# Women, Sexual Assault, and the Fear of Men **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [October 15, 2016, 4:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-sexual-assault-and-the-fear-of-men/768611 "2016-10-15T16:55:06Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 1\ **Showing post:** 83
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2016, 4:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-sexual-assault-and-the-fear-of-men/768611/83 "2016-10-17T16:59:05Z")
> [@raventhief](#): > > I am not Spice Weasel, but I am guessing these are the posts in question. > > Perhaps you don’t discern any pain in the first post, but I certainly do. If women have no space to discuss painful experiences, without having our experiences attacked, then what is the point of sharing them\> Why go through painful recounting only to be told “Your experiences doesn’t count,” or “You have no right to feel threatened by that?” > > And perhaps you didn’t mean “well,good” in your reply, but it did come across that way to me. You intend to work diligently to continue to ensure that women have no space to discuss painful experiences without being challenged on how legitimate our pain actually is. I see. I would point out, though, that the “experiences” I was referring to arose in [this post](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=19702458&postcount=253) and its predecessors. To briefly recap, here was the sequence: > [@Women: share your stories of having your crotch grabbed (when you didn't want it)](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-share-your-stories-of-having-your-crotch-grabbed-when-you-didnt-want-it/768105/114): > > A word to men, if I may: Do you often greet strange men, and smile at them? (note that thos post invites men to answer a direct question) My response: > [@Women: share your stories of having your crotch grabbed (when you didn't want it)](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-share-your-stories-of-having-your-crotch-grabbed-when-you-didnt-want-it/768105/197): > > The answer is yes. You walk down the street, someone’s coming the other way, you smile and nod that person in passing. Man or woman. Others responded to me, and I replied: > [@Women: share your stories of having your crotch grabbed (when you didn't want it)](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-share-your-stories-of-having-your-crotch-grabbed-when-you-didnt-want-it/768105/215): > > > [@HMS Irruncible](#): > > > > You do, I do, but that doesn’t mean everyone has to. If somebody feels safer pulling down their hat and staring at the ground and going about their business, that’s none of your concern. People have reasons for doing that. > > > [@RTFirefly](#): > > > > Maybe you do. And I probably would too, if I lived in a town small enough where everybody knows everyone else. But I don’t. > > > > But still, the main thing is: it’s not a reasonable expectation of others. You can smile at every passerby if you like, as long as whether or not they smile back isn’t something you’re going to be bothered by, or feel the need to remark on. > > No, their choice to smile back, nod back, or ignore me is not anything that bothers me. I just see my nod as basic social courtesy, but recognize that others may not share that view, or may share it generally but not that day, or whatever. Then **Nawth Chucka** responds, but reads something into my answer that I did not say: > [@Women: share your stories of having your crotch grabbed (when you didn't want it)](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-share-your-stories-of-having-your-crotch-grabbed-when-you-didnt-want-it/768105/230): > > Our responsibility to people in public is to not make things needlessly harder; accept people as you find them unless there’s genuine intervention called for (they’re sobbing, having a medical emergency, that sort of thing). Their expression isn’t your business and no one’s entitled to control that but them. That is courtesy at its most basic and it’s confusing to me how anyone could think the expression on another person’s face somehow costs them something. > How would the frown of another person possibly be a detriment? She inveighs against my saying that their expression was my business… _even though I specifically said it wasn’t and I had no concern about what a passerby did in response._ I replied: > [@Women: share your stories of having your crotch grabbed (when you didn't want it)](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-share-your-stories-of-having-your-crotch-grabbed-when-you-didnt-want-it/768105/253): > > I invite you to re-read what I wrote and what you wrote in response: > > Having re-read them, I now invite you to point out which of my words said that their expression is any of my business, or that it “costs me” something, or, more generally, I invite you to explain in what specific way what you wrote has any relevance to what I wrote. Her response: > [@Women: share your stories of having your crotch grabbed (when you didn't want it)](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-share-your-stories-of-having-your-crotch-grabbed-when-you-didnt-want-it/768105/254): > > You’re not entitled to a response from me but since this is a written medium I’ll be polite enough to tell you to consider your demand ignored. And then, after other posters also pointed out that she had crafted “demand” and “other peoples’ expressions” into my words, she responded: > [@Women: share your stories of having your crotch grabbed (when you didn't want it)](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-share-your-stories-of-having-your-crotch-grabbed-when-you-didnt-want-it/768105/268): > > That this hasn’t been obvious to several posters in this thread proves my point; women share the facts of their reality and men’s response is to insist on shaping and interpreting them to make themselves feel better b/c they feel attacked. Their perception of being attacked is more important to them than the women’s actual experiences of being physically attacked. > This thread is not a safe space, this board is not a safe space and this country will not be a safe space for a very long time. And this, then, prompted my response. In my opinion, she’s not entitled to read into what I wrote what she did and then shield herself by claiming it was her woman’s reality. My dismissal of her safe space idea was predicated on that premise. --- _[View the full topic](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-sexual-assault-and-the-fear-of-men/768611)._