I really want to reply to this but I'm also really conflicted about how to do that. I think it is smart to acknowledge that women often associate being alone with an unfamiliar man as a serious risk. As a result it is totally reasonable to make judgments about how a man would behave in that setting. And it is good for men to be aware of this and to calibrate their behavior to take it into account.
But my sense is that using the kind of rhetoric in this post with young, well meaning men with poor social skills causes problems. And since the audience here is mostly young, well meaning men with poor social skills I'm kind of concerned. Nyan's reply is illustrative of this effect. Let's suppose there are two kinds of creepy: people who are creepy because you actually can't trust them to be alone with you and people who just come off that way. With the first group learning about what behaviors seem creepy is not going to actually make the trustworthy. With the second group, well they're by definition really bad at calibrating how to act in social situations. And it seems like it is pretty routine for men in that group to drastically overcompensate to avoid seeming creepy to the point whe...
I want to largely but not totally agree with this comment.
I agree that the sort of rhetoric that often gets used in talking about these things has these effects (and part of this post might). However, I think much of this post will actually help counteract that sort of thing.
See, here's my mental model: The sort of men we're talking about, who overcompensate to avoid being creepy -- they're doing this because they just know to not be creepy; they don't have a good concrete any idea of what that means, they just know the general direction of it and that it's bad. And so they step back from anything they think might at all be over the line and... well, you know the rest. Of course, they don't realize that they were never anywhere near the line in the first place, because the things that are actually over the line are things they wouldn't even think of doing in the first place. Having actual examples then is helpful because it allows you to see, "Wait, that's a typical example of what's over the line? I guess I was never anywhere near the line in the first place after all."
A lot of the rhetoric that gets thrown around about this sort of thing, it's easy to get the impre...
Um, I think I was pretty clear that this routine is really, really unproductive and was my central point of concern about "creepiness" rhetoric. In other words I think it's really bad that what we say to young men leads them to repress their sexuality and walk around on egg shells. I didn't really give a detailed alternative but my implied position was clearly that men can be both sexual and non-creepy and that not worrying about being creepy so much is part of developing that skill.
Um. On re-reading, my response to ikrase is pretty incoherent. D'oh. To try again:
A certain population of men is noticing a problem, and trying to solve that problem. The first attempted solution makes members of the population very unhappy, and doesn't seem to solve the problem.
I read your original comment as saying that we should stop trying to highlight the problem to those men because it will cause more people to try to implement the failed solution. Instead, I suggest we should identify what is wrong with the attempted solution.
To cash that out explicitly: Some folks are treating their social deficits as an inherent trait, similar to a grotesque deformity on one side of their face. Their response is to try to hide the deficit, as if they were turning their head so that the deformity doesn't show. But that solution is very uncomfortable, because it effectively denies a part of their life (sexual desire) actually exists. Thus, it's a really bad solution. Instead, folks with social deficits should recognize socializing is a skill, which can be improved with practice.
Not worrying about the existence of creepy behavior just allows actual creeps to hide in the tall grass of ...
I read your original comment as saying that we should stop trying to highlight the problem to those men because it will cause more people to try to implement the failed solution.
I definitely didn't mean to say we should stop trying to highlight the problem at all. My concern is the problem being presented a) to a general audience instead of specific individuals who are actually known to come off as creepy b) in a way that seems to inflate how common it is, c) in way the imputes creepiness to behaviors that aren't generally understood to be creepy and d) unaccompanied by any other socializing advice.
So I'm totally okay with going up to someone and saying, "Hey, you're coming off as really creepy because you're doing x under conditions y. In general, try to avoid doing things that have characteristic z and make sure to do p and q." Similarly, any kind of socializing manual ought to include something about it. But the way creepiness was dealt with in the post, at least how I saw it was more, "Creepiness is this awful thing women have to deal with. It happens whenever people (generally men) do things that meet this vague criteria. Here are some examples that I think ...
It seems really plausible that inexperienced men with poor social skills who aren't creepy at all read posts like this and think "Oh my God, am I creepy? I really don't want to be creepy. Let me try really hard to avoid being creepy at any point in my interactions with women." The above is totally counterproductive to good socializing and I think a net negative.
This seems to be a general problem with psychological "self-medication".
Imagine that a standard medicine would practiced in the following way: There would exist a pill to cure almost any problem. Those pills would be freely available in shops. The only missing part would be the diagnosis. So you could go to a shop and buy a pill for increasing blood pressure, or a pill for decreasing blood pressure. But you would not have information about which of these pills (if any) you need.
Even worse, imagine that people would have a bias to medicate themselves the wrong way. For example, people with high blood pressure would be more likely to choose the pill for increasing blood pressure, and vice versa. So despite having a magic pill for almost anything, the medicine practiced this way would be mostly harming pe...
creepy
We need two different words for what's been called “high-status creep” (e.g. a hypermasculine, fashionably-dressed guy who snatches your phone and dials his own number, or similar) and what's been called “low-status creep” (e.g. someone with very poor social skills and poor personal grooming). So long as there are people using that word for the former and people using that word for the latter, confusion will keep on ensuing.
Excellent comment! If you came up with a few more examples of the psychological self-medication problem in addition to the creepiness one, I think this would make for a good LW post.
Thankyou for the effort you have been putting in to your replies in this series Viliam. You are injecting much needed balance and perspective into the the conversation.
This reminds me-- I wonder if "creepiness" is to some extent a group phenomenon. If one or two (high status?) women in group are creeped out, then they might influence others in the group.
I think people tend not to believe in shyness, unless you're actually blushing. I used to be shy (still am, depending on the situation). But when I talked about it with my classmates one day, it turned out they actually thought I didn't want to associate with them and was aloof because I felt superior to them. Nothing could have been farther from the truth...
In general people believe in explanations that involve them more than ones that don't involve them. "X doesn't like talking to people" is the x-is-shy explanation, while "X doesn't like talking to me" is the x-is-aloof explanation.
Generally agree that this is important to keep in mind, but:
Asking for a number instead of offering yours. If I want to call you, I will, but when you ask for my number, I can't stop you calling or harassing me in the future.
It's possible my model is just mistaken here, but my understanding is that people generally expect (straight) men to ask for numbers and (straight) women to offer numbers, and deviating from this script on the male side is low-status. Something like "I can't be bothered to take the next step here, so you do it." Or maybe "I'm not confident enough to ask for your number, so I'll give you mine instead and hope for the best." Agree with the other commenters that offering fake numbers is an option.
I had exactly the same reaction. I believe (though have extremely small data number of data points) that offering a number instead of asking for one would be taken as low-status. On the other hand, I doubt that the balance between having a proposition accepted or denied is often that delicate. Presumably in most cases, by the time you're considering exchanging information, she or he has already made up their minds enough that such a small faux-pas wouldn't matter much.
A couple comments have pointed it out. If few people have mentioned it it is probably because it is the standard complaint against "creepiness" rhetoric.
I think there are times when it is basically used as a slur against unattractive people. But there is also a good reason to interpret a behavior from an attractive person and an unattractive person differently. This is because people generally have some idea of attractive they are.
Imagine you are an attractive women evaluating the intentions of men around you (say at a bar). A man displays some kind of body language or verbal behavior that suggests he is sexually attracted to you. You ask yourself "Why is he doing that?". Well if he has reasoned that the two of you are similarly attractive than it is very likely that he has expressed attraction as a way of telling you he is attracted and seeing if the attraction is mutual (and could lead to a fun consensual relationship).
But if the man isn't nearly as attractive as you are then it seems like he should know that and think it unlikely that you would want to be involved with him. Thus, you instinctively lower the probability that he is merely trying to gauge mut...
This seems to be reifying "attractiveness". It's bad enough to treat it as a one-place function; this line of thinking seems to treat it as an unchangeable one-place function.
Standard Intro
The following section will be at the top of all posts in the LW Women series.
Several months ago, I put out a call for anonymous submissions by the women on LW, with the idea that I would compile them into some kind of post. There is a LOT of material, so I am breaking them down into more manageable-sized themed posts.
Seven women replied, totaling about 18 pages.
Standard Disclaimer- Women have many different viewpoints, and just because I am acting as an intermediary to allow for anonymous communication does NOT mean that I agree with everything that will be posted in this series. (It would be rather impossible to, since there are some posts arguing opposite sides!)
To the submitters- If you would like to respond anonymously to a comment (for example if there is a comment questioning something in your post, and you want to clarify), you can PM your message and I will post it for you. If this happens a lot, I might create a LW_Women sockpuppet account for the submitters to share.
Please do NOT break anonymity, because it lowers the anonymity of the rest of the submitters.
Submitter D
The class that a lot of creepiness falls into for me is not respecting my no. Someone who doesn't respect a small no can't be trusted to respect a big one, when we're alone and I have fewer options to enforce it beside physical strength. Sometimes not respecting a no can be a matter of omission or carelessness, but I can't tell which.
While I'm in doubt, I'm not assuming the worst of you, but I'm on edge and alertly looking for new data in a way that's stressful for me and makes it hard for either of us to enjoy the encounter. And I'm sure as heck not going anywhere alone with you.
I've written up some short anecdotes that involved someone not respecting or constraining a no. They're at a range of intensities.
Joining someone for the first time and sitting down in a spot that blocks their exit from the conversation. Sometimes unavoidable (imagine joining people at a booth) but limits my options to exit and enforce a no.
Blocking an exit less literally by coming across as the kind of person who can't end a conversation (follows you between circles at a party, limits your ability to talk to other people, etc).
Asking for a number instead of offering yours. If I want to call you, I will, but when you ask for my number, I can't stop you calling or harassing me in the future.
Asking for a number while blocking my exit. This has happened to me in cabs when I take them late at night. It's bad to start with because I can't exit a moving car and I can't control the direction it's going in. One driver waited to the end of the ride, asked for my number, and then handed my reciept back and demanded it when I didn't comply. I had to write down a fake one to get out without escalating. This is why I'm torn between walking through a deserted part of town or taking a cab alone at night.
Talking about other girls who gave you "invalid" nos. Anything on the order of "She was flirting with me all night and then she wouldn't put out/call me back/meet for coffee." Responding positively to you is not a promise to do anything else, and it's not leading you on. This kind of assumption is why I'm a little hesitant to be warm to a strange guy if I'm in a place where it would be hard to enforce a no.
Withholding information to constrain my no. The culprit here was a girl and the target was a friend of mine. The two of them had gone on a date and set a time to meet again and possibly have sex. The girl had a boyfriend, but was in some kind of open relationship and had informed my friend of this fact. What she didn't disclose was that the boyfriend was back in town the night of their second date. She waited to reveal that until my friend had turned up. My friend still had the power to say no, and did, but there was nothing preventing the girl from disclosing that data earlier, when my friend could have postponed or demurred by text. Waiting til she'd already shlepped to the apartment put more pressure on her. It suggested the girl would rather rig the game than respect a no.
Overstepping physical boundaries and then assigning the blame to me. You might go for a kiss in error or touch me in a way I'm not comfortable with. Say sorry and move on. Don't say, "You looked like you wanted to be kissed." That implies my no is less valid if you're confused.