Comment by colanderman | Hacker News Reader

Comment by colanderman | Hacker News Reader

> “an honest man can no longer walk […] without being accosted by women who engage in revolting touches

Sounds like sexual assault. The author's take:

> the unwilling participation in a public sexual culture threatened the urban experience as imagined by privileged male pedestrians.

…? Freedom from sexual assault is an "urban experience as imagined by privileged male pedestrians"?

Maybe I'm missing something but the author's several tangents about patriarchy come across as totally non-sequitur in this article. Sure, male privilege is a thing, but what does it have to do with not wanting to be insulted/assaulted while out walking for the evening? What is the author's point?

I'm sure there's a point to be made about "women have had to endure such indignities, look at how men react when they are forced to too" but if that's what the author is trying to say, they're sure doing it in a ham-handed manner.

EDIT: After re-reading a few times I think the point the author is trying to make is that even privileged males, who typically could control the public space, were forced to reckon with the change in culture?

The whole thing is pretentiously written blather.

> This is not to say that all women who appeared in public were assumed to be sexually available, nor that middle-class women were forbidden from the streets. The streets enabled a wide variety of encounters, dependent on the particular circumstances in which they occurred.

Such insight!

Wow. Yeah, what a convoluted way to say "many things happen in the streets".

Sounds like sexual assault

Given the author's lack of concern, I think they are very opaquely alluding that the man must have secretly enjoyed it, therefore not sexual assault.

That these encounters bothered him enough to write, that they stayed with him after he moved on, highlights the ways sexual solicitation created new feelings and emotions that were anything but momentary.

A lot of these comments sound like the way men dismiss sexual assault of women. "She secretly wanted it" / "She was asking for it" / "She changed her mind later".

Or it could be he was just disgusted by being propositioned by whores.

The author shouldn't be making up just-so stories about how people in history really think about social issues.

It’s not rape if they were aroused by it, right?

(Once upon a time I wouldn’t have needed to put a /s here.)

That's arguably one of the worst things about rape. Your body can betray you.

I thought that the authors point is a description of an interesting change in social behavior in 1850's Paris, focused on the change as experienced by people walking along public streets.

Yes, I think this is the core of the piece, or at least the most interesting part (along with the later bit about how all women were put under suspicion):

« The “violation” felt by these two men at the attention of female prostitutes disrupted their ability to move about the city as they so chose, but it did not necessarily put into question their status as potential clients. Insofar as these “assaults” may have elicited a sexual response, they may have heightened their awareness of their status as sexual beings even as it challenged their gender privilege. »

It sounds like "violation" includes being propositioned.

The author has an axe of gargantuan proportions to grind. The whole piece is trash and incredibly sanctimoniously written. A huge shame given that it contains many historical and linguistic nuggets.

The point is about a change in expectations, norms, and public awareness that occurred at a certain time and place.

It's not sexual assault if the man is playing along and only mocking outrage or later on reflection outraged in the comfort of his study at his writing desk. Its about playing with boundaries at a time when culture change is shifting them.

If you think this kind of writing is about making a single point, you won't get it. It's about putting you in a time and place and giving you something to think (for yourself) about not telling you what to think, and making an airtight case.

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