Point of information from somebody who has owned floor shift cars and trucks with bench seats for a good portion of his life:
When a female other than the driver’s SO is sitting in the middle, there is always a “situation”. This can be handled with something like: “Slide your knees over. I’ve gotta’ shift and I don’t want you to think I’m getting weird.” Say this in a lighthearted voice and with a slight smile, and nobody is offended or frightened.
From his prior experience, the owner of this vehicle has to have known what was going to happen when he needed to shift.
“Spread your legs babe” was said with malice aforethought, either to embarrass the girl, or perhaps he was trolling for a favorable comeback. In either case, danalan should have come to her defense, not joined his friend in this behavior which was in all likelihood very humiliating to a young girl. My .02.
I am almost 100% sure that this is a really really embelished story. Chances are he got in the truck with an attractive sixteen year old and began to thinking about her in a sexual way. He then noticed the “Hello Kitty” undies and realized how horribly wrong his entire line of thought has been- she wasn’t running around with no undies, she had childrens undies! He was on the wrong track altogether!
Of course, a story about a quick ride in a truck isn’t all that interesting, hence all the “cherry suckers” and “spread your legs, babe”. On second thought, he might have realized that his embellishments made him out to be a creepster, and not simply a guy who was amusingly hit with reality after letting fantasy run away with him.
With a bit of revision, this could be a pretty good, non-creepy story. Even the best author strikes out every once in a while.
I agree that Danalan’s behavior was somewhat boorish. And the tone he posted in was poorly chosen. However, I think he’s being incredibly overly harshed on…
-Belladonna, your story is far different, and far far more disturbing. In your story, someone is actively going out of his way to do things to arrange a situation in which he can ogle you. And when you attempt to change your situation to stop the ogling, he prevents you from doing so. That would be more analogous to a situation where Danalan had calculatedly assigned the girl to the middle seat, and then refused to switch seats with her.
-It’s a bit unclear, but I hardly get the impression that either Danalan or his friend were constantly ogling the girl. The impression I got was that he glanced at her panties for a second, then looked away and was trying not to look again, and then couldn’t restrain himself and glanced again. Obviously, one would prefer that he not look at all, but that’s a far cry from sitting there in the seat staring at her crotch or chest for the whole car ride. In fact, the impression I got was that the whole situation made him feel uncomfortable
-Probably the most disturbing thing that Danalan and the driver actually did was comment on the Hello Kitty panties. They definitely shouldn’t have. It was, as has been said several times, boorish. It seems likely to me that they wouldn’t normally have commented on her panties if not for the sheer bizarreness of them being Hello Kitty. Which is not to excuse their actions, because they really should have kept quiet or been polite, but still, I’d bet that what was running through their minds was “oh my god that’s hilarious” as opposed to “man I wish that rape were legal”.
-I’m very sick of, and very frustrated by, the claim that men who look at women and find them attractive are somehow turning them into “objects” or “pieces of meat” or what have you. I’ll be the first to admit that I enjoy looking at attractive women’s faces and bodies. But that in no way implies that I value women, either as colleagues, friends, or girlfriends, only for their physical attractiveness. The fact that I read Maxim and enjoy looking at the photos therein does not mean that I want to marry Anna Nicole Smith (even if I found her attractive, which I don’t).
-I think many of you are reading into this story that Danalan is partway down the road to being a child molester, even if he isn’t quite there (and some of you seem to think he pretty much is there). He might or might not be a pervert or a pedophile or someone into auto-erotic asphyxiation involving swans and kangaroos. I don’t know. But the fact that he copped a peek at a sexy 16-year old’s panties doesn’t at all mean that, if the opportunity presented itself, he’d hit on her, grope her, rape her, molest her, or do anything else other than not keep his fool mouth shut.
-I guess the acid test is this: would I want my 16-yeard old daughter (if I had one) to ride in a car with Danalan? Well, honestly, I don’t know Danalan. But I have male friends who I would trust with my life, or my daughter’s virtue, who I can easily imagine having exactly the same reaction, and even saying the same things that Danalan said (not that this would be their finest hour, needless to say). They probably would have the good sense not to post about it on the SDMB, and they’d probably feel a bit guilty about it afterwards, but I don’t think that this story by itself automatically damns Danalan into the category of people-to-keep-my-daughter-away-from. To be blunt and crass, he and his friend were in the situation they were in, and didn’t start anything along the line of leaning in, asking inappropriate questions, readjusting mirrors, etc.
To sum up, I’m not nominating Danalan for sainthood, but neither am I accusing him of any crime more serious than displaying a slightly inadequate amount of forethought, being in an awkward situation, acting a very little bit boorish, and then having the bad taste to post about it.
On the scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being totally inoffensive and 10 being absolute evil, that’s about a 1.4 at the worst.
Thank god, I was asking a minute ago if someone could move the thread from which this is derived,in orde to say a thing or to to danalan,not knowing thata good soul had already done that.
Dan. I hope someone rapes you, I mean not just anybody but someone really big in that way you’ll be able to feel the embarrasment, fear (two guys drooling over a minor) and disgust you provoked. I hope he uses something big, sharp, and rusty.
Posted by even sven:“Haven’t you guys heard of fiction?”
Fiction normally includes the disclaimer:“Any relation to actual events…etc”.
If this was fiction, it would have been a courtesy to inform us of that fact.
Upon further reflection, I have to agree that “Spread your legs” was a totally inappropriate comment. That said, …
WTF??? Dan saw a girl’s panties. Then he saw them again. Then he laughed and made her feel uncomfortable. Then he posted about it. And he didn’t stop his friend from saying “spread your legs”. OK, not fantastic behavior. And for that he deserves to be RAPED?
Come ON.
Next, on the-world-according-to-Estilicon… the big kid who tripped my son, and how I KILLED HIM!!!
Okay, “Pete’s a character”, and his mother in law thinks he’s a REAL creep. And I find it fishy that his mother in law will NOT sell the guy beer-even though Pete is more than old enough to drink. And not only that, if he bought beer elsewhere, he was afraid she’d find out. Why would it matter if he bought beer elsewhere? Makes me think there’s a lot more to the story.
Okay, Helen is Kathy’s friend. Kathy asks her dad’s friends to pick her friend up, so Helen can come over. Okay.
Umm…so Pete admits he’s flirting with the girl. Kind of stupid, but still not THAT bad…
Said girl is wearing a tank top and short skirt-standard warm weather garb. And she’s obviously wearing a bra.
Well, that’s what you do with a sucker-you lick it? D’uh.
Here is where it starts getting creepy. She’ll be “freaked out?” Huh? From WHAT? And you want to “distract her?”
:rolleyes:
I’d say he has a problem. I certainly think commenting on the poor girl and referring to her as “the jiggling under the tank top” is kind of skeevy…
Okay. So she’s no longer a person, just " teenage boy’s wet dream?" Pete is already disgusting beyond words. I can see why his mother in law can’t stand him. All they can think about is being close to her naughty bits. In a very obvious way. Lovely.
No, a “quick discreet glance” is NOT required. What is required is to behave like a gentlemen, dickhead. A lot of guys I know would be more embarassed and trying NOT to look at the naughty bits of a girl young enough to be their daughter. I know MY father doesn’t even like it when I leave my bra in the bathroom! I think he’d be seriously creeped out.
What is required is that you behave like an adult. Obviously, that’s too much to ask.
But of course, you’ve already proven you’re not a gentleman. And it demands a hell of a lot more than that. Or you could have said, if you were a TRUE gentleman, “Um, you might want to fix um, your skirt.” And then look away.
One could just as easily argue that it’s none of your damn business.
“Sweet young thing?”
“Lucky dogs.” These guys are acting like they’ve won the lottery. Okay, now I know guys usually admire young girls. A given. HOWEVER, to feel like they’ve died and gone to heaven because they get to oogle a teenager…sounds like peeping toms to me.
Because of course, you’ll die if you don’t look up her skirt. Never mind HER feelings, right?
Wouldn’t you have to look pretty far down to get a look at her underwear?
She’s not a “thing.” She’s not there for your amusement. She’s a young girl-albeit a very naive and trusting girl, apparently, and now she realizes that two guys old enough to be her dad are staring up her skirt.
So she wears Hello Kitty underwear. So WHAT? I like Hello Kitty. I like cool underwear. That doesn’t mean I want the whole world making comments on them.
Because it’s soooooo hilarious to make a young girl feel creeped out, ashamed and dirty. Right.
I want to know what else happened. Like, what happened when she got to Bob’s. If they said anything. If Kathy did.
I don’t want to come off like a feminazi, but the whole time, they really didn’t seem to think of the poor girl as a person, but just as some doll for them to leer over. And then it was FUNNY when she got embarassed.
And for those saying she was “dressed like a hooch”, go to hell. It’s WARM out. I wear shorts/minis and tank tops in the summer time! So fucking WHAT? Like that gives these guys a license to be jerks?
It’s not their admiration of her, it’s their leering, snickering and making her feel uncomfortable. It’s their complete and utter disregard for her feelings.
Since Helen isn’t here to defend herself, I think some people here have a LOT of nerve calling her a whore.
“Couldn’t restrain himself?” Horse-fucking-shit. This is a man we’re told is around 40 years old. If he wants to see “Barely Legal!!!” girls’ panties, he can do a fucking Google search and find all the voyeur pr0n he wants. When he’s with a real, live 16-year-old girl that he doesn’t even know, he can bloody well act like a 40-year-old man and restrain himself from looking at her “jiggling boobs” and trying to sneak a crotch shot.
Jesus wept. Is there no behavior so foul that some Doper won’t pop up to defend it?
Hey jarbabyj - Your anecdotes about your behaviour at that age seemed to imply that you showed teachers your panties on purpose.
If you were flashing a man your panties on purpose and he saw them, would you then respond by pulling your hands into your lap, squeezing your legs together as close as possible, and turning bright red in embarrassment?
Is that how you reacted to a situation that aroused you?
Because if so, then fair enough, maybe the girl is like you at that age, and she was also aroused and she wanted them to look and then once they looked she thought she’d play the oh-so-erotic part of “embarrassed girl” to keep them further at her whims.
But I somehow can’t reconcile the two concepts, “girl who wants to turn older men on” and “girl who hides her panties and turns red when men make lewd comments about them”. There seems to be a fundamental conflict between the two.
If none of the people who weren’t, at sixteen, aroused by such a situation are supposed to think about how we’d feel if we were in such a situation and then project our feelings onto her, how about you don’t do that either, and we call it a day?
I’m not trying to project me onto anybody and by telling you how I reacted in those situations, I’m hoping we can see that all girls are different, and perhaps telling Danalan that because he snuck a peek at her panties this girl all but went home and slit her own throat out of shame we can come to some sort of consensus.
We all agree he was a bit creepy, especially in the idea that he came to the boards, eager to tell the story. I think it’s very odd that he presented in such a ‘Literotica’ sort of style…
But as these threads continue, his transgression is leading to Estilicon WISHING VIOLENT RAPE on him…and I think that’s just a touch over the top.
So, yes, I’ll call it a day if you’d like. Just wanted to present a different sort of thought process. No skin off my nose.
And no, maybe she wasn’t sobbing in shame. But she seems awfully embarassed. And besides-even if she didn’t feel degraded and ashamed, they should have thought that perhaps that would be one possible outcome of their behavior.
I notice Danalan hasn’t come back to defend himself. Hmmmm…I wonder if maybe Helen DID tell her father?
You probably haven’t gone back to the original post but some very astute and wise high school boys have alluded to her being a “hooch” and that her mode of dress meant “she wanted it”.
Obviously, we can’t give you concrete proof that Helen felt “dirty and ashamed and creeped out” but when I read things like she lost her train of thought, turned bright red, and squeezed her legs together, it sounds like she didn’t derive too much enjoyment out of the experience.
Although I’d generally stay out of the swarming pile of angry that this thread is I’d just like to say that Estilicon has demonstrated that he is a far worse human being than the two guys in the pick up.
Since I’ve already waded in I might as well say something about the post that spawned this thread. I could understand if a guy in their early to mid teens did this. After all even if they know better and are sensitive to the issue they simply have less experience with these situations. Guys can take a while getting comfortable around attractive women. When the woman is off limits for some reason the discomfort can increase.
That said by 40 if you can’t deal with these situations there is something wrong with you. More over you should know that some situations are a bad idea to post about. So yes if the story is a transcription of actual events danalan was in the wrong in a lot of ways. It may just be though that his social sense is way off. Tarring and feathering him for that isn’t right. A simple “Do you realize how uncomfortable you must have made her.” or something like that might have been better to respond with at first and given him a chance to explain the situation more.
Oh and no guys don’t have to look. There is a desire to look, to check out, to oogle and to do a double take when something is surprising. That doesn’t mean you have to act on them but the desire is there and the desire alone doesn’t make you some sort of sicko.