Why Does Talking About Creepers And Harassment Make People So Angry?

It is not the responsibility of women to educate when they feel uncomfortable or fear for their safety.

either case, his obtuseness as to why labeling people as creepers might cause anger is dismaying, particularly coming from a high status make with a privileged background. (Harvard Law and ask that).

Of the many problems with his essay, probably the simplest to point out is the snide callousness of defining people as "creepers" who allegedly engage in "creepy" behavior.

As an anecdotal observation, when I hear female acquaintances use the term creep/creeper it almost always refers to unwelcome sexual advances by lower status males.

I have not heard the term used much to describe the more harrowing examples of sexual harassment outlined in helpful internet posts describing just what "creeping" is. Or if the term is used, there is clarifying language ("asshole, jerk") to make the distinction that it was a more serious situation.

1) It entirely a judgement in the head of the person making the claim. There are no objective agreed upon standards for it, so there is no way to refute the claim. When someone calls another person a slut, they are using their own standards of sexuality, something about which there is no universal standard, and judging the person against that standard. Because the standard is the accuser's own there is no way to claim that they are objectively wrong.

2) Because of the above, it is entirely context dependent. As others have brought up, this means that the exact same behaviour from two different people can be called "creepy" in one instance, and desirable the next. Examine the difference in reactions between a person who does not fit the idealized marketing body type making themselves sexually avalable and a person considered "hot". I have seen women called slutty for the same behaviour that was proclaimed as "awesome" all because they were seen as less conventionally attractive than the other woman.

3) It immediately associates that person with a negative societal perception and group. Because of this both words have incredible power, although much good work has been done to dull the impact of slut but it is still damaging.

Due to all of the above, calling someone a creeper is an incredibly powerful way to immediately disempower that person, place them on the defensive, and quickly impact them in a negative fashion. We recognize that a combination of the above three points makes the word slut an incredibly negative word that should really never be used, and I'm sure we'll get there with creeper/creepy. But if you want to know why it makes people angry, well just remember that question the next time you get worked up over someone casually dropping a "slut" bomb on someone else.

If anyone wants to argue the behaviour the post is actually referring to is not creepy, go ahead. Or explain why you feel addressed, I really don't understand why otherwise smart people regularly draw blanks on this one and get lost in the woods of semantics.

Not everyone gets along with everyone else.

You could say that to everything.

Have you ever dressed up as a good looking woman? I recommend it, it's an eye opener. I got talked into letting a female friend do make-up on me, it was pretty much perfect (I basically dressed up as a girl that didn't bother with a costume), and ta-daaa, at the carneval party of our school, which we did this, some older guy who worked there (super posh place), passing by behind me in a very crowded spot, grabbed my ass with BOTH hands, and so hard it very nearly hurt. But just for a split second, and before I could fully realize what had happened, much less turn around, he had moved on and when I finally did turn around I only saw his balding head disappear in the crowd (of my schoolmates, none of whom had such big hands by a very long shot, before anyone tries to tell me something about a situation I experienced first hand that I didn't know already, as seems to be tradition for some).

I'm not proud that I actually laughed instead of running after him, it was like he certified what great a job we had done (her mother was a professional make-up person, and she spent over an hour just on my face) -- but I wasn't the 15 year old girl he thought I was, and other than that he knew exactly what he was doing, he attacked and moved away like a snake, there was nothing playful about this, nothing at all. I often thought back to this episode when growing up, and I vowed to never take any of this lightly. And even with the stuff others told me, first-hand experience, even as minor as this one, made a world of difference to me. It's like seeing a world that was hidden from you for the first time -- the stuff some men normally don't do when I am around, because I am around...! -- and it's a shitty fucking world we should nuke from orbit.

So.... I see what the OP was being called creep for (not that they told us, just that the fact that they were called that means the word means nothing, heh), and raise you my little anecdote for what I would call very creepy.

You surely can see how "Not everybody gets along with everybody" is not really a good response here -- it kinda constitutes the default position of passivity, which is siding with the offender. And ignorance is not a defense when you're not even trying to understand, but immediately prefer to talk stuff which is NOT the subject.

If little kids think it's fine to wish rape on girls just because they're owning them in Call of Duty, then personally, I don't care if they're rapists or butt grabbers in spe, they're supporting something, unknowingly or recklessly or because they're actually twisted, which fucking needs to go, period. In the meantime, if people really for the life of them can't understand what the blog post is referring to, what seedy underbelly indeed, because words like "creep" are too big for them.... they really shouldn't pretend they're anything but talking past a discussion that's not possible to have with them.