Is wolf-whistling a sex crime?

It is on the "Widowhood" thread, Soutra that is why you missed it. not the first place you would think to look. Is that a clique? If so I ought to be in it.

Soutra Please explain. Not sure what you mean maybe I am not properly awake yet ?

What virtual party? Nobody told me, so I suppose I have not been invited
Infamy, infamy. . . .

(Cliques again I expect)

After defending gransnet against accusations of nasty attacks on people, I found myself last night railing against those very attacks.

This started as a thread about a girl being intimidated by a man. There is some doubt in posters' minds about the facts of the case, but what is clear is that she felt threatened and took action. It became a thread about the attitude of men to women, and women to men.

We heard about some scary moments in posters' lives, about predatory men who took advantage of their youth an.d inexperience. We agreed that women can also be predatory, can also tease an inexperienced young man and scare the pants off him.

We established (or I thought we had) that both men and women are sexual beings, by nature. Indeed, the human race would die out of we were not. We agreed that private thoughts about the attractiveness of members of the opposite sex were natural.

Then a man told us that he had spent a pleasant hour or two sitting watching pretty girls go by. Not that he had ogled them, groped them, harassed them, scared them. Just that he had sat quietly being glad that they existed. For that he was treated as a potential stalker and rapist.

Would those who castigated him prefer that their husbands and sons were unaware of pretty girls? They wouldn't get many grandchildren to cuddle if that were the case - or were all their own children and grandchildren born by immaculate conception? You can't have the particular affection that makes a lasting and faithful marriage without the general awareness that actually there are a lot of other attractive women out there too. It is when the man regards those other women, or women in general, as his property to use, that he is a menace.

Will the posters be attending the proposed virtual party that is being planned, to protect helpless virtual policemen against those rampant Grans with their virtual vodka jellies? What is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander, quite a few regular posters will be there living it up, and we must need defending from their reports too - which contain much stronger innuendo than the post objected to on here. THAT thread is good fun, about a virtual world. A man posting about other good innocent (and just as virtual) fun is sleazy. What happened to equality?

Bit of a freudian slip Ginny ?

Attack on GT out of order IMHO bellanonna, you know nothing about any members which is one reason for our anonymity so to make that damning (?) assumption is unwarranted. A person may argue against a post but not "ad hominem."

I too thought the Alzheimer's jibe plumbed new depths and I hope the poster is aware of the inappropriateness of the comment.

I agree with Leticia and Belladonna I do hope Pompa comes back. I'll miss his tongue in cheek humour.

It seems to me that in Grannytwice the thought police have arrived and maybe I should leave too. Many a time I have sat people watching and admired a young or even not so young man that has passed by.

I have skim read most of this thread. I agree totally with everything grannytwice has said. Everything. (if anyone cares )

I had intended to stay off GN but I am horrified by the way a thread I started so naively has turned out and one of the few men on here has felt he must leave. It has taken a very nasty turn ,which has shaken me. Along with throwaway remarks on another thread about Alzheimer's which was shocking for me to read I will be taking a break, so enjoy your summer everyone.

Reading these posts I have been surprised at the vitriol from GT. She sounds like a very embittered older person who has never had a wolf whistle and doesn't particularly like men. Abbreviated swearing unnecessary too. So sad that pompa has resigned for just bringing a bit of good natured levity to various forums.

I have been watching this thread and am quite amazed at the way it has gone.
Do come back pompa - I am so surprised that people can so misunderstand your sense of humour.
I agree with your posts Elegran - so please don't 'grow up' - I prefer you with your sensible, down to earth, responses!
I agree thatbags - huge double standards- you would never guess that most of the female population enjoyed watching Aiden Turner with his scythe!
Don't be chased off by a few humourless people pompa.

Mind you, maybe it only felt like several hours

How much coffee and cake did you get through, pomps?

ana, I was amazed at the phrase "several hours later" too. What a model of patience pompa must be!

I am not talking about children.

Sexism involves being against a sex, if I understand correctly? [re whemim64's post]

There's nothing actually wrong with being thought a sex object. We are sex objects. We are a lot else as well, but to casual gazers that's all each and every one of us is.

Don't tell me "you've never people watched or looked at a bloke and admired his physique". Exactly, loopy. The scientific and biological reality is that when you see someone whose physique you like but whom you don't know personally and whom you cannot get to know, that person, the one you're looking at, is being looked at by you as a sex object. There is nothing else they can be at that moment. You don't have to like that fact but it's the plain truth nonetheless.

I am disgusted too. There have been plenty of similar comments on Gransnet by women about men and no-one batted an eyelid. Double standards is not equality.

The attacks on pompa are vicious and downright unnecessary.

He's always been tongue in cheek and, quite frankly, a breath of fresh air on here and comes across as warmhearted and thoughtful.
He certainly IMO is neither sexist nor stereotyping women.
His joke about NS was just that, a joke. And don't tell me you've never people watched or looked at a bloke and admired his physique.

I'm disgusted at the vitriol that's been hurled at him.

It's interesting that we can discuss on another thread about having a thicker skin when challenged by others who don't agree with us, yet this is not a factor here. Pompa could choose to return and discuss it. Shame we don't have more male Gransnetters who don't share his appreciation of inappropriate jokes or stereotyping of women (tongue in cheek or not) and a shame that the women asserting here that they don't like being objectified by either nice men or nasty men get castigated for upsetting him. (Ducking the inevitable mssiles now, but I strongly feel I have the right to object to sexism, even from nice men).

Why attack Pompa in this way? Have you never people watched? When you see a man for the first time what attracts you to him? It can't be his mind because you've never spoken to him so it has to be physical. Do you admire his face, his physique, his dress sense or something else? Don't you ever watch women and mentally comment on their dress sense, makeup, hair etc?

Well, some of us would have known pompa because he was coming to our next Leicester meet up [later in the year] but I doubt that he will now .

Interesting - when I do a bad-tempered response you tell me to grow up.

The word "ogle" is a very charged one. To me it does not mean a man noticing, while sitting drinking a cup of coffee, that there are attractive women going past. It means that he says or does something active about his admiration of them - whistles, winks, grins, waylays them, chats them up, puts an arm across their shoulders.