Thanks everyone for all your replies. To clarify, I was talking about dealing with being hit on while out with my little (not-yet-teenage) sister, so that the context would be totally inappropriate for any type of flirtation. I hadn't spent time with her one-on-one, just the two of us out in the world, so we spent the whole session unpacking my concerns about it. Being hit on was one of those concerns. Actually, the concern that I brought up had to do with how to respond to being hit on so as to set a good example for her.

By "hit on," I meant street harassment, basically. I'm hoping that didn't come across clearly - perhaps he thought it was more all-encompassing, the way some of you did.

In my experience - and the experiences of many of my very adult, confident female friends - presenting yourself as disinterested, assertive, non-scantily clad, etc. does not necessarily guarantee that you won't be harassed. It's a common misconception that those things will prevent people from disrespecting you. Sure, how we present ourselves always has an effect on how others interact with us, but I'm really wary about people whose instinctive reaction regarding harassment is to ask "Well, how was she presenting herself?" (Or the more typical one - "What was she wearing?") I feel that those questions come AFTER you've established that you're really more interested in the other factors that go into harassment, and that you blame the perpetrator - not the victim.

As for my history with harassment, I've touched on it briefly in the beginning, and he actually said something similar back then too - something along the lines of "Ultimately it's up to you to set boundaries so that doesn't happen." I should have paid more attention then, but I was in a worse place and more willing to let stuff like that slide.

I think that any therapist working with women should be aware that chances are they've faced harassment of some type, too.

I suppose the only way out of this is for him to have misunderstood what I meant - perhaps thinking that I meant that I was worried about being approached for dates, etc. That certainly wasn't the context, though.

Well, I'll be asking him to clarify - you can bet on that. I appreciate everyone's thoughts.