Politics and Porn

[Primalex]

It's a simple question along the lines of "your baby is strapped to a time bomb, do you torture the kidnappers"

it's simple, but flawed, in that it's NOT at all accurate to any reality.

You deny the existence of child suicide bombers?
Or do you deny the existence of torture to retrieve information?

See. There is no such thing as "does not exist in any reality" no matter how morally inacceptable or outright horrible something is. You should know this.

Detroit would be fine if they were removed is so unbelievably shitty that entertaining the question becomes its own immorality.

Feel free to pick any city or place of your choice to entertain the question. Or are you worried that you might understand the reasoning of other people beyond:"They are obviously evil humans."?

But in your part 2, no I would not, and yes they kind of do. It probably would have been less "in my feels" prior to the collapse and bailout.

Ah, so your reasoning is:"Those fucking banks have enough money and insurances for that, who the fuck cares? They won't notice the difference, but the kids will."

Okay, so you shut your mouth and don't tell anyone. The robber repeats his actions, after all it was a great success and there are so many terrible problems in the world. After the third robbery the police arrives in time and during the shootout three people die.

Now what?

 

[La damnee elle la licorne]

 

[Primalex]

I'm talking about polite open approach, which is normal practice and is not more threatening than asking for directions or time.

Well, how comes men never ask other men to "smile", but only for directions or time? If it's truly the same...

 

[Nezhul]

I'm sorry that you are traumatized, but that doesn't make the experiences of all other women and their reactions same as yours

Yeah, no, it pretty much is. Leave people the fuck alone.

So if one woman is traumatized and gets scared of men on the streets - it automatically extends to ALL women being traumatized and scared of men approaching them on the streets.

Think before you post. With your head, preferrably.

And yes, leave people the fuck alone - is a comment that should lead to becoming a hermit. I like people. People mostly like me, believe it or not. I get along with people well. I wouldn't leave them alone, because guess what - this only makes everyone lonely and unhappy.

You are operating on a prejudice. On a very narrow view of people, and on blatant generalization of ALL WOMEN into what you essentially are.

The whole point is we aren't traumatised. We are women who have experienced what a lot of women have experienced.

First. A lot of women who experienced those things will not become afrtaid of men.
Second - "A lot" is a stretchy term. A lot can be ten million. It can still be 1% of the population.
And yes, if after encountering a bastard you get edgy and scared around unknown men - you ARE traumatized. That doesn't equal insane. But that's an abnormal behavior, a trauma.

Well, how comes men never ask other men to "smile", but only for directions or time? If it's truly the same...

It's the same shortterm-risk-wise.
Now tell me, just please tell me that you didn't understand this point and the ridiculousness of your analogy right away.

 

[La damnee elle la licorne]

 

[Nezhul]

But I don't like being slimily approached by someone who thinks he's charming or flawless. This can be as terrifying, or more...
... being sized up as prey in a subtle way.

And with this outlook on life, you are saying that your view is totally common and not at all influenced by bad experiences.

Yeah, right. Even the words you use betray how much of a threat you view simple approach.

And cat calling? Forget it. Cat-calling relays an "I want pussy" signal. A polite approach relays an "I'm interested in befriending you" signal. Of course with genders, pussy is definitely somewhere on the mind there. But there's so much besides that that I'm interested in. But fine, again - I don't really judge your view.

It's your generalization that startles me. "Most women are that way". That's just... dumb, I guess? Shallow? Narrow-minded?

In this thread, for example, what has the inferred percentage been?

And yea, in this thread, in this community even, maybe, the replies are obviously in favor of your worldview. But that's not representative. It's not. It just isn't.

To start with, with all the heat here, who involves themselves in this discussion? Do you think everyone? There's been like, what, 6 people actively participating? Less than 10 voiced their opinion.
How many people view BDSM board? Hundreds, every day. Right at this moment I see the number 33 people looking here right at this moment. Not replying. Why?
Becuase it's a shitstorm in this thread. And only people with strong opinions on the subject enter it. You, me, bramblethorn, a few others.
Place yourself in the shoes of a girl who thinks it's completely fine to be approached by men on the street. You come in here, lurking, and see opinionated people half of whom flat-out trolls each other. What do you do? Do you answer and get into this mess? Or do you just walk away, thinking to yourself "what a circus..."
I betcha it's the latter. People who have no problem with approaches will not comment, because they are happy and content with this part of their life. They don't feel hurt, wronged or threatened by the opinions of Nezhul, who argues for their point of view.
They don't feel anything about YOUR opinion, because they won't give a flying fuck about people who feel edgy at the approach. Those people don't concern them. Just like you don't really give a damn about people with Agoraphobia who exist somewhere there, in the world. You don't feel inclined to go to them and try to explain to them that open spaces are fine - you just let them be.
Thus - such people do not answer.

Important: I'm not trying to create a fake support for myself here. I'm just making an example of ONE of the reasons why forum thread in a BDSM community will not be representative to judge about anything.
There are several other reasons I can name.

Maybe you are right. Maybe 90% of women feel edgy when men approach them. OK. But in this case, I'm inclined to believe my own observations and the views of people close to me, rather than your worldview that literally startled and shocked me when it was brought up initially.
I returned to this thread because I saw the outlook that supported my position, exactly what I've been telling everyone here for a long time - voiced by someone else, an experienced girl, no less. Not another guy whos opinion you would just brush off like mine. To my surprise, people like KimGordon basically ignored a good 2/3rds of her post, picking out only thesis that they wanted to see. That yes, after all the approaches are scary and unpleasant.
I was dragged back into the discussion by the dismissive attitude towards that post and by the unwillingness to accept a different view. By stubborn repetition of your truths.

I hope I can get out after this long rant here. Because I really don't enjoy a conversation where there's no dialogue happening, just blindness.

 

[Primalex]

But in this case, I'm inclined to believe my own observations and the views of people close to me, rather than your worldview that literally startled and shocked me when it was brought up initially.

So how many Russian women did you ask whether they are scared that their husband hits them if they misbehave? And how many do you think did tell you the truth?

 

[La damnee elle la licorne]

 

[La damnee elle la licorne]

 

[Bramblethorn]

It's amusing how you pretend that you can foresee the future and that you believe that there is some kind of universal morality that allows simple deduction.

I don't have a crystal ball, but this isn't rocket science. When a candidate campaigns heavily on racism, stereotypes Mexicans as rapists and drug pushers, and promises to do racist & flagrantly unconstitutional shit like banning Muslims*, it isn't difficult to foresee that he's likely to do racist, unconstitutional shit if elected.

And no, I'm not claiming any sort of "universal morality that allows simple deduction". There are plenty of hard questions out there where people of good will can work very hard to find the right answer, and still come to different conclusions.

I just don't accept that this is one of them.

Is it okay to throw out all illegal immigrants, if this reduces the poverty rate in cities like Detroit from currently 42% down to acceptable 7% and with this also the crime rate (because poverty generates crime, not race)?

[ ] Yes.
[ ] No.

It's a simple question. The question is not whether there is actually a correlation or how likely this is or any other things you will come up with an argument now why you are going to refuse to answer that question. It's a very simple moral dilemma.

No, it's not. You haven't even given me a complete, well-defined trolley problem here because you've left out a crucial part of the information about outcomes of the choices. Without that, the problem can't be answered even in a strictly utilitarian framework. (And no, trying to pre-empt objections to the question doesn't magically fix its flaws.)

I think you're smart enough to figure out what you missed; if you get stuck I'll post the answer but given the nature of the error, I think you'd learn more by working for it.

You are an eyewitness to a crime: A man has robbed a bank, but instead of keeping the money for himself, he donates it to a poor orphanage that can now afford to feed, clothe, and care for its children. You know who committed the crime. If you go to the authorities with the information, the money will be returned to the bank, leaving a lot of kids in need. What do you do?

[ ] Turn the robber in.
[ ] Shut the fuck up.

So tell me, what is the lesser evil?

Simple-ish analysis to start with:

I believe that children should be fed, clothed, and cared for, as a very high priority. I would hope that most people shared that belief. So if children are going hungry etc. that tells me that something in HypotheticalSociety is very badly broken. The most obvious explanations I can think of:

(a) HypSoc is suffering from some sort of agricultural/economic collapse that makes it genuinely impossible to produce and distribute enough food.
(b) Most people in HypSoc are assholes who don't care about child welfare.
(c) Most people in HypSoc are nice folk who want those children to be fed, but their government prevents it from happening.

(a) is grim, but it's not very relevant to present-day USA so I'll skip that one.
(b) is also grim, but the dilemma is easy to answer: no, of course I don't turn the robber in.
(c) raises the question of why their government doesn't reflect popular will on this issue.

c.i: society is a tyranny whose government doesn't care what its people want. In which case, of course a decent person covers for somebody who's rebelling against that tyranny and protecting its victims.

c.ii: society is a democracy, and these "nice folk" aren't actually that nice, because if they really cared about this issue it would've been solved - either by government action or by individual charity, depending on your political philosophy.

Instead of which they're busy rationalising their behaviour by telling themselves stuff like "of course children shouldn't starve, and we'll do something about that just as soon as the anti-starvation protesters learn to ask politely instead of shouting and hurting my feelings." In which case, see (b).

c.iii: society is in theory a democracy, but somebody with extensive control of media has been lying to the nice people so that they genuinely believe it's okay to starve children. In which case, you effectively do have a tyranny, but one where the seat of power may not coincide with the official government.

c.iii is a tough problem; I'm going to dodge that one by saying we're not there. We may get there, but for the time being, people have access to a wide variety of information sources and the means to do some fact-checking - not of every story, but enough to get a pretty good picture of how Breitbart's credibility compares to NYT, etc. etc. If they don't do that, well, that's a choice that reflects on their priorities.

Now, about those complications I skipped:

What if letting the robber go means there's a chance he (or somebody else inspired by him) will end up killing people during another robbery? Then I have to weigh up those risks against the benefits.

At one end of the scale: he's a crazy mofo with an itchy trigger finger and it's very likely that he might kill a bunch of people if I don't report him. In that case, I report him.

At the other end: he stole the money via hacking with no perceived danger to anybody else, and I have reason to believe this is a one-off. In that case, I don't report him.

Are there situations in between those two extremes where it becomes a tough call and the right choice is not clear? Absolutely. Does that mean that every scenario is a hard choice between indistinguishable shades of grey? No, not at all.

*no, Islam is not a race. Yes, Islamophobia is driven in large part by racism.

 

[Netzach]

You deny the existence of child suicide bombers?
Or do you deny the existence of torture to retrieve information?

See. There is no such thing as "does not exist in any reality" no matter how morally inacceptable or outright horrible something is. You should know this.



Feel free to pick any city or place of your choice to entertain the question. Or are you worried that you might understand the reasoning of other people beyond:"They are obviously evil humans."?



Ah, so your reasoning is:"Those fucking banks have enough money and insurances for that, who the fuck cares? They won't notice the difference, but the kids will."

Okay, so you shut your mouth and don't tell anyone. The robber repeats his actions, after all it was a great success and there are so many terrible problems in the world. After the third robbery the police arrives in time and during the shootout three people die.

Now what?

I'm referring to a SPECIFIC hypothetical posed by comedian Lee Hurst that got a ton of traction, figured you'd seen it.

Not suicide bombers. Not Guantanamo. It was simply a bad hypothetical, because terrorists do not tend to strap time bombs to comfortable first world babies, leaving comfortable first world people to scratch their heads and prognosticate out our butts about fairly important nuanced stuff that really will kill people.

Anything horrible is possible, this one's a long shot. And torture remains a shit way to get information, so that's really pretty easy from both moral and pragmatic standpoints. As an enraged parent I'd shank him AFTER the resolution, not before.

So, I'm assuming that in your hypothetical, the orphanage could no longer afford to feed, clothe, or care for its children. So you had starving naked warehoused imprisoned children, and now they're not. I gambled and lost, but now the naked warehoused starving children might not starve to death. Fun way to go. And I guess these might be more than three children. I don't know, now what, now what?

Jesus, this shit is dire and grim. You can just ask "are you a spirit or letter of the law person" and I could tell you about 70/30, probably would be more letter of the law if the application of justice were not a racist class based shit show. If you can't cape for starving babies I don't know what to say, and I don't even like babies much at all.

There is no city in which the economy is being so trashed by undocumented that we have to eject them to save the budget. In fact, they tend to put taxes in, at least in the US, and outside the US is outside my lane. So you're telling me that magically if I whack this puppy, it will end a war somewhere. Do I have to use my hands or a gun?

 

[Netzach]

So if one woman is traumatized and gets scared of men on the streets - it automatically extends to ALL women being traumatized and scared of men approaching them on the streets.

Think before you post. With your head, preferrably.

And yes, leave people the fuck alone - is a comment that should lead to becoming a hermit. I like people. People mostly like me, believe it or not. I get along with people well. I wouldn't leave them alone, because guess what - this only makes everyone lonely and unhappy.

You are operating on a prejudice. On a very narrow view of people, and on blatant generalization of ALL WOMEN into what you essentially are.

First. A lot of women who experienced those things will not become afrtaid of men.
Second - "A lot" is a stretchy term. A lot can be ten million. It can still be 1% of the population.
And yes, if after encountering a bastard you get edgy and scared around unknown men - you ARE traumatized. That doesn't equal insane. But that's an abnormal behavior, a trauma.

It's the same shortterm-risk-wise.
Now tell me, just please tell me that you didn't understand this point and the ridiculousness of your analogy right away.

I say this not as a woman, but as an introvert, not a hermit, simply a person with a handful of tight-knit relationships. Leave people the fuck alone. You are not entitled to their interaction or attention. It makes YOU happier. They are not necessarily miserable without your interaction. They are probably fine. If you need attention and interaction, you probably have friends, and probably a lot of them, that's what they are for. If you need to make more, look for people looking antsy for interaction, they're out there.

 

[tryn2Bgood]

I would like to chime in one last time to add a few comments.

Everyone here is justified in their opinion of men approaching women. Obviously, some women do not like it. But, I agree with Nezhul that the opinions on this thread are not representative of the opinions of women as a whole, and telling men they should stop approaching women is not practical advice.

With respect to all who disagree, it's like saying, "I only like chocolate icecream. Therefore, everyone only likes chocolate icecream, so we should stop making any other flavor."

I, personally, like meeting different people. I find it fascinating to learn new things about people and life from those experiences. I have plenty of friends, but sometimes travel a lot. Should I isolate myself whenever I'm in an area where I don't know anyone? Humans, as a species, need other human interaction.

I often help out at a crisis center. I've met young women with horrific stories regarding men they have met through a dating app. We advise against meeting people by that means. Predators do use those types of apps to pursue people they think are easy targets. Is every man on that app a predator? No. Have meaningful relationships been forged from there? Maybe. Would I ban all dating sites and apps for fear that some misdeeds might occur? It's not a practical solution. I have also met a lot of women who repeatedly return to an abusive relationship for many reasons, but one of those reasons is the inability to meet someone new. We advise them to join different groups (social events, hobby classes, etc) and ALSO encourage them to open up to the possibilities surrounding them in every day life. You can meet nice people at the grocery store, local library, coffee shop, among various other social settings.

I admit that not every advance by a man is welcome. We've gone over different scenarios in previous posts. Hell, some days I just don't feel like being bothered by anyone. On those days, I don't usually have a problem with people approaching me. Ever notice when you're in a bad mood people tend to avoid you? Generally speaking, you can usually tell when someone is 'approachable' or not.

If a man approaches a woman respectfully, taking into account her body language (eye contact for more than a few seconds, a smile, friendly demeanor - any sign she may be interested) then I would say it is completely appropriate, and probably welcome, to engage her.

"Leave people the fuck alone" is not practical advice. Although, in some cases it might be, but as a criteria for living your life it's bullshit. And the person who posted that comment also said, "look for people looking antsy for interaction, there out there." That's exactly the point, there are people out there that welcome those types of encounters. This wouldn't even be an argument if the people against it could freely acknowledge that other women are NOT against it. It's just a difference in opinion.

 

[La damnee elle la licorne]

 

[tryn2Bgood]

Let me just ask this one question...Can you admit that SOME women LIKE to be approached by men?

 

[Nezhul]

Let me just ask this one question...Can you admit that SOME women LIKE to be approached by men?

She admits it. They all do.
Their point is that because MOST women hate being approached by men - men should never do that kind of thing.

 

[tryn2Bgood]

She admits it. They all do.
Their point is that because MOST women hate being approached by men - men should never do that kind of thing.

Okay. Well, that's their opinion then. No point to say anything more...I'll politely move on.

 

[La damnee elle la licorne]

 

[Primalex]

Are there situations in between those two extremes where it becomes a tough call and the right choice is not clear? Absolutely. Does that mean that every scenario is a hard choice between indistinguishable shades of grey? No, not at all.

What makes something a hard choice?

 

[ToPleaseHim]

In fact the question of how many women have felt any type of pressure, vulnerability or whatever, if well phrased, or knew some one close who had ( first relation, sister, mother, best friend) would make an interesting anonymous poll on the GB. I would hope the answer would be low.

Anonymous polls on the GB don't lead to more honest answers, they lead to individuals with numerous accounts voting often to sway results.


In my experience, most women have experienced unwelcome attention from males ranging from slightly uncomfortable to afraid for their lives. I've personally found myself all over that continuum of reactions. I have been assaulted, I have been touched, and while it's a small percentage of encounters with men that went this direction, I am always aware. It's sad, really, that so many women feel this way. I truly believe men who want to give a random woman a compliment to make her "feel better" should recognize that they are actually doing this for themselves. Leave them alone. They don't need your attention.

Now, a man who's interested in a woman may want to go ahead and initiate contact. That's not the same thing. He's not complimenting her to make her feel better or to throw a little attention her way, he's taking a step towards getting to know her maybe.

 

[La damnee elle la licorne]

 

[ToPleaseHim]

Thanks.

Someone offered to do the poll for me but after trying to word it to paraphrase the thread it was both hard and leading.

I also realise I don't really have the enthusiasm. It seems others know whAt I think better than I do ( only true of G)

What were you hoping to learn and why the GB? It could be done, but I would not suggest an anonymous poll. I'd offer to do it, too, but the GB can be so hostile. I see that there's a new sub forum.

 

[La damnee elle la licorne]

 

[KimGordon67]

And with this outlook on life, you are saying that your view is totally common and not at all influenced by bad experiences.

Yeah, right. Even the words you use betray how much of a threat you view simple approach.

And cat calling? Forget it. Cat-calling relays an "I want pussy" signal. A polite approach relays an "I'm interested in befriending you" signal. Of course with genders, pussy is definitely somewhere on the mind there. But there's so much besides that that I'm interested in. But fine, again - I don't really judge your view.

It's your generalization that startles me. "Most women are that way". That's just... dumb, I guess? Shallow? Narrow-minded?



And yea, in this thread, in this community even, maybe, the replies are obviously in favor of your worldview. But that's not representative. It's not. It just isn't.

To start with, with all the heat here, who involves themselves in this discussion? Do you think everyone? There's been like, what, 6 people actively participating? Less than 10 voiced their opinion.
How many people view BDSM board? Hundreds, every day. Right at this moment I see the number 33 people looking here right at this moment. Not replying. Why?
Becuase it's a shitstorm in this thread. And only people with strong opinions on the subject enter it. You, me, bramblethorn, a few others.
Place yourself in the shoes of a girl who thinks it's completely fine to be approached by men on the street. You come in here, lurking, and see opinionated people half of whom flat-out trolls each other. What do you do? Do you answer and get into this mess? Or do you just walk away, thinking to yourself "what a circus..."
I betcha it's the latter. People who have no problem with approaches will not comment, because they are happy and content with this part of their life. They don't feel hurt, wronged or threatened by the opinions of Nezhul, who argues for their point of view.
They don't feel anything about YOUR opinion, because they won't give a flying fuck about people who feel edgy at the approach. Those people don't concern them. Just like you don't really give a damn about people with Agoraphobia who exist somewhere there, in the world. You don't feel inclined to go to them and try to explain to them that open spaces are fine - you just let them be.
Thus - such people do not answer.

Important: I'm not trying to create a fake support for myself here. I'm just making an example of ONE of the reasons why forum thread in a BDSM community will not be representative to judge about anything.
There are several other reasons I can name.

Maybe you are right. Maybe 90% of women feel edgy when men approach them. OK. But in this case, I'm inclined to believe my own observations and the views of people close to me, rather than your worldview that literally startled and shocked me when it was brought up initially.
I returned to this thread because I saw the outlook that supported my position, exactly what I've been telling everyone here for a long time - voiced by someone else, an experienced girl, no less. Not another guy whos opinion you would just brush off like mine. To my surprise, people like KimGordon basically ignored a good 2/3rds of her post, picking out only thesis that they wanted to see. That yes, after all the approaches are scary and unpleasant.
I was dragged back into the discussion by the dismissive attitude towards that post and by the unwillingness to accept a different view. By stubborn repetition of your truths.

I hope I can get out after this long rant here. Because I really don't enjoy a conversation where there's no dialogue happening, just blindness.

Stats, which are representative: "overall, 35% of women worldwide have experienced either physical and/or sexual intimate partner violence or non-partner sexual violence ... globally, 7% of women have been sexually assaulted by someone other than a partner" (http://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/10665/85239/1/9789241564625_eng.pdf, p.9). That the World Health Organisation - let's assume they're pretty neutral in their data collection.
So a third of women sexually assaulted at some point in their lives, 7% of women by someone they're not in a relationship with. As I think was noted earlier in this discussion, statistics on sexual violence are notoriously difficult to collect and analyse with any degree of certainty, and WHO tend to be conservative about data, so I would guess the actual proportions are a bit higher than that. Let's remember this is also events that are reported as sexual assault, what I guess you'd call, Nezhul, 'real rape' or whatever phrase you used. In respect of the two events that occurred in public that I described earlier, neither of these were reported to the police, and I'm not sure I'd describe them as 'sexual assault' in a survey either. They were also - especially the groping on public transport - the type of thing MANY women experience, in the same way that the earlier links I sent you demonstrate that MANY women experience catcalling on a regular basis. This doesn't make most of us AFRAID of men, but it sets up a context in which men approaching us with a seemingly sexual intention ('I like your dress' 'Would you like to have a coffee?') in a particular way. Often it's not even WHAT they're saying, but how they're saying it.

On top of our personal experience, we're just socialised that way as well - 'don't walk down the street after dark alone' 'Obviously how she was dressed resulted in the assault', 'don't leave your drink untended in a bar in case someone drugs you', etc etc. This probably all seems like sensible advice, but it's also indicative of the sort of social contexts we have to negotiate a lot of the time, where we're theoretically meant to be 'on guard' in ways that men just don't have to think about.

I understand that you feel that your 'innocent' approaches should be taken at face value - but you need to recognise that no human interaction occurs in isolation. For many women - not all, but many - 'innocent' approaches require yet another tiresome assessment we'd just rather not have to make. Again, I understand that these approaches are enjoyable for other woman, but many other women would rather they just stopped. I seriously don't think that the women who enjoy them would suffer unduly as a result - it's not like the world isn't full of plenty of other way of meeting people that don't involve uninvited approaches from random strangers in public contexts.

 

[policywank]

Stats, which are representative: "overall, 35% of women worldwide have experienced either physical and/or sexual intimate partner violence or non-partner sexual violence ... globally, 7% of women have been sexually assaulted by someone other than a partner" (http://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/10665/85239/1/9789241564625_eng.pdf, p.9). That the World Health Organisation - let's assume they're pretty neutral in their data collection.
So a third of women sexually assaulted at some point in their lives, 7% of women by someone they're not in a relationship with. As I think was noted earlier in this discussion, statistics on sexual violence are notoriously difficult to collect and analyse with any degree of certainty, and WHO tend to be conservative about data, so I would guess the actual proportions are a bit higher than that. Let's remember this is also events that are reported as sexual assault, what I guess you'd call, Nezhul, 'real rape' or whatever phrase you used. In respect of the two events that occurred in public that I described earlier, neither of these were reported to the police, and I'm not sure I'd describe them as 'sexual assault' in a survey either. They were also - especially the groping on public transport - the type of thing MANY women experience, in the same way that the earlier links I sent you demonstrate that MANY women experience catcalling on a regular basis. This doesn't make most of us AFRAID of men, but it sets up a context in which men approaching us with a seemingly sexual intention ('I like your dress' 'Would you like to have a coffee?') in a particular way. Often it's not even WHAT they're saying, but how they're saying it.

On top of our personal experience, we're just socialised that way as well - 'don't walk down the street after dark alone' 'Obviously how she was dressed resulted in the assault', 'don't leave your drink untended in a bar in case someone drugs you', etc etc. This probably all seems like sensible advice, but it's also indicative of the sort of social contexts we have to negotiate a lot of the time, where we're theoretically meant to be 'on guard' in ways that men just don't have to think about.

I understand that you feel that your 'innocent' approaches should be taken at face value - but you need to recognise that no human interaction occurs in isolation. For many women - not all, but many - 'innocent' approaches require yet another tiresome assessment we'd just rather not have to make. Again, I understand that these approaches are enjoyable for other woman, but many other women would rather they just stopped. I seriously don't think that the women who enjoy them would suffer unduly as a result - it's not like the world isn't full of plenty of other way of meeting people that don't involve uninvited approaches from random strangers in public contexts.

How does one define an "innocent" approach for sure? I have been drawn in by guys who turned out to be creeps and realized in retrospect that I was overlooking some obvious red flags. I have been in a bitchy mood and shut some guy down harshly who didn't deserve it. And I have engaged or easily managed many approaches.

For me the issue lies in the highly imperfect ability to make a distinction when there may be real and immediate consequences. There is no universal definition of "innocent" and if there was dirt bags would read up on it. Any risk assessment takes into account both the probability and consequences of a negative event.

All other things being equal (and even if not) I find a bull mastiff more threatening than a golden retriever.