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Notes -
I'm not especially sympathetic to the "sex as a power trip" narrative, but assuming it is basically correct--isn't women dressing in revealing clothing also often an opportunity for them to enjoy flexing their power over men? I think maybe part of what leads you here--
--is a background Western assumption that men have power, and that power is what men have. I occasionally see feminists (especially, "sex positive" feminists) move past this decidedly mid-20th century "Second Sex" narrative into a more postmodern, Foucaultian "women's power is different" narrative. Men may dominate physically, but women dominate socially; men may gatekeep the levers of action, but women gatekeep the levers of status. Occasionally in these "catcalling debates" women will decide to flip the script and start catcalling men; this never works out because men love this shit. Not the truly aggressive and negative stuff--honking at pedestrians, shouting insults--that might well get you punched in the face! But "CHECK THE GUNS ON THIS GUY" is going to put a smile on his face for days.
Putting on a skimpy swimsuit is the psychologically female equivalent of a man looming over someone and saying, "hey, you wanna feel my muscles?"
And sure, you might not find this totally persuasive, but I think it's a long way from ridiculous. Except in the sense that ridicule itself is a way of socially signaling; countenancing the idea that women may have just as much power over men, as men have over women--just in different ways and contexts--is very low status, at present! It's the kind of thing you might expect to hear some "beta cucks huffing as copium," in the parlance of the iPad youths.
The Venn diagram between "is willing to ask you out" and "is willing to rape you at the first opportunity" has overlap, too. Women are wise to be cautious of men! That's clearly true, and surely of importance in this discussion. One of the reasons I started it is because, like other posters have more explicitly suggested, I think there is a kind of person who will feel unsure about the Surrey stings until they see the color of the perpetrator's skin! Or two kinds, if we want to separate them out--people who will only be mad if this is enforced against non-whites and immigrants, and people who will only be mad if it is enforced against native whites outside otherwise-criminally-problematic neighborhoods. As an anti-identitarian I think both of these perspectives are avoiding a real substantive issue, namely, the regulation of interpersonal behaviors in public spaces shared between individuals with diverse and not entirely compatible interests. Likewise, treating women's interests in public space interaction as weightier than men's interests in the same, is identitarian rather than appropriately considerate of all the issues involved.
(One solution some cultures implement is to simply segregate the disparate interests; men from women, white from black, whatever. That is a workable solution in many cases but the West has rejected it, and as a liberal myself I think it is both possible and desirable for people with disparate interests to share public spaces without significant conflict. So I set this solution aside, but I know not everyone does.)
Somewhere downstream from catcalling is a slightly different thing: the cold open. Most people here are not old enough to remember the Clinton years, but a phrase that got kicked around a lot (with direct reference to Clinton's own behavior) was, "it doesn't hurt to ask!" Meaning: the First Amendment protects men asking women if they'd like to go out on a date--or even have sex! Even if those women are strangers! Even if 99.995% of women are going to say no!
We don't seem to actually live in that world anymore; we punish men for even asking, in almost any setting, and so they have in many cases just stopped asking. Norms are forcing these conversations out of almost every environment, onto dating apps that optimize for something other than flourishing. All in the interest of preventing women from ever being put in an uncomfortable position in public--while allowing them to put men into uncomfortable positions through comparable, albeit not identical, practices, like dressing provocatively* while immune from any kind of interpersonal or societal response.
*I here leave aside the tiresome conversations about what counts as provocative, as of course different cultures will have inculcated different views on the matter; as a rule, people know what "sexy" clothing is for people in their sociocultural environment, even if they try to ignore the actual biological implications of the word "sexy."
That was an interesting link. I often wonder about all the variables that are leading young people to date less — of course, “no woman wants to date me” seems to be a plurality answer from men, and I’m well aware of male friends of mine for whom that’s the entire reason they’re single. I have a friend who’s gone from social and engaged to depressed, suicidal, and medicated as his 20s have flown by without a wink of intimacy. Nicest and most prosocial guy you’d ever meet — maybe that’s the problem.
I do wonder sometimes how I’d feel romantically if I hadn’t had some formative positive experiences with dating as a teenager. It certainly wasn’t all roses, but I can trace my own strong drive for intimacy to a before/after with my high school sweetheart. If I hadn’t fallen into a relationship with her… would I be dating now? Would I feel as strongly about dating as I do now?
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This is a really well thought out comment, thank you for writing it.
I think I agree with most of it. I still think the "mechanism of action" for a cat-call vs skimpy shorts (or whatever) is far enough apart that they don't compare well, but I'll concede they're on the same spectrum of human behaviour/motivations.
I'm gonna read this again later when I'm not in motion, thanks again.
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