to expect to wak to my local shop without being sexually abused by some old t*sser?

[itbird]

just now was walking along with my ds 4 and this old git gets out of his van and looks me up and down and says 'nice titties girl' i was dumbfounded - bearing in mind i was wearing a jacket and a scarf around my neck and my 'titties' were not visible unless he was wearing x-ray specs of course . clocked the name of the firm on the van and will be calling them in the morning to complain!!! how rude of him to make me embarrassed like that - i went a deep shade of red with the shock of it as i do have a thing about my chest in so much i have spent my entire life sort of hiding them as they are big in realtion to the rest of my body and i feel so concious of them - horrible pervy old git !!

I DO feel sorry for the OP. I was trying to lighten the mood. Lots of posters have taken things to the extreme. Yes, he should'nt have done it but let it go. We don't need to start shouting 'sexual abuse' and carried away.

"Lets have a few cheap cracks about rape, racism, child abuse and domestic violence while we're at it."

Thats just silly.

Oh take a chill pill and r-e-l-a-x.

Yeah, tell the next black youth who is racially abused by a white youth and made to feel afraid for his safety and have his right to walk down the street without being accosted by someone who wants to make it clear that he is only there by tolerance and not by right, to take a chill pill and relax as well.

Because racism is fine. As is sexism.

Oh sorry, am forgetting the hierarchy of social unacceptability. Racism is morally wrong, whereas sexism is in fact, fine.

The OP should complain to the guy's employer. Nasty, sleazy, deliberately humiliating behaviour, and especially snide as done in front of her four year old son. He's a creep, and he deserves a bollocking. 'Compliment' my arse!

You are being deliberately provocative and I think a little obtuse onager.

It's never been acceptable - at least not by civilised and decent folk to talk to a woman in this way and especially when she's with a small child. I mean, if he wants to give a compliment, WTF is wrong with 'Hey gorgeous' or similar, eh?

I'm sure we can agree that is atrociously bad manners at the very least, no?

OK notinlimbo maybe that 'crack' post was a little bit OTT and earnest.

But having been sexually harrassed (on numerous occasions) and worse in the past, I freely admit to having a serious sense of humour failure where this is concerned.

Janos, I said "I also don't think people should say these things because there are people who might get upset" but it is common (more so still than I thought when I first posted) and women do it too.

Just because people do it that doesn't mean it's ok. And women DO find it threatening.

The 'women do it too' argument is a red herring. They should not be doing it either.

To use a cliche, but an appropriate one - two wrongs don't make a right.

Having lots of people do something wrong doesn't make it right. But if lots of people do it then either they are all evil or you are misunderstanding it. I'm thinking the latter in this case.

The point about women doing it too is because people are equating it with a threat of rape. Female students saying these things to men on building sites is clearly not a physical threat which suggests that you're reading it wrong.

Um, when women do it, the threat of rape isn't present.

When men do it, it is. And men know that. That is why decent men do not do it. Because they know just how offensive and threatening it is.

Very well put LittleBella.

This thread is depressing StayFrosty. But it's heartening at least that most people (here anyway) take it seriously and say (paraphrasing obviously) "actually it's not ok and not on".

Makes me feel a less like banging my head against a brick wall.

I could recall so many anecdotes about this kind of thing happening to me and you know what so could most, if not all of the women here.

I'm just baffled, really baffled that people think it's fine/normal behaviour!

StayFrosty if you look over what I've been saying you'll see that I never did this myself and thought it was a bad idea. No matter how harmless it is meant it can upset someone who is sensitive and there is no way to tell in advance.

The only thing I am arguing against is the idea that it is intended to be abuse in the first place and is the prelude to an attack.

As for experience. When I was younger I worked outside with other men who said these things to passersby. I knew these guys and knew they were not rapists or particularly evil so I can assure you that it is not intended to be hateful.

If you want to start a compaign to make it known to all men that some women find it upsetting I will support you in that. I just have to speak up when people talk about hate crimes. Do people really think that most men spend their time trying to hurt women? Most of us are ordinary people who do ordinary things. We have wives, sisters and girlfriends. We watch TV and do the lottery. We are not all reincarnations of Jack the Ripper.

But onager - it's not ABOUT what these men meant or didn't mean by such comments.

It's really quite simple. It's about how it makes (or made) women feel.

I'll repeat that

It is about how women, the recipients of these comments (or whatever), feel. And many women 'feel' - what a lot of women on this thread are saying - is that they don't like it, it's threatening, hurtful, degrading, upsetting.

And, they are not wrong to feel that way.

What you are effectively doing, is dismissing and minimising that distress. But you don't feel it. How can you know what it's like?

I really is not hard to understand, if you think about it for a bit.

Sorry, that should be 'It really is...'

To use a clumsy analogy (not sure if that is the right phrase but still..)

If someone punches you in the face it hurts.

But if that person then says 'Oh you misunderstood, I didn't mean to hurt you' - it doesn't change the fact that it bloody hurts!

LOL KerryMum

Oh it's not a fucking compliment and you know it. 'Nice titties love' to a woman minding her own business wearing a coat and out with her four year old son is totally inappropriate behaviour and language and you can bet your life he would be appalled if someone said it to his wife or daughter. This sort of thing is never designed to make a woman feel good or happy. In my younger days I used to walk past a building site every day for months on the way to the station. I'd get all that 'show us your tits' 'give us a smile' 'nice arse', and after a couple of weeks of my ignoring them they started to throw stones at me. At which point I called the local council and they nearly all lost their jobs and I had a grovelling phone call from the construction company. It was never a compliment, it was designed to humiliate me and force me to react to them. It was, basically, throwing stones in verbal form.
If some says, in a respectful way, 'I just wanted to say, you look really beautiful' Ok, that's a compliment, though it's rather disconcerting to be honest, but 'nice titties' is absolutely not. It's revolting, humiliating and intimidating, and said to a woman with child, really, really creepy.

I have tried to imagine myself in that position, but of course it is difficult. Perhaps because I am a man, but also perhaps because I don't find sexual remarks so intimidating in themselves. I guess there was a time you might say I was on the other end of this. I worked for a time when I was very young in a furniture factory and nearly everyone was female and older than me and not above having a laugh at my expense. It's not really a fair comparison, but it's the best I can do.

But we now seem to be saying that it doesn't matter what the intent was if it upset someone. This is something I always find very strange.

Let me take the punch analogy a moment.

Suppose that on monday Fred punches you in the face because he hates you.

On Tuesday Bill reaches past you to get something off the shelf and also hits you in the face. You know it was an accident, but you consider both to be an attack and demand equal punishment. Does that sound right? both blows hurt the same, but the intent was different.

To stretch the analogy further I'll even concede that you're entitled to be a bit annoyed with Bill for his clumsiness and could demand he was more careful in future, but it was still not an attack.

Enough with the pointless analogies! A comment like that is never a compliment. YOu know he wouldn't dare say it his female boss, or to someone in his family, and would be horrified if someone said it to his wife and family. Nobody is so socially inept that they think 'nice titties' is a compliment to a stranger in the street, and is clearly very sleazy and nasty to say it to a woman in front of her small child. So let's clear this up, not a compliment, and clearly not meant to be nice.