Showing your appreciation for solitary members of the opposite sex

There's a difference between behaviour that is complimentary and behaviour that is threatening.

But it can sometimes be a very fine line.

No one deserves to get harrassed for what they are wearing. (Unless, well, they're Momus in a frightwig.)

Compliments are nice, being told that you look attractive, even by strangers, can give you a lift. But when it crosses the line is when people make if physical - the trying to dance with you, following you home, etc. is definitely over that line.

Should you change your behaviour or your clothes becuase of it? The feminist in me says fuck no, that's the old "asking for it" argument. I'm not sure what you can say to men who cross the line, though, as to reply is to open a dialogue which is what they want, and you definitely do *not* want.

<i>Should guys have a bit more consideration for the way their actions may come across? Or should girls put up with it or put the trousers back on?</i>

dude, come on. the former, clearly. it seems best just to ignore that bullshit, though it would be great to have some comeback that would shut them up.

Rumpie and Kate, Sauchiehall Street, yesterday:

http://www.usna.edu/Users/history/scallaha/USMC-HC_files/Solomons%20Flamethrower.jpg

also, rumpie, you shouldn't hesitate to post or start threads.

It's getting to the stage where even the innocuous 'toot toot' from a white van is beginning to feel threatening, ESPECIALLY if the driver is alone.

I quizzed a friend about this, as a former van driver from his teens he said the 'lads' in the van would toot and whistle at girls but it was more of a group activity as such and not something would have felt comfortable doing alone.

Guys, do you ever feel your behaviour may come across as creepy?

Thanks Julia, I felt this was a question that needed input from the ilx masses - sometimes nobody else will do!

Guys, do you ever feel your behaviour may come across as creepy?

ha ha ha ha, hi dere ILE pleased to meet u.

i doubt any guys on ILE would indulge in the kind of behaviour you're describing but there's a whole 'nother level of creepiness that some guys on ILE are more likely to be familiar with or even accused of e.g. excessive complimenting on photos of girls they don't really know (not saying this is OK but it happens), internet stalking, LIKING TEENPOP etc.

This happens to me every single day in our neighborhood. I have about a mile walk home from the bus stop and it makes no difference what I'm wearing I'll hear from 3-6 honks, "hey mami" or catcalls before I get home. If I'm waiting at a light and there's a car of guys next to me they'll be yelling and honking the whole time trying to get my attention. That's scares me a bit. Sometimes guys will even stick their head out the window and crane their neck to watch me as they pass by.

Yes it's annoying, sometimes threatening, but there isn't much I can do about it so I ignore it. In my case, in my area, I think it's a cultural thing. But I'll say no more on that b/c that's the last thing that needs to be brought into what is likely to become a shitfest thread.

Guys, do you ever feel your behaviour may come across as creepy?

Absolutely, which is why I keep my thoughts to myself. Not even "great shoes!" or "nice specs!" passes my lips, never mind a "Golly, you're a real knockout!".

You should leer at men more, Michael, to compensate.

What's the thing about them having to get their boots out, btw? Never quite got that.

foot fetish

I think it's hard for the men to take into consideration what is crossing the lines as it clearly very much depends on what the woman finds threatening. And before you say, well, they should stop it altogether, keep in mind that some women really like it. I don't experience it all that much - especially in my town, it's a more conservative town - but when I do, I am rarely angered by it. The funniest was a homeless guy shout at me when I passed him by:"Nice ass!". I couldn't help but laugh. As long as it's not a lewd comment, I'm okay with it. Maybe because I rarely experience it, I am okay with it? Shit, who knows.

I know that in the back of my mind I'm also rebelling a bit against my own feminism when I say I don't mind it. Now it's also the fact that I know there's nothing much you can do about it.

Ahahah. Haven't I bitched about catcalling enough on here? Rumpie, I'm really sorry -- I know exactly how you feel and it's shit, it's shit. Sometimes it can ruin your whole day (especially if you're on the way TO work, and not home) and it feels like a violation, no question, even tho a relatively small one, because the helplessness alone is thoroughly dehumanizing.

If it's any comfort, in my experience catcalling is strictly a public activity, ie if there are no other men around to witness them being macho, they don't do it. This is how I eventually figured out to stop feeling threatened by it -- it's OKAY to get angry, it's OKAY to talk back to them -- it might not win you any friends and you probably won't get far with a logical argument, but answering back is your RIGHT and I have found that there was never any direct physical threat brought against me. Just the emotional/psychological one of being exposed, possessed, condescended to, and made a fool of in public.

XP: "Nice ass" isn't a lewd comment?

That sounds heavy intimidating, wow I should be grateful I only get leered at when I'm flashing some shin.

Last year a well dressed old gentleman stopped me and said "Excuse me dear, I'd just like to say that you're a lovely looking young lady".

This totally made my day, I grinned all the way home.

I suppose there's some double standards on my part too, if I'm in a shit mood and some wise-ass stranger says "smile!" then I'll growl like an animal, but if I'm in a bright sunny mood and a carful of boys shout or whistle, they might just get a smile back.

But it's the creeps, what do they hope to gain by swivelling 180 degrees like the exorcist to gaze at my stubbly legs? Who do they think it benefits?

I think it's probably fair to say that anything that involves 1) physical contact or 2) following a person is pretty much threatening to everyone, no matter of where they draw their personal lines.

Up to that point, I'm willing to accept the arguments of cultural differences or whatever, but past that point - no. This is totally unacceptable.

x-post I've always found that answering back escalates their behaviour. One of me shouting, vs. a pack of shouting men, this is not a fair contest and they know it.

undercover Gilette street team? (xpost)

Laurel OTM, I just wish there was some knock em dead comment to suit all occasions.

Re what Nath said about not being able to help it, I think is def. true. Sometimes it bothers me (the craning the neck thing or desparately trying to get my attention). But mostly the random honks and catcalls I don't really care about. A lot of times it's young guys and I just think they are being young dumb guys enjoying riding around in their cars.

However it does make me think twice about being out alone in my hood. Walking home on busy streets in the afternoon, fine. Jogging, not so much.

I never talk back though sometimes I would like to. I do fear some of these guys being aggressive. If they think it's their right to yell at me and try to get some interaction they might also think it's their right to cuss me out or threaten me.

Guys, do you ever feel your behaviour may come across as creepy?

i can't think of any situation in which i might 'show appreciation' to a complete stranger, precisely because it would seem creepy.

I'd have thought stubble would keep them at bay :(

i can't think of any situation in which i might 'show appreciation' to a complete stranger, precisely because it would seem creepy.

same here. attractive women are only to be spied on v discreetly from a safe distance and if they do catch your eye you must deploy smokescreen pellets and vamoose.

FMBs perhaps?

Anyway, xpost with Michael. I might look, maybe indulge myself in the odd filthy thought or even (and this would be really pushing it given how shy I am) smile at a woman whom I saw and thought was attractive, but actually commenting on that to them...How rude?!

I suspect that if I were to comment to a random woman about how they looked (and how aesthetically pleasing I thought that might be) I'd have to follow the example of the old guy who talked to rumpie and be terrifically formal and old fashioned about it...And then probably run away blushing furiously.

Appreciative friendly looks, okay, that can be pretty amusing/spring-in-step-inducing for both parties sometimes, but shouting/whistling/looking for contact: utterly dud.

Ignore them, you're better than them. (and you can't hear them because you're wearing earphones, ha!)

XP: "Nice ass" isn't a lewd comment?

As I said, what one will find lewd, another will find funny. The way he said it, I couldn't help but laugh. It was in Atlanta and I felt a more laidback atmosphere (maybe due to me being on holiday).

I do feel that the fact I can't do much about it, is wrong in the sense that I should oppose to it (if I find it creepy or whatever). But I'm not 25 anymore, I'm not that angry anymore. Alas. ;-) That said, I'm not an ultra feminist. I don't agree with Greer that once you put on fuck me shoes, you aren't a feminist anymore.

(and you can't hear them because you're wearing earphones, ha!)

This is what I pretend but in truth I don't listen to my music that loud.

Yeah, nice try! I've been exhausted, unwashed, unshaven, and wearing loose Tshirts and STILL had people walk up and mutter things at me over my shoulder. Give up, it's completely ridiculous. It's not necessary about you looking sexy or pretty or even CLEAN -- it's about a public display of masculinity in which your reaction is most likely to be gratifying to them in some way. I just started flipping people off, for the most part, and would keep walking no matter what they said.

i can't think of any situation in which i might 'show appreciation' to a complete stranger, precisely because it would seem creepy.

same here. attractive women are only to be spied on v discreetly from a safe distance and if they do catch your eye you must deploy smokescreen pellets and vamoose.

I suspect that if I were to comment to a random woman about how they looked (and how aesthetically pleasing I thought that might be) I'd have to follow the example of the old guy who talked to rumpie and be terrifically formal and old fashioned about it...And then probably run away blushing furiously.

LOL at liberal nancy-boys. jeez, it's just innocuous philandering.

LOL at comedy troll

The most important thing that I realized, and I can't emphasize this enough, is that THEY should be carrying the burden of shame for their behavior, NOT YOU. I was letting total strangers with nothing to lose eat away at my quality of life, and you just can't do that -- I had to toughen up and shift the burden in my OWN mind. Feeling less like a victim also helped me be better at confronting people without getting completely hysterical (the middle of Fulton Street not being the best place to have a screaming match with a local building superintendent who was shorter than me, twice my age, and distinctly sleazy and reeking of booze at 8am). If you can stay calm and convey your contempt for their behavior without necc attacking them personally, you might actually get through to someone and reach an understanding about mutual respect. Which makes living on the same street and passing them every day a lot easier.

I do not feel a victim or feel shame. Yet I also do not feel the need to educate them. Sometimes it's just not possible nor worth your time.

they're actually shouting "Hey, look at me, I'm a retard!" but the traffic and other background noise makes it sound like a threat.

lol, yes this is true.

WTF Laurel, I never felt as though I am a victim nor that I am in the wrong. It's their hormones talking. *shrug*

I feel like a victim sometimes, I think too deeply about their possible motives.

Then I come home and take it all out on Mr, demanding he tell me the mechanisms of the male mind -

"Why do they do it? Why? You're one! Tell me!"

I'm sure that's true, Sam, but when it was my own neighbors and people I passed at least twice a day, if not every time I left my house, just letting it go all the time stopped being an option.

Motives? They like pretty women and say it out loud.

I'm British, I don't believe in saying things out loud.

I don't think it's that simple, Nath. I think there is something to this "asserting their masculinity" thing.

The non-creepy version of this is to make eye contact, smile, and say, "Hi!" Also, rspectful applause.

I agree with everything Laurel has said on this thread regarding the motivation for catcalling etc. That said, I've learned to tune it out. The incident I can remember most recently that really bothered me was when I was walking near MSG/Penn Station during rush hour one night and a man not only whispered something lewd to me but GRABBED MY ARM! That was ridiculous, scary, and really made me angry. I just shook free and kept walking. I always want to tell these people to fuck off but am afraid of the reactions which is why I've come to just ignore them.

I've never had applause!

xpost

no, one should draw a diagram of your geographical location relative to them and post it to an internet message board so it can laughed about 5 years later.

multiple xpost to Laurel:

I guess this applies more to the situation. I get more cars b/c that's
where I live. Less people walking by on the street b/c we just don't walk.

If I heard more people walking next to me say things, I'm not really sure what I'd do. Although one of most scary moments happened when I lived in Brooklyn.

I was walking home from the 4th Ave. station about 2 in the morning. I passed a newsstand where a bunch of dudes we're sitting around and one of them started following me. He was saying stuff but was obv. fucked up so I couldn't understand. I walked fast to my door but it was hard to open and I was fumbling with it, freaking. Finally I got in and slammed the door just as he caught up. At the time I was thinking "OMG, push-in!" But he was probably just a drunk idiot.

Perhaps a deep Victorian bow if you are truly poleaxed.

Yeah, I don't find over-simplifying very helpful in thinking about this behavior. The fact remains that some men behave this way, and some don't -- what are the differences between the groups? What causes someone to talk about your ass, or your breasts, or to offer you his sexual services, all in public? What can we do to stop (or lessen) the motivation for the behavior? Etc etc.

I try REALLY hard not to be creepy. But if you've got fantastic legs, and you're wearing a short skirt, my eyes have a brain of their own and will wander. I'll certainly try and keep myself to myself tho, anything else is just rude innit.

When I'm feeling in a particularly exuberant mood and it's a sunny day and someone gorgeous is in the street, I will go up and say thank you for how awesome they're looking and how they've made my day better by just existing. I then usually wander off and assume that I've made them happier. Who doesn't like being told they're good looking?

(in all fairness I've only done this twice, both last year, but both times, it was cool)

I am finding that twiddling my new moustache is quite effective.

"what do you do?"
"collect unemployment."

"It's more what don't do..."

SMOKE W33D PLAY MADDEN RELY ON GUBMINT! Say that.

(what *I* don't do)

"Depends how much the trick is paying me. Oh, that was the wrong thing to say, wasn't it?"

If I were more playful and bold, I would make up a new job for myself every time someone asked me, George Constanza style.

Hurting, just say that you're a musician.

-- Jordan, Thursday, June 7, 2007 9:23 PM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

Yeah, but that would imply I make some kind of at least supplemental living from music.

That seems like ineffective lying! Make up a good one and stick to it in case people know each other!

Hey... I'm a rocket scientist in charge of Canada's space program. (That's a good unemployment one harrrr)

I'm an anesthesiologist.

did i ever tell you about the time i said i was a dog groomer?

Dress for the job you want, not the job you have.

I got yelled at for giving really terse answers to boring questions.

"policy"
"nyu"

It's so hard people ask you this question and you can't quite figure out how to explain what you do. I mean I'm a waiter now, so it's easy, but for my last job (supervising interns as we recruited religious and community leaders for a non-profit that united labor and religion) I would just tell people "organizer" but then they immediately thought I was a union organzier. Not that it probably ever really mattered in a drunken bar conversation.

No one knows what book production is anyway. I should just start telling them I'm a bike mechanic.

"dreamer"

How do people not know what book production is?!

As in print production, right?

I'm sorry, it's loud in here. Did you 'bike'?

tell them you're a book mechanic

Book reduction?!

I'm a deipnosophist

When I used to just say "reporter" people would often immediately think I meant TV, get excited, and then seem disappointed when I told them newspaper (old job) or legal news service (current job).

yeah when asked I have to elaborate on my job title, but at least when i'm done the person is quite sure they do not want to ask followup questions cos it sounds so boring (and it is). I come up with fake job titles about a quarter of the time, if I feel like being there at all. I thought everyone did this. "What do you do" is a depressingly common 'icebreaker' in L.A. btw, I'm glad someone else hates it. Another one of those shitty 'adult' lines of conversation.

That's weird, Hurting. I think I would assume newspaper unless told otherwise.

At my old job, I'd say, "I work for a textbook company," and invariably, people would say, "Oh, which one?" and I'd have to be like, "Well, it's not exactly a textbook company per se, we're more like a development firm, so actual textbook companies come to us and ask us to edit and design their books because zzzzzzzzzzzz."

At my current job, my company is famous enough that I've told cabbies or bums, who may not even be clear on what a copy editor does, "You heard of _____ _____? I work for them."

jaymc works for girls gone wild

oh sh!t should have googlepr00fed it huh

why are you rubbing your job in bums' faces?

I haven't read the whole thread and I'm pretty sure the conversation has moved past the original question, but I'm a big fan of the old-fashioned method of just smiling at strangers in the street. It's great, I'm always amazed how many people smile back. Plus when hot girls do it you get this cool 'aura of invincibility' kind of feeling.

i am a relaxation consultant.

haha You're the best around.

So guess what? That guy that I mentioned upthread ("mmm, mmm, MMMM!")? I saw him again as I was lugging my laundry down the street. Apparently he works at the beauty supply store on the corner. He left me alone this time--I guess he doesn't find me so sexy when it's 90 degrees, I'm in gym clothes, unshaven, and unshowered, schlepping dirty clothes....

Another example of my being hit on (I think?). This was non-threatening b/c of the neighborhood.

I was walking down Northalsted and a sort of weird-queeny pair of guys was walking toward me and the one guy said pointed to me and said, "Oh look!" The other guy was trying to make him stop, but the first guy persisted going "You stop, I want to say hi to him--Hi, how are you tonight?" as his friend fussed at him, stopping him from waving (both hands) and urging him to shut up. It was funny in a way that is not coming through completely here.

Man sometimes I hate being in a completely opposite timezone to 90% of ILX :(

jeez this has moved on a bit. i've just been playing an unsuccessful game of cricket and then holding court at an english tripos dinner with plenty of rapt young ladies. one need not show one's appreciation if one has one's verbal cohabitants in the palm of one's hand; however viscous one's logorrhea, they'll lap it up as if sipping the purest ambrosia from a pristine Restoration myrtle-hewn vessel. ok, enough self-parody. snakes alive! have i indulged in the old vino.

ok, enough self-parody.

I was gonna say!

believe me, this shit sounds waaaaay better when I say it aloud.

Hahah oh dear.

I kind of love LJ.

i would hold court with all this ILXors

"besotted acrostic love-poems" still rules

To Ema ****

O Ema! Did you follow me across the nightlands dim?
I do remember something, active, galumphing about
As dragonflies do tussle gauzed and humming in the sun-
Maybe I remember silly things and shouldn't wash in fool.

To spoil the light-hot memories of captured-film array
Or shout aloud the silent joy of wandering astray
Ruins in chatter the delicate, sensitive knowledge of when
Never to part, but stay close, and let chance mark one's way.

When did we disperse, Ema, when did we echo the moon?
I left you cohesive yet dragged beyond mind's edge of grasp
Then practised the state with the back of my eyelids instead;
How eloquent the brain is when afforded time and space!

Long passed now, that sheerbomb, that wisdom supreme,
Once seen ne'er forgotten; O, Ema, make haste to
Visit the place where it all found a cause, and then
End this mundanity, written for you.

FIRST LETTER OF EACH LINE, FOLKS

do you think she noticed

I don't think she got to the first letter, Louis

agh ban LJ until he grows a testicle

Just the one?

I'm not convinced he could manage the full set.

I was going to comment but it seems we're waaaaaay past the substantive part of this thread.

what an odd thing to say...

katieburger late to the party.

http://www.theonion.com/content/news/construction_worker_still_hasnt