Aspergians in Love...Not a Pretty Picture

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Something has gone horribly wrong when I can no longer be "just friends" with any woman for fear of offending either her husband/boyfriend and/or my own girlfriend, regardless of whether I find her attractive. I've had a few life-threatening experiences in this realm. I have learned to maintain a 2 meter distance from anyone...unless invited to draw closer...whenever possible. I cannot comfortably be alone with any woman unless she is a current partner of mine. This means that I would often wait for the next lift in order to avoid any appearance of impropriety. I wish I didn't have to live this way in order to feel safe. What must I do to deal with the fear?

In fact, if he reasonably could not have foreseen that he was impaired when he got into the car, I would have a VERY hard time blaming him, and in a court of law would likely consider him not guilty ("innocent" seems a more subjective word).

Even more so when something sexual was involved, where the hurt is psychological and cannot be predicted even when both people are aware of what they are doing. I think our society takes sexual matters FAR too seriously, where it seems if there weren't so much repression around the subject of sexuality overall, the power too wound would be diminished too the point where there is little more need for a category of "sex offenses" than there is a need for "food offenses" or "running offenses".

if someone takes my food without my permission, it is an offense to me. if someone touches my body without permission, it is also an offense to me. that is not because of repression - it is because it is my own body and i should have control over how it is handled.

in the scenario you have described, it would be okay for an 80 year old man with open sores (maybe... herpes) to grope your junk on the bus or insist that you perform oral sex on him in the park. i do not think you would enjoy or permit that.

^ I agree. In fact he would be being "very repressed and uptight" if he objected to the advances of the man with the open sores.

But I would be just as bothered, or more, by someone with open herpes sores doing any of a number of other things, none of which would be considered sexual, like shoving his fingers in my mouth or rubbing them over my food. These are almost definitely crimes of one form or another, but are handled very differently from sexual offenses. Conversely, many of the examples in this thread, like staring at someone too long, certainly cannot transmit herpes or any other disease, nor can they get someone pregnant, nor are they excruciatingly painful.

The point is, society doesn't first subdivide by risk category (disease transmission, pregnancy, merely feeling weird about contact with someone unattractive), and then by specifics of how this is done. Rather, there is a "top-level" distinction of sexual vs. non-sexual, and then the type of actual risk is at most an aggravating factor. This is how it plays out in the real world--i.e. that guy with the open sores directly groping my junk could be placed in a similar category as someone who just rubs a glove-covered finger against my crotch through my jeans after thoroughly washing his hands. The latter would be kind of weird, but certainly not something that would ruin my entire day, never mind my life.

Yes, there are criminal acts that can be committed with food, while running, even probably while reading a book, but the point is that the tolerance regarding sexual acts is uniquely very low because of the abstract significance given to them. Yes, a violent rape that causes pain and tissue damage is at least as bad as any other type of assault that causes similar effects. And I'm not saying that psychological impact should be totally ignored--what I'm saying is that cultural values convert forms of mildly unpleasant touch, or even non-touch in the case of most sexual harassment, that would otherwise be harmless, into acts of momentous impact.

But each of those incidents may result in far fewer lasting consequences. Being sexually un-repressed doesn't keep people from reporting harm from sex anymore than being un-repressed when talking about houses keeps people from reporting people breaking into their house. It's just, there will be fewer things deserving of the "incident" label.



These "disorders" that drive people (the occasional woman in addition to men) to commit these acts, I think, come down to large differences in psychology of different individuals regarding the connection of their physical body, ego, and emotional state. Some people develop a need or co-dependence on something that is typically provided by others whose psychology is opaque to their own.

So I think a lot of this could be helped by partner-matching services that first make it possible for people to find those of their preferred sex who are mentally similar to themselves. I.e., allowing straight men with exceptionally poor empathy for typical core female emotions to meet "butch" women who also lack those emotions. These people may not fulfill each other's needs well, but then at least they can learn what those needs are, in order to keep them from posing a problem.

i was just giving you an extreme example. you seemed to have missed the idea that if you allow sexual contact without consent, it is EVERYBODY.

let's put it differently. how about a 80-year-old man with severe body odor (and halitosis, just for fun) and a misshapen half-hard penis. he has not washed himself in at least a year. he asks you to perform oral sex (and maybe some rimming too, again just for fun). you would have no recourse to say no, even if the idea makes you vomit.

anyway, it doesn't matter how gross or hot the man is, if he is touching my private areas without consent, that is sexual assault. you have much less reason to ever worry about the safety and secuirty of your person as you are male, but sexual assault does happen to men too. if the idea of consent is thrown out the window, it's wouldn't really be men who have to worry as much... women have suffered in similar circumstances at times throughout history. for examples landowners in some nations could have sex with the serfs on their lands and the serfs had no right to say no. it isn't repression that brought us to where we are today - it is the concept of equal right to personal security and safety, regardless of gender (or class or age or other factors).

I've heard the following, to put things in persepctive:

"Men are afraid women will laugh at them. Women are afraid men will KILL them."

^
I agree, but as a skinny man the fear of another man is still there. I go to gay clubs sometimes.

It would undoubtedly be worse for a slight woman though.

To Hyperlexian:
This "reductio ad absurdum" type argument never really satisfies me. Essentially, you're saying that because there are cases where non-consenting contact can be very bothersome/repulsive, it justifies having a "zero tolerance policy" toward unwanted sexual advances. To where someone can be accused of victimizing someone else when he/she didn't intend to harm the victim.

My point is that with almost nothing other than sexuality do we take this approach.

you didn't have an answer for my actual question. unwanted sexual contact is unwanted sexual contact. if you consent to some partners you must consent to all partners as it would not be considered an offense no matter what. zero tolerance would have to be replaced 100% tolerance, which is not acceptable.

it is useful to imagine someone who would be unattractive in your eyes as it is a worst case scenario... it is exactly how many people view their abusers in cases of sexual assault and molestation... as disgusting specimens who did something terribly unwanted.

there is a similar approach to property, not just sexuality. what is mine, you cannot take without my consent. my body is mine.

I'll throw out some statistics here, it will hurt and support both sides.

http://www.disastercenter.com/crime/vtcrime.htm There's all of Vermont's crime rates from 1960-2009. You can likely use any state to illustrate what I'm saying.

Forcible rape in 1960, 2.3 per 100,000, go to 2009, 19.9 per 100,000. So somehow rape went up over 10 times in the past 50 years? That doesn't sound at all logical. Same thing happened with aggravated assault rates. 4.6/100K in 1960 shoots up to 92/100K in 2009. Did Vermont get 20 times more violent between 1960 and now?

Obviously, for better or worse, it's a reporting issue. Things that were socially acceptable in 1960 are not now. People are simply doing things they'd not be arrested for in the past. Different terminology. A schoolyard fight in the 1960s in today's world is a brutal newsworthy assault. On the same coin, people could get away with hurting people maliciously in ways that would land them a couple years in jail today.

My friend told me a story of his grandfather, in the 1930s. Some kid pulled a knife out on him in the school cafeteria, and tried to stab him. His grandfather grabbed the kids arm and like, I think broke his arm or in some way hurt him badly. What happened to the grandfather? Nothing. What happened to the kid with the knife? 1 day suspension after the teacher pulled him away/broke up the fight. Today this would result in criminal charges and jail time for both sides, guaranteed.

This is the world today. It's got it's advantages and disadvantages. Personally, as far as that goes, I think we've gone way too far. Kids now get expelled or arrested for squirt guns, nail clippers and butter knives. Schoolyard fights turn into jail time and probation. I think it's absurd, but at the same time, I don't want all of the "fun" of the olden days back, I want kids attempting to stab each other in school punished fairly harshly, possibly in the judicial system. I also don't want "schoolyard fights" resulting in arrests and swiss army knives in people's pockets resulting in felony weapons charges and 5 year old kids suspended for squirt guns.

As for how this applies to sex offenses, it's the same thing. Obviously, in the old days, people were probably just pretty likely to get away with rape, molestation, whatever other horrible stuff. We can all agree that's not good. However, now we have our current troubles of people being sex offenders for life for like grabbing a girl's butt at a dance club or bar (and if by chance any girl wants to say how horribly scarring that particular thing can be, I've had a girl grope my butt multiple times during class in high school, told her to stop, she kept doing it, told the teacher about it, etc, and nothing at all happened to the girl and people just thought I was being irrational and should have taken it as a compliment) or even pissing in the woods.

When you see the statistics, things start making sense a bit, due to them not. While actual differences are a reality now, I think it's much more perception, but, perception changes people's actions, which ends up changing reality.

I'll stop now...

A double edged sword indeed. On one hand I feel quite similarly to the OP, a not so nice feeling as if I'm in some sort of Jews vs. Samaritans style story, or some sort of apartheid style situation, as regards men (particularly eccentric ones like me) and women (particularly hale and hearty, herd mentality ones). On the other hand, due to social change it is good that people have got a lot more discerning since e.g. the sixties of evils such as rapes, molestations and abuse which are now far less tolerated. So if there's a culture of fear now, as I feel it as a guy minding my P's and Q's all the time against any accusation of abuse, we're probably better overall for it on balance than in say the sixties where the culture of fear may well have been worse, for different reasons because the weak could be preyed upon more easily, which was not good.

i agree with this. we all have to be more careful now. as a female teacher i was careful not to even be alone with individual students (especially older students) without other people close by. which is frankly ridiculous, but i didn't want to get accused of some form of misconduct so i was very cautious. it's a new climate now, and i would rather have to be careful nowadays than have students fearful of coming forward like in past days.

As far as unreported assaults, they NEED TO BE REPORTED. YOU ARE DISRESPECTING POSSIBLE FUTURE VICTIMS. I know it's "easy for me to say" and I know facing your tormentor in court is traumatic, but you wouldn't want to get assaulted because someone should have been locked up but wasn't.

" A schoolyard fight in the 1960s in today's world is a brutal newsworthy assault."
I can see the changes to my former school district in as little as 5 years. folks I knew who went to school in the 90's used to get in knife fights.
--not sure how it relates to the thread though..

I have not seen it all, though some days it seems that way, I would agree that rape cases are in fact as high as the media implies they are if not perhaps higher, but the amount of damage done by unfounded allegations is just as bad. we seem to have a metric crap ton more of those than actual rape cases. most of the time its pretty easy to see through the case, but if you don't have anyone to back up the story you're screwed, even if you're determined innocent the verdict as far as the man is concerned is still guilty, you just don't go to prison. you may be wondering how this is possible but these days what someone thinks they heard about you matters more than what is actually on your record.
The real problem is our legal system is f****d. here's just one example http://apple.slashdot.org/comments.pl?s ... d=34021788

As far as american society goes, its a teflon coated slippery slope, nothing surprises me anymore. did you hear about the guy who lit himself on fire in front of a new hampshire court room? --you will be seeing more of these cases in the years ahead.

Personally, i think if the courts were cleaned up more people would bring allegations to light. it costs too much to get a lawyer, and if you can't afford to lose the case then a good percentage of people won't even press charges. -- also, the fact that most rapes are committed by someone the victim knows just might have something to do with lack of reporting.