Doesn't Anybody F**k Any More? — Reddit edition

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The difference between anyone in the real world and most people in the hypothetical I bring up is that most people in the hypothetical would be met by reminders that it's a normal and widely shared experience, I don't believe there's any real world society to compare against.

That doesn't mean there wouldn't be individuals who are more severely impacted than the normal, only that because it's normal the experience will be normalized to most people.

That's not to suggest that normalization is a healthy coping mechanism, only that it's a pretty standard coping mechanism.

I agree with the (alleged) professor and his opinion. Whether he is a professor or not doesn't change my mind about his opinion being accurate.

A lot of men nowadays are frightened of the implications of pursuing women. Several decades ago, it was normal for men to pursue women, even women who weren't initially interested in them in order to court women or 'win' women over.

What would once be termed being 'keen' on a woman, from a societal perspective whilst trying to win a woman over, might in the current day be thought of as 'stalking'. There is almost zero tolerance in person for approaching some women.

A man might be called a PUA (pick up artist) for having casual sex in the current day whilst in former years, this was considered normal outside of marriage (even three or so decades ago).

Often, men are labelled as 'creeps' for displaying externally, any kind of sexual desire towards females, even if their displays are just made through language and involve nothing prohibited like unwanted touching or anything like that.

It is no wonder then that men are more inhibited around women in the current day, in general, in the political climate that we find ourselves in.

Harsh corporal punishment was normal in the environment I grew up in, but most kids were negatively affected by it. Knowing that it was normal didn’t make it any easier for us, so I’m not sure if I’d call it “normalized” necessarily.

Having sex when you aren’t turned on doesn’t feel good.

I've noticed this mainly in pubs and clubs...years ago it used to be you would go out to "pull" but that just doesn't seem to be the case these days. Well not in the places I go anyway

I see groups of friends out and they maybe mixed male and female groups but people don't really mingle outside of their own little groups. I think it was different to this years ago

I don't think this is a good way forward for society to be honest.

This is just from my own observations btw and I'm not a professor

Absolutely, isn't that the origin of the but I turned out fine cope?

It's also a pretty good example of what I'm getting at. Think of how long and how much of an uphill battle it's been for corporal punishment to start to be seen as a problem, and also how many people might not have liked being subjected to it but also never had a second thought about perpetrating it as well. For most of those people it's not an overwhelming source of shame or trauma, it's just something they all accepted as normal.

I suspect that women are more likely to talk openly about being uncomfortable and to recognize experiences with harassment as such than they were in the past. It doesn’t mean that things didn’t bother them in the past. They are just more likely to recognize it now. The #MeToo movement helped with that.

I have noticed this too, BB.

I went out to pubs/clubs back in 2007-2009 quite often and there were all kinds of opposite sex interactions going on.

Groups of people went out in groups to meet other groups. Nowadays it is more common for a group to end in the same way it started and with the same people, and people seem anxious to interact outside of people they know.

That's the thing though, a lot of what is not harassment is treated as such in the current day versus a few decades ago.

The mere act of opening up dialogue with a stranger of the opposite sex can be perceived as harassment in the current day.

I'd say the two are intertwined. It's seen as a big deal because it's well-established that it can be a big deal, but also because everyone agrees it must be a big deal because everyone says it is.

Although, when I say everyone there are historic societies that largely seemed to not consider sex/sexual activity to be a big deal and they often had significantly different norms towards it than modern society seems to. Polynesia comes to mind as a good example.

Ask Emmett Till how that could have gone back in the day.

From what I’ve seen, the people who continue the cycle of abuse were often deeply affected by their own experiences. They just might not recognize it. Thinking about the people I grew up with, sometimes it’s extremely transparent. They often just seem to lack the self awareness and critical thinking ability to break the cycle. Of course, they are typically programmed to think that it’s right, like internalized homophobia in a way.

Yeah people treat you like a creepy weirdo if you just smile at them these days.

Well you might not be surprised to learn that i don't think he's right.

I think it's always been scary to make yourself vulnerable in front of a woman by making your feelings for her known.

What may have changed is the way men are expected to deal with rejection. In the past it was quite acceptable to react with anger - a reaction many men are most comfortable with. You could lash out with a nasty slur, for example. That might make your mates laugh and you'd save a bit of face. Less acceptable but still not uncommon you could seek to dominate the woman physically, as a punishment for rejecting you. There's a whole range of ways you could do that ranging from simply not allowing her to get away from you right up to...well, as bad as you can imagine.

An anger response to rejection is what has become unacceptable, in my opinion, and i think a lot of guys don't know what to do with that and are pre-emptively blaming women for putting up road blocks to their advances rather than risk their egos.

But I'm not someone who claims to be a professor on the Internet so what do i know?

A lot of people claim their behavior isn’t harassment when it is too. Both seem to happen.

1955 is a ways back.

My previous posts was a comparison of today versus say, 1995-2010. That is what I had in mind.

But I think it goes without saying that black people were treated terribly historically and still are to some extent.

Of course harassment still does occur and always has.

I personally just think there has been some nuance lost in terms of what is considered okay or not okay in scenarios where things may be uncertain. In a contextual way mostly.