What is it with unsolicited groping among gay men?

[+ PhileasFogg]

2 hours ago, soloyo215 said:

Assault? Sounds a little dramatic. Unwanted advances, boundary crossing, poor judgement, harassment, not respecting personal space maybe, but assault? To me assault involves a level of aggressiveness where you need to physically defend yourself, not fend off unwelcome touch.

REGARDLESS, I agree that it could be quite uncomfortable. However, if I could ask, had there been instances when you have welcomed such "approach"? I ask since this has been the topic of many conversations I've had with friends, family and in many other social settings for decades. The thing is that the vast majority of the time the person complaining does so only when they feel the touch and groping is unwanted, neglecting to recognize the other times when the same touching and groping has been welcome and wanted. Of course, I don't know you, which is why I inquire. Every time I have a conversation about this, that's my starting point.

Many times we focus on the touch we don't welcome, neglecting to recognize that the same approach is used with the touch we have welcomed from other people.

Just my thoughts, not law.

As I said, I’m not trying to blow my personal experience out of proportion BUT, yes, lack of consent constitutes assault in most places according to my research.

Maybe it’s a surprise to some - but times have changed.   If you haven’t heard, “Baby It’s Cold Outside” was blacklisted by #MeToo for glamorizing date rape.

And I will say that the two advances I’ve described were completely unsolicited and unwelcomed and, given their degree of intimacy, would have met the standard to constitute a crime.

so, pray tell, how is anything I’ve described different from this:

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-45958023.amp

[jeezifonly]

In a public social situation where rules of conduct aren't enforced, use humor to deflect. Nothing too bitchy, but if privately blocking his progress with your hand hasn't been heard, engage your inner Dorothy Zbornak.

[+ nycman]

5 hours ago, PhileasFogg said:

I’m not trying to blow my personal experience out of proportion BUT…..

Edited September 16 by nycman

[+ Pensant]

I wouldn’t dream of touching somewhat like that; however, if a cute guy pinched my muscular ass, I’d invite him to continue!

[+ PhileasFogg]

1 hour ago, Pensant said:

I wouldn’t dream of touching somewhat like that; however, if a cute guy pinched my muscular ass, I’d invite him to continue!

Maybe that’s the problem…they weren’t cute 😂😂🤠.  But seriously, if it were a cute guy, I’m sure the signals would have been there 

[+ PhileasFogg]

1 hour ago, nycman said:

Tell me why this is right and proper behavior and I’ll concede that point.  But so far, all I’m hearing is justification for why it’s acceptable bad behavior.   And if you don’t see the difference, then I hope you don’t try it with the wrong young man or you might find yourself in cuffs of the involuntary kind 😉

[+ nycman]

6 minutes ago, PhileasFogg said:

And if you don’t see the difference, then I hope you don’t try it with the wrong young man or you might find yourself in cuffs of the involuntary kind

 

[+ Vegas_Millennial]

7 hours ago, PhileasFogg said:

Maybe it’s a surprise to some - but times have changed.   If you haven’t heard, “Baby It’s Cold Outside” was blacklisted by #MeToo for glamorizing date rape.

This is so sad.  Do ya'll carry a consent form that must be signed and notorized before ya'll begin flirting with a stranger?  Can't wait for the pendulum of society overreaction to swing back to sanity.

[+ Vegas_Millennial]

2 hours ago, PhileasFogg said:

Tell me why this is right and proper behavior and I’ll concede that point.

You're asking a group of men who hire masseurs specifically to grope them and receive groping in return, who hire and sell sex with strangers, and who discuss which steam rooms in public gyms have the most action, to condemn a flirtatious grope while you were naked in the pool!  Most all here think the existing laws regarding prohibiting sex or public sex are overreaching.  So while quoting what a law book says about sexual harassment/abuse might earn you points with the #MeToo crowd, you're not going to get sympathy from the majority of men here who would visit Hacienda and Island House looking for such activity.

You're like a guy standing at the gym's steam room door with a whistle trying to stop any sexual activity that's going on in there. 👮‍♂️While the law may be on your side, public opinion on among the Company of Men is not.

My favorite gay men's hotel starts with a penis measurement by the owner upon check-in.  🍆 The owner offers 1% off the price of the room per inch upon check-in.  Besides offering a discount, the act of the owner fondling the customer to get an exact measurement sets the mood for the property that flirtatious touching is normal and to be expected. 🎉 

BTW, "Baby It's Cold Outside" is still on my Christmas playlist. 🎄 

Edited September 16 by Vegas_Millennial

[+ MikeThomas]

When I came out in the 80s, gay bars were the place you went to meet other gay men.  There was always a lot of flirting going on.  Occasionally there would be some "innocent" groping.  If you liked the guy, you would smile, grope back and talk.  If you didn't like the guy, you would smile and let him know you weren't interested.  No one felt violated.  If he persisted, then you would respond with a more emphatic no.  Usually it would end there.

[+ SirBillybob]

The settings are tricky because the rules and standards of flirtatious engagement shift according to where on the social continuum between a church social and a backroom sex party the activity occurs. Whereas the groping unambiguously and formally represents a sexual violation without considering context, a court of law would be hard pressed to determine whether the alleged offender did not accurately and respectfully assess whether a true swipe left from the recipient had occurred in relation to the initial physical pass made that is technically illegal but may be contextually, informally tolerable at the level of expected venue etiquette.

If you say that the problem was that the flirter did not get the boundary message that you politely conveyed upon his first attempt you are already conceding some degree of acceptable courtship style fluidity. While such a grey area undermines the intent of the law to err in favour of the recipient of unwanted advances, many of us position ourselves in settings where we adapt to more aggressive and physically explicit flirting that would be deemed nonconsensual elsewhere. 

I have technically had my boundaries violated a few dozen times this year. I must have ‘Stockholm syndrome’ because I have just booked returning to the scene of the crime. That said, a spontaneous digital rectal exam without the necessary visa paperwork greenlighting it is bad form. 

Edited September 16 by SirBillybob

[BSR]

1 hour ago, MikeThomas said:

When I came out in the 80s, gay bars were the place you went to meet other gay men.  There was always a lot of flirting going on.  Occasionally there would be some "innocent" groping.  If you liked the guy, you would smile, grope back and talk.  If you didn't like the guy, you would smile and let him know you weren't interested.  No one felt violated.  If he persisted, then you would respond with a more emphatic no.  Usually it would end there.

I am drawing lines of distinction, and I hope others on this thread are too.  In my opinion, there is a helluva difference between groping someone’s clothed ass (like at a gay bar), someone’s naked ass (like at a gay clothing-optional resort) and sticking a finger up someone’s butthole without permission.  I don’t care where you are or what the “culture” is, penetration without consent is way over the line, and I’m shocked it is considered acceptable, even at a gay clothing-optional pool/hot tub with a bunch of drunk, horned-up guys.  I have to admit that because I’ve never been to a gay clothing-optional resort (in Palm Springs or anywhere else), groping someone’s naked ass seems too aggressive, something I would never do, but if that is indeed the culture at such spots, I guess one has choose to accept it or choose to avoid those places.  Groping someone’s clothed ass, pffft, smile, tell the groper you’re not interested, and move on.

[topunderachiever]

Prudes with Pearls are exhausting.

[LookingAround]

This happened in a clothing optional setting. Come on. Nothing to see here. This is common and even expected behavior. Of course if you say no thanks that's different. 

Edited Wednesday at 04:06 PM by LookingAround

[BSR]

2 hours ago, topunderachiever said:

Prudes with Pearls are exhausting.

Not sure who exactly you’re referring to, so to be clear:  you think it’s OK to put your finger up someone’s asshole without consent?  

[+ Lucky]

8 hours ago, Pensant said:

I wouldn’t dream of touching somewhat like that; however, if a cute guy pinched my muscular ass, I’d invite him to continue!

I wouldn't like it if a guy for whom I had shown no interest groped me. But then you encounter situations like @Pensant describes above. Who is going to complain if a hot stud gropes you?

[+ sniper]

46 minutes ago, BSR said:

Not sure who exactly you’re referring to, so to be clear:  you think it’s OK to put your finger up someone’s asshole without consent?  

That part, as I said, was clearly over the line and OP is right to be upset 

The others are very context dependent. And when the context in question is a clothing optional establishment where public sex is, at a minimum, not condemned, I'd say some light otherwise inappropriate touching is somewhat expected if not hoped for by many, and a "No, thank you" is a more appropriate response to an unwanted butt squeeze than "Well, I never! You ...you masher!"

 

 

[soloyo215]

15 hours ago, PhileasFogg said:

As I said, I’m not trying to blow my personal experience out of proportion BUT, yes, lack of consent constitutes assault in most places according to my research.

Maybe it’s a surprise to some - but times have changed.   If you haven’t heard, “Baby It’s Cold Outside” was blacklisted by #MeToo for glamorizing date rape.

And I will say that the two advances I’ve described were completely unsolicited and unwelcomed and, given their degree of intimacy, would have met the standard to constitute a crime.

so, pray tell, how is anything I’ve described different from this:

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-45958023.amp

Even if that's a socially acceptable norm, which I don't think it is (times have changed, though people, injustices, violence, rape, prejudices and sociopolitical nonsense haven't), it still doesn't answer my question or address my point, which is, have there been instances when the "assault" to use your wording, has been welcome? In my experience, many people (including a lot of the "me too" people) complain only and exclusively when it works for their purpose, not labeling it "assault" when they like it.

The "Me too" thing to me is a big fat failure. As some comedian pointed out, it became a tool for discrimination. The hashtag sign is also the pound sign. It makes more sense to call it "pound me too". It has not done a single thing to advance any rights, to end violence, to raise awareness. What it has done is creating more segregation more violence and more discrimination. Rather than a news story, there's research to support my statements (just go to Google Scholar or Pew Research and do a search on the effects of the Me Too "movement").

The Me Too Movement had migrated from a defender of the vulnerable, to a censor and then political machine that only serves to water down and detract from the Movement's original, righteous purpose.

And of course, there are many of us who rely on reason and don't support any nonsensical definitions at people's convenience.

So I ask again directly this time, what do you do when you like the "assault"? Is it still "assault"?

Edited September 16 by soloyo215

[+ José Soplanucas]

28 minutes ago, soloyo215 said:

So I ask again directly this time, what do you do when you like the "assault"? Is it still "assault"?

Don't liking it implies consent? There is no assault if there is consent. Rather than assault, it would be a forward seeing move.

[+ sniper]

2 minutes ago, José Soplanucas said:

Don't liking it implies consent? There is no assault if there is consent. Rather than assault, it would be a forward seeing move.

The problem there being that personal interactions are messy, not all communication is verbal and direct, and there needs to be some allowance for honest mistakes versus predation. There's socially awkward, there's the cad, and then there's the criminal. Lumping the three together - which a lot of people online do - doesn't seem to have helped much with reducing the worst offenders.

[+ Jamie21]

I think different standards for men and women is fine. There’s a different power dynamic between men and women than exists between men and men. I’d expect a man in receipt of an unwanted grope to feel much more able to reject it confidently than a woman in receipt of an unwanted male grope. Therefore one must proceed much more carefully and courteously in groping a woman. Also any grope is unwanted by definition, it’s a grope. If it was wanted it would be called a caress or a stroke and likely will have been given by someone who the receiver finds attractive. The same touch by someone the receiver finds unattractive is a grope. The former leads to an intimate relationship the latter leads to a slap or a conviction at worst. 

I recall being at a sex party. I was on a bed in a large group of people. One wore a wristband to indicate whether you were top, bottom or vers. Within the group it wasn’t always easy to identify which body part belonged to which wristbanded wrist. Occasionally a total top might risk being penetrated (This is the advantage of being vers I think 🙂). At one point someone shrieked and withdrew themselves indignantly from the mass of bodies saying they’d been assaulted. The host asked them what happened and he pointed to a guy and said the guy had tried to penetrate him and it was unwanted. The ‘victim’ had a top wristband on. The host basically said to the ‘victim’ to get real - you’re naked at a sex party with a dozen other naked guys on a bed. What do you expect? 
 

Edited September 16 by Jamie21

[mike carey]

2 hours ago, Jamie21 said:

The host basically said to the ‘victim’ to get real - you’re naked at a sex party with a dozen other naked guys on a bed. What do you expect? 

Context is everything!

Seems to me that there's a lot of pearl clutching here, much of it from people who are upset that their right to make unsolicited sexual contact with another person is being questioned. The law has to be clear, people's wishes and intentions rarely are. The law prescribes what is and isn't unlawful, and has to consider situations where there is a power imbalance, often a profound one, between the people involved. So, unwanted sexual touching, clothed or unclothed may be unlawful. Consent changes that, but under the law consent may not be able to be assumed. Even without prior consent, there would be no offence if it were given retrospectively, and usually stopping when told it was unwelcome is enough. Being told to 'be a good sport' or that 'you really enjoyed it so why are you complaining' is a confession.

But context is still everything.

[+ nycman]

3 minutes ago, mike carey said:

Seems to me that there's a lot of pearl clutching here….

[+ PhileasFogg]

After 12 hours of traveling, I'll offer a couple of thoughts:

1) Good discussion and glad to see various perspectives offered

2) I'm sorry to see that some of you have responded to what you think I said happened and not what I actually described.

3) I'm fine if someone wants to say "hey, I think I personally might have enjoyed it."   BUT, you are NOT entitled to say the same for me.   @topunderachiever, you don't know me.   Do not presume to have any basis to insult me with your prude/pearls comment....whether that was directed to me or @BSR, if you think it's right, then bless your sweet little heart.   You can just go ahead an block me right now.

4) As many have noted - times have changed.   As many of the older folks on this forum are critical of the younger ones for less safe sex practices "these days,"  many of the younger folks see consent and respect differently.   Views on public nudity and consent are much more refined these days.   And to the older folks, shame on you for teaching and/or modeling to the younger folks that this is OK.   I'm over 60 and have NEVER been in an environment where this type of behavior is acceptable.

5) Some of you seem to bristle when I quote the law in what some suggested was a narrow sense.   Actually, I simply quoted the law without personal bias.   It's you choosing to interpret it loosely (based on your wishes), but those wishes carry zero weight in court.    I will note that a number of public personalities have been "cancelled" and/or prosecuted both criminally and civilly over mere allegations of crossing these lines of propriety.

Here are facts:

I went to clothing optional resorts to get a tan not to get groped.   I did NOT participate in IH's hot tub, red room, or sauna scenes (notwithstanding the fact that what happened two nights ago was at a bar on Duval St and NOT at IH)   One guy, last night over drinks, even said that my (very fine looking) companion and I had intimidated them and were deemed unappoachable because we were clearly together - with each other - and not playing the field.   Said guy was telling us this while his husband was in their room with another guest - to which I say - live and let live even if it ain't for me.

I will note that earlier this year at Boy Beach in PTown, not a single person came up to grope either me or my very good looking travel companions. 

 

Each of you with differing views is entitled to your view, responsible for your actions, and man enough to own the repercussions of your actions.   My suggestion - not everyone shares your view and, if pressed, the law is not very accommodating to your actions.

Now, after 700 miles by plane and 400 miles by car, I'm going to bed.  Good night

 

 

[+ Jamie21]

5 hours ago, mike carey said:

Context is everything!

Yes indeed. There’s a lot going on in that original post.