Co-workers routinely ask personal questions, expect small talk about details of their lives out of work. I find this uncomfortable to, but am forced to participate so I don't become seen as 'not a team player'.
To be absolutely clear, I am not condoning the kind of behaviour you have experienced as something I consider to be ok. By the sound of it, it's certainly not.
However, my point is that almost always its a matter of perspective, its not just sexual related topics that make people uncomfortable. For many of the individuals you have spoken about, their personal understanding of the situation could legitimately be that it was ok.
Quite frankly, I just don't know what can be done to solve a problem so complex as individuals understanding matters in different ways.
By "hit on by a gay man", I mean "cornered in his office, he being a man twice my size, being told he could make life either really easy or really hard".
By "joking inappropriate touching" I mean "groping at my genital area, specifically because it made me uncomfortable, and only doing it more often when I asked it to stop".
By "listening to stories of sexual conquest", I mean "belittled and threatened after questioning whether or not Pick-Up Artist style techniques were moral, ethical, or respectful of their existing marriages".
Sorry I wasn't more clear.
If someone asks you to stop anything and you stop, that's a misunderstanding. If someone asks you to stop and you keep doing it, do it more, and threaten the person about it, that's harassment. It's not really a grey area. The perception that it is a grey area is the system routing around damage and mobilizing spin to make you think so, so they can continue to be rude, domineering, narcissistic assholes.
Not to belittle your other experiences, but I never understood this. If you hear a conversation about sexual experiences and it makes you uncomfortable, I don't think it's immediately sexual _harassment_. I would probably feel uncomfortable listening to those kinds of talks too but I don't think I'm entitled to claim it's harassment just because I felt uncomfortable.
Maybe you should also consider how wise it is to question other peoples "pickup techniques" or ethics of their sexual life without knowing the details of their existing relationships. And even if you know a lot of details, one could say it's none of your business really.
The "honest mistake" trope is not sexual harassment. Now that I know more about how the world works, that story was clearly a PR push to de-legitimize the complaints of both the particular people accusing these public figures at the time, and anyone who might try in the future.
I very soon had a fast primer on what is real sexual harassment. One coworker at my first job out of college was constantly haranguing another. Overt sexual advances that were always met with "that's just <him>. It's just a joke." It made me uncomfortable just to watch it. I know it made her uncomfortable because she would lock herself in her office and cry at least once a week. I don't know why she confided in me about it. I begged her to file a complaint. She was probably right that it would do more harm than good. I complained to my own boss and got told I was too young to understand. I suppose I was too young to understand, but only because I had not yet reached the point where I rejected any authority figures who told me shit like "you're too young to understand" at 22 years old.
The guy did this in the open, during project status meetings. This wasn't Uber or UploadVR or whatever other Silicon Valley brogrammer startup we're going to tsk-tsk "boys will be boys" and never actually do anything about. This was an established engineering firm, with a very strictly worded employee handbook, and an HR director that literally looked the other way.
So I don't want to hear anything about it not being systemic.
I've personally never found sexual talk of any nature in the office to be comfortable. I've had gay bosses hit on me. I've had straight bosses "jokingly" touch me inappropriately. I've had female bosses make jokes about my love life. Sat by while coworkers traded stories about sexual conquests. Even if the sexual advances are towards someone else, if they make you uncomfortable, it's still sexual harassment.
But we've had this trope that it's some sort of attack on lonely men who take a risk on finding love. And I think that active misdirection has not only (obviously) harmed so many women, it's harmed quite a few men, too. Probably most of us, in some way.
It's not "getting along with a woman at work and ask her out and she rejects you." It's about creating a hostile work environment. Anyone who can't tell the difference has got a serious problem. You do not have to put up with being made to feel uncomfortable like that at work.