Yesterday's post on women inspired quite a bit of interesting discussion, even by my standards.  A lot of it seemed to center around the rights of the women, and privacy, and two issues seemed to repeatedly arise:

1.  "Asking a woman for sex is degrading and insults her intelligence."
Well, it is if you believe sex is degrading, sure.  There's this strange idea floating around that the only people who would be interested in pure sex are little more than ravening, drooling beasts who shamble about the planet, infecting everyone with their filth.  "It's okay to ask in the context of getting to know me," goes the thinking, "But wanting me on just a physical level is degrading me." 

Not necessarily.  Certainly it indicates that he's not interested in anything more from you, but the idea you can only be truly attracted to the whole of someone's being is a personal quirk  - a reasonably common one, to be sure, but certainly not a universal law.  But just because you don't find the way someone moves or dresses to be arousing outside of some larger personality knowledge doesn't mean that everyone does... and it certainly doesn't mean that someone is wrong for their preference. 

I just imagine this sort of idea taken to the opposites.  "He wanted to hold a conversation with me!" she'd squawk, outraged.  "And he hadn't even touched my breasts!  How dare he want to share something as intimate as my mind before he knows my body?"

Fact is, someone hitting on you does not mention your intelligence, either pro or con.  He's been attracted to your body - which is the same thing that every other guy who's ever tried to date you has done (hint: if there was no physical attraction, they wouldn't be trying to date you).  You may be outraged that he doesn't kiss your ass about how terribly smart you are and mention the wealth of other talents you possess, but some people can make a decision about whether they'd like to have sex with someone based on physical details alone. 

That's not wrong.  It's a preference, just like yours. 

And it doesn't necessarily mean that that's all he thinks of you; do you think your customers view you as subhuman when they compliment you on the good job you did without mentioning the great relationship you have with your mother?  They don't.  They just know one aspect of you, and they like that aspect, and they can do so independently. 

I can understand your outrage if you consider yourself to be more than the sum of your parts, but at the same time you have to realize it's not a universal law.  "Not mentioning" your intelligence is not the same as assuming you have none.

That said, there are a fair amount of dickish guys out there who do reduce people to boobs and asses, and they do it in a way that's meant to be offensive.  Unfortunately, they start in middle school, long before the kind of adult sex I'm mentioning here ever arises. 

Thus, I can't claim these people who think that sex lust == idiot are wrong, since there are a lot of fools who sully the waters for everyone else; all I can say is that despite the fact that these bozos may make it hard to believe, not everyone who wants just sex is trying to humiliate you. 

2)  "I didn't dress like this for them, and they shouldn't ask."
The interesting thing is that the whole "hitting upon" process opened up a can of worms.  Some people believe that merely interacting with you when you didn't specifically ask for it is an outrageous violation of your boundaries.  These people want folks to either slink away in silence, or approach them via a very discreetly-defined set of routines - which, as people have done throughout history when they have personal preferences they want encoded into society, they call "politeness" - that should be phrased in a very specific way in order to not upset them. 

But me, I disagree. Tearsofaclown paraphrased a Dave Chappelle routine that I think sums it up for me:

Girls dress up all sexy and then when you say so, they get all offended.  "Well, ex-cuse me! Just because I am dressed this way does not make me a whore!"

And you're right; it doesn't. But ladies, you gotta understand, that it's damn confusing! That's like if I dressed up like a cop and stood on the sidewalk.

"Oh, thank God you're here, officer. We need your help, just - "

"Well, ex-cuse me! Just because I am dressed this way does not make me a police officer!"

Essentially, here's how I break it down: guys have a right to ask the female if she's available.  In other words, if they're attracted to you, they get to ask you one question to see whether you're interested in them.  And if you're not, they should go away. 

Personally, I think that's a pretty fair compromise between privacy and others' needs to interact.  They get one shot to clarify or confirm your intentions - because you know, if you only hit on the ones you think you are attracted to you, you miss a lot of good dates because people will surprise you.  And once that's confirmed, they go away.

But that's a corollary to what I was discussing yesterday: if women are shocked by men commenting on their asses when they're clad in a dress so tight you could remove the dress and use it as an ass mold, then guys should not be offended by rejection. 

Another bafflingly-constant theme in the comments was "Idiots who are angered when you dare to turn them down".... and that's just fucked up.  You were attracted to them based solely on their physical appearance, and you know what?  Fair's fair.  They can look at your body and decide it's not worth it - or better yet, decide that the kind of guy who can make a decision based on only their body is not the sort of guy they want to sleep with. 

Angered guys may try to humiliate the women, or they may enter a spiral of asking repeatedly* because God forbid their ego has to deal with a rejection.  The idea that every woman in the world must be sexually attracted to you is ridiculous. 

Some women asked whether there's a good way to turn idiots like these down - "fuck off" seems to make them even angrier - and thus, I'll put that question open to the crowd: what's the best way to turn down an idiot like this so he goes away? 

* - Unfortunately, I can't decry the process of "asking repeatedly," mainly because it's the only stimuli a lot of women respond to.  Frankly, I think any woman who has to be begged fifteen times before she eventually accepts should be drug into the back alleyways and beaten, because her rampant need for a string of pleadings trains the wrong sort of men that no doesn't mean no.  And then we should go beat up the men for good measure.