Maybe Because Slapping Strange Women on the Ass Makes You a Pervert?
A labourer was jailed for a month and put on the sex offenders register for seven years after he slapped the bottom of an off-duty policewoman.
Anthony O'Neill, 22, was stunned when he was given the sentence. His relatives are furious and say the punishment is over-the-top for, what they say, was a silly joke. They say he has lost his job and been branded "a pervert".
I'm at a loss as to how walking up to women you do not know and slapping them on the ass doesn't make you a pervert. Why is it okay to touch the ass of a woman you don't know? It's not a silly joke. Don't get me wrong. I don't object to slapping the ass of someone you know and have been intimate with. I've done it myself, and I rather enjoy it when a man I'm involved with does it to me. But that's because I, you know, know him and have already given him my consent to touch me in a sexual manner. I would most certainly find it objectionable and demeaning if a stranger decided it was okay to touch me sexually without my consent.
After he was arrested, O'Neill admitted: "I have done it before. Some women like it, others don't."
Let me go out on a limb here and set the record straight. Look at the picture of the man in the news story. He looks rather intimidating. It apparently hasn't occurred to him that sometimes women will laugh something off or give a fake smile simply because they're afraid of the reaction if they don't. I hate to break it to any man who doesn't already know this, but sometimes women pretend to be okay with something a man has done to avoid what we fear might be a worse consequence if we react negatively.
Having said that, maybe there are some women who like it. So what? How do you identify the ones who do from the ones who don't until after you've committed the act? You can't, unless you know them. The better part of simple civility dictates you don't commit an act that a lot of people might not like on the chance you might find someone who does. Especially one that involves sexual touching. Why is this so damn hard for some people (really, mostly men) to understand? Is there some reason they think the rules of civility don't apply to their behavior towards women? [No one actually needs to answer that question. It was rhetorical. I already know the answer is they do think that.]
Comments
I wonder how this guy would feel if a man went up to him and slapped him on the ass? I mean I’m pretty sure he would be alright with a woman doing it to him, which is why he feels like it’s no big deal; but you hit the nail on the head, that would be “wanted” attention. However the issue is unwanted attention and for a man in our culture a butt slap from another guy is typically unwanted attention, so I’m pretty sure he would “get it” if it was a guy slapping his ass.
But I do think the sentence doesn’t fit the crime, he is not a “pervert, he is a boorish lout and his sentence should be to spend ever Friday and Saturday night in a gay bar getting unwanted attention from other men. That would drive home to him the notion that unwanted attention is not just rude, it can be intimidating.
Posted by: Rick DeMent | May 17, 2006 07:42 AM
Yes, the guy's a pervert, and more to the point, he seems like he's functioning with low levels of brain power, so I don't think he's capable of much "thought" about his actions.
But what if the shoe was on the other foot, so to speak- if a woman walked around a city centre slapping guys' behinds, do you think she would be arrested??? No way- can anyone argue with me on that?
Posted by: Eric | May 17, 2006 02:45 PM
Rick, I think it has to be more than that to really drive the point home. It would have to be from a man who not only could beat up the other man for protesting, but that the other man was afraid really would beat him up. Or kill him. Or rape him.
Furthermore, the other man would have to have grown up believing that unwanted sexual attention doesn't happen to good boys, only naughty ones, and internalized it to such a degree that when it occurs, he feels that he is somehow to blame.
Ultimately, this is why it's a far different experience for women than it is for men. Men generally do not organize their lives around avoiding rape. Which is not to say that men never get raped, because of course they do. However, women are far more likely to be raped. We grow up having this told to us over and over. And then if it happens, we are often told that we are somehow to blame. If only we hadn't [fill in the blank]. In fairness, I suspect the victim of any crime experiences some degree of self-blame; it's just that the fear of the crime occurring isn't browbeat into them from an early age. So, on average, we do organize our lives around this fear. We put far more restrictions on our lives than men do. Until you've really lived like that, which it isn't ultimately possible for you to do in this society, you cannot understand unwanted sexual attention from our point of view. It is vested with a lot more meaning to us than you can credit. As such, any man who foists it upon us goes beyond merely being a boorish lout.
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Disemvoweled by the management, as this was posted by a sockpuppet.
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Disemvoweled by the management, as this was posted by a sockpuppet.
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Posted by: ilene sycheck | May 22, 2006 03:35 PM