itt a strange man asks if you saw the ass on that one

well, i think the equation is shaky, too. racism = racism, but i don't know that ~this~ guy's behavior is best understood as simple sexism. that's part of it, sure, but looking and wanting and even objectifying aren't necessarily sexist, nor is expressing desire in an uncivil manner.

it's more complex than that, and reducing it to an insistent "that's sexist and wrong, and you're wrong to disagree!" only polarizes the discussion.

Yes exactly. You've just articulated what I would have liked to say if I weren't mentally exhausted right now.

but looking and wanting and even objectifying aren't necessarily sexist, nor is expressing desire in an uncivil manner.

^^ this

yes

but looking and wanting and even objectifying aren't necessarily sexist, nor is expressing desire in an uncivil manner.

this is academic, imo

funny too because my argument there is basically that while you are all correct on that point, it isn't generally the case as it happens: there is a (perceived) high correlation between actual creeps and the kind of person that says gross stuff, as opposed to just plain socially isolated but well meaning weirdos that say gross stuff. they're out there, but i'd say that most of the ppl that have given unsolicited sexual observations might actually have some issues with, like, women. which is unfair, but it works as a functional rubric. some might be normal, respectable ppl with temporary confessional breaches, but most aren't.

anyway: that kind of shorthand ("~that guy~ is usually a crepe") is definitely a cousin to the same shit that underwrites your more casual racial/sexual/whatever comments (or jokes, really). probably not a valuable irony, but w/e, it seems like it explains a lot of our defense mechanisms!

there is a (perceived) high correlation between actual creeps and the kind of person that says gross stuff

CASE IN POINT: my AP english teacher who flirted inna skeezy professorial way with the girls. one day i was having a mandated one-on-one talk with him up at his desk about the paper we'd had to turn in that week, and his Primary Lust Object #1 walked by the desk on her way to the pencil sharpener and then back again, and he made this show of watching her the whole time and then turned back to me and smirked a little and said, "sorry, got distracted." and i just wanted my little conference with him to be OVER NOW.

like, what 40-something dude thinks you can say that shit to a 17-yr-old and i won't still remember it 22 years later? did he think i would think he was being all cool and manly? was it supposed to be a bonding moment? ugh.

there is a (perceived) high correlation between actual creeps and the kind of person that says gross stuff, as opposed to just plain socially isolated but well meaning weirdos that say gross stuff. they're out there, but i'd say that most of the ppl that have given unsolicited sexual observations might actually have some issues with, like, women. which is unfair, but it works as a functional rubric.

― crazy farting throwback jersey (gbx), Tuesday, December 1, 2009 9:43 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark

totally agree w this.

plus tipsy's story is super gross. glad that i pretty much always had smart, cool, reasonable-boundary-observing teachers.

IDK I just sort of figure that dudes who catcall women are either losers or idiots who should go fuck themselves so I don't really worry about it.

I guess, EN! Realizing now that I feel like men's...thoughts about me (hypothetically) affect me personally -- that I'm dishonored and made less if what they think is disrespectful or plain gross or whatever. Because they'll think of that whenever they see me, and if I have to deal with them, I can't take the time to worry about that behind-the-scenes and still get what I need from the exchange (courtesy, help, customer service, etc).

But also repugnant to me just because I've given them no reason to take that license and it's frustrating-to-the-point-of-panic to me that my image(?) isn't within my control no matter how circumspectly *I* behave. I guess because I was taught that if YOU do the right things, others will too and you'll be safe. Which is awfully silly, now that I think about it.

looking and wanting and even objectifying aren't necessarily sexist, nor is expressing desire in an uncivil manner.

I can't accept any of that. Incivility by men toward women IS sexist, if it's more than simple human rudeness and takes her sex or appearance into account. If you use a woman's discomfort with being publicly sexualized to influence her behavior/reaction, THAT IS SEXIST.

oh man, tipsy's story reminds me of the English teacher I had in 11th and 12th grade who would low-level flirt with the girls in class; we thought it was essentially harmless until he divorced his wife and married his daughter's best friend, after which it became retrospectively gross.

Then there's the opposite direction, like the choir director who was coerced by a group of junior women into taking his shirt off so they could count the hairs on his back; I kind of don't even want to know how that all came about. Oh, and the female teacher who attempted to cover up an affair with a student by faking brain cancer. (gbx, weren't you actually there when that happened?)

(sorry for straying off into "my fucking high school" territory)

Yeah, I had a HS math teacher who gave me the creeps and was a bully (also one of the football coaches -- surprise!) and whose wife coached the cheerleading squad. One day she had all the cheerleaders over to her house for a sleepover. You can imagine where this is going, because it's basically the plot of every porn ever.

I think the point being argued is that this:

us(ing) a woman's discomfort with being publicly sexualized to influence her behavior/reaction

is not actually a goal on the minds of the people doing this. Catcalls yes, but what is being discussed here is closer to the impulse that drives people to partake in celebrity gossip than anything else; you are making idle chatter/judgments about someone that would completely mortify you if they got back to the subject.

Dang. I had a HS math teach who was a football coach and had made some unusual wink-nudgey comments to me about how Dark Side of the Moon was really meant to be heard in quadrophonic stereo. After the graduation ceremony, he propositioned one of my classmates.

Laurel - I do understand where you're coming from. I reread what I'd posted last night and made a mental note not to post when exhausted. Want to write more but have to go to work now. ugh. Maybe later.

I told the story of how my Spanish teacher asked me out after I transferred out of his class, right? (well actually that's pretty much the entire story, so if I didn't before I just did now)

Catcalls yes, but what is being discussed here is closer to the impulse that drives people to partake in celebrity gossip than anything else; you are making idle chatter/judgments about someone that would completely mortify you if they got back to the subject.

― Huckabee Jesus lifeline (HI DERE), Wednesday, December 2, 2009 9:47 AM (39 seconds ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

i dont know if this is always true--a lot of "check out the ass on that one" comments (ime) are made with the full intent of being heard by the subject

Yeah, this is where I go into "unfair semantic distinction" mode and say that if you are intending the person to hear it, you are catcalling.

Nobody patrols ILX for gender issues/sexism, and it gets left to the "so ironic cos we're over it/past it as modern enlightened people" that it goes full force into "so disgusting that it's automagically hilarious" but then when THAT tone is considered normal, there's nothing to set it apart from what people really think and I just get worn down and sick feeling.

― WHY DON'T YOU JUST LICK THE BUS DIRECTLY (Laurel), Tuesday, December 1, 2009 7:39 PM (3 hours ago) Bookmark

OK I can understand this and it's a fair point. I guess I just try not to take anything on ILX or anywhere else on the internet so seriously that I would let it bother me.

― bear say hi to me (ENBB), Tuesday, December 1, 2009 11:05 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink
And maybe I'm in the wrong and should have higher standards regarding these issues it just doesn't seem like that big of deal to me in this context tbh.

― bear say hi to me (ENBB), Tuesday, December 1, 2009 11:09 PM (Yesterday)

yeah this is a t bomb and sort of the elephant in the room in that whole discussion

Yeah, this is where I go into "unfair semantic distinction" mode and say that if you are intending the person to hear it, you are catcalling.

― Huckabee Jesus lifeline (HI DERE), Wednesday, December 2, 2009 9:52 AM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

o ok well thats fair then--fwiw all of these things are creepy so

oh I was DERE dan

also lol at Spanish teacher, I know who tha is ...

Dan my experience is strongly that men mean for you to hear it and also use it to reaffirm their bonds w one another. Catcalling IS a group behavior, or at least a public one, meant either for other men to hear and identify with, or to make a specific woman afraid/uncomfortable. Or on a bonus day, both!! This distinction is pretty meaningless to me because I think people who will do either are happy to do both if the opportunity arises.

my experience is strongly that men mean for you to hear it

Your experience is based only on the ones that you've heard though.

My experience is that the guys who actually mean for women to hear it are either drunk and trying to be funny or flat-out assholes that are actually disliked by or massive embarrassments to their friends who are not dislikable embarrassments.

The only way a woman can be included in that dynamic, or have status in that group, is to accept and show that she's okay with her image/self being sexualized by everyone freely, without her having any control over it -- that it's just The Way Things Are. I guess some women are more okay with this system than others -- Southern Belle Syndrome and so on. Me, it makes me want to vomit.

as long as we're sharting creepy teacher stories: my science teacher in eighth grade always made pretty weirdly sexual comments to this one friend of ours, usually in front of the class. we weren't at the age where we could really parse how fucked up it really was, but suffice it to say that i wasn't exactly surprised (though i was sad) to hear about a year ago that he'd been fired on grounds of sexual harassment of students and dumped by his wife

errr......."sharing"

bathetic typos

I assumed the strange man in the story did not want the woman to hear it

looking and wanting and even objectifying aren't necessarily sexist, nor is expressing desire in an uncivil manner.

I can't accept any of that. Incivility by men toward women IS sexist, if it's more than simple human rudeness and takes her sex or appearance into account. If you use a woman's discomfort with being publicly sexualized to influence her behavior/reaction, THAT IS SEXIST.

― WHY DON'T YOU JUST LICK THE BUS DIRECTLY (Laurel), Wednesday, December 2, 2009 9:38 AM (27 minutes ago)

see we still can't understand what the hell you really mean when you make these huge sweeping statements s/a "i can't accept ANY of this". you really think that looking at and wanting someone of the opposite sex is sexist?? the latter part i get

xp crut otm too

i dont think what laurels saying is really all that weird? let me put it another way: "if you are a jerk to someone in such a way that their sex or appearance is a major component of your jerkiness, you are being sexist"

"expressing desire in an uncivil manner" = "being a jerk to someone in such a way that their sex or appearance is a major component of your jerkiness"

us(ing) a woman's discomfort with being publicly sexualized to influence her behavior/reaction

is not actually a goal on the minds of the people doing this.

do you really think we're supposed to care what the goal is? i mean if it's obviously just a socially inept person trying to flirt with you it might be easy to decide it's harmless and walk away, but in general with guys on the street or public transit (or whatever, even guys you work with) i don't believe they usually say things thinking "yeah i'm gonna make this girl want to crawl into a hole." but it doesn't matter, you can tell sometimes that making people uncomfortable excites them on an unconscious level. that or they can't recognize discomfort or link visible discomfort to actual fear. it happens too much to just be like oh, he's just trying to be nice. who cares.

yes, that part i understand and sympathize with. i was incredulous that she's so offended that people find others attractive

i made that point earlier and harbl was 100% right to call me out on strawmanning, but now laurel's ACTUALLY saying it

xp

k3vin: No, that's fair, I can't really touch on the first part at all b/c I don't think about sex when I see attractive people around me. Or if I do, it only occurs to me as "I wonder if that would make me think 'x' if I were a man?" sort of speculation, because "appearance" doesn't make contact with "sex" in my brain without a lot of intermediary ideas, so sometimes I wonder what it's like.

just to contextualize, a woman who experiences this has experienced many instances of it before, sometimes accompanied by continued verbal harrassment/physical assault/threat. we can't tell if we don't know you that you're not a rapist, you know?

I don't want men to think of me like that, and threads like this make me want to crawl into a hole because it seems like all men want this to be the case secretly even if they seem polite. Sorry it's my personal issue.

o harbl said it better

I mean if that's the case then I'm not safe anywhere, is my emotional reaction.

okie dokie, i think you're in for a lifelong uphill battle if you're going to be constantly worried about who's looking at you and who's thinking what, but i understand you on a basic level

xps

haha k3v it wasn't just you in particular!

show that she's okay with her image/self being sexualized by everyone freely, without her having any control over it

How, exactly, does one have control over someone else's reactions to one?

Well the polite and "right" thing to do is to NEVER MENTION IT, duh. Flirtation is transgressive in this way, it invites people to cross the line of what is polite, it makes a different space where that is okay. That's why it's exciting on a lot of levels. But outside of a mutually entered-into place for that, it's offensive to me.

Okay not offensive like oh I dunno, genocide or something, but it's unwelcome, let's say.

That's possibly a better way of putting it than a 'commingling of selves' but yeah!

How, exactly, does one have control over someone else's reactions to one?

Obv you can't! But since you can't, the right thing for the other person to do is to never let on that this is happening. Because if it's unwelcome, you have no recourse, and that puts you in an unworkable situation.

So harbl, you kind of glossed over the subsequent post where I said that the people who are catcalling (ie, making lewd comments intended to be overheard by the target) are in fact exactly the type of creepy ass you guys are condemning. I think there's also a fair point to be made that making these types of comments without the intention of being overheard is also rude; this is why I likened it to gossiping. I'm not trying to excuse the behavior as much as I'm attempting to reframe it in a context that makes more sense than "men are attempting to control women via their sexiness".

xp: Laurel that is never, ever, ever going to happen.

idk if this is any consolation laurel, but men asking other men if you saw the ass on that one is still considered "not acceptable guy behavior" AFAIK, and it would never occur to many men (including myself) to do so in the first place.

Really, because that to me is normal polite behavior. It's the basic minimum in the workplace and among my social groups, and, as much as I can encourage it, in all my interactions w strangers for sure.