This thread is all over the place.
The OP is not “I have this irrational fear. How do I cope?”
The OP is “Here’s a new perspective. What is your reply to this?”
I’m not prone to call irrational fears new perspectives. I’ll say right up front that I’m dismissive of treating irrational fears like a perspective.
If someone tells me of their irrational fear and wants my sympathy, my empathy, my thoughts on what can be done to overcome it, or my understanding if they do something weird, they can get those things. But I’m not going to say “Hmm, what a valuable and interesting perspective.”
I’m developing some sort of claustrophobia type thing as I get older. That doesn’t give me perspective. It gives me anxiety.
Huh. Really?
LHOD I disagree strongly. “Reframing” something so that it no longer expresses the actual thought is no solution.
He has fear. It is irrational and it is real. It turns out that he is not alone. Look at what Cartooniverse describes he does, out of fear … of what? He avoids sitting near a child and to all in the subway commits to “Zero contact. Zero words. Zero looking or reacting.” His fear of a false “life-changing accusation” has him potentially even withholding his assisting someone in an emergency.
How often do these false life-changing accusations of assault based on casual contact with an unknown person on the train actually occur to warrant such fear?
Is that zero contact and being afraid to offer help in an emergency also in the range of someone not enjoying the movie as much?
The point of the op was his admitting to that fear and wondering if he is alone in them or not. Pretending that he is asking about something else instead of honestly sharing his fear and asking what he meant to ask is required?
Yes, the threat of sexual assault is in our society, especially but not solely for women and girls is pervasive in our society. The subject deserves the serious discussion and attention it is getting and such is long overdue. And the op was asking about something else. Such should be be permissible.
Really I wonder how posters so insulting to him would feel if they started a thread on sexual harassment and genocide survivors came in and made fun of them for concerned about that after what they’ve gone through: A bit of Schadenfreud Americans. Welcome to my world. Except we were butchered. Now you know a little bit of what it felt like. Yeah, it’s always what about meee with you Americans.
jsgoddess when the op asks “Have any other guys been bothered by this? Or am I needlessly obsessing?” it reads pretty clearly to me as asking if he is or is not alone being afraid like this and an understanding that indeed his fear may be needless. At least an openness to being told that it is. Which would be a rational response that probably would not relieve the fear because, y’know, irrational.
So, I’ll ask. There seem to be quite a few Americans, males in particular, who are irrationally fearful of false accusations. It impacts their behavior (see Cartooniverse above) and possibly even makes some of them less likely to be as supportive of helping implement whatever societal changes are needed to help decrease the abuse and harassment that many women are very rationally afraid of.
If you are not curious as to how pervasive that fear is and what its impact is, fine. If you feel that those with that fear should just just keep their mouths the fuck shut about it and keep it to themselves, because women actually getting assaulted and afraid to speak up is a more important problem. Okay. But it really is possible to accept that one problem is real big and important and still have conversations about other problems too.
…yep really. This is my full quote: including what you snipped what you snipped:
“the OP has expressed no empathy for anyone with a different perspective at all.” “Feeling sad” for victims is not the same as expressing empathy for people with a different perspective. They are two different things. Because the different perspective we are talking about is one:
Mean Mr. Mustard didn’t acknowledge, let alone express empathy with Broomstick. So other people have chimed into the thread to make the same identical point, albeit less “politely”. And Mean Mr. Mustard has not expressed empathy with any of them either.
So “yes really.” I stand by what I said.
And the rest of of your quote:
Okay, I get how labelling his fear a “perspective” can rub jsgodess the wrong way, but what else of his op sharing of his fear while expressing an awareness that there are many victims and some empathy for them, was so “insulting”?
For the record, I am sorry that Broomstick also, for reasons other that those of the op, has “paranoid alertness” about people in movie theaters. I appreciate the fact that she is not alone in that sense and do wonder how widespread that degree of worry is. I also appreciate that that worry is less irrational than the op’s. The broader subject of sexual assault by strangers (which occurs albeit less often than by those already known to the victim) is of real concern. It is a fear women have to deal with that men do not.
And since I am male and this is all about me (amirite?) how much should males be concerned that they are setting off the fears of women by themselves or of parents? Should they intentionally give additional personal space to a woman in a populated public space than they would to a male to avoid triggering anxiety? Is it really necessary for males to be careful about not letting your eyes linger on any one child who isn’t interacting with your own child as reasonable caution, to be sure to communicate through body language that they’e not particularly interested in the other kids?
Personally I have no concern about looking at kids on a playground and smiling at the things they do. I just have not ever considered that I would potentially be seen as Aqualung based on my gender. I am however conscious to not follow too closely behind woman going into a parking structure at night, for example. Not because I am afraid of a false charge though, but because I am afraid of making her afraid. But I would not think of giving additional personal space over another unknown male sitting at a movie. Should I? The question is independent of whether or not the fear of a male sitting nearby in a theater is rational or irrational. It is based on whether or not it is commonly held.
Is asking these questions allowed or is it also “What About MEEEEE???”
Good for you, and I think it’s great if you do that. But it’s a big ask from women (or men) who are also full of fear and are living their lives that way. Like, why do I have to console your fear; who is consoling me?
It amazes me that some men are so afraid of being falsely accused of something. But I’m a woman; I don’t live in their world and I don’t see what they see, so I can’t really judge if it’s reasonable or not. I do think it’s a shame if men are now afraid to interact with children. It seems like a big loss to society, to everyone involved.
Honestly, I think this is completely unrealistic paranoia. Some random 6 year old in a movie theater is no more likely to spontaneously make a false allegation of sexual assault than she is to spontaneously pull out a gun and shoot you. There isn’t some rash of adults making false accusations against total strangers, either – no matter how much the perpetrators out there would like you to think there is – but moreover, a typical six year old wouldn’t even understand how to make such an accusation, because most six year olds are (thankfully) not aware that sexual assault is a thing. If for some implausible reason a kid that age wanted to try to get you in trouble, they’d be more likely to think of something like accusing you of “saying a bad word”.
Aqualung?
Is that site trying to be the non-awful version of /r/MensRights? If so: I can totally get behind that.
Really? I’ve heard figures for false rape accusations between 2% and 8% - i.e. in line with most crimes. Your odds of getting falsely accused of rape, as a man, are low, and considerably lower than your odds of getting raped as a woman, but it’s not “incredibly, spectacularly minimal”. You’re not talking about Clymer’s bogus stats, are you?
Heh. I even googled Aqualung, and read the Wikipedia summary of the song, and dismissed that as a reference. The more you know…
The thing is, I’ve probably taken my kids to the playground hundreds of times. I have never, to the best of my knowledge, been subject to such suspicion. The closest I can think of is when my wife and I struck up a conversation with another mom at the park, and when the mom found out (through an innocuous but convoluted method) that my wife had given birth via c-section, started giving passive-aggressive snipes at her for not choosing natural childbirth.
And I think that’s about the level of harm we’re talking about here: someone engages in social disapproval for stupid reasons that show they don’t know what they’re on about. Yeah, that’s infuriating when it happens. But it doesn’t bear worrying about. It doesn’t support a culture of fear. And it sure isn’t the same thing either as an actual false accusation of assault, or as an actual assault. We’re talking apples and tornadoes here.
Let’s split the difference and assume that 5% of all rape accusations are false. In 2011, which was the most recent convenient year I have numbers for, 243,800 sexual assaults were reported to the police. The CDC estimates that the number of actual rapes/assaults is close to two million, but we’re talking about accusations. For the purposes of this math, we are going to pretend that every single one of those reported assaults has a suspect, and hence an accused. 0.05 x 243,800 = 12,190. To be clear, that is 12,190 men per year that we are postulating may be falsely accused of sexual assault, and this is likely far higher than the actual number. There are approximately 119.4 million men over the age of 18 in the United States. 12,190/119,400,000 = 0.00001. Multiply by 100 for percentage, and any individual man’s odds of being falsely accused of sexual assault comes to 0.001%, about the same as your odds of being hospitalized from a dog attack.
The real odds, using real numbers, are of course much, much lower still, I was generous with my assumptions in these calculations.
You’re off by a factor of 1000. 12190/119400000 * 100 = 0.0102, not 0.00001. So the actual number is 0.01%.
Okay. A woman’s individual odds of being raped, by this calculation, are… 321,500 (stats from RAINN) / 125,000,000 = 0.002572 = 0.2%. Which is also quite a small number, although I will note that it is about an order of magnitude more likely than being falsely accused of rape, which I will freely concede.
Maybe this isn’t the best way of examining the risk.
So it hasn’t happened to you. But it DOES happen. I’ll counteract your anecdote with mine:
I had occasion, several years ago, to watch over my neighbor’s kids at a playground while neighbor was sitting nearby engrossed in a discussion with her lawyer (over unrelated matters).
Somebody suspiciously asked me if I had kids there. The first concern here is: Why did he even have cause to ask that? There was no reason to suspect that I might be different than any other adult nearby.
The next thing I know, I was greeted by cops bearing questions. From the line of questioning, it became apparent that somebody else had called them. So there were two people suspicious of me for no apparent reason. The sole obvious reason to be suspicious of me was that I was a single adult male there. There would have been no way for either of them to know if any of the children there were mine or otherwise in my care. I was under suspicion simply for EWM (Existing While Male) and nothing more.
The issue with the police was quickly settled. The mother came over and spoke for me (and it probably helped that there was a lawyer there too). The person who called the cops was also questioned, and I heard (second-hand) that the withdrew her complaint (whatever it was) and apologized.
The police did, however, take down my name, address, and other identifying details. (They were also a bit apologetic, saying it was their duty to respond to ALL complaints.) So I guess I’m now a known entity at the police department. I’d probably be well advised to NOT linger to watch some children playing soccer in that city for the near foreseeable eternity. (I no longer live in that city.)
You are only using numbers for sexual assaults reported to the police. That does not include matters settled more informally. Anything from a “how dare you sit that close to my daughter” hairy eyeball to an actual physical attack.
In any case, I see this as more a question of how to avoid causing other people to feel fear from my presence, not really how to prevent them from expressing that fear in legal or extra legal ways.
If there are other seats to be had, do you think it would be appropriate for me, a 40 year old guy, to sit down next to a small child? How about a single woman?
Should I not be concerned about the people I sit near, should I not be concerned about their irrational fear that I may molest them?
I’m not really worried about having my life ruined, but having my movie made less enjoyable, sure. If I am getting dirty looks from a parent who thinks I am sitting too close, or a woman who feels I have invaded her space, and you know what, they aren’t going to be enjoying the movie either.
So yeah, I’m going to be aware of my surroundings, and avoid doing any actions that could be taken as malicious, because even if I don’t get accused, even if I go on about my day without a single recrimination, if I take actions that could be interpreted as malicious, I could be ruining someone else’s day.
I am sorry that happened to you Senegoid but I can easily believe it. Besides my problem with the clueless bitch psychologist, the only other problem I have noticed with my daughters was when I was traveling with them alone especially when they were very young. TSA doesn’t like to see a male travelling cross-country alone with two young girls. They got singled out for questioning to make sure what our relationship was, where we were going and when we were coming back. I had to coach them on what to say each time because they were very shy around people they thought were police officers and wouldn’t even give their names the first couple of times.
It is a little better now especially because we look alike but I can imagine it would be a big problem for a single man with an adopted daughter, especially one of a different race.
You really haven’t been paying careful attention to this thread, have you?
The big problem is not children making overt accusations of sexual assault. The problem is the Big Folks making absurd over-the-top interpretations of the most innocuous incidents. Did you see my post, in which I mention that my 3rd grade teacher tucked in my shirt for me? Do you recognize how the shit could have hit the fan IF (a) that had happened today AND (b) if I had innocuously mentioned it to somebody.
Did you read Shagnasty’s event at Post #147?
It may have been resolved, buy you can be sure that Shagnasty has a permanent dossier at CPS now. If he ever pats his daughter on the back again while she has a sunburn, he could be in big shit trouble.
THAT’S the kind of shit that Mean Mr. Mustard, and Cartooniverse, and Shagnasty, have to be wary of. It’s not their own paranoia that’s the problem. It’s the pervasive paranoia throughout the ambient society in these hysterical times that we need to worry about.
ETA: And I see Shagnasty has ninjae’d me even as I typed this post. Geez!
So what you’re concerned about are breaches of social etiquette, not actual accusations?
OK then.