She Said He Said try to uncover what it is about nice guys that makes most women so hesitant.
Dear Sexes: There’s this guy who has asked me out a couple times. He’s cute, he’s got a pretty good job, and he’s really nice. But I just don’t feel a spark. My friends think I should give him a chance, but what’s the point?
♦◊♦
She Said: The Nice Guy Phenomenon: when single women say they want to meet a nice guy, but when they meet him they just don’t feel “that way” about him. What do we want?!
What we want is drama! No? Not you? Sure. Think about this: ever seen a romantic comedy where a girl meets a nice guy, falls in love, they date for a while, and then they get married?
No. You haven’t. And that’s why you don’t want to go out with this guy. You want Tom Hanks to destroy your family business while secretly writing you sexy emails. You and Reese Witherspoon reject Patrick Dempsey in favor of Josh Lucas, who yells at you, rejects your phone calls, and basically tries to get struck by lightning. You would throw yourself onto train tracks to save snooty bastard Peter Gallagher (eyebrows and all) and not even notice that Bill Pullman is standing there in his denim jacket just waiting for you to see that he loves you.
I bet you’re all aww, that was so romantic! right now, aren’t you? Don’t deny it! We love drama. Drama has been selling seats in theaters since you put on your best toga to go to the Delphi in ancient Greece. We love it more than we love love itself. Seriously.
But after a while all that drama gets draining. Eventually you’ll want to put that energy into your career, your kids, your tennis swing, or your collection of red slider turtles—whatever weird thing makes you happy. Because changing your locks to keep Mr. Drama out, just to get a new key made for him a week later, is only fun once. OK, maybe twice.
So yes, go out with him. What can it hurt? Maybe you’ll learn he’s been to prison and that will make you like him more.
♦◊♦
He Said: Josie, you are right—about two things. Girls love the drama. And drama is draining. Who wants to be drained all the time (no pun intended)?!
As far as the question at hand, what IS the point of going out with a handsome, friendly, employed man? Well, what is the point of NOT going out with him? If you go on a date with this guy, and you still don’t feel “it,” no harm done. Regardless, you get a free meal, some good chat, and remember … you are a woman. It is possible this man might become more attractive to you as you get to know him better. You never know until you try. Try, try, and try again (or at least one time).
If you have a question for Josie and Eli, ask it here.
Originally appeared at SheSaidHeSaid.
—Photo » Zitona «/Flickr
About She Said He Said
Alice, spot on. So called ‘nice guys’ are not nice at all. Because he opens a door for you or fakely acts like something he saw in a crappy romantic comedy (or does something he once saw in a crappy porno), he now has exclusive access to your vagina and relationships? He thinks he’s God’s gift to women because he doesn’t rape them, abuse them, or makes a few shallow gestures. If you leave or aren’t interested in a ‘nice guy,’ you’re a demon feminist who thinks all men are rapists but secretly wants to be abused. The men with whom women sleep aren’t all abusive monsters, and plenty of truly nice guys are in relationships or get laid on regular basis. I’m in a relationship with one, and I’m friends with quite a few guys who are very nice but also have sex (crazy, I know). I don’t see this nice guy/bad boy binary—it’s only really self-proclaimed ‘nice guys’ who do.
Most approaches are NOT creepy. But yeah, if I’m on the subway or walking along the street with my headphones on, looking like I’ve had a shitty day, it should be clear that I’m not interested in a conversation—with a guy or a girl, romantic or not. Sorry if I’m short with you—it’s just what I consider ‘my time.’ Also, who said there’s anything unethical about sex or desire, for either men or women. Isn’t this what sex positivity is trying to convey?
Well, the whole “when and where to approach someone in a public place” question has a thousand complications of its own–it might even warrant its own article!
It does…but if you’re an intelligent person, it shouldn’t be too difficult to decipher. Girl walking home from work on a cold day, headphones on, with something clearly on her mind…probably doesn’t want to talk to anyone–it doesn’t make her a terrible person. Girl in a bar holding a drink, awkwardly smiling and looking around, scoping out the scene…yeah, go talk to her.
Those are very specific situations, but even apart from them, all it comes down to is taking a minute and observing the other person’s mood, state of mind, and intentions. If you’re socially awkward (which I am), it takes some practice. You HAVE to look outside yourself and your own immediate, specific needs, and try to match them with the person and situation at hand.
So what about situation like this.
Girl 1: Why doesn’t loser guy understand I don’t want him to hit on me when I am dancing all alone.
Girls 2: Why doesn’t loser guy understand that when I am out clubbing all on my own, I am looking for a hook-up.
Here is the answer: Women are not a hive-mind with breasts. Each woman is different. But NOBODY wants a hookup with a loser guy. Period.
Hey Copyleft – if you send us a question either to our email or through the blog itself, we’d love to answer it. Or maybe a series of questions.
http://www.shesaidhesaid.com/ask
We do have one that was about how meet girls if you don’t like pickup bars or online dating… And to go along with what Aya said, I said very clearly that if a girl has her earbuds in, never ever talk to her. Earbuds are the universal symbol for, “I’m not interested in talking.”
Our column on meeting women, though if I’d known the world was such an ugly place I would’ve given more specific advice on when to cut your damn self off! But hopefully we can all work together on that idea…
http://www.shesaidhesaid.me/post/9831990424/dear-barfly
“Earbuds are the universal symbol for, “I’m not interested in talking.””
Nope, earbuds are the universal symbol for I am listening to something on my Ipod. Not “I’m not interested in talking”. There are many other reasons a person could be listening to their ipod such as:
1) I want to avoid the social awkwardness of both of us not talking so I will wear my Ipod because it gives both of us an excuse to not talk even though I would really like to.
2) I am bored. The Ipod is entertainment.
3) I always listen to my Ipod….its my habit. It doesn’t mean I don’t want people to talk to me.
4) I want you to think I am not that into you even though I really am because I think you might be cold to me so I am going to listen to this Ipod to preemptively reject you.
5) I am lonely, tired and I want to escape this world so I will listen to my IPOD to escape the world’s coldness
6) I am learning Japanese.
I know that some women must have these reasons for wearing her Ipod because I have worn my Ipod for exactly these reasons. Human beings are too complicated to ascribe their behavior to simple motivations. You have no fucking clue as to why some girl is wearing her Ipod.
Okay then, how about if we just say that if a woman is listening to her ipod, and you smile at her, and she smiles back but doesn’t take out her earbud, she doesn’t want to talk to you.
Of course I could be wrong in some cases, and so could the other women on here who agree with me, and the women I know who all say the same thing. But it might be smart for you to listen to us. Generalities are not absolutes, but they’re good guidelines and you can admit that I’m not a man-hater. I WANT you to get laid, I want all of you to get laid! Except Oh No, but only because she doesn’t want to. If some day she wants to get laid, I hope she gets laid by her dream mate! I want to get laid! I’m into it!
You have no reason to doubt me, dude, I’m not cock-blocking you. If anything, I’m the opposite of that. What’s the opposite of cock-blocking? Cock unblocking? Yes, exactly.
No, Assman, you do not know what women think. Earbuds DO mean “Don’t talk to me.” You engage in a great deal of wishful thinking and projection.
Keep in mind that there is a power imbalance between men and women. Men own the public space, and for the most part they feel entitled to grab women’s attention (and sometimes their body parts) in public. That is extremely annoying.
I understand what you’re saying. assman. I don’t wear earbuds specifically to show that I’m not interested in talking–I wear them for one of the reasons you listed. Yet, chances are VERY high, that when I’m wearing them, I’m not interested in human interaction. If I’m escaping the world, listening to my awesome music, or in the middle of a listening to a news cast, I probably don’t want to be interrupted, or to deal with the awkward and annoying taking one ear bud out and pausing my iPod thing. Does the difference make sense?
@Oh, no….. says: “No, Assman, you do not know what women think. Earbuds DO mean “Don’t talk to me.” You engage in a great deal of wishful thinking and projection.”
So you are telling me that for every single women in the whole entire United States you know that every single ones does not what anybody to talk them.. I have a single question: How do you know that? Did you do a survey? Or are you generalizing your views to millions of people.
My claim is pretty simple. I think women are not that different than men. So if I think like this then there must be a woman somewhere who thinks the same way. To deny my argument is to claim that either I am incredibly different, women are very different than men, or that all women think a like. Based on Aya’s comment we know there is a woman that does think like me.
@Aya: “Does this make sense”
Yes it makes total sense. But your one woman. Not every woman. Can you claim based on your experience that every woman thinks like you?
Assman, you forget something important that I mentioned before. Men own the public space. Women have to defend themselves against men in the public space. All of the women here have said that when they have earbuds in, they do not want to be interrupted. They do not want human interaction. Listen to them.
Your argument is:
Men own public space => women have to defend themselves => women will use earbuds to deflect male attention
I don’t agree with the premise. You presented zero evidence for it. I don’t understand the chain of logic. How does men own public space imply that womn have to defend themselves. I don’t understand how if women did have to defend themselves they would necessarily use earbuds for it and not use earbuds for any other purpose.
But really our disagreement is far more fundamental than that. I reject your strain of feminist thinking.
There appears to be a kind of feminist thinking which is never explicity stated (which is highly annoying because it is difficult to refute tacit assumptions). It is somewhat similar to Marxism which isn’t suprising since most of feminism is derived from Marxism. The idea is that feminism is a universal form of analysis that allows one to understand all human relations. By looking at things through a feminist lense every interaction, every motivation of every human being can be thoroughly understood.
For instance read Amanda Marcotte’s blog. You will find many instances where Amanda thoroughly analyzes the psychological motivations of some individual or group of individuals she doesn’t know and appears highly confident that she understands exactly what they are thinking. She does this for nice guys and she does it for many others. Feminists have explanations for all kinds of things along these lines, generally explaining male motivations it terms of misogyny, patriarchy, rape culture etc.
It has been done here already for nice guys and earbud wearing women here already.
Here is my question: Why should I believe that feminism provides special insight into INDIVIDUAL human pschological motivations. Or for that matter even the motivations of a group. Why does anyone have so much faith in this analysis???
Are there remarkable predictions that come from this theory? Is there a massive body of scientific evidence for it. Do feminists have a model for this analysis. Are there rules, techniques that non-feminists can use to derive results from your theory. Is your theory falisfiable?
I basically don’t think so. I think your feminist theory is nothing more than religion with little more to back it up than religious faith. Not so different from Marxism. The marxists claimed they had a scientific theory that could explain everything. I am not sure why people gravitated to marxism and I don’t understand the faith in the pschological theories of feminism.
I am not a feminist. I am a humanist.
Do you disagree that men own the public space?
I believe the debate was about when it was okay for a man to approach women in public in order to establish a sexual or “romantic” relationship with her. (I am not a romantic and do not believe in traditional “romance.”) The response thus far from the women on this list is that a woman wearing earbuds probably does not want to be approached or spoken to, and that if she does not respond with something more than a smile and remove her earbuds, then a reasonable man should back off. Am I incorrect about this assessment of the discussion so far?
As a woman, I find that every time I step into the public space, I am being assessed by men as a sexual object. I am yelled at, stared at, and sometimes accosted in public places. Because of the pervasive concerns that women have about rape, I am forced to be aware of the males in the vicinity. I have to be ready to defend myself. Specific to my situation lately, I am being harassed by a male neighbor. His method is to startle me when I don’t see him before he sees me. He either yells at me or laughs loudly in order to startle me. My way of defending against his verbal attacks is to put my earbuds in so that I cannot hear him, and he therefore cannot startle me by yelling or laughing at me. When I am working in a public space I put my earbuds in so as to deter men from approaching and speaking to me.
You may not see the issue of men approaching women in public places as an issue of predation, but in fact it is. Such approaches are premised on the man’s assumption — based on nothing but his desires — that women will be receptive to his advances. It is unreasonable for men to make such an assumption. So how is this problem a “feminist” issue? To me it is a boundary problem, and it just happens that the problem is primarily one perceived by women, because they are the ones being approached, and the people doing the approaching are primarily men. Am I missing something? It isn’t about “logic,” it is about common experience. You deny this?
I am really growing tired of GMP throwing away my comments with refreshes. ERRRRRRRRRRRRR!
“Do you disagree that men own the public space?”
No
Your next paragraph about your charaterization of the discussion so far I fully agree with.
“You may not see the issue of men approaching women in public places as an issue of predation, but in fact it is. ”
Your right I don’t.
“Such approaches are premised on the man’s assumption — based on nothing but his desires — that women will be receptive to his advances”
They may be for some men but how could you know this is true for all men or even most men. I have approached women in public places (bars, clubs, gym, park) and I never assumed they would be interested in me. I approached them to find out because it turns out that I do not have the abiliity to read minds.
“It is unreasonable for men to make such an assumption. So how is this problem a “feminist” issue? To me it is a boundary problem,… Am I missing something? It isn’t about “logic,” it is about common experience. You deny this?”
Ya I deny all of it. I don’t think its a boundary problem. I don’t think there is any element of sexual predation. If someone is stalking you, won’t leave you alone when you tell them then that is a different story. Maybe you want to live in a world where nobody approaches anybody for anything in a public place. I don’t. BTW, I get approached every single working day by people trying to sell me things, donations to charities or asking for a handout. I am bothered by it sometimes, sometimes I think its funny but I never feel the oppression you claim to feel.
One question for you: Under what circumstances are men to approach women. Not in any public place. Not at work. Not when the woman is alone in a bar. OK WHERE THEN? Please explain exactly where and under what circumstances men should be able to approach women?
No one told you that every single woman who wears earbuds doesn’t want to talk. They said “wearing earbuds is the universal symbol for not wanting to talk”.
It is.
Clutching your throat is the universal symbol for choking too, it doesn’t mean every single person who ever clutches their throat is choking.
You need to google “universal symbol”.
I think your answer isn’t as universal as you make it sound Aya. Not everyone walking down the street wants to avoid conversation, not everyone wearing headphones is against popping them out at a moments notice, and not everyone who has something on their mind views a distraction as unwelcome. I’ve had a lot of pleasant experiences on both sides of that situation, approaching and being approached.
Truly nice guys don’t demonize women for not dating them or giving them a chance. There are genuinely nice guys who do accept women don’t date them due to some disinterest and not all of us are shallow and do try to date different types of women. Genuinely nice guys are not necessarily pushovers and do want at least a decent relationshp from time to time and sex truly doesn’t matter. Though truly nice guys do wonder why people don’t want to date them or even give them the slightest of a chance. Not to mention the fact that the message where if you can’t get a date there is something wrong with you. Eventually truly nice guys stop worring about it and move on not really caring much about dating. That little bit of time we spent tring to see how it’s like to be in a relationship or trying to find love and we just take that and use it for something else (this doesn’t mean we won’t try to date every once in a while). We’re not desperate like the “nice guys” or pick up artists who need relationships to define their status and who do so by trying to manipulate women (guessing you know which ones are successful). Finding nice guys aren’t hard but you just need to know where to look. I know this as a fact because I’m friends with a lot of really good guys who aren’t pushovers. Yes sometimes you might need to get past a shyness or introvertive factor but just keep in mind there are reasons for those which really aren’t too big.
Nice men can get chance ,but its a matter of gelling ,having mutual idea’s hobbies finding common ground .
Of course women want nice men.
You could say he say about men do they want nice girls ,because it often seems the opposite
No, women want men who are nice to them. What those men do to the rest of the world matters as much as the average rainfall in the capital of Brunei.
I’m dating a nice man. It’s been a completely different experience for me than most I’d had previously. Maybe I had to turn 37, with a string of failed relationships, in order to appreciate him. Maybe he had to turn 37, with his own string, in order to be a nice man. I don’t know; this is just how it happened.
I did not feel a “spark” until the second date, and it’s grown slowly and surely over these 5 years. It’s been quite a surprise to me, getting to know this man without the aid of infatuation or thrill of drama and danger. I look back now, and understand love a whole lot better than I ever have before.
We have had fights. We are combatting relationship problems. We’re working on these things, fixing them. Sometimes I’m ahead, sometimes he is. Whoever is ahead pulls the other along. Neither of us wins unless both of us wins. We’re learning a lot.
In order to be ready for a nice man – and being with a nice man is a treat you can’t imagine unless you’ve been there – you must learn to love yourself. That’s the rule. I didn’t make the rule, but I’ve learned it.
My totally amateur, unoriginal theory:
For a lot of people, two of the worst things in life are boredom and indifference. They think it’s better for someone to loathe you or fight with you than to have no feelings for you whatsoever. Better to be offended by someone or totally confused by someone than to be bored by him. If someone is needy, clingy, emotionally distant, unavailable, unreliable, self-centered, whatever, then at least there’s always something on the “to-do” list. There’s something there to convince yourself that you’re working on some sort of project.
I’m not saying this is healthy. This is setting the bar way too low for yourself, in my opinion. But, I think for many people having a boring relationship is worse than having a bad one. If he’s a nice man whose niceness makes him kind of bland and boring, then the niceness is a turn-off. Same thing with bad boys – you can be a bad boy in a very tedious, unremarkable way. (Yes, your crooked cap and low jeans are very original. Such a trailblazer you are….)
To Colin: Re calling a woman with whom you disagree “crazy” or “unstable”: http://goodmenproject.com/featured-content/why-women-arent-crazy/
@Assman: Your ideas about the nature of rape and rapists comes right out of the 1950′s. You cannot look at rape convictions and draw conclusions about the nature of rapists. Very few rapists are ever convicted, and the “normal” guy who rapes is usually never even reported, let alone prosecuted.
As for your theory about how difficult it is to penetrate a woman, you assume that a penis must be used to commit rape. ANY object can be used to commit rape. Catching a woman off guard, reaching up under her skirt and penetrating her with your fingers is rape. Easy to do. Not much force or manipulation required.
Face it, you are a rape-denier. And you are not a nice guy.
“Face it, you are a rape-denier. And you are not a nice guy.”
I never said I was a nice guy. As for rape denier I am not sure what the term means. If it means denying the feminist theory of rape…then indeed I am a proud rape denier.
“Very few rapists are ever convicted, and the “normal” guy who rapes is usually never even reported, let alone prosecuted”
How do you know that? The simplest theory (Occam’s razor) is that every time a man rapes regardless of who he is, he has an uniform probabibility of being caught. In this case assuming every rapists committs an equal number of rapes, you can get a very clear picture of a rapist by looking at who is convicted. However this assumes every man committs an equal number of rapes. In the case where some men committ a disproportionate number of rapes then the men who are caught are basically the serial rapists. In either case I think you get a pretty good idea of the average picture of men who are responsible for most rapes. They aren’t “normal”.
For Assman and Colin, and the rest of the rape-deniers here:
http://www.middlebury.edu/media/view/240951/original/PredatoryNature.pdf
I disagree that Colin fits into the category at all. But Assman’s speech about how hard it is to rape a woman was disgusting. Rape is a crime of power, and not just physical power. A 100 lb man could rape a 200 lb woman simply because he may have some sort of power over her be it a weapon, a job, housing, anything – even just fear. Rape doesn’t have to involve physical restraint. Go read Hugo’s many, many pieces on rape, even on male victims of rape.
Rape is when a person has sex with another person without consent. The end. If she doesn’t say “YES” she is saying “no” and you need to get your shit together. I’m horrified that you would even have the audacity to bring an antiquated, criminal mindset on a site like this.
“A 100 lb man could rape a 200 lb woman simply because he may have some sort of power over her be it a weapon, a job, housing, anything – even just fear. ”
Well then; Is anyone eligible to consent?
Do I rape my wife because I am the breadwinner and she is not? After all, she would be in a world of trouble (at least temporarily) should my income cease to be provided. The fact that I have life insurance speaks to that reality, at least partially.
Whether I’m waving my pay stub over my head while asking for sex or not (I never do BTW, that would be weird even for me) , she’s well aware of my financial advantage over her.
Add to that ” housing” and even the fear that I may become understandably unhappy should I be continually denied.
Maybe I should be happy and of a clear conscience in these matters due to the fact that she’d clean me out in the event of divorce- negating any percieved advantage I may have.
Every cloud has a silver lining I suppose.
If your wife ever says “no” and you lord anything over her as a consequence of her refusal, then that is rape to some degree.
The end. As Emily Heist Moss said in her column about how to get laid without being a jerk, you should only be having sex if your partner is answering “Yes!”
It’s easy. And I’ve been married quite a long time so I would like to think I speak with some authority here. Also, my husband is the primary breadwinner. If I thought that his providing myself and my children with our family’s home and necessities were contingent upon us having sex, we wouldn’t have a marriage. Because that would be a forcing behavior.
I have sex with my husband because of desire to do so, never anything else. That’s why I don’t hate him. If some jackass husband is lording his providership over his wife as a bargaining chip for sex, then yes, that is an unequal power dynamic. And I have actually known marriages where this happened. It’s HEARTBREAKING. It’s not a hypothetical, and it IS rape.
If we stopped having sex for a long time, we’d have to look at other issues in the marriage and those other issues may dissolve our union, but that would be a correlation, not the cause of a dissolution.
OH, and by the way, if your wife doesn’t want to have sex with you and its unrelated to illness, childbirth/nursing or hormone imbalances, then you’re most likely doing something wrong in your marriage.
Why do so many people have to make every answer so personal? We don’t have a problem in our marriage with sex or much anythng else.
“If your wife ever says “no” and you lord anything over her as a consequence of her refusal, then that is rape to some degree.”
I appreciate that clarification and I find it a completely reasonable attitude.
However, your original statement sounded as if it were (or should be) codified into law.
That’s why I asked.
Interestingly, some feminist writers expressed similar, forboding attitudes about marital sex (in particular). To my knowledge, they never modified or clarified in any way- as if their sole intent was to induce a collective male guilt trip.
Anyway, I thank you for not calling me obtuse for asking that.
Take care.
Woggy
Here’s why I referred to you, specifically, in the response:
YOU: Do I rape my wife because I am the breadwinner and she is not? After all, she would be in a world of trouble (at least temporarily) should my income cease to be provided.
I knew you were being hypothetical, but if you’re going to talk about your marriage in the hypothetical, so will I.
I have no reason to make men feel guilty. I love men. I’ve said it a hundred times, I am a major guy’s-girl. That doesn’t mean sometimes you guys aren’t obtuse
“I knew you were being hypothetical, but if you’re going to talk about your marriage in the hypothetical, so will I.”
Fair enough.
” That doesn’t mean sometimes you guys aren’t obtuse”
Obtuse or simply wanting for terms to be defined?
Having read your clarification, I understand and agree with what you’ve said, however, there are those who would never provide any reasonable clarification.
I’m glad you’re not one of them.
“For Assman and Colin, and the rest of the rape-deniers here:
http://www.middlebury.edu/media/view/240951/original/PredatoryNature.pdf”
Ah here we are getting close to the heart of the matter which is referenced as the 8th citation in the article above. There is a fundamental disagreement between feminists and me about rape prevalence and acquintance rape. The difference is this: I think women know when they have been raped whereas feminists think women don’t know that they have been raped. All of this is based on the Koss study where 73% of the women Koss counted as being raped themselves didn’t think they had been raped. All studies have tried to replicate Koss’s research by never actually asking women whether they were raped. I consider this shoddy research. I trust the women to know what happened to them. I don’t trust feminists or Mary Koss to make these determinations.
I think that they whole theory of acquaintence rape which hangs on Koss’s research and similar research studies is garbage.
Why not find out whether woman were raped by….oh…….I don’t know…..actually asking them whether they were raped. No that is to crazy a suggestion.
If I remember correctly a huge portion of these women deemed to have been “raped” by the researchers went on to have more sex with their “rapists”.
“I disagree that Colin fits into the category at all. But Assman’s speech about how hard it is to rape a woman was disgusting. Rape is a crime of power, and not just physical power. A 100 lb man could rape a 200 lb woman simply because he may have some sort of power over her be it a weapon, a job, housing, anything – even just fear. Rape doesn’t have to involve physical restraint. Go read Hugo’s many, many pieces on rape, even on male victims of rape.”
My argument is either true or false….disgusting is an adhominem attack.
I do believe its quite possible for a man to rape a woman using some power over her other than physical power. I just believe that this isn’t the norm. The difference between us is because we have different world views.
Why do men rape? My view is that the men who rape are also the men who assault, kill, substance-abuse etc. They are low functioning men who tend to use violence to solve problems. They are a small minority of abberent individuals. In other words rape is not systematic but instead an idiosyncratic feature of a society. The men who rape, generally, don’t have social power over women so they are not in a position to threaten women’s jobs or housing. So they resort to physical power.
The feminist view is that rape is an expression of male dominance over women. In a patriarchy there are many expression of male dominance and rape is supposedly one of them. Under this theory rape is systematic. Any man is a potential rapist because rape is a product of the culture. This is why you can state that is perfectly plausible that a 100 pound man can rape a 200 pound women. In your world this is perfectly plausible because rape is not a enabled by men’s greater strength…its a enabled by their greater social power. I however think a 100 pound man raping a 200 pound (I presume muscular) woman is perfectly ridiculous and incredibly unsual. Its about as likely as a man biting a dog.
I believe that most men who rape women don’t have any social power over the women they rape. Probably quite the opposite. For instance, rapists tend to be poor not rich. I also think the feminist theory of Domestic violence is wrong and the evidence against it is similar. I could try to argue this out but I am not going to. I just want to clarify the differences. In my view its pretty obvious the feminist theory is wrong and there is enormous amount of evidence to prove this.
I believe the saying: “you should never try to reason someone out of something that they never reasoned themselves into in the first place”. Feminism is a religion not a coherent sensible world view informed by empirical evidence.
Assman – A great many people – including members of many police departments – do not know the legal definition of rape. That is what these studies mention; the women know they were violated, but they cannot attach the word “rape” to the violation because they have never been informed of the elements of the crime of rape. When I told the local police I had been raped, they jeered at me because 1) I knew my rapist, and 2) they were (and still are) trained that forcible digital penetration of a woman’s vagina is sexual battery, not rape. This has caused serious problems for me – including a campaign of defamation by members of the police department against me, and members of the police department approaching my rapist and informing him that what he did was not rape, that I am a liar, and that I should be imprisoned – thus encouraging his increased stalking and harassment of me. It is a nightmare. They have the same attitude as you – they do not believe that men who rape their friends and neighbors are really rapists – they are just “dating.”
Assman asks: “One question for you: Under what circumstances are men to approach women. Not in any public place. Not at work. Not when the woman is alone in a bar. OK WHERE THEN? Please explain exactly where and under what circumstances men should be able to approach women?”
Speed dating. Match.com. Eharmony. Other dating sites where men AND women go to find mates. It isn’t that difficult.
Online dating is horrible. And what of the time before online dating. Were all men predators then?
I read stores like Sam Walton’s where he met his wife at a bowling alley and said to her “Haven’t I seen you somewhere before?”
or the story from Switch where a Vietnam vet returning from the War was driving in his car and spotted a girl he knew in grade school. He stopped the car, turned around , tracked her down and found out she was working at a drugstore. He thought she was very beautiful. They ended up dating.
To me these stories are romantic. To you they are probably scary.
I don’t want to live in your world. I want to live in a world where this is possible.
Well Assman, it’s nice that you have the option of living in a world where romantic encounters on the street or in a bowling alley are possible. They are not possible for me.
And, Assman, I don’t “claim” to feel oppressed by the way men treat me. I AM oppressed. I am not making up a “feminist” fantasy. It is simply MY experience.
I did not say that all men are predators. I said that it is a violation of my boundaries when men approach me on the street with sex on their minds. I am a highly educated, cerebral individual. I don’t walk around thinking about being sexy for men, or looking for “romance.” I am usually thinking about my work, or my son, or my friends. That’s it.
I met my husband when he walked into the store I managed. It was a men’s store, and girls working in men’s store are seen almost as a “gift with purchase” in LA. He didn’t want to be that way, and so he came back over and over and just talked to me. I knew he liked me but he wasn’t weird at all…
Finally he said something along the lines of, “I’m going to go see Old School [I think that's what it was?] tonight at 7 and if you have plans or something and they fall through or something like that, or if you think you want to see it and your friends can’t go or even if they can or something…” and that was it. It was SO sweet. So I gave him my number. He didn’t even ask.
That is nice for you, JF. I don’t get that kind of treatment from men. I get men staring at my breasts and saying things like, “You’re not good-looking, are you?” Or I get men stopping in cars as though to ask for directions, and then leering at me from head to toe and making comments about my body. Once as I was walking through the park a man approached and said, “I’m pretty good at eating pussy.” Or I have men demand that I “smile.” Men come across constantly as leering, drooling creeps.
“Once as I was walking through the park a man approached and said, “I’m pretty good at eating pussy.”
Disgusting. I can understand why you have your opinion of men if this is your experience but to be honest your experience is as alien to me as MRAs. They have stories too about how badly and horribly women have treated them. I have no clue as to how some people experience these things and other people don’t. But I have friends who are girls and none of them have experienced anything similar to you. There is a strange disparity here I can’t explain. I did once meet a women who told me she went to Italy and was continually groped, fondled and man-handled. On the other hand I know two extremely beautiful women who had a fantastic time in Italy and never experienced anything like this.
And of course there is the Omega Virgin who says that he was falsely accused of sexual harassment 3 times. And there are MRAs who have horrible stories about how women mistreated them. Again I never had this experience either so I can’t understand. I had a fantastic time with all my girlfriends.
Maybe you and Colin have more in common than you think.
I don’t know what to tell you, assman. This kind of thing happens to me on a daily basis. But then again, I’ve lived in large cities, so maybe that’s the difference. This is being discussed on a different thread here. I have a very thick skin about it. I don’t hate men. I’m in a relationship with a great one and most of the people I enjoy spending my time with are male. I don’t want you feel like you have to get off of an elevator because you might scare me (unless you actually intend to harass me, and chances are—you don’t). You’re not a harasser or rapist. I don’t want you to have to inconvenience yourself because I might have had some bad experiences in the past (neither of us know each other’s lives). YET, I also don’t want you to tell me what I see with my own eyes doesn’t happen (I understand that it might not to a lot of women, but it does to me constantly). And don’t tell me that I should be flattered by something that feels gross, creepy, and invades my personal space (some men on this site actually do that).
Here was my post on the thread:
“I don’t care about your average cat call, to be honest. It happens to all women at some point, and how I react (whether it’s with smile, a ‘fuck you’, a rude hand gesture, or just ignoring the guy) mostly has to do with my mood and how tired I am. I don’t see what the guy could possibly get out of it other than the knowledge that they’ve humiliated me, which is why I don’t let myself get humiliated. There’s a difference between your boring old street calls and actual harassment, though.
I’ve been followed home after a bus stop, proposed marriage by a weird and creepy stranger, been locked in a convenience store by a drugged up clerk, had pictures taken directly of me at the beach without my consent (actually, in places other than the beach, too), had my ass grabbed out of nowhere, had penises aggressively flashed to me, been followed home and harassed the whole way by 6 teenage guys until an older man shooed them away, and been stopped on the street and on trains when I had places to be or things to do–then called a bitch/dyke/whore when I didn’t respond kindly. None of those are exaggerations… These aren’t imaginary situations made up by random feminists, though. It doesn’t hurt men to at least recognize that they happen.”—that’s just the street stuff, and not even all of that.
Oh, I’ve gotten those too. How about, “I can smell your cunt”? I was like, “fuck, I hope not!” (while walking away as fast as I could). That’s like a really fucked up Massengil ad. It’s just a part of being a woman, unfortunately, in this society, to accept that it’s true is not to condone it.
It just never made me bitter, and as I’ve said before, I’ve come from a place of privelege where I’ve never been raped. I have been sexually harassed, groped, and physically violated. But I didn’t apply these experiences to all men.
Things SHOULD change. But if I’d assumed every guy was like the shitheads who think they own the rights to your body, I wouldn’t have met my husband, I wouldn’t have met my beloved ex boyfriend, Josh, who asked me out in a shoe store and who is such a fantastic human being. I wouldn’t have met the guy whom I first lived with who asked me out at a party… That boyfriend showed up to our first date with Naomi Wolf’s The Beauty Myth! All three with amazing respect, humor, subtlety and sweetness.
I don’t apply my experiences to all men, either. I am not bitter, though I react with anger to the abuse I get. I simply do not want another relationship. I am unusual in that I really like my solitude and my space – even when I had a great relationship (my last one), I never wanted to live with him. I just wanted to enjoy him when I had the privilege of seeing him.
@assman, no I’m not every woman, just trying to put my 2 cents in about headphones. I’m sure there are plenty of women who don’t mind being approached when wearing headphones, and I’m sure there are women who, as JF, said wear them specifically TO avoid conversations with men. I also know there are a lot of women like I am who wear headphones for one of the many reasons you listed, but probably don’t want to deal with human interaction when in the middle of a good song, escaping the world, or a podcast (whether it’s from a male or a someone asking me for directions or handing out fliers). I wouldn’t approach someone with headphones because I know that it’s a hassle and often awkward. I guess it’s up to all of us to judge each situation, but be aware of trends and listen to what people have to say about it. The preemptive rejection through iPod reason sounds pretty odd and overly complicated to me, but I can’t say that it’s never been done.
“iPod reason sounds pretty odd and overly complicated to me”
Yes I knew someone would point that out. But that is the key point of my post. Human are incredibly fucking complicated. You can’t reduce them to simple explanations.
“I wouldn’t approach someone with headphones because I know that it’s a hassle and often awkward”
I feel the same. I don’t approach people wearing headphones because it is a hassle. But I don’t assume that I have any clue why any particular woman is wearing headphones on any particular day and that is because I am not a mind reader.
That’s the thing about asking for and giving advice. Obviously, you can’t make a blanket statement about every single situation. All the advice giver can do is talk about trends, personal experiences, and opinions–or offer up an explanation that might not have crossed your mind before. It’s up to the individual to get a feel for the situation and go from there. Unfortunately, that comes a lot more easily for some people than it does for others, and that’s why advice is a good starting point–but not the end all be all. Does he look like he’s in a good mood? Are we in a place where I won’t scare her if I come up to her? Do the benefits of possible conversation outweigh the risks and potential embarrassment? Can I approach her in a way that isn’t going to annoy her? Is he going to think I’m a stalker if I ask him a question about the book he’s reading? You have to answer those questions yourself on a situation by situation basis. But, if you’re socially awkward or unfamiliar with a certain dating scene, anecdotes and advice are a good starting point.
Look at these comments, This does not sound like much fun. When do women get some advice on how to treat men? Oh, they do not need it?