What if I did it? Bear in mind that I am 6’2", 260 and have been told I look like Mr Clean only less cuddly. Would you more than disgusted and annoyed that I grabbed you by the crotch and stuck my tongue down your throat? Would you consider it assault then? If so, why? Would it be because I am man, or because I am larger and more aggressive and totally demeaned you? Would you feel threatened?
One reason this may be hard to believe is that all of this exists only in your fevered brain. I said nothing about repeated offenses (where I would favor jail sentences) and I certainly never said anything about little girls’ crotches. What the hell is wrong with you?
And you speak all the time of terror and you extrapolate terror to almost any situation you disapprove of, and I’m wondering why. People really don’t go through life in a perpetual state of terror, such as you appear to believe, and most women are perfectly capable of fending off unwanted advances. To hear you tell it, women are generally quivering and helpless bowls of jello who just helplessly let any old guy do whatever he wants because…terror. If I were a woman I’d be annoyed as shit at you.
Yeah, I’d feel threatened and I’d be disgusted. And I’d feel a crime had been committed. It’s one thing to just walk up and touch someone in an inappropriate manner, and another entirely to take physical control of their body and force yourself upon them like you describe.
This is another thing that frequently happens when it comes to a discussion of matters pertaining to sexual misdeeds:
Me: “X” isn’t a big deal.
Opponent: Oh, yeah? Oh, yeah? Well, what about “X times 10”? Huh? Huh? How do you feel about that, then?
Again, ridiculous.
(Note: I now have to leave for the day. Apologies to those whose comments I may have left unanswered.)
This is honestly fascinating. Both examples have the same behavior- crotch grabbing and kissing against your will- yet you see them as dramatically different. One is X and one is X x10. The only difference I see, other than the fact that one is Typo Negative and one is Oprah Winfrey - is the inclusion of the tongue.
ETA bolding mine in the above quotes.
I’m awaiting the headline: White Geezer Claims Oprah Molested Him.
Her response: “Do you think I’d hit that?”
Again. Wow. I’d like to think I’m reading this wrong. Please tell me I’m wrong.
Small anecdote.
When I was 19 a guy I worked with came up behind me while I was scooping ice out of a trough and grabbed my boob. I turned around and lit into him. He begged me not to tell anyone what he had done(he had a wife and kids). I agreed with the promise he wouldn’t do it again.
At that time I had already been sexually harassed at another job and quit when having told me boss what had happened he asked that I transfer to another site to prevent it happening again. Not that they’d fire him, but that they thought it best I leave. Incidentally I found out later he was fired for harassing other women, a lot of other women.
Back to my first story. A few weeks later another staff member, a 16 yr old, came to me and told me that he had done the same to her. She had no idea what had happened to me, but she trusted me enough to tell me. She was 16! I was furious. It was one thing that it had happened to me, but had I said something in the first place it might never have happened to her!
My point being, yes, I could accept that it had happened to me, and being a woman of the world(or so I thought at the time) it was not a HUGE deal. But it wasn’t just me. It’s never just one woman. Men who do that never do it just once. It may affect women differently, but that doesn’t make it right. It’s still a crime. In my small world at the time, having him fired was enough, but quite frankly it was a criminal offence and he should have been charged.
You would imagine completely erroneously, then. The absolute opposite is the truth. Which you could discover with an extremely tiny effort on your part. Just for example, after the big trump tape scandal,
…“Canadian writer Kelly Oxford went online to describe her first sexual assault - out of five - and to call on women to recount theirs under the hashtag #NotOkay. She received almost 10 million short pained narratives in just 14 hours, or roughly 50 every minute.”
(from commondreams.org)
It’s not the event that is vanishingly small, it’s your “imagination”. Other people call it empathy.
That Trump, and his supporters cast aside his lack of being a decent person is the big thing. That he would dare to excuse his actions because he thinks others do it too shows us that the man cannot think for himself.
That anyone believes that this useless, narcissistic bully that was born on third base with a silver spoon in his mouth is going to help those less fortunate is hard to believe.
You said people shouldn’t go to jail for crotch grabs. I just took that statement and applied it to a few different scenarios.
Why are repeated offenses or little girls different? If someone grabs my wife on the train, do you really believe that he shouldn’t be prosecuted?
Mediocre straw man – I’ve seen much better on this board. Considering how poorly you evaluate the opinion of people that aren’t like you, I’m not to worried as to how you think you’d feel if you were a woman.
wow who would of thought my most successful topic here ever would be one I didn’t even really write …
Trying to go back to the actual OP subject – this has something to do with the Trump approach beyond only specifically sex. Quoting another post:
(emphasis added in color by me)
This goes along with the apparent general Trumpian philosophy of despising “weakness”. Ideally, you should be able to deter assaults or offences, or else get even and take revenge, or in the end it’s up to you to get the hell out of where you may be vulnerable. But you should not make a complaint that acknowledges you were in the vulnerable position, you should just walk away and go somewhere else but NOT try to publicly bring down the abuser or the bully, if you are in no condition to fight back in his own terms. Someone who was intimidated and later complains is considered “weak” for not having stood up and been crushed on the spot.
And yet your Republican Party has run on terror for decades. Terror of blacks, terror of gays, terror of Muslims, terror of uppity women wanting alimony. Fear, fear, fear. Obama is the Antichrist. No, Hillary is the Antichrist. The U.S. is doomed. After the election the country is over.
You’d think you’d be the expert on terror. You’re letting your side down.
I feel sympathy for Trump’s kids and wives. I imagine it wasn’t easy at all living with him. I am a huge believer of keeping families out of political attacks, but I can’t help but marvel at just how deplorable the opinions of those two men are, and maybe now that they are adults they have no excuse for that.
I wanna hug my dad for not messing us up.
Although my dad was a registered independent, I can’t help but wonder if this crop of candidates helped ease him off this mortal coil a bit quicker.
In Louisiana, child-rape in punishable by death, which is pretty stupid, if you ask me, because it seems to suggest “leave no witnesses.”
I actually think she’s pretty attractive for a woman her age. I don’t especially care for blondes, and her speech patterns remind me a little too much of my mother’s, but I really don’t get the comments about her looks. She was definitely quite attractive during her husband’s first term, when she was a lot younger.
I wish i could hug my dad for the same reason. A friend of mine had her father go the hell off on her on FB (so, in public) and call her nasty things when she calmly explained to him (her father) that she had been raped, so consent was kind of a big deal to her, and she had been sexually harassed at work (in very physical ways - groped and pushed against a wall and had bosses try to jam their tongues down her throat). And he just went off on her. ETA she managed to turn into a wonderful woman, despite her father, and I am glad my dad wasn’t an asshole like some dads are.
Grabbing by the crotch and forceful kissing is what Trump has bragged about. The exact same behavior I described.
Here is where I think the problem lies. This kinda thing has never happened to you and is very unlikely to ever happen. So you have trouble *appreciating it.
- This kinda thing happens to women all the time. Where a much larger, stronger and more aggressive person manhandles them in a very unwanted manner. You have admitted you think it would be criminal if a such a person did it to you, but have said it’s no big deal if it happens to a woman. (the exact same thing as what Trump has bragged about doing)
I’m not sure, but perhaps SA feels the difference is due to the potential penetrative risk a guy grabbing him and kissing him presents? Oprah doesn’t have a penis that could be used to assault him with, and she is not likely to be bigger, stronger and able to overpower him.
Now, think what it’s like for a woman. Do you think being assaulted in that way by a man would be more similar to being grabbed by Oprah, or grabbed by Typo? I don’t get how you see it as X and X times 10. Typo would pose the same kind of risk (bigger, stronger, able to penetrate) to you that a guy grabbing and kissing a woman does. Oprah doesn’t present those risks to another woman (necessarily). If you are multiplying the situation by 10 based on sexual attraction alone, then I let me hasten to assure you: I am heterosexual, and I would far rather be grabbed and kissed by Oprah than by Donald Trump or his sleazy offspring.
SA, if I am way off base, can you please explain what causes the X factor to be multiplied by ten?
I’ll address my remarks to raventhief and Typo Negative both, since both of their posts basically relate to the same subject.
With regard to why I’d think Typo’s behavior worse, there are several significant differences between what he described and the behavior I’ve been talking about, which is someone putting their hand on a woman’s breasts or crotch over their clothes. First of all, for Typo to grab me by the crotch would entail his grabbing a handful of things that may cause physical pain, or would almost certainly cause pain were I to try to wrench myself free. Secondly, in order to put his tongue down my throat (and has Trump said he does this? I haven’t heard about it if so), Typo would have to grab me by the shoulders or in a bear hug while at the same time grabbing me in a moment of surprise in order to catch me with my mouth open. And like some of you suspect, some of the disgust would be due to his being a big, burly man. I have no problem with homosexuality and have several friends who are gay, including a couple of great guys who’ve been a couple for many years. But I’m not gay myself and the idea of someone like Typo Negative sticking his tongue down my throat is particularly unpleasant. Much moreso in fact than the crotch grab, where pain or injury would be my primary concern. So it’s this grabbing me and taking physical control of my body in such a way as to prevent escape and forcing his tongue down my throat that to me makes the difference between what is simple assault, such as placing one’s hands on a woman’s private parts over her clothes, and behavior that crosses the line into criminal behavior that should rightfully draw a more severe penalty, something more along the lines of what someone would get were he to assault someone with his fists.
But all of this is really somewhat beside the point. What I’m contesting is the notion that putting one’s hands on a woman’s crotch or on her breasts over her clothes is some horrible, outrageous event worthy of traumatization on her part and prison time on the offender’s part. Men and women both encounter things in life that are threatening and unpleasant. With women it’s sometimes unwanted sexual attention, being groped, etc. With men, it’s physical aggression, bullying, being challenged to fight, hit with fists, etc. Hell, I had some young dipshit try to pick a fight with me a couple of months ago when I pulled into a 7-11 to get some gas. I hadn’t even noticed him but he pulled up wanting to know what my problem was and why I looked at him “hard”. He threatened to get out of his car, kick my ass and put me on the ground. I assured him that I’d been on the ground before but his kicking my ass was not a foregone conclusion. I could tell he was mostly showboating for his poor young wife/girlfriend who was holding their baby in her lap, trying to feed it and pleading with him to stop, and that he didn’t really want to fight. I could tell this by the fact he kept making threatening motions to unbuckle his seatbelt but never quite going all the way. So I pointed out to him that there were undoubtedly cameras all around and asked if he wanted to go to jail, and I told him that whether he kicked my ass or I kicked his, I’d still press to have his ass put in jail for as long as possible and then would sue for damages and most likely be living in his wallet for years to come. At at various times during all this he kept threatening to kick my ass and making threatening noises with the buckle of his seat belt, and finally I just looked at his terrified young wife/girlfriend, turned my back and walked away into the store to pay for my gas, and at some point while I was walking away they left because his car was nowhere to be seen by the time I got inside and to the cashier to pay for my gas.
Now, I’m 68 years old and this guy was probably 22 or so, slender and a good four or five inches taller than me (I’m 5’10"). But I could tell his heart wasn’t really in it, that in the event a fight should break out other customers and probably some of the cashiers would rush to break it up (I’m a regular and buddies with the guys who work there) and I know a few tricks that would probably have had him on the ground screaming in pain in pretty short order, although maybe not depending on whether he was a better fighter than I had him pegged as.
But the point in going into all this is to show that we all have stuff come up that we have to deal with, and the best way to deal with it is to do the best we can at the time, take the hit if need be - because that’s what grown-ups do - and get on with our lives without letting it convince us of our own helplessness and victimhood. As for me, I know that stuff like that happens sometimes and I got on with my life, never once bemoaning my fate or feeling I’d been done a great injustice or victimized. And as a result I’ve scarcely given that guy a thought since.
But to get back to what we were talking about earlier, girls in the 50s and 60s knew what to expect from the guys they went out with. Their moms prepared them in advance and told them how to deal with it, and the way guys acted on dates was a common thread with all their girlfriends. And girls rarely went out with guys they hadn’t already gotten a pretty good read on as to whether he was likely to be a jerk who wouldn’t take no for an answer or not. But the thing is, if they got groped or treated badly by some guy, they put it down to his being a jerk and didn’t let it affect the way they felt about themselves. They stopped seeing the guy, told their friends what an asshole he was, and got on with their lives hardly giving the experience a thought.
And contrary to current opinion, guys could not just do anything wanted to women in those days and get away with it. I recall once when I was about 14 visiting a buddy who had a pretty good-looking big sister who was about 17. My friend and I and another friend of his who was about 15 were sitting at the kitchenette when my buddy’s sister walked by in a tight pair of pedal-pushers (as they were called then) and this other guy reached out and patted her rump and she walked by. She whirled around and slapped him in the face so hard it almost knocked him out of his chair an yelled, “DO NOT EVER TOUCH A GIRL ON THE BOTTOM LIKE THAT AGAIN! EVER! DO YOU HEAR ME??” And naturally, me being me, I couldn’t understand what the big deal was (:p) so when the incident came up to my friend’s mom I asked her about it and she said that you just don’t touch girls or women on the bottom (that’s how people talked then). It’s disrespectful and you should never do it. (Given my age she left off the sexual connotations so I still didn’t get it, but the next couple of years took care of that bit of ignorance.) But the point is that during this same era, women and girls set boundaries and enforced them, and they were a hell of a lot better off than now where any and every affront is a source of outrage and victimhood.
I remember years ago hearing about how liberals were working to create a society of victimhood, and that’s exactly where we are now. If someone says the wrong word or does the wrong thing (in this case, a hand on a crotch) it’s “OMG, THE WORST THING EVAR!!!” and the recipient is trained by societal expectation to be traumatized by the experience, to feel victimized and helpless and negatively affected for life, and the offender is widely believed to be deserving to lose a career he’s spent perhaps decades striving and sacrificing for and/or go to jail for what in reality and according to any kind of objective assessment is a relatively minor offense.
It does not do people favors to convince them through your own reactions and attitudes to their misfortunes that they have been irrevocably wronged and traumatized by some unfortunate thing that has happened to them and that they’ve permanently damaged. It’s much better for people to be brought up to learn how to deal with adversity and then put it behind them without taking it personally.
Starving Artist your view on the matter is noted but its vastly out of sync with what the majority of the population thinks is acceptable today.
And your ideas on victim hood is bizarre. I’ve never heard anyone suggest that a guy touching her once through her clothes is expected to cause any major traumatization. It’s offensive and inappropriate and almost certainly illegal, but in most cases it’s likely as you say to result in the girl screaming and never going near the creep again rather than a court case.
The whole other matter is where the guy doing the touching is in a position of power where he can destroy someone’s career. There the girl can’t scream and never near go the guy again, if they work together or he’s a high level manager she’s stuck with him. Do you really not see the difference in the situations and why Trump and Trump Jr’s behaviour is a much worse problem than someone getting groped on the subway by a random stranger?
Well, as I said, the Trump issue is pretty much beside the point. I haven’t even looked into exactly what he said or what his son said. Basically I’m familiar with the fact that Trump told Billy Bush that because he’s a star women will let him grab them by the pussy. (And I note the word “let”, which sounds to me like he acknowledges their ability to make the call as to whether or not his behavior is objectionable and is amused by the fact they don’t seem to think so.)
And certainly I’m against women having to tolerate sexual harassment in their jobs and it should rightly be illegal in order to keep it from happening. What I’m against is the notion that for some guy to just randomly encounter a woman and grope her over her clothing is some kind of heinous event, worthy of outrage and a prison sentence. And if not for the presumedly horrific effect upon the person it happens to, then why such a severe overreaction and why prison time?
And certainly I’m out of sync with what the majority of the population thinks today! Pretty much my whole point is that what the majority of the population has been indoctrinated to think today is wrongheaded and self-defeating and does more harm than good.