Poll: Social Behaviors

[mightyjesse]

So, the strangest thing happened to me at the club the other night, and I'm trying to figure out whether or not I should feel irritated by it.

It was Leather and Lace night at the local goth club, and though I was propperly dressed for the occassion in a long broomstick skirt, coin belt, and fishnet shirt over black bra, I was, by comparison, rather more conservatively dressed than many. So there I was, standing at the bar and talking to my hairdresser, when I felt someone attempting to hike up my skirt. I was a bit outraged, and looked down to see a blond guy kneeling on the floor next to me, moving my skirt around and looking at... the floor... I was still nonplussed that he would move my garments around without asking, but thought that maybe he had lost something important like a contact and just wasn't paying attention to who/what he might be touching.

"Did you lose something?" I asked him.

"No. I just wanted to see what your feet looked like," he said.

...
...

He vanished before I could really compute enough of his statement to be offended or weirded out, but now I'm rather hacked off. Had he stayed, I'm still trying to decide what would have been the appropriate reaction.

So for your voting pleasure, a poll:

[Poll #902879]

Comments

Oh my! Perhaps I AM a bitch...

[kalakittie.livejournal.com]

I'm a little less inclined to be tolerant, apparently...because he touched you, in the process....if he was just staring at your feet, yeah well, OK. But the fact that he moved your skirt around w/ out asking is, well, wrong. I don't care if you're at a fetish nite or on the friggin' street, some manners do apply....In fact, I beleive strongly that manners are MORE important in venues like fetish events because the possibilities of misunderstanding are a good bit higher - the context is very different.

Bottom line - it is NOT OK for a stranger to touch you w/ out asking....and if they do, they deserve whatever pummeling you feel inclined to give. And a healthy dose of loud public embarrassment, too, to help reinforce the lesson.

Re: Oh my! Perhaps I AM a bitch...

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I'm with you, total stranger! The atmosphere makes basic manners more important, not less so, and touch requires permission. Showing up for a fetish night of that sort is not a blanket permission. There is no such thing as an implied blanket permission to touch anybody you want. That sort of thing has to be explicit.