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Well, there's looking and there's kneeling down behind you to stare at your thigh tattoos. (which she said some guy did)
It's amazing that people can't just automatically know when they're being intrusive. Who kneels down and stares at someone's thighs? Who pulls on a person's sleeve or collar to look at their skin no matter what color it's inked?
It's definitely like the pregnant belly magnet thing. People touched me and even tried to lift up my shirt when I was pregnant. I stopped them, of course.
All that being said... if you have something beautiful or cool-looking or out of the ordinary, people are going to look. They will ask, "Where did you get that lovely scarf?" or "Awesome. I went to their concert last year!" or "Nice tat! Where did you get it?" You can't possibly be upset by this type of thing. Friendly interaction 101.
The fact that people can't tell the difference -- on both sides -- is disturbing for our world.
She said they try to touch them, too. I wouldn't want strange men to come up and start touching my arm.
I have a belly button ring, but it isn't an open invitation for men to come over and stroke it and ask me questions about it. She said she has no problems with people she knows or is getting to know doing this, just not total strangers on the street.
I also have breast implants. Since I got them to feel and look more attractive, does that mean I have to allow strangers to ask me about them or touch them or stare at them?
Sometimes I see men with gorgeous hair, that I would love to touch. But I don't.
Also she said some are intimate, not so much the tattoo, but the story behind it (all hers have meaning). If a tattoo is a symbol of something, say having survived a rough patch, or in memoriam for someone, she doesn't want to share that intimacy with strangers.
I don't think the billboard analogy is the right one, because billboards are meant to be looked at, and this woman does not mind people looking at hers, either. She just wishes it stopped there.
There is nothing wrong with looking or even sharing a compliment, nice dress, nice hair, nice tats, but like you said it ends there.
I guess I would have to say that if you don't want people to see/comment on your tattoos (that are so personal and private that you don't want to talk about them), then put them on your back or someplace else where strangers are not likely to see them.
You've done something that draws attention to yourself, so as a previous poster said - deal with it.
I don’t agree. People are not owed the right to touch you, or expect the right to have questions answered, or impose on your space and time, or expect conversation , just because of what you wear, or look like, how your hair is done, or have tats.
A couple days ago, I was in a supermarket... I saw out of the corner of my eye a man wearing a batman shirt... in the back of my mind I knew there was something different about the bat symbol, but I couldn't say what.
I turned my attention to the deli person who had asked me a question about what I wanted. When I looked again, the man was no longer half way across the store, but standing next to me, with his back to me.
When I finished relaying my order, I said "Hi, that's not a Bat on your shirt is it?" He turned and in a huff said. "No, it isn't, then walked away." I thought that was strange. To me, if you are going to wear something attention getting, you should expect people to give you attention.
I thought that was just as odd as this tattoo sitch.
I don't complain when people stare at me because I am wearing a name tag on my shirt... It just happens to be a "Inigo Montoya" name tag printed on the shirt. I don't get bent when someone thinks it is "odd" if they don't get the joke, or talks to me if they do. It is meant as an attention getter and a conversation piece.
BTW, this is what the "Batman" shirt turned out to be.
Sometimes, I get the feeling that people who complain or act standoffish in these situations DO want the attention, but only from certain people.
Sometimes, I get the feeling that people who complain or act standoffish in these situations DO want the attention, but only from certain people.
This is very true. If you are a man approaching a woman, there is a fine line between being "creepy" and "confident" and it often has very little to do with what you are saying or doing and a lot more to do with if the woman you are attempting to court is attracted to you or not.
I also do try to keep in mind...since I am that extrovert who will try to spark up a conversation anywhere...that you never know what is going on with someone. There could be a man or woman whose parent or pet died, or who is having a horrible time with chronic pain, or who is massively stressed because they just lost their job, or wrecked over a breakup...anything at all...to the point where they simply do not have the mojo to deal with a nice chat. No matter that they happen to have thrown on a t-shirt with a cool logo or they have tattoos showing, they aren't required to swathe themselves in burlap to avoid attention, to signal that they don't want to talk. I can take clipped answers and cold energy and back off and leave someone alone.
But when you go so far as to write up an article saying that simply because some men have been crass, inappropriate, even threatening to you in your past, every man from here on should KNOW not to even try to look at or speak to you... Wow, that's taking it way too far.
And she is not acknowledging that when it comes to ink-ogling, and inappropriate behavior, women can be just as bad. Even worse sometimes. She is assigning a very assumed agenda to the male gender, in my opinion.
Also, I think (IIRC--it's been a while) when I was pregnant, most of the belly-gropers were women, too.
This is very true. If you are a man approaching a woman, there is a fine line between being "creepy" and "confident" and it often has very little to do with what you are saying or doing and a lot more to do with if the woman you are attempting to court is attracted to you or not.
Tatcalling is a subset of street harassment, something that is unequivocally wrong in all its forms. But lately I’ve been noticing that nearly every interaction I have with strange men about my tattoos, even when they aren’t street-harassing or being explicitly sexual, ends up feeling creepy and predatory.
I think it's unrealistic to get body art and then not get comments on it. The unusual attracts interest and attention. You are bound to be noticed if you get body art. It's likely to attract comments and this should be patently obvious to anybody who gets body art. Complaining after the fact sounds disingenuous to me or even strange. The woman in the article is objecting to commonly observed human conduct. So I'm blowing off the article as being just fluff, page filler to keep the advertisements from bashing together.
With my "play" body art I intended to seek attention. I'll be pleased if I get positive reactions in public.
I guess the real problem is that with our societal bias against women asking men out, that's put it all on men to ask women out, so they have to constantly discover ways to meet women so they can ask them out. Then the women get offended because they get hit on too often, hit on when they are busy and don't want to put up with the constant background barrage of hits. I'm sure the body art increases the frequency of hits at least in attractive women.
If you want to find the blame for too many hits, blame the people who helped make society what it is today, made it so that many people believe it's on men to ask women out, and that a woman is "loose" if she asks men out. Men have no choice except to "hit" on women. And like all social behaviors, some men do this better than others, some men are aware of when such attention is socially acceptable.
Because she doesn't get to decide who is allowed to ask her questions and about what topics they get to ask questions.
If I am wearing a tshirt and it has a phrase on it that is personal to me and someone asks me about it, I am not obligated to divulge everything about it. I can simply say "I'd rather not say." or... "It doesn't concern you." Or any of a million other responses. If I don't want anyone asking me questions about it, then I shouldn't wear it in public.
But to imply that someone was in the wrong because they asked me about it is absurd.
If you read it, people are doing much more than simply asking.
This is very true. If you are a man approaching a woman, there is a fine line between being "creepy" and "confident" and it often has very little to do with what you are saying or doing and a lot more to do with if the woman you are attempting to court is attracted to you or not.
Quote:
Originally Posted by blktoptrvl
Exactly.
How do you know?
I guarantee that women who don't want to talk to you, are not saying, "Oh, don't talk to me. You're not attractive."
I object to this on the grounds that a.) You are not a mind reader and b.) The world doesn't revolve around you.
If you try to talk to a person, and they rebuff you, you are ASSUMING that they've judged you. That is pretty much waving aside the fact that this other human has a whole life that you aren't part of and know nothing about. For instance, I said before, what if a pet or relative has just died, what if they are very sick or in pain, what if they just lost a job or they're dealing with some other intensely stressful stuff? What if they simply are not available? What if they are an introvert with really bad social anxiety?
There are 101 reasons a woman might not want to talk to a man (or rather, a person might not want to talk to a stranger.) It is really childish in my opinion to leap to "she just didn't find me attractive." But it does let you get all "who does she think she is" about it, if that's how you need to feel.
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