I wasn’t monitoring my husband’s behavior. I have no need or desire to do that. We were simply having a discussion about the topic, as adults who like to have interesting conversations do. If my husband sees a woman he finds attractive, he usually points her out to me, since we generally have the same taste in women.
“uncool or even threatening behavior. It can also be simply a kind of disagreeable, unspoken presumptuousness.” Yes, that’s exactly what a lot of this is, which is why I point to over-familiarity as the key. What women are offended by is not being asked if they like the opera but in fact by being asked if they like oral sex — because they are being asked things like that. That’s exactly the kind of, as you’ve termed it, apish behavior that is going on. If you honestly believe it’s just a bunch of over-reaction to innocuous or genuinely friendly stuff, you haven’t listened to enough first hand reports of women talking about their harassing experiences or read enough about it. Go learn more about the cultures at Nike, Pixar, CBS, FEMA, Google, etc., etc., etc. None of that was complaining about having a door held open for them, which by the way, no-one in the world is complaining about.
A few weeks ago women at Google staged a walk-out in all of their offices worldwide to protest the climate of tolerance for sexual harassment. So many men joined the walk out in solidarity that it essentially shut Google down around the globe for the duration of the walk out.
There is no admission criteria for the sex club I went to (nor is there for most of them outside of a few in LA and NYC). In fact, you may remember that I mentioned that larger (aka fat) women were not shamed or treated poorly as they tend to be in the larger world. There was often one or two trans people, and everyone behaved in a live-and-let-live manner. I’m not sure where you got this idea that it was exclusive, because I clearly said it was in an old warehouse and not very fancy, or even all that much sex was going on and that the reason I found it so appealing was the atmosphere of respect in combination with getting to really embody my sexual self very safely, without anyone acting entitled to my time, attention or body.
Frankly, this was the main attraction of going to that club. It was in a fairly conservative, mid-sized city and didn’t have the revenue for more than a spruced up warehouse. They had one decent DJ, but the other one played whatever he liked, whether the crowd was into it or not. Most of the other people who went there were not people we wanted to become intimate with and there was in fact, very little sexual activity that I ever witnessed there — some to be sure, but it almost wasn’t the point. There was just a huge amount of freedom and self-expression in a place like that. Not just to dress in sexy clothing and flirt with strangers and feel safe, but to be yourself on all levels and actually be safe. Larger women weren’t sneered at or shamed in any way and the overall atmosphere was just one of enjoyment and acceptance. Not everyone wore skimpy clothing, and that was fine too. Be who you are; do what feels good as long as you have the full permission of the other people involved. Look out for each other and take care of one another. Enjoy your body and your sexuality — it’s yours and yours alone to do with it as you wish.
No-one was schooled in anything and we certainly had all walks of life in there, although when you first joined, you were apprised of the rules (Don’t touch anyone without their permission and no means no). The only difference was what the community (in this case, the owners and other patrons of the club) would tolerate as far as behavior. That’s all it takes — complete belief that women are fully in charge of their bodies and their decisions around them and zero-tolerance enforcement of anyone who does not respect that. This is the way it is in nearly all “kink” communities.
It’s seems strange to me that you imagine that “upper echelon” men are somehow less likely to say inappropriate or harassing things than say, the driver of a truck. Again this shows that you don’t actually have much interface with the realities of this dynamic and are simply dealing with it as you imagine it to be. Perhaps it’s true that on the streets construction workers are more likely to catcall than say hedge fund managers, but that’s because the hedge fund managers are waiting until they get into the office or the cocktail party to start saying and doing untoward things. In many cases those kinds of men feel more entitled to women than a regular joe.
I’ve always interacted with you in good faith. I’m not sure why you feel the need to now start snarking at me!
