Creepy Vs. Predatory: Where's the Line?

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Creepy Vs. Predatory: Where's the Line?

Postby DamianaRaven » Sat Oct 21, 2017 8:13 am

Out of curiosity, what does society do with a guy who's skeezy as all fuck, but (respectfully) takes no for an answer? For example, if some guy goes around asking women if they want to see his dick, is he a "sexual predator" if he doesn't actually take it out and never gets shitty with women who say no?

This is why we need sex education in our fucking schools! I'm not talking about what goes into where - the internet will most handily teach them all the biological mechanics involved. However, if you ask the internet how to make men/women actually like you and want to go out, well... go see for yourself. Yeah, now you understand why we need an actual lesson plan for these poor kids!

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Re: Louis CK sexual harassment "rumors"

Postby Aquila89 » Sat Oct 21, 2017 3:21 pm

DamianaRaven wrote:Out of curiosity, what does society do with a guy who's skeezy as all fuck, but (respectfully) takes no for an answer? For example, if some guy goes around asking women if they want to see his dick, is he a "sexual predator" if he doesn't actually take it out and never gets shitty with women who say no?


Well, that depends on the circumstances, doesn't it? If he's at an office and the women are his employees, then yes. If he's at a bar where people go to hook up, no.
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Re: Louis CK sexual harassment "rumors"

Postby DamianaRaven » Sat Oct 21, 2017 3:30 pm

Yeah, that's a pretty good answer. It's really never OK to flirt with someone who works for/with you. There's a reason society equates this behavior to shitting on one's own kitchen counter.
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Re: Louis CK sexual harassment "rumors"

Postby Tesseracts » Sat Oct 21, 2017 4:03 pm

If a guy was going around a bar asking random people if they want to see his dick, I would assume he enjoys making people uncomfortable and is not a safe man. Trying to make people uncomfortable is sexually predatory behavior. I absolutely would not trust him to respond well to "no" and I think he should be removed from the bar.

I have a friend who enjoys nudity and offered to pose nude for my artwork. He was afraid of coming off as creepy but it wasn't creepy at all, because I can tell he means it when he says it's not sexual. However if he wanted to show me his genitalia specifically it would be sexual. Most people expect mutual interest to be established before the interaction escalates to sexual offers.

Not that any of this has anything to do with Louis CK, but there you go, those are the rules.
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Re: Louis CK sexual harassment "rumors"

Postby tinyrick » Sat Oct 21, 2017 4:32 pm

DamianaRaven wrote:Yeah, that's a pretty good answer. It's really never OK to flirt with someone who works for/with you. There's a reason society equates this behavior to shitting on one's own kitchen counter.


I've mostly avoided workplace romances due to the possible drama that might evolve from it, but I've noticed many people hook up around me in the places I worked. I think the rules of workplace flirtation are the same as anywhere else, but since you have to work with them, it can make things more awkward. It's ok to ask a woman you work with out on a date, but you should probably take the first rejection as a permanent "no" and stop asking afterwards.

Every job I've ever worked plays the same sexual harassment video about how any unwanted advance can be seen as sexual harassment, but I think they do that to cover their legal bases. The chances that you run into the woman that responds to, "Hey, I'm going to that sushi place I was telling you about after work. Want to join me?" with, "You're sexually harassing me! I'm suing you and the company I work for for millions of dollars!" is next to nil and she's probably going to lose the lawsuit anyway.

Men have to be careful, but they don't have to be THAT careful, despite what the fearmongers make you think.

One time, I was working at this place, and this really cute girl was handing out Hershey's Kisses that she brought to work with her. She asked me if I wanted one and I said, "I never refuse a kiss from a beautiful woman." She just smiled and giggled and moved on. I didn't get called to the office over that, even though I technically could have. But then again, it's not like I asked her if she wanted to see my dick. All I'm trying to say is, if you're going to flirt with someone at the office, use some common sense.

Telling a woman, "I like what you did to your hair." =good.

Telling a woman, "Your tits are amazing. Wanna see my dick?" =bad.
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Re: Louis CK sexual harassment "rumors"

Postby DamianaRaven » Sat Oct 21, 2017 4:35 pm

Tesseracts wrote:Trying to make people uncomfortable is sexually predatory behavior.


I used a bad example. It is admittedly hard difficult to imagine someone doing a thing like that WITHOUT knowing that it's going to make people uncomfortable. What if it's something less obviously perverse but still kind of pervy, like effusively complimenting a woman's hair and asking to touch or smell it?

What I'm wondering about is how we deal with the greater-than-zero number of people (men and women alike) who are skeezing people out without knowing that they're acting like a creep. It's a complicated problem, because repeatedly hostile reactions to what honestly feels like an attempt to be nice can warp a person's mind (especially if they're unintelligent) and make them angry, which in turn causes them to act even more like an asshat.

I think comprehensive sex education for teenagers would eliminate a LOT of confusion about what is and isn't an acceptable way to flirt. Thanks to our society's puritanical hysteria about casual sex, what passes for education about sexuality is downright perverted. There are people who furiously do not want teenagers learning to get along and respect one another's bodily boundaries. That kind of game might get someone laid and nobody wants that!
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Re: Louis CK sexual harassment "rumors"

Postby Aquila89 » Sat Oct 21, 2017 8:51 pm

Tesseracts wrote:If a guy was going around a bar asking random people if they want to see his dick, I would assume he enjoys making people uncomfortable and is not a safe man. Trying to make people uncomfortable is sexually predatory behavior.


I'm not sure. If he's just doing it to annoy people and well aware that everyone is going to say no - is that sexually predatory? Isn't it just being an asshole?

tinyrick wrote:Telling a woman, "I like what you did to your hair." =good.

Telling a woman, "Your tits are amazing. Wanna see my dick?" =bad.


I could never say either though. This video by David Mitchell expresses my feelings well.
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Re: Louis CK sexual harassment "rumors"

Postby DamianaRaven » Sat Oct 21, 2017 9:19 pm

Aquila89 wrote:If he's just doing it to annoy people and well aware that everyone is going to say no - is that sexually predatory? Isn't it just being an asshole?


Involving one's dick in the process of "being an asshole" is essentially the definition of "sexually predatory." Rapists don't rape people because they're lonely and horny - most of them do it to be an asshole.
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Re: Louis CK sexual harassment "rumors"

Postby SandTea » Sat Oct 21, 2017 11:25 pm

DamianaRaven wrote:Rapists don't rape people because they're lonely and horny - most of them do it to be an asshole.


Can you please explain why you think that? I am very confused. I'm under the impression there's a larger number of people who commit rape who do not think what they did was wrong than people who are power fantasy serial rapists.

DamianaRaven wrote:What I'm wondering about is how we deal with the greater-than-zero number of people (men and women alike) who are skeezing people out without knowing that they're acting like a creep.


Personal space and interpersonal communication are things some people just don't get. I'd say some folk are addressing this but they are icky feminists so boo. In that some of those unknowing creeps' behavior is being rewarded instead of punished. The stigmas are harmful to both genders.

We should fix sex ed. Being thanked for accepting a "no" to sex mid foreplay blew my goddamned mind. I do not want a world where it's polite to return the favor of 'not raping you' with a "thanks".

I laugh my ass off at CK but if my sister got invited backstage you bet your ass I'd tell her to avoid being alone with him. (If she wasn't interested in being masturbated at)
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Re: Louis CK sexual harassment "rumors"

Postby DamianaRaven » Sun Oct 22, 2017 12:22 am

SandTea wrote:Can you please explain why you think that?


I'll try. While I agree that there are fewer "power rapists" out there than people might think, rape is very much an act of domination and dehumanization. Even if you're not doing it solely because you get off on her pain, one can only bypass the notion of consent by dehumanizing the other person, which is absolutely the work of an asshole. The only way one can blow of an accusation of rape with "I didn't do anything wrong" instead of "oh god, what did I do wrong" is by deciding that they were entitled to the other person's body while the other person in turn was not entitled to refuse. It's all very complicated and was just meant to illustrate my point to Aquila that talking about your dick just because it makes people uncomfortable (and not because you're actually interested in showing it off) is absolutely a sexually predatory thing to do!
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Re: Louis CK sexual harassment "rumors"

Postby Crimson847 » Sun Oct 22, 2017 1:31 am

DamianaRaven wrote:Even if you're not doing it solely because you get off on her pain, one can only bypass the notion of consent by dehumanizing the other person, which is absolutely the work of an asshole. The only way one can blow of an accusation of rape with "I didn't do anything wrong" instead of "oh god, what did I do wrong" is by deciding that they were entitled to the other person's body while the other person in turn was not entitled to refuse.


This is certainly true of "stranger in the bushes" forcible rape, which is why that sort of rape is the most widely and consistently condemned. However, I can think of two exceptions to this generalization.

First, an awful lot of date rapists rape not because they think what the woman wants doesn't matter, but because they have a very different idea of how a woman expresses her wants. According to a certain social script, women are supposed to "play hard to get" during the courtship process regardless of what they want or don't want. Men are supposed to distinguish this from genuine lack of interest by the presence of decisive action--for instance, a woman who goes into a man's bedroom alone, then says "no" to his advances but does not immediately remove herself from the situation is considered to be playing hard to get rather than actually being uninterested. The theory is that the woman communicates her interest by giving the man the opportunity to have sex with her (namely, by going off alone with him to a private, intimate setting), while verbally saying she's not interested and perhaps offering token physical resistance like a slap or light shove in order to preserve her womanly virtue or whatever. To someone raised in this tradition, a woman who goes into a man's bedroom alone with him and then says "no" when he tries to have sex with her is not actually opposed to having sex, she's simply playing her part in the courtship ritual. Such a person would emphatically reject the idea that they "don't care what the woman wants"--they would argue that they simply have a different idea of how women express their sexual wants.

Secondly, beyond forcible rape, there's another class of rape where the victim gives "consent" but that consent is legally considered to be invalid--because they're drunk, underage, or what have you. People who commit that sort of rape commonly justify it on the grounds that the aforementioned legal presumption is wrongheaded--i.e. that drunk people or minors can give valid consent regardless of what the law says. Regardless of the validity of that argument, it's very different from "what this person wants doesn't matter"--indeed, in such a case it's the law arguing that the victim's opinion doesn't matter, and the rapist arguing that it does matter.
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Re: Creepy Vs. Predatory: Where's the Line?

Postby DamianaRaven » Sun Oct 22, 2017 2:42 am

Are we in agreement that the vast majority of these sexual misunderstandings could be prevented with better sex education for teenagers?
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Re: Creepy Vs. Predatory: Where's the Line?

Postby D-LOGAN » Sun Oct 22, 2017 3:19 am

I don't know if I buy the misunderstanding explanation when it comes to cases of rape. In fact I'm gonna come out right now and say I don't. You invite a girl back to your room for sex, she's into it at first, but then changes her mind and wants to stop, but you force yourself on her anyway.

You're raping her, and you know you're raping her.

Any notions of 'I thought she was playing hard to get' is as far as I'm concerned bullshit. A lie you're telling that you don't believe for a moment. You know when someone wants to stop having sex and physically and verbally tries to end it, but you're choosing to go ahead anyway, because you want to and you don't care that they don't. Oh you may try to use that excuse if shit hits the fan afterwards, but that's just an excuse. Trying to pretend they're the one at fault, and that they actually wanted it and you're the victim. But you know. Unless you literally have something wrong with you neurologically, I call BS on any notion of "IT'S ALL SOME MISUNDERSTANDING!"

I no more believe you believe that than I'd believe a purse snatcher saying "Oh she wanted me to snatch her purse. I mean I know she tried to fight me and yelled 'STOP THIEF!' but trust me, from the way she was holding that purse, and the fact it was such a red and shiny purse, all these bright buttons on it, She wanted me to snatch it, she was just playing hard to rob. And is now just pretending she wasn't to save face".

Bollocks to that. They know what they're doing.

And I think I see that narrative being bandied about because frankly I think some people just prefer a fancier, high faluting sounding explanation for what is actually pretty simple. Like if any of you follow criminology you're probably familiar with the term 'Comfort Killers' as in serial killers who murder people for profit. People who murder relatives for the life assurance money or doctors who kill patients they know have left them money in their wills and the likes.

See back in the day when I was reading about all this first they just called them Profit Killers and they were the criminologists least favourites to write about. They LOVED going into detail about the psychological motivations of sex killers or missionary killers (those who killed victims like prostitutes or homosexuals whom they felt they were on a mission from God to wipe the streets clean with or what have you) or stereotypical deranged killers who were murdering people because their next door neighbour's begonias were ordering them to do it through their toaster or aliens would invade Sweden or whatnot. But they never had much to say about profit killers because, well, there wasn't much to say. THEY WANTED MONEY! And were prepared to kill to get it.

But by re-branding it as comfort killings, it now gives it a lah-de-dah fancier way of looking at it, so there's more delving into 'oh well when he was a boy his uncle was poor and it undoudtedly had a profound effect leaving him with the desire to never let poverty ...' blah, blah, blah.

But you're not gonna hear people refer to bank robbers or drug dealers or pimps as comfort criminals even though it'd be the same motivation. I think people just want a more complex-ier sounding explanation. Which frankly isn't always gonna be there.

And I'm same with the explanation behind these rapists, they wanted to have sex with their victims and they did not care that their victims didn't want to. And now will say ANYTHING to either get out of it or at the very least mitigate their responsibility. And if someone gives them the opportunity to say "It's not my fault chief, it's how I was raised, it's society, it's the patriarchy, it's the fluoride in the water, it's the silicone in the valley etc" They'll take it. And they'll tell anyone who'll listen that. When it comes to crime, you need to take everything a criminal says with a pinch of salt, because you'll often be told the thing that puts them in the best or least bad light.

Now having said that You will find examples of almost anything, especially in crime, and that includes motivations and what have you. But in general, I reject the 'they didn't think it was rape' mindset. For the most part, I'm gonna go out on a limb and say they knew damn well.
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Re: Creepy Vs. Predatory: Where's the Line?

Postby Kate » Sun Oct 22, 2017 4:02 am

I don't know, I think better sex ed is great and can probably help with a sizable chunk of these things.

But I also think that a lot of sexual misunderstandings happen between people who have been adequately educated. There are a lot of people who feel more violated as time goes on because their hesitant eventual yes was taken as an amorous yes and eventually this can snowball into feeling as though you were sexually assaulted. And I don't want to invalidate that because those feelings are real and painful but unless there were other circumstances at play - the yes was given due to a reasonable fear of threat, for example - it wasn't actually assault. But one party comes away feeling assaulted, the other thinks all is on the square.

There are people who don't get a verbal yes, but believe all the body language is there, and do not subscribe to the view that the verbal consent is necessary. Maybe their partner doesn't, either. I don't once I have an understanding with my partners, because sometimes, it kills the mood for me. The key part there is "once I have an understanding with my partners" but it still stands that unless sex ed involves saying it is always rape if there is no verbal consent, that won't be addressed because people doing it will think they're in the exceptional cases. And maybe, unfortunately, one party thinks the yes is there and the other is too afraid to say no, or is reluctant because they don't want to harm the relationship or be seen as a drag. Again, one party comes away thinking everything is great and the other feels wronged.

The problem with sexual misunderstandings is that they're mired in emotions and your emotional state. Your memories about them are malleable and colored by how you were feeling at the time and how you feel looking back on them, including the consequences (if there were any, negative or positive). Two people can be well-versed enough in sex ed to write the book on it, and still because they are humans with complex emotions come away with some nebulous status about whether or not that sex was assault.

I think the same is true with harassment. You can go through sex ed and learn that consent is king, and still go around openly offering your body up to people. Especially since we kind of have this double standard now where a woman who goes around offering her body is thought of as promiscuous OR as liberated. A guy doing that is skeezy. There's nothing liberated about it from any reputable corner, there's no celebration of his openness and his embrace of his own sexuality. And yet. He is the one who is still expected to make the first move in our sexually liberated present. Can sex ed address this adequately without making rules that we certainly wouldn't all agree to? And yet, if anyone (regardless of gender) pressed and offered their body without any overtures from the other person, they are definitely going to end up doing something that a good chunk of people consider harassment. Some people won't know how to say no. They won't be comfortable with it. And not just women who are uncomfortable about men; there are plenty of men who are not emotionally in a strong position to say no.

I speculate that men may be even worse off with this in a situation when all physical factors are equal. Women are more vulnerable to being physically cornered and feeling physically threatened, but men aren't exactly raised being taught that they can say no, or that they should say no if they're uncomfortable. That's aimed almost exclusively at women. Women are the prey, men are the predators, and it probably leaves some men woefully unprepared for how to handle predatory people. I think this is something that *can* be addressed by better sex ed, where a gender neutral emphasis is placed on how to safely say no. And I think it certainly can be taught that such behavior is predatory, and probably if it's taught in conjunction with the idea that *you can be prey, too* it will be effective at nipping some of this in the bud. I just wouldn't bet on it helping the vast majority of cases of genuine misunderstanding.
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Re: Creepy Vs. Predatory: Where's the Line?

Postby Marcuse » Mon Oct 23, 2017 6:24 pm

What's the difference between creepy and predatory? I would say that someone who is "creepy" is someone who acts in ways that people dislike or find off-putting, someone who is "predatory" is someone who deliberately preys upon others, choosing to put other people in uncomfortable or compromising situations to extract consent or agreement to something.

So a guy in a bar coming on to people poorly would be creepy, because he's just making an approach, being rebuffed and going. A guy engineering a situation where one person is isolated and feels like they have no choice but to agree to things because of a real or implied threat, is predatory. The difference is the intention of the person, and the methods they use to achieve what they want. Someone can be creepy out of incompetence or by accident, but predatory behaviour is deliberate and often calculating.
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