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Or rather, I simply copied and pasted someone else's comment and changed a word around...that's hardly a statement of personal experience or conviction.
I recommended he called someone out who'd sucker punched him at a party. That's violence in a totally different context to what's being discussed here and it gives you insight in nothing other than I don't believe turning the other cheek.
Try reading the quote properly.
It says that what men are most afraid that women will do to them is laugh at them, whereas women are afraid that men will kill them.
It says nothing about what men have to fear from other men. I've made no comment about that whatsoever.
The point is, this thread started off being about men harassing women in the street, and has turned into a discussion of men being victims of violent attacks by other men. I don't doubt that that's a problem, I just don't see how its relevant to the original question at all, and seems to have arisen from that usual thing that happens in any discussion about women's issues, give long enough: someone tries to undermine or belittle the original problem being discussed by saying "but men have loads of problems too!"
Well sure, but weren't we talking about something else?
It was not intended to illuminate anything about likelihood of being a victim of violent crime, as I have no idea what those probabilities are. I mentioned it simply as a rhetorical way of highlighting why it is that women find the kind of supposedly harmless, innocent, macho behaviour that some men engage in, like shouting, whistling, leering etc so frightening. Because we never know if that's all it's going to be. And moreover, there are times when we have to assume that all men are potential rapists, because if we don't, and do something foolish like walk home late at night on our own, or go back to someone's flat without wanting to have sex with them, we will later be at least partly blamed if we are raped.
I think that men can sometimes find this difficult to understand because they know that when they shout things at women in the street or whistle or whatever, they're joking, it's not intended to be intimidating, and if it happened to them, they would obviously know it was a joke and wouldn't take it seriously, and then the suggestion is, aren't women oversensitive, aren't they touchy, men who who shout stuff at them are only trying to compliment them, they should be flattered, etc. But that's because men don't quite understand what it's like to be afraid of sexual violence in that way.
That is my only point. Quite how that was twisted to suggest I think men don't have to be afraid of anything is quite staggering. I have no idea what it's like to be afraid that someone will beat me up or stab me, it's true. I don't claim to. Perhaps someone should start a thread about it.
I think we were, but we all agree that men who shout abuse and grope women in public are arseholes who need to be put on a register.
And where's the fun if we all agree?
Personally, I find Marcelle D'Argy Smith's opinion to be quite OTT. According to her, if I understood correctly, nothing is polite and anything that comes from a stranger is a priori rude.