# Creepy pest control guy - do I complain? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [June 14, 2011, 7:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/creepy-pest-control-guy-do-i-complain/585473 "2011-06-14T19:40:01Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 1\ **Showing post:** 69
**Author:** ![j666](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/9de0a6/32.png) [@j666](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/j666)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2011, 1:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/creepy-pest-control-guy-do-i-complain/585473/69 "2011-06-17T01:06:50Z")
> [@you\_with\_the\_face](#): > > I’ll stop hijacking the thread too now. I don’t entirely agree that we are hijacking the thread. _[snicker]_ > [@you\_with\_the\_face](#): > > Depends on what you mean by “better”. Getting in a shouting match or throwing blows … > > Not the creepy, patronizing passive aggressiveness being discussed in this thread. Guys don’t have a lot of experience dealing with scenarios in which boundaries are being crossed under the pretense of flirtation. … > > Why must this be a gendered thing? A sign that women are raised to be indecisive weakings? Guys feel conflicted about shit too and need to be reassured that they aren’t overreacting sometimes. … > > … In other words, the Pit is not any more the “right” place for her issue than IMHO is. I am refering to the exact opposite of shouting and blows; by ‘the option of violence’, I meant that they knew they did not need to **be** violent. The physical confidence of knowing they are not likely to be horribly victimized physically gives them more confidence in all confrontations. See what I mean? Yes on One, no on Two. Everyone abuses ‘flirtation’. But that’s not the issue, is it? Women are raised all kinds of ways, but there just are not common cultural role models for women being firm and effective in confrontations. Who are there roles models? Mothers and aunts and grandmothers? Helen Mirren? Hellen Mirren is great, but how many young women want to be her **now?** I do not think I said ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ about the forum choice. But that is a question - why didn’t the OP post “I PIT the Creepy Creep Control Guy”? I’m going to quote from another thread that also addresses this issue, about Clarise Starling in the _Silence of the Lambs_, because I’m having trouble doing a post link: > [@What movies or books do you take the "wrong" thing away from?](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movies-or-books-do-you-take-the-wrong-thing-away-from/553402/126): > > One of the things I didn’t notice until years after I first saw the movie (and I’ve watched it a bunch, it’s one of my favorites) is how Clarise is LOOMED OVER or pseudo-menaced by every male person of authority in the movie. In the first scene, when she’s running the training course, the instructor sent to fetch her hollers her name from behind, coming out of the woods unexpectedly, intruding upon her training in a creepy way (due to the setting more so than his interaction with her, although him watching her run past him as she leaves the training course seems like he’s tracking her). > > Soon after, in the elevator down to Crawford’s office’s level, the other passengers of the elevator are all men who are significantly taller than her, and who look down on her (literally) either laciviously or dismissively. Crawford himself says her name (in his doorway, to get her attention) in a way that is designed to startle her. There are tons of scenes like this - the scenes with Chilton are especially menacing or dismissive. > > Watching the movie with the intent of analyzing the male-female interactions really caused me to recognize that in many ways, Clarise is the “lamb” of the title, her discomfort at being on the receiving end of the male intimidation silenced by her uncertainty of how to navigate this male world she’s attempting to enter. Here’s the thread: [http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=13924676&posted=1#post13924676](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=13924676&posted=1#post13924676) > [@Mama\_Zappa](#): > > Um, if she had - and he really was a predator - that would have been a threat, and might have provoked some sort of escalation. This cannot be emphasized enough. --- _[View the full topic](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/creepy-pest-control-guy-do-i-complain/585473)._