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Advice for someone whose “friend” is groping them and making sexual comments

Jill

I have a guest post at Captain Awkward today (are you reading Captain Awkward? You should definitely be reading Captain Awkward) giving advice to a reader who has a totally inappropriate, grabby dude in her friend circle. And yes it was so so so tempting to just be like, “kick him in the balls, what an asshole!” but I attempted to be thoughtful.

101 thoughts on Advice for someone whose “friend” is groping them and making sexual comments

  1. Wow, I was all ready to bring up one of my own “this guys is a bit touchy in that undefinable way that makes people uncomfortable” story, but Holy Crap that is just so much worse. Dear lord that guy needs a Talking To and a Shunning in the worst way.

  2. Wow. Your advice was so calm and measured and thoughtful! I do not think I could have done that. I think, at best, I would have told him that I would not interact with him ever again, and explain why, and then tell everybody else, male and female, in that friends circle that I would no longer interact with him, and explain why.

    And then my closest friend would have kicked the shit out of him, just as soon as she gives birth and is back to her fighting speed again.

  4. Tamora – Seriously.

    I went in expecting it to be much more classically deniable: The back rub that got a bit too gropey; Hugs that started to feel weird and raised flags; things like that.

    But what he actually was doing?!?!? Damn. Finger-breaking does seem tempting.

  5. I advised finger-breaking, myself. I don’t know why this poster put up with this person’s shit for so long.

    1. I advised a similar method.

    2. I have no idea why she has put up with it for so long. I have to admit it, reading that post actually made me angry… some of my displeasure, I felt towards the poster and her friends. I felt like yelling, “You are NOT delicate Pavlovian flowers, dammit!” There are like several of them and only one of him… what are they waiting for? Since they seem to be drawn to either inviting him or hanging out where he hangs out, I’m sure there will be plenty of opportunities to “take out the trash”.

  6. There are like several of them and only one of him… what are they waiting for? Since they seem to be drawn to either inviting him or hanging out where he hangs out, I’m sure there will be plenty of opportunities to “take out the trash”.

    OK, I need to address this.

    First, we don’t know if she or her friends invite this guy, or if one of their guy friends invite him. And if she’s in a situation where other people are telling her that really, he’s a nice guy and he’s harmless and he doesn’t mean it and OMG you’re so uptight and just relax and maybe you shouldn’t lead him on, etc. then she may not have felt like she COULD say anything.

    Oh, wait, actually, she DID say something, and he brushed it off saying it was just a joke. So, his need to make his very unfunny jokes outweigh her need to feel safe. We don’t know if the majority of her friends agree with this or not.

    Also, given the conditioning women get from childhood on, it’s not fair to expect every 20-something to be able to put a wankstain like this in his place.

    I was in her position before, everyone acted like it was no big deal, and when I said something, I was the bitch. He was a nice guy who didn’t mean any harm, after all. His buddy, MalefriendX, could totally vouch for him.

    So let’s not get into a festival of blaming and shaming the women in this situation, okay? I’ve been in her shoes and I know first hand that no matter what you do, you cannot fucking win.

  9. In my experience, college aged individuals don’t know what to do about friends who commit sexual assault. They can gossip all day long about the person who got too drunk and vomited all over a party, or the person who hooked up with someone else’s significant other, but when it comes to sex crimes, they don’t know how to process it. Everything is forgotten after the weekend, and friends who hit their ex-girlfriends are not ostracized or shunned as they should be. It’s incredibly frustrating to see a guy who is a KNOWN abuser of women sitting and chatting with the rest of my friends. It makes me want to go over and start yelling.

    @Tamora Where’s a Lady Knight when you need one?

  10. Hmm,

    here’s a male perspective to this thing. No discussion about the guy being entirely inappropriate, and that’s a euphemism. I’ve never, in my 30+ years witnessed anything even close to what’s described in the question. I’m thinking his social circle is being surprisingly accomodating of such behaviour. I can’t imagine someone like him would still be considered a friend in my social circle.

    That said, I don’t think his behaviour is coming from “male entitlement”. I think it’s less than skilled attempts to flirt and get female attention, coming from a guy who’s overcompensating a crushed ego. Of course, he will get defensive when he’s being confronted with how uncomfortable he’s making the women around him, and he’ll have to deal with that, but I think it would be much more helpful if the advice came from the point of – “Look, we kind of get what you’re doing here, but it’s making *us* uncomfortable, it’s making *you* a dick, and it *won’t* get you into any girl’s pants. Here’s how you should do it instead.”

    There is guy in my larger social circle who got creepy touchy when he was drunk. Not like the dude in the story, but still inappropriately. So his ex confronted him about he alcool and then asked me to explain to him how to talk to and touch women. He’s got a girlfriend again, and everything is fine.

    Point being, he may actually realize he’s not behaving correctly, but doesn’t have alternatives. He may well feel that behaving inappropriately is his only option to gather female attention. I think, as in all change-management, offering a superior alternative should be part of the change-discourse.

    It may not be what most feminists would recommend, but I’d say that dude seems like a case in which signing up with a quality pickup programme like, say, AMP, or Zan Perrion’s, may be the best way to help the women around him, and the dude.

  11. Actually, if you keep doing something that you KNOW is making someone uncomfortable, if you brush them off and say “it was just a joke” and continue to do it despite being told that it is not welcome, it’s entitled behavior.

    And I’m really getting sick of the awkward guy trope. I was an awkward girl and an awkward young woman but that sort of behavior would never have been okay if I had pulled it. So yes, a certain amount of entitlement does figure into the picture here–men are given the message that they’re entitled to do this. Even if it’s not okay or appropriate, people will make excuses and say how understandable it is and how we should all help him.

    While women are being groped and basically sexually assaulted. Women are being made to feel unsafe. You’ll have to excuse me if my sympathy isn’t with A or men like him or the people who overlook such behavior.

  12. Sam:
    Hmm,

    here’s a male perspective to this thing. No discussion about the guy being entirely inappropriate, and that’s a euphemism. I’ve never, in my 30+ years witnessed anything even close to what’s described in the question. I’m thinking his social circle is being surprisingly accomodating of such behaviour. I can’t imagine someone like him would still be considered a friend in my social circle.

    That said, I don’t think his behaviour is coming from “male entitlement”. I think it’s less than skilled attempts to flirt and get female attention, coming from a guy who’s overcompensating a crushed ego. Of course, he will get defensive when he’s being confronted with how uncomfortable he’s making the women around him, and he’ll have to deal with that, but I think it would be much more helpful if the advice came from the point of – “Look, we kind of get what you’re doing here, but it’s making *us* uncomfortable, it’s making *you* a dick, and it *won’t* get you into any girl’s pants. Here’s how you should do it instead.”

    There is guy in my larger social circle who got creepy touchy when he was drunk. Not like the dude in the story, but still inappropriately. So his ex confronted him about he alcool and then asked me to explain to him how to talk to and touch women. He’s got a girlfriend again, and everything is fine.

    Point being, he may actually realize he’s not behaving correctly, but doesn’t have alternatives. He may well feel that behaving inappropriately is his only option to gather female attention. I think, as in all change-management, offering a superior alternative should be part of the change-discourse.

    It may not be what most feminists would recommend, but I’d say that dude seems like a case in which signing up with a quality pickup programme like, say, AMP, or Zan Perrion’s, may be the best way to help the women around him, and the dude.

    Sam:
    Hmm,

    here’s a male perspective to this thing.

    Thanks Sam! All we needed was a man to come and explain it all for us

    1. I think it would be much more helpful if the advice came from the point of – “Look, we kind of get what you’re doing here, but it’s making *us* uncomfortable, it’s making *you* a dick, and it *won’t* get you into any girl’s pants. Here’s how you should do it instead.”

      Ok, except seriously, grabbing a woman’s crotch and lifting up another’s skirt is his way of flirting? And when he’s told “stop it” he’s like, “you’re a humorless bitch”? I don’t think that’s a problem of social awkwardness / unawareness of how to flirt. It’s that he’s just disgusting and predatory.

  13. If a guy was doing things like that to me “as a joke”, I would call the police “as a joke”. What? He can’t take a joke? Sucks to be him.

  14. @Sam

    You may be right about the guy’s motivations and about what the most effective way to get him to change his behavior would be, but that’s not mutually exclusive with male entitlement. The idea that someone would think “this method of hitting on women is not working, but I don’t know any other way to do it and the goal of me getting a girlfriend is more important than the fact that I am making these women uncomfortable” is kind of the definition of male entitlement.

    On Jill’s advice: I actually think that you were way too generous. I see the benefit to trying to have civil conversations with guy friends who are being creepyish, because it may be a more effective method of getting them to change their behavior and it’s less likely to create a big rift in a group of friends that the women in question might want to avoid. That’s usually the route I take, even if I actually want to kick someone in the balls, because given our situation I have to or because I think that maybe it will work.

    But here? This dude is SO FAR out of line that I don’t think trying to couch things in non-blamey terms is actually helpful. This guy needs to be blamed. This guy needs to have a serious Come to Jesus moment, because he is a few drinks and a conveniently passed out girl away from being a rapist. The LW has in fact expressed fear that if she went to sleep while he was around, he would assault her. He has repeatedly ignored her when she has told him not to grope her. And even if he didn’t cross that line to assault, the fact that he has on numerous occasions repeatedly asked for sex over and over again and not stopped when told to demonstrates an enormous lack of respect for boundaries. This does not seem like a guy who will modify his behavior because of a polite request over coffee.

    What this guy really needs is for someone to GO. OFF. ON. HIM. the next time he blatantly crosses one of these lines (assuming the woman in question is surrounded by friends, for safety reasons). If he grabs her inappropriately and she tells him not to and he immediately does it again, I would just lose my shit on him — smack his hand away, and LOUDLY and FORCEFULLY tell him that he has no right to touch me, that I’ve told him not to repeatedly, and that if he doesn’t keep his hands to himself I will remove one of them or call the police (and yes, I know the cops wouldn’t do anything, but I think it conveys the seriousness of his conduct). I would also liberally sprinkle some profanity in there. When someone is repeatedly assaulting and harassing the women around them, it’s okay to say “fuck it, I don’t care if what you need is the opportunity to cry on someone’s shoulder about how hard it is to understand how to behave around women, I am not your teacher or your therapist and I am going to freak the hell out on you until you leave me alone.”

    Women spend a lot of time trying to figure out how to cajole certain men into treating us like actual human beings whose boundaries must be respected, and that can be a necessary and effective strategy at times. We should never tell women they *must* aggressively defend themselves, or fail to recognize that sometimes they can’t do so for whatever reason. But this LW seems like she is willing and able to give it a shot, and is in a somewhat unique set of circumstances that would remove a lot of the potential harms of doing so (she’s not actually friends with him, doesn’t see him often, is leaving the country, etc.). In those circumstances, I don’t see why the go-to strategy should be a friendly “it’s not that we don’t think you’re great, but next time we tell you to stop assaulting us, it would be swell if you listened.”

    Wow, reading the description of that guy made me SO ANGRY. I want to go to wherever he is and scream and him on behalf of the LW, because holy shit.

    1. What this guy really needs is for someone to GO. OFF. ON. HIM. the next time he blatantly crosses one of these lines (assuming the woman in question is surrounded by friends, for safety reasons). If he grabs her inappropriately and she tells him not to and he immediately does it again, I would just lose my shit on him — smack his hand away, and LOUDLY and FORCEFULLY tell him that he has no right to touch me, that I’ve told him not to repeatedly, and that if he doesn’t keep his hands to himself I will remove one of them or call the police (and yes, I know the cops wouldn’t do anything, but I think it conveys the seriousness of his conduct). I would also liberally sprinkle some profanity in there. When someone is repeatedly assaulting and harassing the women around them, it’s okay to say “fuck it, I don’t care if what you need is the opportunity to cry on someone’s shoulder about how hard it is to understand how to behave around women, I am not your teacher or your therapist and I am going to freak the hell out on you until you leave me alone.”

      So that was my first instinct too, just to tell her to flip out. But I don’t think it would work. I mean, she says she’s kicked the guy in the nuts before. Dudes like that don’t respond to freak-outs; they just assume you’re being a crazy bitch and take that as license to ignore you. And she never has to see him again, so the issue isn’t him leaving her personally alone, it’s his behavior towards women from now into forever.

      Also, for me, the biggest issue is her wider social circle, and how she can get everyone on board to either force this guy to change or dump him. If she just flips shit on him, it’s going to be Group Drama and there will almost certainly be people who take his side over the Yelling Lady, because people basically take anyone’s side over a Yelling Lady’s.

      So of course he’s not going to change his behavior based on a polite request over coffee. But issuing the request politely over coffee while everyone is sober with a third party involved guarantees her some social cover in her circle; it turns her into the rational sincere one and him into the dickface. Which then makes it easier for the rest of the group to push him out if he doesn’t change (which he won’t). Flipping out at him one time and then never seeing him again isn’t going to change him, and it’ll just make the group view her as a drama queen (although I agree it would be justified).

  15. Esti: Wow, reading the description of that guy made me SO ANGRY. I want to go to wherever he is and scream and him on behalf of the LW, because holy shit.

    I couldn’t even read the whole thing. I was like HOLY SHIT and then realized I wasn’t halfway through yet.

  16. I don’t think his behaviour is coming from “male entitlement”. I think it’s less than skilled attempts to flirt and get female attention, coming from a guy who’s overcompensating a crushed ego. Of course, he will get defensive when he’s being confronted with how uncomfortable he’s making the women around him, and he’ll have to deal with that, but I think it would be much more helpful if the advice came from the point of – “Look, we kind of get what you’re doing here, but it’s making *us* uncomfortable, it’s making *you* a dick, and it *won’t* get you into any girl’s pants. Here’s how you should do it instead.”

    As was just discussed at length on the Elevator Atheist issue, it is not any woman’s responsibility to help an asshole get laid. It is especially not the responsibility of a woman who is being sexually assaulted or harassed to help the assaulter or harasser get laid. The guy doesn’t think he has any alternatives? Too fucking bad. This sort of behavior is not an acceptable approach. The fact that he thinks it is, and that you think his victims should help him deal with his “crushed ego,” is absolutely male entitlement.

    Jesus, I’ve gotten dumped, and dumped badly. And somehow, I never thought that it would be acceptable for me to garner male attention by assaulting my male friends, even after they told me to stop because they didn’t like it (I did look into internet dating, though). Why could it be different with this asshole? Could it be….male entitlement?

    One of the things that asshole men and their enablers need to learn is that not getting laid is not an excuse for anything. He can find his own damn pickup program.

    here’s a male perspective to this thing.

    Gee, I never would’ve guessed it was a male perspective if you hadn’t mentioned it…

  17. Jill,

    Jill: Ok, except seriously, grabbing a woman’s crotch and lifting up another’s skirt is his way of flirting? And when he’s told “stop it” he’s like, “you’re a humorless bitch”? I don’t think that’s a problem of social awkwardness / unawareness of how to flirt. It’s that he’s just disgusting and predatory.

    He may well be merely disgusting and predatory. I’m merely suggesting that, in my experience, such behaviour usually has its root cause in being *unable* to get positive reactions from women in the first place, and a decision to go for “dick” when the alternative is between “no reaction” and “being a dick”.

    That’s the ethically wrong decision, of course, but if that should indeed be the case, then confronting him with what he knows already may not yield the intended result while increasing his available behavioural options may help.

    But as I said above, I’ve never witnessed anything like his behaviour and if he’s a merely an asshole, not someone who’s looking for something else and picked the wrong strategy to achieve that, then by all means he deserves to be kicked out of this and all other social circles.

  18. I second Jill’s advice on how the women should deal with the offender directly.

    I would also advise the women ask who keeps inviting this guy to social gatherings and take the issue up with those people. This isn’t just a personality conflict to be hashed out between individuals. A’s behavior is an affront to his entire social circle and it should not be tolerated.

    I would advise the women who do have to see A on a regular basis to broach the subject with whoever is inviting him to these gatherings. Explain that he’s harassing multiple women and won’t stop despite repeated requests. Make it clear that you’re not interested in going to any more gatherings where A will be present. Don’t try to make the person stop seeing A on their own time. Just make it clear that you don’t have a good time when he’s around and you’re not going to subject yourself to it.

  19. EG,

    EG: As was just discussed at length on the Elevator Atheist issue, it is not any woman’s responsibility to help an asshole get laid.

    …

    One of the things that asshole men and their enablers need to learn is that not getting laid is not an excuse for anything.He can find his own damn pickup program.

    Gee, I never would’ve guessed it was a male perspective if you hadn’t mentioned it…

    And no one said so. I believe the premise of the question asked was – what’s most effective way to make this guy change his inappropriate, violent behavior. I explained my hypothesis why I believe helping him to find behavioural alternatives may be that way. All that is spoken in the abstract, not actually knowing any of the involved people. If he doesn’t change when invited, by all means kick him in the balls next time, and then call the cops.

  20. Sam, for a man to continue to touch women in ways they’ve said they don’t want to be touched IS male entitlement. He knows these women said “no” and he has some kind of story about why it’s okay for him to touch them anyway. He feels entitled to touch them against their will.

    He may think of what he’s doing as flirting, but he’s still at that stage where he thinks that flirting is all about his pleasure in sexual expression. He’s entirely focused on expressing his desire and he doesn’t give a shit how that makes women feel. He doesn’t understand that flirting is about making the other person feel good.

  21. To the extent that the Awkward Guy defense works at all, it only works until the guy is informed that his behavior is unacceptable and unwelcome.

    I find it bizarre that women are told not to set clear boundaries and not to complain when their boundaries are violated because the person who overstepped is supposedly an awkward guy who doesn’t know any better.

    Well, if he doesn’t know, he needs to be told. If he’s a decent guy, as opposed to an awkward predator, he will be grateful for the advice on how not to unwittingly hurt, humiliate, alienate, or even assault other people.

  22. Jill, I am very impressed by your well thought-out, compassionate, and reasonable suggestion for how to deal with that f*cking misogynistic piece-of-sh*t criminal. But, unfortunately, I don’t think any verbal response — none — will have the slightest effect on that walking cesspool. The only thing that might get him to pull his head out of his ass is a serious beatdown. I’m totally serious. I don’t know if this option is available to the woman who asked for advice, but if it is possible, she should talk to two or more of her male** friends and explain the situation to them and ask for their help. Most men I know, after hearing of the sexual assaulter’s behavior, would be glad to help. Invite the friends to the next gathering where the guy is likely to be. Not to stand around and “guard” the woman. This might dissuade the guy from bothering her at that moment, but wouldn’t address his behavior. Just wait for the guy to begin to assault his next victim. When that inevitably happens, throw her friends a signal to kick the ever-loving sh*t out of him. I’m talking breaking his nose, knocking out some teeth, maybe cracking a rib or two, all the while screaming, “If you EVER lay a hand on another woman, you piece of sh*t, we’ll put you in the f*cking hospital.”

    ** I suggest the friends be male not because there aren’t plenty of badass women who could be just as physical. Rather, I think it’s the case that unless the guy is confronted by males, he won’t begin to realize that he’s the one with the problems.

  23. Lindsay,

    I think he doesn’t understand a whole lot of things about human interaction… and my point was that helping him to understand them may be the most useful way to change his behaviour.

    re entitlement. Well, apparently this social circle is accommodating of his behaviour to a strange extent, so well, maybe. I don’t think that someone who *does* touch someone against their will necessarly believes he’s entitled to do so. I think this guy is likely well aware of his inapropriate behaviour, he likely does it because he doens’t know better and because he was so far not stopped. But in my opinion, his disrespectful and inappropriate behaviour comes from a position of weakness, not strength.

  24. I think this guy is likely well aware of his inapropriate behaviour, he likely does it because he doens’t know better and because he was so far not stopped.

    Sam, this is male entitlement. First of all, he does know better because he has been told that his victims do not like it. Second, the fact that he may not have known better to begin with is male entitlement, because the only way he could not have known better would be because too men/boys are allowed to go around thinking that grabbing women/girls is acceptable behavior. Third, how on earth could he both be “well aware of his inappropriate behavior” and not “know better”? Those two things directly contradict each other.

  25. ‘I think this guy is likely well aware of his inapropriate behaviour, he likely does it because he doens’t know better and because he was so far not stopped.’

    Sooooo in other words ‘entitled.’ He does it, and then acts all whiny when asked to stop, because he thinks he should be allowed to. Why is this your sticking point, may I ask?

    Also, it’s a terrible idea to open your comment with something like ‘here’s the male perspective on this’ on a feminist blog, as if that will grant your explanation more validity and truth value than a female perspective. Maybe the perspective of someone who used to be a flaming asshole like the guy in the OP would be uniquely informative, but if you’re just a garden-variety decent guy then it’s unlikely you know any better than we do.

  26. Sam, I’m with Lindsay here — it’s not flirting if it involves criminality. Obviously a lot criminality gets dismissed as flirting (no surprise), but it should be transparent to even the densest minds that the behaviour Jill describes is beyond the pail. (I was expecting “hugs that start feeling weird” like everyone else when I clicked the article — instead we got a story of a bloke who thinks grabbing people’s crotches is acceptable.) Now one might try chalking it up to awkwardness, but… hell, I remember learning in kindergarten that such behaviour was considered impolite. But that’s besides the point — just because everyone else in your social circle condones your behaviour doesn’t mean the target of your “affections” is (or has to be) okay with it.

  27. Sam, here are my problems with your point.

    1. Let’s assume it is true. I’ll address why I really doubt it in my second point, but for the sake of this one, we’ll say he really doesn’t know what he’s doing and is just desperately trying to get attention. Even if that is the case, I think it is being far too kind after all of his horrible behavior to try and teach him ways to interact with women that will get him a positive response. I think the way to “teach” him that he needs to stop is for him to lose his entire circle of friends if he doesn’t change his behavior. In this case using the tool of socially ostracizing someone might be a good move. They don’t have to remain his friend or be nice to him to teach him that his behavior will not be tolerated.

    2. I’m not sure how you can say that he “doesn’t know better” while he’s also “well aware of his inappropriate behavior”. Either he knows his behavior is wrong or he doesn’t. If he knows it’s wrong and chooses to do it anyway, that makes him an entitled asshole, not someone needing a nice lesson on How To Flirt With Women.

    3. It is far more likely in my mind that this man is simply a creep at best and a predator at worst. It is classic predatory behavior to continue to push or downright ignore people’s boundaries to see how much you can get away with. If his behavior isn’t eventually treated harshly instead of handled as if he’s simply a misunderstood and misbehaving child, how will he ever stop thinking he’s entitled to ignore the boundaries of women? He has been disrespecting these women for years, why should they have to be respectful in their response to him?

  28. That being said I do think Jill’s advise was excellent. I’d just add to it that if his behavior doesn’t change he needs to lose his friends and know exactly why he’s lost them.

    1. That being said I do think Jill’s advise was excellent. I’d just add to it that if his behavior doesn’t change he needs to lose his friends and know exactly why he’s lost them.

      Word.

  29. This may be kind of a tangent, but I’m wondering how much his drinking has to do with his behavior. Some people use drinking as an excuse to do things they know are wrong, and I suspect that’s what he’s doing (since he doesn’t seem to be all “OMG I did WHAT? I’m so sorry” when he sobers up). I mean, if you consistently find yourself doing appalling things while drunk, you need to not drink so much.

    I suspect his drinking gives him the courage to follow through on the urges he has all the time.

    I wish more men would confront other men who behave like this. I had a very drunk male friend reach up my skirt once to tickle my thigh and he would not stop even until I literally started screaming at him. And my boyfriend at the time, who was much bigger, stronger, and more of a fighter than the male friend, did nothing. Then afterward my boyfriend comforted me, and then went to go talk to the friend…but his main concern seemed to be “how can I fix this so we can still all be friends?” And I have seen a lot of men act similarly in situations like this. I don’t get it. I really don’t.

  30. EG,

    Third, how on earth could he both be “well aware of his inappropriate behavior” and not “know better”?Those two things directly contradict each other.

    As I said, I’m thinking he may not be able to get positive female attention, so he’s maing an ethically wrong decision to pursue the only kind he can get: negative female attention. That’s what I meant with “he doesn’t know better”. Because if he were able to generate positive female attention and still choose to do what he does, he’d have clear socopathic tendencies.

    igglanova,

    maybe a bad idea, but still – in my experience most women aren’t aware of the difficulties a lot, if not most, guys have in creating positive female attention. My experience discussing this with women suggests to me that they aren’t as aware of the “garden variety” male perspective as they may believe.

    Katniss,

    he may well be a sociopath, and it may well be advised to kick him in the balls both literall and figuratively to make him behave like decent human being. My point was that he *may* not be. And that *if* his behaviour is informed by lack of social skills rather than deliberate desire to hurt, then adding a positive element into the change discourse will likely enhance his responsiveness.

    Whether he deserves that kind of treatment after his behaviour is up to his friends to decide. I understood this premise to be: let’s help him to help us/them, or let’s help us/them by helping him. I did not get the impression that the person asking believed her attempts to engange the guy would be in vain. If she believed that, well, literal and figurative balls kicking. But, again, that was not my impression of the premise of the question being asked.

  31. in my experience most women aren’t aware of the difficulties a lot, if not most, guys have in creating positive female attention. My experience discussing this with women suggests to me that they aren’t as aware of the “garden variety” male perspective as they may believe.

    Sam, in my experience, most men think that their difficulties in creating positive female attention are far more important and meaningful than they actually are. They also seem to be under the impression that such difficulties are unique to the male condition. Seriously, do you think that most straight women just reap positive male attention everywhere they go? Guess what? Difficulty finding a romantic/sexual partner is part of the human condition. I have no sympathy whatsoever.

    Harassment, assault, rape–these are not positive attentions, and these are things women have to worry about all the time. What’s the worst thing that can happen to straight men when they have trouble reaping positive attention? Being shot down? Laughed at? Well, cry me a fucking river.

  33. God, yes. “Pity the poor socially inept man! Pity him! He knoweth not how to get to the pussy! You ladies have no idea how hard it is not to be able to get laid, because no lady has ever been socially inept! Not being able to get laid is a cross that only men bear! Woe is us! Pity us and help us, even when you are threatened and/or the victims of assault!”

  34. @ Sheelzebub,

    I read your first few lines and then saw it’s got nothing to do with me at all and more to do with the way your experience has filtered your perception of what I wrote. Granted, my perception of your comment was completely colored by my own experiences as well… I don’t relate to what you just said.

    Like I said at Captain Awkward, many of us women have dealt with this scenario, including myself. Several times over, in fact. We all have our different ways of dealing with it, but I personally subscribe to some form of physical humiliation for “A”. It works when I have used it 100% of the time. And therefore, I staunchly advocate its use for such people like “A”.

    You won’t catch me encouraging a woman to go run and find a man to defend her honor. No ma’am. A black woman like myself cannot depend on a fanciful notion of the male posse coming to have my back. I don’t have a band of male siblings or cousins, I don’t generally befriend males beyond online communities, and the cultural community I grew up in espouses and promotes active misogyny. White Knights don’t happen for too many of us, and I would never recommend waiting for one either. When I speak, men generally don’t listen. What I can depend on is my own ability to have my own back, and that’s something no “A” can ignore. That’s why I speak on this with such conviction.

    Hate it if you will. But this is my truth that I rock with, your mileage may vary.

  35. Creating positive female attention is not that mysterious. Numerous case studies indicate it involves treating females like human beings. In turn, they might treat you the same way. Of course, this doesn’t necessarily mean they’ll go out or sleep with you. But treating females like human beings rarely obligates anyone to sleep with anyone. (Source: Nice Guys™ Lesson #273)

  36. Sam, the women in this group (well, everyone in the group really) do not owe it to this asshole at all to teach him how to get pussy. They do owe it to themselves to keep themselves safe from his predatory behavior, by any means necessary.

  37. What this guy really needs is for someone to GO. OFF. ON. HIM. the next time he blatantly crosses one of these lines (assuming the woman in question is surrounded by friends, for safety reasons). If he grabs her inappropriately and she tells him not to and he immediately does it again, I would just lose my shit on him — smack his hand away, and LOUDLY and FORCEFULLY tell him that he has no right to touch me, that I’ve told him not to repeatedly, and that if he doesn’t keep his hands to himself I will remove one of them or call the police (and yes, I know the cops wouldn’t do anything, but I think it conveys the seriousness of his conduct). I would also liberally sprinkle some profanity in there. When someone is repeatedly assaulting and harassing the women around them, it’s okay to say “fuck it, I don’t care if what you need is the opportunity to cry on someone’s shoulder about how hard it is to understand how to behave around women, I am not your teacher or your therapist and I am going to freak the hell out on you until you leave me alone.”

    YES. YES.

    Okay, I’m sorry I can’t even finish reading the comments here before responding I am SO FUCKING MAD.

    This guy doesn’t need a talking to. This guy doesn’t need fucking coffee or fucking tea or fucking explanations. This guy needs to be told, even before he has a chance to lay another hand on her:

    “I told you to STOP. You did not stop. This is your LAST warning.

    If you EVER touch me again, or if I EVER see you touch any of my female friends here again and she does not look GODDAMN FUCKING THRILLED ABOUT IT then I will mace you and call the police.

    And if you do it again I will mace you again and then TAZE YOU and then I will call the police. And then maybe I will taze you again if I decide you aren’t crying fucking hard enough. So you had better FUCKING. HOPE. YOU HAVE A GODDAMN HEALTHY HEART, you filthy piece of shit, because once I start fucking responding to your bullshit I might decide I don’t listen to ‘stop’ any better than you do.”

    (But um, that’s just me being a protective friend/older sister. Not that that means I’m joking about any of the above, ’cause for at least 99% of it I’m not.)

  38. That being said I do think Jill’s advise was excellent. I’d just add to it that if his behavior doesn’t change he needs to lose his friends and know exactly why he’s lost them.

    You misspelled “dick” there… >_>

    (Naw, seriously Jill’s advice is probably the right advice — less likely to get you arrested for assault than my plans, at least, though I think mine have a decent chance of making me feel way, way better about the whole situation. And I don’t think it would hurt to have stronger wording than her’s either.)

    1. (Naw, seriously Jill’s advice is probably the right advice — less likely to get you arrested for assault than my plans, at least, though I think mine have a decent chance of making me feel way, way better about the whole situation. And I don’t think it would hurt to have stronger wording than her’s either.)

      Yeah, in hindsight I would have worded things stronger. I guess my issue is, I’ve been in very similar situations before, and I see how women get treated if they don’t have backup and if they don’t establish themselves as The Rational One at the get-go. If they go for (even legitimate!) violence in response to violence, or if they flip out, they get cast as The Problem. So while my advice is totally shitty insofar as it absolutely does not give this guy what he deserves, I hope it is at least effective insofar as it gives the lady in question the ability to maintain credibility and the upper hand in her social group.

  39. Yeah, I will say that the last time some guy put his hands on me (specifically, grabbed my left tit in public), I had already been sexually assaulted a handful of times in much worse contexts. I slapped the fuck out of him, decided I didn’t make enough contact, then slapped him again. I hope the people who saw him grab me saw me smack the fucker so that they internalize the cause and effect (i.e. grab tit without permission, get shit slapped out of you in front of crowd).

    BUT. It had repercussions. The strangers who saw me weren’t part of our circle of friends, and he managed to convince our friends that I was crazy. There were downsides for me. That said, now that I’m a thousand miles away from that toxic environment, the only regret I have about slapping the shit out of him is that I didn’t remember I had mace in my pocket until I was a block away.

    So smack him! But I will say that Jill’s approach is much more even-tempered. Shit-smacking has the downside of possible legal action.

  40. That said, I don’t think his behaviour is coming from “male entitlement”. I think it’s less than skilled attempts to flirt and get female attention, coming from a guy who’s overcompensating a crushed ego.

    The guy’s a predator and a (potential) rapist. Women owe him nothing. The “talk to him and maybe he’ll change” part? That’s so over-the-top mind-boggling I can’t believe anyone is seriously entertaining it as an option. If I could answer the letter-writer, I’d say:

    Stop being nice to this asshole. Call the cops. Stop hanging out with these people. If they find his company a-ok, they are not your friends. Better people exist in this world.

  41. Shit-smacking has the downside of possible legal action.

    Yeah, in a perfect world you would be at risk for getting awarded a Congressional Medal of Fucking AWESOME. 😀

  42. PrettyAmiable:
    … Is anyone else having comment thread deja vu?

    OMG, yes. So frustrating. (One of the last comments in the Elevator Guy thread was me talking about someone who thinks he has a right to stare at me, follow me in public, and touch me (although not nearly as bad and invasive as what the LW and her friends have been subjected to). So the letter Jill replied to is somewhat deja vu for me, and the “pity the menz” comments are definitely deja vu. *sigh*

    What I wonder about the people who throw the Awkward Guy defense around is if they realize that sometimes the so-called Awkward Guy is abusing an Awkward Girl’s boundaries left and right and making her feel even more awkward and uncomfortable?

    That’s one reason why I haven’t yelled at Mr. Follow Annaleigh Around the Library yet.

  43. Point being, he may actually realize he’s not behaving correctly, but doesn’t have alternatives. He may well feel that behaving inappropriately is his only option to gather female attention.

    He does have alternatives, though. If he genuinely believes that behaving inappropriately is the only way for him to get attention from women, then he has the alternative of behaving appropriately and not getting attention from women. If he didn’t feel entitled to female attention, maybe he would see that behaving appropriately toward his female friends and making them comfortable is more important than demanding their (sexual) attention.

  44. What, legal action? If he’s too dense to know that no means no, he’s too dense to complain to the authorities about being called out for being a sexual predator. I say a smack-down is in order. (Just remember to put it on YouTube – it’ll serve as a warning to future Awkward Guys Who Mistake Harassment for Flirting.)

  45. Let’s assume for the sake of argument that this guy doesn’t know how to get positive female attention. We know that he knows that women don’t like him grabbing their crotches because he has been told.

    So, ex hypothesi, he keeps grabbing women’s crotches even though he knows they don’t like it “because he doesn’t know how to get positive attention.” Ergo, he feels entitled to negative female attention because he doesn’t know how to obtain positive attention.

    A lot of people who are similarly mystified about how to get positive attention say to themselves, “I guess I just have to do without female attention, or figure out how to earn positive attention, because my desire for attention does not entitle me to torment women.” An asshole says, “I deserve attention, so I’ll get it however I want.”

  46. Didn’t this unspeakable douche already have a girlfriend at one point? He knows how to get a woman to date him, he just enjoys his current behavior.

  47. You won’t catch me encouraging a woman to go run and find a man to defend her honor. No ma’am.

    Yeah, I never said that. In fact, I don’t think you actually read my comment, since I don’t advocate asking/hoping or waiting for the dudes to save the day and in fact my own experience (which you apparently didn’t read too carefully) is that they use the same kind of rhetoric YOU did–how could you let him, how could you put up with that, blah blah blah. While they defend him as a nice guy, just harmless, or awkward like our resident mansplainer Sam here.

    Having gone through this shit multiple times only to have men AND women defend the douchebags and use those lines on me, I stand by what I said. “How could you” is utter bullshit, victim-blaming, and NOT OKAY in this situation. It does NOT help.

  48. Pretty Amiable – I had super-weird comment thread deja vu the Sam post immediately before you posted that. Creeped me right out when you then popped in with that comment. 🙂

  49. *Disclaimer about how I’m not licensed to give legal advice to strangers over the internet*

    So is it possible that if this guy grabbed your crotch after being told not to and you slapped him/maced him/broke one of his fingers you could find yourself charged with assault? Technically, yes. But realistically? Hells no. No prosecutor anywhere is going to decide it’s moral/realistic to pursue an assault charge against a woman who was being sexually assaulted (especially if there were witnesses to his creepy behavior) and defended herself. I’m not advocating that women go Tarantino on any guy who is creepy, but if someone WON’T STOP GROPING YOU it is entirely within your rights, legal and otherwise, to physically defend yourself.

  50. Sam, WOMEN have trouble getting male attention, there are WOMEN who are socially awkward, and frankly, what this asshole is doing is sexual assault. He’s been told it’s not welcome and he continues to do it.

    I am really.fucking.tired. of the Awkward Guy trope (because awkward women don’t exist, and if they do, well, those bitches don’t matter). I am really fucking tired of mansplaining douchebag pissing all over the comments section and telling us that really, the way to solve this to be nice to the poor widdle menz when they are SEXUALLY ASSAULTING WOMEN.

    Fuck that noise. A man’s comfort and confidence do not take precedence over my safety. And it’s disgusting that you’d even suggest such a thing.

    Has it EVER occured to you that the LW–who described being in real FEAR around this asshole–is in no position to act as his mommy and his therapist? Has it EVER occured to you that HER SAFETY MATTERS TOO?

    FFS.

  51. Sheelzebub:
    Sam, WOMEN have trouble getting male attention, there are WOMEN who are socially awkward, and frankly, what this asshole is doing is sexual assault.He’s been told it’s not welcome and he continues to do it.

    I am really.fucking.tired. of the Awkward Guy trope (because awkward women don’t exist, and if they do, well, those bitches don’t matter).I am really fucking tired of mansplaining douchebag pissing all over the comments section and telling us that really, the way to solve this to be nice to the poor widdle menz when they are SEXUALLY ASSAULTING WOMEN.

    Fuck that noise.A man’s comfort and confidence do not take precedence over my safety.And it’s disgusting that you’d even suggest such a thing.

    Has it EVER occured to you that the LW–who described being in real FEAR around this asshole–is in no position to act as his mommy and his therapist?Has it EVER occured to you that HER SAFETY MATTERS TOO?

    FFS.

    THIS x 100000000. Thanks Sheezlebub.

  52. I’ve known dudes like this. They aren’t pining for positive attention or some such shit. They get off on riling women up. They want the chick to yell and get flustered. It’s that “you’re so cute when you’re angry” bullshit.

    Also, this is why kneeing him in the balls won’t work. That’s the cliche’ lady response. It plays into his whole shtick: Chicks are predictable when they’re mad! Knee to the balls! Classic! Har har.

    No. You punch him in the fucking face. Hard. And then when he starts to say something, you punch him in the fucking face again. Harder. Not much is cute when you’ve got blood gushing from your nose.

    And then you get the fuck out because you have just become Target Number One, and if you don’t think his behavior will escalate, you are wrong.

  53. Sam, seriously, the LW said so herself that she is scared of passing out drunk or going to sleep around him for fear of being raped. His overtures have gone that far over the line and are that scary to the LW.

    And you want her to be nice to the asshole? Fuck that.

  54. Oh, and I’m going to repeat, bolded, for emphasis, my position for people afflicted with reading comprehension fail (since that seems to be the case here and at CA’s place):

    So let’s not get into a festival of blaming and shaming the women in this situation, okay?

    Which is, BTW, how comments like “how could she let him” “how could you tolerate” comes off. Cut that shit out.

    And read for comprehension. FFS.

  55. I hope LW’s male friends are nothing like Sam. Otherwise she can’t count on much support from them.

  56. Jill: So that was my first instinct too, just to tell her to flip out. But I don’t think it would work. I mean, she says she’s kicked the guy in the nuts before. Dudes like that don’t respond to freak-outs; they just assume you’re being a crazy bitch and take that as license to ignore you. And she never has to see him again, so the issue isn’t him leaving her personally alone, it’s his behavior towards women from now into forever. Also, for me, the biggest issue is her wider social circle, and how she can get everyone on board to either force this guy to change or dump him. If she just flips shit on him, it’s going to be Group Drama and there will almost certainly be people who take his side over the Yelling Lady, because people basically take anyone’s side over a Yelling Lady’s.

    I’m with you to a point, which is why I have often dealt with (much less extreme) situations of this type through the polite channels. But this guy certainly isn’t going to respond to polite requests if being kicked in the balls hasn’t done it, and at least kicking him in the balls will probably cause him to back off in that moment.

    As far as alienating friends, I feel like there comes a point where someone has gone so far beyond the pale that if one of your friends thinks that you flipping your shit is overreaction, it’s probably a good thing to find that out as soon as possible because your friend is a useless asshole and that’s information you need to know.

    Yeah, not all situations lend themselves to that, we don’t always have those options, etc. But it makes me sad that even when every indicator from the LW is that there would be no safety or social problems caused by losing your shit on someone who has repeatedly grabbed your crotch against your will, the reaction is still “it sucks, but let’s figure out how to temper how we deal with him so that we don’t alienate our manfriends”. Maybe that’s just realistic, but — really, sometimes, ALIENATE THOSE MANFRIENDS. Anyone who has seen a guy keep lifting your skirt or grabbing your crotch or harassing you to sleep with him, and has watched you say no repeatedly to no effect, and then goes “ugh, feminazi” if you get mad? Fuck them.

    I mean, be safe and do what you feel comfortable doing, but I think our advice to someone in this situation needs to be more “go ahead and LOSE YOUR SHIT because you are SO IN THE RIGHT (disclaimer: be safe, no pressure if you’re not comfortable doing that, but KNOW YOU ARE ENTITLED TO DO SO)” and less “here’s how to have a rational conversation with him so at least people see it’s not your fault”. I just feel like we get enough of the “try explaining it to him gently” messages from the rest of the world that if in even this extreme a case that’s what we tell each other, then women will believe it’s not okay to react more strongly than that.

  57. Look, WRT to physical violence, I’m not ashamed to admit that I fantasize about shiving guys like A in the face. However, punching someone in the face is gonna get you into a fight. And possibly very badly hurt. “Don’t hit girls/women” is a fucking myth, as too many women know.

    I’m not against violence–it’s fine if you’re up for it. I have been. (Ask the douche who grabbed me in the underground walkway in Sheffield how he liked the wrist lock I put his sorry ass in. But I cannot tell you how to do that on the fucking internet.) But not everyone is, and there are reprucussions, so let’s not be Internet Tough Guys in our advice. What worked for you may not work for her.

    Frankly, I’d want to know who is inviting A to these get togethers–is it one of the women friends or one of the guys? And I’d want to know why other people watched this behavior and gave it a pass. I’m 42 and really surly these days and have eviserated friends for giving shit like that a pass. But I remember what it was like when I was younger, and some practical advice (sans the “how could you allow this” type bullshit) would be helpful. Not everone is Xena the Warrior Princess.

    So–I’d tell the LW to do one of three things:

    1) Take Jill’s advice, but don’t be surprised if the dudes don’t back you up. I haven’t had much experience with dudes backing me up in situations like this. (There have been one or two, and we will be friends until one of us croaks, but most haven’t been.) Hell, there are a lot of women who will brush it off or tell you that it’s your fault because you let him, blah blah blah.

    2) Tase his ass the next time he puts his hands on you, and the next time he asks you if he can have sex with you (and asks you repeatedly), tell him to shut the fuck up, that he’s a tiresome shitstain, and that he’s diminishing any chances of any human companionship when he pulls this crap. Be the crazy bitch. You’ll probably lose friends, but fuck it, if they think you have to put up with that for his comfort, they’re not worth keeping anyway.

    3) Do not go out with these folks if he will be there. If he is always there, tell them you’re not going out with them and why. “A grabs me, he lifts women’s skirts and grabs their crotches, and he’s fucking scary to be around. I shouldn’t need mace to hang out with my friends. As long as he’ll be around, I won’t be.”

    And I lied! A fourth suggestion:

    If your friends won’t back you up, find a better set of friends, because these people suck.

  58. “However, punching someone in the face is gonna get you into a fight.”

    If someone is grabbing my crotch without my permission, I assume I’m already in a fight.

    I’m not saying LW should walk up to him and punch him. I’m saying that her method of physical retaliation (ball kneeing) was probably ineffective because it is a stereotypically *feminine* response, which is what he was shooting for. He’s getting off on his female friends’ discomfort.

    Obviously this is colored by my own experience with crotch grabbers. And, yeah, I’m a fight person through and through. (As opposed to a flight person.) However, my experience tells me that IF you are going to respond physically to a man who gets off on witnessing female anger, then you have to take it over the top so that your anger is no longer “cute.”

  59. And I do agree with you that the best course of action for all of the women in this social circle is to avoid him, whenever possible, and to constantly make an issue of his behavior.

    I would also add: If he is doing this in public, make it a public scene. Call attention to it so that people outside your circle of friends notice, because they’ll also notice how your (especially male) friends react.

  60. Obviously this is colored by my own experience with crotch grabbers. And, yeah, I’m a fight person through and through. (As opposed to a flight person.) However, my experience tells me that IF you are going to respond physically to a man who gets off on witnessing female anger, then you have to take it over the top so that your anger is no longer “cute.”

    Sure. As I said, I’m not against violence, in fact, I’m all for it when it comes to shitstains like A (though I think headbutting in the nose is going to do more damage than a punch, or maybe you elbow him in the solar plexus but that can be fatal). All I’m saying is that it’s not for everyone and if the LW’s fight or flight response tends towards “flight” for “freeze” then it may well be impractical to offer punching his lights out as the only advice. Also, unless she’s really good at incapacitating someone right off the bat, LW better be able to take a punch back from someone twice her size if she swings.

    Yeah, there are ways to fight effectively when you’re smaller etc. but not everyone knows them or groks to them. That’s all I’m saying.

    Notice as well that while I respect Jill’s advice, I’m skeptical of the dudes backing her and the other women up (or even the other women backing her up). So my offering was a variety of things she could do.

    Frankly, I hope the dudes back her up and I hope the other women come together and put their collective feet down all over his damn neck and then shun his ass. But I’m not optimistic since they’ve witnessed it and no one said anything. Which tells me that she’s going to have to go for option 3 with the bonus of 4. Which sucks, but is also a weird gift–better to know your ‘friends’ are toxic assault enabling assholes and get them out of your life.

  61. “though I think headbutting in the nose is going to do more damage than a punch, or maybe you elbow him in the solar plexus but that can be fatal”

    Oh, lord. I was given some rather horrific advice from my dad on how to take down an assailant when I was quite young (like, seven years old) that involved quick, disgustingly fatal approaches. Punching in the face is my toned-down version. Dad would be so ashamed.

    “Which tells me that she’s going to have to go for option 3 with the bonus of 4. Which sucks, but is also a weird gift–better to know your ‘friends’ are toxic assault enabling assholes and get them out of your life.”

    This is my expectation, too. I hope that’s not the case.

  62. I really keep going back to where LW wrote that he lifted her skirt up in public repeatedly. It’s not even that he has no fear of being seen as a dickhead; he is trying to *establish* himself as a dickhead.

    My interpretation of that is that either A) The guy is just truly a dickhead and should be treated as such (yelled at as needed, shunned, reminded that it isn’t fucking appropriate), or B) He’s really fucking scary; that it’s attempt to convince his friends that this is just how he jokes around, so he can gradually get more and more violating without anyone saying anything, because, y’know, everyone knows how he is.

    Creepster, for real.

    Honestly, it might be worth it for LW to straight up ask her guy friends: How far does this shit have to go before they would step in? (I would also yell COWARDS! and throw something, but I am kind of ridiculous that way.)

  63. He may well be merely disgusting and predatory. I’m merely suggesting that, in my experience, such behaviour usually has its root cause in being *unable* to get positive reactions from women in the first place, and a decision to go for “dick” when the alternative is between “no reaction” and “being a dick”.

    If your current behavior is getting you kicked in the crotch, YOU ARE DOING IT WRONG.

  64. Asking for sex obnoxiously is “being a dick” — this is way beyond “dick” and well into “genuine physical threat” territory, which is why I’m cool with her applying as much painful/incapacitating force as possible in return. That’s why I went with “mace/taze”, because I wouldn’t be much use in a fight but you don’t have to be Rambo to mace someone. (And, like the solar plexis thing, a taser can also be fatal but I’m down with that being an option at this point, frankly.)

  65. Jill, I definitely agree 100% about getting the other women on her side and developing a game plan first — that’s damn smart. Mostly I think that middle step needed to be meaner: instead of “inviting him for coffee and explaining” I would have personally liked “corner him with your burliest pals and scream in his face until he cries.” And then still shun him, naturally. 😀

  66. Sheelzebub:

    Fuck that noise. A man’s comfort and confidence do not take precedence over my safety. And it’s disgusting that you’d even suggest such a thing.

    Word to this, times approx. one million.

    Also:

    Frankly, I hope the dudes back her up and I hope the other women come together and put their collective feet down all over his damn neck and then shun his ass. But I’m not optimistic since they’ve witnessed it and no one said anything. Which tells me that she’s going to have to go for option 3 with the bonus of 4. Which sucks, but is also a weird gift-better to know your ‘friends’ are toxic assault enabling assholes and get them out of your life.

    Yeah… I honestly cannot remember the last time I even heard of a sort of sexism intervention actually occurring, let alone going well.  At best, there’s a kind of “lurkers support me in email” thing.  Way more often, the woman doing the confronting is shunned for rocking the boat.

  67. Annaleigh,

    “And you want her to be nice to the asshole? Fuck that.”

    No. I am puzzled why he still has that circle of friends. Did you read what I said? I think his friends were lenient to a strange degree. But, and that’s important, the person asking the question wants to engage him to make him change. My comment was merely suggesting that offering behavioural alternatives is usually a better way to make people change than telling them how much they suck, as they tend to be aware thereof. So, basically, if they think he’s a full-on asshole without hope for redemption, as I said: figurative and literal balls kicking. But since she seems to *want* to engage him not merely to tell him again that he’s an asshole, I suggested that offering positive behavioral alternatives may make it more likely that he changes his behavior. That’s all.

  68. Sam:
    Annaleigh,

    “And you want her to be nice to the asshole? Fuck that.”

    No. I am puzzled why he still has that circle of friends. Did you read what I said? I think his friends were lenient to a strange degree. But, and that’s important, the person asking the question wants to engage him to make him change. My comment was merely suggesting that offering behavioural alternatives is usually a better way to make people change than telling them how much they suck, as they tend to be aware thereof. So, basically, if they think he’s a full-on asshole without hope for redemption, as I said: figurative and literal balls kicking. But since she seems to *want* to engage him not merely to tell him again that he’s an asshole, I suggested that offering positive behavioral alternatives may make it more likely that he changes his behavior. That’s all.

    *headdesk* OMG. What you’re proposing is still basically coddling the offender and his fee fees.

  69. DammitJanet

    that it’s attempt to convince his friends that this is just how he jokes around, so he can gradually get more and more violating without anyone saying anything, because, y’know, everyone knows how he is.

    Creepster, for real.

    Holy Hell do I hate “everyone knows how he is” because so often it feels like it is exactly this kind of escalation.

  70. For fuck’s sake Sam! The letter writer doesn’t want a confrontation so that A can ultimately become a better person. She wants a confrontation so that A will stop harassing & assaulting her friends. What you are suggesting over and over again is the LW hold A’s precious little hand and guide him through every step of his transformation. That’s absolute bullshit and everyone here knows it but you. You wonder why A still has friends? Look at how much you’re defending this guy and his indefensible behavior. THAT’S why.

  72. Dominique:
    Sam isn’t getting it. Get it? Why is he still here?

    Because he’s a special snowflake here to remind the womenfolk that we need to be nice to sexual predators because it’s not their fault?

    *sigh*

  73. Dude here

    Sam, they tried talking to the guy. It didn’t work. I get the impression that you, like me, are a shy, awkward guy who doesn’t have much (if any) success with women and you are projecting this onto A. A already had a girlfriend before this, so he is NOT in our position. What I think should happen is shunning and constant reminding of why the shunning is happening. Preferably by the guys, whose advice he is most likely to take. So, if anyone is going to be coddling A, it should be their family members or friends they’ve known for a while sympathetic to LW and also willing to shun.

    Also, the reason us awkward guys bitch and moan so much is because we are constantly told (by the patriarchy, no less) that we have to be the initiators. That we have to be the one to put ourselves out there. That we have to be Captain Studly Hottotrot McFancypants. However, constant failure leads us to believe we have no business being attracted to women whatsoever. I’m not saying this makes our lives any worse, I’m only saying it because it’s what I think is happening here. It’s what’s happening with me at least.

    Forgive me if I don’t really get it, I’ve just really been digging into the feminist movement since Elevatorgate broke out. The way I figure, what better way to understand women than to listen to them?

  74. Also, us men get told that if we don’t have a woman around our arms we are worthless and not worthy of being called men. Some of my friends have called the act of losing one’s virginity “becoming a man.” This frustrates me to no end as the people saying this have never been that mature. The idea still follows me everywhere I go, though. This, I think, is at the root of male entitlement (or just another fray in the knot. Like I said, just getting into this stuff)

  75. Bagelsan

    This guy doesn’t need fucking coffee or fucking tea

    Not even applied topically, fresh from the pot?

    Sam, Sam, Sam – STOP IT. We don’t need your ‘male perspective’, we’ve heard it all before, we’re sick of hearing “What about the mennnnnz?”.

    When I was in my teens I heard about separatists. “Weird” I thought “What could make women hate men that much?”. See, despite being raised by evangelical christians, I was also raised to believe that men and women have the same rights, entitlements, and capabilities. Sometimes my dad was in full-time work, sometimes my mam was, sometimes they both were. Everyone, regardless of how their genitals were configured, was expected to help around the house. I was taught to cook, so was my brother. We were both taught car maintenance. Ironing, hoovering, mending things, putting plugs on new electrical goods, were all equal tasks.

    Then I got out into the ‘real world’. At work I was the only woman on my team, so I had to sweep up at the end of the day, at Uni my thoughts on issues like sexism or rape would be eclipsed by male voices, in public my body made me a target.

    The internet (see things like ElevatorGate) has magnified the real world issues to such a point that, at the age of 33, I’m profoundly fucking grateful that a) I do not need men in my life and b) I’ve learned that any men I encounter do not trump my right to speak.

    Separatism is looking more attractive with each passing year, I kid you not. Elephants and dolphins have become creatures that I envy, matriarchal beings that do not give two shits about the trumpeting and clicking of their males. I’m tired of watching women and girls blame themselves for the shit that men do to them, for desperately trying to live up to male beauty ideals, for being worn down year on year by life under the male gaze.

  76. I suggested that offering positive behavioral alternatives may make it more likely that he changes his behavior. That’s all.

    Hi, A, how’ve you been? Good? Oh good, because, um, there was something I was sorta kinda hoping we might be able to talk about. If that’s cool with you and all. You see, A, it’s kinda upsetting when you touch women. I mean, that’s true for me personally, and it’s just my personal opinion and all, but I would ask super nicely for you not to touch me again.

    Yeah, that’ll obviously work with a guy WHO DOESN’T RESPOND TO BEING KICKED IN THE BALLS.

  77. Ugh. Awkward/nice guys and their inability to perceive women as human beings. I do have the somewhat unusual perspective of someone who lived as a man for part of her life, and had the experience (especially when I was in college, law school, and in my 20’s) of having all sorts of nice/awkward guys (I never spent much time with so-called “alpha males,” so I can’t really speak much about them) pour their hearts out to me about women when, so they thought, they were speaking with no women present. The stories I could tell about the things guys say about women under such circumstances are unbelievable. Or maybe not. So much anger and resentment. And contempt. And so many of them sincerely believe that women “have it easy,” in just about every way including “getting laid.”

    I think that all of my experiences like this have a great deal to do with why I’m fundamentally suspicious of straight men in general. And am actually quite grateful that my son isn’t one.

  78. Captain Studly Hottotrot McFancypants

    Joelsef, that is one of the funniest things I have ever read! I can totally picture the type, too! May I use it in conversation with friends (“Check out that dude over there–he totally thinks he’s Captain Studly Hottotrot McFancypants!”)?

  79. In general:

    I’m kind of surprised nobody’s linked to the “Oh Fucking Yes” video. The technique isn’t for everyone or for all situations, but it should be in the universe of options:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iIlObKYwUyI

    @DammitJanet #65:

    Honestly, it might be worth it for LW to straight up ask her guy friends: How far does this shit have to go before they would step in?

    Very well noted! Quite a while ago, I was the target of some harassment that was different, but maybe very slightly around the edges similar to what happened to Jill’s letter writer. Basically someone felt entitled to harass me, crowd my space, follow me around, and behave in a bullying manner, on an ongoing basis, among our extended social circle. Circle members whom I had considered very good friends minimized it, blew it off, and made excuses for the perpetrators. And now I’m wondering why I didn’t ask that exact same question more often. What will it take for you to step up?

    All of those friendships were badly strained. I ended some of them because duh, your friends are supposed to have your back.

    Jill:

    Your response to the letter writer was really good. It’s also yet another Exhibit against the proposition that feminists are angry bitches who hate men yadda yadda.

    What this guy’s done many times meets the definition of gross sexual imposition, which is a felony in all civilized places. It’s highly indicative of rape culture that even (many?) self-identified feminists suggest “merely” sitting the dude down for a stern talking-to, because you realize that thrashing him makes you look like the crazy one.

    It just seems to me than mainstream feminists like you are underreacting to this creep. I get it, I’m not criticizing, I’m just saying it tends to shoot down those crazy angry feminazi thesis.

    For men who don’t get it:

    Put yourself in the letter writer’s shoes, but don’t imagine the attacker is a (presumably attractive?) woman. Don’t change that part. Let the attacker be a moderately large and physically powerful man doing those exact things to you. No fair saying it’s different because you’re straight. This isn’t about sexuality, it’s about bullying and violence.

    Sam:

    Jesus. Just stop. I have a Y chromosome so it’s okay for you to listen to me. Just stop. Please.

  80. EG – Sure. By all means, go for it.

    DonnaL – As someone who has at times felt resentful towards women, all I can say is testosterone is a hell of a drug. It makes you very ego-driven and can turn you into a rage machine without warning if you have an imbalance of it. After getting rejected, I’d find myself thinking “Why do women hate me? Why do they all think I’m such a pathetic piece of shit? They have it so easy, all they have to do is pretty themselves up and flutter their eyes and dick will start flying at them like mosquitoes. The only way a woman could ever appreciate me is if I was 7 feet tall, ripped, chiseled and rich” but after mulling it over, that feeling goes away. It’s only when you’re constantly faced with rejection where that becomes a problem. Most of the guys like this live sheltered lives and haven’t grown past the stage of only being attracted to barbie doll types. When you eventually realize women have these insecurities to, these misogynistic feelings tend to go away. I should know, I’m a recovering misogynist.

    What also doesn’t help is when despite the fact that you have a job, friends and prospects, your male peers still see you as a loser if you’ve never felt a breast before. I used to think this was women’s fault for not liking me. I now realize it’s because other men put these bullshit expectations on me. If that’s what feminists mean by the patriarchy, to fuck with it. I’m not saying men have it just as bad or worse, I’m saying we should care because we’re affected as well.

  81. If that’s what feminists mean by the patriarchy, to fuck with it. I’m not saying men have it just as bad or worse, I’m saying we should care because we’re affected as well.

    Dude, I can’t speak for everyone, but that’s totally what I mean by the patriarchy, and men are affected by it as well, though, as you say, not just as bad or worse). Please go forth and spread the gospel! And thank you!

  82. Jill: Ok, except seriously, grabbing a woman’s crotch and lifting up another’s skirt is his way of flirting? And when he’s told “stop it” he’s like, “you’re a humorless bitch”? I don’t think that’s a problem of social awkwardness / unawareness of how to flirt. It’s that he’s just disgusting and predatory.

    What scares me is how so many of this woman’s peer group seem to think this behavior is acceptable.

    What I failed to glean from a single word of the original query, was any positive characteristics this guy had that would make them like him in the first place.

    I would suggest he go a week doing exactly what he does to his female ‘friends’ to his male ‘friends.’ (Begging for sex, crotch grabbing, any unwanted touching.) If all of them are fine with it as ‘humor’, bearing in mind her female peers also let it go, well, that says she needs to find a new social circle.

  83. ‘maybe a bad idea, but still – in my experience most women aren’t aware of the difficulties a lot, if not most, guys have in creating positive female attention. My experience discussing this with women suggests to me that they aren’t as aware of the “garden variety” male perspective as they may believe.’

    K, I know this was a while ago but OH MY GOD I can’t believe I gave you the benefit of the doubt, you miserable navel-gazing dumbass. We know. Women experience the exact same shit – you don’t think women get rejected all the time??? And yet you don’t see women running around pulling the crap that A does and getting away with it. (In fact you don’t even see women pulling a mere *shadow* of that crap.) There is an additional factor beyond ‘lonely dork wants to get laid,’ and it is our familiar friend MaLe enTiTLeMeNt!

    We seriously need to turn this concept into a kindergarten sing-along at this point.

  84. @joelsef-

    As someone who has at times felt resentful towards women, all I can say is testosterone is a hell of a drug. It makes you very ego-driven and can turn you into a rage machine without warning if you have an imbalance of it.

    Excellent, because women have testosterone too. Presumably that means you’ll understand if one pounds you into the ground for this “explanation”.

    After getting rejected, I’d find myself thinking “Why do women hate me? Why do they all think I’m such a pathetic piece of shit?

    The Mighty Hivemind says: “If it walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck…”

    They have it so easy, all they have to do is pretty themselves up and flutter their eyes and dick will start flying at them like mosquitoes.

    But only if they’re cis, abled, skinny+stacked, and are conventionally attractive, eh?

    Oh and guess what? Sometimes women just want a fun night out, and don’t want to be pestered by mozzies with testosterone poisoning. Some women (are you sitting down for this one?) don’t want men. Full stop. Sadly there is no ‘ManAway’ spray available for these poor, queer darlings to wear on a night out. In consequence, they get to spend all night hearing “But you don’t look like a…” or “Can I watch?”.

  87. paraxeni, I’d respond to your post but Cindyloowho already did for me. In other words, aside from the testosterone thing, which is the only thing I actually need to think abouit from here, I don’t believe that shit anymore. Please try to understand that and not have such knee-jerk reactions.

    And thanks for calling me a pathetic piece of shit. Not like I have depression, anxiety and a desire to end my own life or anything.

  88. Just came back from a quick read on testosterone. Just from the wikipedia article (go ahead idc), you can see that

    -Testosterone is the main sexual hormone in males
    -The average adult male has 10 times the testosterone as that of a female
    -While women are more sensitive to the effects of testosterone, its effects are more clearly demonstrated in males
    -Most scientific research into testosterone has found a positive correlation to aggression. That, and the fact that men commit the most aggresive crimes (rape, murder…)

    You don’t know what it’s like to be a man on a testosterone high, just as I have no idea what it is like to be a woman on her period. I’m willing to agree to disagree if you are.

  89. To reiterate a question that’s already been asked: WHO IS INVITNG THIS GUY TO PARTIES??!! (And what is wrong with them?) How does this guy even HAVE a social circle?

  90. I think I’m not understanding something. How is it, in this case, victim-blaming to ask the LW why the fuck she hanged (hangs) out with this dude?

    She’s not married to him, not in a relationship with him, doesn’t work with him, isn’t related to him. There is literally no reason to hang around this guy. There is literally no reason to stay anywhere he is.

    I’ve been forced out of groups that I adored being part of because of things exactly like this. Tried talking to him – it was a JOKE! Tried talking to others in the group – it was a JOKE! Or He Just Really Likes You! Then, when I still stood up for myself – I’m the mayor of Nofunnington that hates Fun.

    I’m not getting how its victim-blaming to say, WTF. Get out of there. Don’t we say the same thing to battered people?

    Seems like victim-blaming would be “you obviously like it or you wouldn’t keep hanging out with him”, or something like that. Not getting It, I am.

  91. She doesn’t hang with him, RV. One of her friends invites him out with everyone. She lives in a different city and has had less and less contact with him because she’s had less contact with that group of friends.

    I’m not getting how its victim-blaming to say, WTF. Get out of there. Don’t we say the same thing to battered people?

    Yeah, but some folks went beyond “WTF, get out of there” or “You know, you’ve got every right to remove yourself from this group of friends” to “How could you tolerate this” or “Why do you put up with this.” “How could you” and “Why do you” sounds very judgy and blaming to me in this context–like saying, “You’re putting up with this, so it’s your fault.” (She also hasn’t tolerated it or put up with it–she kicked him in the balls multiple times and told him to cut the shit.) When I was going through something similar, it came off as superior and condescending. It also didn’t make me feel like I could say anything. It really wasn’t helpful at all. It was nothing like, “Hey, you know, what he’s doing is NOT OKAY and you should feel free to remove yourself from that toxic situation/group of friends.”

  92. Ooohhh, ugh. I see now. Hadn’t seen anything that extreme in response so I was all WTF?

    I should have known there’d be people jumping right for a way to make it her fault. It is, afterall, [insert day of the week here].

  93. ^It angers me that any man would say it was the woman’s fault. I want to beat all of my fellow men who think that way to within an inch of their life.

    And I’ve always felt this way, even back when I blamed women for my misery. What’s their excuse, I wonder.

  94. Yeah, but some folks went beyond “WTF, get out of there” or “You know, you’ve got every right to remove yourself from this group of friends” to “How could you tolerate this” or “Why do you put up with this.” “How could you” and “Why do you” sounds very judgy and blaming to me in this context–like saying, “You’re putting up with this, so it’s your fault.”

    Definitely approve of your stance on this — that stuff gets well into victim blaming, and really should be reserved for all her asshole “friends” who stand around and watch this shit happen! Partly this is me speaking as the “designated bitchy woman” among my group of lady friends (every group should have one!) but someone who isn’t being targeted needs to step up and help out. I have friends who are much more meek than the letter writer and I like to help them out with douche-deflection ’cause that’s what friends do.

    …And I’m totally the only one of us who would rage out enough to actually taze a guy. So I gotta take advantage of that opportunity for righteous assbeating when I can! 😀

  95. I was in a similar situation to the one LW was in last year. My guy friends truly just didn’t know that the behavior that C was expressing made all of the girls in our group of friends uncomfortable. When we sat down and had a conversation with said guys they shunned C. C left the school because he had no friends. Sometimes other guys (not the ones doing the creeping, but bystanders) just need to have this type of behavior pointed out to them and they get it.

    As to LW, I’m so sorry you are going through this. He’s a fuckwit. I second jill’s advice on how to handle this in order to get him out of your circle

  96. “Point being, he may actually realize he’s not behaving correctly, but doesn’t have alternatives. He may well feel that behaving inappropriately is his only option to gather female attention.”

    He does have alternatives – he can accept that female attention is not something that he is entitled to and that therefore it is not acceptable for him to try to attract it by any means necessary. Interesting that this alternative does not seem to be one that you think worth considering. Also fascinating that it has not occurred to you that this is pretty much the definition of male entitlement.

    Also, no kidding on the deja vu. Maybe it’s time to dig up links to the 2 600+ comment threads on Shapely Prose about this very issue. Not that reading them will do anything to change the minds of men like our friend Sam, as we have already learned.

    I do love when guys say “no, this isn’t about male entitlement because you see what’s actually happening is…” and then go on to demonstrate a perfect working definition of male entitlement, though. It’s very meta.

  97. “Forgive me if I don’t really get it, I’ve just really been digging into the feminist movement since Elevatorgate broke out. The way I figure, what better way to understand women than to listen to them?”

    A man who read some of these conversations and had a breakthrough, who is now taking the next logical step resulting from that breakthrough?

    I honestly did not expect that to happen. My cynical little heart just unclenched a teeny weeny bit.

    And then I remembered Sam and once again, rage and despair ruled the land (plus I found myself craving a drink, which is never a good thing at this time in the morning).

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