This almost never happens to me. I can only think of one example, which was mostly obnoxious and only mildly creepy. I went to a party where there was only one other woman present. She was strangely warm with me and asked me lots of personal questions. When I got up, but was still well within earshot, she started asking my husband the same questions about me (“where did you two meet?”) He said, “You just asked Julia those questions. You already know the answers.” She said she was interested to hear the differences, but it felt like she was trying to catch us in some kind of deception. Then she drank my beer.
At a science fiction convention, there was a question about enough car space to get a party to a restaurant, and a woman kept saying that I could sit on her lap.
At a later convention, she upgraded a hug (I can’t remember how consensual the hug was) to a kiss, and I threw her out of my life.
Marginally creepy but much less serious for me—an older woman who would keep touching my hair (more dramatically curly at the time). The experience was more weird/dissociated for me than upsetting, so I didn’t do anything about it. I actually didn’t even think of it as possibly part of a larger social pattern until I read many accounts by black people of white people insisting on touching their hair.
I’ve noticed some clusters of people thinking that touching other people’s hair is okay (they usually ask strangers first), but I haven’t been able to pick up on what else those clusters have in common.
Now that I think about it, a couple days ago I saw a group of white girls practically interrogating these two black girls about what they did with their hair. My own reaction was more along the lines of “oh, curly dreadlock braid thingys” and then I moved on, so I couldn’t figure out why they were so (rudely) curious (they were so aggressive with their questions that my first thought was actually that the white girls were trying to bully them, but then that didn’t make sense for other reasons). I concluded that it was more about those girls being extremely curious about a different type of hairstyle, which it technically was, but I meant that in a sense more about function and structure than about race and the hair itself.
I feel weird when I think about this. I think it’s because I’m trying to use my brain to model an interest or value that I’ve never had or noticed before and that I have a difficult time empathizing with a fascination for something unusual like this. It feels like something warm and fuzzy is scratching the top of my head. Confusing..........
Me, too. When I grasped that hair touching was a thing, I actually wondered if my family had assimilated into mainstream American culture as much as I’d thought. (Eastern European Jewish, and my great grandparents came here in the early 1900s.)
However, I think it’s more reasonable to conclude that this is something that only a tiny minority of white people do, but there’s enough of them that black people are reasonably likely to have had the experience or to know someone who has.
I’ve also heard that demands to touch hair or touching with no preliminaries are somewhat likely to happen to white redheads.
Textures are fascinating. I like touching people’s hair in general; it’s neat as long as it isn’t full of goop. (I ask first.) So far this hasn’t happened to come up with any black people except one I was dating whose hair I could consequently touch very incidentally, but yeah, this is supposedly a thing and it would make me nervous about asking a black friend if I could touch their hair.
I have no idea what you look like, but despite that I just had a mental image of you looking absolutely enraptured staring at someone else’s hair, and playing with it sort of like a cat might (I have never had a cat). This amused me a lot.
To clarify my reaction: I don’t find anything wrong with it. It just seems really arbitrary, and slightly like a violation of personal space (even if you ask) although that one doesn’t really bother me. I find it unusual and surprising, more than anything else. My reaction was along the lines of “Wait, what? Why would you want to touch my hair?”.
Sure. I’ve just only seen or heard of it done with intimate couples. I’ve never seen it done with strangers. It seems like a couple steps above hugs on a scale of casual intimacy, to me, if I can just invent a scale out of thin air and proceed to give no reference points to guide how you’d evaluate that sort of thing.
The following is my personal experience only, and does not negate the feelings and opinions of those with different experiences.
I have almost never felt creeped out by a female. Even if they are overly huggy or complimenty, it tends to lack the predatory or aggressive/disrespective vibe that makes me feel creeped. Or rather, it doesn’t cause in me a reaction of feeling predated. At worst, I feel mildly uncertain.
I can only think of one time when I ever felt creeped out by a woman. It was a couple years ago, so my recollection is not the best, but to the best I recall: We had only been talking for about a minute or two, when out of nowhere she says something along the lines of “So, are you interested in women?” It was ugh-y.
As a straight-leaning female myself, who’s good at social cues, I do get to be more huggy and complimenty with people, without having a significant chance that I am going to creep anyone out.
I do think I might have once mildly creeped a fellow LWer though. We had recently met for rationality camp, and she made a comment that I had read as being insecure about her appearance. My reply was along the lines of “Seriously, when I first saw you I thought ‘Oh wow, she is so pretty!’” and then complimented her. Later I found out that I might have misread her first comment (not certain if I actually did or not, but realized later that there was a possible alternate interpretation to what she said), which would have made me all of a sudden complimenting her looks to be a weird and creepy thing. But I’m pretty sure that IF I did misread the comment, that she realized the miscommunication, and was just too polite to say. (So in other words, her response was “Oh, she thought I meant X and is trying to make me feel better. Well I don’t want to hurt her feelings by saying she misunderstood” which is significantly better than “Oh my god, why is this random person all of a sudden complimenting my looks?!?”)
ETA- At the time of this incident, I actually was dating a female, which is a factor that could push the interaction from “awkward” to “creepy”.
That’s the only time I can recall making a “creepy” faux pas, and realizing it.
I remember being hit on by girls (we were teenagers at the time) who didn’t understand boundaries—they would try to make me try women, or try to extract kisses from me. Being persistent about what they want while ignoring the fact that what I wanted was in conflict with their desires is what was creepy.
I haven’t ever felt a woman was creepy. Creepy essentially translates to unwanted (perceived) sexual advances, and, now I’m going to sound super-creepy myself, but I’ve never /not/ wanted a woman to come on to me. Like, obviously I don’t think about it all the time, but it’s always a welcome surprise if it happens. I don’t have any exceedingly unattractive female acquaintances though.
I would imagine this would be different if I was straight. An example of creepy female-female interaction would be the way Amy often acts towards Penny on TBBT.
Can you describe some occasions when a woman was creepy towards you at a social event, lesswrong-related or otherwise?
This almost never happens to me. I can only think of one example, which was mostly obnoxious and only mildly creepy. I went to a party where there was only one other woman present. She was strangely warm with me and asked me lots of personal questions. When I got up, but was still well within earshot, she started asking my husband the same questions about me (“where did you two meet?”) He said, “You just asked Julia those questions. You already know the answers.” She said she was interested to hear the differences, but it felt like she was trying to catch us in some kind of deception. Then she drank my beer.
O_O
At least it wasn’t her milkshake?
At a science fiction convention, there was a question about enough car space to get a party to a restaurant, and a woman kept saying that I could sit on her lap.
At a later convention, she upgraded a hug (I can’t remember how consensual the hug was) to a kiss, and I threw her out of my life.
Marginally creepy but much less serious for me—an older woman who would keep touching my hair (more dramatically curly at the time). The experience was more weird/dissociated for me than upsetting, so I didn’t do anything about it. I actually didn’t even think of it as possibly part of a larger social pattern until I read many accounts by black people of white people insisting on touching their hair.
I’m white and this seems bizarre to me. Like, extremely weird. I’m sort of creeped out just knowing about it.
I’ve noticed some clusters of people thinking that touching other people’s hair is okay (they usually ask strangers first), but I haven’t been able to pick up on what else those clusters have in common.
Now that I think about it, a couple days ago I saw a group of white girls practically interrogating these two black girls about what they did with their hair. My own reaction was more along the lines of “oh, curly dreadlock braid thingys” and then I moved on, so I couldn’t figure out why they were so (rudely) curious (they were so aggressive with their questions that my first thought was actually that the white girls were trying to bully them, but then that didn’t make sense for other reasons). I concluded that it was more about those girls being extremely curious about a different type of hairstyle, which it technically was, but I meant that in a sense more about function and structure than about race and the hair itself.
I feel weird when I think about this. I think it’s because I’m trying to use my brain to model an interest or value that I’ve never had or noticed before and that I have a difficult time empathizing with a fascination for something unusual like this. It feels like something warm and fuzzy is scratching the top of my head. Confusing..........
Me, too. When I grasped that hair touching was a thing, I actually wondered if my family had assimilated into mainstream American culture as much as I’d thought. (Eastern European Jewish, and my great grandparents came here in the early 1900s.)
However, I think it’s more reasonable to conclude that this is something that only a tiny minority of white people do, but there’s enough of them that black people are reasonably likely to have had the experience or to know someone who has.
I’ve also heard that demands to touch hair or touching with no preliminaries are somewhat likely to happen to white redheads.
Textures are fascinating. I like touching people’s hair in general; it’s neat as long as it isn’t full of goop. (I ask first.) So far this hasn’t happened to come up with any black people except one I was dating whose hair I could consequently touch very incidentally, but yeah, this is supposedly a thing and it would make me nervous about asking a black friend if I could touch their hair.
Try to Feel It My Way, a book about touch-dominant people—those who have touching as a major way of relating to the world.
I have no idea what you look like, but despite that I just had a mental image of you looking absolutely enraptured staring at someone else’s hair, and playing with it sort of like a cat might (I have never had a cat). This amused me a lot.
I’m sure I’ve cat-batted hair in the past, but I’m more likely to braid it or just pet it.
(Cats are known to bat at my hair, though!)
To clarify my reaction: I don’t find anything wrong with it. It just seems really arbitrary, and slightly like a violation of personal space (even if you ask) although that one doesn’t really bother me. I find it unusual and surprising, more than anything else. My reaction was along the lines of “Wait, what? Why would you want to touch my hair?”.
A lot of people like being petted. Enough people and enough liking that I’m confused that it doesn’t seem to be a normal thing, like hugs.
Edit: Maybe because it’s kind of hard to pet someone who is petting you? Hugs are typically reciprocal.
Sure. I’ve just only seen or heard of it done with intimate couples. I’ve never seen it done with strangers. It seems like a couple steps above hugs on a scale of casual intimacy, to me, if I can just invent a scale out of thin air and proceed to give no reference points to guide how you’d evaluate that sort of thing.
The following is my personal experience only, and does not negate the feelings and opinions of those with different experiences.
I have almost never felt creeped out by a female. Even if they are overly huggy or complimenty, it tends to lack the predatory or aggressive/disrespective vibe that makes me feel creeped. Or rather, it doesn’t cause in me a reaction of feeling predated. At worst, I feel mildly uncertain.
I can only think of one time when I ever felt creeped out by a woman. It was a couple years ago, so my recollection is not the best, but to the best I recall: We had only been talking for about a minute or two, when out of nowhere she says something along the lines of “So, are you interested in women?” It was ugh-y.
As a straight-leaning female myself, who’s good at social cues, I do get to be more huggy and complimenty with people, without having a significant chance that I am going to creep anyone out.
I do think I might have once mildly creeped a fellow LWer though. We had recently met for rationality camp, and she made a comment that I had read as being insecure about her appearance. My reply was along the lines of “Seriously, when I first saw you I thought ‘Oh wow, she is so pretty!’” and then complimented her. Later I found out that I might have misread her first comment (not certain if I actually did or not, but realized later that there was a possible alternate interpretation to what she said), which would have made me all of a sudden complimenting her looks to be a weird and creepy thing. But I’m pretty sure that IF I did misread the comment, that she realized the miscommunication, and was just too polite to say. (So in other words, her response was “Oh, she thought I meant X and is trying to make me feel better. Well I don’t want to hurt her feelings by saying she misunderstood” which is significantly better than “Oh my god, why is this random person all of a sudden complimenting my looks?!?”)
ETA- At the time of this incident, I actually was dating a female, which is a factor that could push the interaction from “awkward” to “creepy”.
That’s the only time I can recall making a “creepy” faux pas, and realizing it.
I remember being hit on by girls (we were teenagers at the time) who didn’t understand boundaries—they would try to make me try women, or try to extract kisses from me. Being persistent about what they want while ignoring the fact that what I wanted was in conflict with their desires is what was creepy.
I haven’t ever felt a woman was creepy. Creepy essentially translates to unwanted (perceived) sexual advances, and, now I’m going to sound super-creepy myself, but I’ve never /not/ wanted a woman to come on to me. Like, obviously I don’t think about it all the time, but it’s always a welcome surprise if it happens. I don’t have any exceedingly unattractive female acquaintances though.
I would imagine this would be different if I was straight. An example of creepy female-female interaction would be the way Amy often acts towards Penny on TBBT.