There’s a difference between saying “most men don’t do this,” (and I believe that), and “maybe you were groped by mistake” “you’re exaggerating,” etc.
The first is a true statement. The second type of statement is dismissive and insulting.
It’s reasonable to be defensive, because often this subject is not taken seriously (as we’ve seen in Trump’s case in the last few days).
One of my intentions was to show the good guys (who have daughters, sisters, mothers, granddaughters, and female friends) that not everyone is a good guy… and that as you said, “It happens OFTEN.” And that even if most men don’t do it, in fact, a lot (if not most) women will experience something like this in their lifetime, whether as a child, a teen, a young woman, a mature women, or even an elderly woman. There is an intrinsic vulnerability in being in a female body. Some men feel entitled to grab it just because it is female.
There’s a specific thread in the Pit for kicking octupus’s ass, so head on over there, if you want to.
Thanks for that helpful comment and for your utter dismissal of the topic of my thread. I appreciate your participation. Always interested in alternative points of view.
Ack, I’m sorry! That was not at all what I intended. My derision is solely reserved for the aforesaid boring misogynists who continually pollute threads like this.
I’ve been groped on public transport before. Again, like many others, too entrenched in conditioned politeness to call him out.
I’m glad to hear there are guys that don’t think like that or pull that sort of shit, because that’s the whole point, right? The Trumpkin and his worshippers would have us believe it’s just no big deal because #allmen behave that what. And it’s absolute nonsense, as evidenced by most of the male posters in this thread. So as usual, the explanation he’s floating is complete balderdash. I appreciate are gentlemen here.
As for myself, I was in community theatre in my early twenties and we worked a lot with the local high school kids. On one production, I’d been tasked with helping two guys memorize their lines who had been last minute replacements. One seemed to kind of be sweet on me, but I kept my distance and we got all the way through the run of the show without incident. Until the cast party.
That night, as I was coming out of the bathroom at someone’s house into a darkened room, there he was, ostensibly waiting for turn. Instead, he walked up to me as I was trying to exit and put both hands on my breasts and just sort of held them there, then looked at me. I was completely flabbergasted and couldn’t think of a think to say, so I just backed away in horror and left. He was all of 16 and my only thought was he had been such a good kid, I didn’t want to say anything to get him in trouble. I just viewed it as some weird, crushy anomaly.
Other than that, I’ve had my ass pinched and as the only female playing on a men’s softball team, plenty of lewd comments. But overall, I think I’ve been incredibly lucky in the groping department. As we see here, it can be so much, much worse.
It was the pit and Ramira had no business being insulting just to pile on. Read her post. It was uncalled for and ignorant but she wanted to take a shot. Why isn’t her initial aggressiveness being lambasted? Why the bias?
Why is it irrelevant to defend ‘decent men’ when the thread is based on the unwanted groping experiences women have had? B/c it’s not a thread about men, primarily, it’s about what happens to WOMEN. Or would it kill you to sit back and just read about women’s experiences and learn something about their lives, maybe try to understand where they’re coming from better w/o interjecting to defend the guys that haven’t groped them (yet)?
There have been quite a number of female teachers convicted of sexual assault against boys in my region. I’m frankly tired of men always being the guilty party in this.
By adding “yet” to that sentence you just admitted that the decent guys are still subject to your suspicion. Your otherwise correct point of view that it isn’t necessary for guys to chime in with #notallmen is totally undermined by that little jab at the end.
All men are subject to suspicion, thanks to the fraction of the male population as a whole who are gropers. Don’t get mad at me for their poisoning the well. It’s their doing that women like me who’ve been assaulted always keep at least a sliver of an eye out when around men they don’t know well. It’s like we’re discussing poachers but people can’t stop saying, #notallhunters when the topic isn’t hunters, it’s poaching.
Leaffan, I wholeheartedly suggest you start a thread pertinent to your concern, b/c you’re clearly uninterested in the stated topic of this thread if you’re unable to loudly minimize or dismiss it.
I totally agree with everything you posted right up until “yet”.
IMHO that just sort of encourages more #notallmen comments. In a poaching vs. poachers conversation if you said ‘even those hunters who haven’t ever poached (yet!)’ some hunter would feel duty bound to interject that he doesn’t poach and neither do any of his hunter friends.
Sorry for the hijack though. I wouldn’t post in this thread except the irony of your post drew me in.
OK, before this whole thread takes a bad turn, my 2 cents.
I’ll admit to having random thoughts/fantasies about attractive women on occasions, however I’m able to tell fantasy from reality and I know that uninvited groping is extremely unlikely to be welcomed and as such I’ve never done it.
I have read all the stories posted here and I’ll confess to being surprised that it seems to be so common. I would not have thought that and I don’t get the thought processes of a man who would.
I can see several different reasons why a man would do this to an unwilling participant, none of them justify, condone or excuse the behaviour in the remotest way.
NO ONE asked for your apology. This isn’t a thread asking you to apologize or defend or deflect. You’re not sorry, don’t waste the word. Crazyhorse, I don’t believe I make anyone do anything, be it you or any other man. You all have your own accountability and I don’t care that you nearly agreed w/ me until you didn’t. It doesn’t pick my pocket in any way what you think of my efforts to keep from being hurt again, be they hypothetical or real world.
Useful hijack though, for showing how delicate men’s sexual egos are when they catch a whiff of them being challenged, and how much more men value their egos than they do the safety and protection of women.
You’re projecting a lot of weird conclusions on me and my motivation for posting. I just pointed out that you’re shooting yourself in the foot if your goal is to curtail the ‘but not all of us’ comments. I made no comment on your reasons for harboring your suspicions, just that by posting that you do you’re automatically opening up a conversation about it.
While I would never presume to participate in a thread for sexual assault victims, most especially to mansplain anything, the flawed logic of your post was so ironic I just had to comment on it.
You’re telling guys there’s no need to post just to clarify that not all men assault women because this thread isn’t about them but then add “yet”. So you just made the thread about them by doing so.