted.

and i thank you for taking the time.

[reggie the dog]

35. italy is far more macho than france

most french people on the left or the right think that berlusconi is a joke with his teenaged hooker girlfriends. Italian tv and culture is far far different from that of france. people here have told me that what italy is like today france was like in the late 70's as far as machismo. I too thought that the little i saw of italian tv was degrading to women. french tv is far different. even our government finally realized that not enough women were in positions of power so the president named just under half of the ministers as women (odd number of ministries). cross into italy and the culture changes fast. from what i have seen the uk is hardly macho at all, nor belgium, nor the netherlands, nor germany, nor switzerland. i dont know about anywhere else.

[reggie the dog]

23. how can i explain this?

here in france women will often have recreational sex with a man they find appealing even if that man does not have a luxury car and a lot of money. that is the biggest difference with sex between the usa and france that i have seen, in the usa people talk about their money too damn much. girls ask you how much you make on first dates, that is unheard of here in france.

[Kind of Blue]

24. Well, I'm glad that things have changed

in your estimation for GenXers. Coincidentally, I heard a report today on how Strauss-Kahn's arrest "Sparks Soul-Searching In France," which of course may be a generalization http://www.npr.org/2011/05/17/136402331/strauss-kahn-arrest-leads-to-soul-searching-in-france. But the point of the clip is not only how shocked people there are over the difference in the judicial systems but at lest 2 females, a political analyst and a feminist, describe the societal views still in place that I spoke of as my experience. Further, the 3rd woman, who allegedly fought Strauss-Kahn off years ago, now feels courageous enough to press charges, believing that there is more open discussion of how women are treated and she will be taken seriously.

I'm not knocking your experience as a man, but this incident has caused discussion in France and I think that's a good thing that could lead to more awareness in GenXers, Gen Jones like me, and Baby Boombers of Strauss-Kahn's generation.

[seabeyond]

25. thank you for this post. i have always gotten this feel from europe.

that is the frustration that i feel when people herald europe as "sophisticated" when it feels to me it is trailing behind on women equality and rights, in SOME areas.

[Kind of Blue]

27. That's the main reason that

I left because I was absolutely shocked after expecting sophistication and finding sexual harassment considered so casual. Believe me, I loved the place but after being told one too many times by women! that my ass was "too aggressive," it was time to high-tail it - LOLOL... pun intended. I couldn't believe they were behind us in that area. Honestly though, there were lots of excellent men in my generation but I had to be for the most part around people 10-20 years older and that was my problem encountering No meaning Yes sort of men.

[seabeyond]

28. hey...

early 80's i was 18 moved to la jolla. had an offer from three men to be my sugar daddy, bah hahahaha.

but my no's meant no and they got that. lol

saw you were in the area and what made me think of it.

[Kind of Blue]

31. Hey, Neighbor!

Are you sure you weren't playing the coquette :rofl:
What we women go through so many times, it's enough to make you cry.

[seabeyond]

32. i was so very naive i was trying ot figure out how to get trip to hawaii

without having to have sex with the old coot. guess i was just not sexually sophisticated enough. i like em young and ..... ya, hard. lol

[Kind of Blue]

34. Nothing wrong with being young, naive and

righteous when it comes to your own body!

[reggie the dog]

38. playing the coquette can be fun when role playing with ones partner

but not really other than that.

[reggie the dog]

37. 10 to 20 years older

about how old are you? i think that dsk is in his 60's so he is part of the old generation that has their head up their ass on womens rights, sarkozy is a good 10 years younger and he seems to be different, find a guy in their early 40's here in france and he is likely properly open minded and respectful of women and gay rights.

[Kind of Blue]

42. Totally agree. As I said above

French people in my generation were cool - early 20's back then, but couldn't avoid those 10 to 20 years older.
Well, gay rights! You guys were waaay beyond the States on that matter. Now, that was a healthy surprise.

[Odin2005]

30. Mediterranean Europe is still EXTREMELY misogynistic.

This notion that the French are so much more enlightened and progressive then us "Anglo-Saxons" is a myth popularized by the French themselves, who are notorious at thinking they are the best at everything.

[seabeyond]

33. thank you odin, your educated self.

lol. i get this feel and you academically confirm. lol

[reggie the dog]

39. as are americans, as are brits, as are italians

but can you put france as a mediterranean country? its north borders the north sea, the west is on the atlantic and the east borders germany, switzerland, and by the med, italy. here in the south there are more macho guys than in the north but that is because there are more old people, this is where people come to retire.

[reggie the dog]

36. the woman who just came out in france is the same age as me

32 i think, her mother conivinced her not to press charges before, so her mother's generation may be old school like what you saw in the 80's, but from what i see with men from their 40's and younger is a culture in which women and their word are resepected. there are still old people who are macho in the usa but i think america imporved on womens rights a good 10 years before france did perhaps even 15 or 20 years. the change has happened but our "old idiots" are a bit younger than the "old idiots" in the usa.

[Odin2005]

29. He is probably a Narcissist who thinks he is entitled to anything he wants.

Including womens' bodies. :puke:

[reggie the dog]

41. if dsk did this i hope he gets 20 years.

he is a sino anyways, the socialsist the farthest to the right in the party. he was nominated to the imf by right wing president sarkozy so politically his being busted will hurt the right as much as the left.

[Nye Bevan]

40. It's a cultural thing. To the French, he is le Great Seducer.

To us, he's a groping dirtbag abuser.