Is your partner a creep?

[Bedpost]

97% of women have been sexually harassed, so there must be a huge number of men responsible for this. I’m a lesbian and don’t have many male friends and never knew my dad. I’m fairly confident that none of my male friends or friends partners would shout at girls in the street, grope women etc (can’t be sure though). I’m wondering who on earth all these men are. There must be millions of these gross men walking among us, so does anyone know them personally? They must be someone’s dad/brother/partner/friend. So does anyone have a current partner or other male they are close to that they know/suspect is a creep?
I’m not really expecting anyone to say yes, but doesn’t it seem strange that nearly all women have experienced sexual harassment but no one seems to know a man (apart from a distant relation or boss/ex they are not on good terms with) who behaves this way? Are you sure that your partner doesn’t stare at/follow/make comments/harass women when you are not there?

I am 100% confident my husband is not like that. In fact, he is so reserved and respectful that all my attempts at flirting with him fell on stony ground, and I had to spell out in black and white that I was interested in him. Of the six men he goes to the pub with regularly though, one is definitely a nasty creep, and another two I would be unsurprised by. So that’s just under half of that small sample. And I suspect only two of the four decent men in the group would actually call out their mates’ creepy behaviour. And that’s not enough for it to become unacceptable, and that’s why we’re where we are.

Nope, definitely not, he’s the opposite.

I think that each creep is a massively multiple offender and that many blokes wouldn’t do it. I can’t think of one bloke that I know who would (well those that I like anyway).

It’s not just friends either, we’re having a lot of work on our house at the moment and each tradesman is really respectful too.

I do think it’s a certain type of twat but they do it a lot.

My DH is 100% not a creep, he's very respectful of women.
HOWEVER he's good mates with a horribly misogynist sleazebag and doesn't challenge him on it (admittedly this pathetic excuse for a man is also DH's boss so he doesn't want to cause problems at work). I still wish he'd say something though, thus far I haven't been able to persuade him that he has any responsibility to do so

I have known men like this through casual acquaintances/ friends/ family friends. Women too.

I don't think 100% of men do turn a blind eye to it. It's neither difficult nor terribly uncommon to simply not spend one's free time in situations where it happens. And whether something is harassment or consensual is often not obvious to observers. If an adult woman directly involved in the situation chooses not to do anything about it, IMHO it's paternalistic for an uninvolved man to take it upon himself to interfere. She can decide what she wants to do about it, and if the answer is "nothing," her decision should be respected. Minding one's own business sometimes requires turning a blind eye to things that don't directly involve oneself, and there's nothing inherently wrong with that.

If I overheard a male colleague tell a female colleague that she had a nice bum, I'd just keep walking. If she's happy to know that he thinks that, good for them, and the whole thing is none of my business. If she's not, she can tell him he's a pig just as effectively as I can, and there's no reason for me to involve myself. If I do stop to tell him "You're a pig, and that's inappropriate," and it turns out they're in a relationship and she's happy about the whole thing, I've just made myself look like a nosy idiot for no good reason.

As it happens, I'm a woman. But I wouldn't do it if I were a man, either. That wouldn't make the woman less capable of choosing how to deal with it herself, nor would it make the entire thing any more my business.

My 4 dds tell me constantly that they are sexually harassed by men when they are out, such that they expect it.

No one knows do they? On the basis that the majority of men don't do this in front of the women they know. And while I can accept that the majority of men don't catcall in the street, if your definition of sleazy includes staring, I can tell you categorically that the ones who don't are a tiny minority.

I think some men are very good at hiding it from the women around them. An example from last week, I was sitting with a couple of male colleagues and suddenly out of nowhere, one of them goes "phwoar! look at the tits on that!" about a woman who was just walking past the front of our office building.

I was shocked. The colleague had given me no impression earlier that he was anything other than a quiet family man. I'd certainly never heard him speak that way before. However, none of the other men in the room reacted which leads me to believe this was not unusual behaviour from him.

He looked suitably embarrassed when he remembered I was in the room.

@onelittlefrog

I have known men like this through casual acquaintances/ friends/ family friends. Women too.

Women too? And what percentage of the sleazy people you knew were women? It must be a high percentage for you to make a point of mentioning it. Or are you just trying to take the focus away from this being something typically men do wrong?

I've actually thought about this in the past and obviously I can only come up with my experience which is a vanishingly small sample .
It's why I detest with all my being that old concept of the women men marry and the women men sleep with. The idea that some are worthy to be a wife and others aren't.

I think its likely there is a crossover in the creeps. So it's possible they hide it from the women they deem being worthy of being their partner but consider it OK to be a creep to what they see as lesser women.

As an aside it's also why I hate the "You aren't like other women" crap

Yes I am , why would you think insulting the rest of my sex is going to be a good flirting technique.

Not in all cases of course but I do think its possible some creeps deem it unacceptable to be creepy near their wife or SO but absolutely fine to rate women on their worthiness. I swear it's the same ones who do it to other women but get shocked and indignant when another man does it to their partner.

I found I would rarely experience ot from men I managed at work but several times stepped in when they did it to others who were their peers.

My ex was a creep. I included an example of his creepiness in the divorce papers. Not sure how many divorce papers have the words 'nice tits' quoted in them.

The problem with this thread is that most women genuinely don't know as it's not usually something you get to see in your partner, just in other people's. Unless you're with him 24 hours a day you can't know. And so many posts stating their ex was a creep, presumably there was a period of time when they didn't know he was either. The other problem is, any women who says her partner does these things on here is very swiftly blamed herself, asked to account for why she's with him etc, often in quite sneering terms, so they are probably not as likely to come forward to give any balance.

@PurpleOkapi

I don't think 100% of men do turn a blind eye to it. It's neither difficult nor terribly uncommon to simply not spend one's free time in situations where it happens. And whether something is harassment or consensual is often not obvious to observers. If an adult woman directly involved in the situation chooses not to do anything about it, IMHO it's paternalistic for an uninvolved man to take it upon himself to interfere. She can decide what she wants to do about it, and if the answer is "nothing," her decision should be respected. Minding one's own business sometimes requires turning a blind eye to things that don't directly involve oneself, and there's nothing inherently wrong with that.

If I overheard a male colleague tell a female colleague that she had a nice bum, I'd just keep walking. If she's happy to know that he thinks that, good for them, and the whole thing is none of my business. If she's not, she can tell him he's a pig just as effectively as I can, and there's no reason for me to involve myself. If I do stop to tell him "You're a pig, and that's inappropriate," and it turns out they're in a relationship and she's happy about the whole thing, I've just made myself look like a nosy idiot for no good reason.

As it happens, I'm a woman. But I wouldn't do it if I were a man, either. That wouldn't make the woman less capable of choosing how to deal with it herself, nor would it make the entire thing any more my business.

Understand your point....

BUT I would absolutely interfere when there was an obvious power differential - eg a colleague hassling a YOUNG woman... Or St least check out that she is ok

@PurpleOkapi

I don't think 100% of men do turn a blind eye to it. It's neither difficult nor terribly uncommon to simply not spend one's free time in situations where it happens. And whether something is harassment or consensual is often not obvious to observers. If an adult woman directly involved in the situation chooses not to do anything about it, IMHO it's paternalistic for an uninvolved man to take it upon himself to interfere. She can decide what she wants to do about it, and if the answer is "nothing," her decision should be respected. Minding one's own business sometimes requires turning a blind eye to things that don't directly involve oneself, and there's nothing inherently wrong with that.

If I overheard a male colleague tell a female colleague that she had a nice bum, I'd just keep walking. If she's happy to know that he thinks that, good for them, and the whole thing is none of my business. If she's not, she can tell him he's a pig just as effectively as I can, and there's no reason for me to involve myself. If I do stop to tell him "You're a pig, and that's inappropriate," and it turns out they're in a relationship and she's happy about the whole thing, I've just made myself look like a nosy idiot for no good reason.

As it happens, I'm a woman. But I wouldn't do it if I were a man, either. That wouldn't make the woman less capable of choosing how to deal with it herself, nor would it make the entire thing any more my business.

Agree that not all men turn a blind eye and is normally agree with minding your own business. But I think (men especially) intervening in sexual harassment is a case where you shouldn’t mind your own business. A lot of women are not perfectly capable of speaking up to the perpetrator when they are a victim of sexual harassment, as it is a scary situation and there is a massive power imbalance so they tend to just walk away-this usually doesn’t mean they are perfectly happy that a random man made a lewd comment about their body uninvited it means they are too scared to challenge a person bigger than them who clearly doesn’t respect them. I think it’s more effective for other men to call them out, as the kind of pigs who behave like this probably wouldn’t listen to or respect a woman calling them out, and they may be more likely to listen if a man calls them out so they can see that this kind of behaviour is t a “boys will be boys” typical male behaviour.

I think male intervention is a difficult one. While in principle it should happen, in practice it has a significant probability of escalating into violence against the male calling it out. Most harassment of females doesn't end in violence against the female concerned, as most men, even the sleazy ones, don't go that far. I have been harassed on a train by a group of 6 men, when with a male work colleague. I specifically told him to say nothing as I knew where it would end up if he did, and felt the risk to me to be the lesser. In the end we both left the train early. I told him if he wanted to be supportive to tell all the men he knew what had happened and how that felt.

That must have been a really frightening experience. Asking him to tell other men about it was the best thing to do.

Of course it's not always safe, but there are plenty of situations when it is. With friend,with family,with coworkers ,on group chats etc. Saying nothing is condoning it. When there's also at least one good/nice guy (as perceived by others) in the group, it even gives the behaviour a veneer of respectability. "Oh Mark was there too" and if Mark was there and said nothing or worse joined in and everyone (including women) think Mark is a nice ,upstanding guy then whatever was said/done must be ok. The problem is very few Marks ever speak up.

@Carboncheque

That must have been a really frightening experience. Asking him to tell other men about it was the best thing to do.

Yes, one of the worst parts was that one of them kept veering between making crude remarks and apologising in that unpredictable drunk way. And when he said sorry I actually said 'that's ok' to try and appease him and keep it under some control. The humiliation of that is difficult to forget.

Anyone who has been in a friendship group which includes men knows a creep. Everyone knows who he is, but his behaviour will be minimised, excused, & eventually blamed on the women for being "too sensitive", "mean", & "unable to take a joke".

There will be a LOT of denial on this thread, because nobody wants to think they are living with or related to Schrodinger's Rapist.
deadwildroses.com/2011/09/21/schrodinger%E2%80%99s-rapist-a-guide-for-the-men/

The tragedy is, creeps won't stop creeping until men call them out.
Women who do so are either pushed out of the group, or called liars.

The magnificent Captain Awkward tackles just this subject here, with 2 blog posts answered readers' questions about how to deal with the creepy dude in the friendship group -

captainawkward.com/2012/08/07/322-323-my-friend-group-has-a-case-of-the-creepy-dude-how-do-we-clear-that-up/

It sounds like a horrible experience. You did what you needed to to get out of that situation safely. When you know that everything could go shit very quickly, self preservation kicks in.

I think you’re right that there are lots of these men and they walk among us.

However, I don’t think that all the women who’ve said they don’t believe their husbands or partners are like that are completely deluded. Obviously we could be wrong - we can’t see into their souls and we don’t have 24/7 CCTV on them.

But my experience has been that when a man is a misogynist who sees women not as human but as objects for his own viewing pleasure, he can’t hide it. He will let you know. Either in obvious ways or in more subtle ways. But the signs will be there.

The problem is that I think a lot of women are socialised to think that they have to accept that behaviour. That it’s just how men behave. Many posters, including me, have said that they are confident their current partner isn’t a creepy but they have a creepy ex. I find that plausible because I found that being in a relationship with a misogynist once made me hyper aware of the signs of misogyny when looking for a new partner.

I can only speak for my own experience but looking back, he let me know he was a misogynist and a creep from day one. But I was young and had low self-esteem and didn’t understand what his behaviour was telling me, and also thought that’s just how men behave, and you have to tolerate it.

It’s embarrassing to admit but I was well into my 20s before I realised that I didn’t need to put up with a man who leered at women, a man who called women on the TV or on the road words like ‘bitch’ and ‘tart’, a man who googled upskirt and nipple slip photos of celebrities, a man whose friends shared violent porn clips as if they were ‘funny’. That I could do better. And I did.

@Bedpost

97% of women have been sexually harassed, so there must be a huge number of men responsible for this. I’m a lesbian and don’t have many male friends and never knew my dad. I’m fairly confident that none of my male friends or friends partners would shout at girls in the street, grope women etc (can’t be sure though). I’m wondering who on earth all these men are. There must be millions of these gross men walking among us, so does anyone know them personally? They must be someone’s dad/brother/partner/friend. So does anyone have a current partner or other male they are close to that they know/suspect is a creep? I’m not really expecting anyone to say yes, but doesn’t it seem strange that nearly all women have experienced sexual harassment but no one seems to know a man (apart from a distant relation or boss/ex they are not on good terms with) who behaves this way? Are you sure that your partner doesn’t stare at/follow/make comments/harass women when you are not there?

What you are also commenting on are other peoples tolerance and acceptance levels.

Personally, I don't mind a wink and comment, it doesn't intimidate me. I like positive attention. But I appreciate other women do not.

But then, of course, it also depends who is delivering the cheeky remark.

I don't think you can have a blanket approach.

Any harassment is wrong, illegal, intimidating - but different people have different boundaries. What you find harrasment i might find acceptable.

I note you mention you're a lesbian. I get a lot of (unwanted) female attention. I am not a lesbian. I find it threatening and intimidating, so it's not just men.

You get a lot of intimidating sexual attention from other women? I find that very difficult to believe, frankly.

@WineAcademy

You get a lot of intimidating sexual attention from other women? I find that very difficult to believe, frankly.

Unfortunately, I do. But of course, that's the environment I work in.

I get a lot of (unwanted) female attention. I am not a lesbian. I find it threatening and intimidating

Where do you go to get that sort of behaviour? The only times I’ve had sexual attention from women is when I’ve been in gay bars; and even then it’s always been of the flirty yet polite chatting up kind.