The occasion was the confirmation hearing for Clarence Thomas, nominated to the Supreme Court by George H. W. Bush; the speaker was Anita Hill. When asked in a private interview and then, after that interview was leaked to the press, in Senate hearings, she recounted a list of incidents in which Thomas, then her boss, made her listen to him talk about pornography he’d watched and his sexual fantasies. He also pressured her to date him. When she declined, she said, “He would not accept my explanation as being valid,” as though no were not itself valid.
