This is a matter of luck, what boundaries you have managed to set as a child. If experience has handed you the enormous advantage of either, having parents who helped you understand what personal boundaries are, and/or you had to apply one.
At school, I was put in a situation where my peers were asking me to strip aged 12. Terrified I said the most important word in personal boundaries – I said ‘NO’ and fled. I thought they were going to try to do worse. However, having set that boundary they didn’t, they knew if I went to a teacher, they could be suspended or expelled. So as an adult, if anyone tried to cross that personal boundary with me, I was up in their face, “What the F*** do you think you are doing” and they’d be tripping over their feet trying to get away from me.
I’m in no way trying to blame targets here, what I’m saying is parents and/or experience can help those in vulnerable positions, to decide and assert appropriate boundaries. What the TV and film industry have needed to have, for a long time, is a discussion about what appropriate boundaries are and what to say if someone attempts to broach one. Crews need workshops where the issue is explicitly discussed and where the production company says who, in a senior position, is available to approach about broaches.
The single most important thing a production company can do, to have their anti-bullying and harassment credentials verified, is to sack someone who broaches appropriate boundaries.
