Some men really hate women being single don't they?

[solidgoldbrass]

inspired by a couple of other threads including the separatism one. Have you ever noticed that if a man you don't like or know or fancy is trying to persuade you to date him or spend time with him or even just talk to him, the only really effective way to make him fuck off is to tell him that you are another man's property. Just saying No, leave me alone, no thanks, actually I am having a conversation with my female friend and am not interested in talking to you, never seems to work until you throw in My Boyfriend or My Husband.

Wamster, I may suggest you go and read up on harrassment. Threats do not need to be made to warrant complaints if someone feels that their privacy and or safety is being infringed.

Us being out in public would be a poor response to that. We are NOT public property.

But on the whole Wamster, behaviour in one context is a clue to how someone might behave in another context.

Yes very plausible manipulative sociopaths exist and they are charming and presentable to everyone outside their families; but that doesn't negate the fact that for most straightforward people, how they behave in one context is indicative of how they behave in another.

Also, quite often with sociopaths and loons, if people actually observe their behaviour and don't do this shit of pretending that behaviour in one context is connected to behaviour in another, they do actually spot that there's something up with the charming psychopath. Generally the people who say that "there's no way you could have spotted that he would murder his wife/ his children/ the neighbours" are the ones who weren't paying close attention to his behaviour and have swallowed the myths about entitled behaviour being normal and natural and "so what?"

That should say isn't not is in the obv place

The thing is HerBeX is the only point I am trying to make is that cannot tell if someone is abusive just by seeing a snapshot of their behaviour in a social context.

That's really all I am saying.
Also, you mention straightforward people, in my view, straightforward people do not become rapists.

And again you're going back to the law Wamster.

Do you really live in a world where the bar for decent behaviour is that it is within the law?

Because some of us have much higher standards than that.

But if someone doesn't respect your wishes to be left alone, they are being abusive. They are abusing your right to make your own decisions about who you interact with.

Wamster:

"The bottom line is this: until a crime like rape has been committed it has not been committed. What you think may encourage it is one thing, but the police will look at a person as if they are nuts if that persons starts saying that a man who was chatting to them but did not threaten or assault them in any way should be arrested for it."

Wamster:

"When all is said and done, it is what people do that matters not what they say. So what if a bloke is a bit persistent in talking to you? As long as his actions do not step over the mark, who cares?
If his actions result in inappropriate touching, assault or kidnap then obviously this is a breach and should be reported to the police for the crimes that they are, but talking to you? Just talking? Why not just say, 'You have every right to talk, but I don't have to listen' and move off?
You don't own the space that he is standing there talking in, do you?

If he then follows you, say that you fear he is stalking you and say calmly that you will ring the police if he persists. If he does not, then you start to worry-and rightly so, because then he is doing something and not just talking."

My emboldening. Wamster you are contradicting yourself.

OrangeHat pointed out in response to your second comment there that if a woman rang the police because a man in a pub wouldn't leave her alone, they would laugh at her. And said that your advice therefore was poor. You now seem to have changed your tune.

"Have you ever noticed that if a man ... is trying to persuade you to date him or spend time with him "

Nope! This hasn't happened to me since I was about 24!

"The thing is HerBeX is the only point I am trying to make is that cannot tell if someone is abusive just by seeing a snapshot of their behaviour in a social context."

I wouldn't disagree with that. I'm merely pointing out that a snapshot of behaviour may point to abusiveness and should be borne in mind when dealing with someone whose behaviour points to something untoward.

" in my view, straightforward people do not become rapists."

hmm. And there's the rub. If we accept over-entitled behaviour as normal and straightforward and the people who exhibit it as normal and straightforward, then actually, perhaps straigthforward people do become rapists - because rape is just a more extreme manifestation of entitled behaviour.

""Have you ever noticed that if a man ... is trying to persuade you to date him or spend time with him "

Nope! This hasn't happened to me since I was about 24!"

Heh... Have my ex... He's a persistent rapist bugger. Won't take no for an answer

Yes, I do tend to think that there is a strong relationship between the law and decent behaviour and that the law reflects normal people's idea of what is decent behaviour.
The law is not made out of thin air; it is made as a reflection of what most people consider to be acceptable/unacceptable.

The truth is that while most people think persistent men (the ones who carry on talking when a woman has asked them to go away. Talking only not threats or assault) are a pain in the arse and annoying because they are, they don't see this as being that important unless followed on by serious actions which are illegal.

There has been a very random extrapolation here as well.

If someone is behaving badly, in whatever way, it is not unreasonable to assume that they may not be a great person. If they are behaving in a way that you don't like,but others think is OK, it is reasonable to assume that they might not be your sort of person. Both are perfectly acceptable reasons to want to discontinue interacting with someone, and the someone should respect your choice.

It does not follow that if someone is behaving well, they must be a nice person. No-one has said that but Wamster has extrapolated it from the original point. It doesn't follow.

eg

I am chatting to a bloke in a pub and someone knocks his arm and he becomes very aggressive towards them. At that point I decide to leave. And hopefully he lets me go. Fair enough.

Up until that point he had done nothing to cause me alarm. Should I assume that based on the interaction up to that point that he was a nice person? No. Because I don't know him.

Deciding whether someone is nice or not, whether they are your sort of person or not, takes time. It cannot be done over one evening. Sometimes you think people are nice and they later reveal that they are not. However it is fair to write someone off if they do something that you consider to be out of line. Like threaten someone. Or refuse to leave you alone when you want them to.

This is basic stuff, surely? Normal people do this stuff on instinct.

Wamster, please go back a page or two and answer the scenario I gave.

Wamster so if someone at work calls me a fucking bitch, that is fine, as it's not illegal, and it's just words?

Your ideas are very odd. If you saw a schoolgirl walking down the street with 3 young men following her shouting "banter", and she was looking distressed and like she didn't know what to do, that would be fine, in your world.

Thing is, any normal, decent person, can see that that is not fine.

Wamster if you went out for a drink with someone and they were telling you some very important distressing personal news, and a pair of blokes decided to "join you" and sat at the table with you and wouldn't go away.... Isn't that more than "irritating"?

It happened to me, when my best friend was telling me that her sister had been diagnosed with terminal cancer. She was in her early 20s.

How silly of me to get annoyed with those blokes. Of course it matters. If you do not want to talk to someone you should not have to, they should leave you alone. What is hard to understand there? How can you genuinely disagree with that?

And again, back to SolidGolds basic point:

Girls/Women should not have to say they are the "property of" or under the protection of males (boyfriend/husband/brother/cousin) for certain men to even begin to hear

I am not interested in you...

Actually Wamster you are wrong about the law. There is a legal principle still given its Latin name 'de minimus non curat lex', which means 'the law does not concern itself with small things/wrongs'. It does not mean that the law considers less significant wrongs not to be wrong, it simply recognises that there are some wrongs with which the law will not get involved. It still, however, recognises them as wrong.

I don't think there are many/any people on here who would actually call for men to be prosecuted for the types of annoying/irritating/abusive behaviours described, but you do seem to be the lone voice saying that it is not something we should, as a society, be prepared to tackle.

Which gives me a chance to roll out my favourite legal joke:

There was a young lawyer named Rex
Who had the minutest organs of sex
When charged with exposure
He replied with composure
"De minimus non curat lex"

And the obvious point to make

Is that if my friend and I had been sitting there with a bloke, they would not have come and sat down. They would not have done it, even though they would not have known whether the bloke there was with either of us, or a friend, or even a relative. They wouldn't do it if the man with us was more likely to be a father or grandfather than lover. And a lone man would not go and sit at a table uninvited with 2 women and one man, even though in all likelihood the man would possibly only be involved with one of the women.

Which gives lie to this insistence that it's nothing to do with property and everything to do with "well she has already chosen someone".

If that were genuinely true, then young women who were out with someone likely to be their dad would have this happen to them. Women sitting at a table with one man, would be approached by other men on the basis that they weren't all "taken".

Why doesn't that happen? (Or at least not unless the man approaching is extraordinarily pissed). Because whatever the relationship, those women already have a man in their midst. Other men would consider it wrong to interfere with another man's women. It would be rude, they think. However women in a group with no men are fair game.

It's outrageous when you think about it.

"I cannot possibly rape anybody as I am a female. Without getting all technical, I just cannot."
"...because we seem to believe that unless a person is threatened, or attacked in some way, there is no cause for complaint. Silly me and the law of the land..."

Both false.

As I mentioned upthread, pestering people can constitute the crime of harassment, with or without physical assault or verbal threats. There are cases of the persistent chatter-upper (phone callls, approaches, deliveries of flowers etc ad nauseum) being convicted of harassment. The courts certainly recognise how dangerous men like this can be. They generally have no respect for their victims, seeing them as objects to be obtained rather than people. In quite a few of the worst cases, perpetrators have been found to have significant personality orders or other issues. Nowadays police tend to recognise that, like flashing, this ostensibly low-level behaviour can be a good indicator of the type of man who will go on to commit more serious offences such as assult and rape.

When a friend of mine at school was being constantly telephoned and asked out by a man who would not take no for an answer, local police took it very seriously for this reason.

Women can rape (penetration with objects) and can also aid and abet rape by men.

At the risk of giving one poster too much attention, Wamster's perceptions of what the criminal law is where this kind of behaviour is concerned are very seriously skewed. It is important that more people know this. Many women put up with all kinds of behaviour in the mistaken belief it is not something that can be criminally sanctioned. Some police used to use this to get out of tackling crimes they saw as trivial, by telling complainants it was a 'civil matter'. Thankfully, this seems slowly to be changing. (though the very poor initial actions in e.g. the John Warboys case shows there is some way to go).

Wamster - I never mentioned the law. I mentioned your behavioural issues, which are obviously not fun for us and probably not great for you. Law is a separate issue.

Actually, thistledew, while I accept what you say as being correct -the law not concerning itself with small wrongs and all that. In my opinion, they are just that small wrongs. That is, not that big a deal.

I do, though, think that there are women here who would lock up a man for looking at them in what they perceive to be a funny way.

I think this is why feminists get a bad press on the whole; they fuss and f*rt about trivia like a man chatting up a woman and not going away on their say-so (but not, like, actually doing anything) and people just cannot take them seriously for it.

I am only talking about chatting-up incidents, by the way, obviously following a woman and calling out banter to her is unacceptable or telling her to eff off.

Wamster

Why do you think I never got approached by men when I was out for a drink with my dad, but often when I was out for a (quite obviously quiet, private) drink with a friend, or sitting by myself quite clearly waiting for someone to arrive?

Why do men not approach when I am with one woman and one man, but often if I am with two women?

How does that tie in with you "already chosen someone else" explanation?

I do, though, think that there are women here who would lock up a man for looking at them in what they perceive to be a funny way. "

On what basis do you make that assertion? On the basis of your own kneejerk hostility to feminists? Because there is no evidence of that from this thread or anywhere else. I have never come across anyone, male or female, who thinks someone should be locked up for looking at them funny, that's just a lazy anti-feminist stereotype.

"I think this is why feminists get a bad press on the whole; they fuss and f*rt about trivia like a man chatting up a woman and not going away on their say-so (but not, like, actually doing anything) and people just cannot take them seriously for it."

You mean you cannot take them seriously, because you don't like feminism. Discussing trivia and discussing important stuff is both valid IMO, feminists are allowed to discuss what they like. Basically your argument, is that we shouldn't be having this thread. You're annoyed that we're discussing anythign you don't think we should discuss.

So why are you here? No one is forcing you to discuss this, but we want to because we think it's quite interesting and useful.

Actually, I am a feminist. Just not a fan of what I consider to be drippy feminism, that is all.