Sexual Relationships 
Sexual Health 
Over the past few years, it has become more difficult to make an opinion on misunderstandings between the sexes without greatly offending one side or the other.
I was really debating whether or not I should even attempt to write this. I recently read and commented on a take on this issue from another user, which inspired me to create my own take on the matter.
Now I recognize that as a man, I'm likely going to have at least some natural bias towards supporting my own gender on these sorts of matters. This is something I try to remind myself before commenting on a particular gender issue, though I sometimes do forget. For this take however, I do recognize it, so my approach to this is going to be the following: I’m going to analyze this issue using data collected by the GfK in the USA, which is a firm that does an extensive amount of research, gathering market and consumer data that can be used by their clients to make wise decisions. You can learn more about them on the about page of their website here. In 2014, the group called StopStreetHarassment commissioned this 2,000-person national survey in the USA with the Gfk surveying firm.
They performed what I view as a decent first look into the matter of street harassment, and so I’m going to use this study as a primer to start another discussion on this here where at least some kind of source is referenced. I am going to take screenshots of relevant parts of the study and for each screenshot I will have three parts in response to it. One part will be what I think the general female view is on it (and i will try to speak as if I am a woman), another will be the same thing, but for men and the last part will be my personal opinion (this is a “myTake” after all”). Here you can find a link to the 66 page .PDF version of the study
So let us begin. The first question we should answer is what exactly is street harassment, before we go any further. The full definition used by the study is below
Women’s take
Generally, I don’t want to be treated like a piece of meat. I take offence to guys who make remarks about specific body parts, and in today's day and age, we women are more fearful of random strangers soliciting us regardless of what their intentions are. i can’t read minds so i don’t know if someone complimenting me is a good or a bad guy. It’s usually safer to just ignore them completely, which is why a lot of these cold approaches end up not amounting to much anyways. We also tend to be more selective when it comes to men, and so a good portion of the men who go as far as to approach us in public places probably aren't going to suit our fancy anyways, although I could appreciate someone showing genuine interest. There’s a difference between comments such as “hey, i think you’re beautiful” versus “damn you have a fine ass.” One makes me feel good to be a woman, and the other makes me feel more inanimate. It’s okay if you think I’m beautiful, but you cross the line for me when you comment on certain parts of my body in a sexual manner. Furthermore, as a woman, it can be offensive to me to hear men say that I should appreciate whatever verbal attention I get, because as long as I am not being physically harmed, its alright. The problem with this is that I don’t know what may happen in a given situation. Some person may take me ignoring these comments of theirs as a slight, and escalate the situation from simple comments, to stalking, then to inappropriate touching, or worse.
Men’s take
There have been very few times in our lives where we have have heard a woman say she preferred to approach a man she fancied versus the other way around. We as men are always being told that if we want to have a girlfriend, we need to “man up”, “get some balls” and take the initiative. If we sit around on our ass all day at home on the couch, we won't get anywhere with women. Furthermore, if we just look at women from a distance, we not only won't get anywhere, we will probably be perceived as a creep. So logically, we see that we need to be more proactive and actually approach women we find appealing to get things started. What offends us as men is this assumption that we are misogynistic because we approached you mainly because we found you physically attractive. We do gravitate towards what looks appealing to us, but the point of the approach is to actually see what you are all about. You call us wimps for not making a move, then call us harassers for doing what you say you wanted. We're all not one of those guys who slaps women on the ass and grabs her by the arm, whispering inappropriate stuff into her ear.
myTake
In many ways, we are entering a sort of global paradigm shift and it has a lot to do with new dynamics at play within the information age that we live in. More people’s voices are now able to be heard than ever before, and it has been of great benefit to society in a number of ways. A consequence however is that when it comes to gender issues, you have a super-saturation of voices from all spectrums saying different things, and a lack of clear consensus when you get down to more grey areas. Part of the first sentence of that definition concern me. Frankly, I don’t know what the full spectrum of “unwanted attention” really is for all women at any given point. There are some very obvious things, like overly sexual comments, touching, stalking, things of that nature. But a particular woman’s definition of what constitutes as harassment can be quite broad indeed. For some women, the very idea of me approaching them when they don’t even know me is considered harassment or unwanted attention. Telling a girl that she’s beautiful on a day that she is pissed off can be quite unwanted, especially if i held her up for 2 seconds by doing so. On the other hand, I’ve approached women before like this, and have had the girl respond positively to it. I don’t expect much to come out of a street engagement like this, but if i can make something out of it, I usually go for it.
I believe women do have a point though when it comes to accepting these advances as compliments or what not. They do not have to appreciate the attention, as some men suggest. But I also believe women have to understand the situation that they themselves created honestly. You want men to make the first moves, but you want it done exactly in the way you perfectly envision it happening in your own head….and these visions of yours can be in direct conflict with what other women within the same space perceive to be okay or not okay. Women could partly solve this issue by doing more approaching themselves, but I simply don’t see a mass movement for this amongst them.
Women’s take
Are you starting to see where we are coming from? This is one study amongst several which suggests that quite a few of us women (in the USA at least) are the victims of street harassment. I see a lot of guys say so often that its no big deal, because all they are doing is throwing around compliments that can easily be ignored. Fine. Then explain how 41% of women are experiencing physical harassment then? There are times when we do fear a simple verbal encounter can escalate into something physical on a dime, and even the most hardened guy could not say that having 40% of us being physically violated out in public is okay?
Men’s take
Well lets first point out the fact that women are not even the only victims of street harassment. We may not be harassed as much as women are, but you constantly act as if this is something special done towards you. You aren't the only ones who are afraid of walking by a group of guys out on the street that we don’t know. Also, we’re a little skeptical about the 65% number. Women consider the littlest things as harassment these days, and I’m sure if you did further control variables, this number would be a lot smaller. In terms of the 41% number, none of us are saying that it is okay to escalate things in that nature, but you should keep in mind that this is not 40% of women experiencing this. It is 40% of women who are actually a victim of street harassment, a phenomenon which we do not belleve even occurs as often as some women claim.
myTake
Now, I don’t really like to base opinions like this on one study, but if it is true that 40% of women who have been a victim of street harassment report physical escalation when they are out in public, I think that is pretty devastating. Now as I said in the beginning, there is nuance in all of this, so its not to say that 40% of those women were raped or something that egregious, but certainly I believe its within men's power to not take it that far, if you absolutely have to approach women in public. This is something guys are fully in control over, so in this sense, street harassment is a problem. But my take on this has been that people generally already know that groping and things of that nature are not okay. The problem is with people who know this but just don’t care, because they want what they want.
Many guys feel targeted with these campaigns like HeForShe, because it makes guys feel like we are responsible for the actions of other men, and its up to us to do something about it. There are already laws in place that protect women from things like inappropriate touching, and stalking, so I’m left scratching my head at times saying what more do women want me to do? Perhaps they want increased police presence and surveillance cameras on every block. That certainly might help with the harassment problem, but remember that often the solution to one problem, can create a fresh new problem. How comfortable would Americans feel with an increased police presence, and cameras everywhere as they seem to have in Britain?
myTake (cont..)
So this really is an extension of the previous set of data, so I’ll just do my take on it. Here we get down to the nitty gritty of what kinds of actions are viewed as harassment, at least in this study. First obvious thing is that this affects women quite a bit more than it does men according to this study. This is not surprising, considering that women are usually too [insert whatever] to even approach men they are interested in, let alone saying the first sexual thing that comes to their mind. So here, the red panel is what most women who have experienced some form of street harassment seem to experience. A lot of it seemed to be comments like “hey sexy" and “give me a smile,” or something of that nature. This comes closer to the grey area I referenced earlier. Part of the reason why I think guys have the stance they do on this issue is because they are not wired as women are, and they have learned the golden rule growing up which is to treat others the way you would want to be treated. For many guys, having a woman (whether she be hot or not) pass you on the street and say something like “mmm sexy” might actually be quite appreciated. I want to refrain from speaking for all men, so I am just going to comment on myself.
Now personally, I don’t remember the last time a woman has complimented me on anything looks related, unless I personally asked her to assess me. For me, even if i wasn't attracted to the woman, I really wouldn't care if she said those kinds of things to me on the street. Would i be embarrassed? Probably, but only because it never happens to me. But would I feel harassed? Nah. Even the comments that I would consider to be too sexual, it is hard for me to see myself not laughing my ass off as I walked away. And do not even get me started if the girl was actually attractive. So my theory is that men and women are just wired much too differently to fully understand where the other is coming from. Women have the luxury of being complimented on a regular basis, whether it be online or in public, and men are just lucky to get a quarter of that. Add on to the fact that verbal comments do not really cause physical harm, and you have got a situation where a lot of men think this is something women should seriously get over and grow a thicker skin for.
I find myself agreeing with both sides to some degree. Men have it right in my view when we say “Sticks and stones will break your bones, but words will never hurt you.” However, the expectation that women should be grateful to receive any and all male verbal acknowledgements is not a position I support either. To men, I say that if you are going to do any sort of cold approach, do not be offended if she does not respond well. It is within her right to not accept it as a compliment the same way you would. And to women I say hold off on wanting pencil his name into the sex offender registry for saying you have a nice ass.
Next we will look at how often street harassment actually happens.
Women’s take
Here is another point we’ve been making for a while now. It is more than just a one off incident that happens maybe once in our lives. We feel it happens more often than men would like to acknowledge.
Men’s take
Now lets be fair here, we know that street harassment exists, but the data clearly shows that it does not happen as much as some women would like to suggest it does. Are we really ringing so many alarm bells for something that happens infrequently?
myTake
I do lean more towards what I think the general male consensus is on this point. Some people would have you believe that its an epidemic or something, but how much of a prevailing problem is it if only 6% of female respondents say this is something that even happens often? Most say that it rarely happens. I don’t think its right to ignore it completely, but this does play into what possible solutions I would personally accept. Remember the comment I made earlier asking women (and i guess guys too) about what kind of measures they would be willing to do to combat this. If only 6% of women, and 5% of men say that this is something that occurs often, does it make sense to respond with multi-million dollar investments into a larger police state which already seems to be causing massive civil issues within the USA? Do you believe more is needed beyond national awareness of the issue?
Next we will look at what women seem to fear the most concerning these catcalls.
Women’s take
So what you see here is probably one of the most important issues concerning street harassment for us. It’s not simply the fact that they throw a few words our way. Its the fear that those words can turn into something a lot more threatening. There are guys out there who feel like they are God’s gift to man, and if you don’t respond the way they would like you to, they become more determined and aggressive. We could ignore them completely, and still have them feel like they have a chance, so they pursue pursue pursue. These guys just don’t know how to take a hint, and it makes some of us at least feel unsafe
Men’s take
None of us are saying that its okay for a guy to stalk you. A guy who cannot understand basic social cues deserves what he gets. But if you have this much fear of men, why is it that you constantly demand that guys approach you first? Why are you guys always complaining about your lack of male attention? Hardly any of us out there are even like these guys described. The lot of us try to start a conversation in an appropriate way, and you simply view any guy who does this as some sort of sexual predator. The ridiculous catcallers are far outnumbered by the decent guys out there. Again, you could help solve this if you would actually do more approaching yourselves, but we know that is not going to happen.
myTake
I think part of the problem here is that there is a growing group of women who are starting to reject the idea of being approached anywhere except in school and maybe at work. The idea of just acting on impulse in a very public space like the street, or subway or coffee shop is just too much for some women to handle. If they do not know you, they just won't trust you, period. Even within that camp though, there is variation. Some say that a coffee shop would be okay, while a subway just feels more threatening, even though there are often people around in both circumstances. Others say the street is fine because they have more room to bail out if they can, but don’t want to be bothered when they are in the middle of getting something done at the mall and they just want to get in and get out. To me, it can be like a merry go round, jumping from one woman's idea of the perfect approach to the other. It can be exhausting, and a lot of men revert to the argument that they are not mind readers, which is certainly true.
Now, do I think women have a legitimate fear here though? Well, it depends really on how prevalent street harassment is, combined with how prevalent escalation to physical street harassment is. Again, this is just one study, but from what it gathered, most women see street harassment as a pretty rare occurrence. We also know that at least 40% of the people who do have this rare occurrence of street harassment actually has it escalate to something more physical. I stated before that 40% is a number that concerns me, if its actually true. So you have two counterbalancing forces working against each other according to this one study. Basically, its saying that women largely do not have to worry much about street harassment affecting their day to day activities or life overall, but when it does happen, it is a good idea to have your guard up. Guys will have to work hard to get around this pre-programmed bias women will have against them when approaching in public
My Conclusion
Despite the incredible information age that live in today, women and men still seem to struggle to understand each other as much as we understand other areas of our lives today. I think men still desperately want to interact with women, despite the dropping desire to actually marry them. From what I see, many women still are looking for male attention but they are becoming more hypersensitive to PUA-like tactics and day game. Furthermore, you have an underlying issue concerning how far is too far when it comes to sexually escalating a certain situation in order to build a woman’s interest, and to avoid rejection.
I say that if you’re a woman, you should consider re framing your position. The typical female response to this tends to be that catcalls are not okay. Many men already agree with this, and you miss the point of what men are arguing. What men tend to argue is that:
a) It is not as bad as you claim it is.
b) It does not happen as often as you say it does.
Because of this, the conversation often does not move forwards. You should also probably self-reflect on what the threshold of your own tolerance is. Are you hypersensitive to any sort of male advance, be it genuine or otherwise? Do you have a very thick skin? Or do you fall somewhere in the middle? I’d also question what exactly you want out of men, and do you think your view is realistic when tested with the fire of honest critique or does it suggest some unrealistic idealism on your part.
To men, I say that you should be mindful of falling for the “boy who cried wolf syndrome.” Do not be too quick to assume that just because you see a lot of misinformation coming from the feminist movement that everything they bring up has no merit. It’s certainly a problem if 40% of these encounters for women turns into something physical. As I stated in the beginning of this, I feel that i will naturally have at least a slight male bias on the issue. I don’t rank all problems people face in the world as equal, and catcalls fall somewhere in the middle to slightly lower on the list of all the problems I’m currently aware of on the planet. But I’m not unsympathetic to women who are concerned about unwanted physical escalation.
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