You’ll also offend some subset of women by asking that question. There’s no possible course of social interaction that eliminates all chance of offense. I prefer to operate under the guidelines that allow me to not offend 99.9% of the people I meet every day. And that means I offer my hand to everyone I meet in Western society unless told otherwise. Of the .1% remaining, most have had no problem saying “I’m sorry but I don’t shake hands” and that ends the issue.
There’s a small fraction of a small fraction of people that would take offense. So far I’ve heard from you and no one else. I’m sorry, but the balls in your court if you are out in public to make sure people know your feelings.
But once again, this has nothing to do with the topic of the thread. I know, it wasn’t raised by you in this thread, but it’s the same discussion we have in every thread you are involved in. Let’s let it go here for the sake of the OP. They’re probably already offended.
You know, women worked hard to get to the point where men will extend their hands and shake, thus treating them like equals. I am not some delicate wilting flower, ZPG. If I don’t feel comfortable shaking hands it is imcumbent on me to say so, not incumbent on the person extending hands.
See, you think we should only look to your culture, and shaking hands between men and women is considered anathema in your culture. Fine. You say something then! But in this culture, shaking hands is considered a sign of respect. It’s a sign that the man is ready to treat me as an equal. Maybe he won’t, but it’s the correct harbinger and I’ll be damned if I am going back to the times when women lowered their eyes in the presence of a man or even covered their heads.
I want my hand to be shaken because I know the meaning behind the gesture. It is not a gesture of disrespect. It is a gesture of equality. And there is no shame or harm in politely refusing it, but it would be an absolute sign of disrespect and even an insult for a man to shake hands with all of the men around me and not shake my hand, or even, heavens forbid, STOP all the proceedings by drawing attention to me by asking “Do you shake hands with men?”
Just politely demur and say, “I’m sorry, I don’t shake hands.” Because it is incumbent on you to make your preferences known. And I know you claim to have met hundreds of men who insist on shaking your hand anyway, but even then you still must be firm in your demurral. It’s part of being an adult.
My two cents having been said, I will now bow out of this thread. I just get tired of you saying all the time that a man wanting to shake hands with me is some kind of an insult because it is in YOUR mind. I reiterate: most of the time, it’s not meant as an insult, but rather a sign of respect.
I think Kimstu’s first post won the thread. I kept browsing on to see if she would apply that common sense to think of possible abuses of this law by not so well-meaning women.
That actually reminds me of the Muslim tradition of (very) short term marriages.
This is unmitigated bullshit. flight did nothing wrong, it’s not incumbent upon him to read the mind of Lady Psychopants. If she says she wants to have sex after knocking a few back, he is 100% reasonable to take her at her word. The fact that he considered her judgment impaired regardless of her behavior is evidence that he’s a better human than most. I get that some men are sleazy scumbags but it pisses me off to no end when the good ones get caught in the crossfire. He is not your enemy. Leave him the fuck alone.
Damn it I am so tired of this notion that being drunk changes the standard of behavior one should be held to. I’ve been pretty fucking drunk at least a time or two but miraculously managed to do nothing I considered flat-out wrong or likely to regret later. I don’t get why that’s so hard. (I’m not talking about physical incapacitation. If you can walk, you can be held responsible for your actions.)
[QUOTE=Maggie]
Unfortunately for both of them, what he didn’t know is that Mary is a survivor of longtime sexual abuse, and when he started moving his hand up her leg she started internally freaking out. She was trying really hard (and quite successfully) to keep it from showing, but what he saw as “nervous but not saying no” was actually “frozen in panic”. […]
[/QUOTE]
This has actually happened to me, and probably happens more than guys realize. That’s why I personally like the idea of affirmative consent. However, it would never even in the throes of the worst flashback occur to me to hold Jack accountable for my lack of communication. That would be my fault. If I would be truly incapable of communicating due to some deeply-seated mental health issue, in the very least I would blame the fucker who created the trauma in the first place. I would be extremely uncomfortable with any law that implicated Jack in this scenario. I feel terrible for both of them.
I don’t really have a mind picture of how one would go from chitchat to light petting to nakedness to UnF UnF UnF with a nigh-catatonic person frozen with fear and bad tripping without noticing something ain’t quite right, at any point.
I mean, I know I’m overly introspective and self-aware; and I know I tend to focus on the other much more than myself when it comes to fucking, but come on.
I don’t think it got that far in Jack and Mary’s case, though. I think a girl can probably be nervous about sexytime while still wanting to go through with it, and I honestly have no idea what the difference looks like to an outside observer. There is nothing logical about the way a trauma victim might think in a scenario like that. I remember several years ago some guy kept coming over to my apartment while my husband was at work and kind of hinting that he wanted to bang me. It never once occurred to me, in that moment that it was happening, that ‘no’ was an option. I just stood there hoping to god he would not make a pass at me. He didn’t give any indication he had any clue how uncomfortable I felt. It was only thinking about it after the fact I was able to speak up and put a stop to it (and even then I chickened out and had my husband talk to him & his wife.) That guy might have been a sleazy asshole but I doubt he was a wannabe rapist. I think in a perfect world people would always be attuned to their partner’s every mood and emotional state, but some random encounter at a party? I’m not so optimistic.
Agreed. And I’m certainly not going to try to tell victims of sexual assault how they should handle such feelings, but it does seem to me like most of them (excluding teenagers who don’t really have any other sexual/romantic experiences) would know that they’re likely to get hit on again in the future, and that they probably need to have a canned response for when this happens. Is it just that the first time they get hit on post-attack, their emotions are surprising?
In other news, ZPG remains the same idiot, oblivious to facts and century-old etiquette, as she was when she first posted her ideas about handshakes. I’m a lot more willing to risk offending her than I am the Aanamikas of the world, not least because the latter group is a lot bigger and saner.
IME it’s not really that predictable how you’re going to react in a given scenario. Trauma is a complicated beast that may be different for every person in every context. I never had any such plan but part of the reason is I’ve been married for like fucking ever, which significantly reduces my chances of being unwittingly hit on. But I’ve even had communication problems with my husband around issues like this, it is worth noting I suppose that he picked up on my discomfort every single time, pretty much immediately. Eventually I learned to use my words, but if I have had such a hard time with the person I trust and know better than anyone else in the world, you can imagine how much harder it would be with a stranger. You can maybe, maybe argue that a guy who fails to recognize when a woman is freezing up is a bit of a selfish jackass, but that’s a far cry from saying someone should get jail time for sexual assault. I realize in Jack and Mary’s case there was no alcohol involved but I can see how adding alcohol to the mix would make things even more confusing.
I’m now curious if any such thing has happened, legally, where a woman filed sexual assault charges on the grounds that she was too traumatized from a past experience to say ‘‘no.’’ I’m thinking that wouldn’t fly in court but I have no idea.
It originally started in this thread (with this post), but continued into this one (second chronological one made) and this one (third chronological one made).
So if I, a woman, were to meet a Roma man, he might very well shake the hand of everyone present except me? Or call attention to the fact that he doesn’t see me as an equal by asking if I shake hands with men? I probably would find that offputting and quite possibly offensive. Or would he realize that cultural norms differ and offer a handshake?
This has nothing to do with being Roma. It has to do with believing that a woman has the right to control who touches her body and that she has the riight not to be publically intimidated into letting someone touch her without permission. It’s called feminism.
Now as far as Roma are concerned, generally speaking, Roma who follow strict marime (religious codes of purity and cleanliness) aren’t going to come into physical contact with someone outside their family or tribe regardless of gender unless it is necessary to save a life. In a group situation, if a Roma man knew the non-Roma men very well, friends for many years, the men might hug. As a stranger you would be introduced. You would be treated politely, but unless the Roma men were very ill behaved young men (the type that you wouldn’t want even thinking about touching you) to show respect they will not touch you unless you give them permission before witnesses.
Actually, women didn’t work hard to get men to shake their hands. They worked hard to get men to keep their hands off them. It is not a gesture of respect. It is attempt to force the woman to submit to them. If it were about respect very few men would throw hissy fits worthy of the worst spoiled brats over being expected to ask permission before initiating such a gesture. If it were about respect asking permission would be automatic.
Why the heck not, men are always trying to tell women what we feel? This is especially true when it comes to whether or not a woman wants sex. This entire thread can be crystalized into one question, should a man be allowed to ASSUME what a woman’s feelings are and begin physical activities, or should he get her consent? To me the answer is obvious. Anyone who isn’t a sociopath gets consent before physically touching another person.
Aanamika believes it is. Why are you not respecting HER beliefs?
That is YOUR belief – not a patent fact as you keep expressing it, but your belief.
How come only your belief demands respect? In OUR society’s culture – that of the majority on this board – there is a level of casual physical touch between a male and a female that MAY happen WITHOUT any sort of sociopathy being involved.
A handshake is inherently in itself asking permission to initiate such a gesture. One person sticks their hand out, and sort of leaves it hanging in the air, and the other person reciprocates. I’ve never had a person forcibly shake my hand. Are you saying you’ve had men launch themselves forward to grab your limp and unwelcoming hand while it was hanging at your side? Or are you saying they put their hand out in the air like normal people do and then got pissed off when you didn’t reciprocate? In some cultures it’s really rude not to reciprocate a handshake, it’s basically a personal insult.
[QUOTE=ZPG]
Why the heck not, men are always trying to tell women what we feel? This is especially true when it comes to whether or not a woman wants sex.
[/QUOTE]
And it feels pretty shitty when men do that, right? So why would we do it to them knowing how shitty that feels?
Not having sex with a drunk person who you know would probably regret the decision is base line decent human behavior. We do not take advantage of drunk people. If it were acceptable to do so, there is nothing should prevent a woman from cleaning out a man’s bank account (or his house, selling his car, selling his blood or sperm, etc.,) if in a drunken state he gave her the information to access it. However I imagine all of you guys would consider that theft.
I have had both of the situations happen to me. I have also had jerks throw hissy fits because I put on a glove. A gloved handshake is sometimes all there is to a business deal in my world. I have never extended my ungloved hand to any man except my 1st and 2nd husbands at the altar while vowing not have sexual relations with anyone other than them.