I won't go so far to suggest that men should never approach me, but after many years of exposure to the enthusiastic claims of many men that they think about sex all day long, that they think about having sex with every woman they see, that they are never just friends with women because they want to screw every woman they know, etc., etc., etc. why should any woman not think that a man saying 'hi, nice day' isn't really saying 'wanna fuck'?
I remember the first time I was called out to by a strange man from a car on Orange Avenue here in Orlando. I was 12 years old. Ever since then it has been a virtual parade of staring, leering, comments, and 'hi, how are you?(s)' from strangers in laundromats and gymnasiums and convenience store parking lots. Surprisingly enough, I have found the internet to be much less fraught with unsolicited, thinly veiled small talk because I don't wander around a lot and have primarily stuck to places where I am known and therefore (hmmm) that sort of thing is seen as harassment.
I think that the progression of my life right down to recent events has left me very cynical and somewhat resentful of the habits of men. It didn't used to bother me to sit in a restaurant and see some guy sitting there with his family and staring a hole in my head while I'm trying to have dinner with my daughters, now it does. Speaking of my daughters, it is also very dismaying to walk into a store or a restaurant with them and see the same things happening all over again...men of all ages ogling them like a slice of prime rib that just walked in the door.
I am a very sexual person and most people here know that I don't have a problem putting myself out there as a sexual object when I want to, but it is at a time and place of my choosing, not when I am grocery shopping or getting my oil changed. I know men can't help it, it's just the way they are, but it is tiresome and I think especially so to some women as they get older. Not speaking for all women.
I'm not sure where the rape thing came from, but I'm pretty sure it didn't come from a woman on this thread.
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Most people go through life dreading they'll have a traumatic experience. Freaks were born with their trauma. They've already passed their test in life. They're aristocrats. - Diane Arbus
PESSIMISM, n. A philosophy forced upon the convictions of the observer by the disheartening prevalence of the optimist with his scarecrow hope and his unsightly smile. - Ambrose Bierce
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