Hey, baby, you want some of this?

About ten years ago, I was jogging on a winding, tree-lined street in the Bluffview area of Dallas. Mind you, I didn’t live IN Bluffview; my house was a small 2-bedroom in the “servants’ quarters” neighborhood adjacent to these enormous houses on hilly, wooded lots. The houses were set so far back from the road, behind screens of trees, that the road was almost like a secluded path through a forest — not like Dallas at all — which is why I liked jogging there so much.

On this particular weekend afternoon, I was running on the opposite side of the road (so I could clearly see cars coming around the tight curves in this area), minding my own business, mind wandering as it does when one runs, when suddenly something hit me, HARD, from behind. I stumbled to catch myself from falling flat on my face, and as I recovered I realized that what had hit me was a man’s hand, sticking out his car window, ON PURPOSE. He and his buddies had driven on the wrong side of the road, rolled down their window, and reached out to hit me on the butt. As I stood there furiously trying to figure out what to do, he drove on… very slowly, looking in his rearview mirror the whole time to gauge my reaction, and laughing.

I cannot even tell you how frightened I was, and repulsed, and angry, and all sorts of emotions. I worried that he might stop, or turn around and come back, and do who knows what to me — kidnapping, rape, and murder came to mind. I was alone on a road that wasn’t high-traffic. Luckily I was only a short distance from a major road so I turned and ran back that way as quickly as I could, before the man could decide to come after me. Luckily, he didn’t. He was just in it for thrills. Did he think he was paying me a compliment? That I would be flattered that he chose ME to assault?

When I’m out in the neighborhood walking, or really by myself on any public street, I often get catcalled by men driving by. It never happens when I’m with Doc, but it happens frequently when I’m by myself or with another woman. I have never, EVER mistaken those rude comments and yells as flattery. EVER. It’s not sexual in nature; it is a verbal assault based on a need to control. It’s a little scary sometimes. I always carefully watch the make and model of vehicle, and try to quickly change my route as soon as the car is out of sight, in case they try to come back.

Which is why the title of this article I read on CNN made me angry:

From a CNN article titled Catcalling: creepy or a compliment?:

“Being in a public space with a strange man who is being sexually aggressive is potentially dangerous,” [New York filmmaker Maggie] Hadleigh-West added….

“When a man catcalls you, you don’t know if it will end at that point or if it could escalate to assault,” [Kimberly Fairchild, assistant professor of psychology at Manhattan College] added….

On the other hand, some women appreciate the attention in certain cases, like Jessica, a 31-year-old health-care educator in Los Angeles who declined to use her last name to protect her privacy.

“Yeah, it’s objectifying and all, but you know, if I walked down the street and didn’t have men looking me up and down and catcalling, I’d think, ‘Boy, I must really be getting old and dumpy,’ ” she said.

Now granted, this was the article’s only mention of “catcalling is actually a compliment”, and it’s not a bad story otherwise, but the sensationalized headline made it seem like “ladies, you should be flattered… we’ll tell you why in this story!” (But I digress; sensationalized news headlines that have almost nothing to do with the story content is another rant for another day.)

A very astute response to the CNN article:

The thing about conflating cat-calling or other forms of domination with male sexual desire is that this is a gross insult to men who can tell the difference between “I’d like to see her smiling at me with pleasure” and “I’d like to see her crying in fear of my mighty manhood that needs constant reinforcing”.

I couldn’t have said it better myself. It has nothing to do with sex; it’s about control and dominance. It’s frightening, insulting, and an affront to the majority of men who are kind and decent people.