Ski said something I found to be a fresh breath of ordinary wisdom. . .
But let's take that a step further. Is it wrong to assume that a person in a dance club in an ultra-short spandex dress is at least open to an advance with sexual overtones? Is it wrong to make such an advance, or is it only wrong to persist after having been told directly that person is not interested in your sorry ass?
Further nuance. . . a person in the grocery store in leggings that leave nothing to the imagination and an almost-illegally-brief crop top or sports bra. OK, if such a person is in the gym, that's functional and you should chill. But in the grocery store?
Clothing is, and has always been, far more about who and what you are and want than about protection from the elements or bumps and bruises. Even purely functional work clothing makes a statement if one is not at work. There are a million ways to "dress down" and make the statement that you're not trying to make a statement. And a billion ways to make your clothes a billboard with commonly-understood meanings.
If you dress in a way that says "I'm looking for a person to spend the night with" to the common cultural understanding, do you have any business being offended by a reasonably-polite-under-the-circumstances approach? At the moment, I'm only looking at the first approach. After that, the permutations explode into the trillions.
But just as Ski said, do you have any business getting "offended" at an honest and reasonable mistake? Are we now obligated to "assume nothing" in the face of a myriad social cues that have always had generally-understood meanings?
Makes sense to me. If a person presents publicly as a male in dress, hairstyle, and all those identifying social cues, I'll call that person by masculine pronouns unless and until corrected by somebody who knows what they're talking about, at which point I'll apologize (not because I did anything wrong, but as a social balm) and switch pronouns.
But let's take that a step further. Is it wrong to assume that a person in a dance club in an ultra-short spandex dress is at least open to an advance with sexual overtones? Is it wrong to make such an advance, or is it only wrong to persist after having been told directly that person is not interested in your sorry ass?
Further nuance. . . a person in the grocery store in leggings that leave nothing to the imagination and an almost-illegally-brief crop top or sports bra. OK, if such a person is in the gym, that's functional and you should chill. But in the grocery store?
Clothing is, and has always been, far more about who and what you are and want than about protection from the elements or bumps and bruises. Even purely functional work clothing makes a statement if one is not at work. There are a million ways to "dress down" and make the statement that you're not trying to make a statement. And a billion ways to make your clothes a billboard with commonly-understood meanings.
If you dress in a way that says "I'm looking for a person to spend the night with" to the common cultural understanding, do you have any business being offended by a reasonably-polite-under-the-circumstances approach? At the moment, I'm only looking at the first approach. After that, the permutations explode into the trillions.
But just as Ski said, do you have any business getting "offended" at an honest and reasonable mistake? Are we now obligated to "assume nothing" in the face of a myriad social cues that have always had generally-understood meanings?
