Maximus

Silly law.

I wouldn't flirt with someone with no sense of humour. Oh and I'm adept at recognising those people who prefer to be serious. Which means I'm discriminating too.
So I'm condemned if I do and damned if I don't... You work it out, I can't be bothered...

I'll continue to break the law along with all those other fun-loving dangerous-living flirtatious types.

Most of Fr Dave's argument is sound, but the example of the man convicted for taking a picture of a girl who was walking around topless in public, is a bit shaky.

Suppose she'd been wearing a jacket and pantsuit, and the man (a stranger) still wanted to photograph her? Wouldn't that also be weird?

As a male, I believe that for a woman to show off a *lot* of skin is unfair. Not to the rapist who gives in to his urges and assaults her, because he deserves all the punishment he gets, no excuses. But to the large majority of men, who would never think of touching her, or even of making a comment, whistling, or leering... but who now have one extra distraction to put out of their minds to get on with their working day.

Men can choose how they act. But they don't choose to be stimulated by the sight of women. Suppressing the natural response, which is the right thing to do anywhere outside the bedroom, imposes effort and concentration on men.

Putting aside the fact it involves sex, it's like someone whistling loudly or wearing a very strong perfume or aftershave. Doesn't give you any excuse in law, whatsoever, if you assault them. But it's bad manners.

I will repeat a point that I mentioned in another, but related topic: Girls don't dress that way to be attractive to men, or in most cases to try to attract men.

Girls dress that way in competition with each other as to who seems to be more attractive.

Do women have boob jobs and other plastic surgery to attract men? Not the ones that I have either spoken to or heard interviewed. They do it to boost their self esteem. When a woman wears a push up bra and shows cleavage it is to show to other women that she has cleavage, that her boobs are as good as anyone else's.

Many men, unfortunately, don't realise this. They somehow think that women have got some strange desire to attract every male in sight. Hate to tell you this guys, but it just ain't so.

What a woman is wearing is not an invitation for the whole male gender. It is at best a way of telling the specific guy that a woman really wants to be with at the time that she is as good looking as the next girl, so he should stay looking at her, and not at the competition.

There is a reason why fashion models are so skinny. It is to fool women into thinking that if they wear certain clothes they will look, to other women, as good as those skinny models. The other side of this is that I do not know one guy, except the woman hating gay fashion designers, who want to see women looking like these stick figures. Fashion is for women to look at other women.

Once again guys, get used to it: they are not dressing sexily in public for you.

You may be right, Hamlet, in many (most? all?) cases. But the male reaction is too deeply-wired to be very amenable to reasoning. (And no, I'm not saying men can't control whether they act on that reaction.)

Besides, at some point there must be some overlap between what women consider attractive for women to wear, what men consider attractive for women to wear, and what women think men consider attractive for women to wear, even if these don't always coincide.

As my wife once observed: women choose a black bra over a white one for purely functional reasons - to go under dark-coloured clothing - oblivious to the fact that to a lot of men, for some unexplained reason, the very act of wearing one is a "come-hither" signal.

Hands up those who think what Sheikh Hilali said was wrong, but thinks racist and bigot attacking Muslims and Islam is okay?

Hmmm, a little concerned.

Another religious type in Perth said that we women shouldn't also go out by ourselves. I took the message to be, that I should curtail a very enjoyable part of my life (bush walking) in case I encountered a male who would be then take it as given, that as I was by myself I was available to be used for instant sexual gratification.

If the Perth religious guy's idea catches on, I can't say I'm over joyed at the prospect of having to curtail my activities. Personally I'd prefer castration of all of these out of control males myself.

In another forum here, a poster pointed out that men don't seem to be overcome with uncontrollable lust in the presence of a police officer.

Also a few months back I got almost pushed off the walking path at Parliament house by a staring male so I had to take evasive action, that he knew, I was there. For a normal male, a simple hello would have done it. I think it must have been a Liberal staffer, as I was wearing a very attractive woolie cardie, my Great Grandmother would have looked good in.

Rape is about power, not sex or lust. He would have walked me off the path if I was wearing a pair of overalls. Maybe not if I was in cop uniform.