Responding to the responses to my response

[andrewducker]

With advice from octopoid_horror, surliminal, random_redhead and others, here are some more questions. There seemed to be a feeling that I wasn't placing things into a wider context, getting the other side of the story, etc. and hopefully this will get it out of my head so I can stop annoying you with more thoughts on the subject and return to pictures of kittens snuggling up to squid.

[Poll #1223236]

Comments

[andrewducker]

The year I lived in a horrible street near Bannockburn pretty much everyone I lived with was attacked between the flat and the local corner shop, except me.

No, I don't know why I wasn't either.

[octopoid-horror.livejournal.com]

I posted a poll like this before, I think, but I can't remember when I posted it and am not searching through several years of entries :-D

[andrewducker]

You are made of fail.

To make it up to me you must post a picture of a kitten snuggling up to a squid.

[octopoid-horror.livejournal.com]

^^ |
,, ..
}{ /|\

[andrewducker]

Yay!

[robhu.livejournal.com]

OK, now let's see a naked girl and the squid.

[octopoid-horror.livejournal.com]

{;-/#-#
<:-& \ It's hentai - the hash marks are the pixelated censored parts.

[robhu.livejournal.com]

"Needs more tentacles" (3.5/10)

[seph-hazard.livejournal.com]

o8-<
:---£



...not that the squid is very, er, squidly.

[dougs.livejournal.com]

How does she manage to cuddle the squid without arms? Isn't that a bit one-sided?

[octopoid-horror.livejournal.com]

I think that squid cuddle you rather than it being you who cuddles them. They're all "no darling, you lie there and I'll do all the work, it's totally okay"

[robhu.livejournal.com]

She doesn't.

[cdave]

To be fair to the stats, my being attacked thing had nothing to do with any of the options above. Technically it was height.

They weren't making any sort of remarks about me, they were just a bunch of bored teenagers who'd torn some bits of wood of something and were swing them around trying to look tough. They just didn't realise how tall I was, and failed to swing it over my head, bopped me one, and grazed me just enough to draw blood.

[redshira.livejournal.com]

I didn't answer the last poll because I hardly ever leave the house these days (due to illness). I imagine I'd experience a lot more hassle if I were able to go outdoors on a regular basis.

[davesangel.livejournal.com]

There's also this situation which is relevant because it's something I've had expereience with recently and random_redhead made reference to 'how many men have been falsely accused of rape?':

There are men who have seriously mistreated and/or emotionally abused (or worse) women and in order to try and escape the guilt for this and come out of it all smelling like roses, they claim to their friends that the woman whom they've abused has been spreading lies about them trying to rape her. Because in their view, if you bring rape into the equation, then you must be telling the truth - it's such an extreme and serious crime that if they claim they've falsely been accued of it then poor them, and the woman must be a huge psycho to make up something so obviously untrue about them.

To my friends (the decent ones), this just defies belief because what sort of sick wanker would make such shit up about a woman just so that his remaining friends will believe him over the woman who has been treated like dirt already? Rape is not something you lie about just to seem all holier than thou and try and win some weird psychological battle...

[octopoid-horror.livejournal.com]

There is a flip side to that as well.

Some attention-seeking people or just cruel people (of either gender) will actively embroider, exaggerate or plainly fabricate stories of mistreatment and abuse of varying degrees.

I've been in situations where I was present for an uncomfortable social situations that were most certainly not abuse but, as friendships shift over the years and people stop liking each other, suddenly that time that someone got chatted up by a guy or girl and just wasn't interested becomes a story about a creepy stalker or someone molesting them because they don't like that person any more, so there's both attention to gain and the shitty little powerplay of spreading rumours about somebody.

I can remember a party where two people shouted at each other and then one stormed out. Several years later, someone who was there (but didn't remember ME being there) told me about this party and somehow this brief shouting match became full blown physical violence on the part of the supposed aggressor.

[andrewducker]

Big George once told the story of the Warhammer game where my character "accidentally" locked his character in the basement with a bunch of Skaven and then threw down fireballs to kill the skaven, nearly killing his character at the same time.

It's a great story.

Which happened with my character and Neil Rodger's, about three years before George came to university.

I figure he heard it, adopted it, and told it so many times that he forgot that it never actually happened to him. I didn't have the heart to correct him.

[terminalmalaise.livejournal.com]

Sex -- No one's ever hassled me for being male. (Edit: Nor hassled with sexual taunts, if that's what was meant.)

The way I dress -- Nope, but I've always been a jeans and plain shirts for all seasons kind of person, so nothing remarkable there. I don't look rich and I don't look poor.

My hair colour/style -- Blonde hair halfway down my back, but never a negative comment on it by strangers. I'm in NY, so it's not all that unusual.

My ethnicity -- Caucasion, quite pale. Nothing here either.

My weight -- Pretty slender, slightly below average height. Nothing here.

The subculture I belong to -- Geek? Not that glaringly obvious.

Sexuality -- As far as I know, I don't set off gaydar in strangers. Have never heard a taunt having to do with being perceived as straight.

Religion -- Atheist, nominally brought up Catholic. Not advertised publicly.

Age -- 31 nowadays. Nothing ever here.

I mostly just blend in, invisible. Grade school was a little different, but those were kids I knew, and kids are just mean.

[octopoid-horror.livejournal.com]

Also, I think either some people don't notice these kind of things, or else some people give off an aura of "hassle me, go on you know you want to."

[surliminal.livejournal.com]

Much better data - already clear it's more a subcuilture`thing for guys, more a sex thing for girls (which is what i'd have suspected but good to see it empirically.)

Ok people don't seem to be confused by the usage of "sex"!

After seeing the slut_hazard`thing, maybe theer should be a pol for have you been sexualy harassed on the Internet :(

Shouldn't you be at a bbq?!

[andrewducker]

Julie's feeling awful, so we're having a relaxign evening in. Well, except for bursts of murderous rage :->

[surliminal.livejournal.com]

against whom!!!! :-)

[surliminal.livejournal.com]

btw it would be also be interesting to know why people got attacked. I imagine you're connecting it to sexual/hate attacks, given context, but the one time I've been attacked (not leaving marks, hence no vote) it was for money (my handbag) and I imagine there's a lot of that for woman. Stats seem to show that young black men are the most attacked and also the most attacking - street violence is in reality more a guy drink and testosterone thing, than a sex from women thing - but that's not what gets projected through the media. (No I'm not entirely sure what point I'm making either except that the people who ought to be most worried about violence generally are not the ones who do, and vice versa.)

[octopoid-horror.livejournal.com]

I'm fairly sure that last time I saw statistics being bandied about in the news, it was 18-24 year old men who were most at risk of being mugged in the street, and as I was discussing with Andy today, the biggest group of people at risk of being stabbed are those who (on other days) are likely to be the ones doing the stabbing.

But those aren't the stories that make the news, as you say. Two teenagers in a gang stabbing each other is one story, or two drunk blokes having a fight is another but one teenager in a gang knifing an old lady for her pension or a drunken football hooligan beating up a father taking his son to the match are much more likely stories for a tabloid to make a fuss about.

There was an interesting article a while back in one of the broadsheets about just how likely people think some crimes are, compared to the reality (statistics on plane crashes and relative safety are probably a good analogy here)

But then, it's still uncomfortable for anyone getting abuse in the street, whether or not it's statistically likely to become an actual assault.

[unav.livejournal.com]

This.

The only time I've been attacked on the street was a mugging.

[cangetmad.livejournal.com]

I wrote a thing that got too long for the text box:

Hmm. I still think "because of the patriarchy" is missing.

I don't know why I've been hassled when I have, or why attacked, for that matter, so I answered for the things that were mentioned when it happened, which in my case is usually my gender, the size of my breasts, and either of those in combination with wearing pretty much anything at all. I've been hassled for being queer on the rare occasions that's been evident to people. I've also been hassled on the presumption, I suppose, that I am straight - when I was pregnant, a lot of people went for the "I know what you've been doing" line.

When I said I'd been physically attacked "in the street" - on one occasion in an actual street, though in that case the mark left was just from having my breast pinched, and on one occasion in another public place.

[cangetmad.livejournal.com]

Oh, and while this doesn't apply to me, there are plenty of women (and some men) to whom "somebody I know has been accused of rape by me because they raped me" is the case, of course.

[octopoid-horror.livejournal.com]

Social class (perceived or actual) is a factor too.

Depending where you are, it's sometimes hard to separate from some of the other factors though.