And many may also feel genuinely unsafe, but the advice given by many is to improve social skills or courting behavior, and this doesn’t mitigate any real harm.
This is not true. Actually creepy folks use unwillingness to reflect on social skills of society in general as camouflage. When called on their behavior, they can say something like “I was only joking” and escape most of the consequences.
But if society as a whole was more explicit about social norms, then (1) people who have trouble picking up social norms would be happier because the norms would be easier to learn, (2) people who want others to follow the norms without being required to follow themselves would have less room to operate, and (3) people who want to change the social norms would have an easier time communicating the case for a change of the norms.
I guess it might first help to define what creepy folks are. If we mean someone who is socially oblivious who is interested in a date, then it is undeniably false that all are using it as a form of camouflage, as many could attest to.
By mitigating real harm I mean mitigating the risk of a woman being near a potentially dangerous or coercive man, where some in the comments have said the “creepy” fear actually stems from, but awkward people can also give out this false signal. If this is true, then taking steps to improve ones social skills makes the safe men more accessible, but also gives ammo to a potentially dangerous one as well. No risk of harm is reduced.
This is not true. Actually creepy folks use unwillingness to reflect on social skills of society in general as camouflage. When called on their behavior, they can say something like “I was only joking” and escape most of the consequences.
But if society as a whole was more explicit about social norms, then (1) people who have trouble picking up social norms would be happier because the norms would be easier to learn, (2) people who want others to follow the norms without being required to follow themselves would have less room to operate, and (3) people who want to change the social norms would have an easier time communicating the case for a change of the norms.
In general the stricter the social norms the less room for trying to change them.
In small groups, social norms can seem very resilient and yet actually be very fragile.
I guess it might first help to define what creepy folks are. If we mean someone who is socially oblivious who is interested in a date, then it is undeniably false that all are using it as a form of camouflage, as many could attest to.
By mitigating real harm I mean mitigating the risk of a woman being near a potentially dangerous or coercive man, where some in the comments have said the “creepy” fear actually stems from, but awkward people can also give out this false signal. If this is true, then taking steps to improve ones social skills makes the safe men more accessible, but also gives ammo to a potentially dangerous one as well. No risk of harm is reduced.