I’m a gay man who likes hanging around children. Can’t wait to have children of my own someday, in fact. I must be SUPER dangerous.
I’m so sick of this attitude that it is at the very least weird, if not outright repugnant or dangerous, that men should like to be around children.
It really makes me sad to hear things like this.
I would argue that its not so much that child molestation has changed but rather we identify it more and tolerate it less. There is a much greater awareness of it these days. But being aware of it also means you are seeing all sorts of potential dangers you hadn’t perceived before.
Strangers are always going to be seen as a potential threat. Its not anything against the person. I’m curious though, among the single guys who feel persecuted - do you have kids? How would you be about leaving them alone with a man you didn’t know well? I think another difference here is many guys complaining about the unfair treatment don’t appear to have kids, but the women posters do.
Its easy, as a single man to shrug and say, "what’s the big deal? " when they themselves are far less likely to being a position of sexual abuse vs a woman or a child.
This isn’t about being seen as a threat because I’m a stranger. It’s people seeing me as a threat because I’m a man.
God forbid that every man should be pre-judged guilty of horrible crimes they would never commit.
Besides the fact that a large number of abusers are women.
Abusive women tend to prefer violent and psychological abuse of children over sexual abuse. I’m sure having your kid beaten to death will be a huge improvement over him/her being molested. :rolleyes:
*Or, *you could use a better standard for child care than men bad, women good.
“Tolerate it less”? So we should what, feed child molesters to sharks? We’re already rabid on the subject.
I’m not arguing that everyone should just automatically trust me with their kids.
I’m arguing that I should be able to go sit at a park and read a book with kids running around and not get approached by people questioning me about who I am and why I’m there, or given dirty looks.
I’m saying I should be given a chance to work at a daycare if I want to.
I’m saying that I should be able to sit next to children on an airplane and be given the benefit of the doubt that I’m not going to jack off to dirty thoughts of them right there in the cabin.
Jeesh.
I do have a much better standard than that, and I already addressed that.
I actually agree with that in large part. Or rather, we’re very inconsistent on the subject, in many cases going way overboard or being schizophrenic about it (you can get out of prison but you can’t live within 100 miles of any place where children ever go, also get a job but you have a record which makes you practically unemployable forever, etc).
This would be a different tune if you replaced “male” with ::ethnicity::
I’ve thought of that too and do not have a good answer, although there might be one.
It would also be a different tune if you switched genders.
If the thread is still taking examples of men being regarded as creepy when alone with a woman (as opposed to Generic Gender Warfare or Child Molestation Protestation), I have an interesting experience from just yesterday.
I was standing at the bus stop when a woman came up and stood about fifteen feet away. Since I’d been there before her and knew which buses had passed and which had not yet passed, I spoke up and asked her which bus she was looking for.
She nervously averred that she was actually just waiting to cross the street. She had…something…in her hand, on the side away from me. I thought it might be a cigarette, which would make me want to move away from her, so I tried (unobtrusively) to catch a glimpse of it. She seemed to be hiding it intentionally.
I realized it was not a cigarette, but a key, sticking out between her knuckles. You know, the improvised weapon rape counselors advise women to use.
She crossed the street when traffic allowed, and about one hundred and fifty feet from me, put her key back in her pocket.
Let me set the stage here so the significance of this is clearer. This was in a nice suburban neighborhood, very low crime area. The bus stop is in front of a brand-new church. I am short and physically unimposing, a middle-aged white guy, dressed in business attire, lugging a laptop case. I did not move toward her and was roughly three body lengths away (she chose that distance, not me). And what I said to her was helpful, not creepy. It was cold enough neither of us was showing any skin or dressed provocatively.
And she went immediately into rape-defense mode.
I remember 23 years ago getting on to the elevator in my company’s downtown parking ramp. A woman gets on after me, plasters herself against the wall as far as she can get from me and grabs a small bottle of pepperspray, clutching it fearfully as we go up 2 levels, then waiting on the elevator until I actually reached my car before stepping out.
1> It was the company ramp. We both worked for the same company. I’d seen her before, I expect she’d seen me before.
2> I still had my company badge hanging off my pocket with my picture and my name in plain sight. She could see it the entire time she was on the elevator.
3> I never looked at her or paid any attention to her until she pulled out the pepper spray.
4> If she had sprayed me, I’d have made her eat it.
Of course the worst was when I worked a short term contract in St.Paul where the building I was working in shared a parking lot with a women’s shelter. I take a rather dim view of being threatened and/or yelled at because I’m simply walking to my car.
Never mind. She’s just a girl.
I think you and several others are overreacting.
Because of my job, for the past decade or so I’ve spent more than a thousand days surrounded by kids I’m not related to. I have not once gotten any paranoid pushback.
Indeed, the only paranoia I’ve been aware of has been mine, and even then, I’d categorize it more as caution. Things like, when I tutor students, I will set up desks near the door and keep the door open. I minimize the amount of time I’m alone in the classroom with a student. If a student has any sort of bathroom or other private issue, I get assistance (okay, maybe I overplay the man card here, because I make someone else deal with it, because gross).
There have been a couple of students I’ve had who raise my own paranoia levels a lot, students that I could imagine might make a false report about me. I was extra-careful around them.
But I give students hugs and touch them on the shoulders and compliment their clothes and hairstyles and call them “dear”; on the playground I’ll give them a lift onto the high bars. And like I said, I’ve never gotten a word of paranoia from any parent or other adult.
There’s nothing wrong with being a man who wants to choose a career around kids; indeed, the first discrimination I faced for choosing such a career was a $500 signing bonus for being a male teacher at a Title 1 school. But facts are facts: the overwhelming majority of child molesters are men. It’s perfectly sensible for parents to add in a small extra layer of caution around men because of this slight increase in risk, and it’s perfectly sensible for men to display an extra layer of caution in order to put reasonable parents at ease.
People in general are just paranoid freaks all around (case in point - lots of folks refuse to take phone calls from numbers they don’t recognize - WTF?)
Just because some women(/men) have female(/male)-specific paranoid issues that men(/women) don’t relate to, doesn’t mean you have to take it personally…
“Overwhelming” is flat out not true. It may be claimed, but studies are beginning to show otherwise. The fact is that men are overwhelmingly the ones convicted.
Man…fuck those guys. Leave a message.
Cite? Here’s mine:
I’d call an average of more than 90% “overwhelming.”
Feeling **sad **is an overreaction these days? Remind me not to post what I do when I’m really upset!
If all you’d said is that you were sad, I would’ve been off-base. Fortunately, I’m able to quote your previous message again–you know, the one I originally quoted when I said you were overreacting? Perhaps some underlining will clarify what, in your post, I considered an overreaction:
Hope that helps!
Edit: to be even clearer, of course I know the underlined parts don’t reflect your views. They do appear to reflect your understanding of the views of others, but I think you’re not understanding those views correctly.