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It goes deeper than that. It's predatory. And it can go from being harmless to SA really fast if you're on the receiving end. If you are a SA, or a CSA, surviv
by areoform 4y ago
It goes deeper than that. It's predatory. And it can go from being harmless to SA really fast if you're on the receiving end.
If you are a SA, or a CSA, survivor, then this is the kind of behavior that gives you nightmares. I know, because it gives me nightmares. And it's brought up in almost every support group I've been a part of. Their behavior is identical to someone who profiles a victim type, seeks opportunities to put themselves in the victim's path, and creates an opportunity to engage.
At the extreme end, Bundy did this with a cast and by targeting times of high stress (exam time). He would place the car outside of dorms and essentially fumble putting things in a car. Women would come up and start trying to help him; at which point, he'd kidnap them,
> Further similarities between the victims were noted: the disappearances all took place at night, usually near ongoing construction work, and were within a week of midterm or final exams. All of the victims were wearing slacks or blue jeans when they disappeared, and at many crime scenes there were sightings of a man wearing a cast or a sling and driving a brown or tan Volkswagen Beetle.
This post isn't to say that these people are Bundy. That's not the point. If you had 50 glasses of wine in front of you, but 1 of them contained cyanide, would you drink the wine at random? Now, what if the wine glasses were being forced on you? And you still didn't know?
1 in 50 to 1 in 10 of these people won't have such nice intentions. 1 in 100 will be a psychopath. If you are at the receiving end, how do you know? How do you differentiate between the majority that's innocent and the years of hell and therapy on the other hand?
Would you want to navigate this every time you went to class to learn?
- ShredKazoo 4y agoI'm sorry this behavior gives you nightmares. I don't find this line of argument compelling though. For example, your Bundy argument appears to imply that it is immoral to have any sort of difficulty in a public place that might cause a woman to come offer help to you. This seems like a fairly absurd, possibly ableist moral guideline? The reductio ad absurdum of this reasoning is: "Abusers breathe oxygen, if you breathe oxygen that makes you like an abuser, therefore it's predatory to breathe oxygen." Basically by saying "X is a behavior that abusers do", decent people will want to avoid beahvior X in order to not be thought of as abusers. It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy: no decent person will do behavior X. This works regardless of whether behavior X is inherently problematic. I'm really sorry that you had such shitty experiences, but I think your ideas about reworking society to give you less anxiety are misguided and counterproductive (even for the goal of reducing your anxiety). If you're super risk-averse, you can implement some personal guidelines like "never be alone in a room with another person" or whatever. I don't think your own risk-aversion is a good justification for preventing other consenting adults from being alone in a room with each other though.
- heavyset_go 4y agoThe issue isn't that it's "immoral" to have any sort of difficulty in a public place that women might offer help for, it's the predatory intent and behavior, and the fabrication/manipulation of situations in order to manipulate others. That predatory behavior and manipulation also betrays a good faith interpretation of consent. Consent isn't realized through trickery and technicalities. If someone believes that predatory behavior and manipulation are okay, especially when it comes to dating, sex or consent, that is definitely someone that a SA/CSA survivor should be wary of, because those are the beliefs and attitudes that perpetuate such abuse.
- ShredKazoo 4y agoWhat's your definition of "predatory intent"? If a woman signs up for eHarmony with the intent to find a husband, is that "predatory intent"? Suppose a man does as described in OP and if anyone asks him what he's doing, he responds honestly. Is that fabrication/manipulation? Suppose a woman wears makeup in order to appear more youthful and beautiful than she really is. Is that fabrication/manipulation? If she successfully seduces a man into sleeping with her as a result of her makeup, is that a consent violation?
- heavyset_go 4y agoTed Bundy wasn't signing up for a dating service to find a spouse, he was fabricating situations and preying on women's sympathy to deceive and kidnap them. That's predatory intent. > Suppose a man does as described in OP and if anyone asks him what he's doing, he responds honestly. Is that fabrication/manipulation? Suppose one of Bundy's potential victims asks him what he's doing, and he goes, "Well, I'm just pretending to have trouble in order to get close enough to kidnap you!" Is that still predatory and does it affect his intent? > Suppose a woman wears makeup in order to appear more youthful and beautiful than she really is. Is that fabrication/manipulation? If she successfully seduces a man into sleeping with her as a result of her makeup, is that a consent violation? Surely you can see the difference between taking care of yourself and preying upon people. There's nothing deceptive about looking good. If they're out there catfishing people to sleep with them, however, that is predatory, but that is not what you're describing.