No, she wasn’t, and nowhere do I suggest that she was. My contention was that she’s not a child, but still possibly a victim, but also may have been aware of the development of the situation as it happens. I have no proof of her state of mind, nor do you, nor insight to her motives, and am stating as such. We’re all speculating. You’re polarizing my statement unfairly.
So he couldn’t restrain himself, and he looked at her. He LOOKED at her! Alert the media! Turn on the Amber Alert system!
I don’t want to be an apologist here, but the disturbing thing about this story lies in the comments that were made, and the weird style in which the post was written, not the fact that he noticed that her breasts were jiggling, or that he snuck a look at her crotch, or that he snuck another look at her crotch.
Looking and touching are not the same thing.
**
Hmmm… you apparently read things differently than I did…
“Helen says ‘Where’s the key?’, so Pete explains the system to her, and I notice he’s embellishing a bit – making a story of it. I’m thinking, easy Pete, she’s serious jailbait, when I realize that he’s not really doing anything flirty,”
So Danalan says Pete’s not flirting, although he is embellishing, so it’s a bit vague
**
Again, I think you’re interpreting this in the worst possible light. The way I read it, Danalan was feeling very uncomfortable, and was trying to distract her in order to keep her from feeling uncomfortable, not in some calculated effort to keep her ignorant of the spectacle that she was presenting…
Danalan wrote:
**
That’s a lot different than “it’s about that time that I see the opportunity coming”.
I think the implication is that her private parts are a teenage boy’s wet dream, not that she herself is. And I’m very skeptical of analyzing language for usages of words that lead you to believe that someone is being dehumanized… “Ahh, Barry Bonds… what a magnificent bat” “oh, so now he’s not a human being, he’s just a BAT!!!”
**
I don’t know your father, obviously, but being embarassed at the thought of seeing your young daughter’s naughty bits is very very different from being embarassed to see an unrelated and sexy 16-year-old’s naughty bits.
I think at this point we may just plain disagree, in that I don’t think there’s anything wrong with a discrete glance at revealed body parts of an attractive female. Obviously, there’s some age below which it becomes very disturbing, but I think it’s more in the 14-15 range than 16. And if someone attempt to manipulate things in order to force a girl or woman to allow such glances, that would be extremely unethical. But nothing in danalan’s account implies (at least to me) that he or his friend deliberately manipulated the situation to so that they could discomfit the girl. In fact, as I read it, he was at least initially made quite uncomfortable by the situation.
**
Again, I don’t see what’s adult about not glancing.
**
Here I agree with you entirely. The transgression came not from being interested, noticing, or looking. The transgression came from the reaction afterwards.
Again, I hope I’m not coming off too strongly as a defender of danalan or his (I agree) somewhat creepy friend. BUT I think that people are grossly overreacting, and are much more disturbed by the thought that a grown man would dare to glance at a 16-year old girl, than is deserved.
Last year I was at a wedding in Hawaii, and before the ceremony there was a fire dancer, who was an attractive young lady (somewhere between 17 and 22 or so). While she was dancing, one of her breasts came entirely out of her chain mail bra (don’t ask me why she was wearing a chain mail bra). And I happily gazed away. I didn’t hoot. I didn’t sabotage her bra to cause the breast to fall out. I didn’t take pictures and post them on the internet. But I sure as hell looked. Does that make me not an adult? Do I need to learn some restraint?
What I did not do was either laugh in her face about it, tell her to “spread em”, or post about it salaciously on the SDMB. Also, I didn’t know for a fact that she was 16, although it’s borderline possible that she was.
So yes, danalan screwed up. And I’d be very interested to hear his response to all of this. But I think getting up in arms about the mere idea that he would look at her is, quite frankly, silly, pointless, unfair and naive.
Sorry for three posts in a row…
I think I’ve gone a bit too far in defending danalan. I read his initial post, thought “oh, that’s a little bit creepy”, and then, when he started getting completely dogpiled, my devil’s advocate instincts kicked in and I started defending him at least partially for the sake of argument.
I agree that his and his friend’s actions in laughing at the girl were totally inappropriate. Assuming that the events were more or less as he described, if that had been my daughter or little sister, I would have been pretty pissed off. Not gonna-get-my-shotgun pissed off. Not you-must-register-as-a-sexual-predator pissed off. But pissed off.
That said, I think that much of the tone of the original post is fairly ambiguous. Some sections (particularly the part about feeling uncomfortable and trying to distract her) can be read quite sympathetically (he felt bad that she was in that situation, and was trying to keep his mind off of it, and keep her from noticing to spare her the embarassment) or quite unsympathically (as Guin and many others have read it). None of us were there. Most of us don’t know danalan, what kind of posting style he has, and what kind of sense of humor he has. And I, at least, would be quite curious to hear what else he has to say…
if he ever shows up, that is.
Here’s what I see:
I see a man in an uncomfortable situation ( having a girl’s panties exposed ), excalibrated by a friend’s boorish reaction ( "Hello Kitty! ) trying to deal with what happened. An attractive but underage girl caught his eye. He knows she’s just a teenager, but because he’s a man he notices she’s attractive, and also because he’s an adult, he resists that attraction. The shift occurs ( and if y’all had a column stick on your truck like I do, there would have been no problem, but that’s neither here nor there ) , the driver makes a creepy remark. Said remark draws Dan’s attention to the girl’s crotch area. From the glance, he thinks she’s flying free to the breeze, so to speak.
So.
He’s sitting next to a woman he finds attractive, believing that she is sitting there, legs spread, her bits exposed to the world. He dosen’t believe it. It’s not right, she’s just 16. She’s just 16, surely she’s not sans panties, right?.. Right? But it looked like she was. Sureptitiously, he checks. 99 out of a hundred men in that situation would have. And…she is wearing panties. whew Pete notices the same thing, and, ( I’m being charitable here, but I think it tracks with the story as told ) exclaims “Hello Kitty”, because she is wearing HK panties. I sense a great deal of relief that the girl wasn’t naked, and it came out in a bad way.
So, everybody feels awkward. The girl, because her panties were exposed and the men because they had been thrust into a situation where they were forced to deal with a girl who, while sexually mature and thus appealing to their biological nature, was off limits because of her age. The reaction of the men was certainly not a credit to them, but I see nothing that indicates they were anything but extremely uncomfortable at the situation. They reacted badly.
I imagine Dan got home, still disturbed by his biological urges when they were inapropriate, and sat down and wrote the whole thing out, attempting to write in a whimsical fashon and thus deal with it. This backfired miserably when the SDMB pile on gang had a field day.
Muffin: “Danalan, you sexually exploited a child in a predatory manner”
Snooooooopy: “You should move to Chile, where the young lass would have been legal for four years. Mexico and Paraguay would be equally enlightened”
DeniseV: “the original poster in that thread said he said “Hello!” to her - after looking in the region of her “kitty”.” ( where this came from I have no idea, it wasn’t the OP)
Estilicon: "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.
Jezus Fughin Krist
Some people are never happy unless they are berating others, it seems. Instaed of reading the OP and trying to understand what was probobly going on, it’s more fun to put the brains, judgement and common sense in park and just go with the crowd, piling on the evil, evil Dan.
I personally think he was just as uncomfortable about the whole situation as y’all are making him out not to be, but maybe that’s just me. He did show very poor judgement and insensitive reactions, but I got no sense of glee or “Oh, goody, I saw a teen’s panties, listen to this and stroke off” from the OP. I’ve been cursed with reading comprehension and a some small bit of a brain. YMMV.
Lemmings.
Umm, anyone think maybe he just hasn’t been online and is unaware of the firestorm he created?
Personally I agree with Even sven to some extent. The whole thing smacks of “my date with pyjama girl”. Fact or fiction? who knows.
I think the arguments getting a bit redundant though. He did not break a law. What he did was not appropriate whether the girl was 16 or 60 unless she said “hey boys, check out my rockin’ new underwear.” It was wrong but not a crime. We are not breaking any new ground as this thread goes on.
Ick, ick, ick, ick, ick. ICK!
Ok, I’m not accusing Danalan of sexual abuse, or paedophilia, or any of those other horrid words. My reaction to his OP is based on putting myself in the position of that poor girl, and my reaction is still strong enough after reading all the way through this thread that I feel the need to do something about it by posting.
I was a sixteen-year-old girl not that long ago. I liked choosing clothes so that I felt I looked good. I didn’t mind attracting the occasional admiring glance from guys my age. But if I had been in Helen’s situation, I would have been embarrassed, disgusted and mortified to the point of tears. Hell, it would have been bad enough just having to ride in the middle of a truck with two men I didn’t know. Worse still, on the day I’d chosen to wear a mini-skirt. But the way Danalan and his mate behaved was unnecessary, seriously insensitive, and, IMO, would have caused a great deal of distress to the girl.
When I was sixteen, I went to my cousin’s 21st birthday party. I was wearing a pretty evening top without a bra, but it wasn’t at all revealing. One of my cousin’s friends got a bit drunk, started ogling me pretty obviously, and made a few rather inappropriate comments (knowing how old I was). I still remember how upset I was on that occasion, and this wasn’t anything nearly as bad as the situation that Helen was in. These days I would know just to tell the guy to fuck off, but most sixteen-year-old girls haven’t learned to deal with that kind of thing yet.
So, at risk of being accused of joining in the pile-on, sorry Danalan, but while your behaviour was not criminal, and while “sneeking a peak” may well have been understandable from a male point of view, it was IMO unforgiveable, in light of your and your friend’s insensitivity, and the distress it caused this girl.
eek! “sneaking a peek”, even :rolleyes:
Oh, I understand now. Everyone who disagrees with your sympathetic reading of the original thread must be lacking in intelligence, and anyone who has the gall to post their viewpoints on it are blindly following an idiot.
I haven’t commented before in this thread, because I want to hear the original posters response, but this kind of post was too idiotic and hypocritical to let pass.
(Stupid hamsters ate my previous attempt to reply, hopefully this is a decent recreation of it, and it doesn’t double-post later…)
Yes, it was in the OP; be careful about errors like that when you hurl insults about lack of reading comprehension and possessing a brain:
Uncomfortable? With quotes like:
Maybe it’s just my interpretation (or maybe not just mine apparently), but I don’t see a hell of a lot of “whoops, damn, that was really embarrassing for me” in that post. I saw a bit of it at the beginning, but by the time that it got to the end, I saw two guys laughing over their discovery of a different Kitty up a skirt, while a teenage girl was the embarrassed one.
Don’t call me a lemming. I wasn’t accusing the guy of being some perverted fuck who shouldn’t be around kids and is going to hell. The worst I said was that I wouldn’t want him around my nieces, even the of-age one, because he wasn’t acting appropriately and did things that even most adult women would find offensive were they the recipient of that kind of leering.
The guy even said, “two lucky dogs like us”.
I don’t think he was embarassed. Except at being caught. Maybe.
Jarbabyj Fuck you.
“Wishing danalan” (40 year old guy) being raped was a way of speaking. I thought that it was a good way to ilustrate how “uncomfortable” he would feel in that situation.
Jarbabyj unfortunately for me I’m currently doing the law practice and all day around I hear stories of sexual abuses, rapes, etc. You know what a lot of them starts with a 40 year old looser drooling over a MINOR.
I also have a sister, friends who tell me how uncomfortable and terrified they feel when someone is stalking at them.
He should have acted better, he failed to do so, he the could shut the fuck up about the incident, he chose to brag about it.
Pardon for the above, I promise to practice English composition before posting again. Till then, fuck you jarbabyj (you really made me angry)
Volley to jar:
FUCK YOU.
Being raped is so far beyond being uncomfortable I can’t even express it here, and it should never be tossed around in a half hearted manner as a way of wishing someone suffers. You hear the stories every day.
I fucking lived the story. And I’m here to tell you, it’s absolutely nothing like having a guy make weird comments or look at your tits or even grabbing your thigh. It’s a fucking non-stop nightmare. It happened when I was sixteen and now I’m 29 and thinking of it still makes me sick. I wouldn’t wish it on MY WORST FUCKING ENEMY.
I just think all of us have to think twice before we throw around a casual wish for people to be raped.
Estilicon you are an ass! You just told a rape survivor to fuck off because she wouldn’t wish rape upon anyone? Let alone that what Danalan did hardly deserves the punishment you seem to think he does. I bet you tell all the rape victims that come to your law practice to fuck off too?
You sir are a jackass.
Can we PLEASE leave the wishing rape out of this? That is pretty damn harsh.
Plus, I hate it when threads are hijacked like this.
Please.
Estilicon, you got angry? And you expect that we’ll accept that as an excuse for your crude dismissal of jar’s position? I am deeply embarased for you.
Show me one place where the poster refers to the girl in question’s bits as a “kitty”. Just one.
You CAN’T because he DIDN’T.
Don’t lecture me on reading comprehension when you’re just going to make things up to boulster your POV.
I wrote the original statement, “the original poster in that thread said he said “Hello!” to her - after looking in the region of her “kitty”.” in response to KKBattousai who claimed that Danalan only laughed but made no comment about her underwear. That was my reply, that the “Hello!” was in reply to seeing Kitty rather than some “kitty”. The quotes around “kitty” were mine, intended to indicate a euphemism, and not a quote of his. The misinterpretation here arose in taking my response out of context, I believe.