News Us politics - read first post before comment

[hodge]

Thanks, Scout. Throughout this political nightmare, the one thing I thought we had was two good senators. When it seemed like one of them had gone down, I literally could not keep any food down. The more days that go by without any more accusers are good ones. As I've said, I met him once and the only thing I can accuse him of is giving me a look, which is not a crime and could be interpreted as flattering, though the jury's still out on that :-)

 

[hodge]

I did read the CBS News article and am heartened to hear how his female staffers felt while working for him. Thanks.

 

[scout86]

the only thing I can accuse him of is giving me a look,

Would you believe that that came up in therapy yesterday? My T says there's fairly solid evidence that heterosexual males are wired to respond to particular shapes that have an evolutionary association with fertility. (And they apparently respond to the shapes, regardless of WHAT is that shape.) Sometimes "a look" is a reflex. He says you may not be able to control a look, but you definitely can control anything that happens after that.

 

[Deleted member 41765]

Everything in me wants to argue with this, out of self-preservation I suppose, and yet I am reminded of "the look" I received from Sam Shepard in a posh bar over a decade (two?) ago. I had attributed it to his drunkenness...

 

[scout86]

I did a quick search. https://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/201207/eternal-curves

I've sort of given up on fact checking my T, except when he seems WAY out there. Because when I do, I've pretty much always found he wasn't making it up. And, apparently, yet again.......

 

[Deleted member 41765]

Well, thanks for fact checking for me, I could tell by the strength of my reaction that it had to be true. The article made me feel slightly ill...

 

[Justmehere]

Sometimes "a look" is a reflex. He says you may not be able to control a look, but you definitely can control anything that happens after that.

Yep. And if we are really at a point where a simple look means someone cries out harassment! abuse! the culture will stop listening to cries for help in the face of serious harassment, assault, and rape. It will all just become noise.

 

[scout86]

The reasons for your reaction is probably a separate topic, but a worthy one.

I wasn't real happy either. I suppose because it feeds into the whole "my only value is as a sex object" thing. Which is totally real and totally there.

My T says the thing is, male members of our species have to have the opportunity to learn that women are people too. The really predatory members of the species will never learn it because they're, well, "predators". He says the rest are teachable, if they haven't already figured it out.

I've got to add, I've talked to a few guys about internet dating sites. Their perception, almost universally, is that the women they meet there only care how much they earn. That might not be a good sample set, for data gathering, but I can see where there's evolutionary name to that approach too. Which doesn't make it any more ok.

 

[hodge]

Sorry, I didn't mean to imply that the look was anything more than a look, and I probably shouldn't have even mentioned it.

 

[scout86]

@hodge , I think it was worth mentioning and that the topic is worth discussing too. It's a real thing. It, I'm sure, means different things to different people. I think talking about it helps sort the subject out.

Another interesting program I heard this past week was about a guy who goes around trying to raise the level of empathy between men & women. As a part of his talk, he stands in front of a white board and asks the women in the room if they take any safety precautions when they're out in public. Normally, every woman in the room adds to the last and the white board is totally covered. Apparently it's interesting to watch the facial expressions of the men change through this process. Because that kind of thing is totally not on the radar screen of most of them.

So, I asked my T if that was actually true. I said that I honestly can't imagine life without "situational awareness". (Which produced a funny look from him, which called my attention to the fact that he's told me, on a number of occasions, that I have more "situational awareness" than most people who aren't in an active war zone. And we call that "a symptom".) But, he assured me that most men DON'T go through life with their keys between their fingers, ready to gouge some predators eyes out. When the guys in that room were asked how they felt about the experience if the women, they all felt pretty bad. But it was news to them, because their experience of the world is different.

 

[Justmehere]

Oh @hodge - I didn’t mean to imply you should not have brought it up. I think it’s totally ok to mention and good to talk about. It is reasonable to talk it through and help others understand it can be super triggery and creepy to be looked at a certain way. Like ew...

In my opinion, it’s different than a guy being a perpetrator because he looked at someone a certain way. Perps are perps because they say and do awful things after that look. The look is creepy because of that, because of what they do after it, not because the look itself is usually an act of serious perpetration.

 

[Deleted member 41765]

But it was news to them, because their experience of the world is different.

True. I was on a date somewhat recently and made a point of sitting in a certain place with my back to the wall. The date actually laughed, playfully and commented on my wanting to be "the focal point." The look on his face when I patiently explained (only partially) the real reason...