That is odd, actually. Everyone I’ve met that I would describe as “creepy” is male.
Is it even theoretically possible to be creepy to a man? In my—very limited—experience, if a man is afraid of anything, you don’t condemn the object of his fear for frightening him; you deem him a coward and a pussy, lose all respect for him and basically stop regarding him as a man. You’d better be ready for him to challenge you to a duel, or some other culturally appropriate, less formal kind of fight, though.
As far as I know, the ancestral, sexist rule is that showing fear as a man is like showing sexual desire as a woman: you never ever do it, on pain of losing everyone’s respect.
I think it’s a lot harder for a woman to come off as creepy than a man. (Standard “within the culture I’m familiar with” disclaimers apply.) I’ve been made uncomfortable by girls when in high school, but not really “creeped out”. You almost have to go to the level of movie villain before they start getting creepy.
The female version that I have encountered is a sort of… obsessive and misplaced motherliness, maybe? Usually starts with nosiness and unsolicited advice — creepy only in that the person will have no understanding of what subjects are off limits, and will completely ignore any attempts you make to communicate “I am not discussing this” — and moving on, if allowed, to total control over all actions, opinions, and basically your entire life. The rages, if you (say) do not like a tv program they’ve told you to, are ugly, manipulative, terrifying things.
Not really.
That is odd, actually. Everyone I’ve met that I would describe as “creepy” is male. Plus I’ve never heard a woman described as such except in jest.
Is it even theoretically possible to be creepy to a man? In my—very limited—experience, if a man is afraid of anything, you don’t condemn the object of his fear for frightening him; you deem him a coward and a pussy, lose all respect for him and basically stop regarding him as a man. You’d better be ready for him to challenge you to a duel, or some other culturally appropriate, less formal kind of fight, though.
As far as I know, the ancestral, sexist rule is that showing fear as a man is like showing sexual desire as a woman: you never ever do it, on pain of losing everyone’s respect.
I think it’s a lot harder for a woman to come off as creepy than a man. (Standard “within the culture I’m familiar with” disclaimers apply.) I’ve been made uncomfortable by girls when in high school, but not really “creeped out”. You almost have to go to the level of movie villain before they start getting creepy.
From a comment to the Ursula Vernon essay below: