There has been a lot of thought in the gendersphere about the word “creep.” I have a complicated position on the issue, insofar as I simultaneously agree with and disagree with everyone.
Creep is a term very often used in a kyriarchial way. In theory, it is non-gendered; in practice, it all-too-often is. Male sexuality is often viewed as predatory and degrading, which means that a man expressing his sexuality– even in a way that would be perfectly acceptable for a woman– is often viewed as “creepy” or “gross.” In addition, men are typically thought to be incapable of not wanting sex, which means that even gross invasions of boundaries by women are sometimes not recognized as creepy.
However, it’s problematic in way more ways than just gender. It’s a kinkphobic term; kinky people’s sexuality, even when safely, consensually and joyfully expressed, is often called “creepy.” It’s a classist term, because it’s often applied to people of lower or lower-middle classes who aren’t “respectable” (not to mention homeless people, who are almost universally considered creepy). It’s an ableist term, applied to people with, for example, autism and Asperger’s syndrome; strange facial tics and odd grooming habits, often considered creepy, may be a sign of a mental illness the person cannot help. Heck, I have a friend who has been called creepy for being trans, which makes absolutely no fucking sense whatsoever.
Nevertheless, I do support the continued existence of the word “creep.” Very simply, we do need a word to express the concept “a person who makes other people feel uncomfortable or unsafe, especially in a sexualized way.”
Western culture encourages people of both typically male and typically female socialization to not firmly enforce their boundaries. Straight women are pressured to be nice, to be polite, to give him a chance, to not make a fuss. Straight men are told that having any boundaries around physical contact with women is unmasculine, since a real man ought to want sex with every woman who wants sex with him. Eliminating use of the word “creep” entirely removes one of our only ways of saying “this behavior violates my boundaries and is seriously Not Okay” with social approval.
Admittedly, we could choose a different word, less laden with baggage, to discuss people who make other people feel uncomfortable or unsafe, especially in a sexualized way. However, I don’t think that will solve the problem. People will just use the new term to shame people in an ableist, classist, kinkphobic, sexist and kyriarchial way, because guess what? We live in an ableist, classist, kinkphobic, sexist and kyriarchal society! Changing the word is a Band-Aid solution.
Ultimately, the solution is to end the kyriarchy. For a more… short-term… solution, the thing to do is to examine your use of the term. Obviously, in the moment, “this person is creeping me out” is as far as you need to go; if you feel creeped out or afraid, leave the situation, don’t sit there examining your use of the term for traces of ableism. However, it’s a good idea to look for patterns in whom you call “creeps.” Have you called every homeless guy creepy, including the one who was sleeping on the bench and not interacting with you at all? Do you think that people with facial tics, even ones they cannot control, are creepy? Do you think the sexualities of some people, such as men or kinky people, are inherently creepy? Do you not describe women doing creepy behavior as creepy? That’s problematic.
One critique that Hugh Ristik, among others, has made of “creep” that I think is actually valid is that it is a very vague term: creepy refers to any behavior that could make a person feel uncomfortable or unsafe. Unfortunately, nearly any behavior could theoretically make a person feel uncomfortable or unsafe. A survivor of horrific rape and abuse might feel uncomfortable or unsafe whenever a strange person talks to him or her, even if that person is just asking the time. That doesn’t mean the survivor has to keep talking to the time-asking person, or that the time-asking person should ignore the survivor’s negative body language, but it also doesn’t mean that no one should ever ask the time from anyone else.
Therefore, I propose the Reasonable Person Standard of creepiness. A behavior is creepy if it would make a reasonable person with only an average amount of trauma feel uncomfortable or unsafe, especially in a sexual way. Behavior that would probably qualify as creepy under this scheme includes:
- Continuing to talk to someone, especially a stranger or acquaintance, who has negative body language (closed up, frozen, shaking head, looking away, responding in monosyllables) or says they would not like to talk to you.
- Hitting on a stranger in an enclosed environment (such as a moving vehicle), a deserted area or very late at night.
- Telling a stranger how much you’d like to fuck them as your opening line.
- Sending a person you went out on a date with thirty emails and ten phone calls.
- Pressuring a person into physical contact (anything from a handshake to sex) they don’t want.
- Hitting on people who are likely to feel pressured into saying yes, such as teenagers (if you are over the age of 21) or students or employees.
- Taking someone out on something that is not a date, which you plan on turning into a date.
- “Accidentally” turning up in the psychology class, coffeeshop or laundromat of the person you have a crush on.
- Only talking to people you want to fuck at a party.
- Poor social skills in general. (Have I recommended SucceedSocially enough yet?)
Et cetera.
In addition, I think there are attitudes that could probably be considered “creepy attitudes.” Viewing every conversation as a means to obtain sex. Thinking of potential romantic partners as games that if only you knew the secret code you could obtain. Being angry that you deserve sex with an attractive member of the correct gender and why is the universe not providing it. Some of these are totally natural attitudes (anger is natural when everyone around you seems to be in love and you’re still alone and lonely and if you died the only person who would notice was your cat, and that only as a food source); however, they are also not productive.
It’s important to note that this standard applies to people who are afraid of being creepy, not people who are currently creeped out. If your gut says “don’t trust this person,” don’t think “well, he hasn’t done anything on Ozy’s Creep List”; think “how can I communicate firmly to this person that I don’t want to talk to them/hug them/go home with them/get in their white van with the candy?” However, as a way to keep other people from being creeped out, I think my definition works the best.
Thing of Things 
“A behavior is creepy if it would make a reasonable person with only an average amount of trauma feel uncomfortable or unsafe, especially in a sexual way. ”
This definition only works if “reasonable” people are a small minority of the population. All sorts of harmless things make a large number of people uncomfortable. A large percentage of American’s are uncomfortable with men wearing MLP t-shirts and especially men wearing skirts/dresses.
What am I supposed to say to someone who calls a man in a MLP t-shirt creepy? Note they may claim the reason its creepy is that adult male fans sexual and make the fandom unsafe for little girls. If we all accepted your definition I either have to say “well if we took a poll alot of people would agree with you so by definition that guy is creepy” or I have to say “sorry but only the minority of people with extremely permissive views on social norms count as reasonable and none of them mind the MLP shirt.”
For another reason what about the (Apparently large?) percentage of men who find women not dressing “modestly” in the workplace makes them uncomfortable. Lots of these guys have rather strict opinions of “modestly.” If a woman wears an outfit that shows any cleavage or a “short skirt” she is likely to make some men sexually uncomfortable, even outside the workplace. Are woman who “un-modestly” all creeps?
I really think your definition requires defining “reasonable” as “mostly agrees with me on social norms.” If I can do anything about it I am not going to stand by while people get called creeps for doing harmless things*. Even if those things do make alot fo people uncomfortable.
*The list is very long. What about someone admitting to reading sexual Harry Potter or MLP fanfic on a personal blog that is tied to their irl name. I will bet that makes alot of people uncomfortable. Are people “creeps” for doing this?
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To take this further, it’s quite possible that at any time over 60 years ago, being black man would have sufficed to get you classified as a ‘creep’.
I suspect this may be because the ‘average’ or ‘normal’ amount of trauma people went through back then included experiences (hearing stories from peers and instructions from authorities, seeing others’ behaviour, the language used by the broadcast media, the language used in books, etc) that would cause them to feel uncomfortable around black men purely because they were black men.
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or another reason what about the (Apparently large?) percentage of men who find women not dressing “modestly” in the workplace makes them uncomfortable.
Not really apropos, but in my workplace, every time this subject comes up, the fashion police are almost entirely women. Men don’t care; quite the contrary.
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So I read this and was going “what’s an MLP?” All I could come up with was “Major league player,” but that seemed unlikely given the context. Finally, I googled it and saw it was My Little Pony, and, like, duh.
Then I glanced down and noticed that I’m actually wearing a My Little Pony t-shirt right this second.
Oy.
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This is a very good point. I think when the OP was talking about the “reasonable person” standard, it was implied to be talking about actual real-life behaviors, but the word creepy is used so often to refer to remote groups like fandoms, that this bears mentioning.
When it’s people talking about people they never meet, only know of in an abstract sense, or are easily avoided should you wish to do so, such as show fandoms, then what the median member of society thinks doesn’t matter.
When it comes to something happening in real life, I think the reasonable person standard is apt, at least as a first approximation. Some people are fearlessly outgoing and talk to someone they met ten minutes ago like a lifelong friend. Others get jumpy when you make a brief comment about the weather before walking past. Doesn’t mean that you probably shouldn’t be going around talking to strangers as if you know them as a general rule, nor that commenting about the weather is something society needs to stamp out. Most scenarios people argue about are in the middle between these two extremes of too familiar and very innocuous.
Society can be wrong too, of course, but I think the burden of proof is on the side that’s on the other side of the reasonable person. Of course, I don’t think society is only or almost always wrong in favor of the social initiator and against the initiatee, as some do.
Of course, it gets thorny when the two mix. What if an otherwise okay action is read as creepy by the median observer because the t-shirt of the speaker has a cartoon character on it? That’s difficult, because the people claiming discomfort won’t admit that’s the reason. They may not even be aware of it themselves.
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Is this a new post, or a repost ? The reason I ask is that, as far as I can tell, the word “creep” has recently been fairly conclusively established to mean, “a sexually unattractive man who expresses his sexuality in the company of a woman”. This definition is somewhat fuzzy, because every woman has a different concept of what “sexually unattractive” means, but as usual in humans there’s a normal distribution to help us make predictions.
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Really? I disagree. It may vary depending on who you talk to, but most of the women I talk to tend to use it to mean “boundary violations”.
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Sure. And a fair number of women have a boundary of “no sexually unattractive men may express their sexuality in my company.”
A lot of women have boundaries that are bullshit. That a lot of other women do not have boundaries that they probably should does nothing to negate this fact.
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This comment about fear/creepiness and rationalization is, as usual, relevant.
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I have always been sort of frustrated by the way what I am going to call the Schroedinger’s Rapist argument is centered around women’s fear. In practice, I suspect that a lot of women feel, at least, nervous and uncomfortable when they are approached by men they don’t know in situations that aren’t primarily intended for flirting. There are also plenty who don’t.
In practice, however, “You are frightening me” is one of the only socially acceptable ways to express that you don’t want to talk to (or, more meaningfully here, flirt with) someone. The commenter you’ve linked identifies basically two reasons a woman might not want to talk to someone: “because she is frightened” and “because she has taken an irrational dislike to the person in question.”* The second option is framed in a very unflattering way, and I’m noticing people immediately equating this second option with “how dare someone I find sexually unappealing attempt to speak to me.”
Whereas, in fact, there are a number of reasons that a woman might not want to talk to a stranger that don’t have much to do with fear but that are significantly more complicated than “well I think this dude is ugly and I just can’t do with ugly people.” A woman might be tired from work, shy, generally socially anxious about making small talk, or exhausted by the fact that the last 57 conversations she’s had with nice strangers on the subway who honestly claimed that they just wanted to have a pleasant chat degenerated into sexual harassment and name calling when she declined to tell them where she lived. But none of these reasons will, in general, make a man who really wants to talk to you go away. Many of them will also cause bystanders to tell you that you’re being unreasonable! The last, in particular, seems to be generally seen as deeply unfair, although, personally speaking, it is *the* reason I tend to be cold to strangers.
I suspect that there is a fair amount of slipperiness in the way that people, women especially, use the word “creepy” or describe being afraid of others. And I suspect that this is at least partly because there are a lot of places where being afraid is one of a very, very few socially acceptable reasons not to flirt with someone.**
*I am probably being slightly uncharitable here, I realize, but that does seem to be the subtext.
**Also, I think many women have unconsciously internalized the idea that it’s not acceptable to turn someone down unless you are afraid for your safety. So when they don’t want to flirt with someone, they tend to find reasons why that person is intimidating, because otherwise they feel obligated to go on flirting.
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Must. Not. Mention. The. Meme. That. Must. Not. Be. Mentioned….
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Well, it was mentioned in the link, and it’s comprehensible shorthand.
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@bem: You make a good point. It does seem to me, however, that if one is not actually physically frightened, the obviously correct response to it being socially unacceptable to simply decline to speak to someone is to do it anyway, and to respond harshly (up to and including cutting off all contact, if their further responses make it necessary) to anyone who seriously* criticizes you for it.
*If a friend just says “that was a bit ungenerous, don’t you think?” or something similar, then a milder response may be called for, but that’s also not really something worth being bothered by anyway.
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I think ideally this would be true, but many people dislike social disapproval (whether of the muted kind or the “and now I am going to get in your face and call you a bitch” kind) enough that they won’t do this. They also may genuinely believe that it would be wrong and unkind for them to do this, and that silently shrinking into themselves hoping the person talking to them will go away is nicer, only to feel frustrated when this doesn’t happen.
(I think this ties into the issue below re: do you hit someone who is groping you and continues to do so after you’ve asked them to stop? Some people will hit the groper. Some people won’t because they don’t want to look like the villain. Some people won’t because it genuinely feels wrong to hit someone else, even if it’s clearly in self-defense.)
There are also situations where violating social boundaries can have serious repercussions. Refusing to talk to people in your workplace, for instance, does not generally go over super well.
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@bem: What I have never managed to figure out is this: If people disapprove of you for doing something entirely reasonable, then they’re assholes at best, utter trash at worst. Why would anyone even want the approval of assholes or trash?
Personal disclosure: I don’t have very many friends. And yeah, it hurts a fair amount of the time. But I’d still rather have few friends than shitty friends, especially shitty friends that I had to go out of my way to appease.
They also may genuinely believe that it would be wrong and unkind for them to do this, and that silently shrinking into themselves hoping the person talking to them will go away is nicer, only to feel frustrated when this doesn’t happen.
So they get what they want most (not to be “wrong and unkind,” by their own standards) at the cost of something they want less (for the other person to go away). Certainly, I’m sure they’d rather have both, but at least they got their top preference, right?
I think this ties into the issue below re: do you hit someone who is groping you and continues to do so after you’ve asked them to stop?
Which, I want to be clear, is a right-violation, and others should intervene to prevent.
Some people will hit the groper.
Good for them.
Some people won’t because they don’t want to look like the villain.
Again, I fail to see why someone would want to avoid looking like the villain to the sort of people who would see them as the villain.
Some people won’t because it genuinely feels wrong to hit someone else, even if it’s clearly in self-defense.
So they have a poor value system, and have suffered negative consequences as a result. It’s still a rights-violation, and I’m still in favor of hurting the assailant (even if someone else has to do it), but I find it hard to be too sympathetic. As above: They got what they most cared about, right?
There are also situations where violating social boundaries can have serious repercussions. Refusing to talk to people in your workplace, for instance, does not generally go over super well.
Ideally, my answer is: Why the fuck would you want to work with such people? And if the answer is that that question assumes the freedom to do otherwise: Well, yes. Virtue ethics is not inescapably aristocratic, but virtue and aristocracy synergize beautifully.
Of course, I’m not an aristocrat myself, and in practice, I alter my own behavior somewhat in work settings (including to be less openly hostile to social justice, ironically enough!). So I’m sympathetic to that sort of constraint, when it’s sufficiently hard. If one does have the realistic option of changing employers, even if there are some costs involved, then my sympathy declines substantially. But a lot of the situations where these sort of questions come up have no connection to work anyway.
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@ osberend
I dislike this line of reasoning. In the exact same way, we could say, “sure, young Scott Aaronson would rather have both flirted with girls and felt like an unquestionably good person, but at least he got what he wanted most, right?”
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Saying “You frighten me” will definitely *not* work on sexually aggressive men, especially in actually frightening situations. If it’s late night on the subway, and young-strong-aggressive guy is chatting you up, and you are a woman, saying “You frighten me” is *not going to help* OMG IT WOULD JUST MAKE IT WORSE.
“Oh baby, why are you frightened? Come on hon.”
This is when he slips closer to you with a big-fake smile.
This shit is scary as fuck. It doesn’t really matter if he is good looking or ugly.
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No, it won’t work on deliberately sexually aggressive dudes, but, at least in my experience, it does do two things: a) it makes bystanders more likely to, at least, pay attention to the altercation, instead of rolling their eyes and going “oh god, bitch is making a big fucking deal about *nothing,* because obviously it’s not like she’s scared if she’s telling the dude to fuck off outright,” and b) it will sometimes make dudes who aren’t being deliberately aggressive, but still overly persistent, realize that they are out of line. Of course, this second requires reading behavior pretty well, and probably varies depending on social situation, but it’s pretty much the only thing other than “I have a boyfriend” that will make at least some dudes back off and and leave me alone, in my experience.
I mean, the context for that post was that someone above linked a comment about women claiming to be scared of dudes when they aren’t, so I was trying to explain why, when this happens, it isn’t just because women have decided that acting victimized is tons of fun. I was definitely not claiming that no one is ever scared of sexually aggressive dudes–that’s pretty clearly untrue.
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“I have always been sort of frustrated by the way what I am going to call the Schroedinger’s Rapist argument is centered around women’s fear.”
It’s sexist because it centers women in a situation that involves both men and women and it’s objectifying because it explicitly denies the subjectivity of these men in determining the actual risk they pose, if any.
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What would an appropriately balanced discussion look like, in your eyes? I can agree that the Schrodinger’s Rapist discussion, for instance, is heteronormative. It assumes that men will not feel threatened or pressured by women who approach them, and that women will not generally feel threatened by other women. I think that these assumptions, written more broadly in our culture, make it difficult for people to recognize when women are being sexually aggressive, particularly if they are aiming their attentions at men.
On the other hand, in a discussion of acceptable norms for flirting, I think that it is reasonable to center discussion around the people who would prefer not to flirt. Consent is important in sexual situations, and I think that it is correct to err on the side of not making people sexually uncomfortable. This phenomenon isn’t, I suspect, as highly gendered as the usual conversations about it make it seem, but it does seem to be somewhat gendered.
I’m also not sure I see where SR denies men’s subjectivity. The original article’s tone seems to me to be very much, “You (heterosexual man) may not realize this, but women are likely to interpret certain behaviors as threatening.” It is normal for people to occasionally interpret actions at odds with their intent, since people aren’t telepathic, and I’m not sure why acknowledging that it is possible to creep someone out or upset them by accident is denying subjectivity.
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“What would an appropriately balanced discussion look like, in your eyes? I can agree that the Schrodinger’s Rapist discussion, for instance, is heteronormative.”
It’s also gynocentric. That’s my major beef with it. An appropriately balanced discussion would look egalitarian.
“On the other hand, in a discussion of acceptable norms for flirting, I think that it is reasonable to center discussion around the people who would prefer not to flirt. ”
It’s unreasonable because it’s completely solipsistic. Societies work on common sets of manners, the way they need common languages to function.
Now personally I think flirting with random strangers is pathetic, degrading even – but I realize there is classicism in that attitude and I am working away from it. beyond, that, random flirting with men has always been the primary way to get gay-bashed. So I have no experience to speak of with either. What animates me on this is the sexist, tradcon gynocentrism of the Schroedinger’s rapist formulation.
‘I’m also not sure I see where SR denies men’s subjectivity. The original article’s tone seems to me to be very much, “You (heterosexual man) may not realize this, but women are likely to interpret certain behaviors as threatening.” ”
Yes, and my point is that she brushes right those men’s interpretations after that…well, it’s not even lip service.
And it’s no good to say that she is just representing the female side of this, because she has a responsibility to know the history in this country of following the guidelines she proposes. Just ask Emmett Till.
Historically in this country we have a big problem with paying an unbalanced amount of attention to the emotional comfort of white women.
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@Nita: I dislike this line of reasoning. In the exact same way, we could say, “sure, young Scott Aaronson would rather have both flirted with girls and felt like an unquestionably good person, but at least he got what he wanted most, right?”
Except that young Scott Aaronson didn’t get what he most wanted:
One of the major things that a lot of asshole-feminist critique (not accusing you of this, by the way) of comment 171 ignores is that Scott didn’t feel that he was forced to choose between celibacy and being a monster. He felt that he was inescapably a monster, and that not being celibate would make him even more monstrous. What he wanted most (not to be a monster) was not on the table, at least given that his psychiatrist refused to prescribe him antiandrogenics.
That may seem like a minor point, but I don’t think it is. There is a huge difference, psychologically, between “this is unpleasant, but at least I am being virtuous” and “this is unpleasant, but it’s the only way to not be even worse subhuman trash than I am anyway.”
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Gingko, after reading your reply, I still have only the vaguest idea of what you would like the conversation to actually look like. What men’s interpretations do you think the author should have looked at that she did not include? Are you suggesting that a significant number of men fear for their safety when approaching a strange woman, as your reference to Emmett Till suggests?
I’m going to disagree, though, with your argument that the idea that people should try to only flirt with people who are actually enjoying being flirted with is solipsistic. There is no reason that doing this should render normal manners non-functional–in fact, it seems to me to be an instance of people adhering to norms of politeness. I think that this guideline should be rather less rigidly gendered than it tends to be, but it still seems to me like a perfecto reasonable guideline.
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Since the links are circa 2010/2011, and one of them points to Hugo Schwyzer, I think it is safe to say this is a repost from that era.
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Absolutely not the case; I hear women describing physically attractive men – even men they’ve confirmed that they personally find physically attractive – as creepy, in the sense of “does boundary-violating things that make me uncomfortable,” all the time. “He’s hot but he’s a creep” does not register as a contradiction in terms.
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@Bugmaster — I think you are wrong here, wrong to the point of being grossly unfair to women. In other words, this opinion reflects poorly on you as a person.
I mean this to be blunt. I hope you will listen.
No. Just no. You are TOTALLY FUCKING OFF BASE HERE.
Yes, attractive men have an easier time. But this is not what “creep” means, nor is it why we feel creeped out. Your statement is *childish* (in the bad way). It is steeped in male resentment. This is not okay. You should rethink this.
I’ve been creeped out by attractive men. It happens. It is probably *less common* than from an unattractive man. So yeah. You’ve probably noticed that happens.
We can talk about it.
BUT THAT IS NOT WHAT CREEP MEANS. You are being unfair.
I think that unattractive guys maybe come across as creepy more because they *act* creepy more. I’ve had attractive guys kinda hit on me, but there is this thing where attractiveness is correlated with manifest social skills. Which is no surprise. Attractiveness usually requires fitness and grooming, skills which require some effort, some social competence. Whereas the old (maybe) homeless guy who keeps staring at me and grunting, before he comes over and makes sexualized comments…
Look, in theory an attractive guy could do that. If he did, I would *not like it*. It’s weird behavior, not socially normal, and thus *unpredictable*. I can brush the old guy off — and I do — but I worry that he’ll take it badly and get really horrible.
(Anecdote: Some dude hit on my g/f and her roommate a couple weeks back. They blew him off. He got nasty. They stood up to him. He threw punches. They fought back. When he found he was losing the fight, he pulled a knife.
This really happened. My g/f got the knife away from him and no one got cut. On the other hand, she’s afraid to use that subway stop, which she needs to for work.)
I’ve had guys get really shitty to me when I brush them off. They insult me, threaten me, get in my face, touch me in bad ways, on and on.
I’ve had attractive men hit on me in bad ways, enough to seem creepy, but never quite the same. When I brush them off, they tend to move on. They might roll their eyes or whatever, say something stupid, but they move away. Thus I don’t feel as threatened.
It seems easy to understand why this happens. The attractive man is more secure in his status. The unattractive man is very insecure. Some are even desperate. This translates into terrible behavior.
This is not the fault of women.
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Bugmaster’s definition seemed overly specific to me, but it does match my experiences that people will experience behavior as creepy in proportion to the attractiveness of the behaver, and the behavior in question. That is to say, there is a large spectrum of behaviors which are 99.94% of the time not creepy, no matter who’s doing them (e.g., Voldemort sitting quietly on a park bench reading a book.), another large spectrum which are creepy no matter who’s doing them (e.g., Tom Cruise running around with a hatchet, a clown mask, and no pants)…and a giant middle ground of behaviors which are judged as creepy based circumstances. As you yourself say, when attractive people hit on you in bad ways, you have a degree of confidence that they will move on if you turn them down; it sounds like your fear is affected in large part because you have one set of expectations for the old homeless guy, and another for the upper-class fraternity brother in a suit.
I also think that calling him childish and that his opinion reflects poorly on him as a person when you seem to agree with it more than you disagree with it is both rude and ineffective. Plus, you spend your entire reply talking about your thoughts and your experiences; they are valuable data, but if they’re not representative, then it’s entirely possible for you to have a very narrow set of not-creepy-if-handsome behaviors, the majority of people to have a much wider range, and Bugmaster’s point to be completely true.
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@Robert Liguori — You are missing what I actually said, which was that that we do not say “He is attractive, thus X is not creepy.” Nor do we say, “Well, he did X, which would be fine if he was hot, but cuz he’s ugly he’s a creep.”
However, that is what Bugmaster is accusing women of, that this is what “creep” means. Which is bullshit and very dismissive of our actual experiences with creepy men.
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“@Bugmaster — I think you are wrong here, wrong to the point of being grossly unfair to women. In other words, this opinion reflects poorly on you as a person.
I mean this to be blunt. I hope you will listen.
No. Just no. You are TOTALLY FUCKING OFF BASE HERE.
Yes, attractive men have an easier time. But this is not what “creep” means, nor is it why we feel creeped out. Your statement is *childish* (in the bad way). It is steeped in male resentment. This is not okay. ”
Male resentment is not okay? Resentment at bigoted assumptions is not okay? That reflects very poorly on you, Veronica. In fact it appears motivated by sexism.
You know what else reflects poorly? Your insistence that what women mean by the word “creep’ is the normative meaning in a situation that involves both men and women. That is an assertion of privilege.
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Data point: I’ve been referred to as “le mec creepy dans le coin, là” (the creepy dude in the corner, there) in a place where I was regularly having a drink after class, sitting (alone) with a book. I had only interacted with (male) staff when it happened.
Possible causes:
1) I was reading the Wheel of Time series. It does have its creepy moments.
2) I was scruffy-looking, not smartly dressed and probably looked, you know, odd.
Choose depending on your prejudices!
Yeah, I did not go to that place much afterwards. So, woo, success, it works! Some of the unattractive dudes are going to avoid places where they are called creeps/creepy.
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“I think that unattractive guys maybe come across as creepy more because they *act* creepy more.”
Clearly it must be their fault and you are not at all inclined to see their behavior as more creepy because they are unattractive. The problem is 100% them.
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@thirqual — Do you expect me to assert that no one has ever been called a creep unfairly? Cuz that would be obviously untrue. However, that is not what my post is about. Instead, my post was in response to someone who asserted that creep *means* “unattractive guy expressing his sexuality.”
Which, that ain’t what I mean when I say it, nor is it how I understand the general use of the term among other women I know. And furthermore, it had nothing to do with your scenario, since “reading a book” does not resemble “expressing your sexuality” (unless you chuck out anything resembling stable semantics).
I know that shy, awkward guys get a raw deal, as does anyone who does not fit in. I mean, I think most of us on the forum are in that boat to one degree or another. However, genuinely creepy people exist, and they are creeps according to their shitty behavior. Trying re-frame objections to such people as women-shaming-unattractive-men erases a whole swath of important experience.
Like that one time I was riding the subway at 1:00 am and some dude came onto the empty train car, took a long not-nice look at my legs, and then decided to sit right next to me. ON THE EMPTY TRAIN CAR AT 1:00 AM. Creepy motherfucker OMG.
He was decent looking, I guess. I really wasn’t thinking about his looks.
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Veronica, you said that when attractive men hit on you in not-okay ways, you were less creeped out than when less-attractive men did. That is what you actually said. Your post is right there. Your creep factor is motivated by how you expect the person in question to respond, and that is driven in large part by their appearance. Again, you said that (c.f., the probably-homeless guy).
Also, I invite you to consider that Bugmaster has his own experiences, which you are not only dismissing but actively insulting him for. And in my own experience, ‘creepy’ gets used as a word to describe ambiguous behaviors precisely because it is ambiguous, and because if people can describe behaviors as “Goddamn assault” they tend to do that instead.
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@Anon — I try to be reasonably self-reflective and identify my own biases against others. I do not claim I am perfect, but I think I do a pretty good job. In this case, I stand by my words. I think we are dealing with manifest differences in behavior and not a bias in my perception. I cannot prove that, obviously.
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@Robert Liguori — The same behavior is creepy either way. In both cases, I give the man the brush off. If they respond differently to the brush off, I judge them differently. I think I am fair.
I am talking about a manifest difference in the behavior I have observed. I don’t think this is “in my head.”
If Bugmaster wants to speak to his own experiences, he can do so in a way that acknowledges the experiences of others. He did not do this, thus he was fair game for criticism.
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Robert:
“…if people can describe behaviors as “Goddamn assault” they tend to do that instead.”
This seems non-obvious to me. There are definitely behaviors (e.g. groping) that people are often reluctant to identify as outright assault, even though they technically fit the definition. People sometimes downgrade “that was assault” to “that was creepy,” especially if they aren’t in a position of social power, I suspect.
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Mmm. I meant ‘goddamn assault’ as an example; in my experience, people are reluctant to call things assault unless they have witnesses and they are actually bleeding at the time, because assault sounds like something you have to go to the police to report. However, in my own experience, people are much less shy about describing being groped as being groped. Then again, I exist in a strata of very brash and direct people, so my experience might not be representative.
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@veronica d:
I’m late to this reply-party, so I’ll just add on to what the others said, since I mostly agree with them.
First of all, I do not think it is useful to speak about “my own experiences”, or your own experiences. We are discussing what the word “creep” means, not what you and I would like it to mean; so our own experiences are just two data points among many.
Secondly, I find it telling that the first thing you thought of when you read my post was something along the lines of, “Bugmaster blames women for his problems and is therefore a terrible person”. You follow that up by explaining why you find attractive men less “creepy” than unattractive ones, which was entirely my point.
I understand that women, including yourself, are often endangered by the sexual advances of men. I also understand that it would be nice to have a word that means, “a man who is dangerous to women”, and you would like “creep” to be that word.
However, people are very good at making snap pattern-matching decisions. Some men who make romantic advances toward women are dangerous. Many of these men are unattractive. Therefore, any unattractive man who makes a romantic advance toward a woman (or, indeed, who is just sitting in a corner reading a book) is labeled as a “creep”. This is exactly the same kind of category error you commit when you assume that anyone who disagrees with you must “blame women” for something.
It would be nice if we lived in a world populated by people whose minds are resilient against these kinds of mistakes, but we do not. The word “creep” means what it means, and neither you nor I can sweep back the tide.
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@Bugmaster — This is kind of a semantics 101 thing. But here is the point: the *meaning* of creep has nothing to do with how attractive the man is, since attractive men can act creepy. It happens. Such men can be creepy as fuck.
If I say, “That dude was pretty hot, but actually he creeped me out,” I am being perfectly coherent. If your view was true, then it would be incoherent, like “square circle.”
Whatever our sexual politics, we should not accept shitty semantics. People are creepy or not creepy according to their behavior.
That said, I think it is probably an empirical fact that attractive men are manifestly creepy less often than unattractive men. I have no proof of this, but it matches my experience.
Note, I don’t want this to be true. I don’t think I am unfairly tarring unattractive men. However, it seems to be a real thing that happens.
I think I kinda understand how it could be true. Which, it probably has to do with self image, one’s success with women, what strategies a man tends to choose based on the experiences they typically have. I’m not sure how helpful this observation is, but it is what I see happening.
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@veronica d:
You keep saying, basically, “I am much less likely to find attractive men creepy”, but again, this is part of my point (the other part being, “yes, and you are far from alone”). Your contention is that you are an entirely objective observer, and that attractive mean are just innately less creepy than unattractive ones. However, while it is not impossible that you are a indeed completely objective observer, I find this unlikely (unless you are secretly an alien robot of some sort).
You say that “whatever our sexual politics, we should not accept shitty semantics”, but a). for better or for worse, you do not get to control what semantics everyone else is using, and b). we are talking about mental biases here, and politics is just one bias among many,
Finally, you are contesting the claim that you are “unfairly tarring unattractive men”. On the one hand, I am tempted to say “talk is cheap, show me the data” (and I guess I couldn’t resist the temptation). But on the other hand, really, it doesn’t matter. You are free to unfairly think less of anyone for any reason — because they are male, or unattractive, or blonde, or wear MLP shirts, or refuse to wear MLP shirts, or whatever — it’s not a problem. The problem only arises when you conflate “I think X” with “X is objectively true, and therefore we should all do Y”.
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Actually, Veronica suggested a (fairly plausible) hypothesis that attractiveness affects the likelihood of creepy behavior via status feelings:
Perhaps you could engage with this point, say, by suggesting that attractive people are creepy in different ways, in different situations, and for different reasons?
I don’t think bare accusations of lying/bias/unfairness are helpful here.
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Theory: People secure in their status over others have better behavior than those without that status.
Prediction: People with significant, unassailable social status don’t generally abuse it.
Counterevidence: I’m really tempted to make a “Left as an exercise for the reader.” joke here, but let’s just consider pre-Civil-War slave owners, cult leaders, billionaires in plutocracies, warlords in countries without effective governement, and police in areas with no oversight. High status plus existing in a social structure that will strip you of that status for bad behavior can be a potent combination, but clearly the status itself is not sufficient.
—-
Alternate theory: The creepiness of behavior is judged in large part by the person doing it; while the threat of harm is a large factor present, the attractiveness of the person doing the behavior is also large and measurable.
Prediction: An attractive, socially dominant person can engage in multiple creepy behaviors without being called creepy by a strong plurality of people observing.
Explanation: The Halo/Horns bias means that people are more likely to be uncharitable in their snap judgements as to the motivations of unattractive people’s actions.
Evidence: 50 Shades of Grey and Twilight are extremely popular, and feature leads who are not apparently penalized by their target audience for engaging in behaviors that are hugely creepy while also being attractive and socially dominant.
Possible confounders for evidence: The materials are fantasy, marketed as fantasy, and mean no more about people’s preferences for actual human interactions as their time playing Grand Theft Auto indicates their driving habits. The two bits of media got very popular in spite of their male leads, not because of them. People in general do think that Dorian Grey and Edward are creeps, they’re just really sexy creeps, whom they want to read about and see movies about.
—–
This is a case where I think we’re going to be down to dueling anecdotes and theories until someone can produce some research. It would be really interesting to get an actor, make him look ragged, poor, unshaven, and bad-smelling, and see how many people report him as a creep taking various actions, compared to him doing the same actions while dressed in a suit, clean-shaven, and showered, with as identical body language and intonation as he could manage. My prediction is that there would be some actions he could do in either outfit that would get strong pluralities of creepy or not creepy (with some outliers), but that there would be a large grade of middle responses where the outfit strongly affected whether or not the average person described him as creepy.
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@Bugmaster — I don’t have to be perfectly objective to be sufficiently objective.
If you say, “I think unattractive men are often unfairly targeted by ‘creep’,” then I would have no objection, since that is certainly true. Unattractive people get a raw deal in many ways. However, that is not what you said. What you did say was this: that the word means *an unattractive man expressing his sexuality*. This is entirely false. Neither property is essential to creepiness.
For example, imagine if I said this to just about any woman:
Various women would have various responses to this scenario. However, I promise you, none of them would *fail to understand* what I meant by “creepy,” despite the fact the man was neither unattractive nor overtly sexual, cuz neither of those properties are what we mean when we use the word.
If you want to talk about how unattractive people, and in this case unattractive men, get a raw deal, you should do so, but try to correctly describe the problem.
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@Veronica
You know, I’ve basically been with you this comment thread, but I have no idea what I’m supposed to get out of the story of the guy and his brother, except that you have weird criteria for deciding who’s socially up to snuff. I can’t put his behaviors in any context that comes across as even remotely threatening – to me it just sounds like he’s got something on his mind that isn’t about you, and he’s having an anxious day. Maybe it’s my lack of magical woman empathy powers, but I’m completely lost.
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@Robert Liguori — I suspect that experiment would get the results you claim. However, making the man look poor and dirty would weaken the results, I believe, as that might get read as homeless, which has social significance beyond mere unattractiveness.
In a similar vein, I recall a story about a beautiful Hollywood actress who (during a movie production where she played a fat woman) went out in public wearing her “fat suit.” She claims she was treated far differently, and in fact far worse, than she normally was. I expect it is similar for men.
On your first point, looking at cult leaders and such seems to be hitting outlier space. The thing is, I find the stereotypes of the “pretty but horrible girl” and the “tall, handsome douchebag” to be shallow and inaccurate. Which is to say, such people exist, but I also know beautiful women with hearts of gold. Likewise, I know fit, attractive men who have boundless kindness and character. Contrastingly, I know plenty of nerd-dudes who are rotten on the outside and rotten on down to the bone, just mean, hateful fuckers.
Which goes against the narrative, where the pretty people are horrible and the ugly people are the chosen ones. It is a tempting narrative, but it is false.
#####
Kinda related, a bit, here is an anecdote about someone who was strangely *not creepy*:
Okay, so I’m crossing Boston Common in spring a few years back, and a large, black, male panhandler smiles at me as I walk by. Which, whatever. I’m dressed sexy. People smile. So I smile back. Then, after I get past him, he calls out to me, “Hey! Can I ask you a question?”
I stop and face him. He says, “Are you into the BDSM scene?”
(I swear to god this happened.)
I’m a bit befuddled, since large, black, male panhandlers seldom ask me about BDSM. I say, “Well, yes.”
He says, “Cool. I thought you might be.”
Which, I’m a visibly transsexual woman dressed HAWT. So maybe it’s not too much of a stretch.
Anyway, we then have a conversation about the local BDSM scene. He says he doesn’t like it here in Boston, and that folks are cooler in Chicago. Furthermore, he suggests I should go to some parties out there, in Chicago.
I have no idea. My knowledge pretty much limited to Boston/Cambridge-space.
Anyway, the conversation ends. He thanks me and says, “It’s always nice to talk to a pretty woman.”
Which, as a preposterously enormous tranny, I find that a very kind thing to say.
Anyway, funny thing, he came across as totally non-creepy. I’m not sure why. He was in no way attractive to me. He was bringing up highly sexualized content. But he seemed genuine and confident and he wasn’t leering.
So, that happened.
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Considering the age and pedigree of Beauty Equals Goodness, I’d suggest that the narrative, insomuch as there is a default narrative, goes the other way. Plus, there’s a fair amount of research that suggests that whether or not hot people are evil on average, they are perceived as less evil (except when judged as using their hotness to directly commit evil); the Wikipedia page on the Halo Effect summarizes several studies.
Of course, you can’t just reverse that, either, and conclude that because of that cognitive bias you’ll treat all hot people as evil until proven otherwise.
As for cult leaders, yes, they’re outliers; they’re people in a social situation in which they have overwhelming status, and there are almost no other social factors or restrictions on their behavior. They’re the clean white room case for the effects of status on behavior; if it did, then we should see a clear indicator of this in comparing the behavior of cult leaders to non-cult-leaders. And I’m reasonably sure that we do see an indicator in the comparison; just not one that suggests that evil is born of insecurity from low status. And so, in the absence of a good theoretical foundation for unattractive people actually engaging in more bad behaviors, and several studies which suggest people are more likely in general to perceive questionable behaviors from unattractive people as bad, I am quite comfortable sticking with the evidence of my eyes and my gedankenexperiment, and saying that some (but certainly not all) of what people describe as creepy behavior has to do with the mindset and assumptions of the observer, and not with the actual behavior being described.
I do think that there’s a false-positive downgrading thing going on, as well. For my own anecdotes; in the summer months, I like to walk at night. I’ve been doing this for about a decade and a half now, across two states and several towns. I’ve seen several hundred people doing this, and had my own fear-of-physical-harm-dar activated at least a hundred times. I have ran into the threat of violence once, and the fact that I did have unusually bad feelings about that particular guy helped keep me alert and get me away safely. From a perspective of avoiding false negatives, the Gift of Fear is batting 100%. From a perspective of letting me know if a given person that worries me when I’m alone at night, it’s wrong 99% of the time at minimum. But since it’s much more important to stay unmugged than it is to maintain strict Bayesian accuracy as to the intentions of my fellow nocturnal pedestrians, I over-weight my fear, as long as I make sure that I wait for much more accurate indicators of threat before I actually act in self-defense.
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@ninecarpals — The thing about the guy and his brother is not a true story; it’s just a random example I cobbled together. The point is, if I call an attractive man who is *not* behaving overtly sexual “creepy,” then people will *know what I mean*. This implies that the meaning of the term cannot be “unattractive man expressing his sexuality.”
At this point I am arguing semantics.
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@Veronica
But I don’t understand what you mean when you use creepy here, except that your hypothetical fellow is someone you don’t want to be around. Was that all we’re supposed to get?
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@Robert Liguori — The narrative I am talking about is “The horrible popular kids versus the outcasts with hearts of gold.” This story is surely popular, the basis of 3294028340909 movies meant to appeal to teens, for predictable reasons. However, it gets much wrong.
On the whole, it is basic reverse discourse, with all the flaws.
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@ninecarpals — It’s more a person who sets off a subconscious fear response. Some people just seem *off*, and I trust my instincts. For example, if I’m on the subway and someone seems to be paying a little too much attention to me, more than makes sense given the context, it weirds me out. Just a bit. That alone is not enough to set off my creep-detector, but it a supporting variable. Many things play a role. I doubt I could list all of them.
Have you read Gift of Fear? It contains specific anecdotes that will illustrate this better than I can. (Actually, I suspect this is a Thinking Fast and Slow type thing, but I haven’t read that book.)
Anyway, this is not the only way “creepy” gets used, but it is an important way.
And indeed creepiness often ties into the *unwanted sexual attention* space. Which makes sense, as unwanted sexual tension too often escalates into a really bad scene. Furthermore, people who are preoccupied with sex often give off a certain vibe. It’s hard to be comfortable around them. But creepiness is not exclusively thus. It certainly is not defined as such. For example, there is this one woman in my (broad) social circles who is famously creepy. In her case, things seem less “sexual” (as such) and more a matter of social domination and control. I’m weirded out by her and keep my distance. I know many people who feel similarly.
But regarding sexual stuff, I’d say for myself about half of the really “bad” scenes I’ve encountered in public spaces involved unwanted sexual attention from men. The remainder was from homophobia or transphobia.
(On the latter point, I remember this one young guy who just *stared at me* on the train, like, not friendly at all. He just kept looking. Then he moved down and sat across from me.
This was not sexual, not at all. The difference is quite clear.
This guy hated me for being queer. At the next stop I changed train cars. He followed me. So I quickly changed cars again, back to the original car, and he followed me again, but got caught on the platform when the doors closed.
Who knows what would have happened. Maybe he was satisfied to scare me. Maybe not. He was creepy as fuck.)
(I recall a different episode, where a fat nerdy guy was staring at me on the train. Like my last anecdote, this didn’t seem sexual. But unlike the last, neither did it seem hostile. Instead, he seemed forlorn and plaintive, just looking. Anyway, it was *weird*, but it was *not* creepy. In fact, I kinda suspect something far more interesting: I bet he was still-in-kinda-denial trans. Can’t prove that, but I can’t help thinking it. Just, his look. I know those feelings.)
Anyway, I am not saying that attractiveness plays zero role in creepiness, since that would be a false claim. However, I am saying that it is not the single dominant variable. Certainly trying to reduce “creep” to the complaints of unattractive men is a disservice to women.
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@Veronica
I…really don’t think you’re doing yourself a favor with the phone/brother example you gave, but I’m going to drop it. We’ll just say I think you made the opposite of the point you wanted to make, and not let it detract from what you’re trying to say. One bad example doesn’t ruin an argument.
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Veronica: If we separate physical attraction from sexual attraction, I think bugmaster’s definition fits doesn’t it? Someone may be hot, but still a creep – still acting in a way that makes them sexually unattractive.
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As a random data point. I was once at a queer women’s event where one of my friends described a girl who had hit on her as “creepy”. When I asked her what was creepy about her, she said, “She wasn’t hot and she couldn’t dance”.
I think what’s going on here is that there is the original central meaning of creepiness that Veronica has described. And there are some people who for fear of being perceived as shallow, take advantage of the ambiguousness of “creepy” to describe not liking someone for being unattractive.
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@Limimi — Again I have to insist that the semantics matters. Which, I think you are mistaking an accidental property of a thing with a defining feature. Yes, many men who come across as creepy will also seem unattractive. However, many homeless men will also seem unattractive, but it would seem decidedly odd to *define* “homeless” as *person without a place to sleep and who is unattractive*. The idea of a physically attractive person who is creepy is not *incoherent*, cuz that is not the definition.
(I really think this point is very obvious. Which makes me think we are not dealing with people’s true rejections here. Let me try this:)
Okay, so I think it is worth noting that *centering* attention on the attractiveness of the man, instead of the man’s behavior, is an attempt to redirect the conversation away from the bad behavior of (certain) men and toward the arbitrary judgement of women. In other words, it blames women for the failures of men. It gets real creeps off the hook.
You all see that, right? There is a narrative where people say, “Well, if he were hot he could get away with that.” (In these conversations, I often see such lucky men described as “norse gods.”)
Which, this is a complicated topic, and the “halo effect” is certainly real. But it affects both women and men. Furthermore, I don’t think it is so cut-and-dry as people claim. I personally have observed attractive men chat up attractive women on the subway. And look, that is supposed to be TOTALLY OUT OF BOUNDS! Right. Everyone agrees the subway is a bad place, but these guys do it.
Well, here is what I have observed: these men and women communicate much with body language, and no advances are made until both parties have communicated comfort to the other, so both parties end up not seeming creepy. These people, the women and men (as they are both full participants) are playing with what Hugh Ristik calls “intermediate and advanced social skills.” People who lack such social skills do not play the game as well, thus they fail to judge the comfort of the other person, and thus will not get away with flirting with strangers on the subway.
This is unfair. However, note these successful men and women had *two* properties: 1) they understood how to send and receive non-verbal signals and 2) they chose to respect non-verbal signals. People can be gorgeous, have property #1, and lack property #2. Such a person will eventually creep people out, despite being otherwise fairly attractive. I have also observed that: men who were conventionally attractive who try to chat up an uninterested woman, who is clearly signally her discomfort but is hesitant to give the direct brush off (cuz doing so is not safe). These men are hotties, but they are also creeps.
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@Veronica,
I think that unattractive guys maybe come across as creepy more because they *act* creepy more. I’ve had attractive guys kinda hit on me, but there is this thing where attractiveness is correlated with manifest social skills. Which is no surprise. Attractiveness usually requires fitness and grooming, skills which require some effort, some social competence. Whereas the old (maybe) homeless guy who keeps staring at me and grunting, before he comes over and makes sexualized comments…
This is just as true with the genders reversed. But it’s not the type of statement I’ve ever heard, nor do I ever expect you, to say it of girls. This is basically the problem.
For instance, I remember reading a study once that said that there is a correlation between people who don’t follow society’s prescribed physical appearance upkeep regimen – beauty standards, in other words – and anti-social and sociopathic tendencies. It makes sense. Bad people care less about what other people think of them, on average, and social expectations are an indispensable lever to keep people acting good. And you yourself bring up “grooming” both as a component of attractiveness and as an implied correlate to some form of emotional stability. Yet I doubt I will hear much about, from either you or anyone reading this of the type to be on your side on this exchange with Robert Liguori, “correlations” between people who don’t subscribe to onerous beauty standards and very negative moral characteristics. On the flip side, it’s a given that you guys have no problem doing this to traits such as social awkwardness. You think you’re being fair, but this sort of thing is very transparent to people who don’t share your biases.
You also bring up fitness. That applies to girls too. When I, for instance, see a woman making a scene by being loud, completely unreasonable, and abusive toward someone, it’s very rarely a young, thin, conventionally attractive girl. Most often she has the traits of the complete opposite of everything I just said. To myself, What’s supposed to be the take-away from that? That the way people treat low-status members of the opposite sex is thus completely justified? That we’re not going far enough? That society is too biased in favor of low-status or unattractive people?
A few other points.
You’re defining “attractiveness” to include “not acting creepy”. That’s the sort of definition I would agree with under normal circumstances, except here it reduces such statements such as “there’s a correlation between attractiveness and not acting creepy” to be tautological and useless. So what’s the point in making such a statement in the first place? To imply something else entirely.
I completely agree with Robert Linguori regarding your complaints about Hollywood. There is no cultural bias towards low-status or awkward men that requires pushback. The exact opposite is true. I mean, the default protagonist in Hollywood is still (1) morally good, (2) male, and (3) quite attractive, usually more so than the antagonists. In light of this, I don’t know how anyone can possibly complain that there is a net bias toward unattractive guys at the expense of attractive ones – unless you are hyper-attuned to this and this only. It’s this hyper-attenuation that bothers people. This isn’t a conversation that’s being neglected; on the contrary, social justice warriors are constantly trying to push discussion of nothing but this, at the expense of focus of the negative behaviors of higher-status men, or women of any stripe. This pisses people off.
The halo effect is very strong and frankly swamps everything else. The people determined to believe otherwise (but only when it comes to judging men) are engaging in wishful thinking – to try and morally justify their own shallowness if female (while screeching “beauty standards!” and “objectification!” if shallowness is ever applied to them), and to engage in status one-up-manship if male. (This phenomenon really deserves its own post, but I won’t really get into it here because it would be a massive tangent. Suffice to say, the type of guys writing long articles on lefty sites pushing the idea that shy, awkward guys really are Worse Than You Think and there needs to be a societal tide against them, rarely seem like themselves the type to have had many dates growing up.)
Hollywood loves underdog stories. Gender warriors who complain about the “pro-nerd” bias in high school movies, like you do, rarely write articles decrying this trend anywhere else. Underdog stories will always outnumber overdog stories because they are more dramatic, and frankly they are more in tune with people’s morals; the toppling of the directions of social power is, all else being equal, a good thing. And awkward guys unlucky in love are underdogs. Only angry social justice warriors with axes to grind against “nerds”, seriously try and pretend that they don’t know exactly we’re talking about when we talk of things like social power and social status in social situations, and that there are no power differentials, no overdogs and underdogs, here.
The thing is, I find the stereotypes of the “pretty but horrible girl” and the “tall, handsome douchebag” to be shallow and inaccurate. Which is to say, such people exist, but I also know beautiful women with hearts of gold. Likewise, I know fit, attractive men who have boundless kindness and character. Contrastingly, I know plenty of nerd-dudes who are rotten on the outside and rotten on down to the bone, just mean, hateful fuckers.
I can’t help but notice that in the negative examples, you couldn’t bring yourself to include women as well. There are plenty of fat, ugly women who have become embittered to the point of being hateful, horrible people, wouldn’t you say? Is the takeaway supposed to be that shallowness is justified? People are constantly treated as lesser members of their own gender and many of them don’t respond positively. Maybe we should stop treating them as lesser.
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@Nita,
Paraphrasing Veronica: The attractive man is more secure in his status. The unattractive man is very insecure. Some are even desperate. This translates into terrible behavior.
Nita: Perhaps you could engage with this point, say, by suggesting that attractive people are creepy in different ways, in different situations, and for different reasons?
I don’t think bare accusations of lying/bias/unfairness are helpful here.
Again, I have to echo Robert Liguori. Do you as a general rule believe that it’s the people at the bottom of the heap, who “resent” those above them, who are generally responsible for the evil in the world? Or is this something you only switch into believing when it comes to men in the sexual arena?
I think (a) people who are so used to getting what they want that they take it disproportionately hard and personally when they don’t, (b) people with social power becoming thoughtless and arrogant, and (c) people with a fair degree of control over others whose control is being threatened by others moving upward, are responsible for more terrible behavior than the type of people you’re describing. This is due to both the fact that people with social clout can effect more harm when they are terrible, and the fact that people generally fear loss more than they covet gain, and they react worse to having something they’ve had being taken away from them worse than failing to get something they’ve never had.
Do you think unattractive women do more terrible things than attractive women?
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[i]Okay, so I think it is worth noting that *centering* attention on the attractiveness of the man, instead of the man’s behavior, is an attempt to redirect the conversation away from the bad behavior of (certain) men and toward the arbitrary judgement of women. In other words, it blames women for the failures of men. It gets real creeps off the hook.
You all see that, right? There is a narrative where people say, “Well, if he were hot he could get away with that.” (In these conversations, I often see such lucky men described as “norse gods.”)[/i]
Veronica, on one hand, I think this is a valid point. On the other hand, in this very discussion thread you discussed the hypothetical of a creepy guy who kept checking his phone, and talked about his brother.
Now, I’m not up with current events. Maybe those are signs of being a serial killer from some TV show I don’t happen to watch. But barring that, there is absolutely no reason to think that you’d be at risk of harm from someone who did those things…and as you said, if you described yourself as ‘creepy’, everyone would no what you meant. Specifically, they’d know that whether someone is creepy is in fact disjoint to how they were acting and what risk their actions actually implied to you, physically or even socially. or emotionally.
The fact of the matter is that someone being creepy is not, in and of itself, a failure on their part; it is simply a judgement of how people happen to see them, and people often see people in terrible and prejudicial ways.
I think that there should be a word to describe people who have a pattern of sitting to close, use too much physical contact too quickly, make plausibly-deniable jokey threats, and so forth, with each individual action being minor and not worth reporting, but with the whole adding up to a dangerous and real pattern. But that behavior, or threatening behavior in general, is no more central to being a creep than not being handsome is.
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@Pocketjacks:
You’re defining “attractiveness” to include “not acting creepy”.
No, she’s not. In this discussion, Veronica has consistently treated these as distinct concepts, including explicitly saying that attractive men can act creepy. (See her comment on February 19, 2015 at 5:40 pm, although that’s not the only example).
There is no cultural bias towards low-status or awkward men that requires pushback. The exact opposite is true. I mean, the default protagonist in Hollywood is still (1) morally good, (2) male, and (3) quite attractive, usually more so than the antagonists.
You are misstating what Veronica said – she never said “the exact opposite” of what you claim, nor did she call for pushback.
What she was talking about is the trope of characters who are characterized as socially awkward within the story (even though they may not be played as realistically awkward and are usually portrayed by physically attractive actors), but with a heart of gold. Think of Xander Harris in early Buffy, for example. (Trivia: Danny Strong, who played “Jonathan” on Buffy, originally auditioned to play Xander. But someone who was genuinely awkward- seeming and not conventionally handsome wasn’t what they were looking for, so they cast a friendly jock, and then were stuck casting six-foot-four actors to play high school bullies who could loom over Xander.)
This is a common trope, as is the trope Veronica also mentions of the very physically attractive character who is a horrible person. (Think Cordelia in early Buffy.) It’s also true that these two tropes are often paired in the same narratives (Ugly Betty is another example of this).
Of course, it is also true that “the default protagonist in Hollywood is still (1) morally good, (2) male, and (3) quite attractive.” What Veronica claimed, and your counter-claim, don’t actually contradict each other.
Veronica is saying, if I follow her correctly, that both the most common Hollywood trope – ugly people are bad, attractive people are good – and Ugly-Betty-like reversals, in which the “ugly” people are good and the pretty people are bad – make the same vapid and problematic mistake of linking moral worth and appearances.
Do you as a general rule believe that it’s the people at the bottom of the heap, who “resent” those above them, who are generally responsible for the evil in the world?
Putting the word “resent” in quotes, although neither Veronica nor Nita used that word in the argument you’re responding to, is dishonest.
Although you didn’t ask me, I’ll say that I don’t believe, as a general rule, that the people at the bottom are responsible for most of the evil in the world. I think the people at the top are, not because top-people are always evil in character, but because those top-people who are evil are able to accomplish so much more, by virtue of their influential position, than those bottom-people who are evil.
However, I do believe that conventionally unattractive people are more likely to be insecure – I’d say, we’re more likely to be taught to be insecure – and that insecurity can lead to bad behavior, including creepy behavior. That’s a seemingly plausible theory, and you don’t magically turn it implausible by talking about unattractive women.
(Note that I am NOT claiming all insecure people behave in creepy ways; nor am I saying that secure people never behave in creepy ways. And I’m also NOT claiming that all unattractive people are insecure, or that no attractive people are.)
Do I think there could be contexts in which unattractive women are more likely to act badly than attractive women? Sure, but for me to find it plausible, it would have to be a context in which attractiveness-insecurities are brought to the fore. And because of the conventional male-female mating script – in which men are expected to initiate – I think that in the real world this comes up more often with men transgressing against women, rather than the reverse.
On the other hand, if someone said that when they “see a woman making a scene by being loud, completely unreasonable, and abusive toward someone, it’s most often an old, fat, conventionally unattractive woman,” I’d say that’s nonsense, as I would for a similar statement about unattractive men. Because my own life experiences tell me that what they’re saying is ridiculous.
Footnote: Whereever I wrote “attractive” or “unattractive” here, I meant in conventional terms. But I was too lazy to type it every time.
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By the way, I was just discussing this thread with my niece, who is 11 and a half, She says that she’s just as likely to use the word “pervy” as “creepy” to describe someone who behaves in a creepy way (the example she used was a 40-year-old-guy hitting on her). So maybe ten years from now it’ll be the word “pervy” that people use.
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@ pocketjacks
Huh? No*, but that’s not what Veronica said, either. As I understand it, she said:
– unattractive / low-status men sexually proposition her in public more often than attractive men do;
– unattractive / low-status men react badly to her rejection more often than attractive men do.
Maybe creepiness is actually more common among guys who feel high status. But if they don’t hit on transwomen on the subway, P(creepy to Veronica | seen by Veronica on subway) is negatively correlated with men’s feelings of high status, and she’s right to feel more wary of men who seem low-status.
Hmm, come to think of it, I’ve been persistently talked to in public exactly twice (people don’t talk to strangers here), and both times the guy seemed to have low self-esteem. I have “eye contact” issues, so I don’t know if their faces were attractive.
* on the other hand, I don’t think they’re completely innocent, either — all those European kids who joined the ranks of ISIS probably felt downtrodden and resentful, for instance
@ Robert Liguori
So, what word would you suggest?
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“Creepy” would be a great word for this. But it’s an inherently “know it when I see it” pattern of behavior, and if we wanted to apply the reasonable-person standard, we’d end up importing all of our current baggage; if the hard-and-fast definition was rooted in actions, people could sidle right up to the written line as they do the unwritten lines today, but if it’s rooted in just how it makes people feel, then we’re still back to people going “Oh, he’s poor, black, and male, it’s reasonable to be fearful of poor black males due to statistical distributions of violent actors, therefore it’s reasonable to be creeped out by him sitting quietly in the next room. Schrodinger’s Mugger, don’t you know.”
I almost feel like we should bite the bullet and embrace either the behavioral or the emotional definitions. Right now, with ‘creep’ implying ‘made me feel justifiably fearful for my safety’ but actually meaning ‘possibly made me fearful for my safety, possibly made me fearful that an awkward social encounter was incoming, possibly triggered my disgust reaction by his appearance but I can’t actually say that without sounding bad.’, you have the people least likely to actually be #1 risk factors striving the hardest to avoid being creeps, while the people who are most likely to be there able to use them as a smokescreen, and able to point to the large number of creepy false-positives who were harmless to cover for themselves.
It’s a complicated issue, with bad actors ready to take any inch of slack to lash out at their chosen outgroup.
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Ampersand, I invite you to consider again the points you raise about insecurity and unattractive women acting out. If your own experience is that unattractive women are not more likely to behave badly, then I doubt you actually think it’s plausible to look at status insecurity as a root cause of misbehavior. (And again, with the halo effect, it’s not just a sexual status variable.) If you do think it’s plausible that in the general case insecurity leads to bad behavior, then it seems to me that you’d consider that your experiences are simply not representative, and Pocketjackets’s experiences are.
I cheerfully admit the possible confounders that male attractiveness is more important to confidence than female attractiveness is, or that women in general are just so much more confident than men in general that they suffer less overall from insecurity driving them to misbehavior. (I will leave doing the studies on gender-based attitudes for the above as an exercise for the reader this time.)
I’m honestly a little appalled here. It’s trivially, blatantly obvious that no one really thinks insecurity drives even a plurality of misbehavior; even the people who are advancing it as a ‘seemingly-plausible theory’ are backing the hell away from its implications as soon as it’s pointed out that hey, people you don’t want to tar fit are insecure as well.
I’m honestly not sure what to do with a word to describe the above behavior. Honestly, I think that there may just not be a good way to rigidly define the concept, and for people to accept that ‘creepy’, like ‘insulting’, is a big, complicated concept, and that while you should avoid falling into the category of it in most cases, the important thing to actually do is not misbehave, and accept cheerfully that some people will interpret your behavior as creepy or insulting regardless.
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@Robert Liguori:
In specific contexts in which attractiveness-insecurities are brought to the fore, I think it’s plausible that a disproportionate number of offenders are conventionally unattractive.
For example, at a summer camp I went to, there was a girl who loudly announced that she and I were going to fool around, in a context which made it mockery, not flirtation or a serious offer. (I was about ten, and immature for my age; she was a year or two older than me). Later that day, in the pool, she reached into my swim trunks and grabbed my penis. Again, unwelcome, and in the context I think we both understood that it wasn’t friendly.
She was a fat girl, and had probably been taught that she wasn’t worthy of loving and had little sexual value, because that is what our horribly anti-fat society teaches fat people. It’s plausible, and even likely, that her sexual bullying of me was rooted in her own insecurities about her own sexual worth. By publicly sexually harassing me, she was able to display (for herself, and for the other kids) that she had some sexual power and agency.
Or maybe I’m wrong, and maybe she was a mean bully for completely different reasons. But the idea that she was driven by insecurities about her own sexual worth isn’t so ridiculous that it can be dismissed without any real counter-argument, and you haven’t provided anything at all like a real counter-argument.
If your own experience is that unattractive women are not more likely to behave badly, then I doubt you actually think it’s plausible to look at status insecurity as a root cause of misbehavior.
As I explicitly argued, it’s plausible for specific cases that directly involve sexual insecurity, but not plausible for the general case of all bad acts ever.
I’m talking about a particular kind of misbehavior, not misbehavior in general. If you’re not willing to acknowledge that distinction – and it appears from your response that you are not – then you’re not willing to honestly address what I wrote.
Here, as I understand it, is the case Veronica is making. (I hope she’ll correct me if I’m misunderstanding something.) Veronica has observed that, of men who act creepy when hitting on her, a disproportionate number of them are conventionally unattractive. To account for this, her theory is:
1) People who aren’t conventionally attractive are disproportionately likely to be sexually insecure.
2) People who “act creepy” in situations such as hitting on women, are disproportionately likely to be sexually insecure.
3) Therefore, men who “act creepy” in situations such as hitting on women, are disproportionately likely to be conventionally unattractive men.
In no way is this an argument which amounts to claiming that status insecurity is the root cause of misbehavior in general. It is talking about misbehavior in a specific context, not misbehavior in all contexts. That could not be clearer, but you constantly paper over this distinction.
It’s possible that the halo effect accounts for Veronica’s observations. It’s also possible that her observations are accurate. I’m not a woman, and it would be weird for me to outright dismiss her direct observations about something that she has first-hand experience of and I don’t.
However, even if Veronica’s observations are accurate, it could still be the case that the men who have happened to hit on her are not representative, either of men in generally or of conventionally unattractive men in particular.
I also wonder about the truth of point 1. Although it’s true that being conventionally unattractive can lead to sexual insecurity (because we unattractive folks receive less sexual validation and a lot of sexual dis-validation when growing up), there are many, many other paths that also lead to sexual insecurity. Because being unattractive isn’t the only path to sexual insecurity, it’s possible that there isn’t any significant difference between attractive and unattractive folks when it comes to likelihood of being sexually insecure.
So although I think Veronica’s argument is plausible, I’m not convinced that it’s true. And I can’t think of any way of testing it.
It’s trivially, blatantly obvious that no one really thinks insecurity drives even a plurality of misbehavior; even the people who are advancing it as a ‘seemingly-plausible theory’ are backing the hell away from its implications as soon as it’s pointed out that hey, people you don’t want to tar fit are insecure as well.
It is trivially, blatantly obvious that no one here has been claiming that “insecurity drives even a plurality of misbehavior.” Pretending that anyone has said this is a complete strawman argument on your part.
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@Ampersand,
No, she’s not. In this discussion, Veronica has consistently treated these as distinct concepts
I read her “social competent” and “manifest social skills” in the original thread-heading post to include “not acting creepy”. Attractive people are less likely to be creepy because they have more social skills. Sounds like not being creepy is a social skill. This isn’t a plausible reading to you?
You are misstating what Veronica said – she never said “the exact opposite” of what you claim, nor did she call for pushback.
[…]
Veronica is saying, if I follow her correctly, that both the most common Hollywood trope – ugly people are bad, attractive people are good – and Ugly-Betty-like reversals, in which the “ugly” people are good and the pretty people are bad – make the same vapid and problematic mistake of linking moral worth and appearances.
There was the very clear implication that, far from being identical and equal phenomena, that unattractive men being portrayed too heroically was far more numerous, (the “3294028340909” movies that apparently did this, referring to this as “the narrative”, as if the opposite narrative weren’t much, much stronger) and that this was a problem that needed to be changed. I specify men because while she undoubtedly made efforts to sound gender-neutral, moments like her being unable to bring herself to talk about female counterparts of the “nerd-dudes” who look horrible and act horrible, were too telling.
In fact, not only do horrible, unattractive women exist, and women who are horrible because of being regarded as unattractive exist…. much in the vein of you later on using a pro-male talking point to justify an anti-male talking point (paraphrased, “men are expected to initiate… which results in insecure i.e. unattractive men being worse than attractive men a lot of the time, but it’s not plausible that unattractive women are ever worse than attractive women!”), I’d argue that because of the greater pressure on women to be attractive from an earlier, more vulnerable age, their neuroses run even deeper, and that based on my rough guesstimations based on all the people I’ve known to varying degrees, a greater proportion of women who happen to be both unattractive and terrible are terrible because they are unattractive. I’d imagine, because of the
And the “problematic mistake of linking moral worth and appearances” is precisely why people reacted negatively to Veronica’s post in the first place.
However, I do believe that conventionally unattractive people are more likely to be insecure – I’d say, we’re more likely to be taught to be insecure – and that insecurity can lead to bad behavior, including creepy behavior. That’s a seemingly plausible theory, and you don’t magically turn it implausible by talking about unattractive women.
Do I think there could be contexts in which unattractive women are more likely to act badly than attractive women? Sure, but for me to find it plausible, it would have to be a context in which attractiveness-insecurities are brought to the fore. And because of the conventional male-female mating script – in which men are expected to initiate – I think that in the real world this comes up more often with men transgressing against women, rather than the reverse.
On the other hand, if someone said that when they “see a woman making a scene by being loud, completely unreasonable, and abusive toward someone, it’s most often an old, fat, conventionally unattractive woman,” I’d say that’s nonsense, as I would for a similar statement about unattractive men. Because my own life experiences tell me that what they’re saying is ridiculous.
That seems awfully convenient. Unattractive women are never worse than attractive women, but unattractive men are worse than attractive men, so
There are several questionable things here that I’d dispute:
1. That “insecurity” is the root of all or most evil, in the sexual arena or otherwise.
(Veronica is arguing that as a general rule, unattractive guys are worse and creepier, and the only differentiation anyone is offering between them and other guys is “insecurity”; so it stands that insecurity is the overriding or root factor.)
Insecurity has become a pop psychological term that can mean anything. Everyone is insecure. Whenever anyone does anything bad at anytime, it can be backwards-rationalized to have been caused by some root insecurity. Two people can use “insecurity” to mean completely different things, even describing opposite behaviors.
Where it becomes problematic is when the word develops clear status connotations. Hypothetically, if a screenwriter had ten seconds of screentime to establish that a male character was “insecure”, how would they make him look, sound, act, talk? Who would they cast to play him? How would the answers to these questions differ from, say, if the pejorative used was “arrogant” instead? These mirror society’s biases.
It’s a similar deal with words like “self-esteem”, which has so far between the two attracted the larger cultural backlash. Everything bad that anyone does is caused by low self-esteem. Quite a lot of people have argued, rightly in my view, that a lot of terrible people need lower self-esteem, not higher. Similarly, I think a lot of terrible people could stand to be more insecure, not less; at least then maybe they’d second-guess what they do more, which would at least be a start.
I don’t take it as a given that “insecurity” outweighs any one of plain old arrogance, honest lack of empathy, general criminiality factor (which is something I want to talk about in another post), or to take the polar opposite of insecurity of sorts, the honest unswerving belief that you’re better than other people (including your partner, including strangers, including other members of your gender), in terms of what drives negative, hurtful, or predatory behavior in sex and dating. I think many people want to believe this, because it reinforces prejudices that could justify their shallowness or social one-up-manship.
Nor is this an either/or. The above emotional terms are broad enough that they aren’t mutually exclusive. Someone could easily be both arrogant and insecure, for instance. Which you choose to focus on then depends on which narratives you choose to push, and where your self-interest lies.
2. A feminist is saying that there are no contexts in which unattractive women’s insecurities are ever brought to the fore? That’s a rather convenient first. Which leads me to…
3. That the stage of initial introductions is the only stage in which attractiveness-insecurities can manifest.
Unattractive women’s insecurities can manifest at any stage at any point in the relationship, including and perhaps especially later on. They could occur before any introduction is made, coloring the social environment from the get-go. And yes, it can manifest at the stage of initial insecurities as well. One of the most common ways is that they feel a need to prove that they don’t need a particular man’s attention, and are so desperate to prove that they’re not desperate, that it results in acting plain unpleasant to a lot of guys in an unwarranted and unprovoked manner.
(Some guys would argue that there’s an inverse correlation between attractiveness and ease of talking to them. I don’t really agree and I think this is a minority viewpoint, but from my experience, the general soft consensus seems to that the 6’s and 7’s – I hate the 10-point scale, but it’s the best way to communicate this concept right now – are the worst to deal with. And the 10-point scale is not a true 10-point scale; in my experience no one’s ever rated lower than a 3 unless they’ve done something morally wrong. People are at the very least compassionate enough for that. So 6 or 7 is just average or just slightly above average. Do all guys agree with this? No. There are many that just straight up believe that more attractive women are worse bitches. But then, there are many girls who disagree that low-status guys are worse human beings or are rapey-er or whatever the latest SJW line is.)
@Nita,
A short, non-jumping-down-your-throat response is upcoming, but I’ve already spent too long writing this response. Later.
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@Ampersand,
We just cross-posted. I like your recent post much more than the one that came before it. It seems like some of what I said in my most recent post is addressed, but for the benefit of lurkers I like what I wrote.
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@Pocketjacks:
I’m glad you liked my response to Robert. But nothing I said in that comment at all contradicts anything I said in my earlier comment, which you didn’t like.
As for your long response to me… Nearly every single point you make is based on a blatant misreading, on refusing to give the other person’s point even the most basic benefit of the doubt, or on straight-up lying about what they’ve said.
I’m going to limit my response to talking about five of the times you did these things not because I think your comment merits a response, but as an explanation of why I might not engage with your comments in the future. I could list more than five, but I don’t want to spend that much time on this.
1) Veronica wrote: “I’ve had attractive guys kinda hit on me, but there is this thing where attractiveness is correlated with manifest social skills. Which is no surprise. Attractiveness usually requires fitness and grooming, skills which require some effort, some social competence.” In context, she’s specifically talking about how social skills change one’s physical appearance – body shape (which she called “fitness” – for the record, I hate that word the way she used it) and grooming. You had to selectively take her words out of context to justify another reading.
2) You wrote, paraphrasing me: “it’s not plausible that unattractive women are ever worse than attractive women!”
But I wrote that I think there are situations (those which bring sexual insecurities to the fore) in which it’s plausible that unattractive women are more prone to bad behavior. Your “paraphrasing” is in fact the polar opposite of what I actually wrote.
You then attribute this to me:
3) ” Unattractive women are never worse than attractive women, but unattractive men are worse than attractive men, ”
But I’ve never said that, either in the passage you quoted or anywhere else. Nor have I said anything that can reasonably be taken as meaning that. Taken as a whole, I had just said the opposite – that I found it plausible that unattractive people of either sex might be more likely to act badly in particular situations, but that I don’t think it’s plausible for this to be a general rule for either sex.
4) “A feminist is saying that there are no contexts in which unattractive women’s insecurities are ever brought to the fore?”
Nope. I didn’t say that, didn’t imply it, and that’s not what I meant.
5) “That the stage of initial introductions is the only stage in which attractiveness-insecurities can manifest.”
Again, I didn’t say that, imply it, or mean it.
I realize I did write something which, by a mix of pretending I didn’t clearly limit my meaning with phrases like “more often” rather than “always,” and by a chain of dubious logical connections (“he said A, which implies B, which implies C, therefore he said C”), you can use to faux-justify your claims. But that’s bullshit. You’re accusing me of saying ludicrous things that I never said.
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@Nita,
Maybe creepiness is actually more common among guys who feel high status. But if they don’t hit on transwomen on the subway, P(creepy to Veronica | seen by Veronica on subway) is negatively correlated with men’s feelings of high status, and she’s right to feel more wary of men who seem low-status.
I think the concept of creepiness is constructed precisely to preclude your first sentence there from being true. That’s the real problem. Applying the standards of creepiness “equally” to high-status and low-status guys and oops, finding that the latter are worse, does not seem like a fair comparison, because the term itself isn’t status-neutral.
Let’s remove all sexual connotations of the word for now. What kind of people would be described as creepy in a non-sexual way? Besides non-political characters like clowns, mimes, and Japanese ghost story villains; I mean people we are likely to encounter in everyday life. From a non-sexual context, I suspect that a homeless person, or someone who looks and acts that way, would be the default image for most people. Among fictional characters, and again disregarding any sexual connotations of the word, I’ve heard physically small villains described as “creepy”, but never very large villains (unless again they’ve done something sexual to merit the term). Outside of humans, insects are the animals most often referred to as “creepy”. It’s a term that is indelibly associated with some sense of smallness and people and things we look down on, physically or metaphorically. Whether or not low-status guys violate personal boundaries more, which is supposed to be the “real” definition of the word and I don’t think this statement is true, the term “creepy” will always accrete to them more for these reasons.
And then the real problem is then when creepy becomes a far worse thing to call someone than whatever the equivalent term is of whatever is associated with bigness, or people we have to look up to. I don’t like the implications of that. I find it anti-liberal and elitist.
For the purposes of comparison, the best equivalent term that comes to mind is “douche”. I think the default image of a douche for most people, again in a non-sexual sense, would be some sort of investment banker in a power suit screaming into his Bluetooth. Or something similar to that. (Both terms are significantly gendered male, “douche” even more so, and no I don’t like it, but let’s leave that aside for now.) Where creep refers to something terrible and small, douche refers to something terrible and big, in a social sense.
I find it troubling that “creep” is a worse thing to call someone than something like “douche”. Most people would agree with this assessment, I should think – I’ve heard “douche” used as an affectionate insult far more often than “creep”. (“Hey, don’t leave the fridge door open! You douche…”) And to paraphrase something I once read from a blogger I like, I think it may have been HughRistik, “he can be a douche… but he’s a good person really” sounds more right and like something someone I know would actually say. “He can be a creep… but he’s a good person” sounds much more off. “Creep” is much more immediately morally disqualifying.
And I know that the objection will be that “creep” refers to someone who’s actually done something wrong, while a word like “douche” just refers to a general negative personality. But… you, and people like you, are the the ones who decided that, which frankly feels like stacking the deck; it’s not a definitional boundary that anyone else is obligated to respect. In popular parlance, people don’t respect that “actually done something wrong” distinction, which is an entirely predictable shortcoming that no one outside of anti-“creep” masculists and MRA’s are in any hurry to change. To make it a properly fair comparison, we’d have to eliminate that element; if neither has done anything in particular wrong, though both are obviously negative personalities, is being creepy worse than being douchey? I don’t think so, and I think the latter is responsible for more actual real world harm, for reasons already gone over in previous posts.
You don’t like it when discussions about creepiness becomes centered around male attractiveness, because you think it distracts from larger issues. We don’t like it when discussions about Things Wrong With Sex and Dating These Days become too centered around “creepiness” and related words, because it distracts from everything else. I heard man-o-sphere people call “douchebag” a de facto generalized insult against “sexually successful males”. I don’t really agree, people use the term more generally than that, far more than they use the word “creep”, and “sexually successful” is not necessarily a synonym for high status… but I get the broad gist of where they’re coming from. Similarly, due to the prior associations of the word and everything I’ve gone over, it’s an entirely predictable result that “creepy” becomes a de facto generalized insult against low status males. If I could sum up why this is a contentious issue and why a thread on “creepiness” shot up to hundreds of comments near instantly here, it’s encapsulated by the second half of that last sentence.
I don’t think the word is unsalvageable. I don’t think I’ve ever heard my female friends use it in a grossly unfair way, though I wouldn’t be friends with them if they were the type to do that. And I know you want a word to describe a certain negative feeling you get from certain people. But criticisms like Bugmaster’s of the word as it is currently used are inevitable, because they are grounded in the real world; they’re not distractions, they’re fair criticisms. And coming up with a new word probably won’t solve anything, because the new word may just acquire the past connotations (though if the new word isn’t associated with homeless people, insects, and smallness, that may help). I don’t have the final answers, but if a bunch of unrelated people are pretty united in making the same complaint to you, everywhere you go, there’s probably something to it.
(I intended this to be brief, but once you start writing…)
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@Ampersand,
Wow I have to say that I wasn’t expecting this response. I sincerely apologize for misreading you. You’re free to not post or not respond as you will, of course, but I obviously dispute your characterization of me here.
As for (1), in that case it would be the first time I’ve ever heard going to the gym called a “social skill”. The term so ubiquitously means “what you do when socializing with other people; the what, how, and when to talk” that that will be the default interpretation. Not to dissect that paragraph any more than it already has been, but re-reading it, “attractiveness takes a bit of self-discipline, such as hitting the gym regularly; this self-discipline comes out in other areas, such as manifestly better social skills, such as not acting creepy” is still my first reaction interpretation. If that’s a misreading, I would certainly disagree that it’s a blatant misreading or a selective interpretation made in bad faith.
(2) to (5) all seem related. (And yes, (4) was a baiting jab that I now wish I didn’t write. As for the others…) The “only’s” and “never’s” were hyperbole, but Robert Liguori wrote that he was “appalled” at where this discussion was heading, and I have to agree with that basic sentiment. There are some views that are egregious enough that they frankly deserve a bit of hyperbole, and “more often”‘s and “not always, but usually”‘s don’t really make things better. (I acknowledge that I was wrong about what your views were.) The view that female shallowness is justified but male shallowness is not, I find egregious and a bit appalling enough that it qualifies.
This paragraph:
Do I think there could be contexts in which unattractive women are more likely to act badly than attractive women? Sure, but for me to find it plausible, it would have to be a context in which attractiveness-insecurities are brought to the fore. And because of the conventional male-female mating script – in which men are expected to initiate – I think that in the real world this comes up more often with men transgressing against women, rather than the reverse.
I read you as saying that theoretically, unattractive women could be worse than attractive women in some ways, but that you don’t think it very likely, nor very plausible. Because of dating scripts. But unattractive men are often worse than attractive men, that’s established, because of dating scripts. Which strikes me as just a long-winded and polite way of saying that female shallowness is justified but male shallowness is not, which is something that I’d expect no remotely fair-minded person to believe, to such an extent that I’m not even prepared to respond to it. Again, I realize that this wasn’t you meant. But I don’t think it was such a blatant misreading that could only come from someone not giving even “the most basic benefit of the doubt”. I would be curious as to how others perceive this. I’d imagine that it would fall to which side people were on already, but if even people who are otherwise on my side of things on gender issues agree, then my mea culpa goes double.
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@ pocketjacks
(Sorry, this isn’t very brief either.)
I think big, immediately scary things are called “creepy” less often because “creepiness” connotes a sense of quiet, growing unease. If something jumps at you from the bushes, that’s terrifying. If something is watching or following you, that’s creepy.
In social interaction, some things that appear “creepy” are outward signs of a person being uneasy about their own intentions, but proceeding anyway. People who feel low status often feel “undeserving” of positive attention, and thus are more likely to appear “creepy” in the early stages of interaction.
I must have missed an important meeting, because I don’t recall deciding that.
At least one reason to prioritize “creepiness” over loneliness/preferences/etc. seems pretty good: pleasure is a luxury, safety is a necessity. Also, reducing fear will lead to improved romantic outcomes by itself, while trying to solve other issues first will be less effective.
Actually, I do not. I’m far too oblivious to have “gut feelings”, and too socially anxious to discern any signal in the noise of my fear. But I wish I knew what to do when someone sitting next to me on the bus moves from accidental to intentional touching so very gradually that I doubt my own senses until it’s too late.
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Too much to respond to everything, but some high points:
Yes, powerful people do more harm than less powerful people. So that weird kid on 8chan does less harm than the dude who runs ISIS. Obvi. But here we are talking about “creep,” and ISIS-running-guy is (thankfully) pretty far outside my experience. Dude-on-the-subway is something I deal with all the time.
i’m visibly trans. The men who harass me are probably not perfectly representative. However, I’m also not the only woman who talks about this stuff. Furthermore, I fully participate in our culture. The word “creep” in part of my discourse community, so I know how it gets used and why. I insist that Bugmaster’s approach to the term was misguided and uncharitable to women.
Over the weekend I read a blog post (can’t find it now) where the author called the 50-shades guy “creepy.” Which, yeah.
And yes, I am well aware that many women *don’t* find him creepy, and we can talk about how fucked up that is. But the word “creep” can and is applied to him by at least some people. Which means that it cannot *only* be about unattractive men.
Many of you are hitting me with steelmanned versions of what Bugmaster said instead of what Bugmaster actually said. I’ve already been clear that I believe that shy, awkward men get a raw deal. Many men do. Short men do, along with bald men and fat men and all kinds of men. This happens in romance. It happens in business. (I have a friend who non-ironically uses the term “executive hair.” Which, ewwww!)
Men have a right to be upset about this and talk about it.
Hollywood casts attractive actors for pretty much everything, even characters who are supposed to be nerds. Fine. But I am indeed talking about Willow/Xander versus Cordelia and the jocks. That is a common narrative. I grew up seeing it again and again. It’s wrong.
But note, the reverse narrative is also wrong. The whole thing is a mess.
The men I fear most are young, working class men on the subway. But look, these are not necessarily high status men. Not at all. Instead, the are men who in my view have problems with their status.
When a group of men harass me, it is seldom driven by the highest status member. Instead, it is a lower status member seeking to look tough. I’ve been experiencing this since grade school. It has played out a billion times, again and again.
High status men seldom mess with me. Why would they? In fact, often the high status man in a group will pull his lower status friend away, as if he instinctually knows that messing with the trans woman on the subway platform is not dignified behavior. He’s above that shit. The man who messes with me is not.
In public, I often smile at people. They smile back. It’s really nice. Confident people can be remarkably friendly in ways that feel very genuine to me.
I was not always like this. When I was a young, male-presenting teen, I was afraid to look at people. I see guys like that now, men who remind me of my old-self, and I wish I could help them. I can guess how they perceive the world, as it is likely how I once perceived the world. These perceptions are limited.
I find that people who are happy and satisfied are often kinder people than those who are not. To be clear, I am *not* saying this is always the case, that unhappy people are always mean. OMG no! I am saying that *some* unhappy people lash out. Furthermore, I am suggesting that when they lash out, it is a result of their pain. This is destructive.
The narrative that it is always the successful people who are awful and always the outcasts who are cool is a broken narrative. Yes you can find beautiful cult leaders who abuse. There really are “mean girls” in the world (some of them are trans). On the other hand, Eliot Rogers existed.
Eliot Rogers was creepy as fuck. You all get that, right? I’ve seen the video. It makes my skin crawl.
But it is hardly unique. Very little was said by Eliot Rogers that is not said elsewhere. His manifesto was pretty much standard Redpill nonsense, even if his violence was extreme.
Regarding the Redpill, it is (largely) produced by angry, frustrated nerds, as are the responses to Anita Sarkeesian (and many other online feminists). “Do it for the lulz” culture, chan culture — there are all the products of (largely male) nerds, as are the misogynistic wastelands of Reddit. Weev is a nerd. Violentacrz was a software engineer. I could go on. I would call Dylan Klebold at least nerd-adjacent. (Eric Harris, it seems, was not.)
We can look for unifying themes in all of this, which fine. But on the other hand, as soon as you unify, you map your own preoccupations onto the situation. For example, I do not believe that all nerds are like this, nor even most nerds. However, I am saying this is a problem in nerd-space, and it lands on the heads of women like me.
Some men are creepy. The reasons for this are varied, and women are going to talk about it. And sure, women are not perfect beings who are never wrong. You can (and should) critique the bad choices that women make. You should point out how we can be unfair.
But to say “creep” means “unattractive man expressing his sexuality” ignores all those times where ACTUALLY NO THAT IS NOT WHAT CREEP MEANS!
These other times are really important.
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@pocketjacks:
I disagree. I think the reason it’s associated with insects–and scorpions, snakes and spiders–is that it’s associated with a sense that *you can’t detect them until it’s too late*. Like the black widow spider that has made its web under the seat in the outhouse, and you don’t know about it until it bites you in the goolies. The feeling that thought may give you? That’s “the creeps.”
To the extent that “creepy” attaches to low-status guys more, IMO it’s often for the same reason: the low-status guy is assumed to be harmless. He’s assumed to be weak; he’s assumed to be sexless; he’s assumed to be incapable of hurting anyone even if he wanted to. (Which is a pretty awful and dehumanizing view of someone.) But for that reason, if he does seem likely to hurt you, that’s “creepy” because he “was supposed to be” harmless. There’s a feeling of, “Yikes, he almost got away with it!”
IMO “trying to get away with it,” being a “predator trying to pass themselves off as harmless,” is a big part of being “creepy.”
“Bully”?
I also don’t like it, but for a different reason. Since IMO it’s “sneaky” vs. “direct and overpowering,” what I don’t like is the way people these days seem perfectly content to be hurt as long as it’s done directly and openly. Like, I like honesty too, but *I also don’t want to get hurt*. And it seems like a lot of people today have their “sneaky detector” on high, but they have their “bully detector” practically turned off.
Well, on this topic, I am obviously on both “sides” because I’m a feminist, but I’m also someone who cares about people on the autism spectrum. And I’m *also* someone who’s been mobbed by SJWs.
And I do think you misread him.
It’s almost like you were trying to parse each sentence separately, while ignoring the context of the others, or something. It’s such an extreme misreading that it’s hard to think of a way to explain it differently. Hmm…
OK. IMO he said (Amp, please correct me if I’m wrong): “Bad behavior due to insecurity is caused by the interaction of the individual badly-behaving person’s past negative experiences and the specific situation in which they are behaving badly, and so I assume it occurs equally often in men and women. It is only when the specific situation is a romantic/sexual approach, and the past experience is being treated as unattractive, that this bad behavior is more likely to be generated in men. That is because men are more likely to be in that situation–making a romantic/sexual approach–because of cultural scripts of which I disapprove.”
Is that clearer or is it much *less* clear? (Because I’m feeling like it’s the latter.)
@Nita:
I agree. And I think the reason “outward signs of a person being uneasy about their own intentions, but proceeding anyway” are “creepy”…is because they can also be signs that the person may be in the process of turning off their affective empathy–psyching themselves up to victimize you.
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@Nita and Lizardbreath,
Regarding the animal analogies,
Is it though? I have a feeling that a lion sneaking up on people, as lions are wont to do, either (a) would not be called “creepy” by a lot of people, or if it were, (b) an order of magnitude less likely to labeled as such than a smaller, grosser, more “disgusting” creature that did the same thing. Conversely, certain animals, such as slimy and disgusting ones, would be called creepy even if it did not approach unseen and are there in plain sight.
So frankly, I think both of you are willfully denying the obvious here. There’s an association with these types of men and being gross, disgusting, and small. Among those of them that do unfortunately turn to rage and bitterness, perhaps this is the reason. Perhaps not doing this would work better than anything hardline SJW’s have ever suggested, if there wasn’t this ingrained belief that such ranking of guys – among both men and women – is justified and correct.
“Bully”?
“Bully” is one of the worst examples to use here. It’s one of those words that doesn’t nearly have the moral import that it should.
Recently, the head coach of an NFL team said, in response to an accusation that one of his players was a “bully”, that he’d like to have a team of bullies. I can’t imagine such a statement ever being made of the term “douche”, except with a lot more pre-defending and using humor as a shield. And “creep” would certainly be out of the question.
And yeah, that’s football culture, but similar biases exist in cultures that never watch football. Among the type of people who, as Scott Alexander memorably described, feel like they should watch soccer but can never get around to it.
@veronica,
Yes, powerful people do more harm than less powerful people. So that weird kid on 8chan does less harm than the dude who runs ISIS. Obvi. But here we are talking about “creep,” and ISIS-running-guy is (thankfully) pretty far outside my experience. Dude-on-the-subway is something I deal with all the time.
The comparison isn’t between that weird kid on 8chan and ISIS. The comparison is between the type of person who can only belittle people online, and the type of person who can get away with doing it in real life. The latter, I’d suspect, really is responsible for more real world harm, especially in the “banality of evil” sense.
The men I fear most are young, working class men on the subway. But look, these are not necessarily high status men. Not at all. Instead, the are men who in my view have problems with their status.
When a group of men harass me, it is seldom driven by the highest status member. Instead, it is a lower status member seeking to look tough. I’ve been experiencing this since grade school. It has played out a billion times, again and again.
High status men seldom mess with me. Why would they? In fact, often the high status man in a group will pull his lower status friend away, as if he instinctually knows that messing with the trans woman on the subway platform is not dignified behavior. He’s above that shit. The man who messes with me is not.
The first thing that comes to mind as I read this is that you evidently exactly know that high status and low status are really referring to. I don’t think you’ve ever denied this, but in these sorts of arguments I’m used to dealing with people who pretend they don’t know. (True, there was a thread earlier where some of us spelled out pretty clearly what we mean, but people do that elsewhere as well and that never stops them.) They claim that they can only conceptualize status as referring to income or job status, so if not that, whatever else could we be referring to? Yeah, I’m not buying that for one second.
Second, I can and do picture in my head what you’re talking about. Back in college, while I wasn’t in a frat, I was pretty close with one of them, especially in my first two years. There was one guy who was sort of picked on by the other brothers a lot. I don’t want to insinuate that he ever did anything concretely wrong, but he did seem overly willing to start fights over small matters. But, this was still a frat we’re talking about. He was low-status among the guys in a frat. Your emphasis on “young, working class men” also paints a picture in my mind of what kind of subcultures we’re talking about. You say that these are not “necessarily high status men”, but I get the feeling that they get out more than the type of guys I typically defend (which includes nerds, but you seem to equate low-status wholly with nerds; that’s an incomplete picture). It bothers me when people play up the danger of such guys.
Of course, I’m also reminded of a certain friend of a friend, later in college. He was some sort of applied math student, but not a stereotypical one. He was very strong, a former wrestler I believe, was outgoing, partied a lot, and probably had no social difficulties whatsoever. But when I say outgoing, I mean in the aggressive sense, not the social butterfly sense, and he also tended to drink a lot. He had a habit of trying to talk to girls passing by on the sidewalk during weekend nights and then yelling after them if they ignored him. While I wasn’t there for it, I heard from my friend that he once followed them for several blocks. If I had to pick who among the two had done something really, really wrong in the years since I’ve known them, I’d take the boisterous-aggressive-wrestling-math-guy over the picked-on-hapless-frat-guy.
The narrative that it is always the successful people who are awful and always the outcasts who are cool is a broken narrative.
This, frankly, sounds right-wing as fuck. I don’t think the bolded narrative is anywhere near as strong as you think it is, and I wonder what other areas of life besides men in the sexual arena you ever think the bolded is a problem, to the degree that you are willing to get into multiple, extended, time-consuming arguments over it. If you are anything like most people I’ve seen, who take your side on arguments on issues like this, the answer is basically “never” – which underscores why I emphasized I find much of this anti-liberal and elitist.
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This is where you misunderstand me. I do not equate low status with nerds, neither wholly nor in part. I know way too many high status nerds. To some degree, I *am* a high status nerd.
Furthermore, you’re not even being consistent within your own frame, as *the text I wrote that you were responding to* explicitly talks about low status working class men *who are not nerds*. You referenced my saying that, like right before. Clearly you read what I wrote and understood it, but then in the next paragraph you say its opposite.
Which means you cannot even misrepresent me consistently.
(Sorry to be harsh, but seriously.)
Furthermore, this gets to one of my central points: it is the loveless nerds who place all their problems on their own sense of low status, treating it as an irredeemable affliction. I do not see it that way. (Although I understand this is a point of extreme struggle for many people.)
On the right wing thing, you’re totally off base. There is nothing right wing in noticing the presence of a reverse discourse. Nor is it right wing to point out its flaws. In fact, this is precisely needed in social justice activism, to critique our own frames and our own views. My point is consistent with Serano’s framing on reverse discourses and the harm they do in activist spaces. (In her essay she is talking specifically about trans activisim, but it should be easy to understand and apply her reverse-discourse-vs-decentering frame to other situations.)
Anyway, I’m pretty sure the Heritage Foundation won’t be signing up Julia Serano any time soon.
The narrative I am speaking against is this: that the underdog is always the good guy. It makes a nice story, and it appeals to many of us, insofar as many of us feel like the underdog sometimes. But the problem is obvious. In real life this is not always true. Sometimes the underdog is indeed a hero, but sometimes the underdog is a sadly terrible human being. Sometimes the happy, popular cheerleader is a shallow bitch, but sometimes she is actually really nice.
Knowing the difference is important, as is understanding why some narratives are appealing to us in a way that can lead us astray.
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@veronica,
(Sorry to be harsh, but seriously.)
No worries. And yes, I must have missed that particular part; I was mainly responding to the paragraph with the references to Weev, Reddit, and Sarkeesian, which to me came out of left field.
On the right wing thing, you’re totally off base. There is nothing right wing in noticing the presence of a reverse discourse. Nor is it right wing to point out its flaws. In fact, this is precisely needed in social justice activism, to critique our own frames and our own views. My point is consistent with Serano’s framing on reverse discourses and the harm they do in activist spaces. (In her essay she is talking specifically about trans activisim, but it should be easy to understand and apply her reverse-discourse-vs-decentering frame to other situations.)
Anyway, I’m pretty sure the Heritage Foundation won’t be signing up Julia Serano any time soon.
The narrative I am speaking against is this: that the underdog is always the good guy. It makes a nice story, and it appeals to many of us, insofar as many of us feel like the underdog sometimes. But the problem is obvious. In real life this is not always true. Sometimes the underdog is indeed a hero, but sometimes the underdog is a sadly terrible human being. Sometimes the happy, popular cheerleader is a shallow bitch, but sometimes she is actually really nice.
Knowing the difference is important, as is understanding why some narratives are appealing to us in a way that can lead us astray.
Frankly, SJ-types mentally switching into fundamentally right wing frames when it comes to male status issues is common and I will always call it out when I see it. (A common one I see is an implied dichotomy between “equality” and “freedom”.) But moving on to what you say about underdogs…
All of which may be all well and good in isolation. But is there any organic backlash or pushback among SJ-types against the alleged pro-underdog bias in Hollywood in any genre or context other than with male romantic leads/high school movies/college movies? (All of which are highly interrelated, and get at being an underdog along a specific intra-male hierarchy within the twenty-something social scene.) The cultural preference for underdog stories is certainly not limited to this genre, after all. Action movies, horror movies, sports movies,
I don’t detect any, to any significant levels*. Which makes this waxing philosophical about the artistic or social merits of the standard underdog tale seem disingenuous and a red herring. You guys have no problems with underdog tales 90% of the time; only when the underdog in question is a particular type of man, and the underdog an underdog along a particular axis of social power.
I’ve always lived in Blue enclaves. I’ve heard complaints about the pro-underdog bias in certain movies, in particular high school movies. They never have a problem with pro-underdog biases in any other genre. The fact that it especially bothers them here itself is what bothers me.
I don’t think “socially successful people are awful” is a common fictional narrative any more so than “the military are awful” (in apocalyptic dramas, the ragtag group of survivors outlast them; the authorities mainly exist to be dicks to the main characters, then perish first despite being infinitely better prepared and trained for this sort of thing), “last year’s champions are awful”, “competent people are awful” (again in survival situations, the most competent and knowledgeable people tend to die in order to highlight the gravity of the situation), and in particular, I think “rich people are awful”. In fact, the standard liberal defense against conservatives who allege that last one, pertains here too. In movies that draw attention to a wealth disparity, or those in which such disparities are part of the “point” or theme of the movie, of course the poor person is more likely to be good and the rich person bad, more so than the reverse. But in all those movies where this isn’t the point, the characters we are supposed to root for all seem to have considerably higher incomes than the median American. The analogy here is obvious.
*The closest thing I can think of is that the term “ragtag band of colorful misfits” has become a term of gentle mockery of a particular common trope. But emphasis on gentle. There is no sense of moral outrage, no accusations that men who tend to be colorful misfits become screenwriters and act out their rage against non-ragtag misfits; it is rightfully contained to criticism of fiction, with no spillover into real life, no screeds on lefty media outlets like Slate or Gawker detailing how real-life ragtag misfits are worse people than you think, complete with sob stories and how they’re totally going against the mainstream grain by punching down on them.
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There is probably a degree of Halo/Horns effect going on here, too. Attractive people get all kinds of positive traits attributed to them and unattractive people get negative traits. Attractive people are more likely to be judged Honest and Smart. That doesn’t mean that Honesty and Intelligence are not real thing that exist independently of Attractiveness.
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Ignore my comment. Everyone else said it first and better. That’s what I get for commenting late, and before I’ve read the whole thread.
(@ozy: Can we get a delete button too when you get around to the edit button?)
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I think it is a repost, looking at the dates on the blogs Ozy links.
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So, you’ve had replies like this:
Perhaps “creep”, like many other words, is used in several different ways? I don’t know what kids these days are like, but a while ago “gay” could mean either “homosexual” or “bad”, especially if used by a male teenager.
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I find it kind of amusing 4chan/8chan now commonly use gayfag to refer to homosexuals. As both “gay” especially “fag” have lost most of their original meaning.
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I share your ambivalence about the term, and agree that it shouldn’t be done away with. The fact is that it is often used as “haha, this guy was awkward” or “haha, this guy thought he had a chance with *me*”. Still, it’s important as an expression of boundary violations.
“Being angry that you deserve sex with an attractive member of the correct gender and why is the universe not providing it.”
Is this creepy? I mean, I guess it depends on how one expresses it, but I don’t think there’s anything creepy about being upset and angry about having a hard time getting laid/getting a relationship, as long as you don’t take it out on others.
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In general, I really dislike thought-policing. Saying that “if you feel angry about X then you are a creep (regardless of how you act)” is, in practice, the same way as saying “I have just now invented a totally unfalsifiable way to label anyone a creep, how bully for me”. At least, this is the case for now; once we humans develop telepathy, things might change.
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” Do you not describe women doing creepy behavior as creepy? That’s problematic.”
(What follows is a response I do not necessarily endorse, but I’m interested in hearing responses.)
No, it’s not problematic. Men rape far more than women, so treating them as inherently more creepy is simply being realistic. P(Rape|Man hitting on me in a closed environment) obviously exceeds P(Rape|Woman hitting on me in a closed environment). It sucks that they can’t help being born male, but they need to accept their role as members of an oppressing class.
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This is actually non-obvious, given that P(Woman hitting on me in a closed environment) is, at least for most women, much less than P(Man hitting on me in a closed environment).
It sucks that they can’t help being born male, but they need to accept their role as members of an oppressing class.
Classes are abstractions; only individuals actually exist.
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WTF?
I take it you think people treating Blacks as criminals is ok too?
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I can’t tell from your response if you noticed the line about how I didn’t endorse that statement, so I figure I should emphasize that. Also yeah, that’s my gut reaction too, but saying that gets you burned at the stake in most social justice circles because you’re comparing men’s problems to black people’s.
(Switching back to Devil’s Advocate mode, which again I don’t endorse.)
“Of course not. There’s no innate biological difference between whites and black, but there most certainly is one between men and women. Testosterone observably causes increases in aggression and sex drive. It’s just biology.”
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Yeah sorry about that. Those sorts of posts squick me out pretty hard and I forogt the disclaimer. this stuff literally reminds me of Communist propoganda justifying the murder of whole classes of people. Tumblr SJ is not murder-communism but your quote really does sound like something from the Khmer Rouge. The “accept you are part of the opressor class” really pattern matched to some horrible stuff.
At any rate I am really not interested in giving my replies to “standard SJ devil’s advocate.” They always have some way to “explain” why their concepts only apply when they want them to. It should be obvious that the “logic” of treating me/Blacks as criminals doesn’t depend on crime rates being biological.
I don’t know I think its foolish to even try to argue logically with someone who argues the way your “SJ DA” argues. At some point you will say something that “sounds bad” and they will use this against you.
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Obvious counter-Devil’s Advocate reply: There may not be a relevant innate difference between whites and blacks, in the sense that being socially defined black intrinsically means that you have relevant property X. But that’s true of men and women as well: Some men have lower testosterone levels than virtually all women, and some women have higher testosterone levels than virtually all men, and while both of these situations are outliers, the overlap between the distributions in a broader sense is substantial. And just as men on average have higher testosterone levels than women, so it would appear (empirically) that blacks on average have higher levels of some genetically-deteremined factor or factors which predispose(s) them to violent crime.
Back to propria voce: I am not convinced that this is true, but not convinced that it is demonstrably untrue either. AFAICT, there is no solid evidence either way, and the wealth of confounders makes it really fucking hard to figure out a way to test this question.
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Why would it matter that the difference is innate? From a potential victim’s POV, that question is academic.
The only defense against accurate stereotyping is the classical liberal defense, i.e. precommitting to treat people as though we had no knowledge of their stereotype-relevant group membership. Unfortunately, this begins to seem more and more like unilateral disarmament to men who get hit with the Schrodinger’s Rapist/poisoned M&Ms memes every time we turn around.
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[citation needed]
Wait, no, I’ll provide a citation. According to the 2010 CDC Nation Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey, there were 1,270,000 (1.1% of population, page 18) women who experienced rape or attempted rape in the previous 12 months, while there were 1,267,000 (1.1% of population, page 19) men who experienced made-to-penetrate or attempted made-to-penetrate (because heterosexual intercourse initiated by a woman without the man’s consent isn’t rape, according to the CDC, page 17) in the prior 12 months. For female rape victims, 98.1% of perpetrators were male (page 24). For male made-to-penetrate victims, 79.2% of the perpetrators were female (page 24). Thus, roughly, 1,245,870 heterosexual male rapists vs 1,003,464 heterosexual female rapists, for ~44.6% of heterosexual rapists in 2009 being female (~39.5% of rapists in 2009 were female).
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Minor nitpick; it probably doesn’t affect your point, unless the phenomenon differs between male and female rapists (which I suppose it might, but I have no evidence either way), but you shouldn’t jump from x number of rapes to x number of rapists. Most rapists are repeat offenders, often repeating many times, so the number of rapists is in fact much lower than the number of rapes.
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Quite right, the exact phrasing would be something like “~39.5% of rape victims in 2009 were men who were only victimized by women”. While the the relationship between number of victims and number of perpetrators may vary between the sexes, we don’t know which way it leans (if it does so at all).
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Huh, that’s really weird, because the lifetime numbers have females as three times more likely to be victims. I’m really wondering what’s going on there – has rape against females dropped by 2/3rds, were male victims underreported, or something else? o.o
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@Kaminiwa: [content warning: musings that could readily pattern-match to victim-blaming for someone with related triggers]
Another possiblity: Some people have a lasting propensity to get raped. What that means varies: They may give off “good victim”/veulnerable vibes*, have substance abuse problems, have low self-esteem, be people the police will be unlikely to care about, be in abusive marriages . . . whatever. The point is, by the time of their first or second rape, you can predict with a fair degree of confidence that it’s not going to be their last.
None of this, I want to be clear, means that getting raped is their fault or what they deserve. It just means that it’s predictable.
Other people don’t have such a lasting propensity, but get raped anyway. Some of them may even get raped multiple times. But the average number of rapes they suffer is going to be a lot lower.
If we’re seeing roughly equal numbers of men and women raped each year, but more women than men raped over the course of their lifetime, one possible explanation is that men can be just as likely as women to have a propensity to be raped (or even more so), but that women without such a propensity are much more likely than men without it to be raped once or twice anyway.
This would particularly surprise me if true.
*IIRC, there was a study that asked a number of imprisoned muggers to pick out who they would target from video of people walking down the street, and the level of agreement between different muggers was quite high.
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Protagoras, the survey only reaches people over the age of 18. That probably accounts for most or all of it.
other explanations compatible with the stats besides ‘teenage girls are rape targets’
-men may be more likely to be repeat victims.
-men may be more likely to forget that they were victims.
But you know, it’s teenagers. You grow up, you learn to protect yourself. You learn to freeze out the creeps. You don’t instinctively defer to adult men. You don’t feel like you’ve got an obligation to be nice or polite if someone is intruding on you. You get your boundaries pushed a lot less because you find ways to disengage before things get uncomfortable. Teenage girls don’t know how to do that, and they’re very disadvantaged because they’re in that child/adult transition and as children were taught to be polite to adults. Women learn. Some learn harder than others.
(I wish there was a teenage-girl friendly version of “Gift of Fear.” I got from that book the absolute certainty that I don’t owe time, attention or ego-soothing to people I don’t want to talk to, and it was incredibly liberating. But I could have used it when I was much younger. And I think all teenage girls need to know that, deep down in their bones.)
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Sorry, comment was addressed to Kaminawa, not Protagoras.
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@Kaminiwa: in England, rates of sexual assaults on women have apparently dropped by ~50% since 2005/2006, and the number of domestic violence incidents has been divided by 4 since 1993. Source HetPat, Ally Fogg’s blog. Some people in the comments are however arguing that violence by women on men is not decreasing. That might explain the difference between recent and lifetime. I’m not aware of similar data for the US at this point.
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Hey, you beat me to the punch, and you took the time to dig the numbers out, too.
Additional note: Being made to penetrate is not classified as rape in the study. If you read summaries, the rape of men will be artificially suppressed as a result. Go to the original source.
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Ack, that last line of my previous reply should be “This would not particularly surprise me if true.”
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>If we’re seeing roughly equal numbers of men and women raped each year, but more women than men raped over the course of their lifetime, one possible explanation is that men can be just as likely as women to have a propensity to be raped (or even more so), but that women without such a propensity are much more likely than men without it to be raped once or twice anyway.
If I remember right… wait, no, the link’s right there, I’ll just look it up.
Okay, yeah. The CDC study isn’t counting events, it’s counting victims. A person would count the same in the stats whether they were raped (or, er, “made to penetrate”, and if that’s not a bullshit distinction I’ve never seen one) ten times or once over the survey period, so the repeat-victim hypothesis doesn’t hold water here.
That’s really weird, all right. I wouldn’t be surprised if social changes over the last thirty years or so were driving some of the change, but it’s a big enough delta that I doubt they’re covering all of it. The only other explanation that makes sense to me is that men are also more likely to forget or dismiss some of these events, and if so the causal mechanism probably has to do with cultural minimization of sexual violence towards men.
I’m not sure what to think of this, from a normative perspective.
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Wait, no, I was thinking about that wrong. Even though it’s counting victims, the repeat-victims hypothesis could still make sense if men are substantially more likely than women to be raped in multiple years. That’d translate to underrepresentation in the lifetime stats even if the total number of events (as proxied by the yearly stats) is about the same.
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Well, the belief that women are inherently uncreepy, in my experience, tends to lead to people ignoring when women commit sexual harassment and assault. I’ve been in supposedly progressive spaces where there were one or two women who routinely groped people (usually men or queer women, because *obviously they liked it* no matter how many times they asked the gropers to stop), and where I was the only person who found anything fucked-up about that.
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Did anyone hit the assailants? While that shouldn’t be necessary, it seems like the obvious sensible response after asking nicely fails.
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Yes. That person was me, and I was roundly criticized for being a bitch. I am sure that if any of the dudes involved had done the same, the reaction would have been much worse.
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I commend you for your admirable response.
I am quite sure that you’re right about the dudes; nevertheless, in their shoes, I would have struck the assailant, and berated anyone who criticized me for it.
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@osberend: Given the situation vis-a-vis men assaulting women, I would not advise a man to hit a woman unless he was genuinely in fear for his life.
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I would second what kalvarnsen said there.
Hitting women == jail time, even after they poke holes in you with scissors in front of witnesses. Just don’t.
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@kalvarnsen, Fossegrimen: I appreciate the advice, but as a matter of honor, I would rather risk jail time than allow someone to assault me without injuring them.
And it is risk, not certainty. One of my friends struck a woman after she struck him first (with a large rubber dildo, in a bar), and was merely tackled and punched by some random dude who took offense to his “hitting a woman,” then banned from the premises.
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“A behavior is creepy if it would make a reasonable person with only an average amount of trauma feel uncomfortable or unsafe”
If a woman is making a man feel uncomfortable/unsafe, then I think it’s safe to say it’s still problematic.
I think you have a valid point that, given the social dynamics, women are probably *less likely* to be creepy, because men are naturally going to feel safer. But when they *do* cross the line, it’s problematic to give them a free pass.
(I’d also object to labeling men as part of an “oppressing” class. Linguistically, it suggests that all men are oppressive, which is clearly false; whereas if you say “privileged”, well… all men really *do* experience male privilege, even if they’re marginalized on other axes)
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Your statistics are, incidentally, wrong, or at least oversimplified. I use the CDC’s National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence study as my source because it’s as reputable as they come (they have resources, work with the government and not a dedicated think-tank, are long established, etc.), and when you look at the original report rather than the summary, you find that men and women were raped at roughly the same rate in the year prior, and that the vast majority of the men raped were raped by women. (This does not include the rape of prisoners.)
Furthermore, as an additional data point, domestic violence and rape in gay and lesbian communities – including when it is divided by study into only gay men and only lesbians – occurs at the same rate it does between straight people, suggesting again that women are just as violent as men.
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A review of data supporting ninecarpals’s claim :
Partner Abuse in Ethnic Minority and Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender Populations
Source http://www.domesticviolenceresearch.org/
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“Men rape far more than women, so treating them as inherently more creepy is simply being realistic”
We don’t know that, especially since that is based on unreliable crime reporting. There are whole countries where it is legally impossible for a woman to rape a man or for that rape to be recorded as a rape.
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“Men rape far more than women, so treating them as inherently more creepy is simply being realistic. P(Rape|Man hitting on me in a closed environment) obviously exceeds P(Rape|Woman hitting on me in a closed environment). ”
We don’t know this because we cannot. We cannot because the legal system erases female rapists, explicitly in some jurisdictions, where a woman simply cannot be charged with rape, and functionally where the police simply will not take rape reports from males. In fact it is only in recent years that society has even started to call child rape by teachers rape – child rape! Women basically have license to rape in this society. So that’s going to skew the stats that you are probably basing you comment on.
Something else – and this is the farthest thing form your intent, I am sure – but in other contexts this kind of denial is denounced as rape apology.
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I’d agree with most of your post, and I find the classism/ablism/etc of the word accurate, and I agree that it is important to make it easy and socially acceptable for people to express boundaries. My problem is this: people don’t use the word “creep” to people’s face to police their boundary directly. In my experience it is used far more often behind their back. This is not going to teach people to respect boundaries. Instead that’s used for gossip and ostracizing people.
I’m also worried how very vague the word is. Denigrating, vague words have a frequent tendency to become problematic. When people fall back on “I know it when I see it”, it turns out a lot of people disagree whether they see it when dealing with real life examples.
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I agree that it is important to make it easy and socially acceptable for people to express boundaries.
No, it’s important to make it easy and socially acceptable for people to express reasonable boundaries. Making expressing boundaries in general easy and socially acceptable leads to enforcement of unreasonable boundaries.
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I don’t think it’s reasonable to use the word “reasonable” when talking about boundaries, flirting, and pretty much any other term that boils down to an individual’s preferences. There’s no difference, as far as I can tell, between the term “reasonable boundaries” and “the boundaries I personally prefer”. It’s the Typical Mind Fallacy writ large.
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Having a boundary is reasonable only if someone crossing it without consent is a rights-violation. Short of that, it’s a mere preference, possibly one that will motivate action (e.g. leaving a conversation). Conflation of the two is a source of much SJ (and general) bullshit.
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@Bugmaster: We can define ‘reasonable’ as ‘culturally normative’ and get something defensible.
Preferences — say a preference for interpersonal distance — are arbitrary on some level. There’s no real objective reason to prefer 2′ of space to 4′ of space.
In practice, societies settle on some default (whatever it happens to be) and use that as a baseline for non-verbal communication. Without these defaults, we’d have to negotiate a communication protocol ex-nihilo every single time we met someone new. That would be impractical.
We also have a reason to enforce these default boundaries a bit more consistently than personal, ad-hoc ones. A big difference is that people know the default rules and are supposed to follow them habitually.
So, someone who violates a default rule (say, by putting their hands into the pockets of my jeans) is assumed to be making a very deliberate, conscious choice and would get condemned more than someone who’d violated an ad-hoc boundary.
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> We can define ‘reasonable’ as ‘culturally normative’ and get something defensible.
I doubt it — isn’t the entire purpose of social justice pretty much to change what is considered to be “culturally normative” ? I understand what you’re saying, but I don’t think it applies in this case at all.
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I emphatically disagree that culturally normative boundaries are a good guide to what is reasonable.
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This subject is a major source of anger for me, so it’s possible this comment is intemperate, although I’m not feeling nearly as heated as I generally am. Oh well, gonna forge ahead anyway.
Nevertheless, I do support the continued existence of the word “creep.” Very simply, we do need a word to express the concept “a person who makes other people feel uncomfortable or unsafe, especially in a sexualized way.”
No, we don’t. We need words for people who do specific rights-violating things that tend to produce that outcome, of course, but we already have those. “Assailant” covers non-consensual touch, and “harasser” covers persistence in directed communication in the face of a request to stop and in the absence of a proper justification to continue (e.g. right-of-reply). “Trespasser” covers someone who is on your property unlawfully. And so forth. If you think there needs to be a more stigmatizing label than “asshole” for people who aren’t violating your rights, that’s your problem.
Also, lumping together “uncomfortable” and “unsafe” is highly unwarranted, and suggestive of some very nasty real goals.
It’s an ableist term, applied to people with, for example, autism and Asperger’s syndrome [. . .] Behavior that would probably qualify as creepy under this scheme includes: Continuing to talk to someone, especially a stranger or acquaintance, who has negative body language
No comment needed.
[. . .] or says they would not like to talk to you.
That’s harassment, under most circumstances. It also should emphatically not be lumped in with the criterion above. Use your words, people.
Hitting on a stranger in an enclosed environment (such as a moving vehicle), a deserted area or very late at night.
Suboptimal, but not worthy of stigmatization unless done for the specific purpose of of creating a feeling of danger, in which case the person doing it is a menacer. Also, why is “very late at night” relevant, unless one is in “a deserted area?”
Telling a stranger how much you’d like to fuck them as your opening line.
Efficiency and directness in communication should be encouraged.
Sending a person you went out on a date with thirty emails and ten phone calls.
If they’ve asked you to stop, this is harassment. If they haven’t, whose fault is that?
-Pressuring a person into physical contact (anything from a handshake to sex) they don’t want.
-Hitting on people who are likely to feel pressured into saying yes, such as teenagers (if you are over the age of 21) or students or employees.
If there are threats involved, this is menacing, and possibly assault (and rape, in the “sex” case). If not, maybe the other person should grow a spine.
Taking someone out on something that is not a date, which you plan on turning into a date.
Lying in order to do this makes you a liar. Apart from that, what’s the big deal?
“Accidentally” turning up in the psychology class, coffeeshop or laundromat of the person you have a crush on.
Taken to an extreme (and after being asked to desist), this is stalking; short of that point, why care?
Only talking to people you want to fuck at a party.
Narrowly goal-directed behavior is creepy now?
Poor social skills in general.
Again, no comment needed.
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“If not, maybe the other person should grow a spine.”
Humanity 1.0 suffers from a known bug whereby repeated application of social pressure can result in short-term reductions of agency. Certain users exploit this bug to gain sex outside the standard quest line reward system.
I’m not saying it should be illegal to exploit this bug, but it certainly seems like antisocial behavior, and I see nothing against calling such people creeps.
Besides, it seems a bit hypocritical to use social pressure to get what you want, and then complain about people using social pressure against you…
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I’m not quite sure what you mean by “reductions in agency.” Can you elaborate?
Also, while extremes of exploiting this may be antisocial, there’s a lot of stuff that gets labeled (at least by hardliners) as “pressure” that’s perfectly reasonable behavior. For example, I’ve had multiple people argue to me that if you partner tells you that they don’t want to do sex act X, and you can’t be satisfied in a relationship without ever getting X, that it is not only wrong but (at least morally) sexual assault for you to tell them this in the hopes that they’ll decide that being in a relationship with you is worth the price of doing X. Instead, you are morally obligated to break up with them, without giving them the option. so as not to pressure them into doing something sexual.
Besides, it seems a bit hypocritical to use social pressure to get what you want, and then complain about people using social pressure against you…
Personal emotional pressure =/= generalized social pressure.
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@osberend: Oh, sorry. It was a cute way of saying that if you badger someone repeatedly, disrespect their stated preferences, etc., they’ll often give in even though they still don’t actually *want* to do the thing. So, their agency, their ability to decide for themselves, has been reduced.
—
The problem I see with “Do X or I break up with you” is that *some* people use that as a way of pressuring people in to sex and, not being telepathic, your partners don’t know if you’re offering a genuine dilemma. In other words, it pattern matches to manipulative / threatening (in this case, the threat being a breakup).
I can think of lots of ways to express “X is a requirement for me” without pattern matching, but I can also see ways where it would be really problematic.
Calling it “sexual assault” seems completely unreasonable unless you’re deliberately trying to manipulate people in to sex that they don’t want. You seem like a decent person, so I’m assuming that’s not the case 🙂
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@Kaminiwa: Oh, sorry. It was a cute way of saying that if you badger someone repeatedly, disrespect their stated preferences, etc., they’ll often give in even though they still don’t actually *want* to do the thing. So, their agency, their ability to decide for themselves, has been reduced.
Ah, thanks for the clarification. I’m still not sure that I agree, though. As I see it, they have still decided for themselves just as much as in the absence of pressure; they have merely decided between (a) doing the thing, (b) not doing the thing and continuing to be badgered, and (c) not doing the thing and telling the person badgering them to fuck off, rather than between (a) doing the thing and (b’) not doing the thing [and that’s all]. Where is the loss of agency?
The problem I see with “Do X or I break up with you” is that *some* people use that as a way of pressuring people in to sex and, not being telepathic, your partners don’t know if you’re offering a genuine dilemma.
So they should simply treat it as a genuine dilemma, and choose on that basis. If they decide that they’d rather do X than not be in a relationship with you, then that’s the choice that they’ve made, right?
That doesn’t make it okay to lie (by telling someone you will break up with them if they don’t do X when you actually wouldn’t) for that purpose, of course. But how is the uncertainty itself relevant?
In other words, it pattern matches to manipulative / threatening (in this case, the threat being a breakup).
Which is not a threat to deprive them of anything they have a right to (since they have no right to be in a relationship with you if that’s not what you want), and therefore is not coercion. Apart from the possibility of lying, what’s the problem?
Calling it “sexual assault” seems completely unreasonable unless you’re deliberately trying to manipulate people in to sex that they don’t want. You seem like a decent person, so I’m assuming that’s not the case 🙂
For me, this is entirely theoretical (at least, thus far) anyway. I’ve gotten into arguments over it because other people have pushed the “emotional pressure is coercion” line and I’ve fought against it.
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Kaminiwa: Again, the thing with “don’t pressure people” is that a line needs to be drawn; there’s all sorts of minor things that could have a pressuring effect but I don’t think we want to say are bad. See e.g. my example here.
More generally, as I mentioned back on Scott Aaronson’s blog, there’s a fundamental tension here — it’s hard to make a request totally neutral. It’s hard to make it so that either one of a negative or affirmative answer would sound natural. Trying to make an affirmative answer sound natural risks making a negative answer sound unnatural, i.e., pressuring. Conversely, trying to make a negative answer sound natural risks reducing their agency in the other direction, if we’re taking this threat seriously.
Merely asking for confirmation — “You sure?” — can be concluded to be over the line, based on some of what I’ve seen on the internet.
Deliberately/actively pressuring, e.g. by guilting or badgering, is of course obviously bad, but I don’t think people realize how broad the word “pressuring” potentially is. (“Badgering” is still a fuzzy word, but it’s much more concrete than “pressuring”, so I like it.)
(Also what osberend said about breaking up; I’m sure one could come up with more similar examples.)
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@ Sniffnoy
First, I’d like to make it clear that I’m only going to talk about personal standards of behavior here, i.e., “what should I do?”, not “what they did is wrong”.
So, in my experience, a common way to reduce pressure is saying something like “hey, it’s OK if you don’t want to”, with various degrees of additional reassurance (optional).
Of course, saying that with conviction can be a challenge, but you can tap into your love/respect/compassion for the other person, or your “outcome independence”, or whatever helps you get your immediate feelings in line with your long-term goals.
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@Nita: It is impossible to reassure some people that it’s okay for them to say no, because they’ve thoroughly internalized the idea that it’s not, so even if you can persuade them that you won’t feel they’re being a bad girlfriend/boyfriend, they’ll still feel it.
The only real sane reaction to this, I think, is to accept that the mere fact of someone else feeling emotionally or socially pressured is not something that you have a duty to prevent. You have a duty not to behave dishonorably in order to pressure them (or for any other reason), of course. But if you behave honorably, and they still feel pressured (and even, I contend, if your honorable behavior is apt to result in their feeling pressured*), then so be it.
*I’m not convinced that “pressure” is intrinsically bad, anyway, up to a point. If your partner is convinced that you won’t love them if they don’t do X, that’s bad (outside, perhaps, of a few weird edge cases), but if you’re partner thinks that you really want them to do X, and will be disappointed but accept it if they don’t . . . why is that bad, if it’s true? Maybe they’ll decide that they prefer to do X and have you please rather than not do X and have you disappointed. Their preferences are better satisfied as a result, as are (presumably) yours. This seems like a win-win outcome.
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I should probably add that reassuring them that it’s okay if they don’t want to is itself an honorable thing to do, at least insofar as that accurately reflects the nature of the situation and/or your true feelings.
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Nita: OK? I’m not sure how that’s helpful. I think you might have missed my point.
(So, actually, osberend’s reply seems to have substantial overlap with what I was going to say. But I’ll say it anyway, despite the redundancy, because I have a bit to add, and the point of view is slightly different.)
Like, this might be useful if I were looking for personal advice. But that’s not what I’m doing here. More on that later.
So, the obvious problem is: Where does it end? How much reassurance is enough? As it is, you can always say “Ah, but maybe even despite my reassurance, they were still feeling pressured”. Do you just continue until they snap at you and say “Holy shit, I told you yes, what the hell’s your problem?”
Basically, trying to appease scrupulosity is a mistake. It can always demand more. What we need to do is draw a line, to say, “This will suffice”. And it’s not necessarily going to be a simple line, one that you can evaluate without paying close attention to detailed context; but there needs to be some notion of de minimis, that some things are only “pressuring” in the same way that taking a pen apparently abandoned by its owner is “stealing”.
So like I said — I’m not looking for personal advice here. I’m calling for the same thing I’m always calling for: Better principles based on more coherent concepts and foundations. Because the current standard feminist analysis of consent doesn’t work. It doesn’t work for sex/romance, and it doesn’t work for ordinary life. It only appears to work because people mix it with such large amounts of common sense as to render it barely recognizable to a literalist like me.
We need principles that work in the real world, where people frequently don’t have fixed desires and intentions; where people are influenceable, and that’s not always a bad thing! Where asking for confirmation is not substantially pressuring, and yet does often cause people to change their mind regardless[0]. (Can the standard analysis of “consent” explain why asking for confirmation is OK, but asking three times is usually badgering? No, it fails to distinguish them; it classes both as just “asking repeatedly”.) I think Sarah has said some good things on what that might look like, although the particular example I’m thinking of is on Facebook, so I think I’ll avoid linking it here…
(As I keep saying — I trust feminists’ concrete examples! I just don’t trust their abstractions, or their skill at translating extension to intension. Which of course raises the other point I always make, that possibly the better alternative is not better principles, but doing away with stated principles altogether in favor of extensional learning. This would require being more forgiving, of course…)
(BTW, I seem to recall Scott long ago linking to some SJer on Tumblr actually saying more or less what osberend says above about what duties you do and do not have. I’ve never been able to find it again though.)
[0]Maybe it just doesn’t so much when it comes to sex/romance. Not really my area, you know. But for plenty of things it does, and if you can’t account for that, you have a problem.
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@ osberend
Thanks for that clarification — for a moment I was worried that you´re advocating taking advantage of other people´s irrational feelings 🙂
@ Sniffnoy
Sorry this took me so long to write. I think there´s something big at the root of our disagreement, and I´ve been mulling it over.
You seem to want some set of universal rules of behaviour that you can apply in every situation and be ¨in the right¨. But minds are messy, varied and weird, they are not mathematical objects or machines that we can make coherent and well-behaved by design.
So far, the efforts to solve issues of social interaction by creating rigid standards has resulted in a lot of misery for non-standard minds. Ladylike/manly behaviour feels alien to you? We don´t care; as a vagina/penis-haver, you must adhere to the vagina/penis-haver standard of behaviour. You don´t naturally make eye contact? There´s something wrong with you, at least imitate a normal person if you can´t be one. You get upset at ¨pranks¨ or teasing? Your reaction is wrong, get over it.
That´s why I´m wary of any plan that involves specifying the same ¨correct¨ behaviour for all people in all situations. In my opinion, there is no literalist solution. The only humane solutions are as messy and error-prone as the minds they´re trying to satisfy.
I´m in favour of individuals doing their best to accommodate both their own needs and the needs of whoever they´re interacting with. If you´re prone to scrupulosity, take that into account, and perhaps tell your friends as well. If the person you´re talking to just got out of a bad relationship that eroded their ability to say no, take that into account. Generally, if someone reacts in an unexpected way, trying to make things better is superior to referring to the Rule Book and proving that you did nothing wrong.
You´re right that it requires a lot of forgiving on all sides, and also a lot of work. And sometimes there will be no way to satisfy everyone´s needs with everyone´s abilities, so someone will still end up hurt.
Well, at least this is an easy question!
Confirmation:
– Do you want to do X?
– Yes.
– Are you sure?
– Yes.
– Really?
– Yes!
Badgering:
– Do you want to do X?
– No.
– How about now?
– No.
– Come on! Pleeeeease?
– No!
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This:
This, this, this.
This, it seems to me, is the unacknowledged subtext of many of these conversation. One set of folks wants some “rules.” Another set of folks cannot really provide them.
Speaking for myself, I could not give a clear and finite set of rules regarding how to flirt with me, never mind women in general. Even if I tried, and if I typed them up somewhere, then fine. But they wouldn’t work. Some man would follow the letter but not the spirit, and then I have to then deal with that man crying out, “Hey! I followed the rules you wrote!”
Blah. Do not want.
But then, if I wrote the rules strict enough to preclude all possible behavior that might be creepy, then those would rule out a lot of behavior that, done by those socially adroit, would actually be quite pleasant. Such strict rules would diminish my life.
Hugh Ristik was right about one thing in his article (linked in Ozy’s post): these are not *basic* social skills; they are intermediate and advanced skills. For some folks they come kinda naturally. Others have to work at them. A few will never get them at all.
(For the record, I’m in the middle group. Social stuff came slowly to me.)
But look, the social stuff is *the game*. For many of us it is the fun part. I like sex fine, but I like dancing and flirting more. I like the lights and the people and making new friends, even if they’re a friend for only one evening, just an hour or so dancing and chatting at the bar. That’s a lovely thing.
The social stuff is not a needless hurdle to get to intimacy. It *is* the intimacy.
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Nita: I think we’re in less disagreement than you think! So, I’ve said before that any attempt to explain this sort of thing is going to have to have fuzzy parts, parts that boil down to “use your common sense, use your judgment”. Any attempt otherwise is doomed to failure.
But this is exactly why I have such a problem with the rules feminists have laid down! They involve all these rules (or often concepts — frequently the rule is bound up in the concept) that they claim are simple, that they give simple explanations for; but when you look at what they actually do, nope, they act like these concepts involve a lot of common sense and judgment, and don’t actually abide by the definitions that they gave.
And I think this is because they have their “common-sense goggles” on; they don’t know how to take things literally, how to interpret things except through the lens of common sense; they honestly think they are following the rules they set down, because they don’t know what it means to really follow a rule. But doing that precludes serious discussion, which requires turning off your common sense and getting technical. Otherwise you can’t converse with anyone who doesn’t already know what you’re talking about.
So I’m not against fuzziness; I’m totally fine with “I don’t know how to explain this rule/concept, but it’s basically so, here’s some examples of each side of it so you can get a better idea what I’m talking about, use your common sense.” I’m against fuzziness that claims to be sharp, which includes fuzziness that implicitly claims to be sharp by using the language of sharpness unqualified.
Hence why I say, I trust their examples, I just don’t trust their conversion of extension to intension. But if they prefaced all their rules and concepts with “Well, roughly…”, I’d have less of a problem. 🙂
The “common-sense goggles” thing basically makes discussion impossible, too. Like, here’s one possibility of what I expect a sensible discussion to look like:
Feminist: X is bad. [Or, X is an example of Y.]
Dissenter: Counterexample! Here’s a situation where X is good! [Or, not an example of Y. You can change things as appropriate.]
Feminist: OK, X is bad, with the following exceptions.
Dissenter: Further counterexample!
Now, one way this ends is with Feminist and Dissenter coming to agreement on some absurdly complicated rule. But I think it’s also a fine resolution if it ends with A saying “OK, I guess I don’t understand this as well as I thought. I’d say that ordinarily X is bad, but there are countervailing considerations, such as Z and W (which in turn have countervailing considerations U and V). Ultimately I guess you have to use your judgment. Hopefully, though, the examples we’ve collected in the course of this argument present a good guideline of what’s OK and what’s not. Exceptional situations may be harder.”
But what is an utterly unhelpful response, and what I typically instead see is:
Feminist: X is an example of Y.
Dissenter: Counterexample! Here’s a situation where X is not Y!
Feminist: That’s not X, use your common sense! Geez!
Nope. You want to talk serious, you can’t smuggle common sense into your concepts without explicitly saying so. It can involve common sense or it can have a simple definition but it can’t be both. Violating this is just a recipe for constant equivocation, not to mention question-begging.
(As for confirmation vs. badgering, I think my comments on the “Good consent” thread demonstrate that I’m thinking of something rather different than you are here. 🙂 )
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“Sending a person you went out on a date with thirty emails and ten phone calls.
If they’ve asked you to stop, this is harassment. If they haven’t, whose fault is that?”
The problem is that successful harassers often will make their victims afraid to say anything out of fear of violence or social fallout.
“Also, lumping together “uncomfortable” and “unsafe” is highly unwarranted, and suggestive of some very nasty real goals.”
The standard line of reasoning I see given is that one’s gut is a reliable indicator of danger and should be listened to. Therefore, anyone who tries to talk into treating your fear as irrational is intentionally or unintentionally trying to groom you as a potential victim. I reluctantly acknowledge some truth to this, but wish to point out that anyone taking this line of reasoning must also concede that the gut is a racist, classist, ableist place, and that behavior which follows it will reflect those biases.
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Imo you should not do something likely to creep someone out or make them feel unsafe. 10 calls or 30 emails will creep out alot of people. So you should have thought hard and be pretty sure that 30 emails is what this person wants to receive (maybe they do, people are diverse!).
I am really against this norm of “as long as they don’t tell you to stop its ok.” Again if you happened to be unaware that spamming someone’s phone was likely to creep them out then no the situation is just unfortunate, you aren’t morally to blame. But one should think about how their actions are likely to make other people feel. If an action is likely to push past a legitimate boundary you should not do it unless you know what you are doing.
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I guess the theory as to why one’s “gut” is reliable is this: we have a sort of unconscious spidey-sense that pattern matches to commonplace behavior versus weird behavior. Thing is, if your spidey-sense is triggering on “blackness,” then maybe you need to self-examine.
But then, maybe do so later when you are safe at home, among people you trust.
Familiarity with people helps. A person who lives in an urban area will likely be “street smart” in ways that (for example) rural people are not.
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@stargirlprincess
I was arguing against the idea that it’s okay as long as no one asks you to stop. The statement in quotes was from the poster above me.
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@wireheadwannabe: The problem is that successful harassers often will make their victims afraid to say anything out of fear of violence or social fallout.
If you’ve threatened them, then that’s another matter (and also means that you’re guilty of menacing). If you’ve said nothing threatening, but they fear violence, that’s their problem. If they fear social fallout . . . that may be legitimate, but I have next to no sympathy for people who want to be friends with people who would treat them poorly over asking someone to stop.
@ stargirlprincess: I am really against this norm of “as long as they don’t tell you to stop its ok.”
I am intensely against that norm for physical contact, and intensely for it for communication.
If an action is likely to push past a legitimate boundary you should not do it unless you know what you are doing.
Elsewhere in the thread, I have expressed my views on legitimate boundaries. This is not one.
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@obresend
Seems we disagree. I care about not upsetting people for the sake of not upsetting people. And I think people “should” care about not upsetting people for its own sake. This is not to say I support a norm of “never offend people or make them uncomfortable.”
Perhaps you also care bout “people being comfortable” as a terminal value but consider the tradeoff vs other values unacceptable?
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@osberend — I think you underestimate the social difficulties in dealing with creepy people, how they manipulate the rules of politeness and use those against more vulnerable people. It is easy to say “Use your words,” but using your words can be hard.
Saying “Grow a spine” is as callous as saying, “Well just get some social skill, nerd-bro.”
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“@osberend — I think you underestimate the social difficulties in dealing with creepy people, how they manipulate the rules of politeness and use those against more vulnerable people.”
Salespeople live by this principle.
Barbara Oakley goes into great detail how the mechanics of this work:
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Outside of certain limited circumstances, rules of politeness only matter if you let them matter. People who care more about whether you’re polite than whether you are able to express you needs are not people who are worth having in your life.
Saying “Grow a spine” is as callous as saying, “Well just get some social skill, nerd-bro.”
Growing a spine may be hard for some people, but is at least straightforward and well-defined; I could write a set of guidelines for spine-ful behavior in under half an hour, even giving some thought to the matter. Getting social skills, for someone who lacks the appropriate cognitive wiring to efficiently process non-verbal cues, is a very different matter, aggravated by the fact that most people who would demand such skills absolutely could not write explicit guidelines for them, even if you gave them all the time they wanted.
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“Growing a spine” almost got my g/f and her roommate stabbed last week, which is why most women are very *careful* about how they give men the brushoff, and often will put up with sexual advances far past what they would like, just in the name of safety. I get the sense that you do not appreciate what this is like. Furthermore, I wonder if you understand that the women in question are sometimes teenagers (or younger), or autistic, or many things.
A couple links to give perspective:
http://realsocialskills.org/post/77287409108/about-creepy-guys
http://www.slate.com/articles/double_x/doublex/2014/05/_yesallwomen_in_the_wake_of_elliot_rodger_why_it_s_so_hard_for_men_to_recognize.html
From the second link:
The thing she describes, the aggressively drunk man at the bar, I’ve been there, and yes, you smile and play along. I’ve seen other women in the same boat, and they respond similarly. It’s a skill we learn. (I got a crash course when I transitioned. Believe me, this stuff is real-as-fuck.)
These guys are creepy. Dealing with them is tremendously awkward.
So you think growing a spine is easy? You have no clue.
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“Growing a spine” almost got my g/f and her roommate stabbed last week, which is why most women are very *careful* about how they give men the brushoff, and often will put up with sexual advances far past what they would like, just in the name of safety. I get the sense that you do not appreciate what this is like.
Growing a spine once resulted in me leaning against a wall in a completely terrible defensive position while a drunk, angry homeless man[1] who was clearly in better physical shape than I was, and who had previously declared me both “a hippy” and “a faggot,” now proclaimed that “hippy faggots . . . get stabbed in the gut with a screwdriver, that’s what they get.” While pointing a screwdriver at my gut, and standing within stabbing distance. The only other guy in the room (my idiot roommate) was an avowed pacifist who had openly stated that he wouldn’t hit the dude. I had to try to keep him talking while simultaneously psyching myself up to do my best to kill him after he stabbed me, if it came to that.
I still think that growing a spine is the right and honorable thing to do.
Furthermore, I wonder if you understand that the women in question are sometimes teenagers (or younger), or autistic, or many things.
I get why this makes it harder to respond coherently at all, or to respond as forcefully negatively as would be ideal, but not why it increases the probability of a yes. Adolescence is a time of unreasonable anger, at least in my experience, and while everyone’s experience with autism or autistic-like impairments is somewhat different, my experience was of realizing that there’s no way not to come off as rude (at least some of the time) from the perspective of idiots, so there was no reason to try.
Dealing with them is tremendously awkward.
I see women use this word a lot as if it’s something horrible to avoid at all costs, and I just don’t get. Again . . . I can’t not be awkward, at least some times. Makes for a powerful incentive to give fewer shits, you know?
So you think growing a spine is easy? You have no clue.
Easy and risk-free are different things.
Also, the great majority of physical violence between strangers is male-on-male. I’m pretty sure I’ve been beat up by men more times than the median ciswoman. And I’m not going to claim my response to this is as consistently courageous as it should be—I’ve got a cowardly side that used to be worse, and that needs to be better. But at least I recognize that as a vice and am trying to correct it.
Honestly, I think women’s tendency to placate men more than other men does has at least as much to do with greater aversion to a risk of being hit[2] and a lower aversion to placating as it does with a difference in actual risks.
[1] Nothing against the homeless, but . . . less to lose, you know?
[2] If the other guy is clearly armed and you’re not, that’s a whole ‘nother story . . . but that’s not at all the modal experience.
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Also, as a follow-up on the “armed” issue: I firmly believe that every competent adult, regardless of gender, should be armed whenever possible, even if it’s just with a short-bladed pocket knife (although a larger knife or gun is obviously preferable), and should be ready willing to use lethal force against an aggressor if it becomes necessary—regardless of whether that aggressor is attacking them or some other innocent party.
And yes, I recognize that this is legally as well as physically risky. It’s still honorable and right.
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@osberend — All I can say is I find your position incredibly callous and unrealistic. Which is to say, yes courage is admirable, but for a young woman riding public transit home late Saturday night, no, sorry. She has plans the next day that do not include nursing a knife wound.
I have gone through life with both a man’s face and a woman’s face. I will say flatly, it is different as a woman, and the ongoing menace I face is much higher in the latter state. Yes, men are violent against other men. Indeed, looking at the crime stats, they are less violent against women. But I believe that is because women *behave differently from men*. We placate. If we did not, the crime stats would change.
I am sorry you were attacked and hurt.
Going meta, I will say this: if you refuse to be sensitive to the concerns of women, then fine, I cannot force you. However, the point of this thread is about how socially well-positioned women can hurt men by using the term “creep.” Which raises a question: why should I give a fuck about the pain of nerdy men if nerdy men like you do not care about the difficulties we women face?
Okay, so you’re one guy and other nerdy men should not pay the price for your ass-hatt-itude. But consider, “growing a spine” for a woman might involve learning to use tools such as “Go away you gross fucking creep,” said to men who make her uncomfortable. Why should she not?
Cuz it hurts him? Cuz it’s unfair? Well then he can grow a fucking spine, yes?
Yours is the war of all against all. Fuck that. I care about vulnerable people.
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@osberend:
That’s just evidence that “spineless” people’s problem is not that they don’t know or can’t figure out what to do, but rather that they can’t *do* it even when they do know how. And given the evidence that each person has a finite amount of willpower per day (or per meal)…
Meanwhile, social skills guidelines do exist (especially anthropological and/or linguistic analyses; for example, stuff by Desmond Morris or Deborah Tannen). Many people are resistant to them, though, because, “you should just know.” IOW, they don’t just want to see the skills, they want the person to have the ability to figure them out on their own.
Both cases are examples of “demanding that someone Just Have an ability that they in fact lack.”
Well, of course, “no response” is often taken as a yes.
And. Both of these things (youth/inexperience and autism) make it harder to notice behavior that is setting you up to be manipulated. Both also can make you more likely to doubt your own perceptions. You may think, “I’m young/I have poor social skills, so if other people act like I’d be rude to refuse, maybe they’re right.” (Addressed in one of Veronica’s links: http://realsocialskills.org/post/77287409108/about-creepy-guys)
Finally, some people on the spectrum get carried away by their social scripts and can’t easily interrupt their “polite” behavior. Donna Williams has discussed this, for example in her memoir, /Nobody Nowhere/.
From an article about her (http://articles.latimes.com/1994-05-15/magazine/tm-57775_1_donna-williams): “She responded to questions at school or home with the answers she thought people expected: “I said a lot of yes, yes, yeses. Cups of tea arrived without any connections between their arrival and the yes that had brought them there.””
This reduces to, “Everyone should voluntarily take on themselves the disadvantage I can’t help having.”
Which, fair enough. But realize that’s what you’re implying.
[physical fights]
What you’re overlooking here is the social/cultural tendency for the “little scrappy guy” to be ultimately respected for having stood up for himself, while the woman who gets into fights with men is “stepping out of her place.” She generally doesn’t end up “beaten up but still smiling, now with the respect of the group,” as in the stereotype of the “little scrappy guy.” Instead, the general reaction is at best that she’s inappropriately aggressive, and at worst…
Well…just because *you* would never rape someone to “put her in her place” doesn’t mean other men wouldn’t. It’s a cultural trope that very many grow up at least aware of, many believe in, and some actually put into practice.
Consider what happened to Brandon Teena. Why did his former friends react to the discovery that he was FTM by, not just murdering him, but also raping him? One interpretation is that his ex-friends saw him as “a female, who was therefore supposed to be a woman and stay in a woman’s place, but who got out of her place by claiming to be a man.” It’s transphobia, of course; more specifically, it’s *gender role enforcement*, and the ex-friends enforced the gender role with rape as well as with murder. The feminine gender role gets enforced on women, too, in the same way.
So the threat of a rape “to put her in her place” is in the background of these man-woman confrontations, *in addition to* the threat of murder that men also face in confrontations. (This does not mean men never face rape or the threat of it. It just means there isn’t a cultural trope that “A man who fights another man has violated the masculine gender role, punish him by raping him.”)
That threat of rape is especially salient if the situation was *begun* by the man’s sexual advance. Then, she knows the man *wants to fuck her anyway*. A man who subscribes to the “rape her to put her in her place” trope, and who wants to fuck a given woman, is therefore motivated to *make up a reason* that he ought to “put that woman in her place.” If he does so, he can rape her without feeling guilty about it. I’m not talking about consciously either. He’s *subconsciously* motivated to make up a reason. That doesn’t mean he will–but he might. He might switch off his empathy in order to get what he wants. That’s why he comes off as so dangerous.
(BTW, I like the way you value honor. It means you have another reason to behave decently besides in-the-moment empathy, which is so easy for many people to switch off for self-serving reasons.)
One more thing. If you’re going to talk about group differences in “aversion to the risk of being hit,” you also have to remember the existence of group differences in size. If you take a male and a female from the same spots on the male and female bell curves in height and weight, the male will be 5″ taller and 25-30 pounds heavier (source: CDC, applicable to Americans). Surely that kind of group difference would also affect group attitudes toward risking being hit by a male.
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(Ozy, could you pull my giant link-filled reply to this thread out of spam? Or did it somehow not show up for another reason?)
@osberend, also:
In principle I agree. I wonder about practicality, though.
A while back I ran this by a friend who had been in JROTC. I was specifically focused on the 2nd Amendment to the US Constitution, so this was about guns (not just weapons in general) and about how we should handle them in the US.
Based on his experience in JROTC, my friend was concerned about the high number of “incompetents.” He wondered about the practical details of actually excluding every “incompetent” from carrying a gun.
Particularly, what about people who are not “generally incompetent in everyday life,” so they don’t qualify as needing a guardian (and so they aren’t already excluded from gun ownership)…but yet *are* “incompetent” at handling a gun–that is, bad enough at it to be dangerous?
I was concerned about infringing their rights by treating them similarly to felons when “the only thing they’re bad at is gun safety”…but OTOH as a practical matter…
That’s not even getting into issues of cultural fit.
On another topic, please note the following valuable info Veronica posted:
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@Lizardbreath:
(Ozy, could you pull my giant link-filled reply to this thread out of spam? Or did it somehow not show up for another reason?)
I saw Ozy on Tumblr mention that they’re feeling not-great right now and thus not inclined to read this thread. So you may have to email them.
(Since I can see it, Ozy’s tumblr must be public, and hence I hope it’s okay for me to repeat something I read there).
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@veronica: I replied to you as a top-level comment here, because my reply ended up being ungodly long, and I didn’t want to make it require even more scrolling than it already does.
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@LizardBreath: That’s just evidence that “spineless” people’s problem is not that they don’t know or can’t figure out what to do, but rather that they can’t *do* it even when they do know how. And given the evidence that each person has a finite amount of willpower per day (or per meal)…
I am still utterly baffled by the idea that it can require willpower to not actively say “yes”, in response to merely verbal pressure.
Well, of course, “no response” is often taken as a yes.
Empirically, you are correct. I have stated unambiguously that I oppose such a standard (to the point of considering it to in many cases be a quite adequate justification for violence), so this seems to be outside the scope of the present discussion/debate.
And. Both of these things (youth/inexperience and autism) make it harder to notice behavior that is setting you up to be manipulated.
True, which is why it’s useful to respond frankly even to non-manipulative requests that you don’t choose to fulfill.
Both also can make you more likely to doubt your own perceptions. You may think, “I’m young/I have poor social skills, so if other people act like I’d be rude to refuse, maybe they’re right.”
If someone is having this reaction, and is not suffering from a major affective disorder, they have clearly been raised poorly. This is not their fault, but is not the fault of a non-caretaker who is now making a request of them either.
This reduces to, “Everyone should voluntarily take on themselves the disadvantage I can’t help having.”
Maybe to some extent. But also that it’s not the fucking end of the world.
She generally doesn’t end up “beaten up but still smiling, now with the respect of the group,” as in the stereotype of the “little scrappy guy.”
That generally hasn’t been the outcome I’ve experienced from fights either.
Consider what happened to Brandon Teena. Why did his former friends react to the discovery that he was FTM by, not just murdering him, but also raping him?
I suspect that them both being violent drunks with previous felony convictions had a lot to do with it. Which is not to say that the gender-role enforcement element was absent, by any means. But in assessing how much risk there is in a course of action, it’s important to consider that sort of thing.
It just means there isn’t a cultural trope that “A man who fights another man has violated the masculine gender role, punish him by raping him.”
That’s true, but there also isn’t a cultural trope of “A man shouldn’t hit another man, even if that other man hits him first.”
I don’t think that any of the factors you’re discussing are non-existent or irrelevant. But I would bet money that the average woman who avoids fighting back puts a significantly higher probability on them coming into play than is actually the case.
BTW, I like the way you value honor. It means you have another reason to behave decently besides in-the-moment empathy, which is so easy for many people to switch off for self-serving reasons.
Thank you.
One more thing. If you’re going to talk about group differences in “aversion to the risk of being hit,” you also have to remember the existence of group differences in size. If you take a male and a female from the same spots on the male and female bell curves in height and weight, the male will be 5″ taller and 25-30 pounds heavier (source: CDC, applicable to Americans). Surely that kind of group difference would also affect group attitudes toward risking being hit by a male.
Somewhat, sure. But not enough, I think, to explain the magnitude of the difference in attitude.
In principle I agree. I wonder about practicality, though.
You might be right. I freely admit to have a moral system that puts a much higher weight on principle (and a much lower weight on expected outcome) than most people here.
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Not respecting people’s boundaries and not perceiving people’s boundaries, while they look very similar on the outside, call for radically different solutions. If you often find yourself being aware of boundaries and violating them anyway because you think they’re stupid boundaries , the solution is to stop doing that and possibly to self-modify so that you have a strong, negative, visceral reaction to doing that. If, on the other hand. you routinely read neutral gestures as signs of discomfort or vice versa, you should soberly assess the situation asess the situation, think probabilistically, and self-modify to not have a strong emotional reaction to type I or type II errors.
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What if they are stupid boundaries?
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a) You should work on your ability to see things from other people’s perspectives, and/or your empathy, and regardless
b) You still gotta respect them or else people (primarily women) will feel, at best, uncomfortable around you, and hopefully you don’t want that.
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Define “stupid boundaries”. Cause, like, “don’t talk to me if you’re unattractive/Black/male” is, in my view, a boundary that should be respected, even if my advice to the person might be “let unattractive, Black, or male people”. But “don’t stim in the same room as me” would be a pretty illegitimate boundary cause, like, just look away if it’s bothering you. “Don’t stare at me” on the other hand, seems legitimate because in that case, the mere knowledge that you’re staring about them might make them feel threatened.
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Hmm but when people’s boundaries are stupid things like “boys shouldn’t wear skirts and makeup” I feel totally justified in flouting them (as mentioned by stargirlprincess), even if it does make some people uncomfortable.
So there does need to be some way of deciding what sort of boundary should be respected and what sort should be ignored.
Possibility: A boundary demands more respect the closer it is to the boundary’s owner, and boundaries that impose on others directly, rather than on their interactions with the bound-setter, are more ignorable? “don’t hit on me” > “don’t even look at me” >> “don’t wear that” > “don’t be that”
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@unimportantutterance
For me, stupid boundaries include ones that a person could not have reasonably anticipated, or which inconvenience others to a notable degree. “Don’t look in my direction for any amount of time” or “Don’t walk behind me for any reason ever” are unreasonable boundaries.
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I walk at night a fair amount in summer months. More than a a few people (between 5% and 25%, depending on the hour) choose to cross the street rather than approach or pass me. I am completely fine with this; that is to say, I’m neither uncomfortable with the action that the people are taking, nor the fact that I am, by my actions and presence, creeping people out, because my actions in this care are walking in a straight line on a sidewalk with headphones on.
As discussed upthread, this is why ‘creepy’ is such an ineffective way to complain about behavior; it can be right and good that people feel uncomfortable with perfectly innocuous actions, and act accordingly. And on the other hand, we have people taking actions which are individually innocuous, but add up to a pattern of harassment. This is a complicated issue; trying to fit all behavior into one pattern, rule, or lens seems even more prone to failure than usual
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wirehead: I can anticipate that a black person in a dark alley, or an adult male wearing a MLP T-shirt, will creep people out.
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@unimportantutterance: A boundary of “unattractive/black/male people must not speak to me after I ask them not to [in the absence of a justifying circumstance, such as right-of-reply]” combined with a policy of “I will ask unattractive/black/male people not to speak to me immediately upon their speaking to me [in the absence of a justifying circumstance]” should be adhered to, and also mocked.
A boundary of “unattractive/black/male people must not speak to me in the first place” should be treated with utter contempt, and in no way adhered to (assuming that one is even aware of it).
“Don’t stare at me” is a legitimate preference, but not a legitimate boundary—my gaze is mine to direct as I please.
@Glomerulus: How about this: A boundary is, fundamentally, an attitude that for someone to do X without permission is a violation of one’s rights. It is therefore legitimate if failure to adhere to it is actually a rights-violation, and not otherwise.
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I could have sworn I put this in the right spot (nested under my previous comment). Oh, well.
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This definition seems to just shunt debate from “what constitutes reasonable?” to “what constitutes a rights violation?” Is there some reason you feel that changing the terminology is useful? Because I’m not quite seeing it, except that “rights violation” tends to have more legalistic connotations.
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Which is useful! If you cannot imagine something legally banned outside of some sort of nightmarish dystopia, then it is almost certainly not a rights violation.
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Close, but… The idea of boundary feels like lesser than the idea of a right? You can break a boundary without breaking a right, and it’s a smaller transgression, sort of thing. Possible examples: doctor’s exams, invading personal space without touching or being physically threatening (just uncomfortable), talking about sex or child abuse or dissecting animals (esp at dinner)*.
*might be conflating social and personal boundaries on this one? still though.
(idk about staring, it feels to me like breaking a boundary b/c it’s eye contact and that’s a social thing)
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Close, but… The idea of boundary feels like lesser than the idea of a right? You can break a boundary without breaking a right, and it’s a smaller transgression, sort of thing.
But if it’s not a rights-violation, then how is it a transgression at all? Or look to the underlying literal meaning: The boundaries of my land are not where I would like people not to go without permission, or even where it would be impolite for people to go without permission, but where I can forbid people from going without permission, and thereby make those who go there anyway into trespassers, guilty of a tort at a minimum, and possibly even of a crime.
doctor’s exams
How is that a boundary violation at all?
invading personal space without touching or being physically threatening (just uncomfortable)
If this meaningfully (and unnecessarily) restricts freedom of movement, then it is a rights-violation, if not, then it forbidding it is not a reasonable boundary to have. (Although it is a quite reasonable preference.)
alking about sex or child abuse or dissecting animals (esp at dinner)
If they’re in your house, you can forbid whatever you like. If you can’t leave, this may (depending on further details) be a rights violation. Otherwise, a reasonable preference, but not a reasonable boundary.
(idk about staring, it feels to me like breaking a boundary b/c it’s eye contact and that’s a social thing)
Leaving aside staring that isn’t eye contact (for a particularly relevant example, at breasts), eye contact is fundamentally two-way innit? If you don’t want to make eye contact with someone who is staring at your eyes, then don’t look at them.
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@ osberend
Do you believe that laws against stalking are just? What rights does stalking violate?
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osberend– Okay, going to disagree with you here. I think it’s extremely useful to have a category for behaviors that, while one certainly wouldn’t want them to be illegal, are frowned upon and discouraged. Plenty of asshole behavior isn’t illegal and shouldn’t be, but that doesn’t mean that everyone has to passively accept asshole behavior whenever they encounter it.
To get off flirting for a second, let’s take the example of deliberately misgendering people. Should this be illegal? My reaction is “No, probably not.” But it’s still objectionable, and when people do it, it should be pointed out that this is an objectionable thing to do.
Like, based on your other posts, it seems like your basic position here is “Outright assault (and, maybe stuff like stalking) should be banned, anything else is simply a preference. If someone you are interacting with refuses to conform to your preferences, you should leave the situation and, if necessary, not interact with them again. Or, if this isn’t feasible for some reason, you should stay in the situation, but don’t complain, since clearly you’ve decided which of your preferences takes precedence.” Am I more or less correct here?
I mean, the issue with this is that it seems, by default, to accept that what I am for lack of a better term going to call “mainstream society” (although, more conservatively, you could replace this with “manipulative jerks,” since manipulative people tend to be, you know, good at manipulating social pressure) is going to use social pressure to keep people in line, but object to any other group doing the same thing. And I’m not sure why you think that this is the desirable balance.
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@Nita: It varies. Some conduct that is banned under (at least some) stalking laws does not violate any rights, and therefore should not be banned. Much of the conduct covered, however, does violate rights, and is therefore bannable under other laws (and if you want “stalking” to be an aggravating circumstance that increases penalties, I don’t see that as a problem, just as I’m okay with “hate crimes” laws but not “hate speech” laws):
–If they persist in directed communication after being asked to stop, and without a suitable justification, this is harassment.[1]
–If they engage in actions with the intent of causing fear, this is menacing.
–If they unlawfully enter private property, this is trespassing.
–If they steal items belong to their target, this is theft.
–If they attempt or engage in violence, this is assault.
–If they damage items belonging to their target or others, this is vandalism
–If they spread lies about their target, this is (or ought to be) defamation.
But if they merely choose how to direct their own movements through public space in an attempt to observe their target, even if they do so in the face of that target’s discomfort, then this is an expression of their own bodily autonomy, and while it may well be appropriate to remonstrate with them, it is not right that force should be used to prevent them from moving and looking as they please.
[1] Note that “I went there in order to cause her to see me” is a form of directed communication, while “I went there in order to see her” is not. These can be hard to distinguish, but not always impossible.
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@bem: Plenty of asshole behavior isn’t illegal and shouldn’t be, but that doesn’t mean that everyone has to passively accept asshole behavior whenever they encounter it.
Of course not! One can label it asshole behavior, and denounce it as such.
To get off flirting for a second, let’s take the example of deliberately misgendering people. Should this be illegal? My reaction is “No, probably not.” But it’s still objectionable, and when people do it, it should be pointed out that this is an objectionable thing to do.
Certainly. But there’s a big difference between “you are pointlessly upsetting X and we don’t approve; you are an asshole” and “you are violating X’s right to decide what gender they will be labeled as; you are an oppressor.” Both are expressions of disapproval, but their content is very different. (And remains different even if one makes the disapproval of the first one stronger; appending “die in a fire, scumfuck” to the first does not change that’s it’s claiming shitty behavior, not a rights-violation.)
Like, based on your other posts, it seems like your basic position here is “Outright assault (and, maybe stuff like stalking) should be banned, anything else is simply a preference. If someone you are interacting with refuses to conform to your preferences, you should leave the situation and, if necessary, not interact with them again. Or, if this isn’t feasible for some reason, you should stay in the situation, but don’t complain, since clearly you’ve decided which of your preferences takes precedence.” Am I more or less correct here?
Not really. If the other person is actually being an asshole, then calling them out for being an asshole is fine. Calling them out for being a rights-violator (which I contend that “creep” tacitly does, albeit generally at a low level) is not. Also, note that I’ve stated that continuing to speak to you after you’ve asked them not to is, outside of a handful of special cases, harassment. That seems like a pretty big difference from “just outright assault.”
I mean, the issue with this is that it seems, by default, to accept that what I am for lack of a better term going to call “mainstream society” (although, more conservatively, you could replace this with “manipulative jerks,” since manipulative people tend to be, you know, good at manipulating social pressure) is going to use social pressure to keep people in line, but object to any other group doing the same thing. And I’m not sure why you think that this is the desirable balance.
I’m fine with honest social pressure, but not with dishonest social pressure. If Bob keeps coming up to women and introducing himself with “Hey, my name’s Bob, wanna fuck?” and a lot of women find this obnoxious (and you’ve verified that Bob is aware of this fact and doesn’t care), go ahead, say to people “Bob keeps introducing himself to women by asking if they wanna fuck, and a lot of women find this obnoxious. Could you maybe stop inviting him to parties where there will be women he hasn’t met before if he’s not willing to knock it off?”
But don’t say “Bob violates women’s boundaries,” which could easily mean that he’s a serial groper. Don’t say “Bob’s a creep,” which translates to roughly the same thing, but with the added possibility that you’re just being ableist. Don’t say “Bob’s kinda rapey,” or talk about how he participates in “rape culture.” If you don’t like someone’s behavior, let others know that, and know what that person is doing.
Also, some preferences mark you as an asshole, and you should own that (e.g. I prefer to have no one stimming in the same room as me, even if their doing so isn’t causing me any difficulties). But that’s non-central to the issues under debate here.
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” It’s an ableist term, applied to people with, for example, autism and Asperger’s syndrome…”
“Behavior that would probably qualify as creepy under this scheme includes:
– Continuing to talk to someone, especially a stranger or acquaintance, who has negative body language
– Poor social skills in general”
Umm.
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Again, please, everyone note that nowdays, Ozy as I know zir wouldn’t be caught dead using language like this. A disclaimer or a p.s. would have been VERY appreciated, though.
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The post say that “creep” is often used in ableist ways, but then the list of creepy behaviors includes “poor social skills in general.” That seems blatantly ableist. Is that intended?
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This is actually a hard thing to untangle and I’m curious what Ozy thinks about it. Emphasis on good social skills is obviously an ableist concern. On the other hand, though, one of the things meant by “social skills” is the ability to guess relatively accurately at what other people want and how they feel. People who can’t divine people’s feelings, or can’t do it without significant effort, actually do run the risk of being creepy in the sense of “making people feel uncomfortable or unsafe”. Because… dur, they can’t tell when people are uncomfortable or unsafe. Or it’s too much effort for them to figure that out, as it doesn’t come naturally to them.
So it isn’t true that everyone who struggles with social skills is creepy, but it might be true that people who are creepy are more likely to be people who struggle with social skills. But that could be an ableist sentiment… thoughts?
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The situation is even worse than this.
On the one hand, individual people do have various degrees of ability to “guess relatively accurately at what other people want and how they feel”, ranging from “virtually none at all” (autistic) to “nearly total accuracy” (quasi-telepathic prodigy).
But on the other hand, I would be very surprised if people’s ability to express what they want and feel (especially through implicit cues such as body language) did not follow the same kind of distribution.
This makes the notion of “creepienss” as an objective and innate property of any given individual pretty much worthless, I think.
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I feel like this is a place where the “intent isn’t magic” theory breaks down, or at least runs smack into the “competing access needs” theory.
Let me expand on this. By many accounts, the moral significance of an act depends on intent. If you act with the intent to harm another, or with reckless disregard for whether you harm them, then many would see that as less culpable than acting with good intent and best effort, even if the consequences are the same. However, this can allow cover for a malicious person to claim they didn’t do it on purpose as an excuse. The standard legal system response to this is to consider evidence of the person’s state of mind, often referred to as the “mens rea” requirement. The standard Social Justice line is that “intent isn’t magic” and you deserve the same criticism whether you meant it or not.
The problem with “intent isn’t magic” is that it leaves no room for disability, mental illness, or neurodivergences that don’t quite rise to the level of either of those categories. Compare to the case of a person bumping into you in a crowded room. Whether they did it on purpose; or due to barreling through the room recklessly; or because they are blind and lack sufficient accessibility accommodations in that space; seems to make a huge difference in the correct response. Yelling “watch where you’re going” at an obviously bling person would be hugely ableist! Likewise, putting them in the same category of “inconsiderate jerk” as a person who did it on purpose would be ableist.
By analogy, a common trait of autistic people (or socially anxious people, or other similar categories) is that they exhibit “poor social skills” in a way that make neurotypical folks uncomfortable. But labeling them “creeps” and lumping them in with people who make others uncomfortable intentionally, or because they don’t care to avoid it even though they can, is stigmatizing and unjust.
Furthermore, I think there is some trickery going on in mixing up feeling “uncomfortable” and “unsafe”. A lot of the stereotypical behaviors of autistic people seem pretty likely to make people feel uncomfortable, but pretty unlikely to make them feel genuinely unsafe. And it seems to me there is a relevant moral difference. If you feel unsafe, it seems clear to me that you are morally entitled to take action to feel safer. But if you merely feel uncomfortable, then acting to avoid that discomfort may not be an ethical thing to do.
For example, lots of folks feel uncomfortable when interacting with the visibly physically disabled, with trans people, or with people of different races. In such a situation, I think there is some ethical obligation for the person who feels uncomfortable to try to get over their discomfort, rather than demand members of the relevant group accommodate them. That’s not always the case obviously. Sometimes someone is being a jerk on purpose and getting away from them is the right thing to do. But I think feelings of discomfort, as opposed to unsafety, are an area where it is relevant to consider intent and to consider the source of one’s own feelings.
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I think one of the main problems with the concept of creepiness is that it conflates several concepts that are related only loosely:
1). “Alice thinks Bob is acting in a creepy way”
2). “Bob is deliberately acting in a creepy way toward Alice”
3). “Bob possesses the innate property of creepiness, which is immediately evident to any woman, including Alice”
4). “The overwhelming majority of people who are in the same social subgroup as Bob are objectively creepy”
The reason this is so problematic is that the four situations merit very different levels of response. For example, situation #1 could be solved by Alice expressing her displeasure to Bob, whereas situation #4 calls for a massive public policy change aimed against all people like Bob. I think you can see why conflating these scenarios might lead to suboptimal decisions.
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Well, #1 and #2 are not necessarily distinguishable, unless you’re Bob, since people aren’t telepathic. Plenty of manipulative people get a lot of mileage out of claiming that things they did deliberately were mistakes. Plenty of not-necessarily-manipulative people get defensive when someone expresses displeasure about their behavior, and these reactions can look quite similar from the outside.
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le tragedy of the commons face
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You’re kinda leaving out (5) “Bob’s behavior is such that a reasonably thoughtful and empathetic person would predict that it is likely to make Alice uncomfortable.” This does not necessarily overlap with either (1) or (2).
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I think this is pretty close to (3); maybe it’s something like (3.5). I did not mean to imply that my list was exhaustive, though.
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Ah, this might just be my way of thinking, but I feel like it’s important to distinguish between “Bob is creepy” and “This particular thing Bob did is creepy.”
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““Accidentally” turning up in the psychology class, coffeeshop or laundromat of the person you have a crush on.”
This is a great example of something that seems creepy if the other person isn’t interested, but is welcome if the other person, like you, is looking for an excuse to talk to you.
I also disagree with the vagueness of “Hitting on a stranger in an enclosed environment (such as a moving vehicle), a deserted area or very late at night.”
What is an “enclosed environment”? Like a bar? Or a private house? What’s wrong with the nighttime? What if you’re in an enclosed environment at night in public? What if some people would rather be hit on in private?
I don’t think it’s reasonable to feel threatened because someone approaches you, without more.
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I think “enclosed space” is intended to be glossed as “a space that a person cannot easily leave, such as public transportation, an elevator, a moving car, or somewhere where the person doing the hitting on is standing between the person being hit on and the only exit.”
I’m not sure that I personally would say that nighttime is relevant, except as it overlaps with there being a greater likelihood of people feeling isolated.
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I could quibble with some of this. Why can’t you easily leave public transport or elevators? Elevators take seconds between stops and have panic buttons. Buses and trains typically take minutes between stops.
More importantly, I don’t see any non-subjective way of listing spaces where it is okay to hit on people versus spaces where it is not. I think asking others out is okay anywhere, but you must take no for an answer.
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Panic buttons? I’ve only seen emergency stop buttons (which, presumably, stop the elevator between floors) and alarm buttons (which may or may not attract someone’s attention).
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More generally, people dislike being propositioned when they’re “trapped” or “cornered”, even if escape is technically possible. So, someone who wants to initiate a positive social interaction should keep that in mind.
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Well, you can get off of public transport at the next stop if someone is persistently flirting, but unless it just happens to be your stop, you’re then stuck waiting for the next bus/train/whatever, and if you’re really unlucky, you’re stuck waiting with a persistent flirter who followed you off the bus and is now pissy because you obviously got off the bus to avoid him. Very inconvenient. What Nita said about people psychologically feeling trapped also applies, I think.
I think that in an ideal world, asking others out would be fine anywhere, as long as you accept a no, but in the world as it currently stands, there are a lot of people who will not take even a very clear no, and a lot of people/women’s reactions to being hit on are shaped by this fact.
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“More generally, people dislike being propositioned when they’re “trapped” or “cornered”, even if escape is technically possible.”
And why should they have to leave anyway? I’m not a Stand Your Ground proponent, but it’s the same basic principle. You have a right to be where you are.
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@Ginko — For me it’s the park bench scenario. Happened to me a couple months back. I was sitting on a bench in the Boston Common near Park Street station (obviously this was before our latest 39000309340934 feet of snow) just reading a book and waiting to meet my g/f. Anyway, old-creepy-guy decides to come sit beside me. Like, out of the blue and there is plenty of room on the bench that is not right beside me. But the fucker sits close.
I’M READING! A MATH BOOK! LEAVE ME ALONE!
He wants to have a friendly chat, but he’s looking at me *that way* and it seems not-so-friendly to me. Which I mean, it’s obvious what this is about and I want no part of it.
So I get up and strut away, which pretty much ruins sitting and reading for me, since these were the only halfway comfortable benches near where I’m meeting my g/f. But still, giving up reading is better than *dealing with a rando*.
I wish I could just say “not interested” and know that it would be respected, but life ain’t like that and I’ve dealt with too many men like this. They don’t take no for an answer. Being polite just continues the terrible. Being rude can backfire in shitty ways. Walking away is just easiest.
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I know the point is as to what most people are like, but me personally, I would not want people to stop talking to me just because I was “closed up, frozen, shaking head, looking away, responding in monosyllables”. I’m fairly certain I sometimes appear like that for no real reason. My body language doesn’t mean anything! Now, I’m a male, so this probably wouldn’t effect me anyways, though I do wonder if there are a few edge cases of women who accidentally signal uncomfortableness.
The thing I have with the whole “making people uncomfortable” thing is that I’m in favor of replacing guess culture with ask culture whenever possible, and I’m sort of instinctually against building even more layers of guesswork on top of everything, regardless of whether its a good idea or not.
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I had a similar first reaction, but now I think this rule might be OK if restricted to strangers. When two people are interested in getting to know each other, both will ask questions or volunteer extra information.
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I am heartened to note that this looks like an older repost.
In one of the newer posts on “creepiness”, Ozy has very helpfully mentioned that “poor social skills” are NOT in themselves nearly as creepy as they are made out to be, because people with good social perception but bad intentions actually LIE all the time about not being able to perceive boundaries. I’ve been unintentionally bad at perceiving boundaries a few times in the past, while presenting as male, and every time my partner has forgiven me, because I legit did not mean it!
In my experience, people, *including* women, are NOWHERE NEAR, I repeat, NOWHERE NEAR as wary and intolerant and quick to recoil after a single misstep as a shy awkward guy might think upon reading some of this awful discourse. (Yes, I used to have this awful impression too in my late teens!) Most of the time, *real* people see your good will and good intentions, dudes! As long as you have those, and care about your partner, there is a lot of leeway to find the kind of communication that’ll work for both of you.
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Oh, and also: even if you are shy/sad/desperate/anxious for intimacy… dudes, this is important advice: WATCH OUT FOR ABUSIVE WOMEN. Abusers of both genders can, unfortunately, smell people who come across as desperate/lonely and have weak personal boundaries. This is NOT your fault, but while you’re struggling to become stronger, don’t jump at a relationship that feels disrespectful and exploitative to you. Much better to be on your own than with a legitimately ill-intentioned person.
(Exhibit A: Ialdabaoth, notoriously sad guy with a notoriously sad history of attracting abusers.)
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Conversely, most men are not nearly as paranoid about interacting with women as the discussion around e.g. the Aaronson comment might indicate. My evidence is that babies are still being conceived somehow. 🙂
Still, this is extremely valuable advice for those men who are trapped in the Aaronson mindset.
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I think that “creepy” is useful and valid as a label for making internal decisions (“I find interacting with this personal uncomfortable! Evasive maneuvers!”) but unhelpfully vague at best for external communication, particularly if you’re trying to warn somebody else about a person. It seems that generally, a description of the person’s behavior (“Won’t leave me alone, despite clear signals to stop.” “Touches in intimate ways without asking implicitly or explicitly beforehand” “Stalked me”) would be more useful as a warning, and offer a better case for excluding a person from a social group. More specificity will also prevent you from using the word to harmfully stigmatize people (often already-marginalized ones) without getting the social benefits of restraining a predator.
It’s similar to calling your exes “crazy,” a term which seems to carry meanings in this context from “abusive” to “mentally ill in a way that makes it more difficult for me to interact with them” to “firmly disagrees with me about a relationship issue and won’t back down under pressure” to even “has kinkier sexual tastes than I do, which I’m not prepared to accomodate or address.” By all means, if something about your partner’s personality makes you uncomfortable enough that you think of them as “crazy,” you should probably leave, for both of your sakes. But when you talk about the reasons why you broke up with the person, you should be more specific– people need to know about actual abusers for their own safety, and people who are mentally ill or just assertive or kinky don’t deserve to be stigmatized and lumped in with abusive people.
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Henry, do you think that approach, if it became an expectation, could put people who aren’t articulate in an unfair position?
I think if someone is saying “we should ostracize this person from our biking advocacy group, he was being creepy,” then it would be ideal to sit down and try and suss out exactly what happened before taking any group action.
But if someone’s just saying to her friend “That guy was talking to me and he really creeped me out,” and her friend says “why? What did he do?,” and she replies “I don’t know how to describe it, it was just creepy,” then that should be okay, too.
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I think that being unable to describe it is probably a sign that a given person needs to reflect further before labeling somebody else as a creep. People who are less intelligent or articulate will probably need to spend more time doing such reflection, but I don’t think that’s a problem. Declaring somebody creepy without more useful information is not really socially helpful. Declaring a person creepy without understanding why suggests that you’re probably going on visceral reactions instead of thinking, which means that the probability that you’re just indulging cognitive biases and thus, being harmful, is higher.
If you do just need to communicate a subjective reaction to somebody else to another person, and you’re not sure why you had that reaction, take ownership of your emotions, and don’t project predatoriness onto another person– say “I felt uncomfortable talking to that person” rather than “That person creeped me out” or even “That person made me feel uncomfortable.”
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Perhaps more generalizable: behaving ethically, especially if your ethics are consequentialist, is a nontrivial problem, and knowing more and being more intelligent probably make it easier. If you’re a smarter ethical person, it’s important to be patient with your less-knowledgeable counterparts and explain stuff to them, but it doesn’t mean that you should abandon ethics.
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One paragraph talks about people “feeling uncomfortable”. The next talks about “boundaries”.
Perhaps there was supposed to be a paragraph in between arguing that a large fraction of what makes people feel uncomfortable is violated boundaries? While the converse is true, it seems clear that people feel uncomfortable far more often than they have boundaries violated.
Unless you’re defining boundaries in some absurd way. But if one person’s very existence violates another’s boundaries, the problem is with the boundaries.
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This is what I read when I want to remind myself of what creepiness means to me. It’s a reddit post by a guy who attempted a seduction technique and succeeded only in almost getting the cops called on himself – and he was utterly clueless as to why: http://www.reddit.com/r/seduction/duplicates/15n1x5/on_aa_just_approach_whats_the_worst_that_can/
Ozy, I think your post captures it well. It’s fundamental lack of regard for (or lack of attention to) the comfort level of others, coupled with excessive commitment to achieving your own goals in the interaction. It’s inability to see the humanity in others and respect their desires.
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That link is actually http://www.reddit.com/r/seduction/comments/15n1x5/on_aa_just_approach_whats_the_worst_that_can/
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I read the comments on that thread, and was mildly surprised. Based on the reputation the PUA community has, I expected them all to be either sociopathic or stupid (or both). In reality, though, most of the comments happen to be highly critical of the OP, while being not only polite but also quite informative. I’ve never visited r/seduction until now, so I’m not sure how typical that is.
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r/seduction is not that bad, but this particular thread seems to have quite a few comments and votes by guests from other subreddits.
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‘I do not believe this because I am a super friendly guy’
A very telling phrase.
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Meh, apart from the fact that he tapped her shoulder (technically non-consensual touch, but that’s clearly not what she’s upset about), I’m on his side. He has a right to walk where he wants in public, and to talk to people who haven’t asked him not to talk to them, which she didn’t.
How does “I will respect your wishes, once stated, but will not try to guess them (particularly if they’re unfavorable to me)” equate to an inability to see humanity? When she actually expressed a clear desire for him not to be there, he left.
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Update: I missed this line somehow: I do not believe this because I am a super friendly guy, so I start bantering back with the guy, who I recognize and have bantered with before, in a friendly way.
So, he didn’t leave quite immediately, but then again, I support his right of reply, given that she was (apparently) blatantly lying about him.
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Actually we have no idea if she was lying, since we didn’t get her side of the story or even what she really told the Starbucks dude or the police. We know what *he says* the guy at Starbucks said that the woman said.
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Fair. Let me revise that: Taken the accuracy of his statements about obvious facts (e.g., not “she seemed shy”) as a given for the sake of argument*, either she lied about his behavior, or the Starbucks guy lied about what she told him. Either way, someone was lying about him, and he had a right of reply.
*Because his statements are all we have, so if we don’t assume that they’re accurate, we have nothing left to discuss.
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Well, he described himself as “a Casanova,” so judge the odds yourself.
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I’d put that in the “not obvious facts” category. By “obvious facts” I mean things like who said what, whether he “dragged her” anywhere, etc.
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What’s wrong with only talking to people you want to fuck at a party?
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Yeah, I don’t see the problem with that. Maybe Ozy is trying to say that you should be polite to people who start conversations with you, even if you’re not particularly interested?
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In a moral sense, probably nothing. But I’ve seen “that guy” in action and he usually comes across pretty badly, since maybe a lot of people at the party are not preoccupied by sex and mostly want to meet cool people and have fun, low-stress interactions with them. Then you add Boner-guy, who can throw a big wrench made of awkward into the whole mess, since dealing with guy-who-is-obviously-preoccupied-with-sex is usually kinda unpleasant.
Which, I guess he gets to be the way he is, feel what he feels. But I get to be the way I am, and feel what I feel. And I suppose if his obvious boner prevents him from joining the cool-kids table, cuz he’s a bit creepy, that’s just life.
Or not. I assume boner-guy actually doesn’t *want* to come across this way.
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What’s interesting to me is how words designed for sexual behavior control (“creep”, “cad”, “slut”, etc.) are so quickly adapted as weapons for intrasex competition. “Slut”, for example, presumably had its genesis in male criticism of women, but women seem far more likely to call each other sluts at present, and I see a similar thing happening with “creep”. Internet white knights are a striking example of this phenomenon. Modernity has made the process more symmetric, since women are now freer to express themselves.
I think that a large majority of human behavior is premised on sexual competition, and we simply can’t help reverting to the mean. That’s also no doubt why the topic is so raw.
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I have a fair amount of sympathy for skittish women who are adamant about not interacting with strange men, or who draw restrictive boundaries around where/when/with whom that can happen.
Right now I live in the San Francisco Bay Area, which is becoming increasingly bifurcated along socioeconomic lines. I worked for an eviction defense legal clinic for a year, and spent the bulk of my shifts around people in devastating poverty. As a result of that job and the neighborhoods I had to walk through to reach it, I also got a great (and unwanted) look at how bad experiences can create powerful subconscious biases.
Most of my clients were peaceful, agreeable people, and this went across income lines; however, some were loud, unpleasant, or were being evicted for acts of horrific violence, and I had to work with them just the same. When I stepped outside, I dealt with the same situation from the panhandlers and other members of the Tenderloin neighborhood: Most were great, but there were a few who followed me screaming, or in one case outright grabbed me (and in another followed me home).
By the end of that job I hated the entirety of San Francisco, but I hated the poor (and, frankly, black and male, because that’s who a majority of the poorer clients were) the most because they fit the same demographics of the people who hassled me and made me fear for my physical safety. I had a better reason than almost anyone to know that my hatred was unfair and irrational, and actively harmful to the group of people I now hated, but there was no denying that avoiding the whole population made life much more pleasant for me. I put my earbuds in and keep my eyes down when I walk, and don’t respond to anything anyone says…and the yelling stops.
I’m not going to quit my rude behavior until I have reason to think that I won’t be subjected to any more harassment. Period. At its best it’s just annoying, but at its worst it’s really terrifying.
However, I do take resposibility for my own rudeness, and for the fact that what I hold is a prejudice. It’s an intractable one right now due to my circumstances, but I don’t go looking for justifications for why the population I’m prejudiced against should go out of their way to accommodate my comfort by not walking near me. I won’t look at you even if you aren’t screaming at me, but as long as you’re not screaming at me you’ve done nothing wrong. That’s the difference I see between me and a lot of the women talking about creeps who want extra accommodation, as though their prejudices were sacrosanct.
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But if someone doesn’t want to interact with anyone while they’re walking or reading, who are they prejudiced against?
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No one, but that’s not what I’m talking about anyway: I’m addressing the part where women complain specifically about men because of fear or discomfort. I don’t like being approached in general, but that’s distinct from how I actively avoid and fear poor black men.
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@ninecarpals — As a daily subway rider, I have similar feelings. And yes, race and class play into this. Which makes me kinda unhappy cuz I’m sure I project microaggressions on people who don’t deserve that shit. However, I’m visibly trans and I refuse to “live small” (if you know what I mean), which puts a big target on my back. I have to keep my wits.
Anyway, I like to think that with time my perceptions become better, that I am better able to distinguish “average dude on his way home from work” from “dude with a chip on his shoulder that might just play ‘bash the trannny’ today.”
If I get it wrong, I’m fucked. I might be fucked either way.
Anyway, I’m still alive.
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So we’re left with two operational definitions of creep: one perfectly reasonable, uncontroversial definition (person openly masturbating on the subway), and another uncharitable definition which is often used unfairly and immorally (unattractive person trying to engage in small talk).
And the problem with discussing it is that, while the second definition is very often used, whenever someone tries to address it, they’re met with the first definition, which is very hard to argue against.
It’s as though people employ the second definition as they see fit, knowing they’ll be protected from criticism by they themselves (or others on their behalf) switching definitions if anyone challenges their use of the word.
There’s a picture of Kermit the Frog drinking tea which is, for some reason, appearing in my mind.
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Yes, strategic equivocation is definitely going on here.
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If you’re going to call it that, you may as well just say “motte and bailey”.
Note that the ban is not a keyword ban, it is a ban on using the concept, so saying “strategic equivocation” is actually just as banned as “motte and bailey”.
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Well, in my defense, the main post has “Poor social skills in general.” as creepy, but elsewhere in the thread there is a person using assault (with a knife!) as an example of what a creep does.
Hell, the main post even makes the equivocation obvious: “a person who makes other people feel uncomfortable or unsafe“. Safety and comfort are very different things, merit different responses, and should not be conflated.
And from what I recall, the concept isn’t completely banned, only baseless accusations of it are. I think there’s sufficient evidence here to justify my conduct, but Ozy is of course welcome to disagree and moderate to their preference.
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To be clear, the assault with a knife thing was a far bit beyond creepiness. (Actually, the detective called my g/f and told her they were arresting the guy today. So yay.)
The point is this: a cold approach by a strange man can make women very nervous, and for good reasons. I was not there, but the way my g/f tells it, this guy was giving off creep vibes long before the knife. I’ve been around guys like this, where they just seem *off*, but they are obviously interested and it really is an open question if they will take no for an answer. Myself, I want to stay as fucking far from guys like that as I can.
It seems like about once a week I have to deal with a dude like this. It’s very unpleasant. In fact, “creepy” is the perfect word for these guys.
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@veronica: Good on your girlfriend/her roommate/bystanders (as accurate) for reporting him. And for fighting back (and winning) in the first place.
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Wait-wait-wait. What about all the behaviours between those two extremes? A useful definition, IMO, should draw the line somewhere in that large area you left unmentioned.
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OK, but no one can control usage, and if “creep” devolves into a generic slur against unappealing or socially awkward men, it’s pretty weak tea to protest that you don’t mean it that way. I’m sure there is some narrow definition of “bitch” that we could all accept as justified condemnation of specific feminine behavior, but the term has broader and less savory associations that can’t simply be ignored.
Maybe one day men will proudly reclaim “creep”. “The Creep Is Back”? Creep magazine? It’s the circle of life.
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Hmm… At first I was going to say “nah, ‘creep’ is not reclaimable”. But after a bit of thought, I remembered CreepShots! So yeah, a few people are already wearing it proudly.
I’ve never called anyone a “creep”, but I have experienced what I would describe as creepy behavior. Do you think “creepiness” is not a useful concept in general, or just not useful enough to outweigh the harm from overuse?
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I don’t think it’s at “generic slur” status yet, just headed that way. I endorse Ozy’s prescriptions for its use. It’s a useful word! Some guys are creeps.
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I’ve noticed a lot of similarities between creep-shaming and fat-shaming. In both cases a person is repulsed that someone they find unattractive is being sexual in their general vicinity. They immediately come up with rationalizations for why that person is bad and deserves to be bullied and hurt. The specific rationalizations are different, but the end result is the same.
Of course, the SJ types seem to regard fat-shaming as a horrible evil, while creep-shaming is reasonable. The uncharitable explanation for this is that women are victims of fat-shaming more frequently than men. A slightly more charitable one might be that occasionally creepy behaviors really are signals of harmfulness.
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Because it was included in Ozy’s “Reasonable Person Standard of creepiness”, not in a description of the current use of “creep” and “creepy”.
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Indeed. I took that last list as prescriptive, not merely descriptive, which seems reasonable from context. I know real-world usage of creepy is at times significantly less reasonable than even Ozy’s list, but I was surprised to find this criterion in a list by past-Ozy.
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[note: you don’t have to spend more time thinking about this topic just to educate me, so do what seems best for your own well-being]
But… women are people, therefore — ? Or was Younger You convinced that abuse is always caused by social (in this case, gender) inequality?
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From previous comment threads, the simple version seems to be an internalization of the same (lunatic) idea that leads people to justify rioting (paraphrasing heavily; not a quote from moebius or any other specific source): “Members of an oppressed class are justified in lashing out at members of an oppressor class; their violence is a legitimate form of resistance to oppression. All men/whites participate in male/white supremacy, and are therefore legitimate targets of liberating violence. Violence is the voice of the voiceless; by opposing it, you are silencing women/blacks, which is a form of oppression.”
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@ moebius
Thanks. I still can’t wrap my mind around it completely, but I appreciate the explanation.
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[I’m not sure how “on topic” this is, but this thread made me think of it.]
I used to write erotic fiction, and as it turned out mostly I hung out in male-dominated spaces. Which actually was probably a bad choice for me, but — you know — I’ve had a complex relationship with gender.
Anyway, I recall this one dude who came onto the forums this one time. I’ll call him “R”. He had a question, which was this: why shouldn’t he just *touch* any woman he is attracted to, like whenever he pleases? He reasoned thus: it causes no real harm to the woman, to be randomly touched by a man, such as in a public place like a fast food restaurant or the subway. It makes him very happy. He saw no reason he should not do this.
I’m not exaggerating this man’s position. He argued for it in detail.
Honestly, I was at a loss for a good response. In the thread, the other men on the forum talked about bodily autonomy and such, but R did not accept that reasoning. He saw no logical requirement of bodily autonomy. It’s just touching, on the exterior. He was not suggesting he penetrate these women nor exchange fluids or anything like that. Why should they care that he touches their breasts or butt?
Following that, some of the men then suggested that touching women is wrong simply because the women do not like it. R again rejected this argument. He said, basically, that the women were wrong to feel this way and we should not allow their irrational beliefs govern his behavior.
This was a very strange conversation. It proceeded for a while, and then degraded in entirely predictable ways. The other men on the forum began to verbally berate R. They called him a freaked-out rape monster and a creep.
Cuz, you know, he was a fucking creep. I mean, seriously.
I honestly do not know how to *prove* to someone that bodily autonomy matters, nor that the comfort of women matters, if the person has already rejected those notions. To have a moral discussion, some ground rules must be shared, some base assumptions. In this case, it seems we had none.
Myself, I see R as a material problem. He is a brain in the world, and we can use our words and actions to try to get that brain to treat us well. But if that brain does not, then what do we do? We won’t let such a man randomly touch women.
We are all brains in the world. Decent men who happen to be *weird* don’t want to be called creeps by mean-spirited people who do not understand them. I don’t want men to degrade me sexually. But some men don’t even know what “degrade” means or why I would feel that way. I can try to explain, but if the explanations fail, then what? I know how to use power.
Which is the same tool that bullies use. Which, obviously.
I like to think that on the other side of moral nihilism we find a way to be kind to each other.
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Yes, I agree, that type of attitude/discussion/action is one of the roots of this problem.
I also don’t know how to handle it.
One thought: (In a discussion where you’re physically safe,) maybe assume that such a person is reacting to a history of being told, or just of deriving the message, that *only* what other people want matters, and what he wants does not?
(As in SSC’s “All Debates Are Bravery Debates”?)
I doubt all people who act that way really are. But I’m sure some are. So, in a discussion, maybe start by assuming that?
As for what to do if/when that doesn’t help/stops helping…I got nothing.
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Seconding Nita’s comment. The list at the end is presented as an attempt at a “non-kyriarchical” standard for what constitutes creepy behavior. To find it riddled with ableist bullshit is therefore disappointing and angering.
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I agree with most of this post.
Something to add though:
A bunch of commenters have mentioned the “poor social skills” aspect of Ozy’s “reasonable person standard.” Assailed it as “ableist” and so on.
Yeah, the other day I commented about the problem with the “reasonable person standard” for people with ASDs/NVLDs under the “Feminism and Nerds” post. To quote myself:
IMO that *is* one of the reasons mild Asperger’s/HFA are so disabling: They make the person act creepy without even knowing.
To be blunter about it: They cause the person to trigger other people’s, uh, “sociopath-dar.”
Gavin de Becker actually discussed this in the appendix to one of the /Gift/ books (can’t remember if it was /Gift of Fear/ or /Protecting the Gift/, but I think the latter).
The problem is that sociopaths also trigger people’s sociopath-dar, and protecting people from sociopaths is, after all, its purpose. So we can’t just ask people to stop using it.
No, I don’t have a solution to this. Neither does de Becker, but…at least he tried to address it?
BTW1: IMO this is one of those cases where obsessing over “whether something’s -ist” and treating “being -ist as a Sign Of Evil” is just…not helpful.
BTW2: When reading de Becker’s account of how he and his high school friends bullied a classmate with an ASD, and then he noticed the signs the classmate was about to blow up and nobody else did, so he stopped participating in the bullying, and here’s what those signs were, and the classmate then did blow up and attacked one of the bullies, see how his prediction was correct?–
–I found de Becker and his story extremely creepy.
That’s because he showed no empathy for the bullied boy, while at the same time portraying the bullying as not just to be expected (which it was), but as normative and acceptable–the subtext was that “there was nothing wrong about them doing this or wrong with them *for* doing it, and it wasn’t at all to be condemned in any way.”
He did that on purpose, so as to get people who had engaged in this behavior to admit to themselves that they had. That was the only way to get them to then go on to learn from his story that they needed to stop doing this kind of stuff.
I understand that. But it still came off as creepy. 😉
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“The problem is that sociopaths also trigger people’s sociopath-dar, and protecting people from sociopaths is, after all, its purpose. So we can’t just ask people to stop using it.”
Black people have a higher crime rate than white people, which means you can protect yourself from sociopaths by being more suspicious of anyone who is black. Should we ask people to stop this?
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Careful with terminology here: Most criminals aren’t sociopaths, so it’s non-obvious that blacks being more likely to be criminals means that they’re more likely to be criminal sociopaths.
But, in a way, that’s a problem with the original argument: Sociopath-dar doesn’t actual protect you from the majority of people who might want to harm you. To the extent that listening to your sociopath-dar becomes a primary strategy for avoiding victimization, it may actually make people more vulnerable to a majority of predators, because they’re reassured by a lack of sociopath pings.
After all, isn’t that what “he’s such a nice boy, very social and friendly; he’d never do anything like that!” is all about? It’s a declaration that the accused [batterer/murderer/rapist/whatever] doesn’t set off sociopath-dar, and therefore must be innocent.
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@Jiro:
As osberend said, you were conflating “crime” and “sociopathy” when they’re not the same thing. But if you’d asked about crime instead–I don’t have anything more to say on that issue than what others have already said in this thread. That is (summary): In the moment, people will prioritize protecting themselves; they’ll listen to their intuition, and they have a right to. OTOH, when they’re *not* in the middle of a stressful, intuition-triggering situation, but are instead “in a safe space,” they can and should re-examine their intuition for harmful biases.
@osberend:
Hmm…on reflection, “sociopath-dar” is not quite right. But neither is what I’m talking about as general as “crime-dar.” It’s more of a detector for “a sociopath or other person who has temporarily talked themselves out of empathizing with me.” (As in the scenario mentioned in my other, gigantic reply to you upthread. Which I guess got caught in the spam filter…I’ll wait a bit and see if Ozy finds it.)
And that also makes it clearer why people on the spectrum often ping it. Its purpose is to detect people who will not be prevented from victimizing you by their empathy. IOW, it’s a “lack of empathy detector.” And while people on the spectrum do not actually lack empathy, they very often come off that way.
You make a good point about a possible failure mode, but OTOH, it seems to have “worked” well enough to keep being selected for.
The problem for “weird but harmless” people (and also for “accuracy as defined as getting an equal number of Type I and Type II errors”) is that mistaking a “weird but harmless” person for a predator does not harm the person doing the mistaking, so it’s not selected against. Of course, from the POV of the person trying to protect themselves, “erring on the side of caution” is exactly what they want.
I wrote more about this in my other reply to you upthread. Quick summary: I think more cultural emphasis on honor/codes of behavior, rather than just in-the-moment empathy, might help.
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@veronica (posted as a top-level comment because it’s ungodly long enough as it is):
All I can say is I find your position incredibly callous and unrealistic.
It’s callous and unrealistic to expect people not to say yes to requests that they strongly want not to fulfill when not being threatened? Becuase that is the only context in which I have used the phrase “grow a spine” in this thread, which AFAICT is what we’re arguing about.
Or are you rolling “use your words” into this as well? Or something broader? Given that you seem to be either grossly misunderstanding or grossly mischaracterizing my position as a whole (more on that below) I’m not really sure what you’re even addressing here.
I have gone through life with both a man’s face and a woman’s face. I will say flatly, it is different as a woman, and the ongoing menace I face is much higher in the latter state.
In principle, this is useful information. In practice, I wonder how much it’s confounded by the fact that you, as you put it, “visibly trans,” and trans women on average (as I’m sure you know perfectly well) face a lot more aggression and violence than cis women.
Yes, men are violent against other men. Indeed, looking at the crime stats, they are less violent against women. But I believe that is because women *behave differently from men*. We placate. If we did not, the crime stats would change.
I have no doubt that this is true to some extent, and considered including it as a caveat in my previous comment.[1] If women placated men less, they would get hit more than they do. But I am not convinced that means that if they placated men as little as other men do, they would get hit more than men do, especially since there are (admittedly erratic) social norms against hitting women even in situations where one would hit a men. As I mentioned elsewhere in this thread, one of my friends got tackled to the floor and punched in the back of the head by a (mutual) stranger when he slapped a girl in response to her hitting him across the face with a large rubber dildo, because this asshole felt that he needed to be punished for “hitting a girl.” If he the dildo-wielder had been a man, I can guarantee that this would not have happened.
I am sorry you were attacked and hurt.
Thank you for the sympathy.
Going meta, I will say this: if you refuse to be sensitive to the concerns of women
This seems an insanely overbroad characterization of my position.
However, the point of this thread is about how socially well-positioned women can hurt men by using the term “creep.” Which raises a question: why should I give a fuck about the pain of nerdy men if nerdy men like you do not care about the difficulties we women face?
If nothing else, then because it is dishonorable and wrong to attack someone’s character dishonestly[2], even if they are deserving of an honest attack.
Also because, again, insanely overbroad characterization.
But consider, “growing a spine” for a woman might involve learning to use tools such as “Go away you gross fucking creep,” said to men who make her uncomfortable. Why should she not?
Cuz it hurts him? Cuz it’s unfair?
Broadly speaking, yes. Most uses of “gross fucking creep” (and all uses for which other, more precise labels are not equally suitable) is unfair, and it is wrong to hurt people unfairly. In those particular instances where it is not unfair, I don’t care about the injury to the target, but I still do care about the normalization of “gross fucking creep.”
Well then he can grow a fucking spine, yes?
This analogy doesn’t work:
Yours is the war of all against all.
What.
No seriously, what?
Here’s the position I’ve staked out in this thread:
1. The following are rights-violations, outside of specific non-central circumstances, and (generic) you must not do them:
1.a Touching other people without their consent.
1.b Continuing to engage in directed communication targeted to people who’ve asked you to stop.
1.c Engaging in any speech or behavior whose purpose is to frighten others or to threaten them with future rights-violations, including the loss of anything to which they have a right.
1.d Lying to or about people, including (if intentional) by implication or strategic vagueness.
1.e Trespassing on others’ property.
1.f Damaging others’ property.
2. The following are not in general rights violations (except, of course, insofar as they fall under some subclause of (1)):
2.a Expressing sexual interest in someone who is not sexually interested in you.
2.b Expressing sexual interest as a first communication and/or only seeking to communicate with people you are sexually interested in.
2.c Continuing communication directed toward someone who is signalling disinterest, but has not asked (or demanded) that you stop.
2.d Expressing romantic or sexual interest under circumstances that may make the other person nervous, provided that you are not seeking to make them nervous.
2.e Applying explicit or implicit emotional pressure to encourage others to do what you want (sexually or otherwise), provided (again) that you don’t run afoul of (1.b,c, or d) in doing so.
2.f Having poor social skills.
2.g Seeking opportunities to see someone that you’re interested in.
2.h Attempting to turn a non-date into a date.
2.i Honestly describing what you will do if another person does not do what you want (again, sexually or otherwise), when that is something they do not want, but which does not itself violate any of their rights (e.g. breaking up with them).
3. Boundaries are implicit assertions of rights; boundaries that forbid things that are not rights-violations are therefore illegitimate as boundaries, but may still be legitimate as preferences.
4. Some actions that are not rights-violations are still shitty things to do intentionally. Calling people who do so “assholes,” “jerks,” and so forth is perfectly fine; calling them “creeps” (which tacitly implies that that their behavior is boundary-crossing, and therefore rights-violating) is not.
4.a It’s totally cool to not invite assholes to your parties.
5. You should stand up for yourself when faced with attempts to violate your rights, even when it’s risky to do so.
6. You should stand up for others, even strangers, when they are faced with attempts to violate their rights, even when it’s risky to do so.
7. In order to facilitate (5) and (6), you should be armed whenever possible, and be prepared to use violence (lethally, if necessary) against violent rights-violators, including those who are attempting to do violence to innocent strangers. You should do this despite both physical and legal risks, because it is right and honorable.
You obviously don’t like the above position. Fine. I even sympathize with some of your reasons for not liking it, just not enough to reject the reasons I have for supporting it.
But how on earth are you interpreting it as support for “the war of all against all.”
To elaborate a little further on my story above: I almost got stabbed in the gut with a screwdriver because I got involved in a shouting match between my idiot housemate and the obviously unstable dude he had invited into our apartment. And I did that because I was alarmed that there was a girl in a crunk stupor on one of the couches and my housemate had earlier indicated an intent to have the unstable dude crash on the other couch—despite the unstable dude being vocally racist and the girl being black—and I saw an opportunity to get the dude out of the apartment. If I’d responded to my idiot housemate calling me his “bodyguard” by saying “yeah, right” and going back to my own room, I wouldn’t have been in any danger.
And I didn’t mention any of that before, so I can’t expect your response to have taken it into account, of course.
But it follows quite naturally from the principle that I did state: “[E]very competent adult, regardless of gender, should be [. . .] ready and willing to use lethal force against an aggressor if it becomes necessary—regardless of whether that aggressor is attacking them or some other innocent party. [emphasis added]” In that case, I wasn’t armed, so my ability to use force was greatly reduced (a mistake that I’m not planning to repeat!), but the central principle is the same: One is obligated to risk one’s safety in order to defend others whose rights are under attack.
I care about vulnerable people.
And I don’t?
[1] Arguably, it’s implied to some extent by my suggestion that “women’s tendency to placate men more than other men do has at least as much to do with greater aversion to a risk of being hit . . .” instead of “. . . is a product of a greater aversion . . . rather than . . .” But I probably should have been more explicit.
[2] I consider “creep” to be dishonest by implication in much the same way as “demotist.”
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I wouldn’t characterize it that way. I’d put it this way:
IOW you’ve unintentionally given the impression of “not even trying.”
…thank you for illustrating my point from the other thread?
Which of your reasons supersede which of her reasons in your opinion, and why?
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“…thank you for illustrating my point from the other thread?”
(There was supposed to be a gd&r after that. Sorry about that!)
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I am utterly baffled by your first point. You’re saying that (you think) veronica quoting my rhetoric about situation A in reference to situation B, in the course of a debate, is not an attempt to suggest that if my rhetoric applies to A, then it applies to B as well?
I’m also not really sure what I’ve said that suggests that I don’t understand veronica’s POV on the issue in question, as opposed to that I understand it and disagree.
Which of your reasons supersede which of her reasons in your opinion, and why?
My reasons are, broadly speaking, a belief in liberty, honor, and the right not to be defamed. Her reasons, as near as I can tell, are a desire not to risk physical injury and a desire not to suffer fear. I think that all of my reasons are more important than not suffering fear, and that honor, and defense of one’s own liberty and that of others, is more important than avoiding the risk of physical injury. Why? Ultimately, I suppose it comes down to moral axioms. It is virtuous to be honorable, and merely pleasant to be unafraid.
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Bringing this down to a top-level comment since it’s so long…
osberend, on this blog, under the “Mental Health Awfulness in the Wake of the Newtown Shooting” post, you posted a kind of empathy classification scheme that I think is very helpful. So, to apply it to this discussion:
I’ve been using the word “empathy” as a combo of your (3) and (4). But I agree that most people conflate all 5.
(I think the official term for…both of your (3) and (4), they really should fix that…is “affective empathy.” And for your (1) it’s “cognitive empathy,” and for (2), “emotional perception.” And your (5) doesn’t have an official term that I know of. Anyway!)
To be more specific about what I was talking about–the “lack of empathy detector” I mentioned is “trying” to detect people who will not feel bad about hurting you, which would be people who, either permanently (sociopaths) or temporarily (predators who have turned it off just for you/your group), lack (3)/(4)–“affective empathy.”
And I agree that people on the autism spectrum can come off as lacking (3) and/or (4), when/but they actually have trouble with (2) and/or (5).
Or (1) as well–like Hubert Cross, who wrote “Asperger Syndrome and Making Sense.” An excerpt:
A problem here is that someone can *have* (3) and/or (4), yet if they have trouble with (1) and/or (2), then they can’t *display* (3) or (4)…and sometimes this results in the other person getting hurt. (Having trouble only with (5) can do this too, but to a much less extreme, less disabling extent.)
Cross gives an example:
So because lacking an automatic (1) is *also* a sign that a person may hurt you…and not feel bad about it because they won’t *know* about it…it too can ping the “lack of empathy detector.”
And since the detector is primarily a self-protection mechanism–it *should*.
We’re back to the problem that I don’t have a solution for. If someone can’t see you, and they don’t know they can’t see you, then they can hurt you without even knowing they have. And so you need to, and have a right to, protect yourself from that possibility.
Cross argues that the solution is treatment–training people with Asperger’s/HFA in, as he puts it, “making sense.” I agree with him that that will, at the very least, *help a lot*.
There’s another, subtler issue here.
Another of Cross’ anecdotes:
This type of story is familiar to people not on the spectrum too.
That’s because of the “selectively switching off empathy” thing I mentioned before.
Non-spectrum types (who I will now call “NSs” because I’m old and prefer that to “allistics”) will switch off empathy not just self-servingly, but also, they’ll do it when preoccupied. In the case of this story, an NS might behave just like Cross’ father, due to being preoccupied with his worries about his birds and orchids. He’d be so worried about that that he’d “forget” to think about why his son was dragging his feet (the “(1) module” would temporarily switch off; NSs understand that anxiety can do this), and then he’d BTW commit the Fundamental Attribution Error–“my son is dragging his feet because he’s *a lazy person*.”
And then when his son told him the real reason, the (1) module would switch back on and he’d go, “Oh, of course!” and then he’d stay another day.
And so when what Cross describes happens, NSs don’t realize how that differs from what I just wrote. They assume the person’s (1) module just switched off temporarily. They were just preoccupied. But now it’s back on! Everything’s fine now! They’ll “act normal” (constantly try to predict others’ mindstates) now!
And then they don’t.
The NS ends up interpreting this as, “This person gets preoccupied with their own concerns really, really often,” which they assume reflects how much the person cares about themselves as opposed to others (IOW, your (3)). They interpret it as selfishness. They never realize what the real problem is.
This is an example of an area where NSs need to learn more about Asperger’s/HFA.
OK, so all that was about more like moderate Asperger’s rather than mild. I believe that moderate Asperger’s is in some ways less disabling than mild, because moderate Asperger’s is easier for NSs to understand.
Cross’ article discusses the least complex form or “level” of your (1) / cognitive empathy. But there are harder levels (shading into the “context” aspect of (2)):
* People are making these same judgements and predictions about you. You try to guess their mindstates; they try to guess yours. Your behavior leads them to draw conclusions about your mindstates.
* You can curate your behavior so as to control (or at least, direct) their impressions of your mindstates. Similarly, they curate their behavior in order to lead you to draw (possibly mistaken) conclusions about their mindstates.
* They expect you to do that. They assume you do. They assume you always do. So…
* Their assumptions about your mindstates are affected by what they think you are trying to make them think you think.
(Typing that up makes me see more clearly how complex it actually is. That’s why NSs need a “social coprocessor” to pull it off, I guess.)
Cross quotes Uta Frith’s mention of the “relatively well adapted Asperger individual whose behaviour is superficially normal, and whose appearance and demeanour do not elicit the help he or she needs.” IMO this is what often happens to people with mild Asperger’s, or NVLD, or who are “very nerdy but not quite diagnosable.”
I agree with Frith and Cross: IMO it’s people who have mild and even transient problems with those especially complex forms of (1)/(2) who are most likely to unnecessarily set off others’ “lack of empathy detectors.”
(Again, I think sometimes it *is* “necessary” for those others’ goal of self-protection. Sometimes subtle problems with cognitive empathy *do* hurt others. But OTOH, often they don’t, or at least not in proportion to the reaction. Even when they do, as memeticengineer said they lack mens rea, so they don’t deserve the “moral condemnation” reaction they tend to get. So, “unnecessarily.”)
Ultimately, people are not going to *turn off* an instinct that, for many, protects them better than their cognition ever can. They’re just not. And, for the reason wireheadwannabe mentioned (“[People think] anyone who tries to talk you into treating your fear as irrational is intentionally or unintentionally trying to groom you as a potential victim”), trying to convince them to will only breed hostility.
So I think instead we should help them improve its accuracy. NSs need to learn to better recognize and communicate with people on the autism spectrum. And people on the spectrum need to improve their skill at avoiding unintentionally hurting others.
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I have a lot of thoughts on this, but I have a bad habit of putting off replies until I have time to say everything I’m thinking and then never getting around to it. So here’s the single point that is most salient to me; if I find time to touch on other things, I will:
There’s a point that you sort of touch on vaguely, but don’t seem to fully engage with, namely that this:
A problem here is that someone can *have* (3) and/or (4), yet if they have trouble with (1) and/or (2), then they can’t *display* (3) or (4)
. . . is only true if (a) they have trouble with (1) specifically, or (b) the person they’re interacting with won’t tell them what they’re feeling/what they want.
This is a big part of why I have so little sympathy for people who complain about others “not taking a hint.” Someone who doesn’t tell me what they want explicitly, but expects me to be aware of it, is freely choosing[1] to do something that makes it harder for me to give either of us what we want—and then complaining about the entirely natural result!
It’s like asking someone that you know speaks English and suspect speaks French to fuck off—in French! Most of the time, it may work (assuming you’re good at guessing who speaks French), but you have no one to blamed but yourself if it doesn’t!
I personally find it especially difficult to understand other people’s motivations when their behavior appears to bear no logical connection to their goals. For example:
Suppose Alice wants Bob to stop talking to her, and also not to get angry with her for not wanting to talk to him. This explains various deceitful strategies she might use, such as feigning a need to go elsewhere to meet someone. What it does not explain is why she would try to signal to him that she doesn’t want to talk to him without actually saying it, using body language, vocal tone, etc.
Consider: Either Bob will receive the message or he will not. If he does not, then she has gained nothing. If he does, then he is aware that she does not want to talk to him. Thus, he has the same knowledge that she feared would make him angry if communicated directly, but has had to work harder[2] for it. Why on Earth would this make him less angry?
One possibility seems to be that Alice is hoping to convey an ambiguous message: Maybe she doesn’t want to talk to him, and maybe she’s just tired (or whatever). But this doesn’t seem to help matters: If Bob is the sort of person who will get angry with her if she doesn’t want to talk to him, is it likely that he will stop talking based on the mere possibility that she doesn’t want to talk to him?
Moreover, the idea that the message is intentionally ambiguous is fatally undercut if Alice later talks about how she was “obviously” uninterested, and yet Bob “couldn’t take a hint”—if the disinterest is meant to be obvious, then it can hardly be meant to be ambiguous as well.
Is there something I’m missing here? This seems to be a strategy that cannot possibly be better at achieving its ends than at least one of not communicating disinterest at all and stating disinterest explicitly (depending on how Alice prioritizes Bob stopping talking to her vs. Bob not being angry), and yet many women not only adopt it, but get angry when men fail to infer that they have done so.
[1] Outside of a few edge cases, like being non-verbal either in general or situationally.
[2] Perhaps not much harder, if he’s neurotypical, but still.
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Yes, you are missing something. I’ll explain it in two ways, tell me if either one is helpful.
1. People use hints when saying it directly would be considered rude. And being rude without provocation is an act of aggression. So, your position is the equivalent of “I’m not going to go away until you slap me” — and you don’t tell them, so they are supposed to find out by trying!
2. The actual meaning of words is how they’re used, not what you can guess from looking at them. For instance, “I don’t want to talk to you” means “I don’t want to talk to you and I hate you”, while “I need to go” means “I either can’t or don’t want to talk to you, but I don’t hate you”. You are like a French person trying to interpret English as French and getting angry at the English speakers when it doesn’t work.
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I appreciate your effort at explanation (which I think at least advances the terrain of the discussion/debate/whatever it is that is going on here), so I apologize if the following sounds hostile; I have a lot of bitterness at the bulk of humanity over these matters, and it makes it hard to write about them non-aggressively. You are at least attempting to explain, which is more than can be said for most, and I do appreciate that.
(2) is helpful in about the same way that saying “if I said that, he would have to kill me as a sacrifice to Poseidon, in order to ensure good winds for the upcoming trading season” would be—it succeeds in explaining how the speaker’s behavior results naturally from the speaker’s model of other people’s expected behavior, but explains neither how the speaker acquired such a model, nor (if the model is generally accurate) why on earth other people would behave that way in the first place.
I mean, a system in which saying “X” is broadly understood as meaning “X and also Y,” so that there is no way to unambiguously communicate X by itself is a REALLY. FUCKING. BAD communication system, in a totally unnecessary way. Why would anyone put up with it?
I’m not sure your analogy works anyway, but my other objections to it are almost beside the point, next to this one. This is not like trying to interpret English as French, this is like trying to speak English to a bunch of people who have decided for no fucking reason to use only the words contained in Basic English, and to treat all other English words as obscenities, despite being fully aware of their literal definitions.
Regarding (1) . . . again, directness is good. Tabooing directness as “rude” is actively counterproductive to effective communication. How can a person with even the slightest bit of honor internalize such an absurd demand? I’m not talking about playing along in some specific situation (I bite my own tongue a fair bit at work), but about regarding such idiocy as reasonable, or wanting the friendship of people who do.
And slapping really just isn’t the same; verbal aggression is not like physical violence. But I could steelman your point as “osberend is saying ‘I won’t go until you tell me to fuck off, or something similarly harsh’ and leaving it for people to guess that.” All right, I guess, though I still don’t really buy it (see above), but here’s the thing: If I told a person to stop talking to me and he did not, then I would tell him to fuck off! If you don’t succeed at achieving a fundamentally reasonable goal at one level of rudeness, you are quite justified in escalating to the next!
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No need to apologize, I know you have Feelings on this topic. For me, a major turning point was realizing that the usual purpose of verbal communication is not to transfer information from one person to another. The primary purpose is achieving some practical goal — getting them to do something or making them like you — and the information content matters only insofar it helps.
Not necessarily! It depends on what X and Y are. For instance, what use is communicating “I don’t want to talk to you” by itself? That statement can be true in very different situations:
– you hate this person, so any interaction is likely to lead to violence;
– you’re very upset at this person, so you might say something hurtful;
– you’ve just concluded that this person is dumb/boring/dishonorable;
– you’d rather talk to someone you like, who just came in;
– you’re not in the mood to talk to anyone;
– you need to go somewhere, and you don’t want to be late.
You’ll have to support that claim with actual arguments, since most people seem to use indirect communication quite effectively.
Is it dishonorable to care about other people and not want to needlessly hurt their feelings?
We’re talking about a simple, light slap. It won’t do any physical damage, so the only result is a bit of pain and offense — just like with verbal aggression.
Yes, but some people would rather not hurt others, even when it’s justified. To them, both deciding to do it and doing it involves emotional pain. And if you ignore their hints on principle, they will resent you.
Have you seen Steven Pinker’s TED talk, “What our language habits reveal”? He says,
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@osberend — You know, you’re actually kind of a creep.
No really.
It is not because you are “low status,” since I have no idea what kind of status roles you play in life. Nor is it not your appearance. I have no idea what you look like. Neither is it because you are neuro-atypical, as many of us on this forum are. I do not find the other NAT men here creeps. It is this: You have zero willingness to respect feelings, needs, and goals of other people. You have zero sympathy for the constraints they face. Nor do you accept that they might understand these constraints better than you do. You think, quite arrogantly, that you have figured out how communication should work, ignoring the fact that 1) people are not all going to change all at once, so even if your system might be good if everyone followed it, we have to deal with an environment where people do not follow it, and 2) it probably wouldn’t work anyway, since top-down changes to systems of enormous complexity — well let us just say that such failures are remarkable.
Consider this: people desire not only communication, but also *to avoid conflict*. This is a reasonable thing for a person to want, since conflict too often leads to injury.
But even short of injury, conflict takes from a person their peace of mind. Once you draw them into conflict, they are no longer free to *ignore your existence*. A cold shoulder, a dismissive shrug — these are important things.
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My g/f is carrying around a lot of fear from her attack. Which, evidently getting attacked by a knife is traumatic, even if you do not get stabbed. I can see this fear in her body language. I can hear it in her voice. Her attacker *took something from her*, and it will be a while until she gets it back.
She now wishes that she and her roommate had *not* stood up to the guy, that they had humored him, strung him along until they could get away. This is exactly what most women do, and for good reason. (We trannies have to learn this stuff crash-course style. Cis women usually learn this stuff as teens.)
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@veronica: You know, you’re actually kind of a creep.
To the extent that you’re “right,” you’re just proving my central point:
While there’s been a bit of debate about the details, the fundamental consensus of the pro–using “creep” side here appears to be that labeling men as creeps is a necessary way for women[1] to identify, flag, and avoid men[1] who are disproportionately likely to be a physical threat to them, sexually or otherwise. And here I come along and say: (a) It is a violation of another person’s rights to touch them without their explicit affirmative consent, (b) it is a violation of another person’s rights to continuing talking or otherwise communicating to them after they have explicitly asked you to stop, (c) it is a violation of another person’s rights to willfully threaten thm, and (d) it is morally obligatory to intervene in defense of other people whose rights are being violated, even if you don’t know them and even if doing so puts you in physical or legal danger. Judging by my statements (which are all anyone here has to judge me by), I am quite far from being a physical threat to anyone who isn’t a willful rights-violator.
But I also say that (e) it is not obligatory to stop communicating to someone (still without touching them) simply because they may be trying to imply that they would like you to do so, and (f) that one should freely speak one’s mind, on all sides of an interaction. And for this, despite the lack of a physical threat, you say that I am “kind of a creep.”
Some threat-identification mechanism you have there!
Neither is it because you are neuro-atypical, as many of us on this forum are.
No, it’s just because I don’t think accept that I should have to expend great effort imitating neurotypical capabilities that are heavily utilized by Moloch.
You have zero willingness to respect feelings, needs, and goals of other people.
Your tendency toward wild hyperbole (first “the war of all against all,” now this) makes it hard to have a rational conversation. Clearly, this statement is inaccurate: If I did not care at all about such things, then I would hardly be defending any of (a–d). Moreover, I would hardly have said that it is an honorable act to reassure someone else that it’s fine to say no, if that were the case.
I also wouldn’t have nearly gotten gut-stabbed over something that was fundamentally not my fight.
It’s true that I lack the level of respect for your feelings, needs, and goals that would be required for me to accept your position on this issue, but you likewise lack that level of respect for mine. Where’s the difference?
You have zero sympathy for the constraints they face.
Apart from, you know, my explicitly-stated sympathy for people who are in danger of losing their jobs if they alienate their co-workers and are unable to find alternative employment. Or any of the constraints that I have stated I have little sympathy for, and not none. Or anything I haven’t discussed, which you would have no way of making reliable inferences about.
You think, quite arrogantly, that you have figured out how communication should work,
You say arrogant, I say logical. Certainly, body language is demonstrably not required, as seen through the success of text-based social media.
ignoring the fact that 1) people are not all going to change all at once, so even if your system might be good if everyone followed it, we have to deal with an environment where people do not follow it,
And? Act logically, and if someone berates you, berate them in turn.
and 2) it probably wouldn’t work anyway, since top-down changes to systems of enormous complexity — well let us just say that such failures are remarkable.
Sometimes. And it’s interesting how he cites Brasilia as an example of a top-down nightmare, given the drastically different perspective that some people have on it, including one of the commenters on that very blog:
The numbers would seem to support them.
But even short of injury, conflict takes from a person their peace of mind. Once you draw them into conflict, they are no longer free to *ignore your existence*. A cold shoulder, a dismissive shrug — these are important things.
How on earth are these important, if coming from someone whose existence you wanted to ignore!? These are precisely invitations to do just that!
My g/f is carrying around a lot of fear from her attack. Which, evidently getting attacked by a knife is traumatic, even if you do not get stabbed. I can see this fear in her body language. I can hear it in her voice. Her attacker *took something from her*, and it will be a while until she gets it back.
Sure, and I lament that.
She now wishes that she and her roommate had *not* stood up to the guy, that they had humored him, strung him along until they could get away.
That’s an understandable reaction, but . . . in error, for lack of a better way of putting it[2]. They did an honorable thing and achieved a useful end (the perpetrator being arrested), without suffering injury. That is fit cause for pride, not regret.
And look, I’m not asserting that men always act with honor, or are pleased at the consequence when they do. I’m not even asserting that I do that; I’ve admitted elsewhere in this thread that I have cowardly tendencies, and that they used to be worse. But I recognize that as a vice, and I am trying to work on it, and I expect others to do the same. I make allowances for human weakness much more readily than I do for lack of interest in being stronger.
[1] In both cases, technically “people,” but focusing on the modal cases simplifies discussion.
[2] I thought about omitting mention of this point at all, since it seems likely to produce more heat than light, but figured that appearing to ignore it would be even worse.
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@ veronica d
I think you could have phrased some of that in a more compassionate way. I mean, you’re probably tired of dealing with shitty attitudes, but still.
@ osberend
Hmm, let’s try a thought experiment. Imagine your evil twin, Debsenor. Her ethical beliefs are very similar to yours, but her idea of “honor” happens to be different. How would you persuade her not to hurt people?
From the outside, it can seem like we’re just lucky that your current opinions happen to be nice.
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@Nita: Thanks for the compassion.
That’s an interesting thought experiment, and one I’ll be happy to take a stab at, although it make take a little while. It would be helpful if you could close a bit of inferential distance for me:
Intuitively, it seems to me that your final sentence is true (for a rather broad definition of “just lucky”) of absolutely everyone with decent ethics (by whatever standards one measures that). What is it about my ethics that causes you to state it about me in particular?
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@ osberend
The difference is that some people are (somewhat) willing to accommodate the needs of others even when the needs seem irrational and the resulting interaction seems inefficient / suboptimal / non-ideal / whatever.
You have explicitly stated several times that you would never do that. People should act and feel the way you consider correct, and if they can’t — well, it’s their own fault for being so weird.
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Hmmm, your description of my position sounds a bit more extreme than my actual position. I’ll have to go back over my comments in this thread and see whether I’ve been careless in my rhetoric, or whether you’re misreading me (which might still be instructive as to why others are misreading me, of course). Or both. But I think that will have to wait for tomorrow, or perhaps even a few days from now (given how many comments I have in this thread).
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@osberend:
I would be very interested to read the rest of your thoughts if you do find the time.
Yes! That is exactly the message you’re sending.
Good steelman! 🙂
I agree. Gavin de Becker says the same thing.
Related LessWrong post:
If someone sets out to say, “Guys, give us polite outs”…
Then replying, “I refuse. Instead, *you* just develop a thick skin about the social awkwardness!”
…comes off as, “No way! I’m going to do the opposite, and exploit the rules of politeness and become the kind of person that others find it difficult to say no to.”
Not the conversation you set out to have, I know. I think yours was more along the lines of (taken from a linguistics lj; Google ozarque and cows; really do, the discussion there about the reasons for one specific indirect culture might help answer your questions):
(This is kind of a weird convo for me because 10-15 years ago I was always the person getting piled on for sincerely worrying about “this standard’s effect on autistic men” and getting mistaken for a concern troll. I’m really on both “sides” and I hope that’s clear…but I feel a little more pigeonholed as on the “preserve the term ‘creep'” side and it’s…not the “side” I was always pigeonholed as being on before.)
Some more general thoughts:
I have a chronic illness. My culture assumes that all the clothes in common use are at least tolerably comfortable, and therefore, a person’s clothing choices are made purely for signalling purposes. But that’s not true for me–there are many clothes I can’t wear, because the pain they would cause would render me unable to think clearly. That means I’m forced to go around signalling things I wouldn’t choose to, if I had the choice.
The culture that’s grown up organically around the assumption that no one is on the autism spectrum causes problems for those who are. But, NSs aren’t going to stop using their “empathy conventions” any more than they’re going to stop caring about fashion.
If you want to rant about how the culture wasn’t made for you and makes things unnecessarily hard for you–yeah, me too.
If you want to propose specific changes that will be helpful and workable–then I agree that people need to learn how to smoothly escalate so that they do not feel their only choices are “indirect” or “rude.”
A lot of people, especially young women, seem to feel like they have to jump straight from hinting to name-calling. This needs to change–people need to have access to a level of communication that’s direct but does not include name-calling. “Please go away,” rather than, “Go away, you creep” (or: “Go away, you asshole” or etc.). However, “Go away, you creep,” remains the *next* level, and should still be available *as* that next level.
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Separate comment because it contains another link:
Some discussion of the same issue from the “Ask Culture vs. Guess Culture” framing.
I’m from a pretty Asky local culture, but even my culture still assumes Gricean meaning (“When uttering [utterance], Speaker intends for Hearer to believe that Speaker intends for Hearer to believe that [Proposition]”), and misunderstandings still happen when one person communicates in accordance with Gricean meaning and the other person doesn’t always.
I think the following comment applies here:
So osberend, my guess 😉 is that you’re like this commenter.
But the problem is, as another commenter said:
And similarly, from a third commenter:
Which suggests that we do have an “all debates are bravery debates” thing going on here:
People who are dealing with anxiety/scrupulosity that developed due to past and/or current weak social skills really do need to take that “if they don’t mean what they’re offering, too bad for them” attitude.
But at the same time, people who exploit the difference between the two cultures as above–or know they shouldn’t, but are selfishly tempted to, which I think is unfortunately a lot of people–need to be told *not to do that*.
@Nita (and osberend):
Yes, exactly. And I want to add: To them, by ignoring their hints you are deliberately creating a situation where they have to choose between two emotionally painful things, when (they think) you *could* have allowed them an option that would not cause them emotional pain. That’s why they will resent you.
Another thing. Sometimes it *is* socially acceptable to ignore/refuse a hint, such as when they don’t have a right to ask [whatever it was] of you. Maybe you’re above them in the hierarchy, or it’s an unreasonable request, or they aren’t a close enough friend to justify it.
Which means ignoring a hint can be taken as deliberately sending the message “I am above you” or “You have no right to that ever from anyone” or “You thought we were friends, but we aren’t.” Or if it’s ignoring a hint to *back off*–as entitlement (“You have no right to have me back off ever”).
Anyway. I’ve been doing more typing than my hands can stand for long. I will continue to push it for a while longer because I’m finding this so interesting, but at some point I’ll have to take a break or stop.
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Lizardbreath, just a small remark: I think osberend isn’t talking about his right to ignore hints, he’s talking about his lack of a duty to put lots of effort into trying to perceive hints that are really hard to see for him. So everybody agrees that ignoring a hint that you do perceive is an evil thing to do, no?
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This is precisely what I hear Osberend as saying, which is why I have been so blunt. This is a deeply terrible thing to think.
Plus I’d like to add a Chesteron’s Fence to the idea that our non-verbal communication is suboptimal. Perhaps it is suboptimal for *some people*, and I doubt anyone thinks it’s a global maximum, but that does not mean we should reject it en masse. Social norms are no doubt a moving target, and they do grow and change with time, according to the interests of those communicating. And no doubt you can find “tragedies of the common,” lurking Molochs everywhere. But the law of unintended consequences remains huge. Big jumps in fitness space are dangerous. After all, entropy always wins.
Does anyone really think they’re gonna reorganize literally the most fundamental aspects of how we communicate and somehow it will end up better?
egads.
And meanwhile Osberend is only one man, and today I have to eat lunch with a bunch of men who are not Osberend. Most of them are cool, and most days are fine, but every so often I’ll hit a social minefield placed there by some jerk. Or maybe it will be some hapless guy who “makes it awkward” and I’ll have to negotiate that without hurting his feelings too much, or looking like a bitch, but at the same time protecting my boundaries. This is not easy to do. And sometimes the distance between “jerk” and “hapless” is pretty thin.
Of course, this is at work. Later I will ride the subway with a bunch of men who are not Osberend, and most days no one bugs me, but some days some man does. And I don’t want to get stabbed, so I will placate that man until I can get away. Then I will complain about the creepy fucker to my friends.
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@Nita (et al.): Alright, I’ve gone back over my statements in this thread, and I’m still not really seeing it. I’m going to make some general statements, and then give clarifications for a couple of the closest/easiest-to-misread things I see, although they seem reasonably clear to me. If you have any other bits that you’re reading that way, or if you feel that the framework I’m laying out is unclear, please let me know.
On the subject of ethics and behavior, there are four levels that I can readily think of at which I discuss things:
1. What are individual’s rights/what is it a rights-violation for an individual to do or to fail to do? A lot (most?) of my discussion in this thread has been (fairly explicitly, I thought) from this perspective.
2. What are individuals morally required to do (in the sense that it’s a moral failing for them to do otherwise), without failure to do it being a rights violation? I’ve specifically highlighted the existence of things that one can do without violating anyone’s rights, but that one should not, upthread, and I’m a bit disappointed that people seem to be overlooking this.
3. What is not morally required, but is morally commendable (i.e. what is supererogatory)? I think I’ve touched on a few such matters here and there, but haven’t really explicitly disussed works of supererogation as a concept. Since I can’t see how treating things I view as praiseworthy as obligatory would weaken the case for my being willing to make accomodations, I don’t see how this would lead to the reading that you have made of my words.
4. What I would do in a particular situation and/or what I would like to do, but am hampered by akrasia. Apart from a specific example or two, I haven’t really discussed this in this thread, since it’s less relevant to general discussions of ethics. In addition to being influenced by all three moral aspects above, it also is influenced by morally neutral matters of preference. For example, if I care about a particular individual and would prefer not to cause them pain even if my doing so would not be morally wrong, then my actions may be quite different than they would be if I were in a similar position with an individual that I did not care about.
Here are the bits that seem like they’re most likely to be producing confusion, although I confess that that’s not something that’s easy for me to tell:
Trying again, hopefully without formatting fail this time:
@Nita (et al.): Alright, I’ve gone back over my statements in this thread, and I’m still not really seeing it. I’m going to make some general statements, and then give clarifications for a couple of the closest/easiest-to-misread things I see, although they seem reasonably clear to me. If you have any other bits that you’re reading that way, or if you feel that the framework I’m laying out is unclear, please let me know.
On the subject of ethics and behavior, there are four levels that I can readily think of at which I discuss things:
1. What are individual’s rights/what is it a rights-violation for an individual to do or to fail to do? A lot (most?) of my discussion in this thread has been (fairly explicitly, I thought) from this perspective.
2. What are individuals morally required to do (in the sense that it’s a moral failing for them to do otherwise), without failure to do it being a rights violation? I’ve specifically highlighted the existence of things that one can do without violating anyone’s rights, but that one should not, upthread, and I’m a bit disappointed that people seem to be overlooking this.
3. What is not morally required, but is morally commendable (i.e. what is supererogatory)? I think I’ve touched on a few such matters here and there, but haven’t really explicitly disussed works of supererogation as a concept. Since I can’t see how treating things I view as praiseworthy as obligatory would weaken the case for my being willing to make accomodations, I don’t see how this would lead to the reading that you have made of my words.
4. What I would do in a particular situation and/or what I would like to do, but am hampered by akrasia. Apart from a specific example or two, I haven’t really discussed this in this thread, since it’s less relevant to general discussions of ethics. In addition to being influenced by all three moral aspects above, it also is influenced by morally neutral matters of preference. For example, if I care about a particular individual and would prefer not to cause them pain even if my doing so would not be morally wrong, then my actions may be quite different than they would be if I were in a similar position with an individual that I did not care about.
Here are the bits that seem like they’re most likely to be producing confusion, although I confess that that’s not something that’s easy for me to tell:
The primary thrust of this is, as Creutzer noted, not about a right to ignore hints or known needs for accommodation, but about a lack of an obligation (in the sense of either (1) or (2)) to expend effort looking for them. I think that actively ignoring hints that you are confident you have perceived ranges from a matter of moral indifference to a rights-violation, depending on the particular context, but probably mostly clusters in the “morally wrong, but doesn’t violate rights” region (i.e. a violation of (2)). If you want more information on my thoughts on a particular case, feel free to ask.
There is also a secondary message that it is not always obligatory (again, in the sense of (1) or (2)) to do everything possible to accomodate certain needs, but this is far from a blanket statement, and I suggest that doing something in that direction is in any event good in at least a supererogatory way (“reassuring them that it’s okay if they don’t want to is itself an honorable thing to do”).
This part does actively argue against adherence to social conventions, so I suppose one could read it as expressing a refusal to accomodate other people’s inability to speak plainly, but it’s pretty clearly (I think) part of an expression of bafflement, not that people put up with those who can’t speak plainly, but that they exist at all. The intended meaning is that it is dishonorable to give in to societal demands not to make reasonable but “rude” statements, not that it is dishonorable to accomodate someone who has done so. Whether the latter is commendable, dishonorable, or neutral seems to me to obviously depend on the particular “rude” statement that someone is failing to make, and the context in which they are failing to make it.
(More replies to come.)
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I am inclined to agree with you; I don’t think the word can be saved.
Which is all the more reason to raise objections when someone says “we should use it in a non-ableist way, like this: . . . ” and what follows is full of ableist bullshit.
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I’m kicking this out to a top-level comment again, since the maximum nesting depth bit above has gotten horribly long again, and this comment is a monster. This is not going to be terribly organized, I’m afraid. There might be some redundancy, and it’s possible that I’ve gotten swept away by my rhetoric somewhere along the line (when in doubt, observing an apparent contradiction, or convinced that I’m saying something cartoonishly evil, please ask for clarification. Thanks), but I think this covers everything except the Debsenor hypothetical. Please forgive any errors, in thinking or in html:
@Lizardbreath:
I understand this to some extent as a default. What I don’t understand is (a) why people continue to make this assumption when it results in them concluding that my behavior doesn’t make sense and (even more so) (b) why a whole lot of people continue to make this assumption after I specifically tell them it’s false. I’ll tell people, explicitly, that I am bad at both parsing and encoding implications, and that the best way to communicate with me is to say what you mean and assume that I am doing the same, and a lot of them still react to “signals” that I didn’t put there. Hell, sometimes they’ll even react to such signals even when they are explicitly contradicted by my direct statements.
If people want to use non-verbal or implied communications as an auxiliary mechanism when it’s available, that’s their choice. It’s the refusal to fall back on explicit communication only that drives me insane. It’s like websites that don’t remotely require flash/javascript to serve their basic function, but lack an html-only version.
@Nita: For me, a major turning point was realizing that the usual purpose of verbal communication is not to transfer information from one person to another. The primary purpose is achieving some practical goal — getting them to do something or making them like you — and the information content matters only insofar it helps.
Sure, the aim is to get something, not to transfer information. And the aim of walking to my office is to get there, not to move my feet. But if the means by which I am getting to my office isn’t by moving my feet, then I’m not walking there, even if I somehow manage to give the appearance of doing so.
But that just supports my point! Given that there are multiple reasons I might want to communicate “I don’t want to talk to you,” it is illogical to treat “I don’t want to talk to you” as implying some specific reason.
As for why I would want to communicate that by itself, that seems trival: Because I did not want to talk to the person, and did not have a motive to communicate information as to my motivation. Why? Any number of reasons. Perhaps I feel a lack of desire to talk with them and am not sure why. Perhaps I dislike them, but don’t want everyone present to know that. Perhaps my motivation is complex, and I don’t feel like disentangling it. Perhaps I just don’t want to make the effort to say more words than are required. Perhaps a lot of things.
The point is that “I do not want to talk to you at this time” is all the information that should be required in order to establish that the conversation should (except in specific circumstances) terminate, and it is therefore wrong to compel someone to give more information or to have potentially inaccurate inferences made about them. It’s coercion backed by the threat of a sort of spontaneously organized libel.
You’ll have to support that claim with actual arguments, since most people seem to use indirect communication quite effectively.
I’m not asserting that use of indirect communication between two parties who are both happy with it is bad (necessarily); I’m asserting that tabooing directness is bad. If two parties are both happy with indirect communication, they are free to keep using it with each other even if there is no taboo against directness. Phrased this way, do you still think the claim requires more support?
Is it dishonorable to care about other people and not want to needlessly hurt their feelings?
No, but it is dishonorable to submit to unreasonable demands. If someone would prefer an indirect rejection (and you are really damn sure of that, and that they will correctly understand it—ladder theory is, as far as I can tell, the direct result of men taking women things that women have said while “letting them down gently” literally, and we all know what a wonderful thing it is), then rejecting them indirectly is a work of supererogation—commendable to do, but in no way required. If, however, someone believe that you must let them down gently (and, again, you are really damn sure of this), then the honorable thing to do is to reject them as bluntly as possible, and then laugh at their anger.
Your Pinker quote strikes me as being very close to the essence of manipulation, which is why it is so fucking weird to me that my stance in favor of blunt frankness gets parsed as trying to “exploit the rules of politeness.” If you feel that the other person is obliged to give you the guacamole, then you are giving a command, no matter how you dress it up, and the honest and non-manipulative way to do it is to give that command openly. If you really don’t believe that they’re obliged, then what right do you have to regard them poorly if they decide not to pass it? They chose not to perform a work of supererogation—and?
And, to be clear, I do make requests as conditionals a fair bit—when they’re actually requests. And if they’re not met, then I let it drop, do the thing myself, or give an actual command, as the situation warrants. I don’t get angry that someone didn’t do a thing that I gave them permission not to do.
@Lizardbreath:
This seems like an obvious false dichotomy, even leaving aside that my refusal is less absolute than people seem to be reading it as (as noted above). The obvious third option is “I’m going to speak frankly, without giving any consideration to polite outs at all, whether to create them or to block them off. I will neither yield to the rules of conversational politness nor manipulate them, but will treat them as irrelevancies.” And I feel like even if you’re reading my statements about what I’m obligated to do as statements about the most I would ever do, that third option is still a more natural reading of what I’ve said than the second. I mean, I’ve been pretty explict in stating that women should not only speak bluntly, but be armed! (As should men.) Why on earth would I do that, if I were trying to use existing social conventions as a tool to get what I want?
Google ozarque and cows; really do, the discussion there about the reasons for one specific indirect culture might help answer your questions
It was a very interesting read, but also bizarre. It strikes me as an obvious case of the euphemism treadmill, albeit one that seems to have finally reached a steady state: Cordiality has been achieved, but only at the cost of everyone having to expend extra effort on indirectness, and massive communication incompatibilities not only with more direct subcultures, but also with indirect subcultures that have developed different sets of euphemisms and implications. The same result could have been achieved by just not tabooing direct speech in the first place, but from that starting point, speaking indirectly can potentially seem extra polite, and this encourages indirectness, which then becomes the new norm. It’s Moloch’s inefficient baby brother. Which is perhaps less bad than Moloch himself, but still an elder god who happily consumes our sacrifices and (once equilibrium has been reached) gives us nothing in return.
One concrete benefit I did get from the comments to that post: In the unlikely event that there’s a university Down East with a good school of public health, I should be prepared to make major sacrifices if that’s what it will take to get me a job there:
This strikes me as self-evidently good and sensible.
And yes, the quote you took from the comments sums up my general attitude quite well.
I’m really on both “sides” and I hope that’s clear…but I feel a little more pigeonholed as on the “preserve the term ‘creep’” side and it’s…not the “side” I was always pigeonholed as being on before.
Sure. I feel like I’ve been pushed into some weird pigeonholes myself.
The culture that’s grown up organically around the assumption that no one is on the autism spectrum causes problems for those who are. But, NSs aren’t going to stop using their “empathy conventions” any more than they’re going to stop caring about fashion.
Does caring about fashion require the assumption that other people care about fashion? Because I am totally in favor of “I wear it because it enjoy wearing it, that’s why,” as a perfectly reasonable statement that should be respected, just as I’m in favor of “I said it because it expressed the thought that I had, that’s why.”
If you want to propose specific changes that will be helpful and workable–then I agree that people need to learn how to smoothly escalate so that they do not feel their only choices are “indirect” or “rude.”
A lot of people, especially young women, seem to feel like they have to jump straight from hinting to name-calling.
So much this. My ex-girlfriend did this a lot, on positive requests too. Hint, hint, hint (often very subtlely, even by neurotypical woman standards) . . . screaming anger.
As near as I can tell, the basic problem was that she was (largely; the problem was serious, but not total) inhibited from saying anything direct in defense of her own interests, and so the only circumstance in which she would do so was when she was so furious that it overrode her inhibitions, at which point she would fire free, because she was furious. Not only is this intrinsically bad, but it pretty clearly led her to (subconsciously) reinterpret things that I said and did to be worse than they were, so she would have an excuse to get angry enough to say (i.e. shout) something.
And I think that happens a lot with “creepiness,” “objectification,” and so forth. Women feel uncomfortable saying “a guy did/said this thing, and he wasn’t wrong to do so, but I didn’t like it” and so they say “a guy did/said this thing, which means [something not remotely implied by what was done or said]. What a fucking creep!”
And the point that I am trying to drive home, that I cannot drive home enough, is that they are wrong to do this. There may be reasons that they do it, but they are still wrong, and it is still unacceptable. It is not okay to label morally fine behavior as abominable, just because that’s what it takes for you[1] to be able to say that you didn’t like it.
And the other point I am trying to make, of course, and which I think gets lost in people reacting to my first point, is that this is not only wrong but unnecessary. If a guy is talking to you and you don’t want to talk to him, you can say that! Even if what he is saying is perfectly fine! If a guy is staring at you and you don’t enjoy it, you can ask him politely to stop even though he is not obligated to do so. There is no need to distort the other person’s actions into rights-violations, just to speak up for what you want. And if his actions are rights-violations, you can say that! It’s okay!
However, “Go away, you creep,” remains the *next* level, and should still be available *as* that next level.
I agree with this about “asshole,” “assailant” (if he has touched you without permission), “harasser” (if he keeps talking after you’ve asked him to stop, and lacks a good reason, such as right-of-reply), “shithead,” and a variety of other specific and non-specific terms of abuse. Not about “creep” though. It is way too thoroughly linked both to ableism and to blurring the boundary between preferences and rights.
re: Ask culture and Guess culture: My position is very simple: Ask culture is right, guess culture is wrong and broken, period. Partial accomodation to ease the transition of someone who grew up in a broken culture and wants to get better is commendable and honorable. Coddling of someone who refuses to let go of their broken culture is not.
This seems to have an obvious solution: Impose the norms of the superior culture, and don’t tolerate people defending their behavior on the basis that an inferior culture accepts it. If a man purportedly from guess culture says “well I thought she wanted it,” so? If a Saudi immigrant who says “well she shouldn’t have been in public with a male guardian,” so? Impose the norms of the superior culture.
As for the Ask culture example . . . to me, that seems to pretty obviously be a failure of bad defaults/bad thinking about rights, not of Askiness. The (maximally) Asky position is that you don’t have permission unless you have explicit permission. It’s true (to steelman a bit) that it’s also that you don’t have retraction of explicit permission unless it’s an explicit retraction. But that’s a distinct edge case in practice. And yeah, sure, if you know that your partner is trying to implicitly retract consent and you don’t comply, that’s not okay.
So again, we establish an unambiguous social norm: For physical contact, you need a yes, not just the absence of a (properly communicated) no, and if you proceed without one, not only are you (at least potentially) a rapist, but it’s 100% your own fault if you get stabbed, shot, or otherwise rendered injured or dead. For communication, explicitness is good, and guys who whine about getting shut down get told to grow a pair, you fucking pathetic worms.
And yeah some people will continue to whine, both on their own behalf and on others. So you cut them out of your life, because they’re not worth having in it.
But at the same time, people who exploit the difference between the two cultures as above–or know they shouldn’t, but are selfishly tempted to, which I think is unfortunately a lot of people–need to be told *not to do that*.
Sure, but I think I’ve been doing that, by consistently opposing all Guess culture standards, regardless of who’s using them, and insisting on unambiguous consent for physical contact. I think it should be fairly obvious not just from this set of replies, but from my statements throughout this thread, that the only way my standards result in a couple having sex is if the intiator asks “hey, will you have sex with me?” and the other person says yes, nods, or does something else equally explicitly positive. “Guess the magic refusal word,” this is not.
@veronica: This is precisely what I hear Osberend as saying, which is why I have been so blunt. This is a deeply terrible thing to think.
Hopefully I have cleared this up. If you have further questions, feel free to ask.
Like I said, I imagine you probably won’t be thrilled with what I am actually saying. But it’s at least less extreme (in terms of my own behavior, at least) than what you appear to have been reading it as.
Plus I’d like to add a Chesteron’s Fence to the idea that our non-verbal communication is suboptimal. Perhaps it is suboptimal for *some people*, and I doubt anyone thinks it’s a global maximum, but that does not mean we should reject it en masse.
Have I said anywhere that non-verbal communication should be tabooed? If so, then please let me know, so I can see whether I had a radical insight that I have now forgotten, or (more likely) whether I spoke in error.
And no doubt you can find “tragedies of the common,” lurking Molochs everywhere.
In particular, what I see is a dictatorless dystopia. And I’m refusing to keep shocking myself, and I’m telling others that they should do the same, and be prepared to kill anyone who tries to execute them for it.
And look, I recognize that not shocking yourself puts both yourself and the people around in a genuinely bad position. But it’s still the right thing to do, because a dictatorless dystopia is fucking terrible, and submitting to one is a utilitarian failure mode, a deontological violation, and a grossly vicious act.
Does anyone really think they’re gonna reorganize literally the most fundamental aspects of how we communicate and somehow it will end up better?
The most fundamental aspect of how we communicate is through the denotations of words. But as for the almost-most fundamental aspects . . . well, yes.
Then I will complain about the creepy fucker to my friends.
What does calling him creepy accomplish? Upthread, you (I think) defended “creepy” as an unusually effective epithet for deterring “creeps” themselves. But her, there is no deterence, only placation. What would it cost you to describe his actions in terms that don’t reinforce ableism and the erasure of the line between preferences and rights?
[1] I would think that it’s fairly obvious that this part is well into generic-you territory, but I’m gonna state it explicitly, just to be sure.
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Edits:
1. “If a Saudi immigrant who says ‘well she shouldn’t have been in public with a male guardian,’ so?” should be “If a Saudi immigrant says ‘well she shouldn’t have been in public without a male guardian,’ so?”
2. The following should not be italicized:
Hopefully I have cleared this up. If you have further questions, feel free to ask.
Like I said, I imagine you probably won’t be thrilled with what I am actually saying. But it’s at least less extreme (in terms of my own behavior, at least) than what you appear to have been reading it as.
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I think you may be suffering from a (mild) case of the typical-mind fallacy. Most people cannot, in fact, process a statement such as “please speak bluntly to me, I am not very good at understanding nuance”. Some people will simply not understand what you mean by that (and will thus get confused); others will assume you are setting up some sort of a rhetorical trap (and will thus get angry). In our current society, speaking frankly without any circumlocutions is severely discouraged, and, for most people, it takes years of training (formal or informal) to acquire the skills that let them break through the taboo.
I understand that, in theory, society would probably function a lot better if all of us could speak completely bluntly to each other without any such hangups, but… right now, we can’t. And changing this situation is not as easy as saying, “let’s all just change the way our minds work at the low level”, because doing so is very, very difficult (again, for most people). Not impossible, but certainly very labor-intensive.
Yes, we need better social norms, but when you say “let’s just establish a new social norm”, what people hear you saying is, “let’s expend an extraordinary amount of mental, physical, and financial labor, over the period of many years, in order to change society so that I personally can feel more comfortable”. I think you can see how most people won’t be 100% on board with this plan.
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Most people cannot, in fact, process a statement such as “please speak bluntly to me, I am not very good at understanding nuance”.
But (most) people can verbalize (a simple version of) their thoughts explicitly internally, right? People think things like “oh my god, I want this conversation to be over,” right? And unless they have a severe mental disability or illness, anything (verbal) they can think, they are capable of saying, right? Like, I’m not sure what exactly truly being unable to make your mouth form words that you have in your brain makes you diagnosable with, but I’m pretty sure it’s something rare. Is this wrong?
Some people will simply not understand what you mean by that
. . . How?
others will assume you are setting up some sort of a rhetorical trap
If someone is really so broken that they are truly incapable of exercising the absolutely minimal epistemic charity of accepting that I mean it when giving them permission to do something that will accomplish their goals, then they need to receive serious psychiatric help. If not, then why would I do anything for someone who can do that for me, but won’t?
In our current society, speaking frankly without any circumlocutions is severely discouraged, and, for most people, it takes years of training (formal or informal) to acquire the skills that let them break through the taboo.
But . . . being rude is being rude too people. It’s framed (wrongly, in many cases), as treating them badly. You can’t treat someone badly by doing what they invite you to do. It doesn’t work that way.
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This comment is out of line. Such comments are why we have little charity for you. It’s not okay to call people “broken” who don’t communicate the way you communicate.
It is this: Failing to understand people does not make you more right. It makes you less right.
Let me repeat: Failing to understand people does not make you more right. It makes you less right.
People don’t talk the way you’re asking them to talk. It’s not because they literally cannot. They have the raw ability. Nor is it that they are “broken.” Not hardly. They’re perfectly fine. It’s something else.
People rarely make isolated declarative utterances intended to have mind-independent meaning. We can. Our brains can perform such acts. But it is not really our natural way.
Instead, we communicate according to a Theory of Mind, which is to say, we internally model the mind of our listener and then craft our language to affect that mind in the way we desire. We do this obviously when we are talking directly to someone. However, we also do it when we are talking to “someone” in the abstract. We imagine them. We imagine how they think. We craft our words to *do things* to brains.
But more, we listen the same way. Since we evolved to talk this way, we naturally evolved to listen this way. When we listen, we have for a model of the speaker, and we assume their words are meant to communicate *in the way people communicate*. We listen for double meanings, hidden motives, words behind the words, etc.
You are at a tremendous disadvantage as you do not do this well. However, dismissing this stuff as suboptimal is arrogant in the extreme. It is that clumsy arrogance of the “central planner,” who ruins their economy cuz people should operate according to algorithms and not like people.
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You’re failing to communicate with people *not* because your request is unreasonable. It is perfectly reasonable to ask people to be more direct and literal with you. Likewise, it is reasonable for you to ask them to accept literal utterances from you. You have a disability. People should accommodate your disability, within reasonable bounds. What you are asking is fine.
However, you are running into a problem: your listeners literally cannot believe you are really asking for what you are asking. It is this: they are trying to form a model of you, an internal Theory of Mind that represents @osberend, and what you are asking is to them SO ALIEN that they dismiss it as subterfuge or madness. It does not compute, so they do not comply.
They are wrong, but in an understandable way.
I suspect what might work for you is this: you need to help people form a more accurate model of you, which obviously does not happen merely by giving them instructions. You cannot merely say “be literal.” You must help them know how your brain works, how you think.
This will be really hard for some people. In their mind people just *don’t think like that*. Furthermore, people will vary in their charity, understanding, patience. You will encounter plain old bigotry too. Good luck.
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@veronica d
That was Bugmaster’s assertion, not osberend’s. Notice osberend’s use of “if” in your quote, making the phrase the antecedent of an implicature; antecedents of implicatures are not necessarily true. Taking an opponents assertions and making them the premise of an implicature is good-faith arguing; it is taking the other person’s argument seriously and examining the consequences. Condescending osberend for doing so is a bad-faith reading of his statements. You should be disagreeing with Bugmaster for making the assertion in the first place.
osberend is correct. Explanation is not justification; that people do not respond to requests for greater clarity and directness is not a moral justification for that phenomenon. If people are incapable of responding appropriately, they need help. If people are capable but unwilling, they are malicious. Assuming that osberend has malicious motives when he asks for more directness is, in fact, a hostile act (quite literally a bad-faith interpretation of osberend’s request). osberend has every right to be upset at that.
It is optimal, from a pragmatic perspective, for osberend to swallow his frustration and keep being charitable to people who assume he’s being malicious. Because expressing his frustration will make him less persuasive. His frustration is not morally wrong, but instrumentally sub-optimal.
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Find “implicature” replace with “implication”; I crossed my linguistic jargon with my symbolic logic jargon.
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This comment is out of line. Such comments are why we have little charity for you.
This statement doesn’t seem to make any sense, at least in the context of my talking about epistemic charity. If my comments are still out of line under the most charitable reading, then what need is there for a less charitable one? If they are not, then your statement boils down to “your need for epistemic charity is why we have little of it for you.”
It’s not okay to call people “broken” who don’t communicate the way you communicate.
Except that, as InferentialDistance noted, I didn’t. I called people who are “truly incapable of” recognizing that “please speak bluntly to me, I am not very good at understanding nuance” could be an honest request, rather than “setting up some sort of a rhetorical trap” broken. That seems entirely reasonable to me. I’m not talking about their best guess, or their suspicions. I’m saying that if someone hears a request for a specific mode of communication—with an explanation, at that!—and concludes that they are obviously being set up, they are broken. Maybe not irreparably, maybe not to the point of (social/conversational) uselessness even without repairs, but broken nonetheless. Because if they weren’t broken, they wouldn’t do that.
Failing to understand people does not make you more right. It makes you less right.
Did I assert this?
Instead, we communicate according to a Theory of Mind, which is to say, we internally model the mind of our listener and then craft our language to affect that mind in the way we desire.
And I’m offering a large piece of information about how to correctly model my mind, and people are throwing it out. And maybe they can’t model the internal operations, but they can at least model it as a black box with the stated properties. I mean, I frequently tell people “I am not good at picking up subtle cues, particularly of boredom. If I’m rambling on and boring you, please tell me explicitly” or something very similar. Even if this sounds like complete moonbat logic, they still have been given information about pair of simple stimulus-response patterns—signalling boredom will not cause me to alter what I am doing that is boring you; stating boredom will, or at the very least might.
And some people actually incorporate this information into their model, and even experiment to find the most effective variety of the stimulus. (One of my brighter friends has settled into a pattern of terminating conversations with me by stating “I am terminating this conversation now,” sometimes preceeded a few minutes in advance by “I’m going to have to terminate this conversation soon.” This works really well.) But a lot of people just throw it out, or note it vaguely but don’t do anything with it.
When we listen, we have for a model of the speaker,
And again, this is something that I often explictly offer an update for. Not as frequentl
You are at a tremendous disadvantage as you do not do this well. However, dismissing this stuff as suboptimal is arrogant in the extreme.
I’m not (necessarily) dismissing the use of implicit communication itself as suboptimal; I’m “dismissing” the inability or refusal to fall back on explicit communication only when implicit communication either is obviously failing or has been explicitly stated to be ineffective as suboptimal, which strikes me as bordering on tautology.
To elaborate on a previous analogy: A lot of brewery websites are flash- and/or javascript-based, and have all sorts of animated crap that is supposed to (I think) convey the characteristics of the sort of person that drinking their beer makes you. I don’t care about that crap; I want to see if they list their ingredients (some do, some don’t), and find out what they are if so. It is possible that there is net social value to their having all this flash crap; certainly, it’s probably good for them (makes people who are easily swayed by marketing more likely to drink their beer), and maybe it’s good for their customers (by giving them psychological satisfaction and a sense of group membership, or just by telling them what beer to drink if they want to project a certain image to others). And maybe not. But either way, I don’t mind their having a flash-based website.
What I do mind is when they only have a flash-based website, so that if I’m on a slow connection, or I’m on an old machine, or my version of flash is outdated and vulnerable I can’t get the purely textual information that I was there for in the first place. Have a flash-based site if you want. But if you want to give me information that is perfectly capable of being displayed in Lynx, I ought to be able to see it if I open your site in Lynx!
I’m not demanding explicit communications as defaul protocol (although I would really fucking appreciate it). I am demanding that it be available as a fallback. That seems pretty minimal.
You’re failing to communicate with people *not* because your request is unreasonable. It is perfectly reasonable to ask people to be more direct and literal with you. Likewise, it is reasonable for you to ask them to accept literal utterances from you. You have a disability. People should accommodate your disability, within reasonable bounds. What you are asking is fine.
Thank you for acknowledging this; I appreciate it.
It is this: they are trying to form a model of you, an internal Theory of Mind that represents @osberend, and what you are asking is to them SO ALIEN that they dismiss it as subterfuge or madness. It does not compute, so they do not comply.
But their Theory of Mind should already contain all of the relevant bits!
It is possible to have non-verbal communication riding on a “conversation” with no meaning carried by the explicit verbal content at all. Some of the exercises involved in Meisner technique[1] do this. But normal communication, even among neurotypicals, is very different from Meisner technique, as shown by the level of difficulty that most people have when they’re first introduced to the latter.
Clearly, people’s standard Theory of Mind includes processing explicit verbal content. So I’m not asking them to do more in modeling me; I’m asking them to do less. “Just run that part of the model, that you already have; dike out everything else.” (Which is not a perfect model of me, of course, but is a quite functional one.)
And maybe the resulting model looks insane to them, but . . . black boxes, people! All models are wrong, but some models are useful.
They are wrong, but in an understandable way.
“If I can’t understand it, it must be a lie” is understandable? Not “. . . it must be crazy,” I have that one a lot myself, and if people find that the best way they have to understand me is to regard me as irrational, but predictably so, and route around that . . . I’m not going to be happy with that, by any means, but it’s a damn sight better than discarding the routing-around information that I just gave them.
I suspect what might work for you is this: you need to help people form a more accurate model of you, which obviously does not happen merely by giving them instructions. You cannot merely say “be literal.” You must help them know how your brain works, how you think.
Isn’t that what “I’m not good at picking up on connotations” is doing? Moreoever . . . I’m okay with people asking questions about how I think. It’s frustrating, sometimes, but also interesting. But a lot of the time, they don’t. I tell them “your default model is wrong, use this one instead,” and instead of either using the new model as given or saying “hold up, I’m having trouble grasping this, can you explain: [. . .],” a lot of them just keep trying to apply the model that I just told them was wrong.
Or, in a context where I haven’t been able to say this, it becomes obvious that their model is wrong[3], and instead of saying “hold up, I think my model of your brain is wrong, can you explain: [. . .],” a lot of them just ignore the contradictions, generally with an eye toward drawing the worst possible conclusion.
And when I ask other people to explain their thought processes, they frequently become angry with me! Even if I preface it by saying “okay, so I can try to comply with X, but it would be a lot easier if you would explain: [. . .]” They treat it, as near as I can tell, as an accusation of irrationality, which they in turn treat as a deadly insult.
This will be really hard for some people. In their mind people just *don’t think like that*. Furthermore, people will vary in their charity, understanding, patience. You will encounter plain old bigotry too. Good luck.
Thanks.
[1] Which I’ve done, in an effort to get better at reading people[2]. It helped, some. Unfortunately, I moved out of town not long after starting it, and while there is a Meisner program where I live now, I don’t think it’s nearly as good, and the location and timing don’t really work for me.
[2] Amusing side note: I’m not very good at key aspects of the technique, but still managed to do (I think) about as well as most other students overall, due to not having some very common inhibitions. I’m pretty sure if I went further with it, this would not be the case, though.
[3] My typical behavior doesn’t, at least AFAICT, really make sense as manipulation—I miss cues to shut up and/or go away, but I also miss opportunities; apparently there have been at least few occasions where girls were blatantly (according to others present, or to whom I described their behavior later) flirting with me, and I had no idea.
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I agree with veronica d (for once, heh); I think she explained my point better than I could.
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Correction: “And again, this is something that I often explictly offer an update for. Not as frequentl” got cut off somehow; it should end:
“Not as frequently as I offer an update for a model of me as a listener, but I still do reasonably commonly tell people things like ‘I don’t really do implications to nearly the same extent that other people do; in general it’s safe to assume that I said something because I meant it, and not because I wanted to suggest something distantly related. If in doubt, feel free to ask’.”
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On the division of all actions into forbidden, obligatory, neutral or commendable:
– being (and appearing to be) a kind person is legally optional, but socially in your best interests
– some people feel morally compelled to be kind — I think this fact creates a moral obligation for everyone to be at least somewhat kind, so as not to exploit these people
So, people shouldn’t update their estimate of the probability that you hate them based on the things you say, as long as you don’t say “I hate you”? Why not? It’s the rational thing to do.
But is it right to forbid other people to make rational inferences just because you can’t be bothered to modify your choice of phrasing? That’s thought policing and an attempt to damage their rationality!
Who’s tabooing directness? I’m all for directness, but you can neither expect nor demand it from strangers.
How on earth am I supposed to know what they would prefer or what they can understand? Has a stranger ever approached you and listed their preferred style of rejection upfront?
And if I don’t know how they’re going to react, I’m going to choose the safest option. Sorry, but your standards of honorable behaviour are way less important to me than my partner’s wish to see me come home undamaged.
No one’s going to put you in jail for not passing condiments. But ignoring requests for small favours will motivate people to ignore your requests for favours in the future.
Uh, I think hyper-politeness cultures often develop exactly in the societies where everyone is armed (which makes accidentally offending someone extremely dangerous).
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being (and appearing to be) a kind person is legally optional, but socially in your best interests
Broadly speaking, yes. But if being excessively kind to assholes is socially in your best interests, it may be worth reconsidering who you’re socializing with.
some people feel morally compelled to be kind — I think this fact creates a moral obligation for everyone to be at least somewhat kind, so as not to exploit these people
I think that my reaction of this could be anywhere from “sure, of course,” to “absolutely not!” depending on what exactly you mean by “be kind” in each half of that sentence.
So, people shouldn’t update their estimate of the probability that you hate them based on the things you say, as long as you don’t say “I hate you”? Why not? It’s the rational thing to do. [. . .] But is it right to forbid other people to make rational inferences just because you can’t be bothered to modify your choice of phrasing? That’s thought policing and an attempt to damage their rationality!
My thinking here is a bit tentative; I will try to lay out its current state:
1. Most people are not good Bayesians, and leap to treat weak or moderate evidence as if it was “proof.” Even if we postulate that treating “proof” as de facto synonymous with merely extremely strong evidence is broadly reasonable, treating weak or even moderate evidence as such remains not only wrong, but in general a great deal more wrong than not treating it as evidence at all. If most people will in practice treat an odds ratio of 5 as if it were either 10 trillion or 1, it is far better than they should treat it as 1.
2. There is a difference, at least in principle, between a purely theoretical analysis of what is likely to be the case and a decision of what one is going to treat as being the case for the purpose of acting on it. I maintain that it is (at least in general) vicious to incorporate this sort of inference into the latter. Perhaps some exceptions might be made if the cost of the not doing so and wrong is sufficiently high; if, for example, one is trying to infer whether someone is planning to murder you. But that’s a distinct edge case.
You may contend that this position is in some sense irrational, and in some sense it is, but only in the same sense in which it is irrational not to offer up one’s children to Moloch in a time of war. It is a refusal to that which is instrumentally good, but terminally bad, and it is commendable.
As for thought policing . . . I’m not proposing the state ban people from making unjust but rational inferences, I’m saying that people who make such inferences should not (in most circumstances at least) act on them. If that’s thought policing as you define it, so be it.
Who’s tabooing directness?
Anyone who believes that “saying [what you want] directly [is] rude. And being rude without provocation is an act of aggression.”
How on earth am I supposed to know what they would prefer or what they can understand? Has a stranger ever approached you and listed their preferred style of rejection upfront?
As a general rule, strangers don’t unambiguously hit on me (there’ve been a couple occasions where girls were apparently flirting with me in ways that would be obvious to most people, but they didn’t come out and say it), so no. I, on the other hand, openly tell people that in general I do not get nuance well, and that they should say what they mean directly.
As for how you’re supposed to know, that’s really up to you to work out, or not. You’re the one who suggested that it would be good to reject people indirectly because you “care about other people and [do] not want to needlessly hurt their feelings.” If you want to perform a work of supererogation that’s only commendable under certain circumstances, and undesirable or even harmful under others, it’s up to you to determine whether those conditions apply. I was merely agreeing that yes, if those conditions do indeed apply, it is commendable.
And if I don’t know how they’re going to react, I’m going to choose the safest option. Sorry, but your standards of honorable behaviour are way less important to me than my partner’s wish to see me come home undamaged.
All right, fair enough. But that’s no longer about I said at the start of this particular line of quote and response:
No one’s going to put you in jail for not passing condiments. But ignoring requests for small favours will motivate people to ignore your requests for favours in the future.
True.
Uh, I think hyper-politeness cultures often develop exactly in the societies where everyone is armed (which makes accidentally offending someone extremely dangerous).
This does happen sometimes, but not always. Shipboard cultures are a notable exception, as stated previously. Militaries, at least at the enlisted level. And the early French nobility, who are the reason that we use the name of their Germanic predecessor tribe, the Franks, as an adjective to describe “speaking or writing in a very direct and honest way,” as Merriam Webster puts it.
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I’m just saying that actions that would not be obligatory on a purely theoretical basis (e.g., being somewhat kind to all non-adversarial strangers) can become obligatory in a particular world (e.g., one that contains people who feel compelled to be kind to you).
I don’t agree that I have to risk any outcome less bad than death just to make your life a little more convenient.
That was a factual statement about the social constraints under which most people operate. I can’t make anything either rude or not-rude by declaring it so (unfortunately).
Well, that’s great. Keep up the good work.
OK, watch me work it out:
Probability that this stranger is someone like Osberend: 2%
Probability that this stranger is a typical person: 98%
Conclusion: treat this stranger as a typical person.
Yes, being in the minority means that most people, in most circumstances, will reason and act as if you don’t exist (or worse). Welcome to the club. If you feel this is unjust, you can try to change society. This is usually called social justice activism 🙂
So, there are two groups of such people:
– those who sincerely believe that everyone prefers indirect communication,
– those who have learned that most people prefer it, and some people react extremely negatively if you don’t use it.
Neither group seems inherently dishonorable to me.
And I’m afraid I don’t find your examples of good cultures very inspiring.
Featuring draconian corporal punishment and hostile to women?
Infamous for “breaking” recruits and high rate of sexual assault?
I don’t know much about them. Any recommendations?
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You write:
“Heck, I have a friend who has been called creepy for being trans, which makes absolutely no fucking sense whatsoever.”
You define “creep” as
“a person who makes other people feel uncomfortable or unsafe, especially in a sexualized way.”
It isn’t surprising if a heterosexual male finds that interacting with someone who is trans makes him feel uncomfortable in a sexualized way. He regards attraction to a female as normal, attraction to a male as wrong, and he is now interacting with someone who isn’t clearly one or the other.
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