WTF was he wearing?!

Symptoms of the general coarsening of society

I can't suggest anything, I'm afraid. Lots of anti-social behaviour is technically legal, and the perpetrators just get away with it. It doesn't mean that the rest of us have to just smile, shut up and be happy for them doing it, though.

So what would you suggest? He is wearing a t shirt that isn’t illegal.

So was I and I probably would have asked as well.

But I would have been given a made up explanation (or told not to stare at people).

What exactly are you suggesting in your final paragraph? That a child might ask him for help thinking he’s a doctor?

That's a very good point about the graffiti, actually. It's generally looked on negatively - and if it's just a stylish neutral tag, it tends to be tolerated; but anything offensive is instantly reported to the council and cleaned off/painted over.

Obviously a person wearing a t-shirt isn't going to stay in the same place like a wall, and so is harder to report successfully; but offensive graffiti anywhere in public is a nasty thing.

I was reading at three. I would absolutely have read that out loud and asked Mummy what it meant (which apparently I used to do with graffiti all the time).

And maybe I'm overthinking it here, but it's entirely possible a child might think that a man offering to be "a kind of doctor" is doing so to be helpful so if someone asked to check something....

I know someone who has one that says two seater, with an arrow to his face and an arrow to his groin. He thinks it’s hilarious… 🤢

Um..
That's not designed for children to wear.

It's a DD/LG ageplay fetish thing.

I've seen similar ones with '...my wife must have fallen off' - and found them funny, because they're obviously just silly, farcical humour; but there's absolutely no need or justification for offensive misogynistic language.

I agree that turning the other way and not challenging behaviour like this is not good for society at all. People talk about 'policing', but nobody is suggesting that you have to go in with a riot shield, truncheon and loudhailer.

I was just making the point that people weren't even 'policing' it in the first place, yet were berated for supposedly doing so.

If you feel it's safe to do so, I see no issue at all in quietly having a word with them and telling them how upsetting it is for you and/or children to have to see. They may well just tell you to F-off; but they may actually take it on board that not everybody will appreciate their brand of 'humour', and that children will see it too, as well as teenagers who will fully understand what it's suggesting and may find it very uncomfortable.

It's probably not overly likely, but with some of them, they may not speak English well/at all and have bought it because they like the colours and the look of the design without understanding the implications or nuances to native speakers; or they may even have learning disabilities and not really grasp what it's driving at and pick up on social cues as to what is or isn't appropriate. I'm reminded here of the Chinese man whose social media channel went viral worldwide; but he didn't speak any English, so he just automatically responded to every comment in English with three 'crying with laughter' emojis. Somebody deliberately left a (not actually true) comment suggesting that their whole family had perished in a house fire to 'test it' and they received the same 'crying with laughter' response!

Yep, my mum used to make comments about my eldest son's "sexy bottom" when he was a toddler getting his nappy changed.
Definitely nothing untoward from her just a total.lack of awareness.
She would have been in her 70s.when she said this.

At least it gives every woman a clear signal to cross to the other side of the road when they see him

Absolutely disgusting. Imagine he is someone’s son/dad etc I’d be appalled

But 'only' disapproving is what most people on here have done
I absolutely disapprove of stuffing that.
If it is normalised ,imo, it makes society feel aggressive. If my ds' every wore stuff like that they would certainly hear my opinion about it.
However they have had it drummed into them since they were children how to behave both in private and in public.

I remember when ds2 was a young teenager telling me a tale of his mate screaming because they saw a rat or something. Ds said he hasd a 'rape face'. Apparently this was the slang for someone looking frightened. After our conversation I doubt he has ever said that again! He came to me later with an apology and said he just thought it was something people said and never thought it through.

A few years ago in Texas I saw a biker with a T-shirt saying on the back, "if you can read this, the bitch has fell off".

It is better they signal their simple-minded ignorance and misogyny than hide it.
Perhaps ALL convicted sex offenders should be required to wear T shirts like that.

A young child may well not understand it - although some who are confident readers and curiously learning all the time would ask their parents what certain words mean.

What about a teenager, though? Do you think a 14yo girl would fail to understand what the intent behind most of these was? Do you think she would find it amusing... or possibly threatening and hugely unwelcome? Should she have to see this out in public, just because an adult man wants to expose her (and everybody else) to it?

Like with the Co-op thread, it gets so tiresome when people come out with the "You don't have to look" excuse, as though people routinely walk around in public with their eyes closed or looking down at the floor and don't automatically see other people who are walking around in the open. Why should the people who are not deliberately causing the problem be expected to modify and restrict their freedoms to enable and condone the person who is?

I think she jointly won with Rhod Gilbert. It was deemed by Greg to be as creepy as a man who’d actually hidden in his house and filmed him when he was asleep. So I think that tells us what reasonable people feel about such things.

Save your horror for some of the ones on here that the children are wearing

Actually that’s the opposite of main character syndrome.

Main character syndrome is seeing something worn by a stranger and then appointing yourself the morals police 🤣

Agreed. When I was in NICU with my twins there was a couple in with their premie baby daughter and the dad repeatedly called her "sexy girl".

I remember thinking to myself, Christ alive...
But it does happen!

Deliberately exposing children to very adult, sexual and/or other highly inappropriate content is a clear form of abuse.

Wow. If a child understands that slogan then the t-shirt is the least of their problems. How ridiculous to call it abusive. If your child saw it, would you be phoning the police to report child abuse?

Why assume he’s aggressive?

He isn’t saying it out loud and forcing others to listen. You know you don’t have to look, don’t you?

I don’t find it funny but I find the pearl clutching bizarre.

This is far worse 🤢 I can't fathom the thinking behind allowing a young child to wear a t-shirt like this 🤯 The poor child has no understanding of the slogan, but the parents and any adult/older teen will. Gross.

Recently, I saw a man wearing a black t-shirt with white writing.

On the front, it said ''I'm an unemployed taxidermist''

And the back said ''I haven't stuffed anything for weeks!''

I think there are a lot of people out there who have such main character syndrome (or are just seriously not very bright), who genuinely seem not to realise that EVERYBODY whom they walk past will clearly see what they're wearing - and not just their friends or people whom they're hoping to entertain or attract.

And then, if people complain at having to see it - whether it's a nasty t-shirt slogan, their underwear on display or anything else similar - it suddenly becomes their fault for 'looking'.