Creepy Dudes (and the people who defend them)

So there's been a lot of semi-heated debate in a lot of the groups I'm in online lately about creeps. Particularly about creepy dudes, though of course ladies can be creepy, too. I've contributed, and listed off the attitudes and behaviors that I, personally, find creepy, as did lots of other people. I feel like no one actually said anything about looks, and yet there's this pervasive, infuriating idea that when a woman (and always, only, specifically a woman) says a guy is creepy, it's because she's decided he's "not hot enough" to be "worthy" of her.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is complete bullshit.

It is sexist, entitled, bullshit, which perpetuates the idea that men are allowed to treat women however the hell they want and women are supposed to be flattered by the attention. And I'm pissed off and sick of it.

The main interaction that I think of when I think of a creepy dude at a play party was a guy Jack and I once chatted with at one of our favorite monthly parties. He was an ordinary-looking guy, in semi-dressy clothes, around our age. It was his first party, and he told us how he wound up there and we told him how cool the group usually is...and then the conversation turned to our specific kinks. And I remember the way this guy looked at me as he said to Jack "What's the kinkiest thing you do to her? Does she let you do anal?" At that point, I made some sort of excuse and got the hell out of there.

What I felt at the time, and what I feel in other interacting-with-creepy-dudes situations, was that this guy wasn't really thinking of me as a person. It would have been far less weird if he'd actually engaged with both of us and talked about...well, whatever. If he'd said "Are you guys into anal? 'Cause that's hot!" it would've been much less creepy. But instead I felt, well, objectified. Like a thing rather than a person.

So basically, what I'm saying is that women are people. And people like to be talked with, and looked at, and generally interacted with as if they are people--with thoughts and feelings and things like that. Not like objects onto which someone else's fantasies are projected. And not just that, but it's totally okay and acceptable to NOT like it when someone treats you as less than human.

So no more of this "She's only saying he was creepy because she doesn't think he's hot" nonsense, okay guys? If Mr. Does-She-Let-You-Do-Anal had looked like Johnny Depp, it still would have been an intensely uncomfortable situation. And that's a general "guys," not a gender-specific "guys," since it seems like other women say this even more often than men do. Saying that is kind of creepy on its own.