Posted by figleaf
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Tue, 2009-12-01 09:47
Amanda Hess of Washington City Paper says
Over the next few weeks, [her] blog will be obsessed with groping. And I’m hoping to collect as many perspectives as possible on inappropriate touching in Washington, D.C., from the District’s men, women, bouncers, and bar owners. Have you been groped in a bar, on the street, at work, in public transportation? Have you helped prevent, stop, report, or prosecute a groping incident? Have you groped? Shoot me an e-mail at ahess@washingtoncitypaper.com.
In the last couple of weeks I’ve noticed a mild uptick in references to groping around the blogosphere so this might be a good time to start thinking publicly about it. If you’re in the D.C. area and willing to share your perspective drop her a line.
I groped a guy in DC once.
Submitted by Holly Pervocracy (not verified) on Tue, 2009-12-01 12:41.I groped a guy in DC once. (No, wait, four times.) I suspect this is not helpful.
[I’d let her decide. At least a quarter of word references I dug up were used the same way you did. And hey, there have to be reasons why some people don’t take it as seriously as others — maybe they (unlike you) don’t get the difference between welcome and unwelcome? Anyway, I don’t think it would hurt to mention it. Thanks, Holly. —fl]
I’m not even in USA, but
Submitted by colorlessblue (not verified) on Tue, 2009-12-01 13:20.I’m not even in USA, but there’s not one time I’ve been out partying (dancing clubs or concerts, I mean) that I haven’t been groped. And even other women who also are groped every time think I’m silly and overreacting when I say it’s a kind of assault.
[Considering our reputation this might sound surprising, Blue, but I get the impression from women who travel outside the U.S. that we’re actually pretty mild here. It’s rarely as overt and, as you mention, neither is it usually as casually brushed off. Thanks. —fl]
This reminds me how I once
Submitted by Nightfall (not verified) on Tue, 2009-12-01 19:56.This reminds me how I once saw a woman (or at least, someone claiming to be one) on a kink-related message board who had a “groped by strangers in public” fetish and described the subtle ways she would try to bait men into doing it. She was in europe, though. Assuming people like that really exist, I wonder if there’s any way they can be accommodated without causing trouble for anyone else.
[Yeeks! Talk about barkingly anti-social behavior! I usually try to be generous about other people’s kinks but I’m at a loss about this one. Thanks for the heads-up, Nightfall. —fl]
On the Europe thing – I have
Submitted by Holly Pervocracy (not verified) on Tue, 2009-12-01 21:00.On the Europe thing – I have anecdotal evidence that men in European nightclubs are indeed grabbier. My friend went to France and there were guys going straight up between her legs without so much as a how-do-you-do. (My friend is a martial artist. She bent their fingers back. Hard.)
[Yup, and they’re evidently totally shocked and hurt that someone would do that to them too. My first clue was when I met a friend in Central America who’d come there straight from Europe. She said she was extremely glad to see an American man because even though we were still “typical males” we’re not so hands on while we’re doing it. —fl]
It was only a short trip, but
Submitted by colorlessblue (not verified) on Wed, 2009-12-02 16:36.It was only a short trip, but I’ve been in Europe and didn’t have anything anywhere close to what happens here in Brazil happen to me there. I’ve been in England, Switzerland, Germany, France and Italy. I had one guy come too hard to me in a club in Switzerland, one who kept insisting in talking to me even though I tried to make him understand I wasn’t interested in talking, and turns out after he tried 6 languages, he was a brazilian (he did understand “just go away” in portuguese). In Berlin I even ended up in clothes that were kind of similar to the clothes prostitutes were wearing (in winter), in one of the streets where prostitutes work, and nobody bothered me. When I (and the other brazilian girls who were there with me) tried to flirt with anyone at all, we’d end up frustrated because it took literally hours for the guys to take a hint. But while nothing happened to me in Italy, my friend told me that the guy who checked her in in a hostel in Rome just went over to her room and knocked on her door asking for sex once his shift was over. The italian guy the students’ office gave me for roommate for a few weeks in Germany also kept asking me out every single night, no matter how many times I’d already said no and that I already had a boyfriend. And then he got really offended at me when I actually stayed over my boyfriend’s one night. But anyway, the only real groping that happened in any situation in this trip was a brazilian guy (with a fiancée he left in Brazil) who jumped on an australian girl and tried to force her to kiss him.