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Some women are reluctant to identify as feminists. One thing I've seen is that some women, when they hear of an altercation with a man, will always take the woman's side. Even when the facts point strongly otherwise. This is fairly rigid.
I have a friend who is like this. I probably tolerated her over the years because we had the same ethnicity and religion. She now lives in her native northeastern city and doesn't speak to her Dad who lives about 40 minutes away by car. However, she does speak to her Mom who retired to the Southeast. I like neither of her parents. Her Dad is a surly tavern owner, and her Mom looks like Alicia Bridges on Medicare (wonder what that's about).
I had an altercation with a mutual friend. I've told this story before. She told me she would take me to get my wisdom teeth pulled on a day she didn't work (Mondays). About a month or two prior to this, she told me she had changed her mind because she was seeing someone new. I didn't have anybody in town to help me. She's not seeing this dude at 10 am on a Monday! The mistake she made another 2 months later, after finding out this guy was a flake, was to come on to me - rubbing my thighs and my ass at a dance. I have a good memory. I don't forget things. Our "problem" was too recent. I was bored and no effort was required, so I did the FWB for a while, unbeknownst to her. Sorry. She didn't seem to have a problem with it.
When my feminist "friend" gets wind of this, she supports the woman in this story. This woman shouldn't have come anywhere near me after that. It was an issue of integrity - my parents raised me that, even under the same circumstances, you take someone to the orthodontist and wait for an hour with them. I didn't respect her. All she talked about was money, anyway. Feminist "friend" told me I had no business taking advantage of this chick. Interestingly enough, the only times she's sided with a man is (a) when it was her brother, and (b) when a guy who did "tea and cookies with the ladies" very well got divorced and the custody aspects were nasty, probably because she viewed him as the one trespassed upon in the relationship.
What's with this? It's a real problem that some women can't see reality and unfailingly take a woman's side. It's an even bigger problem when women like this end up on the bench. What's your theory? Is it oppression? Is it low self-esteem? Is it her siding with her Mom in her parents' ugly divorce? Any similar experiences?
Last edited by robertpolyglot; 09-25-2012 at 12:00 AM..
Instead of telling a woman you had no respect for her, you made her feel otherwise so you could have sex with her. You do not have to be a woman or have daddy issues to see that is wrong & frankly, a form of sexual coercion (look that up).
BTW it is equally wrong when women do this to men, so it isn't solely a women's issue.
Maybe your friend just can't find any reason to condone sexual abuse?
Maybe he used a poor example...but I see this behavior both ways everywhere...
When you go to a social gathering, the woman gather together and get their little clique on, while the men gather and do their thing. The tendency is to side with the group...however, I've always hated to be around those people. You know, the ones who separate you from your spouse so they can complain about each others' husbands. They're the same ones who always side with their gender, no matter the details.
I've never cared for that and I believe that has worked against me in some cases...I don't make friends when I don't agree with them. I also had a job where it seemed to be the culture that if you're married, you can't possibly be happy. None of the managers were so they encouraged a lot of behavior I couldn't agree to...I was wildly unpopular!
I'm not too sad about it...but I don't know why we can't look at the facts first and then decide how to proceed. Robert, men do it, too...as I know you're aware.
Instead of telling a woman you had no respect for her, you made her feel otherwise so you could have sex with her. You do not have to be a woman or have daddy issues to see that is wrong & frankly, a form of sexual coercion (look that up).
BTW it is equally wrong when women do this to men, so it isn't solely a women's issue.
Maybe your friend just can't find any reason to condone sexual abuse?
Three things:
1) I wasn't fawning over, nor physically involved with, this woman prior to this, since I didn't know how I felt about her, and wasn't giving her the pedestal treatment. I guess she expected it right away. I was processing how much we didn't have in common: too southern, too sorority, too materialistic, too into church and very different from girls I'd known before
2) It took a heinous event, such as "standing me" up for the trip to the orthodontist when she had the day off, and it is required by law that someone is in the lobby waiting.
3) She unilaterally came on to me. She made the advance. Rubbing someone's more private zones is more than one expects at a dance, and where everyone could see.
I don't call it sexual coercion. I call it sex between consenting adults. Pick up the phone "You wanna come over?" "Ok." Where's the coercion???
You also conveniently forget the trespass that led to all of this. I think that 90% of the males out there would hate this chick after being "stood up" for medical accompaniment and would stay away from her, let alone expect her to start physically stroking you a mere 2 months later, telling you that BF she had during that time was a flake.
With regard to the feminist "friend," I was fairly pissed that she completely glossed over being stood up for the medical event, as if it was nothing. It speaks volumes about a person. So did her "lexicon" of materialistic comments.
Your "selective perception" seems to make you want to ignore the precipitating event, which IS egregious. I take it you're a woman.
Last edited by robertpolyglot; 09-25-2012 at 09:40 AM..
Three things:
1) I wasn't fawning over, nor physically involved with, this woman prior to this, since I didn't know how I felt about her, and wasn't giving her the pedestal treatment. I guess she expected it right away. I was processing how much we didn't have in common: too southern, too sorority, too materialistic, too into church and very different from girls I'd known before
2) It took a heinous event, such as "standing me" up for the trip to the orthodontist when she had the day off, and it is required by law that someone is in the lobby waiting.
None of this is an excuse, you see, because sexual coercion is never okay.
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3) She unilaterally came on to me. She made the advance. Rubbing someone's more private zones is more than one expects at a dance, and where everyone could see.
If she was sexually harassing you, that should have been addressed & I'm sorry if she violated your boundaries (I do not condone women making unwanted advances anymore than men making them).
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I don't call it sexual coercion. I call it sex between consenting adults. Pick up the phone "You wanna come over?" "Ok." Where's the coercion???
Yes, & in a study of 1,882 college students 120 of them admitted to committing rape so long as the word rape was not used to describe the act. Point being: just because you do not call it coercion does not mean coercion did not take place.
If you engaged in sex with this woman under false pretenses, knowing she would not have sex with you otherwise, then coercion was involved in order to persuade her. She wanted to have sex with someone she thought mutually liked her/had respect for her/was a friend -- but instead of being honest about how you felt & cutting your losses, you took advantage of her (or at least that is what appears to be the case by the way you have described it).
Just because someone wants to have sex does not mean anything goes. There are boundaries & knowingly deceiving someone so that you can have sex is certainly one of them.
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You also conveniently forget the trespass that led to all of this. I think that 90% of the males out there would hate this chick after being "stood up" for medical accompaniment and would stay away from her, let alone expect her to start physically stroking you a mere 2 months later, telling you that BF she had during that time was a flake.
Okay, I understand that she was rude & in no way did you deserve how she treated you. That still doesn't excuse sexually abusive behavior. Two wrongs don't make a right, yes? Eye for an eye would have been standing her up & the right thing to do was cutting your losses. Didn't your parents ever teach you that it is wrong to have sex with people you can't respect?
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With regard to the feminist "friend," I was fairly pissed that she completely glossed over being stood up for the medical event, as if it was nothing. It speaks volumes about a person. So did her "lexicon" of materialistic comments.
I think you were right in feeling hurt by your friend. It was wrong for you to be stood up for the medical event & I am sorry that you were. A friend should have cared more, but that doesn't make her point invalid. What you did was wrong as well. Perhaps your friend has been hurt by someone who treated her the way you treated this woman?
Last edited by thethreefoldme; 09-25-2012 at 10:56 AM..
None of this is an excuse, you see, because sexual coercion is never okay.
Okay, I understand that she was rude & in no way did you deserve how she treated you. That still doesn't excuse sexually abusive behavior. Two wrongs don't make a right, yes? Eye for an eye would have been standing her up & the right thing to do was cutting your losses. Your parent's ever teach you to respect women's bodies no matter how horrid they are, or turn the other cheek?
Coercion implies psychological or physical force or decption. There was none. It was just plain old carte blanche. By your definition, then, every single case of somebody in a college dorm banging someone down the hall because she is "available," though not a person of interest, is either coercion or, worse yet, rape. Sounds like you have a built-in belief that women are weaker and need to be protected.
My parents taught me there are both good people and bad people in this world. They didn't tell me how to handle them. I don't believe in turning the other cheek 100% of the time. Not this time. If you do something like that, you STAY AWAY from a guy at later junctures. I think she was delusional in that she thought she was a catch or irresistible. She was neither. Actually, it's her parents, devout church-going Catholics, who taught her really BAD values.
If you weren't a feminist, this thread wouldn't have caught your eye and you wouldn't have gone into overdrive. I'd like to introduce you to my friend in the northeast who hates her Dad and has the same opinion of this that you do. You two ought to have coffee. She looks sort of like this. That's why she was a friend, and nothing more. No way. Since 2004, she and I don't speak. No loss.
Honestly, I don't think this has anything to do with feminism. This is just standard boy-girl stuff that's been going on since time immemorial. Just because there were two women involved, and one sided with the other woman, doesn't mean you can drag feminism into it as a scapegoat.
Honestly, I don't think this has anything to do with feminism. This is just standard boy-girl stuff that's been going on since time immemorial. Just because there were two women involved, and one sided with the other woman, doesn't mean you can drag feminism into it as a scapegoat.
It probably invalidates my opinion that I'm agreeing with you, Ruth, but I don't think this has anything to do with feminism, either. Robert's friend who is a feminist has her own beef which is separate from the sisterhood and whatnot.
Instead of telling a woman you had no respect for her, you made her feel otherwise so you could have sex with her. You do not have to be a woman or have daddy issues to see that is wrong & frankly, a form of sexual coercion (look that up).
BTW it is equally wrong when women do this to men, so it isn't solely a women's issue.
Maybe your friend just can't find any reason to condone sexual abuse?
Whoa! I'm not endorsing what was done as it sounds immature and petty. But at the worst, he acted like a cad, not a sexual abuser. The woman came onto him and consented to the sex, he misrepresented his feeling for her out of vengenance and the want for sex. He didn't put date rape drugs into her drink or threaten her or take advangage of her when she was passed out
One guy lied to me about being married, another lied to me about the terms of his separation (told me he and his possibly ex-wife agreed to see other people). When I found out the truth, I kicked their sorry butts to the curb (not literally, just ended things between me & each of them). I thought they were lying, slimy cads (and a whole host of other words, which I think would violate the terms of service for this site). But I wouldn't consider them sexual abusers because of the lies about their relationship status
Not to sound all Gregory House MD, but yeah, people lie for all sorts of reasons. So we have to put on our big boy or big girl panties and act like adults when we make sexual decisions. And ask ourselves do we know this person well enough and if we don't and decide to go ahead anyway, well, then we have to live with the consequences.
Now granted, they had a friendship, so that probably lulled her into some sense of security with him. But people who are married lie to each other about major things too (affairs). That doesn't make it sexual abuse. I find referring to that type of situation as sexual abuse for the following reason:
1) it plays down the trauma sexual abuse victims go through
2) it insults women's intelligence and infantilizes us as not being smart enough to make our own decisions.
There are women out there who will date me to get them to buy things while pretending to be interested in them. Do we call that sexual abuse too or financial abuse?
Last edited by exscapegoat; 09-25-2012 at 11:28 AM..
Coercion implies psychological or physical force or decption. There was none. It was just plain old carte blanche. By your definition, then, every single case of somebody in a college dorm banging someone down the hall because she is "available," though not a person of interest, is either coercion or, worse yet, rape. Sounds like you have a built-in belief that women are weaker and need to be protected.
Wrong. Two adults consenting to random, down the hall banging is not the same as having sex with someone you explicitly admit to yourself that you do not respect & yet continue to act as though you do. There is an element of deception in the second example that makes it different & also coercive. & again, this is not solely a women's issue as this happens to men as often as women.
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I call it sex between consenting adults. Pick up the phone "You wanna come over?" "Ok." Where's the coercion???
