Unfortunately, this one illustrates that there isn’t a hard-and-fast creepy definition. I was at a party, and a man was there who had been showing social but not physical interest in me was there. I was sitting on an empty sofa and he sat down right next to me so our sides were touching, which I found creepy.
But later in the evening a higher-status and more attractive man did basically the same, and I was pleased rather than creeped out. So the creepiness of an action depends on how much I like the person who does it.
Ironically, I’m now friends with the first man (who no longer hits on me) and not with the second (who has probably forgotten I exist.)
So the creepiness of an action depends on how much I like the person who does it.
I think this is a very important sentence. It illustrates how typical, colloquial usage of the word “creepy” can run afoul of the fundamental attribution error.
I don’t think that sentence can be successfully said outside LW, but not because of the FAE, more like the Just-World Fallacy and Appeal to Consequences. It would go something like this:
1) In a just world, behavior standards would not vary for men by status or attractiveness (because in a just world they would all have equal status and attractiveness, or women would not be moved by status or attractiveness).
2) Therefore, unhappiness-avoiding behavior standards should not vary by status or attractiveness (contrary to the actual fact that in an unjust world, some things will make (some) women feel uncomfortable/unhappy only if the man’s attractiveness/status is below a (varying) particular level).
3) Therefore, a woman who admits that behavior X would not make her feel creepy if a sufficiently more attractive man did it, is being unfair to lower-status men, is wrong to label the behavior “creepy”, cannot justly blame the lower-status man for doing what would be okay for a higher-status man to do, is just being shallow, is applying a double standard, etc.
4) It’s impossible to have an explicit social standard for men which says, “If you think you’re in the upper 20% of attractiveness you can sit down next to a woman touching her, otherwise this will make her feel creepy and you should avoid doing so.” This rule would not be optimal/justified in a just world, so it must not be allowed in this one either.
5) Thus if we admit that whether sitting down touching someone is “creepy” depends on how attractive they are, it will be impossible to prevent men from doing things that make women feel creeped out, or for women to be listened-to when they object, in which case women will feel creeped out, which is bad.
6) By appeal to consequences, it must not be true that a woman’s sense of creeped-out-ness can vary with a male’s attractiveness or status.
The typical resolution of a situation like this, I think, is that you have an explicit standard which says “You can’t hug people without asking”, but there will be an unspoken selective lack of prosecution (like how cops don’t get traffic tickets and white people don’t go to jail for drug crimes) when an attractive man engages in the behavior.
The typical resolution of a situation like this, I think, is that you have an explicit standard which says “You can’t hug people without asking”, but there will be an unspoken selective lack of prosecution (like how cops don’t get traffic tickets and white people don’t go to jail for drug crimes) when an attractive man engages in the behavior.
Yes, typical human hypocrisy. Not problematic for the average joe.
The typical resolution of a situation like this, I think, is that you have an explicit standard which says “You can’t hug people without asking”, but there will be an unspoken selective lack of prosecution (like how cops don’t get traffic tickets and white people don’t go to jail for drug crimes) when an attractive man engages in the behavior.
I don’t think that it’s necessary to resort to this type of hypocritical normation.
You can have the explicit rule: “Don’t do things that will typically generate negative feedback when you do them.”
Assuming that you can read feedback (which may be admittedly a problem for some people), after some calibration you would effectively avoid creeping people (except when you encounter unusual individuals, but you can always blame them for having abnormal standards).
At a subculturey party, I made friends with a girl, and when I had to leave I went to say goodbye to her and ask her for a hug. She was talking to someone else who I didn’t know at all, and after I hugged her, he went for a hug too. He was too close for me to think of a way to evade him beyond the overtly dramatic “ducking and dodging”, so, what the heck, it was just a hug. But then instead of just hugging me he did a weird thing where he alternated the relative position of our heads a couple times. Then he kissed me on the cheek.
I still didn’t know this guy at all, so, maybe that was a weird cultural thing or something, but I said “I was not comfortable with that, you shouldn’t do that”. Still could have been an innocent misreading, if he’d let me go and said “sorry” that would have been the end of it, but instead he said, “Well, I’ll probably never have the chance
to do it again, so that works out”—which made it Decidedly Sketchy and not-OK; kissing people who don’t want to be kissed is not ever a case of things working out, trying to laugh off someone’s discomfort is not cool, and the fact that he said this anyway cast all of the things he’d already done that were sketchy in a retroactively worse light.
(This is by far the sketchiest thing that has ever happened to me at a subculturey meatspace event, to be fair. Next closest thing was when I had to verbally signal the end of a hug and the guy let go instantly and apologized, and that’s the only other thing I can think of.)
I (male) felt similarly weirded out when a European woman greeted me this way (I was also unaware of the custom at the time). What you mentioned in the first paragraph is mostly culture shock thing, though what you mention in the second paragraph is characteristically male sketchiness.
I should point out that I do not know this guy to actually be European or anything. It happened in America, I did not detect an obvious accent when he spoke (though the environment was noisy), and when I later learned his name it didn’t sound foreign.
This made me 100x happier about our first interaction at the Irvine meetup with Yvain and co… Fanfiction chatting cooler than all other types of chattery :)
The face-side-switching kiss sounds like how women in parts of Europe often greet each other, but for a strange man to do it is definitely weird (especially given his vile response afterwards).
Not that weird; Frenchmen will usually greet women by kissing them on both cheeks, though we usually know that Americans are prudes and don’t like that (also, we do it when saying hello, not goodbye).
(I agree that the ensuing behavior definitly puts this in “sketchy” territory)
I have never felt creeped at a LessWrong event. There are other problems arising from social awkwardness, though. Here’s an example:
A fellow LWer and I were discussing a mutual LW passing acquaintance. I mentioned that I had read him as cold and aloof. He didn’t really respond any time I had tried to engage with him. My friend responded that his read had been that he was a warm, but shy person. Further discussion led us to the realization that because this person was attractive, well-dressed, carried himself well, and elsewise high-status, I was interpreting certain responses (monosyllabic answers, not really looking at me, or engaging with me, etc) differently.
If I was trying to engage with a person who presented as being more socially awkward, and they gave the exact same responses then I would have read that as being signs that they were shy and/or I was intimidating them. I would have adjusted, raised my patience level, and try to draw them into a one-on-one conversation. However, because this particular person managed to give off a superficial appearance of being socially skilled, I read the same responses as being aloof, cold, and dismissive. (which is what they would be, coming from a socially skilled person)
A sub-culture I have occasionally felt creeped out in, is swing dancing. I love swing and blues dancing, and will happily dance in a sensual manner, even with people I’ve never met before, am not at all attracted to, etc, as long as a) they are skilled dancers, and b) they aren’t giving off “creepy” vibes. These are correlated, as most leads who have stuck around long enough to be skilled, have also figured out how to be not creepy.
A counter-example of a skilled dancer being creepy: An older male, who I used to enjoy dancing with, once came to a dance a little drunk, and was much more forceful during the dance with pulling me close (it’s hard to explain the difference between good-lead-pulling-close, and creepy-forceful-lead-pulling close. ETA- A good explanation is that it is a “demand” rather than a “request”), and such. Now I don’t even much like dancing him when he’s sober any more.
Another problem is creepy new leads. They see the sensual dancing, and so think they can lead it. This is not okay. Intro classes are offered before every event, and they teach how to do the basic dances. Open position. Closed position. NOT full contact. A non-experienced, new dancer trying to pull me close, etc is NOT GOOD. Most new leads know better, and if anything are a little too shy (tend towards open position only, when closed position is perfectly acceptable).
My ad hoc explanation for this, is that you have to “earn” the more sensual dance moves by putting in your time enough to show that it is about the DANCE, and is NOT about skeeving on me. A guy who shows up to his first or second swing event, and tries to pull me close is communicating that he is more interested in skeeving on girls, than on actually learning to dance.
As an aside, I actually did get the same sort of tensed-up-omg-omg reaction that usually accompanies “creep” behavior, my very first time swing dancing. But I recognized it as a reaction to the fact that random guys where touching me, and in my personal space, in a way I wasn’t used to. I realized that it was not AT ALL the fault of the really nice leads who were dancing with the new girl, and completely my own reaction to a physical situation that in my usual circumstances would be weird. I’m sure it didn’t help that my first time at a swing event was because I just happened to be where at the location a late-night (post swing dance event that tends towards the more sensual dancing) was, when they showed up.
This confirms every fear about the convoluted and thin line between being stiffly and unnaturally standoffish and creepy that’s ever kept me from going to a dance class. I’m quite positive I would spend the first few classes being told to just loosen up a little, to not be afraid of my dance partner, finally try really hard to do that—and forever earn a reputation as a creep.
Please don’t read this as a rebuke or admonishment; I’m actually glad to know that my fears were well-founded; and learning to dance isn’t really that important to me.
As a guy, I don’t think it’s that bad. If you cannot avoid holding your partner, and you don’t feel comfortable with it, or you worry that your partner won’t feel comfortable with it, there is a well-tested set of ground rules to tell you what to do. Basically, each dance will have a standard “frame),” which is how the dancers should (according to various formal groups—the more formal the dance lessons, the more likely this is to actually be an element of the lesson) be positioned relative to each other. If this isn’t made clear, nobody will think you’re silly if you ask.
It’s really not that hard. I did not mean to make it sound complicated. Basically, any thing they teach you in the dance class is fine. If you see people blues dancing or something, don’t attempt to copy their dance moves with a random follow during a random song. Don’t get drunk.
Well, you could try learning as a follow to start with, and get a sense of how leads act. This might be awkward if you’re really tall, though, and would make it slightly more complicated to invite people to dance.
One general point: while “mansplaining” is not part of my vocabulary, I’ve looked into whether the word might be about something real, and I’ve noticed that on NPR call-in shows, men are more likely to take up the very limited amount of time by explaining things that people already know.
This leads into a specific issue: I’ve had a few instances of men explaining feminism to me and my not liking the experience at all, and I think I’ve figured out the issue. It’s not that they’re men, it’s that they show no signs of hearing what I say on the topic, and I’ve seen this from men who are reasonably capable of listening most of the time.
An example of creepy even though it wasn’t a sexual approach: a man telling me about how it’s a fundamental male thing to protect women from violence. I had two issues—men actually aren’t very good at it (consider that wars frequently happen in places where women are living), and he was twice my size, talking about violence, and completely spaced out. I wasn’t afraid on the “get out now” level, but I was spooked.
Interesting. I’ve had similar conversations with men—where they are intent on explaining stuff instead of listening too—but not very often with women.
When you say that “it’s not that they’re men”, do you mean that it’s as often women as men, or just that being a man is neither a necessary nor sufficient condition for this behavior? I’m assuming the second, please correct me if that’s wrong.
A few hypotheses:
1) Men like to be dominant, and that means being the explainer, not the explainee, no matter whether they know what they’re talking about.
2) Men like talking more in general, so they are more likely to explain things that are obvious or wrong.
3) Men are worse at listening.
4) Men and women both do this, but men are more obvious about it.
#1 is almost certainly true. Men and women IME also seem to have different average preferences about the appropriateness of interrupting, talking over someone, saying flat-out “you’re wrong.”
I don’t think #2 is likely, but I’ve been wrong before, and I’ll be wrong again (though hopefully less wrong).
I don’t have an opinion on #3. Listening (and being curious about what other people think) in real time is definitely a learned skill for me.
I’ve definitely had a bunch of conversations where people said things that sounded like listening, without giving any sign of comprehension. I’m not sure if men or women do this more often, but it is weak evidence for #4.
I meant that being a man is neither necessary or sufficient for the behavior., and also even though I don’t think I’ve run into that behavior from a woman in person, I’d still find it almost as annoying.
I haven’t been checking on the gender/topic combinations which make it hard for me to get into a conversation so I don’t even have the beginning of a theory.
My tentative theory is that feminism is makes some men more anxious, so that if they’re talking rather than intimidated into silence, they’ll be more compulsive. Along the same lines, they may be hoping they’ve finally gotten it right, and don’t want to put even more work into it.
However, I don’t have a lot of samples, and I’m guessing.
Can you describe some occasions when a man was creepy towards you at a social event, lesswrong-related or otherwise?
Unfortunately, this one illustrates that there isn’t a hard-and-fast creepy definition. I was at a party, and a man was there who had been showing social but not physical interest in me was there. I was sitting on an empty sofa and he sat down right next to me so our sides were touching, which I found creepy.
But later in the evening a higher-status and more attractive man did basically the same, and I was pleased rather than creeped out. So the creepiness of an action depends on how much I like the person who does it.
Ironically, I’m now friends with the first man (who no longer hits on me) and not with the second (who has probably forgotten I exist.)
I think this is a very important sentence. It illustrates how typical, colloquial usage of the word “creepy” can run afoul of the fundamental attribution error.
I don’t think that sentence can be successfully said outside LW, but not because of the FAE, more like the Just-World Fallacy and Appeal to Consequences. It would go something like this:
1) In a just world, behavior standards would not vary for men by status or attractiveness (because in a just world they would all have equal status and attractiveness, or women would not be moved by status or attractiveness).
2) Therefore, unhappiness-avoiding behavior standards should not vary by status or attractiveness (contrary to the actual fact that in an unjust world, some things will make (some) women feel uncomfortable/unhappy only if the man’s attractiveness/status is below a (varying) particular level).
3) Therefore, a woman who admits that behavior X would not make her feel creepy if a sufficiently more attractive man did it, is being unfair to lower-status men, is wrong to label the behavior “creepy”, cannot justly blame the lower-status man for doing what would be okay for a higher-status man to do, is just being shallow, is applying a double standard, etc.
4) It’s impossible to have an explicit social standard for men which says, “If you think you’re in the upper 20% of attractiveness you can sit down next to a woman touching her, otherwise this will make her feel creepy and you should avoid doing so.” This rule would not be optimal/justified in a just world, so it must not be allowed in this one either.
5) Thus if we admit that whether sitting down touching someone is “creepy” depends on how attractive they are, it will be impossible to prevent men from doing things that make women feel creeped out, or for women to be listened-to when they object, in which case women will feel creeped out, which is bad.
6) By appeal to consequences, it must not be true that a woman’s sense of creeped-out-ness can vary with a male’s attractiveness or status.
The typical resolution of a situation like this, I think, is that you have an explicit standard which says “You can’t hug people without asking”, but there will be an unspoken selective lack of prosecution (like how cops don’t get traffic tickets and white people don’t go to jail for drug crimes) when an attractive man engages in the behavior.
Yes, typical human hypocrisy. Not problematic for the average joe.
I don’t think that it’s necessary to resort to this type of hypocritical normation.
You can have the explicit rule: “Don’t do things that will typically generate negative feedback when you do them.”
Assuming that you can read feedback (which may be admittedly a problem for some people), after some calibration you would effectively avoid creeping people (except when you encounter unusual individuals, but you can always blame them for having abnormal standards).
See also: the subsection on “new Puritanism” in the SIRC Guide to Flirting.
At a subculturey party, I made friends with a girl, and when I had to leave I went to say goodbye to her and ask her for a hug. She was talking to someone else who I didn’t know at all, and after I hugged her, he went for a hug too. He was too close for me to think of a way to evade him beyond the overtly dramatic “ducking and dodging”, so, what the heck, it was just a hug. But then instead of just hugging me he did a weird thing where he alternated the relative position of our heads a couple times. Then he kissed me on the cheek.
I still didn’t know this guy at all, so, maybe that was a weird cultural thing or something, but I said “I was not comfortable with that, you shouldn’t do that”. Still could have been an innocent misreading, if he’d let me go and said “sorry” that would have been the end of it, but instead he said, “Well, I’ll probably never have the chance to do it again, so that works out”—which made it Decidedly Sketchy and not-OK; kissing people who don’t want to be kissed is not ever a case of things working out, trying to laugh off someone’s discomfort is not cool, and the fact that he said this anyway cast all of the things he’d already done that were sketchy in a retroactively worse light.
(This is by far the sketchiest thing that has ever happened to me at a subculturey meatspace event, to be fair. Next closest thing was when I had to verbally signal the end of a hug and the guy let go instantly and apologized, and that’s the only other thing I can think of.)
I (male) felt similarly weirded out when a European woman greeted me this way (I was also unaware of the custom at the time). What you mentioned in the first paragraph is mostly culture shock thing, though what you mention in the second paragraph is characteristically male sketchiness.
I should point out that I do not know this guy to actually be European or anything. It happened in America, I did not detect an obvious accent when he spoke (though the environment was noisy), and when I later learned his name it didn’t sound foreign.
This made me 100x happier about our first interaction at the Irvine meetup with Yvain and co… Fanfiction chatting cooler than all other types of chattery :)
The face-side-switching kiss sounds like how women in parts of Europe often greet each other, but for a strange man to do it is definitely weird (especially given his vile response afterwards).
Not that weird; Frenchmen will usually greet women by kissing them on both cheeks, though we usually know that Americans are prudes and don’t like that (also, we do it when saying hello, not goodbye).
(I agree that the ensuing behavior definitly puts this in “sketchy” territory)
I have never felt creeped at a LessWrong event. There are other problems arising from social awkwardness, though. Here’s an example:
A fellow LWer and I were discussing a mutual LW passing acquaintance. I mentioned that I had read him as cold and aloof. He didn’t really respond any time I had tried to engage with him. My friend responded that his read had been that he was a warm, but shy person. Further discussion led us to the realization that because this person was attractive, well-dressed, carried himself well, and elsewise high-status, I was interpreting certain responses (monosyllabic answers, not really looking at me, or engaging with me, etc) differently.
If I was trying to engage with a person who presented as being more socially awkward, and they gave the exact same responses then I would have read that as being signs that they were shy and/or I was intimidating them. I would have adjusted, raised my patience level, and try to draw them into a one-on-one conversation. However, because this particular person managed to give off a superficial appearance of being socially skilled, I read the same responses as being aloof, cold, and dismissive. (which is what they would be, coming from a socially skilled person)
A sub-culture I have occasionally felt creeped out in, is swing dancing. I love swing and blues dancing, and will happily dance in a sensual manner, even with people I’ve never met before, am not at all attracted to, etc, as long as a) they are skilled dancers, and b) they aren’t giving off “creepy” vibes. These are correlated, as most leads who have stuck around long enough to be skilled, have also figured out how to be not creepy.
A counter-example of a skilled dancer being creepy: An older male, who I used to enjoy dancing with, once came to a dance a little drunk, and was much more forceful during the dance with pulling me close (it’s hard to explain the difference between good-lead-pulling-close, and creepy-forceful-lead-pulling close. ETA- A good explanation is that it is a “demand” rather than a “request”), and such. Now I don’t even much like dancing him when he’s sober any more.
Another problem is creepy new leads. They see the sensual dancing, and so think they can lead it. This is not okay. Intro classes are offered before every event, and they teach how to do the basic dances. Open position. Closed position. NOT full contact. A non-experienced, new dancer trying to pull me close, etc is NOT GOOD. Most new leads know better, and if anything are a little too shy (tend towards open position only, when closed position is perfectly acceptable).
My ad hoc explanation for this, is that you have to “earn” the more sensual dance moves by putting in your time enough to show that it is about the DANCE, and is NOT about skeeving on me. A guy who shows up to his first or second swing event, and tries to pull me close is communicating that he is more interested in skeeving on girls, than on actually learning to dance.
As an aside, I actually did get the same sort of tensed-up-omg-omg reaction that usually accompanies “creep” behavior, my very first time swing dancing. But I recognized it as a reaction to the fact that random guys where touching me, and in my personal space, in a way I wasn’t used to. I realized that it was not AT ALL the fault of the really nice leads who were dancing with the new girl, and completely my own reaction to a physical situation that in my usual circumstances would be weird. I’m sure it didn’t help that my first time at a swing event was because I just happened to be where at the location a late-night (post swing dance event that tends towards the more sensual dancing) was, when they showed up.
This confirms every fear about the convoluted and thin line between being stiffly and unnaturally standoffish and creepy that’s ever kept me from going to a dance class. I’m quite positive I would spend the first few classes being told to just loosen up a little, to not be afraid of my dance partner, finally try really hard to do that—and forever earn a reputation as a creep.
Please don’t read this as a rebuke or admonishment; I’m actually glad to know that my fears were well-founded; and learning to dance isn’t really that important to me.
As a guy, I don’t think it’s that bad. If you cannot avoid holding your partner, and you don’t feel comfortable with it, or you worry that your partner won’t feel comfortable with it, there is a well-tested set of ground rules to tell you what to do. Basically, each dance will have a standard “frame),” which is how the dancers should (according to various formal groups—the more formal the dance lessons, the more likely this is to actually be an element of the lesson) be positioned relative to each other. If this isn’t made clear, nobody will think you’re silly if you ask.
It’s really not that hard. I did not mean to make it sound complicated. Basically, any thing they teach you in the dance class is fine. If you see people blues dancing or something, don’t attempt to copy their dance moves with a random follow during a random song. Don’t get drunk.
That’s pretty much all it takes.
This might not fall under the “anything is easy to the person who does not have to do it themselves” rule, but it fits the pattern.
Well, you could try learning as a follow to start with, and get a sense of how leads act. This might be awkward if you’re really tall, though, and would make it slightly more complicated to invite people to dance.
One general point: while “mansplaining” is not part of my vocabulary, I’ve looked into whether the word might be about something real, and I’ve noticed that on NPR call-in shows, men are more likely to take up the very limited amount of time by explaining things that people already know.
This leads into a specific issue: I’ve had a few instances of men explaining feminism to me and my not liking the experience at all, and I think I’ve figured out the issue. It’s not that they’re men, it’s that they show no signs of hearing what I say on the topic, and I’ve seen this from men who are reasonably capable of listening most of the time.
An example of creepy even though it wasn’t a sexual approach: a man telling me about how it’s a fundamental male thing to protect women from violence. I had two issues—men actually aren’t very good at it (consider that wars frequently happen in places where women are living), and he was twice my size, talking about violence, and completely spaced out. I wasn’t afraid on the “get out now” level, but I was spooked.
Interesting. I’ve had similar conversations with men—where they are intent on explaining stuff instead of listening too—but not very often with women.
When you say that “it’s not that they’re men”, do you mean that it’s as often women as men, or just that being a man is neither a necessary nor sufficient condition for this behavior? I’m assuming the second, please correct me if that’s wrong.
A few hypotheses:
1) Men like to be dominant, and that means being the explainer, not the explainee, no matter whether they know what they’re talking about.
2) Men like talking more in general, so they are more likely to explain things that are obvious or wrong.
3) Men are worse at listening.
4) Men and women both do this, but men are more obvious about it.
#1 is almost certainly true. Men and women IME also seem to have different average preferences about the appropriateness of interrupting, talking over someone, saying flat-out “you’re wrong.”
I don’t think #2 is likely, but I’ve been wrong before, and I’ll be wrong again (though hopefully less wrong).
I don’t have an opinion on #3. Listening (and being curious about what other people think) in real time is definitely a learned skill for me.
I’ve definitely had a bunch of conversations where people said things that sounded like listening, without giving any sign of comprehension. I’m not sure if men or women do this more often, but it is weak evidence for #4.
I meant that being a man is neither necessary or sufficient for the behavior., and also even though I don’t think I’ve run into that behavior from a woman in person, I’d still find it almost as annoying.
I haven’t been checking on the gender/topic combinations which make it hard for me to get into a conversation so I don’t even have the beginning of a theory.
My tentative theory is that feminism is makes some men more anxious, so that if they’re talking rather than intimidated into silence, they’ll be more compulsive. Along the same lines, they may be hoping they’ve finally gotten it right, and don’t want to put even more work into it.
However, I don’t have a lot of samples, and I’m guessing.
So you mainly notice this in conversations about feminism?
I’ve noticed a specific pattern in conversations about feminism. There are certainly people who take over conversations on other topics as well.