sexual advances - the big question

[BramshawHill]

BBC the big question is currently discussing whether sexual advances should be accepted as a part of life.

The first speaker has said it weakens men and women if women complain about it every time, and that it IS a part of life.

Anyone else watching? Thoughts?

First time posting, hello btw!

I saw this recently. It resonated a lot:

^ We were discussing homosexuality because of an allusion to it in the book we were reading, and several boys made comments such as, ?That?s disgusting.? We got into the debate and eventually a boy admitted that he was terrified/disgusted when he was once sharing a taxi and the other male passenger made a pass at him.

The lightbulb went off. ?Oh,? I said. ?I get it. See, you are afraid, because for the first time in your life you have found yourself a victim of unwanted sexual advances by someone who has the physical ability to use force against you.? The boy nodded and shuddered visibly.

?But,? I continued. ?As a woman, you learn to live with that from the time you are fourteen, and it never stops. We live with that fear every day of our lives. Every man walking through the parking garage the same time you are is either just a harmless stranger or a potential rapist. Every time.?

The girls in the room nodded, agreeing. The boys seemed genuinely shocked. 

?So think about that the next time you hit on a girl. Maybe, like you in the taxi, she doesn?t actually want you to.?^

For borderline behaviour, I prefer to use the old school thing of raising an eyebrow and saying "That's a bit inappropriate."

duchesse - that's pretty strong example, and fairly clear. When working with abusers the very notion of them being 'victims' at some stage in their lives can be very alien to them. They are good at 'compartmentalising' stuff and failing to see, at all, how their abused status has any reference to anything they are doing. It's that cognitive dissonance between experiences.

No shit. It never ceases to amaze me how blind people can be to the way they are behaving and their own experiences.

Great anecdote, duchesse.

I don't think all these men need to be taught that it's inappropriate and wrong tbh.

I think they already know it is.

But they calculate that they will get away with it and 99.9 recurring % of the time, their calculations are correct.

And part of the kick, is knowing it's wrong but that they can get away with it.

Am not sure what split it would be between that type and the type who genuinely can't see anything wrong with it because they're so entitled that they don't recognise they're doing something wrong.

Yes, that's true, they need to be taught that we know it's wrong and that someone will pick them up on it.

I think there are some who persuade themselves they don't know it's wrong.

It's a little bit like those questionaries about rape, isn't it? You know - if you ask men if it's acceptable to rape a woman, you get a lot of 'no's, but if you ask if they think it's ok to force a woman to have sex, you get a higher number of 'yes' answers. I think it might be the same thing here - they know that the behaviour called 'sexual harrassment' is wrong. But they also don't label their actions like that, consciously or unconsciously.

No, LRD, no shit! S'true. It's a filtering out process, that's fairly effective, and so gives licence to come out with all sorts of rubbish.

No shit, as in, the colloquialism. As in, yes, it is very obviously true that people can engage in stunning levels of cognitive dissonance. It's all over this thread, for starters.

I know it's all over this thread.

Fastidia - it's really tricky to detect the difference at times, between someone who knows they are 'getting away with it', and those who are convinced about their entitlement.

Psychometric tests assist, to some degree, but they are not panaceas as sometimes they are claimed to be. In assessment it often comes down to an 'instinct', and observed behaviours outside of tests, like how you approached the receptionists ( in a clinical environment), or how you describe your relationships with 'significant others'.

sorry, If it makes you feel..

I've just grown a willy but then I fell over it.

oh Hully, let it gooooo. FFS.

Prom - it's as long as it is boring. I am sure someone will PM you about it. Not me of course..