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PaperclipPerfector  4d ago (text post)   2089 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for November 2, 2025

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

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This is frankly Wellness-Wednesday adjacent.

Does anyone else remember when the internet was full of Women (capitalization intentional) complaining that men hit on them? My perception as a guy in the early 2010s was that the list of places/contexts where you weren't "allowed" to speak to a woman was growing every day. It started with the gym/bus/grocery store, but then came to encompass every possible social context where men and women might come into contact with eachother. It reached a point where I was expecting to see an article titled "We Need To Talk About The Serious Problem of Women being Flirted With at Singles Events."

It's just that, now in the current year, I can't seem to actually find any solid examples; aren't all these important feminist essays archived somewhere? I remember them being inescapable.

Here's a pithy summary: When I hear women complaining that men don't approach them in public anymore, I want to link a 2010s feminism article and say "This is why." But...where are the articles? Did I imagine them?

The absence of specific articles is probably due to the effect documented in The Sixth Meditation on Superweapons. You noticed what was Actually Being Said, not the literal words on the screen.

Here is an eleven-year-old reddit thread that mentions the phenomenon (written by a woman asking why men don't give up), so what you're describing is something that definitely existed at the time you're talking about:

However, if women are going to pretty much shut down every avenue for approaching them (bars ["I just want to hang out with my friends"], clubs ["I just want to dance!"], bookstores ["Don't interrupt my reading!"], grocery stores ["I HAVE to go here, don't bother me."], classes/workshops ["I'm here to learn, only!"], etc), what avenues ARE available for meeting women organically (eg. not via dating website/match-makers)?

There's also this classic compare-and-contrast of the headlines of Jessica Valenti's opinion pieces.

Thank you, but I have to say, that second link does not sound like an actual woman, more like a dude making a point.

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