Ugh men are gross

[crochetmonkey74]

I say this as someone who would like to meet someone , but currently rethinking it...
I'm in a pub waiting for a friend for our annual nye lunch. A nice pub. In walk 3 couples. Roughly mid to late forties, all look nice and well dressed. Bit of chat and the women of the couples say goodbye and go off for a bit of shopping and will be back in an hour. Kisses all round, bye etc
Now the women are gone, I can hear everything the blokes are saying (while I'm pretending to read my book and go on mumsnet)
Topics they have covered so far (and I wish I was making this up)
1.One of them hasn't had a poo for a few days , went to toilet came back and showed photos of what he's done in the pub toilet. It was massive apparently and they all looked at it.

1. They were all at a party for Christmas eve and a different friends daughter is definitely 'smashable' even though she is only 17
2. Sienna Miller is fit and knows it so you could do what you want to her. They then were googling porn pictures of her.
3. The band 10cc is a joke on the average amount of semen a man produces but the one regularly covers his wife back in it and there's loads more than that.
4. The barmaid is too fat to shag unless you're desperate

These are normal looking attractive men who anyone would think look well dressed, seem like 'good' men etc but they acted totally different when their partners were here before they went shopping. . I can sit here and listen as I am fat and middle aged so invisible to them. I'm not a prude, but the switch was Shocking. Those women would probably never think their partners spoke like that.

Men impressing men, a tale as old as time. Just some good old-fashioned male homosexual group bonding.

@CurlyhairedAssassin totally agree. Was disappointed and shocked when a friend thought that when in India the most danger was from lower class men and a Bollywood producers son was fine and safe.

To answer your question honestly op - yes sometimes it's very explicit.

In that case you'd be appalled about the conversations I have with my bestie girl friends.

Op, I have been out with women/ heard other women discuss everything from vibrators to wanting to sit on the sexy bar man’s face, to what they’d like Denzel Washington to do to them, to what their own husbands are like in bed, or aren’t like (to the women’s profound disappointment and the man’s humiliation).

People can behave very badly in certain groupings and say pretty disgusting things around others they feel comfortable enough with. I personally don’t think it makes people gross or just bad, for the most part, it makes them human.

I can’t say I’ve heard women discuss the attractiveness of older children in the way you’ve described though. That is particularly shocking, but hopefully that is at least, not representative of the male population, even if some of the other stuff isn’t too surprising.

lI think had I been there, I’ve have had to bite my tongue to stop myself calling them something deeply unpleasant.

It's sad that I am not surprised at all

I admit as per this thread I don't really understand how a lot of men's minds work but this bit I find totally baffling.

Do men really think the hotter a woman is the more open to any sexual behaviour she will be?

"Sienna Miller is fit and knows it so you could do what you want to her"

In my 20s I had loads of situations where I overheard men saying things like "hot but crazy" or some such about me. It felt insulting and very confusing as these were men who I didn't know at all really (acquaintances etc). Its bizarre. If you are Sienna Miller do you think "thats degrading but as I am very hot then its fair enough"?

So weird.

Nonsense, anything said loudly enough to be audible in a not particularly quiet public space is fair game for eavesdroppers.

Me too I’m afraid 😆

Well I never knew that about 10cc 😆

I think that men have a secret code; it’s almost unconscious- they can be really honest with other men and they have to keep that side hidden from women. Overhearing men talk about women when they think they’re unheard gives us a bit of a clue. Do you remember that book “why men don’t ask for directions and women can’t read maps” or something similar? One of the things in it was that every man when i’m a meeting at work will consider what each woman in the meeting looks like nude and what they are like to shag! that quite shocked me and I felt a bit vulnerable really. I asked a few friends who are men if this is true and they all agreed it was but they never shared the thoughts with women.Us women don’t like that you see! .

Having worked in largely male dominated places for years this is standard and the majority of men wherever I've worked. I used to watch the switch when clients or their wives called into the office/workplace or phoned them. All nicey, nicey about dinner tonight and the kids. As soon as they left it was wall to wall crude and vile. I mean, really vile sexist, misogynistic jaw dropping stuff and this was at work, not after a few pints on a stag do. For clarity these were "normal" men. They were very far from the dregs of the gutter. Their wives had no idea what scumbags they were all married to.

Thing is I bet he does nothing of the sort.

I find their commnts almost endearing considering how much shocking sh*t is out there, especially among the teens, in their chat. So the blokes let off some steam. Not that different from women making rude jokes or fretting about their appearance in a juvenile way they normally wouldn't but actually brings bonding and comfort. Two ways to look at: deeply offensive and maybe say something, or quietly laugh off their stupidity enjoy the rare insight into men's world.

I worked in a working men's club when I was a student and it was eye-opening. It wasn't all men and a fair few were decent but some of them were awful when there were no women around - barmaids obviously don't count as us being present never stopped any of them.

When a new member called me a stuck-up cunt for saying I didn't give my number to customers he was forcibly ejected by a crowd of the regulars and they all complained to the committee and got his membership revoked however several of those regulars could be just as bad as I'd rejected advances from quite a few of them. It wasn't so much that this guy called me a name, it was more that he was new and was disrespectful in their club to their barmaid.

Behaviours in the bar ranged from the relatively mild "while you're down there, love..." whenever one of us had to get something off a lower shelf of the bar, often accompanied by an exaggerated nod toward their fly right the way up to open discussions of porn.

I agree too that men don't call out other men. One of the men was a known abuser, he beat his wife in the street with a walking stick and received a suspended sentence for it, he still carried on beating her. He was still welcomed as a member, other men still bought him drinks, they would even make jokes with him about it. In my whole time working there only one man ever showed any sort of negativity toward him. Whenever this man saw him walking in, he would finish his pint, pass me £2 to get myself a drink at the end of my shift and then would leave, his parting words were always "I don't drink with scum" which the other men would jeer at. Makes me wonder how many of the rest of them were abusers too seeing as they were all so happy to be pals with one.

This is the bit that shocks me. I had a much much loved deceased stepdad who was a true gentleman and I cannot imagine him doing this. But you never know.
I do wonder about the influence of ever more extreme porn and its effects on men, and subsequently women

Sexually violent language towards a friend's child?
That's a low bar to set for acceptable behaviour

@Qwerty556

Listening in to somebody else's conversations then posting them online is pretty poor behaviour.

The OP hasn't named them or posted a picture has she? I thought this was an open forum for thoughts on a wide range of subjects and as it is a largely female site, it's unsurprising that misogyny is in fact one of those subjects. Maybe you'd like to use the freedom of this site to expand on your distaste of this discussion.

Well porn has not helped, how could it! But I started work before the internet, so it can't be used as an excuse unfortunately. I know what you mean. It makes you look at ordinary "decent" men and wonder what they're really like.

I remember some of the guys in one office I worked, back around 2012, and they were discussing what it would be like to rape a black woman. I am being serious here. These were nice, good looking, smart dressed guys in their 30's. I'd met their partners at the Christmas do and they were lovely girls, mostly new mums or planning to get pregnant. It made me feel physically sick.

Wow . This is so disturbing. It makes you feel that women should tell other women. But I'm not sure if we would believe each other

I know from the older generation of men that they think in a totally different way to us and regard women as somehow other. An example was when I was upset with my husband at a party and went into the garden to avoid tears his friend came out to see what was wrong and asked if I wanted sex!

" In my whole time working there only one man ever showed any sort of negativity toward him. Whenever this man saw him walking in, he would finish his pint, pass me £2 to get myself a drink at the end of my shift and then would leave, his parting words were always "I don't drink with scum" which the other men would jeer at."

This one man stands out in a very crowded field. My guess would be that as a little boy he watched some man (maybe more than one) repeatedly beat up his own mother. That is real bravery to standup against it.

Good for him, that is real courage.

"I do wonder about the influence of ever more extreme porn and its effects on men, and subsequently women"

This, in spades ^

@crochetmonkey74

Yes, it is disturbing (and disturbingly common). I did report these particular men to SARI. I've heard things in male environments that have given me sleepless nights and made me cry. Like I said, from "ordinary, decent, family" men. I don't know what can be done because although there are laws, laws don't change attitudes or the pack instinct.

No experience of this OP. But I've had multiple married men at work come on to me when drunk/ one even offered to leave their wife for me. I turned them down and their wives were none the wiser (all still with their husbands).

I'm married too and made me feel so gross. Men are awful! Their poor wives

Agreed. Like THAT's the issue lol.