On review, I don’t think anything else rises to the level of needing moderation. Remember to comment on the content, and not the commentator, and try not to make this place too much of a misogynistic hellhole. Carry on.
Most interesting topic in a while. Just givin’ ‘er!
Thank you for your response.
I’m sorry you experienced that and had those feelings. I don’t fully understand them from what you describe, but I cannot deny the validity of your feelings.
But the situation you describe impresses me as quite different than the OP. You were alone, in an alley. Not in a crowded airplane - with people all around, and professional help a word/call button away. Your guy was in a car, with the window only cracked. This guy was in a crowded airplane seat right next to her. And you don’t describe his genitalia being exposed.
I’m not denying anything about your experience, but I do perceive that every unpleasant experience with a sexual element is not necessarily informative WRT ever other such unpleasant experience. IMO, too often folk feel differently. SOMETHING unpleasant happened to me or someone I know at some time, so that makes me think I understand something with old a tenuous relation to what I experienced.
Are you willing/able to flesh out your emotions? You say you were certain he meant to harm you, but you do not explain how immediate you perceived the threat to be. Did he mean to harm you only if you got in the car? Did he display a weapon? Did you feel he would escalate? How persistent was he after you said “No” and accelerated your pace?
I only ask because as I understand it, your experience was definitely unpleasant and inexcusable, but it was vastly different from the OP in any respects. I welcome explanation of why my perception is incorrect.
And you describe your subsequent emotions as “mortified and ashamed.” This is language I do not understand. I could imagine being pissed, or having a fear of alleys, or other things. But I guess mortification is not something I am familiar with, and I have difficulty imagining why I would be ashamed of what you describe.
Just a helpful heads-up: “supporting” and “mansplaining” are not synonyms.
Something similar happened to me a couple decades ago in a public restroom in Oslo. I got the hell out of there, did not shout or berate or anything like that.
When someone is so obviously breaking every social norm, it means they’re unpredictable. You don’t know how they’ll react to confrontation. And you realize on a cellular level that you don’t know this. It’s deeply wrong and deeply unsettling. Bragging about how you (impersonal you) would have handled the situation is stupid Internet Warrior bullshit.
Claiming that scolding this woman is a defense of feminism? Gag.
The examples are very different but the reactions to them might be the same. I mean I don’t know how she was feeling obviously but I know there is a good chance that she probably didn’t know what to do and felt super embarrassed to the point that she didn’t do anything at first.
I agree wholeheartedly that feeling ashamed enough to keep quiet about somebody elses actions makes little sense. But that’s how secrets are kept. I don’t know if it’s social conditioning or personal flaws of many, many women. Because it’s so pervasive I have to think it has a lot to do with social conditioning. We don’t say anything, think it’s somehow our fault and then years later, when we reveal what’s happened, we aren’t believed because we didn’t say anything right away. I’ve seen that very thing right here on this board where the “smartest” people apparently are.
I think it’s a super complex issue that people far smarter and better educated than I might understand.
Remember there are still places in the world where women are considered property.
I support this fully. I don’t discount that many women have been in vulnerable places and situations in their lives, but there is no evidence from this article that this woman has been in such a place.
And as @Dinsdale said, even if she had, this is not such a place. I don’t think it fair to assume that simply because she is a woman that fact should be used to explain why she was unable to report an atrocious act in a very safe place and in a safe manner.
I fear you misread my post or perhaps I didn’t explain it very clearly. I was just analyzing the law and as a defense attorney wondered how it would be enforced as written. Of course public masturbation is terrible and should be punished somehow. It is just a head scratcher that it is a federal law and governed by Washington D.C. lewdness standards.
Must…not…make…joke…
Thank you very much for engaging in this conversation.
I can readily identify with your description of “freezing from uncertainty.” Totally different/minor recent experience - we have 2 friends who come to our home to play classical music. During a break, my wife went upstairs to open a bottle of wine, and the violist took out a small bottle of oil and said she needed polish her viola. While sitting on our newest sofa, over a stupid-expensive custom rug. I couldn’t imagine what she was doing, and didn’t know how to say what to one of my few good friends. She proceeded to spill some oil on her pant leg, and placed the bottle on the carpet. I’m SCREAMING inside, but still didn’t say anything. So I get how freezing can happen.
In law, there is the concept of “a reasonable person.” Just an expectation of how society might expect the vast majority of reasonably-equipped persons to react to various situations. Concerns ideas such as appropriate caution and sensible reaction.
No, I am not suggesting we treat all aspects of life like a courtroom, but I do believe it is useful to discuss - at least generally - what is and is not reasonable behavior in a particular society. And at least some of us are having difficulty viewing this woman’s reactions as reasonable. Pretty sure everyone agrees the guy’s behavior was GROSSLY unreasonable.
IMO, far too many people think that their greatly different, but however tenuously related experiences give them clear insight into the mind of someone such as this woman. I suggest they may overstate the value of their personal experience and personal relations.
Your mention of women as property sorta relates. Is this woman from such a society? Is there ANY reason to feel that a US woman’s reaction to a specific stimulus is directed by the fact that someone somewhere far away is in a shitty situation?
And to be clear - suggesting that her actions do not appear reasonable (to me, as I understand our society and human nature) IN NO WAY suggests that I believe she deserved this, was a bad person, or anything else of a derogatory or dismissive nature.
Attempting to apply your own subjective notions of “reasonableness” to someone enduring a grotesque act of sexual harassment is precisely the problem. That you cannot see how a victim’s “freeze” response might be “reasonable” perhaps says more about the limitations of what you or I can understand about a situation without actually experiencing it (not just as ourselves, but as the person being harassed, coming from whatever background with their own unique experiences) than it does about the victim’s capacity for reason.
That you keep questioning the reasonableness of the victim’s non-violent, non-criminal response to a lewd and criminal act suggests you think it’s relevant. Why do you think it is relevant?
I simply think she reacted in a bizarre manner. Relevant? I dunno. Relevant to what purpose? To discussing this bizarre incident? Sure - why not?
And my understanding is that “reasonableness” is not a “subjective notion” as you suggest. For all we know, the beatoff thought he was acting reasonably. But that is irrelevant. The rest of civilized society can state with certainty that he was not.
No, her reaction would not be influenced by a woman in another part of the world being her husbands property. BUT. America is heavily Christian. In Christian cultures the husband is the head of the household. Now, you can say “well legally she has the same rights as he does” and while that is true legally, there is a pervasive, entrenched culture of male dominance. Girls wear rings to promise their fathers that they won’t have sex before marriage. I was personally raised this way and it took me well into adulthood to even start to think that women and men are equal.
I get all of that, but this guy wasn’t her father, husband, or boyfriend. He was some weirdo spanking it during the in-flight beverage service. It also wasn’t on a deserted street or a dark alley where help may not be available. It was on a US commercial airliner where if he pulled out a cigarette, let alone his penis, big strong men would have held him down.
I just don’t see the parallels that are attempted to be made.
That’s a choice you are making.
Yeah - that is the kind of thing I was thinking about. I have little respect for any organized religion - but I was trying to imagine what sects would instruct such a degree of submissiveness to strangers, such that a woman would not be able to exercise any of the many options I would think this woman had. I was thinking maybe Amish or some crazy conservative shit? Or thinking about what little I know about conservative Jews… Or maybe polygamous Mormons.
My upbringing was Catholic. I was not aware of any christian communities that are anywhere near mainstream which train a woman that she is little more than property, and subject to any form of insult and abuse from any male stranger.
One of the most repulsive examples I encountered was when my best buddy died. And at the Ukrainian Orthodox service (organized by his goofy brother), his wife and daughter (also my friends) had to sit through a diatribe on how the husband is like the head to the body, and the rest of the body cannot survive once the head is removed. Repulsive.
It would be interesting to find out more about the 2 main parties in this incident. But - like so many such instances that appear on the webs - I suspect that is unlikely. And her privacy should be respected.
I think my personal “bias” is that I think influences such as you suggest - some extreme branch of christianity - are relatively uncommon. When confronted by behavior that appears hard to explain - such as this woman’s inaction - how reasonable is it to leap to the conclusion that some such unusual factor MUST have been involved.
I realize you is you don’t know how you would have reacted. But could you make a best guess? Given your experiences of a man “propositioning you” from a car, and a man touching you on a bus. If you were on a plane and a guy drops trou - would you just sit there? For how long? Do you suspect your prior experiences would make your suspected action/inaction more/less likely?
You were not aware that Ephesians is part of the Christian Bible?
I remember the word Ephesians from a childhood bored in church, but couldn’t tell you (and don’t really care) what it says. Not interested in researching to try to figure out your undoubtedly witty rejoinder to my remarks.
I assume you’re referring to Ephesians 5:23, which says that “the husband is the head of the wife.” There’s been plenty of debate over what that means and how it should be interpreted (here’s one link I found, if anyone’s interested); but IMHO it’s a pretty huge leap to get from that verse to some of the conclusions in your quotes from @Dinsdale .
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