Because it needs to be said

>Joe began to start rubbing my back and kissing my forehead (let me say this is not uncommon behavior between me and men I consider close friends. I have a close relationship with a lot of my former EdgeCase coworkers)

So this is not uncommon. She was OK at this point. She occasionally let men kiss her forehead. Opinions may vary on the sexual implication at this point (as for her it is a social greeting).

>Joe then put his hands down the back of my pants, yes, I wear a thong and thus he began grabbing my ass.

Here she implies that wearing a thong allows for ass grabbing? I am uncertain whether she is okay with it due the usage of the word "thus". Seeing she had a boyfriend at that point, it should be a red flag but I don't know her standards in relationships. Could be a major red flag but could also be playing around.

>Joe then started kissing me, forcibly with his tongue. I was not reciprocating.

Okay red flag all raised. She was getting kissed. Not liking it. He already had her hands on her lower section. Why did she not get off that bar? Why did she even get on that bar? Why was she still on the bar when he groped her ass? How can he possibly know her limit when she DOES allow ass grabbing and forehead kissing but DOES NOT allow full-frontal kissing?

>Joe began to put his hand down the front of my pants and finger me. I was a deer in headlights staring into the eyes of the two male bartenders hoping someone would help me.

She can come up with all sorts of analogies and somehow expects people to help her out. She is not okay with the current situation. Why does she not stand up already?

>I told Joe to stop and reminded him he had a wife and children. He said, “Don’t’ worry about it we have an agreement”

Can't you think about that before you offer your belly button to him? That you have a relationship yourself as well? You can talk but not stand up? Was he actually pushing you down?

I am not sure which part I missed. Or she. Or he. Or all of us. But I can see (read: read) what she did, expected and lived through and how it could have been easily avoided every major and minor step which can only make me say that it was her fault. Note that this has nothing to do with how she handled her experience and what it made of her, but rather how being raped or not and who's fault it is.

Most startups are founded by 2-3 men who are usually close friends both professionally and personally. This means that they probably have a history of working together, coding together, eating together and drinking together. Since professionalism in our career is based largely on what you consistently deliver and this is directly and unambiguously observable, indirect proxies for professionalism like dressing in a suit and tie or abstaining from alcohol are not paid lip service. It's this very uncommon, but perfectly rational definition of professionalism that makes our career more accessible to people based on their skills and less dependent on their social class, social skills and social network. Yes, those three things matter, but they matter a lot less in tech than in other industries.

With that in mind, we don't automatically put drinking alcohol while producing our work product in the list of things that are taboo and unprofessional. These norms stick with a company as they add on new employees, including eventually women in the case of startups founded by men.

If you've never been on the founding side of the equation, then its easy to be dismissive of these norms within a company when you join as a latecomer. From the perspective of the founders, there is an element of a faustian bargain in growing your company. On one hand you are succeeding, but on the other hand you end up having to forfeit people for processes and forfeit much of your company culture for a small subset of your cultural norms. It starts feeling less like a family and more like a bunch of people who cooperate for their financial well being. It's perfectly natural for those in tech companies early on to lament the loss of many aspects of fun as a company matures.

Just as the founders doing the recruiting need to be sensitive to the needs and expectations of new recruits, people joining later need to be sensitive to the fact that the founders and early employees are giving up things they hold dear to them to accommodate the needs of later hires.