My Objection to Your Affection
Remember the guy who compared my ass to a Dairy Queen Blizzard? Counting him and the young, able-bodied "homeless" punk sprawled on the sidewalk who today looked up my skirt and then asked for my hand in marriage while I was out getting lunch (note to self: never get lunch again), that makes six times in seven days I've been hooted at by complete strangers while I'm going about my business in my generally modest attire and with my generally inconspicious presence. The award for Most Perplexing and Creepy: dude who hollered from a passing truck while I was walking down the street holding hands with Simon. Least Perplexing and Creepy: car full of young day laborers of a culture that considers piropos complimentary and not offensive.
Non-confrontational person that I am, I usually just ignore the jackassery, save for last Thursday when some dude "Woo!"ed me from the cab of his pimped-out, extended-cab small-weiner-mobile just five minutes after I'd scratched my new car. For him I had a finger and a naughty word, neither of which he probably saw or heard, but boy did the tiny Chinese lady sitting outside her tailor shop, judging by the way she cringed. Of course, immediately after I responded, I had the urge to duck and cover because in addition to being non-confrontational, I'm also paranoid; you never know who's packing heat in Piedmont.
Please be aware that I bring this up again not to illustrate how irresistable I am to the male species; in my book, I only care if two particular people think I'm cute, and Simon and my mom both insist they still do, so no one else's opinion really matters. I bring this up again because I want to know what these guys think they're doing? What are they trying to accomplish? And do they really have to be such dicks about it?
I have several working theories and want to know what you girls (and guys) think. Are they doing it to show off in front of their friends? Are they doing it because they think it's funny? Is it a cultural thing? Do I have toilet paper stuck to my shoe? Surely, they're not doing it because they think I'll stop and talk to them and then realize that they are what I have longed for my entire life, forget the guy whose hand I am holding at that very moment? That's just idiocy.
Here are my two most solid theories, which may not explain cat-calls in general but do a good job making sense of cat-calls directed at yours truly in the last week.
1. Most of the hooting sent my way comes from guys approaching from the back. In these cases, I think their main goal is to get me to turn my head so they can see if I'm as hot from the front as my long blonde ponytail promises from the rear. (I'll admit that from the back I can pass for Saddlebag Barbie, but head-on? Not so much.) Exhibit A: Last week while grocery shopping, Simon spent two minutes hovering behind a random girl in the vitamin supplement aisle because he needed to see if she was as cute from the front as she was from the back (she wasn't). If he can do something like that--with his girlfriend in tow, and while the random girl is with her boyfriend--it's not a far stretch to imagine men with much less couth driving down the street thinking it's okay to yell sweet nothings from their pimpin' rides just to get my attention for two seconds.
2. After a long and cold winter, it's finally spring, and the sun and the smell of cut grass and barbecue is infecting everyone with omnidirectional twitterpation. They can't help that they want to get with me. Also, warm weather = Leah wearing skirts, many of which she's had since high school = 36 inches of bare white flesh, or 12 inches of bare white flesh and argyle kneesocks. Either way, resistance is futile; it's in their nature*.
*I was looking for a link to the traditional Scorpion and Frog story when I came across the one linked above. I loved how the twist played into the entry I'd written, but I thought I'd also link to the original ending so those of you who don't already know it can be in on the joke too.
I do that sort of thing all the time. Usually the chick just does me in the nearest alley, because cat-calling is just so irresistible.
I don’t get the part about checking out the front to see if it’s as hot as the back. What difference does that make?
in the big picture it doesn't make any difference but i have to admit that while on the bus or subway i'll occasionally see someone and wonder if she's as hot from the front as she is from the back. . . i won't make any effort to go check her out but i *will* wonder about it. . . why do i wonder about things like that?. . . i have no clue, but i know i do it. . .
my pop-psychology guess as to why some guys catcall is that it's a combination of:
1. it give them a sense of power in ways such as, but not limited to, knowing that they can make someone else feel uncomfortable, with bonus points if that person is in a different (and "higher") social circle. . . i'm thinking the most comparable feeling you might have experienced is when you're hanging out with your friends and come up with a particularly witty put down (note that i'm not saying it's equivalent, but the sense of power might be somewhat similar). ..
2. much like how some people become dicks with the unaccountable anonymity that the internet provides, catcallers know that there's a very low probability that anything bad will happen to 'em. . .
3. as you've mentioned before, when they're with friends it can also be a pecking order and high-five moment - especially if they can get a reaction out of the girl (kind of related to #1) or if something particularly clever was said (the clever thing probably doesn't happen very often tho). . .
4. it actually works on occasion - i've *seen* it work. . .
funny thing about #1 is that when i lived in mexico for about a year and let my hair grow out, occasionally i'd get catcalled from the back. . . the balance of power would get an immediate flip-flop when i'd purposely turn around, the dude would see i was a guy, and all his friends would start giving him tons of shit. . . i have to admit that i genuinely got a kick out of it, and it was probably similar to the feeling the dude had when he originally did the catcall. . .
I too am sometimes curious about what people (guys and girls) look like from the front when they look really good from behind (or bad, as the case may be). Curiosity is natural. I don't go out of my way to check someone out, though, and I certainly wouldn't yell at them from a moving vehicle.
I think you're on to something re: power, Bloopy.
I agree with Bloopy's first three points. As someone who's been harassed by construction workers, gardeners, homeless men, &etc since I was eight, it's really just guys trying to get a rise out of you because they need it to get a rise out of themselves, if you catch my drift.
Ignoring it usually works, although sometimes it *can* escalate. I've only had it get maybe-dangerous once when a couple of guys in a pickup wouldn't let it go ("girls like you get raped" is what they ended with, charmers those two!)
There doesn't seem to be a pat answer as to why men do it or how women should react. I've tried ignoring it, getting angry, confronting them, and being a smartass.
Sometimes it's so fun to be a woman!
Oh christ. The random ogle. Down here, it's always geriatrics who are looking for their next wife, and I wish I was kidding.
Gross. GROSS.
i am just jealous. i am an old wrinkly, chubbed up fogie now. i remember when guys used to only talk to my breasts.
And all this time I thought that the well-documented phenomenon noted in bloopy's 2nd bullet point only applied within the confines of the Interweb...
In New York City, you can't go a block without being cat-called. Construction workers, homeless people, even Wall Street men in suits. The fact that they're so indiscriminate and will hoot and holler at anyone of the female variety, whether fat, skinny, tall, short, pretty, ugly makes me think it's a power play. A power play that has turned into a cultural thing.
The warmer the weather, the worse it gets. One of the only downfalls to the arrival of spring.
Oh and this morning, during my walk to work, I was walking behind a very cute puppy (and its owner). Before I turned a corner, I sped up a little to see if the puppy was as cute from the back as it was from the front (it was). So, yes, I play that game too.
Oops. I mean as cute from the FRONT as it was from the BACK.
I haven't had my coffee yet.
I think there's something to bloopy's power theory, and also to your theory #1, Leah. In addition to normal cat-calls and offers of rides (dude, has any girl/woman ever accepted a ride from you?), I sometimes go through stretches where EVERYONE seems to need to know the time, RIGHT NOW, FROM ME. As in, "Do you have the TIME? EXCUSE ME, do YOU have the TIME?" shouted at my back until I realize I'm the person being addressed and turn. It took me a while to figure out that these constant requests for the time coincided with when I dyed my hair pink or purple.
I used to do the whole "I wonder if they're as cute from the front" thing. I soon realized that very few are, so I stopped looking. It helps to not ruin the fantasy.
Lori--What is it with people asking ME the time when I'm listening to my iPod and I have a book in one hand and a mug in the other? Even though everyone else around me is completely unoccupied, I somehow seem the ideal person to interrupt. Maybe they just like watching me fumble everything--trying to take out my earbuds while not losing my place in the book or spilling hot beverage down my legs--only to find out that they want the time, which I never ever have. Argh.
Yeah. Men ogle women. Women ogle babies (and sometimes men). It's a gross generalisation but pretty much a universal truth.
And then there's the whole dilemma when approaching a building site of "I'll be pissed off if you whistle, I' pissed off if you don't."
Ah, yes, the cat call. I believe very greatly in your first theory, Leah, because when I had a convertible (nothing fancy: it cost $600) and my hair was more blonde than it is now, I was constantly ogled and cat called. I am utterly convinced that it was just an eye-catching phenomenon, not due to any inherent hotness. (Which, of course, is not to say that you aren't hot, because you are, just that some things get a lot of attention, like a long blonde ponytail or a chick in a convertible.)
Also, when I spent a semester in Italy, I had my butt pinched more in that period of time than I ever have in my whole life. Was I going to date these guys? No. Did they expect it? No. But I still had regular butt-pinching episodes.
I am a woman who never, ever ogles babies. Don't care for 'em. Puppies, though, yes. Beware my lewd come-ons, innocent puppies of the world!
As for theories, I do believe spring makes a big difference. All that skin after so many weeks or months of covering up every square inch (especially here in MN) -- it just revs everybody all up. But that can't be the whole explanation, and while I don't have any great ideas of my own to present, I'm intrigued by bloopy's theory about power. It makes sense. I think there's definitely something to your own first theory, too.
I also *like* to think (perhaps far, far too generously) that at least a small number of these guys--and the least crass and hooty of them, I suppose--genuinely want to (loudly) express their appreciation for the beauty of the female form. But yeah, this is probably a tiny minority. That said, it would be fun to go to a museum with this subset of catcallers. "Yeah, baby! You got it goin' on, Madame X!"
@no name: Hee, I ogle puppies/dogs, too.
@Leah: regarding the people asking you the time, you may simply look approachable/not scary!