If Catcalls Were Cheeseburgers

[Valka]

You have to say "hello" first and observe the courtesies.  It's a game, and the rules say you have to be indirect, or the burger goes in the trash.  -Even in a bar, which is lax(er) party rules.  Even I know that.

I was a funny one to end up flirting for a living for a while, that's for sure - and it was edumacational, to say the least - and I was very good at it, to my surprise.

Was that during your time working at the Ren Fair (sp?). It seems odd to me that people get paid for that, since I'm used to the SCA where guys flirt just because they want to, or because it's part of their persona.

There's an introductory University of Ithra course on chivalry and courtesy, which includes a section on flirting. Some of the things we were taught included body language and non-verbals, such as how to use your costume to flirt. Think of the later times in which women used fans - holding them a certain way or opening/closing them meant different things. The instructor for this course had me stand up and demonstrate for him, as I was the only woman there wearing a full enough skirt to show the other students some of what he was talking about. This sort of thing would have worked better if I'd been wearing multiple layers and fancy sleeves, though... And some of the dances were also a way for men and women to get close enough to talk or flirt without raising (too much) suspicion from their husbands, wives, parents, or their betrotheds.

I had something to say about this, but have decided not to say it. Just please don't let this sort of thing cross over into the Lolcat thread.

I wish you would say it.

It would require being rude, and I don't wish to be rude.

Okay, here's the thing; I posted that video for you and I want your input.

This place is a locker room, and we instantly went to a piggy joke - I think Avalon, a decent man, would admit that, and I do freely.  The video only gave examples of stranger offers, and my remarks focused on that and my own experience/observation related.  It's more complex issue than the video displays, but then it was about a woman's frustrations, not the frustrations that feed into the men acting like such buttholes, and that's okay.

The forum courtesy issue is another complex one where context is crucial, and I worry that I've been too militant in the past about steering members away from discussing disagreements for fear of acrimony to the ultimate detriment of a robust OT community.  Let me say that I don't think we're really pigs, I mean not hopeless ones.  (Except metaliturtle.)  I've never been a woman, and I want to understand better.  I'm willing to listen, and the standard of courtesy among friends is different; I wouldn't have taken that swipe at Gamera on the line above, otherwise.  I didn't take it wrong when you sent me those angry PMs at CFC when you had the IP-ban trouble here - and I would have from not-a-friend.  Have at me.  You have friend privileges with me, and I've not been a paragon of feminist thought here for all that my motivation of starting this thread was on those noble lines.

We can talk it over.  It'll work out. Disagreement and working at finding the truth makes the world more interesting   Thanks.

It's taken me awhile to decide whether or not I wanted to reply to all this.

AC2 is not a place where I feel unsafe or belittled, and if someone should happen to post something that's off, it's not such a big issue that can't be solved with a civilized "this bothers me, please don't do it anymore." "Okay, sorry." So I'm normally okay here, as long as nobody pushes.

The fact is that I don't have much of a sense of humor when it comes to issues like this. Some of us belong to CFC, and there have been several feminism/sexism-related threads there in recent months. I spend the majority of my online time on that site, so I see these threads every day. And yeah, I could walk away and just not read them... but I shouldn't have to.

Like AC2, there are not many women who participate in that area of CFC, and in threads like that, things can get... ugly. Some people openly ask for my input, while others would rather I didn't intrude on their oh-so-profound "knowledge" of what feminism is, what it means, what women think, etc. (someone actually told me to "mind your own business" in a thread about Islamic women's swimwear). Some of the recent threads have resulted in some rather bitter arguments, an adjustment of a certain couple of lists that everyone there has the option of using, and even now there's a thread going on about Tim Hunt - the Nobel Prize winner who said he thinks labs segregated by sex would work better, because female scientists keep falling in love and cry if they get criticized. That thread is not going well.

As to the video posted in the OP of this thread... it was the use of cheeseburgers and the "haz cheeseburgers" comment that angered me. For me, associating something that's supposed to be innocent fun (lolcats and captioning) with sexism is not something I find appealing or funny.

I get that the video was trying to explain the whole "don't be obnoxious and keep saying these things to women and don't be a jerk when they say 'no'" concept. Using a concrete, tangible item as a substitute for the verbals that they're really talking about is one way to drive home the point that women see such comments as tangible things - that words can and do hurt or that they can and do have strong negative effects. The message of the video seems to be saying, "You wouldn't go around handing women cheeseburgers and getting obnoxious when they don't want them, so why would you go around handing them unwelcome comments or physical touches?"

I was in a very bad mental space the day I posted previously in this thread, and meant no insult to anyone who honestly supports women's rights to say no or object to unwelcome attention or rude behavior. I do feel safe on this forum - much safer than on a lot of other sites.

As for the incident with the IP ban... it was an accusation of wrongdoing, and that doesn't sit well with me when it's something I absolutely did not do. Coming here to reply to a thread and being greeted by

Sorry Valka, you are banned from using this forum!
 hackbot; multiple accounts
 This ban is not set to expire.

What would you think if you had been a regular member on a forum and been greeted with a message like this? If I hadn't had another way to contact you, how would I ever have been able to get back in?

[Lord Avalon]

...
As to the video posted in the OP of this thread... it was the use of cheeseburgers and the "haz cheeseburgers" comment that angered me. For me, associating something that's supposed to be innocent fun (lolcats and captioning) with sexism is not something I find appealing or funny.
...

I apologize. The wink smiley was supposed to convey irony; also, I don't use "amirite" except ironically, but people may not know that.

I'm glad that you decided to comment.

[Buster's Uncle]

[ninja'd] Avalon, you are awesome to say that.  The following remarks were written before...


Oh, there's no issue with that last - I was only a teeny bit hurt that you could believe for a second that it could be anything but a technical screwup.  I think I'd already established a lot of cred that I respect you (not least as a woman) and treat you right.  -But I know you've had a lot of the same kind of bad innerwebs experiences I have, only for longer and more, and I do get how that looked out of the blue - we're cool.

My only thing to say off the top of my head is that, again, me and Avalon (with some deliberate irony) going to the piggy joke was unfortunate - but the lady in the vid was indeed attractive, and that actually underlines the message in the end.

I thought the Wedesday Addams vid was a nice coda for that part of the experience for women - fear.  That gets into very serious territory, where it's more than manners and inconvenience at stake.

I have no quibbles with the rest of what you said, but do want to think about it before remarking further.

[Valka]

...
As to the video posted in the OP of this thread... it was the use of cheeseburgers and the "haz cheeseburgers" comment that angered me. For me, associating something that's supposed to be innocent fun (lolcats and captioning) with sexism is not something I find appealing or funny.
...

I apologize. The wink smiley was supposed to convey irony; also, I don't use "amirite" except ironically, but people may not know that.

I'm glad that you decided to comment.

Thank you. I accept your apology and appreciate that you made the effort.

It's true that we haven't interacted much, and so we're really not familiar with what's meant as irony or a joke. So now that you've explained some of your posting style, I should have a better idea of how to interpret your posts.

@BUncle: I'm not sure what you mean by the other video - it's apparently been taken down, and I didn't look at it before. So I have no idea what it was about.

[Buster's Uncle]

Looks like the entire series has vanished off tha' Tube.

Wednesday Addams is all grown up and gets catcalled, rather crudely w/ language by two young men - it being Wednesday, she later shows up at their house, and she brought three large horrifically scary-looking men she's hired to hang out on the sidewalk out front and --- do the same to the two potty-mouthed fellows.  It's all very intimidating and rapey, and I've ruined the joke in telling it seriously.

---

It was indeed renfairs I was doing the flirting in.  It started with two things:  it was a safe place where nothing was real, so I could comfortably get past my inhibitions and have some fun with it and lay it on super-thick w/o all the normal problems associated with that in RL - and we were taught to maintain eye contact while kissing hands.  I was affecting a very deep bass voice as part of my character, and that naturally slid into an imitation of the British accent of a very lovely old English gentleman I'd worked with who'd had the same vocal register.  I don't have to tell you how charming to the ear a good English accent can be (and I was once doing a minutes or so on a co-worker on Gate duty whom a bystander asked what I'd just said - and she replied "I don't care as long as he's saying it in that voice!")  Too -I've never considered myself a more than passably handsome man, but- I looked good in the tights and women who like long hair on men loved my hair, at least in the fake renaissance context.  Also, the renaissance work was very good for my weight.  I would improvise a lot of bullcrap poetic lines -stuff that would look terrible written down, hacky and obvious, but sounds great in that voice and accent from a fellow looking his best in a passable rendition of a renaissance look.  I guess I better post that picture of me in ren-drag again...

When I worked up a new street act as a flatterer, I naturally just kept doing the handkissing on the women, though men were more of a challenge.  I did a lot of what I called "Marital Aid Specials" when one of what I discerned was a couple hired me for a flatter-hit on the other; I'm pretty confident I triggered a great many good nights for various couples.  It was a lot of fun, and I got good enough that not only was I making a lot of patrons (customers) cry, but -and I thought this was a masterstroke- people who renfaired for a living and had seen it all a million times were crying before I dropped of the circuit to help look after my dad.

[Valka]

*fans self*

Okay, you'll do.

There were a few of the guys in Avacal (apparently it's a Kingdom these days, but back then we were a mere region) who went around with cloved oranges and did hand-kissing. I remember explaining to a couple of new people (friends at their first feast and looking a bit shell-shocked at all the costumes, banners, and medieval-style table settings): "At some point, Douglas (the Seneschale's husband) is going to make the rounds of the feast hall, and greet everyone personally, and he will kiss your hand. Don't freak out, it's a normal part of SCA chivalry." Some had a more elaborate ritual than others, but only a few were really good at it.

[Buster's Uncle]

It's harder than it looks - the most important trick, I didn't mention; sincerity.  If you can fake that, you've got it made, right?  Well, the best way I found to fake it was to find something to love in the 'victim' and make it as real as I could to make it real for them.  That included the Nun in full habit that time.  Most people have beautiful eyes if you look into them and want to find the beauty.

I'd been having to do that 'finding something to try to like' from the beginning, long before I developed my flirting repertoire, just to help work past my painful shyness about accosting total strangers.  Loving them made it better for them and better for me.  -Also, I did get pretty good at faking over the years.  Some women smelled the bullcrap coming a mile away, and put up a fight, and when I could get through to them and make them cry -which was fairly often towards the end- --- I'd walk away humming "Unforgettable" or "We are the Champions" or something under my breath.

*fans self*

Okay, you'll do.

[Giant ] Hun, you just made my day.  Hearing that never gets old, especially at my age, for all that the years have been kind.

(The camera loves me because I think 'hello' to the photographer and my 'hello' face is my best.  Geo can confirm that IRL, I look like Comic Book Guy's not-very-fat less-aspie brother w/ broody-face resting expression.  Those shots above, I can't look away from my face being a tad chubby  in the older first shot, 1995, and the trace of gut showing in the second, my last faire down in Florida, 2002.)

[Buster's Uncle]

Bumped for hEt's attention...

[Elok]

When I was in Peru a few years back (I had work teaching English to office workers, didn't pan out long-term), I had a doorman ask me to give him some good English words to say to hot women who passed him by.  This caused something of a dilemma.  One the one hand, that's just boorish.  On the other, cultures vary, Latin America is big on machismo, and maybe women there just shrugged it off, IDK.  And I didn't want to lecture this dude I barely knew about good Gringo manners or anything.  I settled for asking him, in a sincerely curious tone, if it was okay for men to do that here, because in America that kind of thing makes women hate you and may get you slapped.

He assured me that no, it was fine, and pressed me for a really good catcall.  I was pretty much stuck waiting there until my appointment time with the client inside his building came up, and I didn't want to offend this dude since I ran into him before practically every class.  OTOH, it's not like I keep up with what all the drunks and bums are saying to random chicks these days, and I didn't want to teach him anything really vile.  I settled for telling him "hey, pretty lady," which I figured nobody would find horribly offensive, and then mercifully the meeting time came around.  Thankfully, he did not bring up the subject again.

[Buster's Uncle]

...Cue the ragging for enabling as if this were Apolyton...


Funny OT - I grew up in teachers' lounges, watching them smoke and bitterly grouse about how little money they made; I was raised by a teacher.  You'd think I would have understood them.  But it was only the years I fell into some sporadic emergency substituting that I felt like I really got a handle on the teachers who seem obsessed with making the kids march to the lunchroom in a neat line.

[Valka]

When I was in Peru a few years back (I had work teaching English to office workers, didn't pan out long-term), I had a doorman ask me to give him some good English words to say to hot women who passed him by.  This caused something of a dilemma.  One the one hand, that's just boorish.  On the other, cultures vary, Latin America is big on machismo, and maybe women there just shrugged it off, IDK.  And I didn't want to lecture this dude I barely knew about good Gringo manners or anything.  I settled for asking him, in a sincerely curious tone, if it was okay for men to do that here, because in America that kind of thing makes women hate you and may get you slapped.

He assured me that no, it was fine, and pressed me for a really good catcall.  I was pretty much stuck waiting there until my appointment time with the client inside his building came up, and I didn't want to offend this dude since I ran into him before practically every class.  OTOH, it's not like I keep up with what all the drunks and bums are saying to random chicks these days, and I didn't want to teach him anything really vile.  I settled for telling him "hey, pretty lady," which I figured nobody would find horribly offensive, and then mercifully the meeting time came around.  Thankfully, he did not bring up the subject again.

What's wrong with "Good morning/afternoon/evening"?

Around here that would likely get a friendly greeting in return, and could possibly lead to a conversation if the people aren't in a hurry to get somewhere immediately.

 

[Buster's Uncle]

Even "I like your dress" or "You wear that well" would be better/less aggressive than most come-ons...

[Lorizael]

I prefer a momentary, wide-eyed, silent stare that seems to indicate I haven't seen a human being in some time and don't know how to react to one. Usually goes over quite well.

[Buster's Uncle]

Sure; the babes go wild for intense staring.

-Don't forget to hyperventilate a little for extra panty-points.

[Valka]

Okay, I'm out of here.