Men - Does it bother you that everybody assumes you're a child molester?

Great Debates
81

[QUOTE=OtakuLoki]

I seem to scare people. I’ve startled people while walking on the sidewalks, without ever trying to hide my presence. I’ve had people walk across the street so they don’t have to pass me. I’ve walked some bad areas of NYC and Jersey City in the middle of the night and had that happen. (Not the worst areas of either, but not the choicest, either.)

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Are you sure you don’t just look like a mobster?

These posts are sad. But, as a woman, I probably would trust my (hypothetical) kids more around a woman than a man, depending on his looks, I guess. I suppose it’s this well we’ve dug which, as others have mentioned, is no good for anyone, including women who hate kids and guys who love them. Any deviation provokes suspicion.

At the same time, I think when you’re a girl and you reach 11 or 12 and get your first catcall, that sticks with you. And when you realize the number of boys and grown men, otherwise respectable people, who assume they have the right to touch you or speak dirty to you on the street… it’s got to stick with you once your own daughter gets around that age.

82

I definitely get this vibe… sometimes. I wouldn’t say it’s a big problem. When I come out into my yard my neighbor calls his kids into the house; but he’s a complete puckered assshole. From time to time I’ve noticed Moms locking car doors or detouring around me. Honestly though, I’d rather assume all men are pervs than take the chance of my child dealing with a predator.

When I was out with my sons (when they were little) I often got “advice” from women who seemed to think I was a weekend dad. That was annoying. Doh!.. I just realized… could they have been interested in me?

83

Did they ask if you were “babysitting” your own child? Because that makes steam come out of my ears when I hear it.

84

[QUOTE=Scylla]
I couldn’t give two shits how “sad” you think it is that I am more than a little concerned about my daughter’s well-being. The simple fact is that there are monsters out there, forces of evil that would do my daughter and that those forces look and act just like you.

It doesn’t have anything to do with “this country” or paranoia. It is not “sad” or “a shame” and I have no empathy for the smug sadness and feeling of being put upon or falsely suspected, because my daughter’s safety comes before your feelings.

Tough shit. Deal with it.
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If this is the “beautiful butterfly,” any chance we can get the worm back?

85

[QUOTE=kambuckta]
Eight year old girls (for the most part) aren’t really changing and maturing all that much except for getting taller, skinnier and a lot smarter. They are not sexual beings, except in Scylla’s mind, which is a worry.
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Yes, but this is Scylla’s daughter. And you gotta understand, anything at all connected with Scylla is the acme, the ultimate, unparalleled. There has never been an eight-year-old more dazzling. Liz Taylor at eighteen was nothing compared to this young lady. Good thing Scylla has an electric fence.

86

[QUOTE=Zsofia]
Did they ask if you were “babysitting” your own child? Because that makes steam come out of my ears when I hear it.
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The correct way for a dad to respond to, “Are you babysitting?” is a confused look and a, “No, I’m parenting.”

Well, I can also say that “being thought of as a molester” is something I’ve had to be aware of. Not long ago we had a criminal case brought to us, where a young girl accused the father of her friend of molesting her at said friend’s house. As my boss, the felony prosecutor, put it, even if the charges weren’t true, he was dumb to let himself end up in a situation where he could be accused. My boss said of his own daughter, “If she has friends over, I make sure I’m never alone with them. If my wife is going shopping, I tell her, ‘take both of them with you.’” I suppose it’s sad that we have to think about such things, but it’s all about not creating an opportunity where you can be falsely accused of something inappropriate.

I have a 14 month old girl, who is a shameless flirt in public. She smiles at strangers all the time, and giggles and looks coy. She’s especially drawn to other little kids. So far, that hasn’t created a problem; there’s something about carrying around a baby of your own that seems to at least partly defuse the “danger! pervert!” signal in other people’s brains. Still, I sure don’t go out of my way to interact with other people’s children. If she starts interacting with someone else’s kid, I tend to just focus on my own child. “Who’s your new friend?” That sort of thing.

I’m sure, as she gets older and gets friends, the situation’s going to get dicier, which sucks. Even worse, of course, is the fact that she’s a girl, which means in all likelihood that, when she becomes a teenager, she’ll turn on her mother and I’ll be the favorite parent (I taunt my wife about that all the time); if she doesn’t want mom around when she has friends over, that could be a problem. I suppose I’ll just deal with it somehow when it comes.

87

Or try, “No, these are my kids.”

88

[QUOTE=Max Torque]
I’m sure, as she gets older and gets friends, the situation’s going to get dicier, which sucks. Even worse, of course, is the fact that she’s a girl, which means in all likelihood that, when she becomes a teenager, she’ll turn on her mother and I’ll be the favorite parent (I taunt my wife about that all the time); if she doesn’t want mom around when she has friends over, that could be a problem. I suppose I’ll just deal with it somehow when it comes.
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Well, you could always set up a webcam on the teenagers, and stream the video to a website, so everyone can see you’re not doing anything unseemly. Best not to tell them about it though - you don’t want them to be self conscious or anything.

Wait a sec…

89

[QUOTE=Max Torque]
As my boss, the felony prosecutor, put it, even if the charges weren’t true, he was dumb to let himself end up in a situation where he could be accused. My boss said of his own daughter, “If she has friends over, I make sure I’m never alone with them. If my wife is going shopping, I tell her, ‘take both of them with you.’” I suppose it’s sad that we have to think about such things, but it’s all about not creating an opportunity where you can be falsely accused of something inappropriate.
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And why, exactly, is this allowable in a culture which has (mostly) decided that saying the same thing to a victim of rape is not allowable? He’s not “asking for it”, he’s not “courting danger”, he’s not “obviously looking for trouble”, he’s turning down the opportunity to be a dad. Additionally, he’s inconveniencing his wife and sending nice '50’s Dad vibes to the girls that they’re the Mom’s responsibility and wouldn’t girls be happier shopping, anyway?

I know this is common advice given in school type settings, “never be in a room alone with 'em” sort of stuff. But it’s insulting and sexist and ridiculous. Would the same school administrators claim that a student wearing a short skirt was creating an opportunity where she could be raped, and therefore culpable?

90

[QUOTE=Cat Fight]
Are you sure you don’t just look like a mobster?

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Speaking of having too much TV on the brain…
On to the OP, no it doesn’t bother me in the least. That’s because I don’t give a fuck what people think about me, and that goes for what I wear all the way to how much fun I have play wrestling with my son’s friends in the kiddie pool. But then again, I’m not in the position to have my career or professional reputation ruined by those kinds of accusations, so YMMV.

91

[QUOTE=Rilchiam]
Yes, but this is Scylla’s daughter. And you gotta understand, anything at all connected with Scylla is the acme, the ultimate, unparalleled. There has never been an eight-year-old more dazzling. Liz Taylor at eighteen was nothing compared to this young lady. Good thing Scylla has an electric fence.
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Every parent thinks their child is beautiful. Your snark serves no purpose in this thread.

92

[QUOTE=Lord Ashtar]
Every parent thinks their child is beautiful. Your snark serves no purpose in this thread.
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That’s basically what I thought when I read Scylla’s post, but…I don’t know, it came off a little creepy. I mean, she’s eight. If my father wrote those kinds of things about me at a normal post-pubescent age, I’d be weirded out.

93

Also wanted to share–I just finished reading the book “Predators” by Anna Salter, and towards the end, she gives some tips for how parents can avoid their children being victimized. She talks about how men who don’t have a lot of adult relationships (sexual or otherwise), who spend a lot of time with kids (like coaches, etc.) are in her “high risk” group. For that reason, she never leaves her kids alone during extracurricular activities (goes to all the games/practices), talks about going to dances (though I assume she’d stop doing that for middle school kids–that would be weird), that sort of thing. It seemed a bit obsessive to me…but maybe her experiences are colored by the fact that she works with both sex offenders and victims of sex crimes?

94

[QUOTE=WhyNot]
I know this is common advice given in school type settings, “never be in a room alone with 'em” sort of stuff. But it’s insulting and sexist and ridiculous. Would the same school administrators claim that a student wearing a short skirt was creating an opportunity where she could be raped, and therefore culpable?
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It’s not sexist because the same rules apply to female teachers. We are all, male and female teachers alike, told never to be alone with the door closed in a room with a student. We are not allowed to have them in our cars, even to drive them home in an emergency, nor, believe it or not, with a parent’s consent. It’s a liability issue, not just a sexual one either.

95

To my mind, not being a child-care worker, the fear of being thought a child molester is something I’ve read about but not really experienced at first hand.

As a father of a young boy, I will say that the parental paranoia is something I have to face all the time - those nagging fears that something bad will happen to my child; they are indeed very powerful but I try to tone 'em down in my own mind as much as I can, because the alternative is to be rather too smothering. When the harm from the paranoia outweighs the protection, you gotta turn it down a notch.

Even so, my fears are all in the realm of ‘what might happen’ type nightmares. I’ve never thought to myself “that guy might be a molester”, just gone through agonies whenever I read a news account of some child missing, raped or killed.

96

[QUOTE=Rubystreak]
It’s not sexist because the same rules apply to female teachers. We are all, male and female teachers alike, told never to be alone with the door closed in a room with a student. We are not allowed to have them in our cars, even to drive them home in an emergency, nor, believe it or not, with a parent’s consent. It’s a liability issue, not just a sexual one either.
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So why is a male teacher specifically counseled to have a *female *teacher, administrator or just some random *woman *passing by the classroom be his witness, and a female teacher told to have “someone else”, gender unspecified, in the room? Why are the men in this thread concerned with having a woman present, not just another adult?

97

I’m late to this party but I’ll admit to feeling all the time the subtle pressure to watch the way I behave around children so there’s no opportunity for accusations.

My old church had a rule that men couldn’t work in the nursery alone, as if changing a diaper for a child was a sexual thing. Statistically, one in six molesters is a woman - but the same chances as Russian roulette aren’t significant to parents.

My closest brush with sexual abuse where the young daughter of an aquaintance was molested by her *female * babysitter.

I’m good with children as a rule, they seem to like me. I’m big but apparently non-threatening. I think it’s the weight and my tenor voice - I look more like a large kid than an adult to a kid.

I’m always aware, though, of appearances - and try to end any interaction with a kid at some point before it might appear skeevy to a parent. Also, I have to remember never to actually touch one. Picking one up from a fall at the playground would be simply a no-no.

Mostly I worry about Mom’s reponses, most Dads are in the same boat as me.

98

[QUOTE=Freudian Slit]
That’s basically what I thought when I read Scylla’s post, but…I don’t know, it came off a little creepy. I mean, she’s eight. If my father wrote those kinds of things about me at a normal post-pubescent age, I’d be weirded out.
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Predators are like anyone with respect to being drawn to more attractive vs less attractive sexual objects depending on their particular fetish. This is human nature. A classically “cute”, “budding”, or “coltish” little girl is going to differentially attract the attention of more child predators than a more ordinary looking child. Any father who refuses to recognize that and take sensible precautions is being irresponsible if he has a cute “dolly” for a daughter.

99

I’ve gotten it definitely. It isn’t fair and I hate it.

My wife’s sister is subtle but I definitely get the vibe whenever her little girl wants me to play. Her little girl (3 years old) adores me so usually comes and sits down beside me when I come into the room. I always catch her mom glancing sideways at us. Once when she sat in my lap, her mom came and got her immediately.

My grandmother of all people did it to me. My mother was babysitting one of my female cousins and left her with me to run get something from the grocery store. I was sixteen and she was eight or so. My grandmother found out and freaked out about it. I was shocked, floored, etc. Words couldn’t describe the hurt I felt knowing that she thought I’d do something like that.

100

With regard to the eight-year-old thing, I think current ideals regarding the female body are having their effect. Grown women are supposed to look like they never went through puberty (no body hair, no extraneous fat), plus or minus breast implants.