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

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.

I feel like I'm at the opposite end of the spectrum from Laurel on this somehow. The idea that I should feel guilty about basic animal instincts seems like the road to social dysfuntion and unhappiness. Should I be ashamed to be hungry or sleepy or to need to use the restroom? It's not shame one should feel but empathy for someone else wrt how someone else might perceive one's expressed desires. It's ok to lust after someone's ass. It's less okay to blurt it out to all and sundry without any kind of determination as to how the object of one's desires might feel about it, especially considering that they might very well feel threatened or just annoyed, and all and sundry might not want to be implicated in one's boorishness. Most of the time, if someone points out someone for the beauty, I find it annoying because I either already noticed, thank you kindly, and have no interest in 'sharing the moment' w/anyone, or don't care or am indifferent, or really don't want the moment spoiled by a blatantly socially inept person.

I need to recuse myself here, guys. This is making me really tired and sad and now I can't stop crying at work.

sorry hi dere, i didn't gloss over so much as i just don't think it matters in general what the goal is. but yes i misunderstood you.

I mean, if no-one ever dared be 'impolite' about declaring their interest or saying something w/o being 100% sure that the other party is receptive to it, very little would ever happen in the world. I beleive people have a right to express their opinions and a duty to their own dignity to express them as eloquently and effectively as possible and that goes just as much to the flirter as to the rejector. If someone I am not interested in flirts with me and pays me a compliment, I will politely respond with a glacial 'thank you' and if that's not enough I know how to escalate my verbal displeasure gradually and retain my personal right to dispassionately tell them to bugger off.

the title of this thread keeps making me think about "disgusting ass partner"

Observing someone's beauty is fine, Michael. However, when it comes to interacting with them, interact with them as a PERSON, not as an ass. Engage with them, open yourself up to them, don't approach them like a pitbull approaches a raw steak. I'm sure a man of your sophistication knows this already, but it bears repeating. It IS possible to have a libido and a sexual desire without being oppressive.

Also, sorry, Laurel, I'll just grab me coat.

what have I wrought :-/

It IS possible to have a libido and a sexual desire without being oppressive.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v201/sevenxviii/ThereISfeministpornyouknow.jpg

If someone I am not interested in flirts with me and pays me a compliment, I will politely respond with a glacial 'thank you' and if that's not enough I know how to escalate my verbal displeasure gradually and retain my personal right to dispassionately tell them to bugger off.

Wait before I go b/c I really do care about what MW means here: Michael, you can say that b/c their expressed attraction isn't threatening to you, you can not feel too rattled about it, one hopes, and can feel like the experience didn't really change the tone of your day.

A lot of that isn't true about unwelcome advances toward women, and I am NOT talking about the nice dorky guy at the bar, here, who tries to buy you a drink.

And it IS possible to flirt with someone, to initiate a discourse of flirtation, in the right circumstances, and with the right amount of mutual understanding! To crowbar that situation upon someone who doesn't want it is crass. Different people want different levels of discourse; that's a fact of life, but one is expected to be discerning.

LOL crutis

xp to self, continuing: When someone shows by their persistence that they're ignoring or not understanding any of your signals to them, what else are they going to misunderstand and ignore? Suddenly all bets are off, you don't have a comfort zone anymore, and you don't have any control over what happens next, everything has been escalated. This is where I think, "How much of a public disturbance am I willing to cause?" because I want to be prepared if that's what I have to do, no matter how embarrassing.

LJ, of course. Reducing someone to a mere physical body is creepy and sad. The porn star dude who infamously said, "You can't fuck a personality," always seemed not only completely wrong but abjectly pathetic. Who the hell would just want to order up a bot for boffing? Where's the fun in that, the romance, the thrill, the charm?

Laurel, point taken. I kind of mean the drunk gay dude at the gay bar when I'm with my friends who seems kind of oblivious to all my mentions of a gf and to my withering looks and snarkiness. Not exactly comparable to be sure, but I have known some very powerful women use this technique not only very effectively but also to some often hilarious result.

order up a bot for boffing

I think you just out-me'd me XD

'Bot for boffing' had such a dulcet alliterative charm to it, I couldn't resist.

I liked it, but unfortunately ILX has a history of getting all EMERGENCY EYEWASH about such phrasings!

Anyway, yeah, for me it's ALL about the mental connection, which often INCORPORATES an imagined physical connection but doesn't assume one. As you say, it's a giddy combination of social, sexual and personal discourses.

I really enjoyed reading this thread! Thank you to all the participants, it was interesting!

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.

― WHY DON'T YOU JUST LICK THE BUS DIRECTLY (Laurel), Wednesday, December 2, 2009 10:27 AM (34 minutes ago)

this is so, so weird - it's like your ideal world is one in which we all live in bubbles and the expression of feelings is prohibited. it's like one step away from advocating for arranged marriage to save young people the hurt of finding the right person

why is everyone misunderstanding each other on purpose

this is starting to remind me of tuomas in that "how can i make money thread" last night

dude its simple u gotta mediate between horny young buck & enlightened interpersonal discourse

the first rule of Clusterfuck is: try not to understand Clusterfuck

Even ignoring the different physical threat levels between unknown guy approaching woman with no apparent regard for her discomfort and vice versa, I think it bears remembering that for most women an unwanted approach or comment on her looks is not a one-off but part of a potentially demoralising series, to an extent that it appears - how would I know? - not to be for most (white, not physically deformed or disabled or unusually obese) men

(sure you probably get teenagers yelling "nice threads" or "hey baldy" the second your hairline recedes even slightly, but women get shit off those people too PLUS completely random adults who appear to think that it's just perfectly acceptable to stop you in the street and tell you that they would or would not fuck you and what your worst or best feature is)

and when it keeps happening you do start to think, y'know, if THIS percentage of guys will just say it outright, what is the percentage of men who just don't let me know about it to whom I am permanently a chunk of livestock at a cattle market, waiting for their public appraisal of whether my flesh is acceptable because nothing else about me matters? When I am talking to even the nice-seeming guys, when I am in a job interview with potential future managers, are all the decisions about me already made?

sorry, tldr, but I thought the more "get over it" responses were a little glib

fwiw i am v sympathetic to what laurel is getting at. i don't think she objects to desire or dudes pursuing ppl they desire. in the latter scenario, there is (at the very least) some level of engaging The Person and not just pursuance of dat azz. the sort of attempted bro moments by this guy...it's like he wants to remain disengaged from a live person (even in a catcall i would guess there's no expectation of some dialogue beyond "fuk u asshole"). i can see that as sexist since he essentially is reducing the woman to a set of features and not expecting a human reaction. if i'm reading this thread right...

last month*