…who’s reality is that?
What isn’t supported by “reality” is this spidey sense you are talking about. Plenty of times I’ve been told that “creeps” don’t ping this alleged “spidey sense” because “creeps” are very good at being creeps, and get very good at not pinging “spidey sense”. But this perhaps isn’t the best of places to debate this, so if you start another thread I’ll join you, so we can discuss this tangent without hijacking this thread yet again.
My post was in reply to the OP correctly pointing out another poster called an invitation a demand. There is nothing off topic about it.
What isn’t supported by reality is you, a male, declaring that the ‘spidey sense’ so many women speak of isn’t valid. But I was recounting what females I’ve spoken with about the topic said to me. It isn’t my place to defend or criticize it. Why do you think it’s yours?
…it certainly is off-topic. The thread is called “Women: share your stories of having your crotch grabbed”: which has nothing to do with calling “invitations” “demands.”
My anecdotal evidence counts as much as your anecdotal evidence: which means it doesn’t count that much at all. But I’m not the one who claims that “having a suspicion of any unknown male” is not a position “supported by reality”. If you are going to make such bold claims you should expect them to be challenged. But I won’t be challenging them any further in this thread: if you start a new one I will join you there.
I’ll leave it to you to ponder why you are making posts while simultaneously believing them to be off topic but then ending them with “but we should discuss it elsewhere” every time.
My post isn’t off topic especially considering it’s the conversation going on in the thread between the OP and several active participants.
Over half of all sexual assaults are committed by someone the victim knows very well. Another large amount are someone the victim knows at least in some way. Among the rest it is as random and unlikely an event that a total stranger who gives a friendly nod crossing the street is a danger as the chances anyone you see anywhere is a serial killer.
If you insist on challenging that most basic reality I agree you should probably do it elsewhere.
But have you read the thread? So many women have multiple experiences of groping and other “minor” forms of assault, most of which go unreported, so they don’t get counted in the statistics used to calculate your (uncited) odds.
Again. We aren’t afraid because we want to be, or because it makes sense. It’s because it keeps us safe.
This is an interesting question. I realize my answer varies depending on where i am. If I am near my home, in a smallish town, where anyone walking on the street is likely a neighbor, I do as you describe. I smile and nod at the person. I might even say something neutral, like “hi”.
In the city, where I work, I would not do that. I mind my own business, as does every other normal person who isn’t soliciting for a political campaign/charity. (Save the child, support our union, whatever.)
When I was younger, and it was common for strange men on the street to lear at me, I aggressively ignored making eye contact with strangers. I might actively look away as I approached a group of men.
I think all of those responses on my part are valid. So I conclude that the right answer is situation-dependant.
There are quite a few instances of random groping cited here. But significantly more that involved a well known or semi known man - teacher, friend of the family, father, etc. Many, but not all, of the totally random ‘guy walked up and grabbed my crotch’ incidents were when both were juveniles, two that I can find were when the male was known to be mentally challenged, and yes a few were just totally “Trump-style” I want this and I’m taking it flat out assaults by random strangers.
I’m not an expert by any means but the statistic I cited is almost unanimously given by many legitimate sources. It’s definitely not based on the number of incidents reported to law enforcement since that is well known to be just a small fraction of cases. So, honestly I don’t know exaclty how that is the figure most experts arrive at, just that it is. But they are talking about rape, attempted rape, and sexual assaults all the way down to unwanted groping.
Clearly that can’t include every instance of an uninvited attempt at a kiss, pat on the butt, etc. I’m not in any way diminishing the experiences people have had by pointing out that the chances of any one stranger you encounter being a sexual predator are so low it is a shame to have to distrust everyone. But I do understand what leads to that.
There’s a reason that such a high percentage of women will be assaulted while such a small percentage of men are predators. The same men that do this to one woman do it to as many others as they can. And when they get caught the penalty usually doesn’t offer much of a deterrent.
I just saw this headline coincidentally this morning: Man Gets Just 60 Days for Raping His 12-Year-Old Daughter
The many ideas that have been introduced into this thread where women share their stories have been similar to how this conversation has gone across social and journalistic media; women say what’s happened to them and then men come in to demand filters and interpretations be placed on the women’s experiences. This diminishes not only the lessons that men can learn but also the comfort women feel to not only continue sharing but pursuing remedies when something happens to them. From the comfort of their physically safe bubble, men say, ‘but but but’ and its intent to chill the effect for whatever reason (usually the men’s feelings are hurt) is clear. Women’s experiences just in this thread have been chipped away at and undermined, (they were juveniles, their attacker was autistic, the attacker was known to them) and it’s an example of how this conversation has always gone and will always go until enough generations of men have learned empathy while at the same time not being taught chauvinism and sexism.
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.
At the mention of any religious community and any time in the past, we can make educated guesses as to why a mother did not throw her husband out of the house. My guesses won’t help you though. Your mother had her reasons, as did your uncle, and even if their reasons were garbage like plain disbelief or worrying more about what the neighbors would think, that’s informative for you. It’s insight into a world where things happen, and then there are after-effects that can be equally damaging.
If your sisters confided in you, you believed them, and you’re wondering what the hell is up with your parents, seems like you did it right. That is positive. I’ll bet it means a lot more to them than you know.
Re. Nawt Chucka’s last post:
To be fair, some of the men in this thread have done that. Several others have specifically been educated by it, and others were already intimately familiar with the issue.
None of that is an attempt to chip away at anything except the notion that a random stranger you pass on the street has earned your distrust because a small minority of men randomly grope women.
The whole point of this thread initially was actually to show not only that it happens a lot but that to most men this is not ‘normal’ or that it is not just ‘locker room talk’ to discuss assaulting women.
I apologize if my contribution to the thread has been interpreted by you or anyone else the way you describe it.
It is the minority of women in this thread who have indicated these experiences led them to distrust all men until proven otherwise. This entire sub-topic within the thread came up after the conversation had already drifted to arguments about whether a polite nod is OK in public or not, and how men often tell women they should smile.
Those things aren’t sexual assault. They may well be sexist, and any expectation of having a nod or smile reciprocated is self-centered and egotistical, but I don’t understand how you take my answer to that thread on the subject to mean I am in some way threatened as a male by any discussion of male predators, or that I mean to in any way diminish the emotional impact such experiences have caused to anyone.
FWIW I consider myself to be a part of the latter two groups. I apologize again if my comments are interpreted in any other way.
I’m really sorry y’all have to endure this. I’ve seen snippets of the behavior all my life so I have no difficulty believing your stories. I don’t think it’s normal natural or inevitable male behavior. I think there are some natural and inevitable feelings but these are learned ways of expressing them, and they could be expressed differently—and those different expressions could be what people learn as the appropriate ones, and, hopefully, they gradually will as more and more attitudes change.
As I’ve said earlier, this is a touchy (as it were) subject and by and large this discussion has been conducted with honesty and respect by most participants. As a woman, I appreciate knowing that men have been surprised and educated by hearing about these experiences. As a woman, hell, I’VE been surprised at the number of stories.
As for someone issuing an invitation and someone else calling it a demand (on my kindle, hard to look up who), I consider that observation perfectly germane to this evolving conversation, which is why I posted it! :rolleyes:
Just in case anyone has forgotten: NOT ALL MEN DO THIS.
I find it kind of sad that some significant number of men can’t hear what women are saying on this subject without constantly being reassured like this.
This is a major part of why I am no longer willing to talk about my personal experiences with sexual assault, street harassment, etc., on the SDMB. We’ve had a lot of threads like this one over the years, and while I believe they are well-intentioned they always turn out the same way.
I don’t mean this as a criticism of the OP, but I am tired of being asked to offer up painful and difficult memories so that men who have never even met me can try to make it all about them.
Trust is a continuum, not a point. My experiences, and those of the women around me, lead me to behave in this “distrustful” way to keep myself safe. (Sorry to shout, but I seem to be posting the same thing over and over.)
Crazyhorse, regardless of your intentions, Nawth Chucka is right, your post has attempted to minimize and explain away the experiences of the women posters. You’re making your own interpretation of OUR experiences. Can you see why this is frustrating?
[QUOTE=Lamia]
We’ve had a lot of threads like this one over the years, and while I believe they are well-intentioned they always turn out the same way.
[/QUOTE]
Tell me about it.
I just read this article about how frequently women de-escalate and minimize uncomfortable situations.
No need to apologize. I quite understand. The Trump Tapes really precipitated this most recent discussion.
There are so many kind, sensitive, intelligent people on this board. And some who aren’t any of those things. You take a real risk posting something personal. The sharks can smell vulnerability and can’t wait to taste blood in the water. But, in spite of that, I keep hanging around here, because of the good ones. It’s a challenge to ignore dismissive and hurtful comments and I can’t always do it. I’m not taking about civil, intellectual disagreement, but personal attacks. <sigh> Responding to them encourages them. Sometimes ya gotta.
We’re fighting ignorance.
Spice Weasel kindly opened a separate thread for those who wish to discuss the question of sexual assault as it applies to women’s views toward men. She very articulately stated better than I have what I’ve been trying to say. And she agrees that a suspicious attitude toward all men for the actions of a few is, besides anything else, detrimental to the cause of creating a change in our culture. I’ll post any further comments on that subject to that thread. I realize now that despite the OP’s stated intentions for this thread, it is really just a place to share experiences and not try to solve any problems or answer any questions.
A female poster argued the ‘cat call’ video mentioned earlier looks staged, and she was summarily chewed out for typical ‘mansplaining’ and inability to let go of her male insecurity until she was revealed to be a she, at which moment that subject was completely dropped.
Spice Weasel’s also a female, a sexual assault survivor, and I think professionally involved in some way in rape counseling and prevention, and also expressed that despite her experience she recognizes the huge majority of sexual assaults are perpetrated by a very small minority of men. It isn’t a gender trait to have an opinion about the reality of the sexual assault problem in our culture that doesn’t happen to coincide with your own, and I seriously doubt her point of view makes anyone regret sharing their experience here even though mine does, yet they are both the same.
The only way to solve the very real problem of sexual assault is as a species, not as separate genders with something at stake to prove to the other sex. I’m still not sure how my comments were interpreted that way by a minority (I think a total of two or three) posters in this thread but it certainly isn’t how they were intended or understood by the majority of other survivors of assault that shared their experience here.
But the back and forth on this is now overshadowing the experiences and shared emotions in this thread so I apologize.
This “apology” might have seemed slightly more convincing had it not come at the end of a lengthy post telling me to STFU.
And this castigation would be a lot more convincing had it not been totally misplaced.