Yes, you made it clear already, back on page 1 if memory serves, that you’re convinced she’s making it all up. Thanks, your opinion has been taken into account.
OK.
In my experience, many highly uncomfortable, risky, dangerous, and even potentially deadly situations do not sound such when described to third parties ex post facto. If you’re not there, not in the victim’s shoes, not seeing all the body language cues, not faced with the physical presence, not there to experience the aloneness of being in the wrong place at the wrong time, then it’s very difficult sometimes to understand exactly why a situation can be really bad, yet perhaps not sound that way. I personally have been in situations where I was scared to the bone by someone and yet I know when I described it later, I was met with a chorus of “what’s the big deal?” For all the lead-up to when I was raped, if I had described the sequence of events right up to maybe 60 seconds before, I’m sure it would have been more of “what’s the big deal?” Yet because I was there, I knew I was in trouble the whole time along.
I believe Broomstick for that reason, and for the reason that as long as I’ve known her, including reading things she’s not made broadly public, she’s always been honest and forthright. There is no reason to doubt her honesty, nor is there compelling evidence to doubt her experience.
Some few of you are disappointing me; I know you are much better people than you’re acting. It might seem like cheap laughs to pick on mistakes in posts or attitude or whatever, but try to think about how you might describe something that happened to you if you were truly scared and/or angry about it. I’m not going to defend nor castigate any specific post or poster (setting aside the fact I’m prohibited from Pitting people, and even from responding to threads where I’m being Pitted), just talking to the audience.
Before that, lack of vocabulary. Afterward, hypocrisy. To this day.
Well, that was clarifying. Now, what’s your opinion on self-identified “good guys” who would know better than to actually do this shit, and who would applaud the OP if she kneed the creep in the balls?
I’ll assume that last question is directed at me. And that’s not what I said. What I said was:
because in the OP, she said:
which indicated to me that the manager may have been present during the original harassment. I did not say “Why didn’t you get your manager?” which is a completely different thing.
I was asking for more information because, in my mind, any halfway decent human being would assist when they saw someone being harassed in this way. I was in no way suggesting that she had some way of preventing what happened to her, in fact I was extremely willing to offer my sympathy up until she responded so horribly to me.
Maybe I’m just colored by my personal experience, my friend was stalked and verbally sexually harassed. I advised calling the police. She did, multiple times. No, she didn’t get raped (luckily), but it sure as hell didn’t make him quit and mostly just made him mad at her. He not once got more than a “now son, don’tcha go near her again, y’hear? Or there’s gonna be trouble!” And then trouble never came for him. I’m pretty sure the only reason he quit (because apparently “being 100% dyke”* isn’t a reason for a guy to stop hitting on someone) was because he graduated. Sure, the paper trail may have, theoretically, made a rape or murder trial easier, but big whoop.
I do want to mention that I never said that calling the cops was wrong, I simply said it’s not guaranteed to do anything, and could make it worse. In other words, it’s a crapshoot. I would agree that overall calling the cops is probably the computer-generated “correct” solution (reward is higher than risk), I was merely saying that it’s not a simple “better/worse” binary, there’s probability and ambiguity involved that you can’t resolve by simply saying “rationally this is the only logical choice.” In other words, should Broomstick have called the cops? Maaaybe, bordering on probably. But I don’t think it’s as obvious or clear cut a decision as you make it out to be.
- Her words, not mine
Who said the cop is a potential rapist? I don’t think the cop is a potential rapist, I just don’t think he’s likely to take the matter seriously. For that matter, it’s not guaranteed a woman cop would take it seriously.
Nope, it’s also a crapshoot whether they’d ask about how much/often he’s been in the shop before, whether or not it had happened before, etc.
The amusing thing about your “nothing elaborate” statement is that two people in real life have offered to lend me a gun. Personally, I think both those characters are a little too gun happy - on the other hand, both have been attacked themselves at work (and they’re both men - not potential rape but armed robbery in their case).
Hmm… wonder if the reason those two men so readily believed me is because they had been attacked at work?
Oh - sorry, now I see the confusion. His sandal-fixing took a couple days, repairing the soles required the cement we used to cure up for 48 hours. The manager saw the sandals sitting on the shelf during that time period and declared them unrepairable because the aesthetic result would be crap. The customer had been insistent that we try anyway and that he didn’t care about the look, just that he would get functional sandals back. So the manager had seen the sandals the day before, but was not present during the confrontation.
For some men, her being a dyke is an incentive to harass her - see corrective rape. That’s an extreme example, but some men view lesbians as a challenge, or maybe think they’re so manly even the dykes find them desirable.
Maybe that’s why “call the cops” isn’t my first go-to. I’m not interested in catching a rapist after he rapes me, I’m interested in not being raped. Cops aren’t going to prevent that because odds are they won’t be there at that moment. The times in the past someone tried to rape me what stopped it was ME - especially Mr. Drag-Into-the-Bushes. But while I can, unquestionably, fight back and I’m strong for a woman my size and age, I’m three times older now than when I last fought off a man intent that sort of assault and I know I’m not as strong and fast as I used to be. I also don’t particularly want to engage in violence even if I’m capable of it and pretty decent at it. I know some people don’t understand that very well.
Which is not to say Mr. Creeper is a rapist - it’s entirely possible he wouldn’t rape a woman, he’s just skeevy and so persistent as to be threatening. Then again, maybe he would. That’s part of the problem, I just don’t know. He DID leave when told to do so, but he also came back.
Jesus Christ, now even sven is being sexually harassed by straw men. Go get your pitchforks.
I just wanted to compliment everyone on how well this thread is going.
I’m…not sure why you ask that. I wouldn’t have an opinion either way, as I would consider that a pretty normal (and non-asshole) response. Are you looking for your “meets minimum standards of decency” cookie?
I really don’t think some of you are even actually reading and responding to the whole conversation, you’re looking for posts by your favorite snark targets to fap about.
No, what even sven is doing is trying to educate the “he wasn’t so bad, nothing really happened” contingent. A lot of people are accusing Broomstick of conflating what happened to her with rape (which she didn’t do), but as has been pointed out by people in this very thread who have been sexually assaulted, this kind of behavior is often how starts and it can escalate very quickly. That isn’t hysteria, it’s not crazy women making shit up, it is reality.
Personally speaking, I’ve worked retail and restaurant jobs in the past, and if I had a patron who did something like this to me, I’d ask a friend (preferably a large male friend) to escort to me to my car when my shift was over, if possible. Not because Creepy Guy is definitely 100% a rapist, but because he’s behaving really inappropriately, and shit, how the hell do I know what other inappropriate stuff he might do?
I mean, I worked with a lot of waitresses who got business cards from guys during their shifts or whatever. Having a guy give you his number and a wink and say “Call me” is really normal and no big deal. Having the same guy come back the next day to harass you about not calling him is totally fucked up and not cool. And yeah, if I were the lone woman working at the store I’d be very wigged out about it.
If you can find one example of my having made a comment towards **even sven **before, I’d like to see it.
I didn’t say fuckall about you ever commenting to her before. So.
Right you just quoted me and then, in the next sentence said : “you’re looking for posts by your favorite snark targets.”
My mistake.
The elite prostitutes that we think of as courtesans who had more sexual freedom than other woman of their time represented only a rarefied top tier of their profession. The sexual freedom in the West today is a result of better birth control technology and most importantly, changes in marital patterns whereby a woman no longer has to be a virgin in order to make a good marriage.
For all of your guys who think it is oh, so terrible that you have to be careful not to say something threatening or demeaning to a woman, consider the alternatives. No conversation at all unless you are married to her or her kinsmen beat you up for “insulting” their relative. Or she assumes any attempt at getting her attention is an attack and tasers you.
Perhaps you don’t realize, but some of us actually like trainwrecks.
Schrodinger’s Rapist. I’m sure the usual suspects will accuse the author of over-reacting and being a feminist bitch.
This was way to amicable of a response for the pit. 
I agree that there are lots of shades of gray with any situation. I think that in nearly every situation that someone leaves you fearful, shaken, and concerned they may return to do it again a police report should be filed. However I understand this is Broomstick’s choice to make.
The incessant strawman/well-poisoning arguments that surface whenever this topic comes up are really tiresome, and run counter to your desire to be taken seriously.
Any more and I may lose my erection.
Jaw. Floor.
Bricker, I see that you’ve been more than adequately reamed out in this thread (not that it did much good), so I won’t pile on. But jeez, I had no idea you were this clueless.
Hell, if I’d been in Broomstick’s position, and a woman had gone after me the way this guy came after her, the only reason I’d feel more annoyed than scared is that a man can generally handle it if a woman physically attacks him. But I’d be kinda nervous just the same, in a world where firearms are all too abundant.