If you say so.
I’m not pitting him for looking creepy, which, except when it comes to clothing style or haircut, a person has little control over. I’m pitting him for acting creepy, when he has complete control over his behavior.
Let’s change the scenario a bit. Say I go to the grocery store with a girlfriend on a Sunday afternoon. Mr. Creepy, who was walking past the grocery store, decides to follow us in. He follows us around the store, trying to make conversation, while we ignore him or answer him curtly, telling him through body language and tone of voice we don’t want to be bothered. He continues to follow us, all the while never bothering to grab a cart or basket or even looking at the products on the shelves, clearly there only because we are.
Is that behavior not creepy? I think so, even without the secluded location, late hour, and the lack of other people around. It’s because he’s not acting in a socially acceptable manner. He’s in a location with no good reason to be there, except to chat up some woman (which I’ll admit is not in and of itself creepy, I’m sure a lot of people meet this way) and on top of that he continues to persist despite the woman’s lack of interest and discomfort. That’s not socially acceptable- you don’t inflict your company upon someone who doesn’t want it. Add to that the late hour and deserted laundromat, and you’ve got uber-creepy behavior.
Yeah, so erring on the side of caution you will end up with false positives, in that every creepy guy you meet might not try to rape or kill you, but that doesn’t change the fact that their behavior was creepy. He acted creepy, which made me uncomfortable, and even a moron should have enough common sense to realize that 1) said behavior was not acceptable and/or 2) it made me uncomfortable.
I didn’t call him a rapist or psychopath, I called him Creepy McCreeperton, which he was.
Tell me about it. Nothing like a .22 to convince a bitch to keep her mouth shut.
I don’t know. I’ve been there. I mean - I’ve been outside, after dark, or even in the daylight, without an excuse for being where I am. One good thing about cigarettes - they give you an excuse for being somewhere, so you get fewer nervous looks. I kind of resent the idea you can’t sit on a bench or whatever, without being a threat to someone who happens to be nearby.
Of course, I don’t chat up women I don’t know. Maybe because I’m a pussy, or maybe because I’m polite. Either way, it’s rude.
I do sometimes ask people for a light. But I don’t share my drugs with strangers.
I suspect he might have been trying to get in your pants.
Exactly. So you’d probably never get pitted like the OP’s target, since you wouldn’t be committing the obnoxious behaviour of forcing your conversation on someone who clearly doesn’t want to know - and if you did, I’m sure there wouldn’t be very much support for it. Nobody’s going to try to dny your right to be out after dark without any particular reason (well, ok, we’re in the Pit, probably SOMEBODY’s going to, but you know what I mean)
On the other hand, odds on you have triggered some women’s spidey senses at some point doing that, and they’ve gone away thinking ‘what the hell was that creepy guy doing sitting around in the park for no apparent reason after dark?’ Sorry, it sucks, but that’s the way it is.
Of course, unless THEY are really obnoxious, they’ll never tell you about it. ‘Don’t bug me and I won’t bug you’ is most women’s after-dark credo - at least, those of us who are there at all.
I still don’t think you get what I’m saying. His actions made you think he was creepy. Sure, I can understand why you would think that. But there are others (including me) who would disagree. So it’s unfair to pit him for actions that have credible alternative explanations.
Ha! Ha ha ha ha ha! This is the precise thinking underlying many a Pit response, and it cracks me up every single time.
Kinda looks like “Chucky”, doesn’t he?
Careful! According to everyone in great debates, you can’t insult people for things they can’t help. :rolleyes:
So it’s unfair to pit someone unless you can be sure in advance everyone will agree with you?
:rolleyes:
I don’t see any credible alternative explanations for anything, except maybe boredom/lonliness/insomnia to explain why he was out walking around with no particular destination. Which doesn’t change the fact that, whatever the reason he showed up at the laundromat, he stayed there and bothered me despite my obvious unhappiness with the fact he was there. That’s annoying in the best of situations, but jumps to creepy after dark when you’re alone. I don’t think it takes a genius to see that.
I’m sure that every one of the posters who mentioned that they like to strike up conversations with strangers would desist if said stranger buried themself in the newspaper, avoided eye contact, ignored them, and only answered when absolutely necessary, but with a politely firm “Leave me the fuck alone” tone of voice. The behavior is the issue… the location, time, and fact that I was alone just took it beyond rude and annoying and straight to creepy.
That’s what I’m pitting him for. That behavior. If you don’t think it’s creepy, fine, but you can’t tell me it’s not rude.
A lot of men, particularly when intoxicated (and as I understand it, this guy almost certainly was) just would not get the hint.
Technically speaking, if something’s against the law all it means is that it’s illegal. That doesn’t necessarily mean it’s wrong, whatever “it” is.
Technically technically speaking ;), one could argue that one has a duty to accept laws set by the government or leave society.
Yes. And that makes them creeps.
Sorry, that’s just the way it is.
Or not.
The justification for imprisonment is the separating out of criminals due to the risk they pose to the population as a whole. Punishment, rehabilitation, deterrence, et al. are subordinate functions.
Homicide is homicide whether it’s murder, manslaughter, self-defense, negligent or accidental. The victim is just as dead in any case and someone somewhere is likely to mourn for their passing. The idea that the law should not account for the different circumstances and/or the future risk to general population posed by the killer is ridiculous.
Ignoring the fictional “all sex is rape” argument, there is no such thing as non-criminal rape, though there is non-criminal homicide, but productive parallels can be drawn from the comparison of the two. However, the popular idea is that rape is rape is rape. Any suggestion otherwise is framed as blaming the victim. And of course a murder victim can’t point out that you’re an asshole for saying they should have known better than to be out alone in that part of town…
Some of the replies in this thread made me think of this.
Remember: The police have no duty to provide for your safety.
Really? (this is the pit, so I won’t say ‘cite’). Is “the” justification written down in the legal code somewhere? It’s my impression that your list encompasses all the different justifications, and ‘which one is most important’ depends on who you ask.
How does your model account for, say, imprisonment for persistent non-payment of fines/taxes
“Hello, I am at the laudromat and there is a man acting suspiciously, maybe smoking pot, and he won’t leave me alone. Can you send a public safety officer by?”
Taken from advertisement for Hillborough city police position:
Some essential duties are:
• Responds to calls for service and takes appropriate action to resolve problems
• Renders assistance to citizens in distress
• Initiates investigation of criminal or suspicious activity
Abuse of the prison system.
Beaucarnea,
The police have no obligation to come to your aid.
The police have no liability for failure to come to your aid.
Examples (Warning! MS.DOC file!)
DeShaney v. Winnebago County Dept. of Social Services, 489 U.S. 189 (1989)
Hernandez v. City of Goshen, U.S.C.A. 7th Cir. Mar. 31, 2003
Zelig v. County of Los Angeles, 27 Cal.4th 1112, 119 Cal.Rptr.2d 709, 45 P.3d 1171 (2002)
Ashburn v. Anne Arundel County, 306 Md. 617, 510 A.2d 1078 (1986)
Everton v. Willard, 468 So.2d 936 (Fla. 1985)
Fox v. Custis, 712 F.2d 84 (4th Cir. 1983)
Warren v. District of Columbia, 444 A.2d 1 (D.C. 1981)
No success finding the texts online, but other cases commonly cited:
Riss v. City of New York, 22 N.Y.2d 579, 293 NYS2d 897, 240 N.E.2d 860 (N.Y. Ct. of Ap. 1958);
Keane v. City of Chicago, 98 Ill. App.2d 460, 240 N.E.2d 321 (1968);
Morgan v. District of Columbia, 468 A.2d 1306 (D.C. Ct. of Ap. 1983);
Calogrides v. City of Mobile, 475 So.2d 560 (S.Ct. A;a. 1985);
Morris v. Musser, 478 A.2d 937 (1984);
Davidson v. City of Westminster, 32 C.3d 197, 185 Cal.Rptr. 252, 649 P.2d 894 (S.Ct. Cal. 1982);
Chapman v. City of Philadelphia, 434 A.2d 753 (Sup.Ct. Penn. 1981);
Weutrich v. Delia, 155 N.J. Super 324, 326, 382 A.2d 929, 930 (1978);
Sapp v. City of Tallahassee, 348 So.2d 363 (Fla.Ct. of Ap. 1977);
Simpson’s Food Fair v. Evansville, 272 N.E. 2d 871 (Ind.Ct. of Ap.);
Silver v. City of Minneapolis, 170 N.W.2d 206 (S.Ct. Minn. 1969);
Bowers v. DeVito, 686 F.2d 61 (7th Cir. 1982);
DeShaney v. Winnebago County Department of Social Services 109 S.Ct. 998 (1989);
Balistreri v. Pacifica Police Department 901 F.2d 696 (9th Cir. 1990).
There’s certainly sex to which the survivor didn’t consent, but under circumstances such that it would be very difficult to prosecute.