I don’t remember being assaulted to an extent I would have thought of it that way. I suppose some woman has grabbed my ass without my consent in a bar or something, which, legally, is assault, but I’ve never felt uncomfortable or assaulted.
The percentage for women so far - running between 75-80% - seems about what I would expect.
I guess technically yes.
I’m nearly 6’ 5" and 230lbs, and try to hit the gym every weekday so I do get some attention sometimes.
I’ve had my ass slapped, biceps grabbed and had people run their hands through my hair when it was long. This is by both men and women. My girlfriend, and our mutual friends liked going out to gay bars, and those places can be notoriously touchy at times.
None of it ever bothered me though, I always took it as a compliment. I haven’t been single since I was 15, so I have to brush it off no matter who it is. My girlfriend however, does not care for it.
I once tried to make my boyfriend at the time understand what it felt like to be a young woman with these constant fears of being molested. I phrased it by asking him how he would feel if every day strange women came up and grabbed his crotch or kissed him without asking. He said he would LOVE that, and that most guys would love it. He thought it would be very flattering. Which explains why guys are befuddled that women DON’T think it’s flattering.
I think you’re right on that last point. It comes from young girls, starting at puberty (or earlier for very cute girls), being suddenly treated like pieces of meat. I remember the transition I had between girlhood and puberty. It was so sudden that it was literally shocking. I was just another kid in the neighborhood/school and then suddenly all the boys were staring at my boobs, making offensive remarks in stage whispers to each other, no longer treating me like one of their friends. I once was necking with a boy in a park around a group of friends and the other boys were staring and just about drooling, like a pack of dogs waiting for their turn at a piece of meat. Even worse, when older men would behave like that. And that’s the beginning of about 30 years of similar treatment on a near-daily basis. (And I was never even THAT pretty.)
It’s not just boys and men, though. The media also is a major contributor to the sexualization/objectification of women. So yes, it sinks into a girl’s psyche.
Male, never been sexually assaulted before, but I’ve heard lots of stories from my friends. It sucks seeing all these people responding affirmatively–men and women, alike. Please, take care of yourselves. Know that it isn’t your fault. If it’s becoming difficult to come to terms with what happened, please consider talking to someone or even seeing a professional.
Stay strong, you guys. I’m rooting for you.
Define assault. My gay friend who owned a bookstore used to hold my hand while showing me to the appropriate shelves, but that was no more “assault” then throwing a ticket at a cop. But it is technically a criminal act.
I got picked up by a couple of gay guys when I used to hitchhike to college, who tried to get persuasive, but never put a hand on me.
This man was a teacher at my Primary School. There were very strong rumours that he was doing some (unspecified) bad things with some of the other kids, but he never did anything to me. The schools listed in this article are different ones and from after my time, but I see no reason to think there aren’t many other incidents gone unreported.
I have never been assaulted.
In what world is a friend taking your hand technically a criminal act?
Consider it being a man taking a woman’s hand. Or a woman taking a man’s hand.
What am I supposed to be considering? When my friends take my hands it is not a criminal act, not even “technically.”
That is the problem with marginal cases of “assault”. It is dependent on perceptions of the people involved. Grabbing someone’s hand can certainly be assault in some cases but not others. So can hitting someone hitting someone in a butt cheek. Sometimes it is playful and other times it is meant to harass. It is extremely difficult to come up with strict definitions for such things because they vary wildly depending on the people involved and the situation.
I tend to reserve the use of the term “assault” and “sexual assault” for the unambiguous cases. I think that the overuse of the terms trivializes those that underwent real trauma rather than some that were just annoyed because someone read a social interaction incorrectly.
I have been assaulted (as in sent to people to prison for it) but I don’t believe I have ever been sexually assaulted even though I have been groped, solicited and sexually harassed. It just never mattered to me that much. I will reserve that term for the people that have had much more serious damage.
And have you ever sexually assaulted someone, as in touched them sexually when they haven’t given you direct consent?
Probably. Hasn’t everyone? That is the way it works when you are a guy. You are expected to try something further until you are asked to stop. There are no permission slips or paperwork involved. Like I said, it all depends on the perceptions of the people involved. Most such situations can be either a love story or a horror movie depending on the way you write them.
In the legal sense, no. I am much more reserved than most people and don’t even try unless I can clearly tell that I have a bright green light but I have been wrong before.
The bolded sentences mean you believe a guy out w/ your daughter has carte blanche to try anything w/ her until she convinces him she doesn’t want him to do it. Is that correct?
No! There is a whole lot of nuance there that you are missing. He is expected to try to take the first kiss and then move on from there. That doesn’t mean that he can just randomly stick his hand on her crotch and start rubbing. There is a big difference but the point is that he is expected to keep going until she feels it has gone too far and asks him to stop. If he doesn’t comply, that is a reasonable definition of sexual assault IMO.
By ‘expected’, you mean ‘allowed’. A man is allowed to do what he wants until he is asked to stop.
And vice-versa.
I don’t like it when people are too uptight in general. I have a new coworker from out of the area that wanted to see something unique to the area this week. I immediately thought of a high-end Rhode Island strip club (some of the best in the country). His dumb ass was 2 hours late and it was a slow time so I just got to talk with lots of strippers. That was like a feminist paradise in a good way. They were all smart, extremely well paid, independent and fun to talk to. We talked about everything from degrees in clinical psychology to travel in the Greek Islands and home ownership. I made it clear that I wasn’t giving them any money until he showed up but we had a great just talking. They are the ones in control in that environment so we just hung out and had fun. BTW, these ladies are all 8’s, 9’s and a couple of 10’s on the looks scale. The one thing they all have in common is their confident ability to deal with and control men.
It can be done. I wish the whole world worked that way.
I sincerely have no idea what that has to do with anything. It also worries me that you think that you may have committed sexual assault.
I am absolutely confident that I have never assaulted anyone. Sexually or otherwise. It’s not the kind of thing normal people do, or forget that they did.
Not by my definition. I am just using the reasoning that some of the more extreme definitions other people are using. I am more reserved and polite than a normal guy to a fault. I think that causes me to miss out on some opportunities. The message I get from some of these types of threads is to never hit on women at all because so many of them are fragile.
I don’t think that is true but it makes me paranoid to even try. My stripper anecdote was just to illustrate not all women think the same way and that made me realize that. It isn’t like I hang out in strip clubs very often but it is an eye opener when you talk with beautiful women that specialize in dealing with men and seemingly enjoy it.
I understand the general sentiment quite well because I have daughters to you can take this line of thinking way too far and I think that a lot of people have crossed it already because it is colored by a few bad experiences.
For you this should be fairly simple: treat women (and men, if you are so inclined) the way you want others to treat your daughters (or sons, as applicable).
The world where a woman considers it a form of sexual assault if a man insists on holding her hand in a romantically demonstrative fashion.
When I say “a friend”, we knew each other on a first name basis and had closer friends in common.