I guess it’s just coincidence, but I’ve heard several stories in the last few months about creepy men stalking or pestering women. My SIL has been followed home a couple of times by a guy who lives in the neighbourhood. She has also seen him walking past the house and peering in the window. A friend has been pestered by a guy at work, who keeps sending her gifts. He’s done this before, apparently, but the woman felt sorry for him and didn’t complain to the manager. And a second friend is being pestered by the man who lives next door. He is in his 40s and lives with his mother. Every time she leaves the house, he seems to appear. She’s utterly sick of it. He knows the sound of the door and seems to lie in wait. He also appears every time she’s in the back garden and clumsily tries to flirt. She had a new bed delivered a while ago, and as she was on her front drive directing the delivery guys, this neighbour popped up and made some remark like “what will you be getting up to on your new bed,” or something like that.
I know this is nothing new, but I wonder if it’s becoming more common. When I was young (late ‘80s/early 1990s) it was still considered shameful for a woman over 30 to be single or childless. You were a failure if you hadn’t “bagged a man.” So women would put up with all kinds of shit, or settle for really awful men. Young women today are different. Quite a few women I know really don’t seem bothered about dating at all. A lot of men resent this. It’s like their hold over women has been broken. Then of course there is internet porn, which is skewing men’s views. No doubt many of them watch darker stuff too. Just thinking out loud here.