I do not remember much street harassment - perhaps because I rarely go more than a couple of blocks without my ipod (I like music and Visible Earbuds help prevent strangers from approaching me). So even if I am being catcalled, I'm not noticing it.
My main problem (and the thing that rattles me worst) are the Nice Guys who engage me in pleasant superficial conversation, then ask for my phone number. Which I always wind up giving them, because I'm too shaken to come up with a fake one or to tell them to fuck off.
I feel very safe. Some of this is core personality, and some is being from New Orleans but living in Boston ("my mom got mugged on our front porch, and we live in a nice part of town," as I am fond of saying). But most of it is because all my bad experiences have been with men I knew. The statistics and my experiences reinforce each other: the guy I have never seen before and will never see again is not going to grope me because no one else ever has; my boyfriend raped me repeatedly and any other guy who gets that close might damn well do the same thing.
(That's probably why the Nice Guys on the train freak me out so much. They're trying to force their way over that line between stranger and acquaintance, and they're heading in the direction that loses my trust.)
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Date: 2009-11-24 12:28 am (UTC)I do not remember much street harassment - perhaps because I rarely go more than a couple of blocks without my ipod (I like music and Visible Earbuds help prevent strangers from approaching me). So even if I am being catcalled, I'm not noticing it.
My main problem (and the thing that rattles me worst) are the Nice Guys who engage me in pleasant superficial conversation, then ask for my phone number. Which I always wind up giving them, because I'm too shaken to come up with a fake one or to tell them to fuck off.
I feel very safe. Some of this is core personality, and some is being from New Orleans but living in Boston ("my mom got mugged on our front porch, and we live in a nice part of town," as I am fond of saying). But most of it is because all my bad experiences have been with men I knew. The statistics and my experiences reinforce each other: the guy I have never seen before and will never see again is not going to grope me because no one else ever has; my boyfriend raped me repeatedly and any other guy who gets that close might damn well do the same thing.
(That's probably why the Nice Guys on the train freak me out so much. They're trying to force their way over that line between stranger and acquaintance, and they're heading in the direction that loses my trust.)