First- A bit of backstory on this one:
Almost a week ago this post appeared on Fetlife and made it's way to K&P: None of your fucking business.
The gist of the story is that a lady, enjoying a coffee at the mall on her own was approached by some creepy guy who asked her, "What's your name, sweetheart?"
She responded by telling him that her name was none of his fucking business, and the responders to that post went, well... Postal. Especially the guys.
Apparently a great many of the male respondents had issues with a woman replying to an unwelcomed advance with anything other than the prettiest of manners.
Today this response made it's way to K&P, and it's brilliant: Entitled asshats don't deserve politeness.
(That's not the real title, just my two cents, BTW)
In it the author (who is highly educated and who dealt with abusive and predatory behaviors in an official capacity) states, "See, in the world of a predator, polite behaviors are the characteristics of a ‘mark’, an easy victim. My studies repeatedly reported that women who walk with their heads down, dress conservatively, speak softly and are polite as in ‘old school’ polite are seen by predators as more likely victims. It’s a myth that the confident, loud or even sexily dressed women draw the predator. The loud woman who walks with her head up and appears confident is more likely to make a fuss. More trouble makes it harder for the abusive individual to get what they want."
And that makes sense, which brings me to the point of my bloggy thing:
When newbie subs enter the Kinkyverse they're often buried under and figurative mountain of polite, and far more often, impolite virtual advances. One of the questions they will end up asking is "How do I respond to a dom when I'm not interested?"
And without fail, they will get the answer "Respond politely and respectfully..."
That's not surprising. Loads of people think that just because some random Dudebro has given himself a title he deserves respect (he doesn't), and loads of folks think that the appropriate way to respond to an advance from a stranger is with politeness... There's a lot of social conditioning that comes into play here.
There's also a lot of entitlement from some (I'm not going to say ALL) guys when it comes to unwelcome advances.
Those guys get really pissy when confronted with the fact that their advances might not be welcome and that a woman has the right to rebuff that advance in whatever way she sees fit. They think that just because they managed to make their way over to a random woman and managed to open their yap to make noises come out, she's obligated to respond nicely to them.
"If I've drummed up enough courage to approach you, the least you can do is be nice to me..."
Because: Entitlement.
And because guys just don't understand what it's like to be a girl, minding her own business, only to have some dudebro who thinks he's entitled to her time come and hit on/"compliment"/whatever her because that's what he wants (so who care if she doesn't want that).
And never mind the fact that there are some guys won't take a polite "no thanks" for an answer and see that polite turn-down as a soft "yes" to their unwelcome advances.
All of that brings me to this:
There are quite a few unpleasant people in the Kinkyverse, just like there are quite a few unpleasant people in Vanillaland, and those people- The ones who ping your Gut's internal Creep Radar? They don't deserve a "polite and respectful" decline. They deserve whatever you feel you need to say to get them to leave you the fuck alone, and if that response is "None of your fucking business" or "Leave me the fuck alone"? You have every right to say that. How they feel about it? It's not your problem.
Make a fuss if you need to.
(and seriously, if you're a member of Fet, go read that brilliant post).
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