How most men, even good caring men, have no clue what women go through

[The Good Reverend Roger]

We did kind of rove everywhere, yeah, although endless spin-off threads for new issues would've been equally annoying.

I'm hesitant to weigh in on this, but without dialogue, no one learns anything, no one looks at their beliefs (no matter which side of what issue), and nothing can change. Stagnation is death.

1.  Why be hesitant?  Nobody can reach through the monitor and choke you.

2.  There wasn't much dialogue.  There usually isn't, on subjects like this.  There was lecturing, there was rage, and there was an extremist mentality that let to what were essentially "purity tests" on ideology.  And do you know what ideology gets you?  I do, and I was STILL dumb enough to try to cram my fat, hairy ass into a uniform...And all it cost me was a friendship I value very, very highly.  If there's dialogue, there's an exchange of ideas, not blunt objects to the head...And if you tell me that there wasn't A LOT of that - again, on both sides - then I shall have to send you to RWHN for drug counseling.

1. I'm aware, but PD's drama llama has been riding high recently and I didn't want to be the one calling it in for a victory lap.

2. It did get pretty ugly. I'm still hoping that now that we've got the drama behind us (I hope), maybe there might be some actual discussion of it sometime in the future.

1.  Trust me on this one, Garbo...This is NOTHING.  We had a temper tantrum that lasted from 2004 to 2006.  We'll survive some drama.

2.  Maybe.  There's still the intrinsic problems that A)  Everyone here is already on your side, the best you can do is oversell it, and B) It is a subject that is best discussed with specific examples, or you run the risk of going right back in the shitter when the conversation inevitably turns to ideology tests.

1. I have heard tell of that one, a little bit. I believe it was described as a civil war.

2. I think it started off as a discussion and then turned into a sales pitch somewhere along the way. I don't remember why, but IIRC, that's what happened. If that is avoided, I think we can talk about it.

1.  Yeah.  But it was really one (1) temper tantrum.  Might have been mine first.  Not sure, really.

2.  Good luck.  I'll try, if we wait a bit.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

It occurs to me that after listening to COOKIES AND PIE TEQUILA STABBITY STABBITY for 2 years, I was entitled to a 24 month wobbler.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

In other news:

http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2010/02/22/83337/disabled-abortion/

[Luna]

In other news:

http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2010/02/22/83337/disabled-abortion/

Also:

http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2012/09/04/790351/gop-senate-candidate-supported-life-sentences-for-rape-victims-who-obtain-abortions/

[The Good Reverend Roger]

In other news:

http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2010/02/22/83337/disabled-abortion/

Also:

http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2012/09/04/790351/gop-senate-candidate-supported-life-sentences-for-rape-victims-who-obtain-abortions/

Yeah, I posted that down in AI a few days ago.

This is what we need to be opposing, right now.

[East Coast Hustle]

Just in the interest of, kinda, full disclosure, I'm probably middle/upper-class, just based on entire household income, but, most of the people I serve in my job are lower-class or,in poverty.  And also, in a field like mine, stigma is frequently a point of conversation, so those two things probably color where I am coming from on this topic.

balls. They don't let people from The County be upper class.

[P3nT4gR4m]

I have one last thing to add to this conversation:

Nobody on PD is part of the problem.  Nobody on PD is who is perpetuating the fucking patriarchy or whatever the hell you want to call it.  If ANYONE here says someone here is part of the problem, you're smoking dogshit.  Yeah, I said that myself at one point or another, so I'm gonna be toking up right next to you.  Budge over, spags.

So stop this shit.  You are not talking to teabaggers.  You are not talking to Goddamn Pat Robertson.  You're talking to friends and allies, even if they don't want to wear the whole fucking uniform.

Nuff said.

THIS.

I'm starting to think "this dialogue is necessary" is doublespeak for "let's alientate everybody!" 

I've met "we need to dialogue" people before, IRL, and I wouldn't shit on them. All talk and no action. "Oooh the building is on fire, lets form a steering committee!"

Dialogue is the mother of bureaucracy. Bureaucracy is procrastination and bickering, in place of action.

[hooplala]

OK, now that the brouhaha has calmed some... time to kick it up again...

I was drinking last night with some friends and mentioned this conversation.  Someone pointed out (possibly mistakenly, possibly not) that the fellows in question in the OP were probably simply ugly.  For the record, a man suggested this, and in something like jest... but we started to chat about it anyway and a few of the ladies at the table admitted that, yes, it wasn't quite as intrusive if the guy was someone they actually might be interested in.

So the question is... how good looking does a guy have to be before asking what book you are reading on the subway isn't tantamount to attempted rape?

And yes, I was being deliberately facetious in that sentence.  50 pages!!

[LMNO]

OK, now that the brouhaha has calmed some... time to kick it up again...

I was drinking last night with some friends and mentioned this conversation.  Someone pointed out (possibly mistakenly, possibly not) that the fellows in question in the OP were probably simply ugly.  For the record, a man suggested this, and in something like jest... but we started to chat about it anyway and a few of the ladies at the table admitted that, yes, it wasn't quite as intrusive if the guy was someone they actually might be interested in.

So the question is... how good looking does a guy have to be before asking what book you are reading on the subway isn't tantamount to attempted rape?

And yes, I was being deliberately facetious in that sentence.  50 pages!!

[Verbal Mike]

Just to state the obvious, that argument is meaningless; being good-looking is subjective and guys can't read women's minds to know when they (the women) like them (the men) enough for it to be okay.

(We were all thinking it, right?)

[Juana]

^^^ Mostly that, with the exception of people who verge on grotesque. People have visceral reactions to that which is severely ugly. Not something you can help. Ugliness makes creepers worse, but an attractive person who is creepy is almost as bad, since it's a little disconcerting. I think a lot of people tend to except that attractive people have better social manners than that.
Although I've also found that attractive people are more presumptuous about their ability to steal others' time and attention than a plainer person and get more butthurt and nasty when they're rejected (the immediate result is "you're fugly anyway/such a bitch/why would anyone want you anyway/etc.").

[Anna Mae Bollocks]

It IS subjective. And while being hit on by people you consider good looking is more flattering, having a really good looking guy do that on a bus or train is a signal that there must REALLY be something wrong with him. Why is HE of all people so socially inept? How can he look like that and not know anything about WOMEN? Might be a sociopath or at least a retard. REJECT.

[Epimetheus]

It IS subjective. And while being hit on by people you consider good looking is more flattering, having a really good looking guy do that on a bus or train is a signal that there must REALLY be something wrong with him. Why is HE of all people so socially inept? How can he look like that and not know anything about WOMEN? Might be a sociopath or at least a retard. REJECT.

I'm still integrating this information. I did not know that there are places where it is better to keep your head down and withdraw from friendly conversational impulses than to allow them (excepting @ the urinal).

[Anna Mae Bollocks]

It IS subjective. And while being hit on by people you consider good looking is more flattering, having a really good looking guy do that on a bus or train is a signal that there must REALLY be something wrong with him. Why is HE of all people so socially inept? How can he look like that and not know anything about WOMEN? Might be a sociopath or at least a retard. REJECT.

I'm still integrating this information. I did not know that there are places where it is better to keep your head down and withdraw from friendly conversational impulses than to allow them (excepting @ the urinal).

Now that you mention it, public transportation (at least in the US) is a lot like a giant urinal. 

[hooplala]

^^^ Mostly that, with the exception of people who verge on grotesque. People have visceral reactions to that which is severely ugly. Not something you can help. Ugliness makes creepers worse, but an attractive person who is creepy is almost as bad, since it's a little disconcerting. I think a lot of people tend to except that attractive people have better social manners than that.
Although I've also found that attractive people are more presumptuous about their ability to steal others' time and attention than a plainer person and get more butthurt and nasty when they're rejected (the immediate result is "you're fugly anyway/such a bitch/why would anyone want you anyway/etc.").

I'm not sure what the bolded means exactly, but it stuck out to me.

Let's be honest, it's not really all THAT subjective.  While Tom Cruise might not be everyone's taste, I think we can all agree if you place him next to Christopher Lloyd its not difficult to grasp which one might be more universally accepted as "good looking"... AMIRITE?

But having said that, it IS interesting to note that both Garbo and Stella agreed on seemingly good-looking guys hitting on women in the subway as creepier than ugly guys doing it.  But then Garbo said "an attractive person who is creepy is almost as bad" - so what makes the attractive person creepy?  They place he chose to hit on someone?  Subway interactions are uncategorically off the table?  If Michael Fassbender approached and asked -ever so suavely- which way to Grand Central and, oh, what are you reading? I do adore the idea that the printed word is not dead... you would be squicked out?