Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.3 4.3bsd-beta 6/6/85; site hoptoad.uucp Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!gamma!epsilon!zeta!sabre!petrus!bellcore!decvax!decwrl!sun!hoptoad!laura From: laura@hoptoad.uucp (Laura Creighton) Newsgroups: net.women,net.singles Subject: Re: Re: Re: Beach harassment Message-ID: <580@hoptoad.uucp> Date: Mon, 3-Mar-86 20:25:26 EST Article-I.D.: hoptoad.580 Posted: Mon Mar 3 20:25:26 1986 Date-Received: Wed, 5-Mar-86 06:45:39 EST References: <519@hoptoad.uucp> <230@globetek.UUCP> Reply-To: laura@hoptoad.UUCP (Laura Creighton) Organization: Nebula Consultants in San Francisco Lines: 57 Xref: watmath net.women:9518 net.singles:10664 In article <230@globetek.UUCP> chris@andor.UUCP (chris) writes: >Laura, I've just GOT to take issue with you on this one. If we all knew >in advance how other people would take our remarks, the world would >be a wonderful place indeed. It would also be quite unbelievable, alas. > Hi Chris. How you doing? Write to me and tell me what globetek is. I agree with you that life is full of context sensitive things. My point of contention is over ``if I don't like it, then it is harrassment''. Harrassment is serious stuff -- that somebody you think is unattractive is attracted to you is inconvenient, but in no way that serious. I guess I am here for purity of language, more than anything. It is hard enough to communicate with people as it is without having the meanings of words slip out from under you as you speak. A certain amount of linguistic change happens all the time, but that does not mean that ``more is better'' and we should all plunge headlong into 1984 where people cannot communicate because all the words are too overloaded -- and more words are disappearing every year. That some people are going to get upset when perfectly good and reasonable people approach them, I can understand. But if they can't tell the difference between ``I'm upset'' and ``I am being harrassed'' then they have a very serious problem. After all, sexual harrassment is the sort of thing that you sue people for. But you don't sue people because they are attracted to you and you find them unnattractive. But if people can't keep it straight in their mind what harrassment is, and mistake it for being upset ,then there are going to be a lot of unneccesary lawsuits... >of the harassee, because there simply *IS* no way we can tell in >advance what a stranger is thinking or feeling with complete accuracy. >Suppose I ask a man on the street quite politely if he is interested in >reading this wonderful leaflet I'd like to give him. Am I harassing him? >From my point of view, of course not. From many people's point of view, >probably not. From his point of view? How can I tell? If it's been >a good day for him, he probably says "no thanks" and think no more >about it. If 17 people have tried to hand him leaflets in the last >3 blocks, he probably thinks something along the lines of "ANOTHER >*&^$%!@+ harassing me!". From his point of view, I have harassed him. Nope -- he is upset. Now if you are in a conspiracy with the other 17 people to drive him up the wall, you are harrassing him -- otherwise, he is just upset. Unfortunate, yes. Upset, yes. With good cause -- maybe. But you haven't harrassed him. >(Now, as to whether it's *reasonable* or not for him to feel harassed by >by me is another question entirely, and I don't intend to go into that here.) But that *is* the question. That is why I asked for an objective standard for harrassment -- not for ``feeling harrassed'' -- but for actually harrassing people. -- Laura Creighton ihnp4!hoptoad!laura utzoo!hoptoad!laura sun!hoptoad!laura toad@lll-crg.arpa