sexual advances - the big question

But Dazzler, maybe you're just chatting to random women?

Maybe you're not making "sexual advances" to them?

On the whole, people don't mind having random conversations if they're waiting at bus-stops, for planes etc. Also chances are, when she saw her flight number come up and needed to go, or kept looking at her book paragraph, you stopped talking to her and didn't behave as though you had the right to keep her from her flight/ bus / book/ ipad.

It's really not a minefield. Most men negotiate it with the same ease they take a walk in a park. The ones who find it a minefield, are the nobbers who have a massive sense of grievance that sometimes, women don't want to allow them to take up our space, time and energy. Most men can cope with that concept quite easily, once they've been introduced to it.

Ok Fastidia, apolgies for the mixup re: the figures.

Point taken about the following up with abuse. I guess I was raised better than to threaten women but have experienced friends (when I was a lot younger) calling women x,y,z for getting a knockback. Sadly a lot of parents do not raise their boys with the right values and I'm not sure how to solve that one.

Otherwise I don't know where it comes from. We don't see this kind of stuff on TV or on other media so don't see how boys are conditioned to threaten women. I've read research that suggests that some men are violent due to smacking but this has got to be reducing now that smacking kids is on the decline.

AThingInYourLife

I have a very different experience. I often speak to women and are spoken to by women in random situations. Be that work, at the shops, the gym, train station etc. I only do so because it is a 2 way thing and have found that women are as forward/receptive as I am. Maybe I come across as a particularly unthreatening figure? I have no idea. In fact the last time I spoke to a random woman I was on my laptop in an airport and a she sat down and started chatting within a few mins.

I'm not suggesting that you're wrong but in my experience I don't see the same level of fear as has been described.

Don't get me wrong. I know a girl who finished with a guy and he's now in prison because he murdered his new girlfriend. She is now freaked out about meeting new men (obviously) so am not simply seeing things through my eyes. It's just that my personal experience has shaped my personality such that I talk to random women as much as they do to me. Hence my comment about it being a sad day.

Quite.

How does a woman know which man is one of the 1 in 10 or 1 in 20 or one in 70 or whatever it is?

Men get really pissed off when women point out that we don't know which one of you is a rapist or an axe murderer.

They just expect us to see the world through their eyes, not through our's.

"By the same token I would be sad of the day when women were scared of talking to me for fear that I were that 1 in 10."

Wake up.

It is that day.

It has been for centuries.

Dazzler whatever the percent chance of them being a rapist, there are also chances of them following up with threatening behaviour- calling you a bitch, groping you anyway, spilling your drink, following you round so you have to leave etc. I've had my looks insulted for turning down a guy in a bar when I wanted to talk to my friend for example. And if there is this level of threatening behaviour then you are much more wary if ther might be more levels to come.

Fastidia, why the cynicism? It's poor form IMHO and a little insulting that I would be so disrespectful of such a serious topic. But anyway.

I'll level with you. I was thinking about going home when I posted and googled. I found a figure of 95,000 on the BBC but not the unreported stat so (wrongly) assumed it would be like for like. I genuinely thought I was being conservative so I stand corrected.

In fairness I've just googled again and have seen 9 out of 10 from the Mirror, 70-90 percent from Surrey university and then 68 percent on the Independent.

Ok so I'll go with 90 percent but that still doesn't equate to 10 percent.

AThingInYourLife Wed 06-Mar-13 16:23:13

You've missed the bit of the discussion where SolidGoldBrass said to Larry that approaching a stranger is a bad thing because you have a 10 percent chance of talking to a rapist. To quote again:

Larry, the key point that every man needs to remember when he approaches a woman he doesn't know is that, while his intentions may be harmless she doesn't know that. There is a TEN PERCENT CHANCE that he's a rapist after all.

I'm not willfully neglecting the men that rape their partners or people they do know. I was referring to those that you don't know.

AbigailAdams

Of course you make a valid point but given so many men are not convicted then we simply do not know if the previous/next years offenders are repeat offenders, men that suddenly decide to rape a woman or rapists that are still in steady relationships. Sadly we just don't have a clue who is walking about and who isn't but either way the chances are pretty slim if you look at the figures over the past years.

Again, I'm in no way justifying it or trying to put a positive spin on it but I would hate for my wife to think that 1 in 10 men she randomly speaks to could be a/her rapist (as I genuinely don't think this to be the case). By the same token I would be sad of the day when women were scared of talking to me for fear that I were that 1 in 10. For sure, the stat needs to be zero but this is another discussion entirely.

I appreciate that this discussion is about sexual advances but I think the type that Larry has been talking about isn't the full-on come-on type but striking up a conversation in the hope that it may lead toward friendship > dates > relationship. I'm guessing a small fraction of relationships start from such random encounters where a woman did not feel imposed upon.

To be honest I've never met a woman in this manner although I do often speak to male/female strangers in random situations. Is this any different, except from the fact that I have no sexual agenda? I personally wouldn't try and start a relationship in this way and fortunately all of my relationships have commenced due to a mutual understanding that we were both interested (via work/friends). However, there is no doubt that some women like to be chased and whilst some on here hate the very thought of it, people's preferences and tolerance of strangers varies wildly, which is part of the reason we have this problem.

"As there are a number that don't report then I guess we could double that to 200,000"

A number that don't report?

That number would be 85 - 90%.

So you need to do more than double the number of reported rapes to get to the real number. Only 1 to 1 and a a half in 10 rapes is reported.

As if you didn't know.

Pretzel, what a marvellous hint that is. Because the man either has to back off and leave the woman alone, or do something that makes it obvious to other people that he's a pest and the woman is not 'making a fuss about nothing.

It sucks that you are being harrassed at work, StickEm. Yes it's harassment if he keeps interrupting you in your work and keep getting too close. Have you tried something like this? Do others know that he is bothering you?

Those figures Dazzler quoted also don't take into account rapists that didn't rape last year. Just because they raped someone 10/20/30 years ago doesn't mean they aren't a rapist.

I don't think sexual advances should be accepted. Wny would that be OK?

"I read that there were about 95,000 recorded cases last year. As there are a number that don't report then I guess we could double that to 200,000. The male population is approx 30 million in the UK so this represents 0.67 percent of men. If 90 percent of victims already know their rapist then I would say that your claim is slightly out as this would mean that only 0.067 percent of men walking about are likely to be rapists."

I barely know where to start with this.

But you seem to be suggesting that we need to knock the rapists who know their victims off the figures of likely rapists?!

On what basis? That if they rape women they know they are not dangerous to strangers

yy aThing, good point.

There is all that old shit about "getting the girl"

I think far from being taught to accept no for an answer, men are fed a narrative that persistence is romantic, that "getting the girl" is a project that can be the work of years.

That sounds like what you might be on the receiving end of, StickEm, the belief that a woman is right for you and that surmounting her indifference and rejection and convincing her if your worth is part of the quest of wooing her.

And yes, it is harassment. And it's very difficult to deal with.

SolidGoldBrass Wed 06-Mar-13 15:29:36

Larry, the key point that every man needs to remember when he approaches a woman he doesn't know is that, while his intentions may be harmless she doesn't know that. There is a TEN PERCENT CHANCE that he's a rapist after all.

Do you have any figures to qualify that? It kind of seems quite high.

I read that there were about 95,000 recorded cases last year. As there are a number that don't report then I guess we could double that to 200,000. The male population is approx 30 million in the UK so this represents 0.67 percent of men. If 90 percent of victims already know their rapist then I would say that your claim is slightly out as this would mean that only 0.067 percent of men walking about are likely to be rapists.

Given we have approx 30 million women in this country then that leaves us with a ratio meaning it is highly unlikely for a woman to be raped by a random stranger.

I'm not putting a positive spin on being raped (naturally) but I certainly don't equate it to the 10 percent chance that you've described.

Or, as in Stick Em Up's case, she has declined the offer, but they have persisted in demanding her attention. I'm guessing that doesn't often happen when you are doing the crosswords.

Larry, you said yourself that there are times when you don't want to be disturbed, like when you are doing a crossword. You say as long as the disturber is "polite and responsive to your signals," it's not a problem though. You seem to expect that all women will have the same attitude as you to interruptions.

As so many have said here, one of the problems is that men who approach women, hoping for their smile/attention/praise/phone number/sex/whatever are not polite and responsive when rebuffed. They are often insulting, hostile and threatening, regardless of whether they are ignored, politely told "no" or abruptly told to do one.

Unless you routinely get a nasty response to telling someone you would prefer to ponder on 7 across than talk to them, then perhaps you won't see why women, who DO routinely get this kind of response, have a different perspective.

Following on from SGB's post, this blog about SCHRÖDINGER?S RAPIST is very apt.

I don't think they shoud. Why should they?

Also, I don't see men shouted at on the street or in the press for their appearance being wrong. Which is connected.

And if someone says, "Well some women want to be approached"

see my point days ago ^^

THEY WILL LET YOU KNOW