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

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*

to look at this from a male perspective, chicks dig smart men who know boundaries

and yeah miss spacecadet has given eloquent voice to a regular feature of most women's lives, one which men are often only too happy to ignore

sure you probably get teenagers yelling "nice threads" or "hey baldy" the second your hairline recedes even slightly

I usually get random strangers calling me gay for some reason -- I have gotten "are you gay or what, kid???" or "you look like you like to get fucked in the ass" among other things -- this puzzles me especially because I do not dress/act particularly gay

why is everyone misunderstanding each other on purpose

Everyone isn't misunderstanding each other on purpose, everyone is talking about entirely different situations as if they were equivalent. I'm talking about encounters you can randomly have in social situations, such as being patrons in a bar or passing someone in the street, and Laurel is talking about interactions with people where some level of professional transaction is taking place, like interacting at work or buying something in a store. In both cases, conflating the two in terms of expected behavior isn't conducive to understanding the other person's point of view.

I think Laurel is correct that these types of interactions shouldn't happen in most reasonable professional situations (lol pr0n). I don't think racism and sexism are particularly equivalent but I know that if I let the degree to which people discuss/make judgments on me about my race make me ill, I would never be able to leave the house.

back in the early 80s a guy standing next to me on a street corner turned and said "I'd like to fuck you in the ass" I was like hey I know this is NYC and all but wtf. seriously living in a largely gay neighborhood back in those days gave me a different perspective on the "nice butt" shout-out issue.

x post

(wait I didn't edit that properly, Laurel is talking about social interactions as well and treating them equally; I do not treat them equally)

itt a butt

(__!__)

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?

and i'd say you are likely ~overthinking some shit~ and i pity you not being able to smell the damn roses every once in a while

dan is right about there being different situations here, although there are a few universals. of course, in my last few posts i have been ignoring the primal desire to comment on ass w/o further action or disclosure to owner of ass; i am going straight for the 'approaching and making oneself known' stage. some men enjoy clandestine ass-comment; they're assholes, but they're not molesting. trouble is this behaviour is a slippery slope TOWARDS molesting and is a mindset to be avoided.

curtis they were jealous of u

Everyone isn't misunderstanding each other on purpose, everyone is talking about entirely different situations as if they were equivalent. I'm talking about encounters you can randomly have in social situations, such as being patrons in a bar or passing someone in the street, and Laurel is talking about interactions with people where some level of professional transaction is taking place, like interacting at work or buying something in a store. In both cases, conflating the two in terms of expected behavior isn't conducive to understanding the other person's point of view.

this is so, so otm and what i wanted to post an hour ago but couldnt be bothered to b/c i was on my phone

which is why i likened it to the tuomas thread

your mom is a clandestine ass-comment

OK so I remembered a pretty good example if we're talking about this sort of thing in a professional context that happened when I was living in London. I was attending an external meeting with my boss and two other colleagues. Upon arriving my boss introduced me to the other parties present and one of them, an older Jamaican man, said while shaking my hand, "Erica B0c!h@rt? More like Erica Break your heart!". It did catch me off gaurd but because I was shocked that anyone would say this sort of thing at a business meeting and I was honestly think he was, in his own weird way, trying to be sweet. Maybe if he had said something that was lewd I would have felt differently but my reaction to this was more lol @ the inappropriate old Jamaican dude than anything else.

some men enjoy clandestine ass-comment; they're assholes

*or they are teenagers

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?

It's incredibly depressing to me that anyone would view the world this way. I am sure that there are men who think this way exist but I'd like to think they're few and far between but maybe that's naive of me, I don't know. Regarding those men who do think this way - they are obviously people who are not worth even five minutes of my thoughts and anyway, I am confident that the minute I open my mouth it will become clear that I am a lot more than "a chunk of livestock at a cattle market".

I don't think it's that the men who do this are few and far between; it's that the men who do this CONSTANTLY NON-STOP AT ALL TIMES REGARDLESS OF SITUATION AND BOUNDARIES are few and far between.

some men enjoy clandestine ass-comment; they're assholes, but they're not molesting. trouble is this behaviour is a slippery slope TOWARDS molesting

Really?

lol so lj you realize you just said that everyone on the 77 WS threads is on the slippery slope to becoming molesters, right

we already knew that

Guys, it's 11:30 on the East Coast. Time for a Diet Coke break.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TdrE1VMxzoE

Doing it on an internet forum about celebrities is very different from doing it in real life about people who breathe the same air. I still find it distasteful here but it's more art-crit than raptor.

I am confident that the minute I open my mouth it will become clear that I am a lot more than "a chunk of livestock at a cattle market".

― bear say hi to me (ENBB), Wednesday, December 2, 2009 10:26 AM (10 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

I don't think it's that the men who do this are few and far between; it's that the men who do this CONSTANTLY NON-STOP AT ALL TIMES REGARDLESS OF SITUATION AND BOUNDARIES are few and far between.

― Huckabee Jesus lifeline (HI DERE), Wednesday, December 2, 2009 10:27 AM (9 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

both A+ posts. Laurel seems to have a problem with people judging her on her looks before even getting a chance to know her on any other level. Very few people AREN'T bothered by that, men or women. It sucks but it's a fact of life. Obv being rude in any way about it or harrassing someone is abhorrent.

i'm starting to wonder if there's something wrong with me because this just doesn't bother me very much
it happens, somewhat infrequently, but just doesn't offend me in the same deep way it seems to get to laurel
it rarely actually offends me at all

you've got a tough hide...er let me rephrase that

example: one of my students winked and called me "ladyfriend" once and i just said "i am your teacher, not your ladyfriend" and he never did it again. he's just a doofus, not some predatory man-wolf.

ladyfriend?? is he like 70 y.o

well I think the thing is that ppl have wildly variable internal responses to ~this guy~ but I'd hope we'd all agree that a) it's not wrong for anyone to be just deeply upset by it and b) regardless of how you feel about the structural/sexual/political/metaphysical w/e that underpin this behavior, it's still not allowed and ought to be discouraged, basically because of (a)

just be excellent to each other imo

Doing it on an internet forum about celebrities is very different from doing it in real life about people who breathe the same air.

hey here is a shocking newsflash for you: CELEBRITIES ARE PEOPLE WHO BREATHE THE SAME AIR AS YOU DO

xp: I would remove the "still not allowed" part because it is patently obvious that it IS still allowed; otherwise yes, I agree.

i meant it in a poetic 'same immediate air, are in vicinity, are accessible IRL' way but whatevs

I don't think it's that the men who do this are few and far between; it's that the men who do this CONSTANTLY NON-STOP AT ALL TIMES REGARDLESS OF SITUATION AND BOUNDARIES are few and far between.

This is the opposite of what this thread is saying, a lot of guys on here are saying, that's normal, all men think like that all the time, get used to it because it's not up to you. Now you want to have that both ways?

well the behavior I was referring to was that of the dude at the liquor store, not some hypothetical ilxor checking someone out

he was being a creep and should cio