Did women used to enjoy being catcalled?

I used to get a lot of “smile love” then if I didn’t giggle, a follow up like “mardy cow”. Ah fond memories

It was different times back then. I didn't feel threatened at all. The UK is very different now.

I always hated it but I have one friend who loves it and still seeks that kind of attention in her 60s. She told me that my daughter should be flattered that a man tried to put her hand up her skirt. Baffles me - it really does

I had grown men catcalling me all the time between age 13-17 and then it dwindled off very quickly after that.

It made me feel embarrassed and grossed out that those men basically just fancied children

enjoy it in the privacy of your home?
what does that even mean

Some women did enjoy it. Some women didn't. Just like now. We aren't a homogeneous mob.

But equally it would depend on the catcalling. A smile and a wink is different from a 'cooooooorrrrr show us your xxxxxx' and then Getting aggressive when you ignore them.

There's catcalls and catcalls. "Good morning beautiful" is different to "Bet that cunt's dripping" or other similarly delightful things I've heard, and they have different impacts.

I do identify as a feminist and would prefer not to have my value as a human being judged by a random bloke based on my appearance, but the level of aggression and obvious hatred varies.

@HeySummerWhereAreYou
well you have been told now, believe it or not
people are different and didnt have your life

It’s a highly personal thing, it’s nothing to do with what era it is. Some people like it, some hate it, there’s nothing wrong with either position. However, since many of us hate it I agree with the moves to make it illegal. If you enjoy it you can do it in the privacy of your own home.

I’m 52 and have always hated it. It’s made me feel really uncomfortable, awkward, and judged.

💯

Sorry. Lima is the capital of Peru. I should have remembered that.
We were warned about crime in Lima but actually found people really friendly and felt safe there. And I felt that a little round of applause was quite polite.

@HeySummerWhereAreYou - I agree. There are some sad cases on here though, women with terrible lives and low self esteem, for whom any kind of male attention would give them validation. Very sad.

Absolutely what @HeySummerWhereAreYou has wonderfully and articulately said!

that was my life too and it was a pain the fucking arse

I was trying to remember where Lima was 😅. It was a long time ago. I should know. Remind me please!

i’m late 30s. I wasn’t confident about my looks growing up and got bullied a bit for it. Had a glow up late teens early 20s and when i was first catcalled and i realised It wasn’t meant sarcastically (though how do we really know?) , I felt flattered 🙈 I ignored it as i didn’t know what else to do. Looking back i’m a bit horrified I felt this way.

60 now
I didn't like it generally, but as with so many things it's not always black and white.
Sometimes it was creepy and offensive, other times I would laugh out loud depending on what and how it was said.

I'm absolutely gobsmacked that 4 out of 10 women so far said they don't mind/didn't mind being cat called and whistled and being hit on ... I absolutely hated every minute of it. It happened to me quite a lot... Pervy letchy men - very likely married - coming on to me, when I was between 13 and 45. (Late 1970s to around 2009/2010.) I got absolutely sick to death of it.

I was rarely able to do my 15-20 minute walk to work, or go for a bike ride, or (or walk anywhere for more than 20 minutes,) without being jeered at and leered at, gawped at, letched at, and sometimes stopped in my tracks with a man trying to get my attention, asking me out/chatting me up, and sometimes calling me a fucking slag or a cunt or a bitch, if I said no. I even had men letching and cat calling me sometimes, when I was with my DH!

I would get wolf whistles - and was always expected to turn around to the builders or the workmen and smile or giggle like a simpleton - or say, 'oh my gosh, I am so pleased that you find me attractive. You wonderful man!' And if you ignored them, you would sometimes get called an ignorant cow, or even worse - proper nasty rancid insults. Do these fuckwits not realise this is the 15th time this month this has happened?!

I was often chatted up at bars, even though I said I was with someone already/was married, and had a wedding ring on (when I went out with my friends.) And was often called a fucking miserable slag when I turned them down. I ended up turning down men on buses and trains - and a few times had men follow me off the bus or train. And I had to go to people's houses or into pubs and beg them to ring my dad (or DH when I was married.) Or I'd ask them to drive me up the road half a mile, or I'd ask them to warn them off or call the police.

Sometimes had men try it on at work... Thinking I was up for an affair because a couple of other women had affairs at work, and had them leering at me, and groping me. Or staring at me...

No, I'm not some kind of supermodel. I've always been a reasonably attractive woman, a 7 out of 10 maybe but not a supermodel. And sometimes a stone or two overweight. Nothing stops them. I became afraid to wear short skirts or any kind of top that shows a little bit of cleavage, (I have - and always have had quite big boobs,) because that means I'm some kind of slut. 'Why do you dress like that if you don't want the attention?' they'd ask.

Yep, that was MY LIFE for over 30 years. From the late 1970s to around 2009/2010. It started when I was around 13, yes 13! And it didn't stop til I was around 44-45! AND it's the life of many other women. Is it any wonder that many women really resent and loathe many men.

I'm often gobsmacked when I read on these threads that some women claim they enjoy all this shit! REALLY?! I find that hard to believe! And some women claim that they've never been cat called/leered at/hit on too. I find that really, really hard to believe that some women have never had it happen - ever.

.

39. I’ve never really minded it, provided it remained a whistle and not aggressively sexual remarks. Although earlier this summer a guy walking past me said “you’ve got great legs” and winked at me as he walked past. I’ve got to admit it made my day as I’d spent the morning contemplating whether I’m now too old for a denim mini skirt 😂😂

Late 80s DH and I bought a new build when we were first married and I had to walk the gauntlet past the other homes still belong built on my way to and from work. After a while nearly every time I walked past there were catcalls and whistling so I just gave them the finger. I wouldn't have thought to complain to the site manager though as then it was just something women had to tolerate.

Not the point of the thread but Lima is not in Ecuador!

I'm 53. In the 80s and 90s I had incredibly mixed feelings.
I was a young looking child for a long time with a late puberty and did not get cat called at all when I was very young (unlike some girls). The sense I had of being objectified and threatened physically/ sexually came more from boys who were peers who were as rough and disrespectul as they liked - they would pull your skirt up, smack you, pinch you, insult you with sexual words at school - no one did a thing about it.

Many of my friends were subject to some form of regular sexual abuse from a family member. (I was not.) If someone told you what their granddad used to do them, they were very ashamed and they swore you to secrecy. I never told anyone about these confidences and I worry to this day about whether I did the right thing.
My music teacher used to grope me at times.

So groups of men in public were nothing to all this, the real dangers were elsewhere. Even when I was older and subject to more classic cat calling, although I always felt a bit intimidated by a group of men when I was alone, I never thought they would actually do anything. That might be naive but I just thought if I walked past quickly no one was going to actually come and follow me. It was embarrassing but so what.

When I was in a group or being flirted with one to one, it was different, sometimes annoying but sometimes fun. not threatening. I grew up in the northwest and back in the 80s / 90s at least, a come on was not necessarily hateful. The only thing was it was not the done thing to tell them to get lost so even if you could not be bothered with it you had to play along to an extent or it would take even longer to get rid of them while they harangued you for being stuck up, or followed you.

When I moved to the south in the 90s I encountered a different kind of flirting which felt hateful and insulting and I didnt even recognise it as such. I was used to men in the NW who wanted something from me - company, or a smile - being flattering, trying to charm. In the SE they would sneer and insult you and I didn't understand why they were being so mean to me because surely they wouldn't be like that if they fancied me, where do they think it's going to get them? That mode seems to be the mode that is most common now in men's unsolicited interactions with women. Some sense that we owe them something and they want it, but they also hate us.

Oh love 💐 I am sorry xx that’s an awful thing to have done

Always hated this behaviour - as did my mother and grandmother both of whom were ardent feminists.

I am early 50s and would ignore it and have conscious thought about how arsey men were for doing this but secretly I liked the feeling that men found me attractive. I didn’t like men in cars beeping their horns and shouting shit though as that made me jump and did feel threatening, nor random men shouting or saying shit in the street as that felt threatening too. Men in building sites felt safely contained I guess!

I’ve always liked the feeling of men finding me attractive. I’m a heterosexual woman and I think it’s understandably normal to enjoy feeling attractive to the sex you enjoy having sex with.

Like pp’s mum, I find it really, really hard that that has all but disappeared. I go to dance events and festivals and the men my age there will utterly ignore me and dance with the younger women next to me. I really am completely invisible to them. I don’t at all understand women my age who say they love that age has made them invisible to men. I don’t. I loved that sexual ‘dance’ ( using dance metaphorically here) with men. I loved seeing out of the corner of my eye that men were watching me. I am pretty fit for my age and try to focus a positive view of my body and its capability and strength and the joy that brings me ( and it does) but that sexual side was also a really important part of my physical embodiness and enjoyment of my physical self, and I miss it.