How much should we tolerate 'blokey'/sleazy male behaviour?

[NoMoreDickheads]

So, I agree nowadays with the poster on another thread who was given the creeps by a bloke she knew drunkenly saying while messaging as a friend that he would like to see her naked. I have blocked men for less, even for variations on 'hello beautiful' on messenger.

But I imagine that a lot of people would have a 'blokes will be blokes' attitude to stuff like that, and expect men to try and get sex or pics out of women, to make sexual talk and so on.

How much would you put up with this sort of thing from friends,, prospective partners, or boyfriends etc?

Good luck to you as well Hairyhands :)

Quite Famous, the late 80's and 90's were more broad-minded and liberal in many ways than today. There was a brief halcyon moment where the sexes almost reached parity, I think we thought, thanks to the sterling work of our mothers and grandmothers and our own efforts, equality was ours for the taking.

Then internet porn and dating and 'emancipation through sexualisation' happened. So that was fucked.

Hey ho.

Famous,
Yes, age is irrelevant. I don’t care about raves or acid houses.

“I don’t have many people in my circle who aren’t broad minded and very liberal in many ways. It still doesn’t mean that we have to accept puerile and lazy attempts to flirt with us.”

No, of course no one has to accept flirting, but there is a difference between simply not accepting a flirting attempt versus saying it is offensive and sleazy.

I wasn’t using conservative in a political sense. More in the sense of manners and social etiquette for chatting up a woman when comparing “hello beautiful” to “would you like to go on a date?” I don’t find either offensive, so I am more liberal in what I accept from men. Others find the first offensive, but the second acceptable, so they are more conservative or limited in what they accept from men.

When I was on a dating site, I didn't have a photo on my profile - and I STILL got men starting in with "hello beautiful"! They had no idea what I looked like!!

It's unutterably lazy. It's something they think women will like and it saves them having to think up something meaningful to say, and on a dating site, saves them from having to actually read the profile!

It's not to do with social conservatism though Plan, I don't think anyone has ever said 'would you like to go on a date' to me, I'd probably think them a little odd, as it's very formal. I'd much prefer to strike up conversation with someone, see how that went and then ask them if they fancied a drink. I've been as likely to do the asking in the past as men, I certainly haven't waited around to be 'picked', when I was single, I'd just go out and socialise, chat to people, nothing more complicated than that. Chat-up lines of any kind are always cheesy at best, sleazy at worst. What's wrong with 'hi'?

I find today's 20 year olds much more conservative than I was and I'm only early 40s.

Surely we can accept that different women have different boundaries about male conversation without judging them for it?

'Hello beautiful' makes my skin crawl a bit but then so does 'hun' and 'lovely' and 'girls' from my adult female friends. A lot of my friends don't mind and even appreciate chat-up lines like that.

Never in a million years would I have approached a strange man and said 'hello handsome'.

If someone said “hey beautiful” to me I’d assume they'd forgotten my name because they speak to lots of women and cant keep up with all the names.

@PlanDeRaccordement you are missing the point. Neither am I talking about political Conservatism. you might ‘not care about’ my remark regarding acid house and raves but it is an illustration that your sweeping generalisation about the ‘older’ generation is naive at best.
We grew up in very liberal times. Many of us have mothers who were part of the feminist movements of the 60s and grandmothers who were activists and feminists before then.
Many many of us have had on night stands, have been or are swingers, poly, bdsm, drug fuelled orgies, as well as the many many who have more traditional sexual experiences. This also transcends age groups.
As I have friends both older and younger as well as my own age.
To say that your acceptance of lazy dating techniques makes you more ‘liberal’ than others is ridiculous.
It just means that you have different views, not that we are somehow more uptight because we don’t appreciate the scattergun approach from men who use the same line on every single woman waiting for someone to bite.

Me too Hairyhands. I just socialised and agree chat up lines range from cheesy to sleazy.

What’s wrong with “hi”? Nothing wrong with it except it’s Boring. Zero effort. No interest. You say “hi” to the postman or a bus driver or your elderly 80yr old neighbour. I’d like a man to exert a bit more effort to get a smile or conversation from me than just opening with “hi” and small talk like “come here often?” “What’s that you’re drinking? Do you want another?” “You and your friend(s) having a nice night?” Might as well stay home if that’s the most riveting conversation we’re going to have.

I am not ashamed to admit I like a bit of cheese now and then. It’s more fun.

I think plan has a point. Talking to a boyfriend is also a far extreme to talking to a friend or a friend's partner. You can't compare.

Of course no one should listen to unwanted sleazy remarks. However one person's flirting in a message is another person's sleazy comment. A lot of the nuances of language are lost in the written word.
What would people regard as acceptable flirting in a message?

I think some of this boils down to the problems with online dating. It's proven that viewing multiple candidates causes people to be more judgemental and make snap assumptions of a person or dismiss a person based on a nothing more than a picture or a couple of words.

If I found someone attractive I wouldn't drop them/block them for one comment I found a bit sleazy. I think I'd just tell them I didn't like it.
There can't be a blanket rule.
It's great for my partner to tell me he wants me naked, hello gorgeous whatever less so a random man I'm not interested in. Context is everything.

I can honestly say Plan, any man whose opening line is 'hello beautiful/gorgeous' is a complete dick and best avoided.

Kind of agree... not sleazy, but this bland, generic opening line is often rolled out by the type of guys best avoided. Sounds like someone who just wants a hookup and says it to every woman he encounters.

Famous
“you are missing the point.”
As are you. I do not care what you got up to when you were young because age is irrelevant.

Its not ridiculous to call people who favour more restrained, cautious forms of flirting “conservative” in their values for such circumstances. You are reacting emotionally to the word.

But if a bloke said, "you've got a beautiful smile in your second pic", that's a compliment. You've actually taken the time to look at my profile, not just the same old line.

OLD sucks in general though.

@ILikeyourHairyHands yes yes and more yes.
I completely agree re the sexual ‘revolution’ of the mid 90s onwards, the ‘ladette’ culture, the normalisation of porn and the idea sold to girls and women that the way to prove your liberation was by behaving and dressing in a way that once again, titillates men and gives more than a nod to the porn industry.
A lot of us were conned and I also feel that the party / rave culture has built on that. It’s rare that I go to any kind of party event now but when I do, many many of the younger woman are wearing next to nothing, see through bras , stockings, pants and fetish wear seem to be normal festival wear for a lot of people, actual lingerie and clothes that you buy in sex shops.
a lot of festivals have burlesque dancers, not all women , lots of trans too but all very sexual and not massively related to the love of music.
it’s easy to feel massively over dressed at these occasions and I know of many young women who have issues around weight and eating and I’m sure a big part of it is because of the pressure to look a certain way in certain clothes.
I’m glad that in my young ravey days that there wasn’t the same pressure. It was much more about the drugs and music. There were always a few glamour type girls but mostly it looked too much like hard work.

There’s nothing wrong with it per se,
I love a bit of pvc and fishnet as much as the next person, it’s fun to look and feel sexy and don the red lips etc when I’m in the mood but I often wonder if we are still being conned into accepting that to be liberated means to dress like your sole purpose is to titillate and please the male gaze rather than to be liberated in any true sense.

@famousforwrongreason you're 'famous' for the right reason in my book.

@category12 Yes, I love the idea of the shark cage, obvious creeps and people who give me that creepy feeling I hope are dead to me.

I even blocked someone just for making me feel creeped out. He hadn't even really done anything. But as you know I have to careful.

I won't repeat what PP's said about most of Plan's comments as they already said it.

I think you can get a sense of what people are after.

I have recently blocked a married friend from Facebook. Every time I changed my profile pic to a pic where I'm on my own and clearly dressed up for a night out he would message me 'hello beautiful'

@SueEllenMishke Ewwwww!

And you don’t have to like “hello beautiful” but can you honestly say it is sleazy? And therefore warrants ghosting or blocking a man for saying those two words?

With me it's for health reasons, because of my bipolar I can't leave these types hanging about. But we shouldn't need to give an 'excuse.' If someone makes us feel uncomfortable that's enough. A society where women aren't required to keep men happy and blocking due to a gut feeling is accepted would be a safer one for women.

Saying to a man that how he's acted has made us feel uncomfortable might even mean these men (if any of them are decent and just a bit clumsy) up their game with women in general, or at least are less annoying.

No one should tolerate sleazy behaviour. But what defines that will change from person to person. If someone I fancied said they'd like to see me naked I'd find that pretty exciting really. It's about the delivery and the existing relationship. Just saying to someone 'I want to fuck you right now' isn't necessarily sleazy. Coming from a lover whose going crazy with desire could be really hot. Coming from the bloke stood next to you in the supermarket queue... not so hot.

@opticaldelusion All somewhat true but I'm not after that sort of/any relationship right now. If someone I fancied said they'd like to see me naked I think I would be turned off as I'd think maybe it increased the risk that maybe they were just another sleazeball after all. But that depends what one's looking for at a particular time, and whether we're prepared to take the chance for a while for the sake of sex or love, and to draw the line/write it off if they turn out to be another dickhead.

May be it's because I'm working class and perhaps the world I live in is different from many in here who seem to be middle class live in affluent areas etc but I agree, some of the examples on here are just bizarre to class them as sleazy! I've got more important things to worry about.

@VikVal81 Most of the time I live in one of the roughest areas in the country actually. The thing is not the 'hello beautiful' in itself, it's having that 'shark cage' - having a way to screen out men who are potentially dodgy or at the very least just crap. I'd prefer to err on the side of caution and have less chance of being involved with a wrong'un.

The latest creep is called 'Tony' and drives round the estate where I'm staying, which is still fairly rough. His efforts include 'would you like a lift down the road?' Another time I was pausing on a hillock to play Pokemon for a couple of minutes and he quickly got out of his car, dropped his number in front of me and said 'Hi, I'm Tony. Call me' before driving off. I instinctively scrunched the paper up into a ball, said 'no!' and tried to throw it at him. Next I'll start carrying a hair spray in my bag to aim at him if he approaches.

Men should be pulled up for pervy sleazy behaviour, but I think we should be careful what we consider the definition to be. Genuinely okay guys that may have just used outdated language shouldn't be thrown in with dirty sleazy guys undressing us with their eyes...or texts.

The thing is I think there's a crossover between lazy/crap approaches to women and being a sleaze. Sleazes do it. Either way, it's not worth the risk.

This is as much about having an antenna for wrong'uns as anything else.

It's not just/mainly about calling out men to me, it's about protecting ourselves.

And if people think I'm overzealous in protecting myself, I'm not that concerned.

@PlanDeRaccordement your comment to another poster:

Except perhaps to highlight that you are an older, potentially more conservative person, thus the antiquated idea of “dates”.
is what I’m ‘reacting emotionally’ to.
Patronising to say the least. Hence my response that not all people pushing fifty date like we met at a tea dance.

@bushhbb I agree with all your points!

I font know any men like this, my DH certainly isn't, and I wouldn't tolerate it.

Good post SmileyClare
Agree with all you wrote.

Famous
What is a “tea dance”?

It's unutterably lazy. It's something they think women will like

This is why I don’t like it. It’s this assumption that we are that vain and seeking approval based on our looks.

Has anyone ever approached a guy with “hello gorgeous?”

@PlanDeRaccordement

We know you're interested.
You wouldn't be trying to talk to us if you weren't.

"Has anyone ever approached a guy with “hello gorgeous?”"

No but I once approached a man and said "do you want to be my boyfriend?"

It worked.

It was the 90s, in my defence.

We had also been giving each other the hairy eyeball for a few hours beforehand, it wasn't at total random.

I generally have far higher tolerance for men who come up to me after a few reciprocated glances, it's the total randomness of some fellas when they just march on up to you with no warning.