If a stranger slaps your bottom, is it bad behaviour or bad manners to complain because they meant it as a compliment? In the battle to end the harassment women face in their everyday lives, the discussion has often centred on how women can do more to protect themselves, rather than stopping those who feel they are entitled to touch, pester and target others.
As parliament debates new laws on public harassment on Wednesday, we can change this – but only if we stop excusing criminal behaviour as clumsy seduction. That means being clear that when it comes to harassing women, it is no defence to argue you didn’t mean any harm – because in 2023, you really should know better.
We used to have a system of rules about this. Called “manners”. Now we don’t. Because the societal demand was that we be freed from all that nonsense about the capitalist patriarchy, bourgeois norms.
OK, now we’re free of all of that. What’s your problem then?
It’s OK to playfully slap them on the bum when you’re trying to have “man talk” with Felix Leiter of the CIA.
If a tall, good-looking, intelligent and wealthy stranger asks you for a date, is it bad manners to complain because they meant it as a compliment?
I took it as a complement as the old dear walked past me in the store, slapped my arse in front of my girlfriend and made some comment to her as she wandered on. It was a decade ago but in the current climate I guess I should kick off and see if she is alive for the witch hunt?
Just curious, but do women get slapped on the bum very often in the UK? As in, walking down the street for 5 minutes there’s a 1-3 chance? Is there really somebody claiming it’s OK?
It’s not a societal demand, it’s a skittles-haired freakshow demand.
Stella Creasy. In a crowded field she is the most obnoxious and posoinous.
Narcissism on steroids.
A few years ago doing some laptop upgrade work, I complimented one gentleman on his waistcoat. Should I report myself to the thought police?
“We teach self-defence in schools, the merits of carrying keys in your hands to walk home . . .”
Is there an exception for the girlies? Because I know that in my case carrying something in my hand with the intent of using it as a weapon is not something that will be seen as meritorious by plod.
jgh, I assume the bottom button was unbuttoned of course…..
If we can excuse “well-meaning” bottom-slaps, we can excuse “well-meaning” public nuisance. (SEE your later post.)
Or, we can enforce strict liability.
As a young teenager I remember being sexually harassed by the much older women in the factory where I was working.
Let me correct that …
As a young teenager I fondly remember being sexually harassed by the much older women in the factory where I was working.
Stella Creasey wants to abolish one of the fundamental principles odf English Law – the “mens rea”: the difference between malice and mistake.
When I was young (a bit before she was) a woman slapped on the bum was fully entitled to turn round and slap the guy’s face three times as hard.
How odd that she didn’t point out that stopping the import of RoPers’d solve a lot of this harassment problem.
Esteban – until the early 1980’s British women were at considerable risk of having their bottoms pinched, or randy young window cleaners leering and going “Cor!” at them in a state of undress, or being exhaustively chased through a surreal maze of doors by notorious sex enthusiast Benny Hill.
It was an awful, oppressive, sexy time. But I tend to agree with Garth Algar:
Let me tell you something about women, Wayne. They want you to come get them, they LOVE it.
Benny was either ahead of his time, or had a crystal ball – it was the women who were chasing him!
“How odd that she didn’t point out that stopping the import of RoPers’d solve a lot of this harassment problem.”
Yes its noticeable that articles like this somehow always state that ‘men’ are doing this, as if the perpetrators are most likely blokes called Bill and Dave. You can bet your bottom dollar if such behaviour was universally a white male thing that fact would be emblazoned all over such articles. Yet it isn’t. I wonder why that could possibly be…….
. . . or being exhaustively chased through a surreal maze of doors by notorious sex enthusiast Benny Hill.
Seems appropriate to bring up that time* Ben Elton managed to be funny.
Benny Elton:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0jm8zlLdk7w
*to be fair, he wrote some good stuff
Well if you have to ask what their problem is, that’s the problem.
That’s what my ex used to say, at least.
PJF – that was marvellous 🙂
BiB – that’s for the Benny Hill Truth and Reconciliation committee to rule on.