andrewducker | Somewhere that was leading

Somewhere that was leading

There was much amusement this morning when I checked my email and discovered that some people thought that I was trying to do some kind of scientific research via an LJ poll, or thought that I was trying to make a point about how many people had been raped (which was clearly not data you could extract from the question I asked).

Um.

No.

This was all kicked off by the discussion a few days back about the feminism backlash - and specifically by the discussion of how it must be ok to just _say_ things to women - after all, it's just speech, how could it be dangerous?

To which my response was:
You wouldn't make the kind of statement in a rape survivor's group, after all. But the stats seem to show that if you're around more than 4 women then you _are_ in the middle of a rape survivor's group...
("The Stats" and much more can be found here on liberal conspiracy - a site I very much recommend. I don't intend to discuss them further, you can do your own damn reading.)

But anyway - the point is that pretty much everyone knows someone who was raped. Of the nine people currently asserting otherwise on the poll I personally know that three of them are wrong. Someone else commented saying that at least one other one was wrong. I'd like to think that there was at least one person on my friends list who didn't know any sexual assault victims, but I wouldn't care to place money on it. And this raises fear levels - because it makes it much more real than if you didn't know people who are involved. I don't know anyone who's been stabbed (at least I don't think I do), so the stuff in the papers about knife crime kinda bounces off, but sexual assault is much more personal, because it's happened to people I care about deeply.

And it's a crime more likely to be committed by a person you know. With all of the people I know, for instance, about it was friends, or friends of friends. Which leads to mistrust of _all men_. You can't tell from a distance, and so you lost trust that you can open up to anyone.

I was once hanging out with a woman at a convention - we'd met a few times before and got on well, friended each other, exchanged the odd email, etc. And this time, we arrived at the hotel with bags of chips in our hands and needed somewhere to eat them where the staff wouldn't get upset. So I suggested my room. And she gave me an odd look - and it took me a moment to realise that that look was suspicion of my motives. So I reassured her, and we got the lift up. And when we got out she thanked me for not trying to kiss her. Because a _lot_ of men she'd shared lifts with under similar circumstances with had tried something like that. She's in a relationship. She's never shown any interest in me.

And she thanked me. For not trying to kiss her. And I've never been so astounded in my life.

It's insane. It makes me weep for what many women have to go through every sodding day.

I work very hard to make sure people I know feel comfortable around me. I'm naturally huggy and touchy-feely, and it took me a long time to realise that it made some people feel uncomfortable, because I came from a background that _was_ very safe. But eventually I realised that I had to back off. So you won't see me making the first move when it comes to hugging most people, because I do _not_ want to fall into the category of "sleazy man who hugs people to get close to them." And I only have to worry about that because of complete dick's who do that.

There are, if you're lucky, two categories of men in women's head - ones that are safe to be around, and ones that aren't. And you can, if you like, be blunt about sex, and not worry about people's previous experiences, and whether they jump slightly whenever people make any connection between them and sex, and whether they know you well enough to open up to you at all. But you're very likely to be places into category B.

And no, I'm not telling you what to do, or how to speak. Just saying that the world is _not_ a Safe Space, and that we all need to be aware of the consequences of what we say and how we act around people.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

And this is, of course, also a response to the OSBP, which struck me as one of those misguided things which was probably fine with the few people who were first involved in it, but OMG so not fine as a general meme.

Also - when she did get back to my room we ate chips and discussed databases. Which was exactly the kind of geeky fun I'd had in mind when I invited her back.

When we met up with her partner later on she actually told them that she trusted me and I'd behaved well. As if not being a complete bastard was worthy of note.

I weep, I really do.

That article does a nice job of cherrypicking the statistics to make their case.

The BCS figures are the interesting bit - and generally considered to be reliable.

The "Have known women who..." bits clearly not as much use.

I'm curious, because I've been following the conversation but haven't commented yet - you seem to have a real hard-on, if you'll excuse the expression, for doubting the rape and sexual assault stats. I understand, sort of, if this is just a generalized hate for statistics which are often mis-used but it more reeks of not wanting to face the fact that the vast majority of women have been the victim of sexualized violence.

Specifically? I know the statistics fairly well, but haven't gone through them with the toothcomb that Unity has—he very much doesn't like misleading use of statistics, it's a pet hate of his, so if you think it's wrong or he's misused it feel free to tell him.

I think you are an exceptional person, Andy.

The whole thing seemed a bit bizarre to me.

What percentage of women have been sexually assaulted? is an interesting question. Of those women what percentage have experienced the different types / levels of sexual assault?

A question along the lines of 'What percentage of people know a woman (or perhaps person) who has been sexually assaulted in some way?". Leads to very high numbers without that necessarily meaning something really bad is happening to a lot of people.

For example: I have had a very drunken girl kiss me unexpectedly. I did not want to be kissed by this girl, so it was a type of sexual assault. It was more of an annoyance than something I'd be terribly upset about though. But if you then asked my (let's say) 20 friends if they knew anyone who had been sexually assaulted they'd all have to say yes. If I then said "[very high > 90]% of people surveyed know someone who has been sexually assaulted" you get a very different idea from what (in my case) actually happened (in terms of how bad the assault was, and how rare it was).

The rarity thing is because to get useful information about how many people are sexually assaulted you have to somehow unpack / decompress the answer by plugging in the level of connectedness of people, which intuitively we don't do (and don't have any figures for).

So, I think the whole exercise is probably quite bankrupt and misleading.

What's bankrupt? I'm completely confused by your response - I explicitly said that I _wasn't_ pulling figures from "who do you know that..." type questions, and linked to a page that included the following:
For the previous year (2004/5), the British Crime Survey recorded that 0.2% of female respondents reported having been raped at some point during the year, and if that figure is statistically valid - and the BCS survey is generally considered to be the more reliable measure of actual crime, then with a female population of 15.6 million, the estimated number of rapes using survey data would be around 31,000, a figure that doubles to 62-63,000 when you include attempted rape.

Overall, 2.8% of women reported to that BCS survey that, in the year it covered, they had been subjected to sexual violence of some description (included attempted assaults), which gives an extrapolated ‘raw’ figure of just over 435,000 women.
which strikes me as being about as hard as the data gets for these things.

I'm not sure exactly how you got the idea anyone was trying to go direct from my poll to hard numbers on victims.

My comment was meant in the context of the "who do you know that..."

Imagine I began it with "Here's what I think of the who do you know that... questions"

Imagine I began it with "Here's what I think of the who do you know that... questions"

Aaaah. I found them useful only insofar as the effect they have on people's reactions - clearly you can't go from them to hard figures. For that there's things like the BCS.

Ah, but that's sort of the point. The correct response for everyone to have made in that poll was to click yes, but a fair few didn't, many of whom should have.

As an awareness raising exercise, it works, as many people, especially men, don't realise how likely it is that such things effect people they know.

Sure, the majority of women aren't effected, but that all of us know someone that has been is something that should effect our thinking and behaviour, which I think is the point Andy's making.

Hold on. Why is the correct response for everyone to click yes? That doesn't make any sense at all.

If you don't know anyone who has been sexually assaulted then the correct answer is no.

That many people know someone who has been assaulted (which is extremely loosely defined as others have commented re: language) is not anything like as useful for affecting our thinking as knowing how many people have been assaulted (and to what degree).

How many of us know Christians? Probably everyone, but that says very little about how many people are Christian (because of the high level of interconnectedness) or how 'christian' they are (do they just write cofe on forms but not believe in God, do they attend church, etc). It's extremely easy to draw the wrong conclusions from the 'How many people know someone who ?' type questions, which [Bad username or site: andrewducker' / @ livejournal.com] wisely commented earlier to say are not all that useful.

If you don't know anyone who has been sexually assaulted then the correct answer is no.

Correct. The point isn't how many know someone. The point is the number of people who weren't aware that they did know someone.

It's very correct to say that it's a leading question designed to inflate the figures, if it's designed to make it look like assault happens all the time.

But that's not the point Andy makes in his post. The poll denotes evidence that many people are unaware that they know people who've been assaulted. Whether that lack of knowledge is good or bad in itself is another debate, which is what I read the substance of this post being about.

Some people (it wasn't many who said no) don't know that their friends have been assaulted (again, 'sexually assaulted' is an extremely wide term, I think it does a disservice to more serious types of assault to always be so general). Fine. That's obvious though - who wouldn't already know that?

If the question was 'Do you know someone who has been raped?' or (better) "Of your five closest friends do you know if any of them have been raped?" that would be really interesting to see the results. If you define sexual assault so widely (as many do - and fair enough for them to do so) as some drunken person touching your bottom once in a pub or laying their hands on you momentarily in a club (all of which have happened to me) then you do a complete disservice to the more serious types of assault, and make the general question virtually meaningless.

Edited 2008-07-04 10:59 (UTC)

Nope - that wasn't my point at all. My point can be found here:
http://andrewducker.livejournal.com/1477538.html?thread=8521122#t8521122

> You wouldn't make the kind of statement in a rape survivor's group, after all. But the stats seem to show that if you're around more than 4 women then you _are_ in the middle of a rape survivor's group...

Yes, that's a very important point that seems to be forgotten a lot of the time.

I think society desperatly needs good information to be able to judge serious societal issues such as Rape. What REALLY pisses me off though, is the way that some of the rape studies are done because they invalidate the study. An example of this is "have you been presurised into sex". Yes, I know that this does cover seriouse issues such as someone f***ing with your mind, or threats, but it can also cover, "well my boyfriend really wanted to, but I didnt really feel in the mood, but I really wanted to make him happy, and I have no regrets". Ok, Rant over.

I would also say I probably know a lot more woman that have been raped then I think I do. I suspect a lot of them keep it quiet.

Absolutely. The language is incredibly important.

What REALLY pisses me off though, is the way that some of the rape studies are done because they invalidate the study.

Aye, the Amnesty study of a few years back had several leading questions that inflated numbers and "showed" attitudes were bad, in fact the way they worded it made attitudes look a lot worse than they are.

I think a gray area also exists around consenting age.

According to the law, anyone under 16 is not able to consent to sex, therefore making it a sort of rape. But I don't think many people who have lost their cherry under the age of 16 will prosecute the person they had sex with.

This gives also gives an added interpretation issue.

What I would also like to bring up is that a heck of a lot of guilt is involved with victims of rape/sexual assault/being taken advantage of. The victims also often feel it is their fault and I think more so with victims that didn't/couldn't fight back. This guilt and trauma can last such a long time and I think this is the reason many victims do not report. They believe so strongly it is their fault.

Absolutely.

A few thoughts occur:

1) I sometimes get the feeling that the PC thing to do is to assume that any one I'm interested in is a potential rape victim, and therefore any advances should be made with a ten foot pole, wrapped in koosh balls. Basically, as non-threatening and non-sexual as possible.

Now, I think it's a great idea to not kick people when they're down, or in their sensitive bits. But I also don't think that it's healthy to assume that everyone is like that and therefore can't deal with it/needs respect in the form of treating them like a leper.

And this follows through into my second point.

2) I really don't like that sexual abuse victims are perceived as broken, shy, destroyed, and pretty much any form of helpless and damaged that you can imagine. It is something that can be gotten over, it is possible to live a normal life afterwards.

Absolutely - and true of all people who have suffered trauma.

But if someone I knew had been in a car crash I'd be at least _careful_ with comments about pile-ups and fast driving.

::nod:: It's really a matter of pendulum, with me. Don't let it fly too far to one direction.

A very good way of putting it. I'm known for saying ridiculously stupid and inappropriate things, unfortunately, but do constantly constantly try. Oddly enough, when it's a particularly sensitive subject/group, I'm always excellent...

Regarding that last point I'd like to quote a piece of writing. It's kinda about the way abuse 'victims' are treated:

"I dislike the word ‘victim.’ When you read about car accidents or plane crashes in the newspaper, the victims are always the people who died. Those who live, no matter how grievously injured, are called ‘survivors.’ That’s a much better word. I find that when you treat people like victims, they start to act like victims, but if you treat a person like a survivor then they’ll start to act like a survivor. I am a survivor and I certainly don’t feel dead! I survived my childhood. You wouldn’t know it to look at me, would you? Even after 15-20 years it’s still difficult to talk about because I find that once I tell people about it, they start to treat me differently. I can’t understand it - I’m the same person they knew before I told them! I’m expected to be fragile and depressed but that’s not how I feel. I’m generally an upbeat and happy person. Sometimes they don’t know how to act around me, afraid to say or do anything in case I take offence or get upset. Sometimes they become overbearing, telling me what I should or should not do, as if they can protect me from something that happened so far in the past. It rather angers me that people would think I am so weak as to have not come to terms with it after all this time! Usually I don’t bother telling people at all. After all, it’s not something that affects me on a day to day basis. I hardly even think about it any more and the memory has been so dulled with time that now when I think about it I feel like I’m remembering a memory rather than the actual events.

I have, however, told my partner as it is very important to be able to trust your partner. One of the fantastic things about him is that it hasn’t changed the way he treats me at all. After I’d told him, he simply asked me if it bothered me any more. When I said it didn’t, he accepted it. Now, before you jump to any silly conclusions I’d like to point out that it wasn’t my parents. It doesn’t really matter who they were and to be perfectly frank, I don’t even know all their names. Of the four, three of them were people in a position of responsibility who took advantage of their authority. It’s been too long to feel anything like anger towards them. Instead I feel a rather condescending contempt at their weakness. It is an ignoble soul who preys on those smaller and meeker than themselves. With the fourth, it may surprise you to learn, I now have an amenable acquaintanceship. He explained what was going through his mind at the time and he himself was young at the time. While I cannot condone his actions, I can at least understand his motivations. We have, as they say, made our peace. It is a cliche but I have to say that I would not undo it if I could, for it has helped shape me into the person I am today ... and I quite like the person I am today! I may be a little more cynical but I am also much stronger than before."

I'm gonna split my response into 2 parts. This one deals with the mathmatics of the subject, which piss me off as they are misleading. The 2nd part I will make more general as a comment to Andy at the bottom of the rest.

I've been in 2 car accidents. Neither of which I would describe myself as a "survivor" of. The seriousness of each car accident has to be taken on its own merits.

Rape is a pretty clinical term. Yes you can have degrees of seriousness of it, but anything that can be termed rape is already pretty fucking serious to begin with. Sexual molestation however is not. If were talking about someone grabbing someones arse, than the poll is 100%. Period. Hell I would even say that given that definition, I've been sexually molested. Basically for this reason the poll is bad.

Further more, I answered no to the question, because he said "know of" and I'm pretty sure at least one of my friends has been raped, statistically speaking, due to the number of people I know. Let's change the question to how many people have been raped, and suddenly that 90%+ becomes 1% or 2%. This is because we know a lot of people, simple as that. I dare say if the question was how many have been assaulted the percentage would be 100%, though the actual percentage of people would be much lower.

There are lies, damned lies and statistics someone once said. How true this is.

I'm not sure what your point is about the stats. I deliberately said in my post that I wasn't looking for figures on how many people had been assaulted - but on how many people knew someone who had been - to show that _that_ was pervasive. I even linked to a site with _actual_ stats on rape in that paragraph, for people that were interested in that.

My point is that if you know a fair number of people then the chances of that small percentage being amongst them is fairly high, so the poll is always going to return very high figures. I'm sure if you pick another subject like "people who have visited australia" then the poll with again be very high, even though a small minority of us actually have. Would you then conclude that visiting Australia is prevelent?

No - I'd conclude that _awareness_ that visiting Australia was something that people did is prevalent. Which is exactly what I was doing with rape - showing that most people knew that rape was something that happened to people they knew.

So do a great deal of other things. We discussed this briefly yesterday and I agree with some of what you have said, I just maintain that the original poll is largely meaningless.

Can I also ask what you wanted to achieve from this post? You're drawing attention to the fact that people can be sexually assaulted within our friends group, but to what ends really? I would like to think noone in my group of friends would be guilty of sexual molestation on someone else, so is there some other goal you were trying to get? Or was it just topical, in which case *shrug* It's your LJ! :)

I just maintain that the original poll is largely meaningless.
It _means_ that pretty much everyone I know knows someone that's been raped or sexually assaulted. It seems like a fairly simple and easy to understand meaning. I'm not sure why there's confusion over it.

The point of the post was:
1) Nearly everyone knows people that have been assaulted.
2) Therefore there is widespread fear of it, because it happens to people connected to us, (unlike say knife crime, which doesn't tend to).
3) Therefore you need to be careful when being loudly sexual in conversation with women, because rape/assault is something that's frequently in their consciousness.

It wasn't complicated, and all three of these points are clearly in the post. See paragraghs 4,6, 7,12 and 13.

Then I disagree with your conclusion, which you have made point 3.

There are women who I know I can make jokes and sexual references to and those I wouldn't dream of. Similarly there are people I will discuss religion with and those who would take offence. I don't really see that knowing other people have been raped comes into it, it is all about the individual person. An all encompassing statement, especially for half the population, just seems overly P.C. to me and frankly incorrect.

It stands to reason that if someone has been sexually assaulted, you tread carefully where sex is concerned as a topic. This is true of a host of other topics too be it sex, religion, death, illness, politics etc; it is simply being considerate to those who might find something upsetting or awkward. I don't believe it needs to become a general rule.

There are women who I know I can make jokes and sexual references to and those I wouldn't dream of.
Then you are following the advice in my conclusion - you're being careful.

By "being careful" I don't mean "Don't do anything at all, ever." - I mean paying attention and taking care, which is what you seem to be saying you do.

Is your tendency to start from "I can say anything" and then be more circumspect if it turns out you need to be, to be cautious and then relax when you discover they can be joked around with, or something else?

This is The Right Way To Do It. All of my friends know that I have been raped. All of my friends also know that I have an absolutely filthy mouth and will talk about pretty much anything! [grin] The trick is to be *careful*, not put some sort of blanket self-ban on ever saying anything remotely sexual - quite apart from anything else, the latter can get supremely irritating if one is not the sort of person who needs such behaviour around them :-)

Oh - and to quote from one of the other comments here:
"there are so many, many people who make off-colour jokes that align them with the obnoxious men to their listeners, even if /they/ know they'd never actually do X, Y, Z."

In regards to rape/sexual assault - and I'm talking actual assault or actual attempted assault, not a drunken snog (which unfortunately some men think is an example of sexual assault - ffs???), I'm talking about what comes after that - in most cases it *is* someone the woman knows. That's what makes it more difficult to trust blokes, because the woman has not solely been physically and sexually violated, but her trust and friendship towards that man has been violated.

But what also feeds into this whole issue is this excellent point you made:

how it must be ok to just _say_ things to women - after all, it's just speech, how could it be dangerous?

Well said. I know a lot of women who distrust men specifically because of comments that they've made. Specifically, comments along the lines of how women are like cars that can be taken out for a test drive, or comments that reflect an attitude that no matter what the bloke's personality and physical appearance he can (and *should* be able to) sleep with any woman he wants. Some might dismiss this as 'lol just male pride' but to carry this attitude around with you, that any woman you show attention to should be grateful for it and therefore reciprocate your feelings, is sickening and is a pretty good reason why a lot of women won't trust men and don't want to be alone with them...because attention and compliments of any type have a sexualised meaning behind them.

I'd have to say, out of all my boyfriends/girlfriends/dalliances, you have been the only *male* that never touched upon the subject in an inappropriate way. But then we both came to realise that one of the reasons I choose you was that, despite whatever annoying stuff you have (and everyone has annoying stuff, that's not a dig at you), you're incredibly, incredibly safe. I love that about you.

A friend told me recently that she pulls faces when walking home at night to avoid being hit on.

I can't imagine how anyone could think that hitting on someone walking home alone would be a good idea. It's madness.

I feel pretty uncomfortable about this entire meta discussion. Will discuss with you in private sometime.

But I do think one of the big problems with believing, or "perceptions of", the stats, is that when you say "rape", everyone - including women - thinks of a stranger in an alley. Whereas, just as with child abuse, most forced sex, non consensual sex or sexual assualt happens with people you know, often partners or husbands. (marital rape was in fact legally impossible till really quite reasonably.) "Date rape" captures some of this but again trivialises the issue as it's just as common in long term relationships as in one night stands (says seh: I have no stats for this but it's my impression from talking to lawyers, policemen etc.) It's just harder to convince a court of this - or to get someone to take on a prosecution.

Below you can see a few guys - at least one of whom I know to be apparently perfectly reasonable - discussing how women having sex because their partner is keen and they're not in the mood but it'd easier just to give in than to argue, is AOK. is it really guys? Anyhow, however you feel, it will affect the nos in these stats.

Another point no one's really touched on is that when you ask people if they "know" someone who has suffered rape or assault, they will filter it through these perceptions as to whether they decide they believe the reported account. And there are general credibility problems - short skirts etc - which is one of very many reasons why rape reports are so low.

I think much here is rather binary and un-nuanced. Not all men are rapists and not all women are victims and not all men and women perceive things like that, and the truth is way more grey.

...happens with people you know, often partners or husbands
A point I made in my post.

I think much here is rather binary and un-nuanced.
There certainly is in the comments. I don't believe there is in the post.

I had a big rant planned for this, but I'm really struggling to formulate the right response. Everytime I start, there are tangents I am going down that lead onto huge paragraphs of exceptions. So I shall be concise:-

I don't believe that there are a huge proportion of women being raped, nor a large proportion of men capable of doing so. Women get the rough end of the deal in this society at the moment which regards to sexual innuendo and harrassment, but shouldn't tar every male with the brush that others deserve.

Gah. So much to say on the subject but without people to bounce ideas off in person it is difficult to respond to this subject without risking upsetting or offending someone when just trying to put your point across.

Damn you Andy. Can your next poll be on Sushi please?

It's not a _huge_ proportion. It's only about 9% over their lifetime.

I don't believe that there are a huge proportion of women being raped

I would respectfully suggest you talk to more women. In my experience, the one in four is an UNDERestimate. Of course, if you only count it as rape if it's a stranger, then...

Patronising answers for the win huh? I know plenty of women and whilst I suspect at least one may have been raped, 1 in 4 is grossly incorrect. No statistics I've ever seen would back up such wild claims and my own social circles reflect this too. I would say it is youself who should "talk to more women". As for the assinine final sentence, maybe in the 1980's when the law still existed ignoring rape from married partners, but frankly I think what you are implying is insulting at best, and comments like yours don't make for healthy discourse on the subject.

I wasn't trying to be patronising, and apologise if I came across as being so. I don't know you, and was trying quite hard not to make assumptions about you, but obviously I failed. For that I apologise.

Perhaps the use of the phrase "talk to more women" was a bad choice.

I thought the same as you. I thought that there was no way the number was that high. I thought I was an oddity in having been raped (by someone I knew). It wasn't until I started mentioning it that other women said things like "you too, huh?" and I discovered that a large proportion of my female friends, people who I would never have thought of as victims, have been raped and/or sexually assaulted. A lot of them haven't told their significant others. Most of them haven't told their parents. I can't think of more than one or two who would be comfortable mentioning it to a male friend.

The thing is, most of us who have been raped by people we knew don't want to shout about it in public. I'm not saying that you don't know plenty of women; I'm sure you do. But have you ever asked them if they have been raped, or are you just making assumptions?

PS - am very open about the below, not making any big emotional revelations in this comment, and anyone who knows me vaguely well will probably have heard me mention it at least in passing before.

When I was fourteen, the older brother of a boy who was bullying me at school forced me to perform oral sex on him. About six months later, a boy who I was seeing at the time attempted to rape me. I beat him off with a bit of tubular steel, but that's a whole other story!

About eighteen months ago, I was in a taxi at about 3am with a female friend when the driver pulled over into a deserted side-road, got out of the car and started trying to climb into the back seat and grope us. We yelled expletives, ran off into somewhere more populated, and got a different taxi home.

A few months ago ago, I was having a ciggie outside a bar in Streatham when a guy wandering past said something extremely rude and slapped my arse, quite hard. Just last week, a bloke at a bus stop suddenly grabbed one of my breasts. I made a fuss, another woman nearby joined in, and he wandered off.

Every time I leave the house I get at least one comment from a strange man, ranging from the quite-sweet-really ("you're beautiful") to the disgusting and obscene (I'm not even prepared to type here some of the things I've had called to me in the street).

None of this is unusual. Women live with this every fucking day. That woman reacted to you like that because you are not the norm.

I wonder if the other men _are_ the norm - or if they're just very obvious. You must see dozens/hundreds of men on any one trip, and if only one is obnoxious then that's the whole trip coloured.

I don't have any figures on obnoxious men levels...

Actually that's a very good point and I suspect you're right. I think I get so angry about this that I don't think about it properly!

yeah but there are so many, many people who make off-colour jokes that align them with the obnoxious men to their listeners, even if /they/ know they'd never actually do X, Y, Z. On and on, it's supposed to be *okay* to joke about hiring attractive Brazilian researchers because we know that really we'll be hiring on merit, and people will talk to me about my poster at a conference because they're interested in the subject, honest. And even if they don't, quite, they certainly aren't going to be assualting me in the lifts, are they. Or maybe that was your point.

I do the opposite. When I see a cute girl at something I talk to everyone except her.

hey, I'm curious - how do you contribute if you're with some colleagues/friends in the pub in the evening and they're joking about the cute girl? Would you just keep quiet?

Is the situation you're suggesting like this:
We have been to a conference where there was a cute girl
Later when she's not around my male (let's assume) friends are making inappropriate jokes about the cute girl.

What do I do?

Is that what you're asking?

inappropriate is poorly defined.

yeah, that kind of thing. I'm only being nosy.

I might say nothing and be silently annoyed, then annoyed with myself afterwards.

I might speak out at the time and say "Look, that's not funny or appropriate".

I tend towards the latter, but I will shamefully admit I have done the former in the past. It is very costly to stand up against some of the things people say.

If someone was routinely saying really inappropriate things I'd see them far less often.

This is not just a male issue. (I don't know if that makes you fel better).

I have been in groups (I am often in all-men-but-me groups) where similar not-very-right-on things were said and I have not had the guts or energy to turn on them..

Much of it is also cultural. It's as if groups have different volume controls. I know some Latin American men who make the most non PC comments but in real life (as it were) they are also extremely polite and chivalrous towards most the women i see them actually interacting with. It's just a culture where frankly, it's expected for het men, married or single, to be out to get sex whenever possible and that colours`how they talk about non-present dateable women. (I count as honorary man in these conversations I think because (a) too old to be dateable and (b) mnore senior than them in out context, which is work related.

That was exactly my point - you have to start off by making sure people know you _aren't_ an arsehole before you can get away with making jokes that might make you look like one.

This. I get groped on a daily basis. I'm a barmaid, I'm fair game

Yes, I used to be a barmaid and know exactly what you mean. Thankfully the landlady in the Sun was a terrifying Irish matriarch who kept the blokes in line, but I still got a fair bit of bollocks.

From my personal experience there are women things happen to and women things don't happen to. I think it will be a curved graph of never to always etc. I don't know why some women attract more nut jobs in the street but I've seen it happen. I can't imagine how this phenomenon works. I very rarely get shouted at in the street, but when out with certain friends it happens disturbingly frequently. No one has ever tried to kiss me in a lift.
I'm not sure what I'm trying to say, other than, not all women think all men are like that? I am hesitating over making any claim to fractions of the population, partly because my friends group is not representative of the population at large and I think different groups will have different experiences.
On a bad head spack day I think it means I'm a lesser person, that no one wants to try it on with me. Most of the time I think its a very positive thing!

I agree with all of this, especially the last paragraph. I've never experienced any of the things

seph_hazard says are usual, and never been kissed in a lift (apart from consensually by my partner).

I don't recall any of my female friends ever telling me about these things happening to them, either. (But maybe if they're in the subset who do experience these things regularly, then they probably think all women do, and they probably don't think any such incident is remarkable enough to tell me about?)

(Hi, btw; I'm a lurker from

atreic's friends page.)

Wow, glad it's not just me. I get plenty of *wanted* attention but never experienced anything threateningly unwanted.

I can't say that I have been all that careful with men I don't know, but no harm has ever come of it. Nor from men I DO know, either.

I don't know why, I really don't. I fully believe and know that other women do have the hassle, but I just don't.

Hmmm... I can be quite coldly rude, maybe. I do tend to totally blank strange men in whom I am not interested totally, not look at them, turn away, move away. And I decide if I am interested or not in one instant look. Ach, none of that is relevant...

yeah I have noticed that - that some women are speaking up saying "six random strangers hoot at me a day" and others are saying "nothing like that happens to me". I have noticed occasional /days/ when I seem to be attracting nutjobs and - well, wearing a skirt definitely triggers more attention, but sometimes I can't work out what the hell I'm doing differently.

(No one has ever tried to kiss me in a lift either. Ugh.)

Being kissed in a lift is particularly awesome (if it's consensual).

sorry. I meant non-consensually.

It certainly is! :->

Now come on [Bad username or site: andrewducker' / @ livejournal.com], we agreed we've never talk about that again.

That might be because, as well as being extremely beautiful, you also look as though you're terrifying. Which you do. [grin]

Good Lord.

Do I have _any_ friends who don't know each other?

[laughs] I met the supremely lovely

random_redhead at BiCon last year :-)

And this time, we arrived at the hotel with bags of chips in our hands and needed somewhere to eat them where the staff wouldn't get upset.

Australia is officially eating my brain! In Australia chips = crisps and hot chips = chips.

When I first read this I thought it was odd that a hotel would have a problem with people eating crisps on the premises. And it took me around six or seven hours for it to click that you meant were eating a bag of hot chips. Argh!

And to think you were there!

Yeah, but the whole crisps/chips confusion threw me off and I started thinking you must be referring to a different incident. That is how much Australia has messed with my head!

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