Creep Shaming?

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So far you've said "and i have every right to consider her an idiot". You also personally attacked another member.


You really know how to get people on your side

Creep means you're a person who has made another person feel uncomfortable, maybe even afraid, and you can say that's not true if you want, but you don't get to decide how a woman feels, nor how a man feels, nor how anyone feels.

I'm sure it really bothers you that you don't get to dictate what women's "true" feelings are, but tough s**t.

Here are some tidbits from The Handbook of Psychopathy. (I'd link to the original articles, but pay-walls are everywhere ).

- Between 12.1 and 40 percent of incarcerated rapists meek the diagnostic criteria for psychopathy
- 30 percent of male incarcerated psychopaths had committed an offensive of rape, buggery or indecent assault compared to 13 percent of generic male prisoners.

These are of course different samples (and much of the literature on psychopathy is based on the US), but the data nonetheless suggests that there is a very strong link between psychopathy and rape.

Oh, and psychopaths are *not* likely to come across as creepy, as they usually possess superior charm and social skills (in fact, being superficially charming is part of the diagnostic criteria for being a psychopath).

It's an interesting case of meaning, er, creep, that the term I used to think of as more synonymous with "spooky", like "this place is kinda creepy" has taken on such different overtones. Applied to a person, I'd also equated "creep" with "cretin" and or "lout" more than with any kind of potentially threatening person; I'd say the current usage is closer to where "pervert" used to be. I wonder if the shift has anything to do with the reclaiming of perv, as I've seen more people self identifying as such in recent years, and the word seems to have lost much of its sting.

I've also noted the variant "creeper", which at least in my experience is more likely to refer to an awkward or shy person who's attempting to flirt poorly, than "creep", which seems reserved for the more aggressive frat boy types. I actually think "creeper" is the more insidious term, as I've often seen it hung on socially awkward types who are just trying to be friendly, and in current usage it has distinct "stalker-lite" connotations that are much harder to shake than the general oafishness conveyed by "creep".

I hope everyone will forgive me for writing a few posts in a row right now. I'm on an ipad, which can sometimes be a pain, and this is the only reasonable way to quote from multiple posts.

You're right, I doubt he suffered any kind of harm from that instance. That particular example was only meant to demonstrate that sometimes the word is used unfairly. I could have given a couple examples of actual harm that labels like that can cause. But the only instances where I know the exact extent of the harm caused involved me personally. There is a tendency here though, when people use stories from their personal lives to illustrate a point, to accuse them of projecting their own personal issues on other people. Given that, I'm going to refrain from posting my own experiences with that word and hope that you can just accept that sometimes there are serious consequences for the person so labelled.

So this would indicate that less than half of rapists are psychopaths, nonetheless a strong link. Are there studies you can possibly find that were referenced in the book?

This illustrates perfectly one of my problems with the word creep. That the label sticks like crazy. That, when people hear it, they want to believe it. You know literally nothing about this guy beyond what I've said and yet, here you are, making s**t up about him or how he must have acted, just so you don't have to accept the idea that maybe, just maybe, some woman somewhere might have been wrong about something.



No. That is not what the word expresses. The use of the word very specifically implies that the speaker's negative feelings are the fault of the supposed creep. Saying "I felt uncomfortable because of..." is expressing your feelings. Saying "that person is a creep" is placing blame for them. Sometimes that blame is justified, often it is not.

I wasn't aware that it had other meanings now. From what I've seen, those things are exactly what is being implied when someone is called a creep now. Given that, surely you can see why so many consider it such a serious insult when applied to someone who is none of those things.

Last edited by mds_02 on 02 Feb 2013, 1:40 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Please explain to me why you can't just walk away from someone in whose presence you feel uncomfortable without having to add insults into the mix? I'm having trouble understanding this. Maybe it's 'cause I don't know what it's like to be a woman but insulting people has never made me feel safer than simply avoiding them has.

I'm gonna try to apply the same logic to another scenario here.

Say a black man encounters a few white kids with shaved heads. These kids do not do anything specific (that would fall under the category of earning the label, which I already agree sometimes happens) to make him uncomfortable. Instead, their shaved heads are remniscent to him of racist skinheads which makes him very uncomfortable around them.

Now, I would say that a reasonable reaction from him would be to walk away from them. To avoid them. But, according to your logic, it would be reasonable for him to go around accusing them of being the violent racist types of which he is afraid, without knowing anything about them and without regard for the consequences they might face because of that accusation.

In fact - once read twice just to confirm what I've read was posted - provoking a person you may be afraid of, seems like the worst possible course of action. Simply walking away solves the problem entirely.

These are the studies exploring the rape/psychopathy prevalence referenced in The Handbook of Psychopathy:

http://66.199.228.237/boundary/hematoma ... hopath.pdf (not sure about copyright, though)

For the following I have no direct access. (I had access to the one marked with (*) once, and I posted here previously, but that access has been cut of subsequently):

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9337503
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1955600
http://jiv.sagepub.com/content/16/3/234.abstract
http://cjb.sagepub.com/content/27/2/216.short *
http://jiv.sagepub.com/content/10/1/85.abstract
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9146103
http://jiv.sagepub.com/content/9/1/3.abstract

That's just counting ones that are diagnosed with ASPD too though. There's tons of others that aren't diagnosed since sociopaths appear relatively normal cause they don't say what they're really thinking most of the time.

By the way I remember seeing news headlines about U.S. Soldiers raping women during the Iraq War, and one of the the first things they said was that the soldiers likely had ASPD. Also, the infamous serial rapist/killer Ted Bundy was diagnosed with ASPD, and he claimed to have killed over 100 women although he was only convicted for around 40 of them.

Most sexual-predators are less extreme versions of Ted Bundy.(i.e. he's a 10/10 for ASPD)

Last edited by Venger on 02 Feb 2013, 2:39 pm, edited 1 time in total.

The studies I referred to (at least on the basis of abstracts) use the stricter Hare Psychopathy Checklist - Revised (PCL-R), which applies to a much smaller subset of criminals. ASPD prevalence is approx. 3 times higher than psychopathy...

I've found this article on the topic:

http://captainawkward.com/2012/08/11/the-c-word/

Happy now?

Yeah, pretty much. I don't think the word has a strict definition. I've never known it to really mean anything other than someone who you don't like, or has disagreeable qualities. I've called people creep, when I was in a situation where I got hostile vibes from them (not to their face mind you.) My mom called me a creep when I'd get snotty with her when I was little. It's kind of a generic term.

But I (and other men, apparently) noticed it's used in a context to describe, like you said, a guys who's trying to interact with a girl or woman, and seemingly shy. I think it's unfortunate and sad that a lot of these women seem to have little sympathy for the guy. Is it a coincidence that a lot of these guys are somewhat homely too? So you honestly think it has nothing to do with social skill and appearance? You would have to have the IQ of a fu**ing burrito to think that so.

I've had homely women show overt interest in me, and while I didn't reciprocate, I never took offense or called them a creep for it. They didn't deserve it. And neither do the majority of these guys. To go back and refer to every guy who shoots for you as a creep is infantile and mean. Somebody on these boards keeps insisting that they do so because they're afraid. Seriously. C'mon. How naive do you think I am? There are situations where they are frightened, but THINK about what you're saying... you mean to tell me an obviously nervous, awkward guy is gonna inspire intense fear? He's otherwise friendly, but not as suave as she needs him to be, and she's suddenly afraid for her well being, and has to let other women know? That's horse**** and we all know it.

And that's all I'm gonna say, folks. I'm not all knowing and I'm not perfect, but I sure as hell know that just because you point your finger and call someone something doesn't make it true. And I may not BE female, but I've experienced and heard enough to know how a lot of women can be, and I don't need to waste my time arguing with people who make asinine assertions that they must know aren't true, or are so damn stupid they actually believe it.

To me a creep is someone that does things to make you feel uncomfortable, usually unwanted sexual come-ons or stalkerish behavior.