What's allowable in Advertising? (and related issues)

[Primula Baggins]

That would be 480 psi (120 pounds/0.25 square inches). That's a lot.

Good on you.

[JewelSong]

vison, your story reminds me of something my mother told me happened when she was a little girl, riding the train with her mother (my grandmother.) A man sat very close to my grandmother and started touching her leg through her skirt, all the while facing forward and acting as if nothing was happening. My grandmother gave him a few looks, but when he didn't respond, she stood up to her full 5' 1" height, glared at him and said in an extremely loud voice, "Am I BOTHERING you????" The entire train car heard her, and the man took off.

I think, when men do thing like this in public they are assuming (and often correctly) that you will somehow be too "embarrassed" to say anything about it out loud and they get their jollies by knowing they are making you uncomfortable. Once you have publicly drawn attention to it, they can no longer act as if they were unaware - you have called their bluff, as it were.

I have always remembered this...and used it several times when in a similar situation. (Once it was in a public library - I was sitting in a study carrel and some creep crawled under the opposite carrel and was looking up my skirt with a flashlight. He really tore out of there when I yelled at him.)

[River]

Once when I was 15 I wore a girly t-shirt. You know, the capped sleeves and close-fitting kind? The king women wear? It wasn't even that tight. It just showed that I had, like, a shape. And it had a dragon printed on it.

I got felt up. By an adult. And I barely fill out a B-cup. Whiskey Tango Foxtrot. And that's all the details you're going to get about that incident.

I already had issues with self-esteem and body image and never wore that shirt again. My parents never asked why, but they noticed and were confused because, well, I'd wanted that shirt. We'd ordered it from a catalog and everything.

In fact, it was years before I wore anything that didn't fit me like a sack again. Very slowly, I've come around to realizing that just because you can sort of tell I have a bum and boobs doesn't mean I'm inviting other people to touch them.

Talk about an over-reaction. Seriously. Is that not insane?

But then, a while back, when S and I were first starting our relationship, he asked me why I didn't wear more flattering clothes. Something that would indicate I had a shape. Tighter pants in particular. He really wanted me to wear tighter pants. And in the midst of this, he also told me stories about harassment girls at his school received. Typical teenager bullcrap, you know: attempts to lift skirts and snapping bra straps. He said the girls liked it (and who knows, maybe some did - there are women out there who are deluded enough to find that sort of stuff acceptable if not flattering). I called him on it and explained and also explained why I had tendencies towards dressing like a boy, or wearing girl's clothing cut a couple sizes too big. He's a good guy. He put it together. He felt remorse and backed off on the demands for tighter pants, agreeing to let one of his favorite parts of me just remain a secret for now. But he was very encouraging when I started experimenting with clothes that had some style. And he's never again claimed that the girls in his school liked having their skirts and bras messed with.

But I am now wishing I'd had stiletto heels back when I was 15.

I should also find another t-shirt with a dragon on it. A girly t-shirt with a dragon on it, that I will wear with pride because whatever it was that allowed me to be touched without welcome back then, it's certainly not there anymore.

[JewelSong]

whatever it was that allowed me to be touched without welcome back then, it's certainly not there anymore.

River, what "allowed" you to be touched was the fact that some adults are creeps. It had NOTHING to do with you, NOTHING to do with what you were wearing and NOTHING to do with anything you did, said, felt or ANYTHING.

Some adults (men in particular) are just plain CREEPS. And they prey on children and women whom they think will allow it without incident. They get a huge rush out of doing this in public, because they think you won't say or do anything out of embarrassment.

I think the best thing we can do for our daughters (and ourselves) is to teach them to SPEAK UP in a crowd. Say something. Loudly. Do something. Obviously.

Once I was riding the subway in Boston with my two sons. Luke was about 12 or 13 then, very unaware, quite young-looking and obviously "different." Adam and I were sitting across the car from him when a man sat down next to Luke and started giving him lascivious looks and patting his leg. Before I could do or say anything, Adam changed seats with Luke, sat down and stared at the man, arms folded across his chest. "Hi," Adam said, quite loudly. "You need something?" The man got up and changed cars immediately.

The thing is, in a public place, once you've called attention to whatever is happening, the gig is up. The creep has lost his edge. People are watching. You are NOT going to allow him to continue to surreptitiously make you uncomfortable. He will NOT be able to get his rocks off thinking about how he is making you feels.

We have been taught - conditioned - to be "polite" in a public place and when someone breaks that rule by touching us or standing too close or being sexually inappropriate, somehow, we think we need to go on being "polite" and not call attention to it. Because we think that if we do, we will somehow be blamed.

Well, we need to learn to break that habit and loudly and clearly call the person out. In PUBLIC. HE is the one who should feel shame - NOT YOU.

[yovargas]

This thread is amazing.

[Frelga]

Oh, heavens, the crowded Soviet buses! Once a friend and I were coming home from a concert, accompanied by my dad. We were all dressed up, she in white, I in hot pink. I don't remember precisely what the guy had done, but my friend pushed him so hard, he fell back into his seat and slid to the window. Then my dad yelled at him, "Hey, that's my daughter!" "Well, keep her away from me," the thoroughly cowered drunk replied.

Same friend was once exiting an elevator ahead of me and this guy tried to push her back and get in with us. She pushed back. He crossed the hallway backward and hit the metal mailboxes with a clang. And I myself once elbowed a guy behind me on the bus in the stomach, hard. People were glaring at me, but I glared at him and he moved away.

Other encounters were less amusing. You do learn a certain caution after a while. Karate lessons don't hurt, either. But I had always been very clear who was at fault. And it wasn't me.

[Maria]

When I was a kid about 9 or 10 years old living in Birmingham, Alabama --well before my parents dropped out of society-- I was pushing my bike up a hill when a man pulled up beside me in a car and asked for directions. I came a little closer and saw that his penis was out of his pants. I ignored it (having seen my parents naked many times- this was no shock) and shrugged and told him I didn't know and moved off.

I didn't realize until I was much older how much danger I'd probably been in.

[vison]

Probably not much danger. Guys that expose themselves get off by doing that. If he had wanted to harm you he would have tried to talk you into getting into his car.