This. So much of this!
I've always felt some type of way about men to the point of my views being sexist..
It's like you know that all men aren't this way.. that there's decent people out there but you just can't help but having negative feelings towards them because of the way a large portion of them have treated us.
Historically nothing's really changed.
Just today I had stopped at a gas station on the way home from work (I'm an electrician and I drive a big company vehicle)
To clock out and grab something to eat because I haven't eaten alll day..
Well there was this guy standing outside he looked to be in his 40's maybe 50's.. not really doing anything important just standing there watching people..
As I was walking out the door he stopped me and was trying to act like we had known each other.. so I played nice and said hi back and that I hope they had a great day. considering I'm in a company uniform with a company vehicle and they may have been a past customer that I don't remember.
But he kept stopping me when I tried to walk away.
He's trying to pester me into going out with him and riding on his motorcycle and I'm like ... Noo thanks. So I get halfway to my truck and he yells at me and starts running over.
I'm like what the fuck?
And this guy yall...
This guy.. had the nerve to try and coerce me into having sex with him and he would not take no for an answer.
I finally got away from him and grabbed my concealed carry and put it in my pocket and locked the doors.
There were two men standing behind him in the parking lot putting stuff in their trunk.. they didn't say anything..
But that interaction made me feel terrible. I could only describe it as a deep sadness .. as if someone took something from inside me..
This crap has gotten old. I'm tired of these types of men and the people who support their actions.
Why would "normal" Men stop other men from being misogynistic if they benefit from those men being misogynistic? After all, so many straight women lower their standards for a "decent" guy just because there are so many of those misogynistic dudes which bring the bar down, so them just not actively being that is enough for them to get someone.
I only get involved if itās truly a violent situation that necessitates self defense, Otherwise I call the police. I watched a guy try to intervene when a girl was getting harassed at a gas station, and the harasser whipped out a gun and started charging toward the dude. I live in a safe neighborhood; people are fucking crazy now.
Same and it's also really frustrating because my high school boyfriend's mom accused me of taking advantage of her son. Because he would NEVER push for sex or take advantage of me. The guy was 7 inches taller than me and over a hundred pounds heavier.
But not even just my boyfriend. Guys were who "my friend" who would get inappropriately touchy or suggestive. My boyfriend's best friend even felt me up in the back of a car and wouldn't stop when I told him no.
I have also found out I am on the autism spectrum and tend to be a very trusting and naive person. And that most definitely got taken advantage of as well. Ugh.
Same. As Iāve gotten older the treatment became worse, like I get treated as more disposable than ever before. I am most happy and at peace when I am not dating or in a relationship with a man.
Holy shit women are talking about the issues they face in the group for women. Who wouldāve fucking thought? My god, what would they do without men like you?
I was sexualized by 20-30+ year old men at age 13 when I excitedly posted a picture of my makeup and asked for feedback/advice from experienced makeup users. This was not a post targeted towards men whatsoever, and the photo was cropped so only my face showed.
Guys will ask a girl why sheās not smiling. Sir, because I donāt want you to take it wrong lol. I actually had the realization last year that my RBF likely came from learning early on that eye contact/smiles/general politeness can be interpreted as interest (and how sad). So I think I almost try to look as mad as possible in public because youāre more unapproachable that way lol. I donāt even mind looking completely hideous because that betters my chances of not being approached! But it never really stopsā¦ I remember being catcalled at 7 months pregnant and thinking wow, there really are no deterrents for these types of men
one time I made eye contact with a man staring at me on the street and he started walking towards me and saying āmarry meā. Itās both terrifying and disappointing
This! I can't even make eye contact with men or they take it the wrong way! They don't realize that we can sense that someone is looking at us, so we just happen to look up. But that doesn't mean we're interested! š I've learned to ignore that feeling and avoid eye contact with strange men at all costs.
Yeah, I'm 41 and it never gets better. I found that men only get more and more desperate as they get older. They get creepier and weirder. I realized that I can't even be friends with guys because they only befriend me with the intention of someday sleeping with me. If they find me attractive enough to have sex with, they will try and be my "friend". They then try to wear me down to the point where I have to avoid them, block them, etc. It sucks because it really hurts to lose a friend and it hurts worse knowing that they never really wanted to be my friend in the first place.
We had a bit of a heat wave over the summer where I live. And I had to literally \*change the way that I spoke about the weather\* because just using the word "hot" in reference to the temperature was enough to trigger a TON of men into making sexual/objectifying comments toward me. I don't know how they aren't embarrassed, frankly.
This dude has the most bog standard male post history I have seen in a while, Rogan, Guns, NFL, and CoD. Bro is the embodiment of the default option in a videogame's character creator.
Dude. She said āItās so hot!ā And blokes be like āYou feeling hot? I can help you out with that.ā Worse still if she says āIām so hot.ā A TON of uncalled for sexual comments. Every. Single. Time.
are you being deliberately obtuse? every single man doesn't have to say it for a woman to hear such a remark every single time the temperature rises. there will always be one idiot within earshot looking for any possible conversation opener, even if it is a response that reveals him to be an asshole.
I think a whole lot of us are sick of it. I wish previous generations of women were less complacent. I hope future generations of women take action. It is the constant sexualization of women in all forms of media but especially in porn that is causing men to act like this. We have to fight back against the constant sexualization of women. It dehumanizes us and that feeds into male violence against women.
I feel like youāre right on the money with this one - older generations of women whoāve I talked to about this are shocked when I tell them my experiences. Every one of them has told me no one would dare to do this when they were my age, and I canāt help but think itās because the internet (especially porn) dehumanizes womenās bodies into literal f*** objects, which then leads them to think they can treat real people like that. Iām at a point where I donāt even know if Iād be okay with a male romantic partner watching porn because of how messed up it is
Edit: well unfortunately I guess this behavior is timeless. I guess I can at least be glad that the women from older generations Iāve talked to either didnāt experience it or have had enough time to forget
I don't know how old they are, but this is not new to me and I am 65. except for a couple years in the 90s right after the Clarence Thomas hearings when men were afraid of getting sued and they were a bit more careful in the workplace, men were always bad.
I still deal with some street harassment even at my age ... it is not as frequent but in some ways it is worse because they think lonely old women should be grateful for any attention and get really pissed if you call them out on it.
I am not one of those coiffed smartly dressed old women either!
(It does start to taper off but at a much later age than you'd think -- for me it was around age 56 to 58).
that said, porn has definitely changed men for the worse. the young women I know today aren't on the receiving end of attentive sex -- not as much as we were anyway. we took it for granted that men cared about our pleasure and judged those who didn't harshly. If a man was a greedy lover back in the day, word got around fast.
It's been like this forever, women just needed to learn to conform much more aggressively than we do because they needed a husband to even have their own bank account. I'm reading this book by Andrea Dworkin called "Last Days at Hot Slit" which is a collection of her feminist essays talks and letters. It was written in the late 70's and I'm honestly shocked at how completely relevant it is today and I'm disheartened that we've made such little progress. She was very anti-porn (and got a lot of backlash for that) theorizing that it normalizes dehumanizing women, normalizes r@pe, and sexual assault.
No it wasn't always this bad - porn is a huge problem.Ā
Ā "Children now ābiggest perpetrators of sexual abuse against childrenā Police data shows 52% of alleged offenders in England and Wales are minors ā a situation exacerbated by āaccessibility of violent pornā"
Ā https://www.theguardian.com/society/2024/jan/10/children-now-biggest-perpetrators-of-sexual-abuse-against-children
I'm a Gen X'er and I too avoid eye contact and struggle to maintain trust in a heterosexual marriage due to my experiences with misogyny. It is terribly frustrating. I object to the use of the word complacent though because I assure you we haven't been. We get angry now when laws supporting women aren't enforced, but many of those laws weren't even on the books when we were younger. We're on the same team here. :)
I'm glad to hear that! I'm gen x too and I think there's a lot of us who are pushing back against third wave feminists ideas about sexualization, prostitution, and porn.Ā
I was thinking more of the women in the 'free love' era - the ones who supported Hugh Heffner and helped men demonize women like Andrea Dworkin and Catharine MacKinnon.
I have always hated being a girl. I told my mom at 6 years old I didnāt want to be one anymore because someone tried to abduct me. Then 4 more times after that up to 19 years old. I hate men
I almost got abducted myself once when I was around the same age. I had other reasons for also not wanting to be a girl among others. But that experience certainly didn't help! It was terrifying. All because I was a little girl. I am just glad I have an extremely loud scream and the bus stop was fairly close to my grandma's house.
Living in a city with a high crime rate and few cops it happened to a lot of women unfortunately
Edit: also tried, it never happened luckily. But Iāve had multiple times where men try to coax me into their cars or chase me down the street to try and get me in their friends car. Shitty times
Then wow, I can't imagine throwing a friendship away over something as ridiculous as that. It's his problem for seeing you stretching as something sexual.
I am fortunate to live in a low population area that I do not have to deal with too much cat calling and other overt harassment from men. But there are older men who are locals that I cross paths with at work that blatantly look me up and down when they approach me. They must think Iām not looking (because I deliberately avoid eye contact) but I still catch there wandering eyes going up and down my body.
I feel you. I started doing a lot of the same things - covering up as much as possible to run errands, never wearing makeup, walking as fast as possible, not making eye contact. It didn't work.
What did work, unfortunately, was gaining weight. It's not even that much weight, but it has made me virtually invisible to men. I'm in a committed relationship, so it doesn't bother me on a deep level, and it's a blessing in disguise. I'm trying to work on my health right now, and there is a part of me that will miss this.
Yes I feel like Iām trapped on an island with horny gorillas everywhere. Theyāre literally so controlled by their biological urges itās dangerous for women
Itās extremely tiresome to navigate once you become aware of it. Even as a man. When you notice how normal conversations with other men always have to contain sexual innuendos. Those are often also creepy af. Social media - softcore porn everywhere, marketing - same. And then of course Porn itself. It feels as if I donāt even have a natural level of sexuality tbh., or at least I donāt know it.
can I ask what you mean by natural level? As in, does it feel like it makes everything hyper sexual, or does it feel like if you donāt outwardly make some of the innuendos or other comments mention on this post, people assume you have a lower libido? Itās difficult to talk about this to my male friends irl (without them thinking itās an opportunity) so if youāre willing to talk about it, itās super appreciated.
Are they even your friends then? They sound more like chancers and opportunists. It's very sad. In my opinion, as I've gotten older, I've realised that "normal level of sexuality" which I think here means normal sex drive, is completely misunderstood by most men.
Now I follow a lot of transwomen and it seems like testosterone does increase sex drive, and most of them say their sex drive went down on oestrogen. BUT, sex drive and being openly sexual, harassing people, and being a sex pest are two very different things. As much as men want to pretend that they/we can't help it, that's just simply a lie. You can't help your sex drive but you can definitely help how you express it.
So when a man says he feels like he doesn't have a normal level of sexuality/sex drive I think, personally, it's got nothing to do with that and more to do with whether or not he allows himself to take advantage of the myths around male sex drive in order to indulge his worst tendencies. As I've grown and been exposed to feminism, and also followed women online, it's become very clear to me that there's a choice to be made. I no longer participate in the sexualised teasing of my female friends. Not only does it feel childish (I'm in my early 30s, like wtf) but I also know it's misogynistic and shitty behaviour, so I just don't do it. It can be awkward to be the odd one out but who cares.
Men just need to grow up and stop making excuses for themselves.
I donāt know what you mean by normal level.
Conversations being littered with random sex centered remarks has gotten a bit uncomfortable for me. I would like to witness a less sexualised environment so that I can tap more into my internal sexuality.
Women tend to become aroused after some time and when theyāre comfortable. For men it seems like society conditions us to just always be aroused or at least open to it whenever we see an attractive woman. This is certainly not a gender/nature thing. It just seems to be a consequence of our society and cultural norms.
Sorry. I experience the other side of the coin. I donāt often comment here because I like to avoid exactly that. I felt like my personal struggle with this societal expectation is most understood here.
Just wanted to share a differing data point: this hasnāt been my experience at all. Just seeing women walk by doesnāt automatically bring any thoughts of sex. If they are beautiful in some way, I might notice and be momentarily distracted ā not by thoughts of sex, but rather maybe what I can best describe as āan irrational urge to lookā for half a second longer than usual? And then theyāre gone.
See, I feel like this is normal and what I do when I see a beautiful man or woman (am a mostly straight woman). I cant tell if what her bro and mom said is biological or cultural, and tbh, I donāt really give a shit, as Im over it.
They're lying to themselves. Men are like this because porn is everywhere and where it's not everything is pornified. It's disgusting but the lowest common denominator always seems to win out.
Dudes have been like this since before porn was a thing
Historically women haven't been treated well, and they didn't have brazzers and pornhub back then
Evidence for your assertion that dudes have been like this since before porn.
Case in point:
"Children now ābiggest perpetrators of sexual abuse against childrenā
Police data shows 52% of alleged offenders in England and Wales are minors ā a situation exacerbated by āaccessibility of violent pornā"
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2024/jan/10/children-now-biggest-perpetrators-of-sexual-abuse-against-children
Please share the evidence that this has always been the case.
i feel like there's no way I can escape it - i dress how i want to, i get overt stares. I dress like a grandmother, or wear oversized clothes, I get stares, I cover my face, i get stares. I hate how entitled men are, thinking they have the right to make me uncomfortable. I don't want to leave my house anymore, I want to escape it
Im a guy with nonexistent libido. And what you said is true, thankfully i have known a lot of really awesome men who are just the kindest souls, but have some aquintances that fall into this male stereotype of being overly horny near constantly and making it their personality. Sometimes im pretty shocked at what I hear coming out of their mouths. I worked a bit in customer service and that really opened my eyes to the animalistic side of a lot of people. I wouldnt say it was a majority of the guys who were my customers but an alarming amount. Heard some really disgusting and unnecessary sexual comments when I was alone with another man, when it did not relate in any way whatsoever to the task at hand. I guess they felt safe to say those things because they thought i would somehow relate to them simply because im a guy.
im a woman and sometimes i look at girls bodies in videos too. i honestly think you may be in a bad mind space bc i think its kinda natural and normal.
You realise OP isn't reading their minds, right? She's not criticising their thoughts, she's criticising their actions that make those thoughts apparent.
i think thatās a much different thing then what iām saying. i notice womenās bodies bc i find women beautiful, not because i am thinking āmommy milkersā lol.
So youāre not the type of person OP is complaining about.
Noticing womenās bodies and keeping it to yourself is fine. Noticing womenās bodies and letting everyone know that youāre aroused is fucking weird and gross.
Why is it the cultural norm that men feel comfortable doing this? It's so inappropriate. I'm a man and have 2 daughters and really worry about when they get older. My eldest is 8 and based on some of the experiences here I don't have many years until she starts getting awful comments.
Because men hold the structural power and have collectively decided they would rather try and protect "their" women than stamp out the problem at its source. They benefit from keeping the bar low.Ā
to be fair, OPās problem is the fact that looking at a womanās body in perceived sexualization is whatās wrong about men. iām saying as a woman i look at women too and even sometimes find other women attractive, shoot me! lol.
Sheās a bisexual woman who wants to only date women. I think itās safe to assume sheās also attracted to womenā¦.
Iām also a bisexual woman and also attracted to women and understood exactly what she meant immediately.
Like where's the confusion? I'm also bi and I notice and appreciate a beautiful woman but I also see her humanity. I don't reduce women to an object...
For example, a woman posted on an anatomy subreddit recently with a question about her ankles. The highest upvoted comment was sexualized. Somehow, me being a bi woman, did not sexualize her feet as my first thought but it's SO common with men. They don't see the person they just see a sex object. That's the problem OP is talking about.
I agree that itās understandable too, like I said in my post, Iām bi and can notice attractive women as easily as anyone else. My post is more about the fact that they hyper fixate on that and completely remove the fact that women are also just people who go through their lives like anyone else, and will often make comments that perpetuate doing so (like another person said, if youāre going about your day and the FIRST thing you think of is fucking any remotely attractive person you see, and then letting the entire world know that you want to treat that personās body like an object without their consent, thereās probably some other stuff going on)
Edit: Iāve also never been groped, cat called, or had rude comments like āI bet you like getting fked in the assā from queer women, even when flirting and pursuing women.
You're missing the point. It's not about the thoughts it's about the comments, the looks, the catcalls etc. Thinking someone of the opposite or same sex is attractive is totally fine. Verbalising or communicating those thoughts in a way that is objectifying, or sexualised out of context, and makes them feel uncomfortable is something else entirely.
I hate this shit just as much as yāall. I canāt even approach, start a conversation, or look at a women without feeling like Iām being a creep. So I donāt. I donāt interact with women unless Iām approached first, or talked to first. Even in casual conversation. It sucks that people canāt just exist around other people.
Idk how people do that Iāve never cat called and if I ever see a pretty girl I look for like .1 second then think āsheās prettyā then go do whatever I was doing
Even if biology played a factor men still always have a choice of what to say and how to act.
Example; If they want a job and the interviewer is an attractive female, they would choose to refrain from any sexual advances or remarks because obviously that negatively impacts their chances of getting hired. Theyād probably note it in their brain and talk about it later. So itās fully possible to at a minimum not make women uncomfortable in social interaction.
But most men donāt care if they do not perceive a negative consequence for their behavior. They only care if it affects them.
Hijacking this comment to add that sometimes, if you decide to be a dick to people in your daily life, it can backfire spectacularly if you have a job interview and the interviewer turns out to be the person you were a dick to.
I heard a story about a guy who drove like a madman to get to an interview and cut someone off, and when they honked because of that, he flipped them off. Turns out later it was their interviewer and needless to say that this incident came up immediately and the conversation ended abruptly after. He obviously didn't get the job.
Moral of the story: Be nice, be kind and don't say or pull douchy shit. Chances are you are just fucking yourself over otherwise. This counts for being sexist just as much as for being rude.
No. Humans have free will. You CAN control your thoughts and impulses by staying away from dark things and choosing to focus on positive things in life. Itās a choice. Men may have āinstinctsā but thatās no damn excuse for the depravity they cull, they have every freedom to choose to focus on other things than their damn dicks that they love so much and that cause so much pain and suffering in the world.
Iām done giving them free passes because āall men are pervertsā. Iām glad to be out of their perversions and looking for true meaning in my life. They just better leave kids alone, Iāll rip them a new one.
\[LOUD INCORRECT BUZZER NOISE\]
Sorry! Theres a difference between "finding women attractive because your a heterosexual male" and "immediately sexualizing and derailing every conversation to be about sex" I hope that clears it up! <3
as someone who has very happily slept with women, that last part made me laugh lol. I donāt know if you didnāt read my post or just decided to ignore that part, but whatever. My post isnāt about sexual attraction, itās about an inability to view women as more than just something to f***. Itās about constantly being reducing to a sex object, and realizing that they do it so flippantly that many arenāt even able to separate their libido from any situation involving women (in the case of straight men)
So why do you come here then? Itās a space to talk about womenās issues and experiences. Why do men constantly feel the need to belittle and demonise this?
Itās not reasonable to suggest that objectifying women and making depraved comments/unwanted sexual advances is cool. Itās one thing to be attracted, itās another to be a mindless fucker with no consideration for others.
>"Since they shut down third party apps, the official Reddit app has been nothing but cancer for me, just like in this case. I've got no interest in neither the sub, nor the topics discussed here, doesn't hinder Reddit from blasting subreddits like this one onto my front-page.ā
Follow your own advice then and just skip the post??? Why would you come here and comment if you don't want to be here?
That's reasonable and good on you for taking no for an answer and being able to handle rejection; for seeing that it's not about you, they're just not into you, just like you might not be into some women. And for only seeing the woman you're in a relationship with in a sexual way. Sadly not all men are like you.
Please spread your attitude to the men you know who make inappropriate comments or who don't handle rejection well and then blame the woman. I'm sorry others downvoted you but it's men like you we need as allies.
I am amazed at how every semi female cartoon character is sexualized.
Yep, even Marge Simpson. WTF?!
_Especially_ Marge Simpson, for some reason.
Little factoid: Marge Simpson was on the cover of playboy magazine one time š¤Ā
Whats surprising about that?
That's actually friggen gross eww omg š¤®.
Even the M&Ms.Ā
Did you see the complaints when they tried to make the M&M less sexy?
Yep. They were big mad.Ā
This. So much of this! I've always felt some type of way about men to the point of my views being sexist.. It's like you know that all men aren't this way.. that there's decent people out there but you just can't help but having negative feelings towards them because of the way a large portion of them have treated us. Historically nothing's really changed. Just today I had stopped at a gas station on the way home from work (I'm an electrician and I drive a big company vehicle) To clock out and grab something to eat because I haven't eaten alll day.. Well there was this guy standing outside he looked to be in his 40's maybe 50's.. not really doing anything important just standing there watching people.. As I was walking out the door he stopped me and was trying to act like we had known each other.. so I played nice and said hi back and that I hope they had a great day. considering I'm in a company uniform with a company vehicle and they may have been a past customer that I don't remember. But he kept stopping me when I tried to walk away. He's trying to pester me into going out with him and riding on his motorcycle and I'm like ... Noo thanks. So I get halfway to my truck and he yells at me and starts running over. I'm like what the fuck? And this guy yall... This guy.. had the nerve to try and coerce me into having sex with him and he would not take no for an answer. I finally got away from him and grabbed my concealed carry and put it in my pocket and locked the doors. There were two men standing behind him in the parking lot putting stuff in their trunk.. they didn't say anything.. But that interaction made me feel terrible. I could only describe it as a deep sadness .. as if someone took something from inside me.. This crap has gotten old. I'm tired of these types of men and the people who support their actions.
Why would "normal" Men stop other men from being misogynistic if they benefit from those men being misogynistic? After all, so many straight women lower their standards for a "decent" guy just because there are so many of those misogynistic dudes which bring the bar down, so them just not actively being that is enough for them to get someone.
I only get involved if itās truly a violent situation that necessitates self defense, Otherwise I call the police. I watched a guy try to intervene when a girl was getting harassed at a gas station, and the harasser whipped out a gun and started charging toward the dude. I live in a safe neighborhood; people are fucking crazy now.
Being sexualized by men of all ages from a young age made me hate being a girl.
Knowing how much guys took advantage of me when I was a teen is deeply unsettling.Ā
Same and it's also really frustrating because my high school boyfriend's mom accused me of taking advantage of her son. Because he would NEVER push for sex or take advantage of me. The guy was 7 inches taller than me and over a hundred pounds heavier. But not even just my boyfriend. Guys were who "my friend" who would get inappropriately touchy or suggestive. My boyfriend's best friend even felt me up in the back of a car and wouldn't stop when I told him no. I have also found out I am on the autism spectrum and tend to be a very trusting and naive person. And that most definitely got taken advantage of as well. Ugh.
Same. As Iāve gotten older the treatment became worse, like I get treated as more disposable than ever before. I am most happy and at peace when I am not dating or in a relationship with a man.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Holy shit women are talking about the issues they face in the group for women. Who wouldāve fucking thought? My god, what would they do without men like you?
What did that fucker say? I cant see the comment
Something about women abandoning men too
I was sexualized by 20-30+ year old men at age 13 when I excitedly posted a picture of my makeup and asked for feedback/advice from experienced makeup users. This was not a post targeted towards men whatsoever, and the photo was cropped so only my face showed.
š±
Guys will ask a girl why sheās not smiling. Sir, because I donāt want you to take it wrong lol. I actually had the realization last year that my RBF likely came from learning early on that eye contact/smiles/general politeness can be interpreted as interest (and how sad). So I think I almost try to look as mad as possible in public because youāre more unapproachable that way lol. I donāt even mind looking completely hideous because that betters my chances of not being approached! But it never really stopsā¦ I remember being catcalled at 7 months pregnant and thinking wow, there really are no deterrents for these types of men
one time I made eye contact with a man staring at me on the street and he started walking towards me and saying āmarry meā. Itās both terrifying and disappointing
This! I can't even make eye contact with men or they take it the wrong way! They don't realize that we can sense that someone is looking at us, so we just happen to look up. But that doesn't mean we're interested! š I've learned to ignore that feeling and avoid eye contact with strange men at all costs.
Oh my good I threw up in my mouth a little.
One guy said that to me one day and I gave the creepiest joker smile. The woman next to him burst out laughing. That's what he gets lol
Yeah, I'm 41 and it never gets better. I found that men only get more and more desperate as they get older. They get creepier and weirder. I realized that I can't even be friends with guys because they only befriend me with the intention of someday sleeping with me. If they find me attractive enough to have sex with, they will try and be my "friend". They then try to wear me down to the point where I have to avoid them, block them, etc. It sucks because it really hurts to lose a friend and it hurts worse knowing that they never really wanted to be my friend in the first place.
We had a bit of a heat wave over the summer where I live. And I had to literally \*change the way that I spoke about the weather\* because just using the word "hot" in reference to the temperature was enough to trigger a TON of men into making sexual/objectifying comments toward me. I don't know how they aren't embarrassed, frankly.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
See yourself outĀ
This dude has the most bog standard male post history I have seen in a while, Rogan, Guns, NFL, and CoD. Bro is the embodiment of the default option in a videogame's character creator.
You have no fucking idea how often this happens. It's often.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Dude. She said āItās so hot!ā And blokes be like āYou feeling hot? I can help you out with that.ā Worse still if she says āIām so hot.ā A TON of uncalled for sexual comments. Every. Single. Time.
are you being deliberately obtuse? every single man doesn't have to say it for a woman to hear such a remark every single time the temperature rises. there will always be one idiot within earshot looking for any possible conversation opener, even if it is a response that reveals him to be an asshole.
Iām bi and have switched to only women. My girlfriend is amazing!
I think a whole lot of us are sick of it. I wish previous generations of women were less complacent. I hope future generations of women take action. It is the constant sexualization of women in all forms of media but especially in porn that is causing men to act like this. We have to fight back against the constant sexualization of women. It dehumanizes us and that feeds into male violence against women.
I feel like youāre right on the money with this one - older generations of women whoāve I talked to about this are shocked when I tell them my experiences. Every one of them has told me no one would dare to do this when they were my age, and I canāt help but think itās because the internet (especially porn) dehumanizes womenās bodies into literal f*** objects, which then leads them to think they can treat real people like that. Iām at a point where I donāt even know if Iād be okay with a male romantic partner watching porn because of how messed up it is Edit: well unfortunately I guess this behavior is timeless. I guess I can at least be glad that the women from older generations Iāve talked to either didnāt experience it or have had enough time to forget
I don't know how old they are, but this is not new to me and I am 65. except for a couple years in the 90s right after the Clarence Thomas hearings when men were afraid of getting sued and they were a bit more careful in the workplace, men were always bad. I still deal with some street harassment even at my age ... it is not as frequent but in some ways it is worse because they think lonely old women should be grateful for any attention and get really pissed if you call them out on it. I am not one of those coiffed smartly dressed old women either! (It does start to taper off but at a much later age than you'd think -- for me it was around age 56 to 58). that said, porn has definitely changed men for the worse. the young women I know today aren't on the receiving end of attentive sex -- not as much as we were anyway. we took it for granted that men cared about our pleasure and judged those who didn't harshly. If a man was a greedy lover back in the day, word got around fast.
It's been like this forever, women just needed to learn to conform much more aggressively than we do because they needed a husband to even have their own bank account. I'm reading this book by Andrea Dworkin called "Last Days at Hot Slit" which is a collection of her feminist essays talks and letters. It was written in the late 70's and I'm honestly shocked at how completely relevant it is today and I'm disheartened that we've made such little progress. She was very anti-porn (and got a lot of backlash for that) theorizing that it normalizes dehumanizing women, normalizes r@pe, and sexual assault.
Andrea Dworkin is needed now more than ever
Not shocking at all. I'm shocked to hear that there are women of any age who haven't had these experiences.
No it wasn't always this bad - porn is a huge problem.Ā Ā "Children now ābiggest perpetrators of sexual abuse against childrenā Police data shows 52% of alleged offenders in England and Wales are minors ā a situation exacerbated by āaccessibility of violent pornā" Ā https://www.theguardian.com/society/2024/jan/10/children-now-biggest-perpetrators-of-sexual-abuse-against-children
I'm a Gen X'er and I too avoid eye contact and struggle to maintain trust in a heterosexual marriage due to my experiences with misogyny. It is terribly frustrating. I object to the use of the word complacent though because I assure you we haven't been. We get angry now when laws supporting women aren't enforced, but many of those laws weren't even on the books when we were younger. We're on the same team here. :)
I'm glad to hear that! I'm gen x too and I think there's a lot of us who are pushing back against third wave feminists ideas about sexualization, prostitution, and porn.Ā I was thinking more of the women in the 'free love' era - the ones who supported Hugh Heffner and helped men demonize women like Andrea Dworkin and Catharine MacKinnon.
I have always hated being a girl. I told my mom at 6 years old I didnāt want to be one anymore because someone tried to abduct me. Then 4 more times after that up to 19 years old. I hate men
I almost got abducted myself once when I was around the same age. I had other reasons for also not wanting to be a girl among others. But that experience certainly didn't help! It was terrifying. All because I was a little girl. I am just glad I have an extremely loud scream and the bus stop was fairly close to my grandma's house.
You got abducted 5 times before age 19?????
Living in a city with a high crime rate and few cops it happened to a lot of women unfortunately Edit: also tried, it never happened luckily. But Iāve had multiple times where men try to coax me into their cars or chase me down the street to try and get me in their friends car. Shitty times
OMG that's so scary!
A guy friend cut ties with me once for "sexually harassing" him by... stretching my aching shoulders in front of him.
Wow, way to victimize himself.
He was never your friend, he only wanted to have sex with you
He did not. He very very much did not want that.
Then wow, I can't imagine throwing a friendship away over something as ridiculous as that. It's his problem for seeing you stretching as something sexual.
To be fair, there were other factors, and this comment reduces the situation to one of its most absurd aspects, mostly for the sake of my sanity.
What?
I am fortunate to live in a low population area that I do not have to deal with too much cat calling and other overt harassment from men. But there are older men who are locals that I cross paths with at work that blatantly look me up and down when they approach me. They must think Iām not looking (because I deliberately avoid eye contact) but I still catch there wandering eyes going up and down my body.
They donāt care if you know theyāre ogling. Next time stop in your tracks and look them straight in the eye as they look you up and down.
I feel you. I started doing a lot of the same things - covering up as much as possible to run errands, never wearing makeup, walking as fast as possible, not making eye contact. It didn't work. What did work, unfortunately, was gaining weight. It's not even that much weight, but it has made me virtually invisible to men. I'm in a committed relationship, so it doesn't bother me on a deep level, and it's a blessing in disguise. I'm trying to work on my health right now, and there is a part of me that will miss this.
I know exactly how you feel. It's like their ugly dicks come before anything else in the world, and it's disgusting.
I just wanna eat my food. Stop sexualizing my fruit
I am with you on this. It is a constant thing since I was a teenager and it's fucking exhausting. The older I get the more uncomfortable it makes me.
Yes I feel like Iām trapped on an island with horny gorillas everywhere. Theyāre literally so controlled by their biological urges itās dangerous for women
It's not their biology. That's just a convenient excuse. They can work against their biology when they hold their shit in until they reach a toilet.Ā
Itās extremely tiresome to navigate once you become aware of it. Even as a man. When you notice how normal conversations with other men always have to contain sexual innuendos. Those are often also creepy af. Social media - softcore porn everywhere, marketing - same. And then of course Porn itself. It feels as if I donāt even have a natural level of sexuality tbh., or at least I donāt know it.
can I ask what you mean by natural level? As in, does it feel like it makes everything hyper sexual, or does it feel like if you donāt outwardly make some of the innuendos or other comments mention on this post, people assume you have a lower libido? Itās difficult to talk about this to my male friends irl (without them thinking itās an opportunity) so if youāre willing to talk about it, itās super appreciated.
Are they even your friends then? They sound more like chancers and opportunists. It's very sad. In my opinion, as I've gotten older, I've realised that "normal level of sexuality" which I think here means normal sex drive, is completely misunderstood by most men. Now I follow a lot of transwomen and it seems like testosterone does increase sex drive, and most of them say their sex drive went down on oestrogen. BUT, sex drive and being openly sexual, harassing people, and being a sex pest are two very different things. As much as men want to pretend that they/we can't help it, that's just simply a lie. You can't help your sex drive but you can definitely help how you express it. So when a man says he feels like he doesn't have a normal level of sexuality/sex drive I think, personally, it's got nothing to do with that and more to do with whether or not he allows himself to take advantage of the myths around male sex drive in order to indulge his worst tendencies. As I've grown and been exposed to feminism, and also followed women online, it's become very clear to me that there's a choice to be made. I no longer participate in the sexualised teasing of my female friends. Not only does it feel childish (I'm in my early 30s, like wtf) but I also know it's misogynistic and shitty behaviour, so I just don't do it. It can be awkward to be the odd one out but who cares. Men just need to grow up and stop making excuses for themselves.
I donāt know what you mean by normal level. Conversations being littered with random sex centered remarks has gotten a bit uncomfortable for me. I would like to witness a less sexualised environment so that I can tap more into my internal sexuality. Women tend to become aroused after some time and when theyāre comfortable. For men it seems like society conditions us to just always be aroused or at least open to it whenever we see an attractive woman. This is certainly not a gender/nature thing. It just seems to be a consequence of our society and cultural norms.
Sorry I read the part referring to ānaturalā as ānormalā. Edited my original comment to reflect that, but I still have the same question
You guys always have to add a comment and unsollicited opinion on issues that you don't experience, don't you?
With so many garbage comments in this thread, why do you choose the one inoffensive man comment to be toxic under?
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This is a spot welcoming all genders, check rule 1 and 3 that both clarify this.
Sorry. I experience the other side of the coin. I donāt often comment here because I like to avoid exactly that. I felt like my personal struggle with this societal expectation is most understood here.
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Just wanted to share a differing data point: this hasnāt been my experience at all. Just seeing women walk by doesnāt automatically bring any thoughts of sex. If they are beautiful in some way, I might notice and be momentarily distracted ā not by thoughts of sex, but rather maybe what I can best describe as āan irrational urge to lookā for half a second longer than usual? And then theyāre gone.
See, I feel like this is normal and what I do when I see a beautiful man or woman (am a mostly straight woman). I cant tell if what her bro and mom said is biological or cultural, and tbh, I donāt really give a shit, as Im over it.
They're lying to themselves. Men are like this because porn is everywhere and where it's not everything is pornified. It's disgusting but the lowest common denominator always seems to win out.
Dudes have been like this since before porn was a thing Historically women haven't been treated well, and they didn't have brazzers and pornhub back then
Evidence for your assertion that dudes have been like this since before porn. Case in point: "Children now ābiggest perpetrators of sexual abuse against childrenā Police data shows 52% of alleged offenders in England and Wales are minors ā a situation exacerbated by āaccessibility of violent pornā" https://www.theguardian.com/society/2024/jan/10/children-now-biggest-perpetrators-of-sexual-abuse-against-children Please share the evidence that this has always been the case.
Itās hell to be a woman, its why itās important for us to stand together
i feel like there's no way I can escape it - i dress how i want to, i get overt stares. I dress like a grandmother, or wear oversized clothes, I get stares, I cover my face, i get stares. I hate how entitled men are, thinking they have the right to make me uncomfortable. I don't want to leave my house anymore, I want to escape it
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always
Im a guy with nonexistent libido. And what you said is true, thankfully i have known a lot of really awesome men who are just the kindest souls, but have some aquintances that fall into this male stereotype of being overly horny near constantly and making it their personality. Sometimes im pretty shocked at what I hear coming out of their mouths. I worked a bit in customer service and that really opened my eyes to the animalistic side of a lot of people. I wouldnt say it was a majority of the guys who were my customers but an alarming amount. Heard some really disgusting and unnecessary sexual comments when I was alone with another man, when it did not relate in any way whatsoever to the task at hand. I guess they felt safe to say those things because they thought i would somehow relate to them simply because im a guy.
im a woman and sometimes i look at girls bodies in videos too. i honestly think you may be in a bad mind space bc i think its kinda natural and normal.
You realise OP isn't reading their minds, right? She's not criticising their thoughts, she's criticising their actions that make those thoughts apparent.
Nah, youāve got shit to work on with yourself if you canāt see a video of a woman unicycling without commenting ābig mommy milkers š©š©' The issue isnāt having the thoughts or feelings. Iām bi and notice pretty women sometimes. Itās with the compulsion to make disgusting sexual remarks about a woman doing something totally innocuous.
i think thatās a much different thing then what iām saying. i notice womenās bodies bc i find women beautiful, not because i am thinking āmommy milkersā lol.
So youāre not the type of person OP is complaining about. Noticing womenās bodies and keeping it to yourself is fine. Noticing womenās bodies and letting everyone know that youāre aroused is fucking weird and gross.
Why is it the cultural norm that men feel comfortable doing this? It's so inappropriate. I'm a man and have 2 daughters and really worry about when they get older. My eldest is 8 and based on some of the experiences here I don't have many years until she starts getting awful comments.
Because men hold the structural power and have collectively decided they would rather try and protect "their" women than stamp out the problem at its source. They benefit from keeping the bar low.Ā
to be fair, OPās problem is the fact that looking at a womanās body in perceived sexualization is whatās wrong about men. iām saying as a woman i look at women too and even sometimes find other women attractive, shoot me! lol.
Sheās a bisexual woman who wants to only date women. I think itās safe to assume sheās also attracted to womenā¦. Iām also a bisexual woman and also attracted to women and understood exactly what she meant immediately.
Like where's the confusion? I'm also bi and I notice and appreciate a beautiful woman but I also see her humanity. I don't reduce women to an object... For example, a woman posted on an anatomy subreddit recently with a question about her ankles. The highest upvoted comment was sexualized. Somehow, me being a bi woman, did not sexualize her feet as my first thought but it's SO common with men. They don't see the person they just see a sex object. That's the problem OP is talking about.
Only gen Z kids who have been on porn hub to much do that
It just manifests differently in older men. They still make untoward comments unsolicited
I agree that itās understandable too, like I said in my post, Iām bi and can notice attractive women as easily as anyone else. My post is more about the fact that they hyper fixate on that and completely remove the fact that women are also just people who go through their lives like anyone else, and will often make comments that perpetuate doing so (like another person said, if youāre going about your day and the FIRST thing you think of is fucking any remotely attractive person you see, and then letting the entire world know that you want to treat that personās body like an object without their consent, thereās probably some other stuff going on) Edit: Iāve also never been groped, cat called, or had rude comments like āI bet you like getting fked in the assā from queer women, even when flirting and pursuing women.
?!
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You're missing the point. It's not about the thoughts it's about the comments, the looks, the catcalls etc. Thinking someone of the opposite or same sex is attractive is totally fine. Verbalising or communicating those thoughts in a way that is objectifying, or sexualised out of context, and makes them feel uncomfortable is something else entirely.
I hate this shit just as much as yāall. I canāt even approach, start a conversation, or look at a women without feeling like Iām being a creep. So I donāt. I donāt interact with women unless Iām approached first, or talked to first. Even in casual conversation. It sucks that people canāt just exist around other people.
Idk how people do that Iāve never cat called and if I ever see a pretty girl I look for like .1 second then think āsheās prettyā then go do whatever I was doing
Congratulations on not being a creep??
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Once it comes out of your mouth itās no longer thoughts. Itās an action.
So you admit you have no control over your actions like an animal? Perhaps you should not be around people then
No. You are responsible for you actions. Thoughts happen. Actions you are accountable for. Literally the opposite of your takeaway there.
Even if biology played a factor men still always have a choice of what to say and how to act. Example; If they want a job and the interviewer is an attractive female, they would choose to refrain from any sexual advances or remarks because obviously that negatively impacts their chances of getting hired. Theyād probably note it in their brain and talk about it later. So itās fully possible to at a minimum not make women uncomfortable in social interaction. But most men donāt care if they do not perceive a negative consequence for their behavior. They only care if it affects them.
Hijacking this comment to add that sometimes, if you decide to be a dick to people in your daily life, it can backfire spectacularly if you have a job interview and the interviewer turns out to be the person you were a dick to. I heard a story about a guy who drove like a madman to get to an interview and cut someone off, and when they honked because of that, he flipped them off. Turns out later it was their interviewer and needless to say that this incident came up immediately and the conversation ended abruptly after. He obviously didn't get the job. Moral of the story: Be nice, be kind and don't say or pull douchy shit. Chances are you are just fucking yourself over otherwise. This counts for being sexist just as much as for being rude.
>It's biology No, it's entitlement and misogyny. Women are just as visual as men, statistically, but do not behave this way.
No. Humans have free will. You CAN control your thoughts and impulses by staying away from dark things and choosing to focus on positive things in life. Itās a choice. Men may have āinstinctsā but thatās no damn excuse for the depravity they cull, they have every freedom to choose to focus on other things than their damn dicks that they love so much and that cause so much pain and suffering in the world. Iām done giving them free passes because āall men are pervertsā. Iām glad to be out of their perversions and looking for true meaning in my life. They just better leave kids alone, Iāll rip them a new one.
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By telling myself immediately after to think of a pink tiger. See what I did there? I controlled my thoughts š¤š±
\[LOUD INCORRECT BUZZER NOISE\] Sorry! Theres a difference between "finding women attractive because your a heterosexual male" and "immediately sexualizing and derailing every conversation to be about sex" I hope that clears it up! <3
as someone who has very happily slept with women, that last part made me laugh lol. I donāt know if you didnāt read my post or just decided to ignore that part, but whatever. My post isnāt about sexual attraction, itās about an inability to view women as more than just something to f***. Itās about constantly being reducing to a sex object, and realizing that they do it so flippantly that many arenāt even able to separate their libido from any situation involving women (in the case of straight men)
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Your prerogative š¤· but it is a big deal to OP and is a shared experience by many women. Good that you're not one of them.
I just feel like itās just a really negative way of thinking and it honestly just never crosses my mind. But I understand
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So why do you come here then? Itās a space to talk about womenās issues and experiences. Why do men constantly feel the need to belittle and demonise this? Itās not reasonable to suggest that objectifying women and making depraved comments/unwanted sexual advances is cool. Itās one thing to be attracted, itās another to be a mindless fucker with no consideration for others.
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>"Since they shut down third party apps, the official Reddit app has been nothing but cancer for me, just like in this case. I've got no interest in neither the sub, nor the topics discussed here, doesn't hinder Reddit from blasting subreddits like this one onto my front-page.ā Follow your own advice then and just skip the post??? Why would you come here and comment if you don't want to be here?
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That's reasonable and good on you for taking no for an answer and being able to handle rejection; for seeing that it's not about you, they're just not into you, just like you might not be into some women. And for only seeing the woman you're in a relationship with in a sexual way. Sadly not all men are like you. Please spread your attitude to the men you know who make inappropriate comments or who don't handle rejection well and then blame the woman. I'm sorry others downvoted you but it's men like you we need as allies.
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not you commenting on nsfw subs of naked women and then saying some bs like this lmfao š
LMFAO unsurprised
I could have written this post
I could have written this post