The guy's not necessarily a pervert -- he could just have vivid memories of touching sixteen-year-old tits from when he was sixteen. I suppose it's possible that I have touched fifteen-year-old tits -- I can't remember when exactly my high school girlfriend let me "get that far."
There's also the chance that he was grabbing twelve-year-old asses when he was nineteen -- no harm no foul.
I'm can't pin down the various referents of "that." Is the claim that the breasts are too firm to be compared to the mousepad, and therefore the ass is a better comparison? That's how it reads to me. But I would have thought the order of body firmness went in the other direction. Which, I think, would mean that the compared body part should have moved towards an older person - older usually meaning more gushy. But I lack the varied experience to be sure of this.
One summer in college, I was working in a stockbroker's office. The stockbroker's 14 year old son was doing odd jobs around the office. On one occasion, I found him rubbing himself against a filing cabinet. I just walked out of the room and, for a while, we both pretended that nothing had happened. Then, later, he had to help me lift a box, and the positions were such that when he hoisted it up the back of my hand brushed against his thigh. I could tell he had a little moment of... something... there, because he almost dropped the box.
He was babyfaced and very innocent-looking and I felt troubled about it, expecting someone to rush in and arrest me. Luckily, there were only two or three days to go at that point, and I could just avoid him the rest of the time.
Was this a male or female coworker? Female might have a better idea of relative firmness of parts, but then, there's no way a female used the word "tits," so I'm guessing male.
14 - I guess it depends on the twelve-year-old. My memories of Seventh Grade are dim, but I seem to recall there being at least some babyfat arriving on the butts of the girls.
Babyfat arriving? Okay, 12-year old girls who are pregnant, yes, are obviously post-pubescent, and therefore will have different butts from both boys and their less-mature peers.
This reminds me of the time I got my ass grabbed just off campus in the very quiet, upper-middle class, leafy neighborhood wherein was located my off-campus dorm. I was just walking along, wearing my daffodil dress, when all of a sudden I felt two hands, one on either buttock, grip my ass and squeeze, hard. By the time I turned around in shock all I could see was a white guy with close-cropped hair, wearing a white t-shirt and blue athletic shorts running off. I was too stunned to say anything. I heard someone yell, "Darren." Now, if this happened in New York I'd be upset and pissed, but because of the sheer incongruity of it all, I mostly just thought it was funny. After thinking about it for a while, I decided that I guessed I had been sexually assaulted and I ought to say something about it, and beside, walking over the the campus police-type people would be more fun than doing my homework, so I went over. They had to refer my case over to the town police, because it had happened off campus, so I got a voice mail message from a town policeman, the first 15 seconds of which was laughter, because at the time I had a voice mail greeting that was me somewhat adorably rapping "The Real Slim Shady" with a play on my name. So I had to fill out a statement with the town police, and meanwhile the campus police put up posters about the incident with the description I had given them, but they were unfortunately graphic in their description of what had happened, so the "ass grabbing" became a campus joke for months to come, and I felt like a minor celebrity, except only my friends knew it had been me, so whenever I heard it discussed I would enthusiastically interject, "That was me! I got my ass grabbed!" Adding to the hilarity was that there was a kid named "Darren" who roughly answered to the description I had given, so everybody teased him about being the assgrabber, though in fact, I could eliminate him since his hair was not close-cropped. All in all, it was an exciting interlude, though in fact, it was less harmless than it first appeared, because it turned out later that same day someone who looked like my ass grabber had tried to kiss a twelve year old in an underpass.
Also – the little stick-like pointing device on a laptop? It is commonly called a "nipple", which annoys me. It does indeed resemble a part of the female anatomy but a nipple ain't it.
(Hoping this thread turns into memoirs by all the female Unfogged commenters, on occasions of having their juvenile asses grabbed. That's my ticket to ride -- then I can turn around and sell the comments to various publications under various assumed names.)
what's up with you people? ass-grabbers are gross.
Last year we had a Bicycle Groper who would regularly grope various body parts of women, typically breasts, while riding past them on a bicycle -- usually on the street that was my daily commute. Reports of him kept coming in for several months.
I myself was hoping to encounter him, being sure that I would have the presence of mind to knock him off his bike as he grabbed, ideally causing him Major and Grievous Bodily Harm when he fell. (You know that study they are trumpeting right now about men having some neurological monopoly on desires for justice and vengeance? Dubious.) But he must have been able to read minds since it never happened.
22---sigh. Babyfat is what a number of guys (that is, I'm not the only person to ahve said it, but I'd to to vouch for it being in the general lexicon) call the soft, filling out but not muscular type of ass-flesh that teenage girls get in their early to mid-teens, which then turns firmer as the girl actually becomes a woman.
ps. I think it's pretty funny, in an odd and somewhat disturbing sort of way, that when you and your (presumably adult) co-worker were feeling this mousepad and the first comment out of his mouth was "Oh, that feels just like a sixteen-year-old's tits," your response was a cool and analytic "Really, you think so? That's awfully firm."
I think my response would have been to just stare at him with a look of horror and bewilderment.
Hey all this talk of trackpoints makes me wonder if any of you could direct me to a resource. Ellen prefers to use the touch-pad part of her track-point; but she spilled coffee on it a couple of weeks ago and it is not working very well anymore. She can use the little red nipple part ok but does not like that as well. Where can I read instructions on taking the touch-pad part off and cleaning it, or putting a new one in? Are they easy to find for sale?
61: As someone said upthread, he could have had occasion to feel a 16-year-old's tits when he was himself around that age. (One hopes that is the explanation.)
64: Frederick- yes, I've read upthread, and I understand that he's probably not a child molestor. And this woudl probably be running through my mind as I looked at him with a look of bewilderment.
But still, that's an awfully shocking thing to have come out of an adult male's mouth upon first touching a gell-filled mousepad.
And it's not the comment itself that I was even highlighting, but ogged's rather nonplussed, matter-of-fact reaction to the comment.
One time, and one time only, I was on a subway with Tia. And we were making palaver 'bout domestic stuff, like pocket mending, and all I could think about how I was wishing we were in Tokyo during rush hour, where Tia'd be all pressed up against me and some Japanese businessman would be grabbing my ass. No wait, that's not right...
There are coworkers, and then there are coworkers. I've been mooned, I've played strip drinking games, I've had someone attempt to dry-hump my wife in a drunken game of truth or dare...
Well, I'd say that banter's inappropriate for work even if he was referring to his teenaged years.
It certainly wouldn't be appropriate for general consumption. But I can imagine certain guys who would jocularly say something like that to another guy whom they knew wouldn't be offended (or a woman whom they knew wouldn't be offended, but there probably wouldn't be many of those) if no one else was within earshot. And I can easily imagine someone saying it in an all-male workplace, where I suspect the office dialogue is considerably raunchier than in sex-integrated workplaces.
And I can easily imagine someone saying it in an all-male workplace, where I suspect the office dialogue is considerably raunchier than in sex-integrated workplaces.
IMO it's never a good idea unless you're off work premises, because one day you'll think you're certain no one's within earshot...and then you're creating a hostile work environment. I guess Ogged didn't say whether this exchange took place at work.
Re: 75 - I guess it's possible that Ogged, using his sovereign authority as blogowner, dissolved our agreement in the same motion as deleting the comments.
God, speaking of inappropriate workplace behavior, even if you think you're a funny guy, even if you think everyone likes you, do not walk up to somebody else's secretary and take the pen she is using to write with out of her fucking hand, saying, "Just a sec, I'll give it back."
We were in a comment thread somewhere in the Mineshaft and laughing over this absurd remark or that when he leaned back in his chair and jumped the conversational tracks. "I've got one," he said, an evil glint in his eye. "How does every joke about sixteen-year-old's tits and twelve-year-old's asses begin?"
Iranian human-rights activists have won a partial victory in their long battle to protect children from being married off by their parents before they begin puberty. After months of deliberation, Iranian authorities recently approved a law that requires court approval for the marriage of girls below the age of 13 and boys younger than 15.
Prague, 28 June 2002 (RFE/RL) -- There are no official statistics for how many young children in Iran are married off by their parents before they become teenagers. But the practice has long been considered commonplace in the countryside and in smaller towns where traditional values rule. There, parents often arrange marriages for their children long before the children themselves are old enough to give their informed consent.
Such child marriages not only are sanctioned by tradition, they also are permitted under Iran's legal code. The law permits parents to marry off girls at the age of 9 and boys at the age of 14.
Now, however, Iranian human-rights activists have won a partial victory in a long-running battle to raise the marriage age for children.
This month, Iranian authorities approved a law requiring parents to obtain court permission for marriages of girls under the age of 13 and of boys younger than 15. At the same time, children above those ages will be allowed to marry voluntarily.
I read some piece 25+ years ago, IIRC a translation of something written by the Ayatollah Khomeini, in which he said how cool it was when a girl had her menarche (first menstrual period) in the house of her husband. Yuck.
There's a guy I used to work for who is notorious for saying inappropriate things who was looking to hire an admin about a month ago. (Classic tale: he accidentally left pr0n up on his computer on Take Your Daughter To Work Day.) Knowing the guy's history, one of the major criteria used by the person who was doing the hiring for him was finding someone who wouldn't sue the company. She called me up and asked if I knew anybody who wouldn't mind being sexually harassed if it meant they got profit-sharing and a good health plan.
You're right -- your first comment escaped on a technicality. But in explaining yourself, you violated the agreement (assuming it's still in force, which is anything but certain given the extremely august prerogatives Ogged is claiming for himself lately). I'm willing to look the other way on the violation, given that I incited you to do it.
81: No. I guess I could write him an email asking him not to do that anymore. I worked in this very department in another position about a year ago, and a different prof walked around me into my workspace, took my stapler, and walked off with it, and eventually returned it by leaving it on the edge of my desk, all without saying a word. I wrote him a polite email asking him not to do that again, and he was mortified, and apologized to me both by email and in person.
Tia, put up a sign that says "Please, do help yourself to anything you like from this desk, even if I am actively using it. After all, I do live to serve you."
Or alternately, drop the sarcasm and put up a sign that says "please do not borrow my shit without asking, especially if I am actually using it."
So Ogged really is asserting the jus primae noctis. [there is an implied link to a classic Wolfson comment that Google is unable to locate at the moment.]
Here's another story about workplace banter: my (white) boyfriend has a teasing relationship with his gay, black coworker, and they like to give each other a hard time. A little while ago, one of their other coworkers was yelling something to the GBC about how they needed something "up here," but the GBC couldn't quite hear her. So my bf chimes in, " 'Up in here'--Say it so he can understand it." I didn't even get this, but my bf explained to me that "up in here" is black slang. Apparently such joking jumped over the bounds of acceptable teasing they'd established, and the conversation petered out awkwardly. My boyfriend, mortified, proceeded to IM him to apologize like eight zillion times.
I think Walter posted more times than the rest of current commenters combined on that thread, caused a rip in the fabric of reality, and fell into another dimension.
I should say that, annoying as I found Sobchak in that thread, he figured out that he'd made an error of fact causing him to be unfair to B later on, and apologized, which is the kind of thing that lots of people don't do. So all appropriate kudos to him for that.
Adam, I'm too thick to figure out whether that was a joke. If it isn't, "heaven help us" is all that I can say.
And since Adam already switched topics, I feel that it's okay for me to detour the conversation a bit.
Today I couldn't tune in to Air America on my dying clock radio, and I wound up listening to a few minutes of Rush Limbaugh, and, I have to say, I actually agreed with something he said.
He was going on about how mainstream and okay Alito is, and then he said, "If he's really that bad, why aren't the Democrats willing to filibuster him?" Since he is really that bad, I say, why indeed?
Becks, I was trying to imply that the panda-based bestiality was a new torture method they were trying out, based on the powers inherent in the president to make people have sex with a panda.
I never thought it would happen to me, but I have an awkward work relationship to share. I'm editing a coursebook on finance for a guy who happens to be dating the senior vice president of [dayjob], a smallish, casual, liberally inclined organization. The project is freelance, I've been working on it for maybe three months off and on, and we only speak occassionally by e-mail or telephone.
One day he took me to lunch, and we had a nice, professional-to-friendly lunchtime conversation. He's even a minor art collector, so. One week later he calls me during the day and greets me as "cutie" when I picked up the line. I thought surely he meant to call his ladyfriend with the corner office and was only playing through, but no: in subsequent phone calls, I graduated to "handsome" and even soared to "sexy," which I skip right over.
I know perfectly well that he's merely assuming a comfort level that does not exist, and it's annoying and even a little pathetic. But I reluctantly admit that it's an illustration of why fun should not be tolerated in the workplace.
And Becks will henceforth be known as BG--except that I think that would be an unfair trade. All the benefit of Becks's comments would accrue to me, and she'd be stuck with my dumpy ones.
Someday, Becks and Bostoniangirl hope to be as cool eachother, assuming as a general rule that when A is as cool as C, and B is as cool as C, then A and B are as cool as each other.
It is creepy, but at the same time, he's not a creepy guy—I really think that he assumes a level of familiarity we just don't share, and is probably jokey like this with most people he works with. Since the project's nearly finished, I'm content to bite my tongue. The only thing is that I think I might be doing his next colleague/collaborator a favor by pointing out his behavior.
Thanks Smasher. When I called a week or so ago, as a constituent, I was told that he was waiting--out of politeness-- for the judiciary committee to vote.
I then urged him to vote no. I can't tell whether he cares what his constituents think. Kennedy's office asked for my zip code, but Kerry's didn't bother.
I need to call Kennedy to thank him for voting against Alito and then urge him to filibuster.
I'm sure that they get calls from a lot of wackos, but the utter imperturbability of the staff assistants is kind of unnerving. If you call and say that you think that Alito's view of executive power is dangerous and a threat to our constitution, the person just says, "thank you for your call." And maybe s/he makes a note of it. I'd love to hear someone say, "I know." There is no emotion at all. It makes me feel stupid for caring.
But treasure your right to talk with an ignoramus, BG! I have called my former representatives, who are neither sympathetic to my political views nor my plight—sometimes they will simply hang up.
I have lived in DC and been without representation. I haven't had a chance to vote in a Democratic primary for a long time, but DC representation iss something I will definitely ask any candidate to support.
DC for Democracy was planning to start a PAC to give money to candidates who support voting rights for the District.
"The utter imperturbability of the staff assistants is kind of unnerving. "
Jesus, during the election a whole bunch of use were screaming at them trying to get them to notice the Swift Boaters. They were as imperturbable as iguanas.
BTW, if I told you that pandas have corkscrew penises like warthogs, would know that I was lying?
And I can easily imagine someone saying it in an all-male workplace, where I suspect the office dialogue is considerably raunchier than in sex-integrated workplaces.
Or, unfortunately, in workplaces (or philosophy departments) that were recently all-male, but aren't now. You know we're just kidding, right?
Or, unfortunately, in workplaces (or philosophy departments) that were recently all-male, but aren't now.
Yes. I suspect that my sense of the raunchiness of the atmosphere in all-male workplaces comes largely from reading about sexual harassment cases arising in formerly all-male workplaces, where the men often treat the women who have newly integrated the workplace very badly. See, e.g., Catharine MacKinnon, Sexual Harassment of Working Women. I hadn't realized that philosophy departments were such hotbeds of testosterone, though.
141: that and so many analytic philosophy departments seem to produce people who want to talk about what borders on neuroscience without actually taking the trouble to be neuroscientists -- or instead to do the things that philosophy is very useful for doing, rather than the things for which it is often a blunt instrument not suited.
or did i just encounter a bad patch in the department?
7) Cash payment. 8)Business relationship that will result in multiple cash payments, over a long period of time, and possibly paid employment after leaving office.
All communications to public officials you have no special connection with are just going to be tallied. If your message is "Filibuster Alito", you should puff it up into about 30-40 words to make it look like an actual letter, but in such a way that the person reading it can put it on the right pile as quickly as possible.
I don't know that. I know that they discount mass emails that all say the same thing. Having an individual message is important. And I would guess that a stamped letter or a phone call counts more than an email.
Also, be polite and don't tell them to go fuck themselves, even if it seems like the most sensible thing to say at a given time.
I interned in a Senate office this past summer, so I can actually answer JM's question. Emerson's 151 is correct -- a form letter will get a form response at best. Mass e-mails are the worst, because they're so easy to do. At least in our office, form and individual letters were tallied separately, with the total number and proportion of each type reported to the Senator (also the breakdown of opinions, of course).
We responded equally to letters, calls and e-mails; this may not be the case for all offices. If you send a letter, keep in mind that all mail is extensively screened and takes a long time to reach the office. If you want to encourage a decision on something soon, call or e-mail. For e-mail, use an obvious subject line -- there are automatic screening systems to deliver e-mails to the proper person based on issue. If the Senator is up for reelection soon, response time is usually quick; if not, they may not respond at all.
Barack Obama has always responded to me, even if I just clicked to join a form letter. That's because he's running for president, I'd imagine. Dick Durbin could give a fuck what I think.
Okay, the above responses make sense. My pointed, hand-written letters to Schumer and Clinton has yielded only "I am also concerned about the overreach of executive power, Love, Senator Clinton." I guess Schumer isn't running.
Teofilo, your reponse is really helpful--since so many crackpot legislative measures are introduced and made public at the last minute.
I guess that the upshot is that I should write emails in the careful and personal way I would write hand-written letters. And lots of them. Right?
And back to the subject of this thread, which was, I am convinced, designed for Emerson. This one goes out to you, Emerson--and Derbyshire (via Clement Marot):
Fleur de quinze ans (si Dieu vous salve et gard),
J'ay en amours trouve cinq pointz expres:
Premierement, il y a le regard,
Puis le devis, et le baiser apres.
L'Attouchement le baiser suit de pres;
Et tous ceux-la tendent au dernier point
Qui est... Et quoi? Je ne le diray point.
Mais s'il vous plaist en ma chambre vous rendre
Je me mettray voulontiers en poupoint,
Voyre tout nud, pour le vous faire apprendre. And no, I won't translate it; I'm too embarrassed already for having transcribed it.
My problem is that I wait to contact my representatives until there's some specific bill that I feel very strongly about. And so I want to make those rare intrusions count. (I will never fucking forget how ineffectual my first letters to my representives were when I urged all of them not to abrogate their power with the Authorization of Force.)
I guess that the upshot is that I should write emails in the careful and personal way I would write hand-written letters. And lots of them. Right?
Exactly. And don't worry too much if you get a very impersonal response; it doesn't mean they didn't notice what you said. The people who do this have to read and write a lot of letters, many of which say almost exactly the same thing, so they try to write as little original copy as possible. When they do get a letter that needs an original response, they tend to deliberately write it vaguely so they can use the same language later if someone else writes in on the same issue. It's highly unlikely that you'll get a specific response if you're writing about a common topic.
Teofilo--if I feel very strongly on a subject, would it be productive or counterproductive for me to write multiple letters/emails? I've tended towards the minimum because I've assumed that the staff or the software would can multiple messages.
My problem is that I wait to contact my representatives until there's some specific bill that I feel very strongly about.
Just send them a long e-mail with the subject line "A Disquisition upon divers Questions of Politick and Gouvernment, encompassing Subjects both foreign and domestical, which I anticipate taking note of before the next Election" laying out the standards of governance you expect your Congressional delegation to uphold.
If you say you like Em Young, I hope you mean this one or this one and not this one. Because that would be creepy.
The fact that the Google description for that last site is "Internet's Largest Collection of Child Starlet Images From Movies and Television" is something that I think I am not going to think about for a while.
My problem is that I wait to contact my representatives until there's some specific bill that I feel very strongly about.
This is actually the best way to go. Always be sure to clearly indicate which bill you are concerned about (if it isn't well known having the number is a big plus) and what you want the Member to do about it.
if I feel very strongly on a subject, would it be productive or counterproductive for me to write multiple letters/emails?
I would say generally not helpful, though not necessarily counterproductive. They do keep track of everything you send them, and if you send several letters on the same issue in a short period they'll probably only respond (and count you) once. They're not going to send the same form letter to the same person twice.
In all the literature I read from before about 1650, girls are assumed to be hot to trot, usually with guys only slightly older, starting at about 13 or so. This might be a male fantasy, or maybe not. (Confessions are solicited.)
To me it's peculiar that you now have to call 15 year olds "young women" instead of girls, but if you lech after a 20-year old you're a creep. I don't have actual skeletons in my closet, but the whole atmosphere these days is weird as hell.
Somehow I assumed JM was talking about Alito, but she never said that. Of course, Dubya deciding that he's the king and doesn't have to obey those silly little laws is a tad worrisome, too. The two concerns intersect, since Alito is likely to agree with Dubya (on that and damned near everything else).
Thanks, all, for the constituent-reporting advice. Emerson, I suspect that our conversation will take a while to resolve into modernity. It's worth continuing to talk about, particularly given current penal codes.
If I'm not mistaken, the form of the poem is first base, second base, third base, fourth base, home run. The Bases are different than in English, since what we call first base is called third base, and second and third bases are condensed into fourth base. The home run is the same, however. The French have never understood baseball.
The Bases are different than in English, since what we call first base is called third base, and second and third bases are condensed into fourth base.
There are two bases before kissing? What are they -- holding hands, probably, and what else?
Eye contact is first. That's common to a lot of Renaissance-type stuff. Le devis is second. It seems to have meant disposition or desire, but in modern French it means something like "estimation", and it's derived from "divide" (maybe "decision"?). I'm sure there's an interesting explanation.
I was never completely sure exactly what second and third base were anyway.
I'm to bed. If you want my imput on translations, etc, I promise I'll check my email tomorrow--but remember, I call myself a Romanticist (jack of all disciplines, master of none).
I just e-mailed Obama and Durbin again, and I also e-mailed to thank Kerry. I'm considering going to church this weekend, too, multiple times, just to see if we could possibly get a lightning bolt involved.
That lightning bolt stuff doesn't work. On multiple occasions I've said blasphemous stuff and dared God to strike me dead by lightning. I'm still here.
193: Perhaps. I've tried saying really outrageous stuff to egg Him on, but maybe He just ignores it to piss me off. Or maybe He's too preoccupied with all those fornicating teenagers and whatnot to notice.
My derriere was last publicly and uninvitedly grabbed when I was 17. I was sipping from a drinking fountain and thus, given my height, sufficiently inclined forward at the waist to present an opportunity.
I actually did complain about it afterward to a co-worker, and was actually told to lighten up. And I'm not old enough (no, really I'm not) that this was the dark ages. Now that I think about it, it sounds a little sordid. Hey, I have unexplored trauma!
I never realized that strangers grabbing women's butts was so common a phenomenon. (I had heard about Italy and Japan, but it sounds like it's pretty common here, too.) How obnoxious.
I've had my ass grabbed twice. The first time was in high school, I was 14 or 15, and a passing senior cupped his hand against my butt. I had long hair then and was looking away from him, so I think he had no idea I was a boy. He kept moving -- I remember he had a leather jacket, which in our school meant working class -- and I wasn't upset so much as baffled. Only years later did I think back and realize the thing was probably sexual and also most likely a case of mistaken identity.
The second time I was 24 and had been out hiking in some mountains in Westchester, N.Y. On the way back to my hotel I stopped at some rustic little museum with stuffed birds or something like that. The volunteer on duty was a woman in her 60s who struck me as local gentry. She was very good-looking for her age, which I guess made a difference in my response since I wasn't bothered much, just nonplussed.
At any rate, after leading me to the guest sign-in book she too cupped her hand against my ass, and then she strolled off with a pleased simper on her face. It was a surprise, to put it mildly. I'm not the type to grab asses myself, though sometimes I'd like to. And the idea that someone could do so and then carry on even a sketchy and brief conversation with the grabbee was a bit of a revelation. (Because there was some final bit of official business -- I forget what -- before the lady retreated to her little office.) If I ever grabbed a stranger's ass, I wouldn't be able to look the grabbee in the face afterward. So I learned a small lesson about how some people live large and some don't.
I was talking to a coworker the other day and he said that sometimes when he's riding the subway he'll see a girl's hand holding onto the pole and just get an overwhelming urge to lick it. He hasn't acted on it yet but almost feels like he's afraid he's not going to be able to control himself.
Ooh! I had been searching my memory for repressed experiences of being grabbed. But Kyle's comment brings to mind an occasion on which I was the grabber! or something like that. See when I was 13 a friend of my parents took me to see a Dylan concert at the Sacramento county fairgrounds. (It was his tour with Tom Petty.) The concert was outdoors and without seats or bleachers, so everyone was standing. I noticed some people next to me were smoking a marihuana cigarette, something I had never done, and I drifted toward them thinking this might be my big chance! But look: I was 13 and pretty short and the crowd was head and shoulders above me. Nobody really took any notice of me. And my attention was diverted by a quite tall Asian woman in front of me, whose legs were long enough that the small of her back was nearly level with my eyes, and whose backside was a thing of beauty in her tightly-fitting jeans. So I stared at it unnoticed for 10 minutes or so while the band played "Highway 61 Revisited" and during the applause I tried my way towards gently fondling it. It sure seems in my memory like I touched it lightly and even a couple of times before I slunk away, but I can't square that with my memory of not being slapped or even noticed; so perhaps not. What can I say, I was 13 -- it's not an episode that fills me with pride or anything. --On the contrary! Just part of the past.
The first time I had my ass grabbed, it wasn't my ass--it was my pubes. In 7th grade. The girlfriend I was with at the time said, "didn't you know those boys were gonna do that?" I said "no!" She said, "yeah, they do it all the time."
Talk about your learning experiences. Years later, it occurred to me that it hadn't even entered my mind at the time to report it to the school principal or my parents, or anyone else.
213 -- Well, no. (I realize I'm being very literal minded about your question.) Lonely old lady" was not the air she gave off. More like a woman who had had her share of fun over the years.
Holy shit! I was thinking that the world is full of savages, but now it occurs to me that I've grabbed an ass! It was more of a pat, really, but I think it counts. Some hot little Brazilian woman, years ago. But we were all drunk, and had stripped to our underwear to jump in a pool, so I think I'm in the clear.
Weiner, you pubes, it doesn't matter that it can mean that, when just about everyone typically takes it to mean something else. That's why I put that "normally" in my question to b.
I am dedicated and hard-working at the task of admiring my ass. If you asked my previous employers to say what kind of employee I am, they'd say, "One who has a damn fine ass, and knows it." If I had to name one flaw, it is that my ass is too beautiful, and attracts too much attention, including my own.
In addition to admiring my own ass, I'm flexible, and I'm ready to handle anything that might come up outside of my job description, such as rubbing aloe vera on The Assrobat's chafing.
237: Really? I usually take it to be the region -- with the most common usage, "shaving your pubes," applied by analogy with "shaving your head" or "shaving your balls." Though there's also "shaving your beard" or "shaving your moustache" -- and my intuition, that "shaving your beard off" and "shaving your moustache off" are OK while "shaving your pubes off" is off, is not borne out by google. So the tools of Advanced Linguistic Analysis show that pubes often is used for the hair. Well I'll be.
Thinking about it, this feeling comes from John Cheever's story "The Ocean," in which the narrator visits his daughter in bohemian scholar to find that she and her boyfriend have glued many expensive butterflies to a medical-supply skeleton, with one particular one at the pubis. I think it's 'pubis' and not 'pubes', but I won't look it up.
My suspicion: co-workers are for -gg-d what taxi drivers are for Tom Friedman.
Posted by Jeremy Osner | Link to this comment | 01-26-06 10:07 AM
The guy's not necessarily a pervert -- he could just have vivid memories of touching sixteen-year-old tits from when he was sixteen. I suppose it's possible that I have touched fifteen-year-old tits -- I can't remember when exactly my high school girlfriend let me "get that far."
There's also the chance that he was grabbing twelve-year-old asses when he was nineteen -- no harm no foul.
Posted by Adam Kotsko | Link to this comment | 01-26-06 10:07 AM
My keyboard feels like an eighty-five-year-old's spine.
Posted by TJ | Link to this comment | 01-26-06 10:07 AM
Ogged has finally caved to Emerson's demands.
Posted by Jackmormon | Link to this comment | 01-26-06 10:12 AM
I'm can't pin down the various referents of "that." Is the claim that the breasts are too firm to be compared to the mousepad, and therefore the ass is a better comparison? That's how it reads to me. But I would have thought the order of body firmness went in the other direction. Which, I think, would mean that the compared body part should have moved towards an older person - older usually meaning more gushy. But I lack the varied experience to be sure of this.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 01-26-06 10:17 AM
I see some field work in SCMT's future.
Posted by Adam Kotsko | Link to this comment | 01-26-06 10:18 AM
"That," in each case, refers to the mousepad (specifically, the mousepad's hand rest).
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 01-26-06 10:18 AM
Also, gosh, we'd have to know if the standard measure of ass-firmness was taken clenched or unclenched.
Posted by Matt #3 | Link to this comment | 01-26-06 10:19 AM
My mousepad feels like a 37-year-old man's stomach.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 01-26-06 10:20 AM
Plus, was gender discussed? I'm just saying, a twelve-year-old girl's ass likely feels quite different from a twelve-year-old boy's ass.
Some days I'm really quite shocked at what I'm willing to type. I raise the above point only for the sake of SCIENCE.
Posted by Chopper | Link to this comment | 01-26-06 10:21 AM
My mousepad feels like a 37-year-old man's stomach.
Do you remember the early ones, though? They were hard.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 01-26-06 10:22 AM
One summer in college, I was working in a stockbroker's office. The stockbroker's 14 year old son was doing odd jobs around the office. On one occasion, I found him rubbing himself against a filing cabinet. I just walked out of the room and, for a while, we both pretended that nothing had happened. Then, later, he had to help me lift a box, and the positions were such that when he hoisted it up the back of my hand brushed against his thigh. I could tell he had a little moment of... something... there, because he almost dropped the box.
He was babyfaced and very innocent-looking and I felt troubled about it, expecting someone to rush in and arrest me. Luckily, there were only two or three days to go at that point, and I could just avoid him the rest of the time.
Posted by ming | Link to this comment | 01-26-06 10:24 AM
11: Yeah, once I felt their stomachs, they did get hard. Not just the early ones, though. All of them.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 01-26-06 10:25 AM
#10: You think? At twelve, I'd say you're just at the tail end of gender neutrality w/r/t ass firmness.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 01-26-06 10:26 AM
I don't have a mousepad. What does that mean?
Posted by tweedledopey | Link to this comment | 01-26-06 10:26 AM
Was this a male or female coworker? Female might have a better idea of relative firmness of parts, but then, there's no way a female used the word "tits," so I'm guessing male.
Posted by SP | Link to this comment | 01-26-06 10:26 AM
I say "tits"!
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 01-26-06 10:28 AM
15 -- it's Amanda Marcotte's cute pet name for her apartment.
Posted by Jeremy Osner | Link to this comment | 01-26-06 10:28 AM
well, just because it is funny. Yes, completely OT.
Posted by tweedledopey | Link to this comment | 01-26-06 10:30 AM
14 - I guess it depends on the twelve-year-old. My memories of Seventh Grade are dim, but I seem to recall there being at least some babyfat arriving on the butts of the girls.
I'm going to hell.
Posted by Chopper | Link to this comment | 01-26-06 10:32 AM
Is my story OT? That's what I think of when I see twelve-year-old + office supplies.
Posted by ming | Link to this comment | 01-26-06 10:33 AM
Babyfat arriving? Okay, 12-year old girls who are pregnant, yes, are obviously post-pubescent, and therefore will have different butts from both boys and their less-mature peers.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 01-26-06 10:34 AM
Is my story OT?
Certainly not. Now tell it again, but with the alternate ending, please.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 01-26-06 10:36 AM
This reminds me of the time I got my ass grabbed just off campus in the very quiet, upper-middle class, leafy neighborhood wherein was located my off-campus dorm. I was just walking along, wearing my daffodil dress, when all of a sudden I felt two hands, one on either buttock, grip my ass and squeeze, hard. By the time I turned around in shock all I could see was a white guy with close-cropped hair, wearing a white t-shirt and blue athletic shorts running off. I was too stunned to say anything. I heard someone yell, "Darren." Now, if this happened in New York I'd be upset and pissed, but because of the sheer incongruity of it all, I mostly just thought it was funny. After thinking about it for a while, I decided that I guessed I had been sexually assaulted and I ought to say something about it, and beside, walking over the the campus police-type people would be more fun than doing my homework, so I went over. They had to refer my case over to the town police, because it had happened off campus, so I got a voice mail message from a town policeman, the first 15 seconds of which was laughter, because at the time I had a voice mail greeting that was me somewhat adorably rapping "The Real Slim Shady" with a play on my name. So I had to fill out a statement with the town police, and meanwhile the campus police put up posters about the incident with the description I had given them, but they were unfortunately graphic in their description of what had happened, so the "ass grabbing" became a campus joke for months to come, and I felt like a minor celebrity, except only my friends knew it had been me, so whenever I heard it discussed I would enthusiastically interject, "That was me! I got my ass grabbed!" Adding to the hilarity was that there was a kid named "Darren" who roughly answered to the description I had given, so everybody teased him about being the assgrabber, though in fact, I could eliminate him since his hair was not close-cropped. All in all, it was an exciting interlude, though in fact, it was less harmless than it first appeared, because it turned out later that same day someone who looked like my ass grabber had tried to kiss a twelve year old in an underpass.
Posted by Tia | Link to this comment | 01-26-06 10:36 AM
OT at Unfogged is an empty set.
Posted by washerdreyer | Link to this comment | 01-26-06 10:36 AM
Ogged, I never knew you'd worked with John Derbyshire.
Posted by Frederick | Link to this comment | 01-26-06 10:39 AM
Tia tells the best stories.
Posted by Matt #3 | Link to this comment | 01-26-06 10:39 AM
What Matt #3 said. Tia, was Darren ever apprehended?
Posted by Jeremy Osner | Link to this comment | 01-26-06 10:41 AM
24 should have started, "I never thought it could happen to me...."
Posted by Adam Kotsko | Link to this comment | 01-26-06 10:47 AM
29 -- and what publication would it then have appeared in?
Posted by Jeremy Osner | Link to this comment | 01-26-06 10:49 AM
The last time I got my ass full-on grabbed by a stranger was by a 80 year old Italian man at the Vatican. Who grabs a girl's ass at the Vatican?
My mousepad feels like bags of sand.
Posted by Becks | Link to this comment | 01-26-06 10:52 AM
80 year old Italian manat the Vatican
Was he wearing any particular headdress?
Posted by Jeremy Osner | Link to this comment | 01-26-06 10:54 AM
28: you mean the real ass grabber? No, I don't think so.
Posted by Tia | Link to this comment | 01-26-06 10:55 AM
Who grabs a girl's ass at the Vatican?
This setup is simply too easy. I shall refrain.
My mousepad feels like bags of sand.
Heh heh.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 01-26-06 10:56 AM
33: All you other ass grabbers are just imitating
So won't the real ass grabber please stand up,
Please stand up, please stand up?
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 01-26-06 10:58 AM
Darren's on the mic!
Posted by Jeremy Osner | Link to this comment | 01-26-06 11:00 AM
Also – the little stick-like pointing device on a laptop? It is commonly called a "nipple", which annoys me. It does indeed resemble a part of the female anatomy but a nipple ain't it.
Posted by Becks | Link to this comment | 01-26-06 11:01 AM
(Hoping this thread turns into memoirs by all the female Unfogged commenters, on occasions of having their juvenile asses grabbed. That's my ticket to ride -- then I can turn around and sell the comments to various publications under various assumed names.)
Posted by Jeremy Osner | Link to this comment | 01-26-06 11:02 AM
Years ago, a co-worker and I . . .
I take it you've been saving this story for just the right moment.
Posted by My Alter Ego | Link to this comment | 01-26-06 11:03 AM
It is commonly called a "nipple"
I've never heard it called anything but a trackball.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 01-26-06 11:07 AM
40 was not meant to cast doubt, just to express surprise that I, of all people, had never heard it.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 01-26-06 11:09 AM
what's up with you people? ass-grabbers are gross.
Last year we had a Bicycle Groper who would regularly grope various body parts of women, typically breasts, while riding past them on a bicycle -- usually on the street that was my daily commute. Reports of him kept coming in for several months.
I myself was hoping to encounter him, being sure that I would have the presence of mind to knock him off his bike as he grabbed, ideally causing him Major and Grievous Bodily Harm when he fell. (You know that study they are trumpeting right now about men having some neurological monopoly on desires for justice and vengeance? Dubious.) But he must have been able to read minds since it never happened.
Posted by mmf! | Link to this comment | 01-26-06 11:09 AM
It is commonly called a "nipple", which annoys me. It does indeed resemble a part of the female anatomy but a nipple ain't it.
Becks, are you saying it looks more like one of these? (Quasi-SFW.)
Posted by My Alter Ego | Link to this comment | 01-26-06 11:09 AM
I've never heard it called anything but a trackball.
"Nubbin."
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 01-26-06 11:10 AM
Also "trackpoint cover pad."
If you ever have to buy replacements on ebay, you too will find that they're called by about ten different names.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 01-26-06 11:12 AM
During my nipple-confirming web search, I came across this. Sixth comment down: "Is the trackball more like a nipple or a g-spot?"
Remedial anatomy class for you!
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 01-26-06 11:14 AM
I always thought of a trackball is something else. A "trackpoint" is what we officially called the pointing stick (like on the IBM ThinkPad).
And yes, MAE, that is what I was thinking of. Although I would say NSFW on that link.
Posted by Becks | Link to this comment | 01-26-06 11:14 AM
I would say NSFW on that link.
I sure hit the back button with a quickness.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 01-26-06 11:17 AM
48: Yeah, well, a little bit too quick.
Posted by Tia | Link to this comment | 01-26-06 11:19 AM
Y'know, we were re-populating the Earth, Tia. I didn't have time for niceties.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 01-26-06 11:21 AM
apo, how are you going to repopulate the earth hitting the back button? someone sleep through sex-ed?
Posted by mike d | Link to this comment | 01-26-06 11:29 AM
42: Wow. Bicycle groping sounds way advanced. Seems to have too many opportunities for injury to both the groper and gropee.
Posted by Matt #3 | Link to this comment | 01-26-06 11:34 AM
OK, joystick. Too obvious, right?
Posted by John Emerson | Link to this comment | 01-26-06 11:37 AM
51: I'm not revealing my secrets for free, dude.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 01-26-06 11:39 AM
22---sigh. Babyfat is what a number of guys (that is, I'm not the only person to ahve said it, but I'd to to vouch for it being in the general lexicon) call the soft, filling out but not muscular type of ass-flesh that teenage girls get in their early to mid-teens, which then turns firmer as the girl actually becomes a woman.
Hell, I tell you.
Posted by Chopper | Link to this comment | 01-26-06 11:43 AM
It's not the bicycle ass-grabbers who are the really skeevy ones, though--that honor has to go to the bicycle seat sniffers.
Yeesh.
Posted by Chopper | Link to this comment | 01-26-06 11:46 AM
I'll say... sniffing someone's ass while riding by on a bike requires some serious skill.
(Thank you! Thank you! I'm here 'til Tuesday. Tip your waiters!)
Posted by Matt #3 | Link to this comment | 01-26-06 11:53 AM
pwned!
Posted by Urple | Link to this comment | 01-26-06 11:54 AM
But no one here was pwned! I'm calling, instead, 57 gets it exactly right.
Posted by Armsmasher | Link to this comment | 01-26-06 12:00 PM
56: They're both pervs, but at least the seat-sniffer isn't assaulting anyone.
Posted by Frederick | Link to this comment | 01-26-06 12:01 PM
ps. I think it's pretty funny, in an odd and somewhat disturbing sort of way, that when you and your (presumably adult) co-worker were feeling this mousepad and the first comment out of his mouth was "Oh, that feels just like a sixteen-year-old's tits," your response was a cool and analytic "Really, you think so? That's awfully firm."
I think my response would have been to just stare at him with a look of horror and bewilderment.
Posted by Urple | Link to this comment | 01-26-06 12:04 PM
59: BPHD was totally pwned, in the most classical sense, by 55.
Posted by Urple | Link to this comment | 01-26-06 12:06 PM
Hey all this talk of trackpoints makes me wonder if any of you could direct me to a resource. Ellen prefers to use the touch-pad part of her track-point; but she spilled coffee on it a couple of weeks ago and it is not working very well anymore. She can use the little red nipple part ok but does not like that as well. Where can I read instructions on taking the touch-pad part off and cleaning it, or putting a new one in? Are they easy to find for sale?
Posted by Jeremy Osner | Link to this comment | 01-26-06 12:06 PM
61: As someone said upthread, he could have had occasion to feel a 16-year-old's tits when he was himself around that age. (One hopes that is the explanation.)
Posted by Frederick | Link to this comment | 01-26-06 12:07 PM
Well, I'd say that banter's inappropriate for work even if he was referring to his teenaged years.
Posted by Tia | Link to this comment | 01-26-06 12:13 PM
64: Frederick- yes, I've read upthread, and I understand that he's probably not a child molestor. And this woudl probably be running through my mind as I looked at him with a look of bewilderment.
But still, that's an awfully shocking thing to have come out of an adult male's mouth upon first touching a gell-filled mousepad.
And it's not the comment itself that I was even highlighting, but ogged's rather nonplussed, matter-of-fact reaction to the comment.
Posted by Urple | Link to this comment | 01-26-06 12:15 PM
66 -- -gg-d's cool response and quick wit played a major role in inspiring my #1.
Posted by Jeremy Osner | Link to this comment | 01-26-06 12:18 PM
One time, and one time only, I was on a subway with Tia. And we were making palaver 'bout domestic stuff, like pocket mending, and all I could think about how I was wishing we were in Tokyo during rush hour, where Tia'd be all pressed up against me and some Japanese businessman would be grabbing my ass. No wait, that's not right...
Posted by Mr. B | Link to this comment | 01-26-06 12:18 PM
There are coworkers, and then there are coworkers. I've been mooned, I've played strip drinking games, I've had someone attempt to dry-hump my wife in a drunken game of truth or dare...
Posted by Chopper | Link to this comment | 01-26-06 12:19 PM
Chopper runs with a wild crowd.
Posted by Jeremy Osner | Link to this comment | 01-26-06 12:20 PM
Due to his Mexican heritage, Ogged has a different view toward sexual contact and the appropriate ages for it.
Posted by Adam Kotsko | Link to this comment | 01-26-06 12:30 PM
Well, I'd say that banter's inappropriate for work even if he was referring to his teenaged years.
It certainly wouldn't be appropriate for general consumption. But I can imagine certain guys who would jocularly say something like that to another guy whom they knew wouldn't be offended (or a woman whom they knew wouldn't be offended, but there probably wouldn't be many of those) if no one else was within earshot. And I can easily imagine someone saying it in an all-male workplace, where I suspect the office dialogue is considerably raunchier than in sex-integrated workplaces.
Posted by Frederick | Link to this comment | 01-26-06 12:33 PM
Re my 72: I defer to Chopper's expertise.
71: My understanding is that Iranian girls commonly get married at very young ages, like 12.
Posted by Frederick | Link to this comment | 01-26-06 12:39 PM
And I can easily imagine someone saying it in an all-male workplace, where I suspect the office dialogue is considerably raunchier than in sex-integrated workplaces.
Ogged works at pre-mid-70s Princeton?
Posted by mike d | Link to this comment | 01-26-06 12:39 PM
F., Are you backing out of our agreement, or what?
Posted by Adam Kotsko | Link to this comment | 01-26-06 12:45 PM
IMO it's never a good idea unless you're off work premises, because one day you'll think you're certain no one's within earshot...and then you're creating a hostile work environment. I guess Ogged didn't say whether this exchange took place at work.
Posted by Tia | Link to this comment | 01-26-06 12:45 PM
Re: 75 - I guess it's possible that Ogged, using his sovereign authority as blogowner, dissolved our agreement in the same motion as deleting the comments.
Posted by Adam Kotsko | Link to this comment | 01-26-06 12:46 PM
God, speaking of inappropriate workplace behavior, even if you think you're a funny guy, even if you think everyone likes you, do not walk up to somebody else's secretary and take the pen she is using to write with out of her fucking hand, saying, "Just a sec, I'll give it back."
Posted by Tia | Link to this comment | 01-26-06 12:50 PM
Tia, Are you a secretary? ...mmm, sexy.
Posted by Adam Kotsko | Link to this comment | 01-26-06 12:52 PM
Re: 72, 76
We were in a comment thread somewhere in the Mineshaft and laughing over this absurd remark or that when he leaned back in his chair and jumped the conversational tracks. "I've got one," he said, an evil glint in his eye. "How does every joke about sixteen-year-old's tits and twelve-year-old's asses begin?"
Posted by My Alter Ego | Link to this comment | 01-26-06 12:56 PM
Did you (or the aggrieved party) respond with a withering comment, at least?
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 01-26-06 12:56 PM
I responded to your comment. I didn't address you. Re the age of marriage in Iran, this 2002 story:
Iranian human-rights activists have won a partial victory in their long battle to protect children from being married off by their parents before they begin puberty. After months of deliberation, Iranian authorities recently approved a law that requires court approval for the marriage of girls below the age of 13 and boys younger than 15.
Prague, 28 June 2002 (RFE/RL) -- There are no official statistics for how many young children in Iran are married off by their parents before they become teenagers. But the practice has long been considered commonplace in the countryside and in smaller towns where traditional values rule. There, parents often arrange marriages for their children long before the children themselves are old enough to give their informed consent.
Such child marriages not only are sanctioned by tradition, they also are permitted under Iran's legal code. The law permits parents to marry off girls at the age of 9 and boys at the age of 14.
Now, however, Iranian human-rights activists have won a partial victory in a long-running battle to raise the marriage age for children.
This month, Iranian authorities approved a law requiring parents to obtain court permission for marriages of girls under the age of 13 and of boys younger than 15. At the same time, children above those ages will be allowed to marry voluntarily.
I read some piece 25+ years ago, IIRC a translation of something written by the Ayatollah Khomeini, in which he said how cool it was when a girl had her menarche (first menstrual period) in the house of her husband. Yuck.
Posted by Frederick | Link to this comment | 01-26-06 12:56 PM
"How does every joke about sixteen-year-old's tits and twelve-year-old's asses begin?"
Hey, apostropher told me a funny joke today...
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 01-26-06 12:57 PM
There's a guy I used to work for who is notorious for saying inappropriate things who was looking to hire an admin about a month ago. (Classic tale: he accidentally left pr0n up on his computer on Take Your Daughter To Work Day.) Knowing the guy's history, one of the major criteria used by the person who was doing the hiring for him was finding someone who wouldn't sue the company. She called me up and asked if I knew anybody who wouldn't mind being sexually harassed if it meant they got profit-sharing and a good health plan.
Posted by Becks | Link to this comment | 01-26-06 12:58 PM
i am kotsko. wood u like 2 correct mi tipos?
Posted by Tia | Link to this comment | 01-26-06 12:58 PM
You're right -- your first comment escaped on a technicality. But in explaining yourself, you violated the agreement (assuming it's still in force, which is anything but certain given the extremely august prerogatives Ogged is claiming for himself lately). I'm willing to look the other way on the violation, given that I incited you to do it.
Posted by Adam Kotsko | Link to this comment | 01-26-06 12:59 PM
Damned decent of you (he remarked to no one in particular).
Posted by Frederick | Link to this comment | 01-26-06 1:01 PM
Tia, That's not all I'd like to correct, if you catch my meaning. I wouldn't mind going to a high mass with you [nudge, nudge].
Posted by Adam Kotsko | Link to this comment | 01-26-06 1:01 PM
81: No. I guess I could write him an email asking him not to do that anymore. I worked in this very department in another position about a year ago, and a different prof walked around me into my workspace, took my stapler, and walked off with it, and eventually returned it by leaving it on the edge of my desk, all without saying a word. I wrote him a polite email asking him not to do that again, and he was mortified, and apologized to me both by email and in person.
Posted by Tia | Link to this comment | 01-26-06 1:02 PM
Becks, I love your h.r. person.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 01-26-06 1:02 PM
Dude, Kotsko's feisty today!
Posted by Chopper | Link to this comment | 01-26-06 1:02 PM
My mouse rest feels like mi tipos.
Posted by Armsmasher | Link to this comment | 01-26-06 1:05 PM
Tia, put up a sign that says "Please, do help yourself to anything you like from this desk, even if I am actively using it. After all, I do live to serve you."
Or alternately, drop the sarcasm and put up a sign that says "please do not borrow my shit without asking, especially if I am actually using it."
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 01-26-06 1:05 PM
91: He's trying to live up to his title.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 01-26-06 1:06 PM
Wait, I forgot, Ogged's the only one who's allowed to make rules for me. Sorry Kotsko.
Posted by Tia | Link to this comment | 01-26-06 1:06 PM
So Ogged really is asserting the jus primae noctis. [there is an implied link to a classic Wolfson comment that Google is unable to locate at the moment.]
Posted by Adam Kotsko | Link to this comment | 01-26-06 1:11 PM
Damned decent of you
Um, we Mexicans prefer "Mighty white of you."
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 01-26-06 1:12 PM
Classic Wolfson.
Posted by Standpipe Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 01-26-06 1:13 PM
That i/j thing always trips me up.
Posted by Adam Kotsko | Link to this comment | 01-26-06 1:14 PM
100!
Posted by Frederick | Link to this comment | 01-26-06 1:19 PM
Wow, that was back when text was still textualist.
Posted by Chopper | Link to this comment | 01-26-06 1:20 PM
Reading the thread SB linked in 98 -- whatever happened to Walter Sobchak? Did he die as a result of that huge bug up his ass?
Posted by Frederick | Link to this comment | 01-26-06 1:32 PM
Here's another story about workplace banter: my (white) boyfriend has a teasing relationship with his gay, black coworker, and they like to give each other a hard time. A little while ago, one of their other coworkers was yelling something to the GBC about how they needed something "up here," but the GBC couldn't quite hear her. So my bf chimes in, " 'Up in here'--Say it so he can understand it." I didn't even get this, but my bf explained to me that "up in here" is black slang. Apparently such joking jumped over the bounds of acceptable teasing they'd established, and the conversation petered out awkwardly. My boyfriend, mortified, proceeded to IM him to apologize like eight zillion times.
Posted by Tia | Link to this comment | 01-26-06 1:35 PM
I think Walter posted more times than the rest of current commenters combined on that thread, caused a rip in the fabric of reality, and fell into another dimension.
Would that this happened all the time.
Posted by Chopper | Link to this comment | 01-26-06 1:38 PM
Why Chopper, I don't know what you mean!
Posted by tweedledopey | Link to this comment | 01-26-06 1:42 PM
I always had a soft spot in my heart for Walt.
Posted by Adam Kotsko | Link to this comment | 01-26-06 1:43 PM
Yeah, Walter shared my deep and abiding love for things Lebowski. He really got a hair up his ass over B, though.
Posted by Chopper | Link to this comment | 01-26-06 1:45 PM
From what I've seen, he seems like a reasonable enough guy on other subjects.
Posted by Frederick | Link to this comment | 01-26-06 1:47 PM
I should say that, annoying as I found Sobchak in that thread, he figured out that he'd made an error of fact causing him to be unfair to B later on, and apologized, which is the kind of thing that lots of people don't do. So all appropriate kudos to him for that.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 01-26-06 1:50 PM
Wonkete has a creepy panda-bestiality photo up which involves the State Department.
Posted by John Emerson | Link to this comment | 01-26-06 2:19 PM
When will the American people finally say "Enough is enough" on these bizarre and perverse interrogation methods employed by the administration?
Posted by Adam Kotsko | Link to this comment | 01-26-06 2:27 PM
Adam, I'm too thick to figure out whether that was a joke. If it isn't, "heaven help us" is all that I can say.
And since Adam already switched topics, I feel that it's okay for me to detour the conversation a bit.
Today I couldn't tune in to Air America on my dying clock radio, and I wound up listening to a few minutes of Rush Limbaugh, and, I have to say, I actually agreed with something he said.
He was going on about how mainstream and okay Alito is, and then he said, "If he's really that bad, why aren't the Democrats willing to filibuster him?" Since he is really that bad, I say, why indeed?
Posted by Bostoniangirl | Link to this comment | 01-26-06 2:35 PM
Becks, I was trying to imply that the panda-based bestiality was a new torture method they were trying out, based on the powers inherent in the president to make people have sex with a panda.
Posted by Adam Kotsko | Link to this comment | 01-26-06 2:40 PM
why indeed?
Battered wife syndrome.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 01-26-06 2:41 PM
"Becks" is BostonianGirl's new nickname.
Posted by Jeremy Osner | Link to this comment | 01-26-06 2:44 PM
I never thought it would happen to me, but I have an awkward work relationship to share. I'm editing a coursebook on finance for a guy who happens to be dating the senior vice president of [dayjob], a smallish, casual, liberally inclined organization. The project is freelance, I've been working on it for maybe three months off and on, and we only speak occassionally by e-mail or telephone.
One day he took me to lunch, and we had a nice, professional-to-friendly lunchtime conversation. He's even a minor art collector, so. One week later he calls me during the day and greets me as "cutie" when I picked up the line. I thought surely he meant to call his ladyfriend with the corner office and was only playing through, but no: in subsequent phone calls, I graduated to "handsome" and even soared to "sexy," which I skip right over.
I know perfectly well that he's merely assuming a comfort level that does not exist, and it's annoying and even a little pathetic. But I reluctantly admit that it's an illustration of why fun should not be tolerated in the workplace.
Posted by Armsmasher | Link to this comment | 01-26-06 2:50 PM
And Becks will henceforth be known as BG--except that I think that would be an unfair trade. All the benefit of Becks's comments would accrue to me, and she'd be stuck with my dumpy ones.
Posted by Bostoniangirl | Link to this comment | 01-26-06 2:53 PM
Someday, Becks and Bostoniangirl hope to be as cool each other, assuming as a general rule that when A is as cool as C, and B is as cool as C, then A and B are as cool as each other.
Posted by eb | Link to this comment | 01-26-06 2:56 PM
"as each other"
Posted by eb | Link to this comment | 01-26-06 2:56 PM
Does that make LB a sort of catalyst of coolness?
Posted by ac | Link to this comment | 01-26-06 3:05 PM
Smasher, maybe he's trying to warm you up to the idea of getting paid with something other than money.
But seriously, that's kind of creepy.
Posted by Matt F | Link to this comment | 01-26-06 3:14 PM
Are you planning to continue ignoring it, Smasher? Or do you want to say something?
Posted by ac | Link to this comment | 01-26-06 3:15 PM
BG, Kerry called for the filibuster.
Posted by Armsmasher | Link to this comment | 01-26-06 3:15 PM
Does it seem like Kerry's only big fuck-up was in voting for the original authorization to use military force in Iraq?
Posted by Adam Kotsko | Link to this comment | 01-26-06 3:17 PM
It is creepy, but at the same time, he's not a creepy guy—I really think that he assumes a level of familiarity we just don't share, and is probably jokey like this with most people he works with. Since the project's nearly finished, I'm content to bite my tongue. The only thing is that I think I might be doing his next colleague/collaborator a favor by pointing out his behavior.
Posted by Armsmasher | Link to this comment | 01-26-06 3:18 PM
And in not waving his dick around more on the SB, I guess.
Posted by Armsmasher | Link to this comment | 01-26-06 3:20 PM
And not taking up the black caucus's challenge to the 2000 electoral vote count.... But that was more a sin of omission.
Posted by Adam Kotsko | Link to this comment | 01-26-06 3:21 PM
Importantly, 126 to 124.
Posted by Armsmasher | Link to this comment | 01-26-06 3:22 PM
Is he joking with you or trying to pick you up?
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 01-26-06 3:22 PM
Smasher--Why not experiment a little? Be open to new things? Nobody gets hurt. ANd maybe you'll like it.
Posted by Chopper | Link to this comment | 01-26-06 3:22 PM
Thanks Smasher. When I called a week or so ago, as a constituent, I was told that he was waiting--out of politeness-- for the judiciary committee to vote.
I then urged him to vote no. I can't tell whether he cares what his constituents think. Kennedy's office asked for my zip code, but Kerry's didn't bother.
I need to call Kennedy to thank him for voting against Alito and then urge him to filibuster.
I'm sure that they get calls from a lot of wackos, but the utter imperturbability of the staff assistants is kind of unnerving. If you call and say that you think that Alito's view of executive power is dangerous and a threat to our constitution, the person just says, "thank you for your call." And maybe s/he makes a note of it. I'd love to hear someone say, "I know." There is no emotion at all. It makes me feel stupid for caring.
Posted by Bostoniangirl | Link to this comment | 01-26-06 3:22 PM
Nobody gets hurt.
Not a foregone conclusion, that one.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 01-26-06 3:25 PM
But treasure your right to talk with an ignoramus, BG! I have called my former representatives, who are neither sympathetic to my political views nor my plight—sometimes they will simply hang up.
Posted by Armsmasher | Link to this comment | 01-26-06 3:27 PM
129, if he's trying to pick me up, he's not trying very hard. I think he's joking, I just don't get it.
Posted by Armsmasher | Link to this comment | 01-26-06 3:31 PM
I have lived in DC and been without representation. I haven't had a chance to vote in a Democratic primary for a long time, but DC representation iss something I will definitely ask any candidate to support.
DC for Democracy was planning to start a PAC to give money to candidates who support voting rights for the District.
Posted by Bostoniangirl | Link to this comment | 01-26-06 3:45 PM
#113: You know, just yesterday I was hypothesizing that Ben Wolfson is, in fact, a panda.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 01-26-06 3:53 PM
Because he enjoys vegetation and climbing structures?
Posted by ac | Link to this comment | 01-26-06 3:58 PM
Or is it the characteristic six-digited paws?
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 01-26-06 4:13 PM
"The utter imperturbability of the staff assistants is kind of unnerving. "
Jesus, during the election a whole bunch of use were screaming at them trying to get them to notice the Swift Boaters. They were as imperturbable as iguanas.
BTW, if I told you that pandas have corkscrew penises like warthogs, would know that I was lying?
Posted by John Emerson | Link to this comment | 01-26-06 4:47 PM
139 to 131, and "use" --> "us".
Posted by John Emerson | Link to this comment | 01-26-06 4:49 PM
And I can easily imagine someone saying it in an all-male workplace, where I suspect the office dialogue is considerably raunchier than in sex-integrated workplaces.
Or, unfortunately, in workplaces (or philosophy departments) that were recently all-male, but aren't now. You know we're just kidding, right?
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 01-26-06 4:55 PM
I first read "considerably raunchier" as considerably ranchier. That changes things.
Posted by TJ | Link to this comment | 01-26-06 5:16 PM
You know, just yesterday I was hypothesizing that Ben Wolfson is, in fact, a panda.
I'd been wondering who that guy who showed up at my photo shoot was. Now I know.
(TJ, is that ranchy enough for you?)
Posted by My Alter Ego | Link to this comment | 01-26-06 5:19 PM
Oops. My photo shoot.
(Commenting Becks-style at the moment.)
Posted by My Alter Ego | Link to this comment | 01-26-06 5:23 PM
Or, unfortunately, in workplaces (or philosophy departments) that were recently all-male, but aren't now.
Yes. I suspect that my sense of the raunchiness of the atmosphere in all-male workplaces comes largely from reading about sexual harassment cases arising in formerly all-male workplaces, where the men often treat the women who have newly integrated the workplace very badly. See, e.g., Catharine MacKinnon, Sexual Harassment of Working Women. I hadn't realized that philosophy departments were such hotbeds of testosterone, though.
Posted by Frederick | Link to this comment | 01-26-06 5:26 PM
141: that and so many analytic philosophy departments seem to produce people who want to talk about what borders on neuroscience without actually taking the trouble to be neuroscientists -- or instead to do the things that philosophy is very useful for doing, rather than the things for which it is often a blunt instrument not suited.
or did i just encounter a bad patch in the department?
(certain strands of philosophy of the mind)
Posted by mmf! | Link to this comment | 01-26-06 5:28 PM
Swerving wildly back around to BostonianGirl's comments for a minute, if you will.
What method of communication do you guys think works better with Senators?
Here's my guess, in order: 1) Handwritten, non-insane letter, 2) non-insane phone call, 3) slightly deranged hand-written letter, 4) non-insane email, 5) slightly deranged phone-call, 6) slightly deranged email.
Am I just old-fashioned to rank the hand-written letters before the phone calls?
Posted by Jackmormon | Link to this comment | 01-26-06 5:55 PM
7) Cash payment. 8)Business relationship that will result in multiple cash payments, over a long period of time, and possibly paid employment after leaving office.
Posted by eb | Link to this comment | 01-26-06 6:01 PM
All communications to public officials you have no special connection with are just going to be tallied. If your message is "Filibuster Alito", you should puff it up into about 30-40 words to make it look like an actual letter, but in such a way that the person reading it can put it on the right pile as quickly as possible.
Posted by John Emerson | Link to this comment | 01-26-06 6:38 PM
So is there any point to using a stamp or should I just add my opinion to the tally electronically?
Posted by Jackmormon | Link to this comment | 01-26-06 7:20 PM
I don't know that. I know that they discount mass emails that all say the same thing. Having an individual message is important. And I would guess that a stamped letter or a phone call counts more than an email.
Also, be polite and don't tell them to go fuck themselves, even if it seems like the most sensible thing to say at a given time.
Posted by John Emerson | Link to this comment | 01-26-06 7:26 PM
I interned in a Senate office this past summer, so I can actually answer JM's question. Emerson's 151 is correct -- a form letter will get a form response at best. Mass e-mails are the worst, because they're so easy to do. At least in our office, form and individual letters were tallied separately, with the total number and proportion of each type reported to the Senator (also the breakdown of opinions, of course).
We responded equally to letters, calls and e-mails; this may not be the case for all offices. If you send a letter, keep in mind that all mail is extensively screened and takes a long time to reach the office. If you want to encourage a decision on something soon, call or e-mail. For e-mail, use an obvious subject line -- there are automatic screening systems to deliver e-mails to the proper person based on issue. If the Senator is up for reelection soon, response time is usually quick; if not, they may not respond at all.
Posted by teofilo | Link to this comment | 01-26-06 7:40 PM
Barack Obama has always responded to me, even if I just clicked to join a form letter. That's because he's running for president, I'd imagine. Dick Durbin could give a fuck what I think.
Posted by Adam Kotsko | Link to this comment | 01-26-06 7:48 PM
Okay, the above responses make sense. My pointed, hand-written letters to Schumer and Clinton has yielded only "I am also concerned about the overreach of executive power, Love, Senator Clinton." I guess Schumer isn't running.
Teofilo, your reponse is really helpful--since so many crackpot legislative measures are introduced and made public at the last minute.
I guess that the upshot is that I should write emails in the careful and personal way I would write hand-written letters. And lots of them. Right?
Posted by Jackmormon | Link to this comment | 01-26-06 8:11 PM
If you really cared, sweetpea, you'd have chained yourself to something by now, so send the email already and go have a beer.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 01-26-06 8:14 PM
And back to the subject of this thread, which was, I am convinced, designed for Emerson. This one goes out to you, Emerson--and Derbyshire (via Clement Marot):
J'ay en amours trouve cinq pointz expres:
Premierement, il y a le regard,
Puis le devis, et le baiser apres.
L'Attouchement le baiser suit de pres;
Et tous ceux-la tendent au dernier point
Qui est... Et quoi? Je ne le diray point.
Mais s'il vous plaist en ma chambre vous rendre
Je me mettray voulontiers en poupoint,
Voyre tout nud, pour le vous faire apprendre. And no, I won't translate it; I'm too embarrassed already for having transcribed it.
Posted by Jackmormon | Link to this comment | 01-26-06 8:18 PM
Wait a minute, did ogged just call me "sweetpea"?
My problem is that I wait to contact my representatives until there's some specific bill that I feel very strongly about. And so I want to make those rare intrusions count. (I will never fucking forget how ineffectual my first letters to my representives were when I urged all of them not to abrogate their power with the Authorization of Force.)
Posted by Jackmormon | Link to this comment | 01-26-06 8:23 PM
I guess that the upshot is that I should write emails in the careful and personal way I would write hand-written letters. And lots of them. Right?
Exactly. And don't worry too much if you get a very impersonal response; it doesn't mean they didn't notice what you said. The people who do this have to read and write a lot of letters, many of which say almost exactly the same thing, so they try to write as little original copy as possible. When they do get a letter that needs an original response, they tend to deliberately write it vaguely so they can use the same language later if someone else writes in on the same issue. It's highly unlikely that you'll get a specific response if you're writing about a common topic.
Posted by teofilo | Link to this comment | 01-26-06 8:24 PM
Teofilo--if I feel very strongly on a subject, would it be productive or counterproductive for me to write multiple letters/emails? I've tended towards the minimum because I've assumed that the staff or the software would can multiple messages.
Posted by Jackmormon | Link to this comment | 01-26-06 8:28 PM
My problem is that I wait to contact my representatives until there's some specific bill that I feel very strongly about.
Just send them a long e-mail with the subject line "A Disquisition upon divers Questions of Politick and Gouvernment, encompassing Subjects both foreign and domestical, which I anticipate taking note of before the next Election" laying out the standards of governance you expect your Congressional delegation to uphold.
Posted by eb | Link to this comment | 01-26-06 8:30 PM
If you say you like Em Young, I hope you mean this one or this one and not this one. Because that would be creepy.
The fact that the Google description for that last site is "Internet's Largest Collection of Child Starlet Images From Movies and Television" is something that I think I am not going to think about for a while.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 01-26-06 8:31 PM
Apparently my 155 isn't having the desired effect.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 01-26-06 8:31 PM
Yeah, JM, get Ogged the damn beer already.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 01-26-06 8:32 PM
My problem is that I wait to contact my representatives until there's some specific bill that I feel very strongly about.
This is actually the best way to go. Always be sure to clearly indicate which bill you are concerned about (if it isn't well known having the number is a big plus) and what you want the Member to do about it.
if I feel very strongly on a subject, would it be productive or counterproductive for me to write multiple letters/emails?
I would say generally not helpful, though not necessarily counterproductive. They do keep track of everything you send them, and if you send several letters on the same issue in a short period they'll probably only respond (and count you) once. They're not going to send the same form letter to the same person twice.
Posted by teofilo | Link to this comment | 01-26-06 8:33 PM
Now you see how Weiner treats his ladies after he's bagged 'em.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 01-26-06 8:34 PM
Tasteful and sensitive.
In all the literature I read from before about 1650, girls are assumed to be hot to trot, usually with guys only slightly older, starting at about 13 or so. This might be a male fantasy, or maybe not. (Confessions are solicited.)
To me it's peculiar that you now have to call 15 year olds "young women" instead of girls, but if you lech after a 20-year old you're a creep. I don't have actual skeletons in my closet, but the whole atmosphere these days is weird as hell.
This came up just today on Brad DeLong.
Posted by John Emerson | Link to this comment | 01-26-06 8:37 PM
OK, I will email my representives with a hell of a lot more hell and more frequently.
Posted by Jackmormon | Link to this comment | 01-26-06 8:46 PM
155: Oh, baby, I been trying, but ya'll have t'stand on y'own.
Posted by Jackmormon | Link to this comment | 01-26-06 8:50 PM
Here's hoping, JM. I gotta contact Obama and Durbin myself.
Posted by Frederick | Link to this comment | 01-26-06 8:51 PM
Somehow I assumed JM was talking about Alito, but she never said that. Of course, Dubya deciding that he's the king and doesn't have to obey those silly little laws is a tad worrisome, too. The two concerns intersect, since Alito is likely to agree with Dubya (on that and damned near everything else).
Posted by Frederick | Link to this comment | 01-26-06 8:56 PM
Is that some kind of medieval French, JM? It's weird.
Posted by Tia | Link to this comment | 01-26-06 8:58 PM
155: I get jealous when Ogged condescends to the other girls.
Posted by Tia | Link to this comment | 01-26-06 8:59 PM
Thanks, all, for the constituent-reporting advice. Emerson, I suspect that our conversation will take a while to resolve into modernity. It's worth continuing to talk about, particularly given current penal codes.
Posted by Jackmormon | Link to this comment | 01-26-06 9:01 PM
Wait, I've just realised that my 173 was incomprehensible? Is there nothing to be done?
Posted by Jackmormon | Link to this comment | 01-26-06 9:05 PM
JM, just keep drinking until you don't care anymore.
Posted by Becks | Link to this comment | 01-26-06 9:06 PM
171: It's probably a 14-15thc. French. The quote comes from files I kept before I was anal, so...
Posted by Jackmormon | Link to this comment | 01-26-06 9:08 PM
173 is geniuse.
Posted by eb | Link to this comment | 01-26-06 9:08 PM
Some explication, sort of, of the poem JM quoted.
Posted by eb | Link to this comment | 01-26-06 9:14 PM
I'm not sure what le devis is.
If I'm not mistaken, the form of the poem is first base, second base, third base, fourth base, home run. The Bases are different than in English, since what we call first base is called third base, and second and third bases are condensed into fourth base. The home run is the same, however. The French have never understood baseball.
Posted by John Emerson | Link to this comment | 01-26-06 9:18 PM
But they know how to score.
Posted by John Emerson | Link to this comment | 01-26-06 9:19 PM
The Bases are different than in English, since what we call first base is called third base, and second and third bases are condensed into fourth base.
There are two bases before kissing? What are they -- holding hands, probably, and what else?
Posted by Frederick | Link to this comment | 01-26-06 9:23 PM
#160: I so want to do this.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 01-26-06 9:27 PM
Eye contact is first. That's common to a lot of Renaissance-type stuff. Le devis is second. It seems to have meant disposition or desire, but in modern French it means something like "estimation", and it's derived from "divide" (maybe "decision"?). I'm sure there's an interesting explanation.
I was never completely sure exactly what second and third base were anyway.
Posted by John Emerson | Link to this comment | 01-26-06 9:28 PM
footnote 9. Why translate when someone else has?
Posted by eb | Link to this comment | 01-26-06 9:29 PM
The translation has "conversation". That looks like the word should be devise. That kind of irregular spelling is quite possible.
Posted by John Emerson | Link to this comment | 01-26-06 9:34 PM
I'm to bed. If you want my imput on translations, etc, I promise I'll check my email tomorrow--but remember, I call myself a Romanticist (jack of all disciplines, master of none).
Posted by Jackmormon | Link to this comment | 01-26-06 9:35 PM
I wouldn't know about the translation. I just wanted to see what the search engines were capable of.
Posted by eb | Link to this comment | 01-26-06 9:42 PM
The dictionary nearest to hand gives "estimate, quotation" for devis. "Then I size you up," maybe? (Cup size, etc.)
Posted by Adam Kotsko | Link to this comment | 01-26-06 9:48 PM
I just e-mailed Obama and Durbin again, and I also e-mailed to thank Kerry. I'm considering going to church this weekend, too, multiple times, just to see if we could possibly get a lightning bolt involved.
Posted by Adam Kotsko | Link to this comment | 01-26-06 10:08 PM
Does god listen to blasphemous pedophiles, Adam?
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 01-26-06 10:10 PM
That lightning bolt stuff doesn't work. On multiple occasions I've said blasphemous stuff and dared God to strike me dead by lightning. I'm still here.
Posted by Frederick | Link to this comment | 01-26-06 10:28 PM
Just don't screw up and send a disaster to New Orleans again. Or Grand Forks either. Those people have suffered enough.
God is a big-picture guy, and a few thou' clicks is nothing to him.
Posted by John Emerson | Link to this comment | 01-26-06 10:30 PM
191: Maybe he's ignoring you.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 01-26-06 10:31 PM
193: Perhaps. I've tried saying really outrageous stuff to egg Him on, but maybe He just ignores it to piss me off. Or maybe He's too preoccupied with all those fornicating teenagers and whatnot to notice.
Posted by Frederick | Link to this comment | 01-26-06 10:38 PM
My derriere was last publicly and uninvitedly grabbed when I was 17. I was sipping from a drinking fountain and thus, given my height, sufficiently inclined forward at the waist to present an opportunity.
I actually did complain about it afterward to a co-worker, and was actually told to lighten up. And I'm not old enough (no, really I'm not) that this was the dark ages. Now that I think about it, it sounds a little sordid. Hey, I have unexplored trauma!
Posted by slolernr | Link to this comment | 01-26-06 11:59 PM
Hey slol, I was starting to think we wouldn't hear from you again.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 01-27-06 12:00 AM
Does it say too much about me if I interpreted that as wishful thinking?
Posted by slolernr | Link to this comment | 01-27-06 12:02 AM
An insecure commenter is a good commenter.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 01-27-06 12:04 AM
I must be freakin' heroic.
To answer your implied question, I regret to say that sometimes my secret identity takes me far away from TM.
Posted by slolernr | Link to this comment | 01-27-06 12:06 AM
Well, I'm glad you haven't joined Domineditrix and Magik Johnson in the great Mineshaft in the sky.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 01-27-06 12:09 AM
I never realized that strangers grabbing women's butts was so common a phenomenon. (I had heard about Italy and Japan, but it sounds like it's pretty common here, too.) How obnoxious.
Posted by Frederick | Link to this comment | 01-27-06 1:52 AM
I've had it happen to me too.
Being grabbed up, by a woman. I was 17 at the time.
I suspect that is a much less common phenomenon.
Posted by Matt McGrattan | Link to this comment | 01-27-06 3:21 AM
179: Therein lies their advantage.
202: Correct me if I'm wrong, but I suspect the correct response is "screw you."
Posted by Doctor Slack | Link to this comment | 01-27-06 3:30 AM
yeah. when was it ever seductive to startle people? but then, i forgot, butt-grabbing is not about being seductive, WHOOPS...
Posted by mmf! | Link to this comment | 01-27-06 5:43 AM
I never realized that strangers grabbing women's butts was so common a phenomenon.
Not only that, the correlation evidenced here between being grabbed par derrière and being skipped a grade is borne out in the general population.
Posted by slolernr | Link to this comment | 01-27-06 6:54 AM
Once I grabbed a woman's butt. But she was my friend, and I was dressed as Austin Powers at the time. She was quite startled, though.
Posted by Tia | Link to this comment | 01-27-06 7:18 AM
Does grabbing a friend's butt to prevent him from reneging on his promise to quit smoking count?
Posted by Jeremy Osner | Link to this comment | 01-27-06 7:23 AM
202: Being grabbed up, by a woman. I was 17 at the time.
203: I suspect the correct response is "screw you."
I don't know about you, but my response at 17 would have been, "Screw me. Please."
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 01-27-06 7:23 AM
Dear Penthouse Letters,
I never thought this would happen to me, but last month I was trying to quit smoking...
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 01-27-06 7:25 AM
UPDATE: I've gotten a "maybe" on the lightning bolt.
Developing...
Posted by Adam Kotsko | Link to this comment | 01-27-06 8:00 AM
I've had my ass grabbed twice. The first time was in high school, I was 14 or 15, and a passing senior cupped his hand against my butt. I had long hair then and was looking away from him, so I think he had no idea I was a boy. He kept moving -- I remember he had a leather jacket, which in our school meant working class -- and I wasn't upset so much as baffled. Only years later did I think back and realize the thing was probably sexual and also most likely a case of mistaken identity.
The second time I was 24 and had been out hiking in some mountains in Westchester, N.Y. On the way back to my hotel I stopped at some rustic little museum with stuffed birds or something like that. The volunteer on duty was a woman in her 60s who struck me as local gentry. She was very good-looking for her age, which I guess made a difference in my response since I wasn't bothered much, just nonplussed.
At any rate, after leading me to the guest sign-in book she too cupped her hand against my ass, and then she strolled off with a pleased simper on her face. It was a surprise, to put it mildly. I'm not the type to grab asses myself, though sometimes I'd like to. And the idea that someone could do so and then carry on even a sketchy and brief conversation with the grabbee was a bit of a revelation. (Because there was some final bit of official business -- I forget what -- before the lady retreated to her little office.) If I ever grabbed a stranger's ass, I wouldn't be able to look the grabbee in the face afterward. So I learned a small lesson about how some people live large and some don't.
Posted by Kyle | Link to this comment | 01-27-06 9:19 AM
208: I stand corrected.
211: She was very good-looking for her age . . .
Now there's an "I never thought it would happen to me" moment.
Posted by Doctor Slack | Link to this comment | 01-27-06 9:31 AM
You didn't feel all obligated to sleep with her, and make a lonely old woman happy?
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 01-27-06 9:34 AM
I was talking to a coworker the other day and he said that sometimes when he's riding the subway he'll see a girl's hand holding onto the pole and just get an overwhelming urge to lick it. He hasn't acted on it yet but almost feels like he's afraid he's not going to be able to control himself.
Posted by Becks | Link to this comment | 01-27-06 9:42 AM
Ooh! I had been searching my memory for repressed experiences of being grabbed. But Kyle's comment brings to mind an occasion on which I was the grabber! or something like that. See when I was 13 a friend of my parents took me to see a Dylan concert at the Sacramento county fairgrounds. (It was his tour with Tom Petty.) The concert was outdoors and without seats or bleachers, so everyone was standing. I noticed some people next to me were smoking a marihuana cigarette, something I had never done, and I drifted toward them thinking this might be my big chance! But look: I was 13 and pretty short and the crowd was head and shoulders above me. Nobody really took any notice of me. And my attention was diverted by a quite tall Asian woman in front of me, whose legs were long enough that the small of her back was nearly level with my eyes, and whose backside was a thing of beauty in her tightly-fitting jeans. So I stared at it unnoticed for 10 minutes or so while the band played "Highway 61 Revisited" and during the applause I tried my way towards gently fondling it. It sure seems in my memory like I touched it lightly and even a couple of times before I slunk away, but I can't square that with my memory of not being slapped or even noticed; so perhaps not. What can I say, I was 13 -- it's not an episode that fills me with pride or anything. --On the contrary! Just part of the past.
Posted by Jeremy Osner | Link to this comment | 01-27-06 9:43 AM
i was searched by a cop in tijuana who spent what seemed a very long time searching my pockets. that was fun.
Posted by matty | Link to this comment | 01-27-06 9:46 AM
The first time I had my ass grabbed, it wasn't my ass--it was my pubes. In 7th grade. The girlfriend I was with at the time said, "didn't you know those boys were gonna do that?" I said "no!" She said, "yeah, they do it all the time."
Talk about your learning experiences. Years later, it occurred to me that it hadn't even entered my mind at the time to report it to the school principal or my parents, or anyone else.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 01-27-06 9:49 AM
Doesn't "pubes" normally mean pubic hair? Is that what you meant?
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 01-27-06 9:52 AM
217 - Were you guys walking around without any pants, or what?
Posted by Joe Drymala | Link to this comment | 01-27-06 9:52 AM
I do not claim pwnage on Drymala, neither have I jinxed him. We are brothers.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 01-27-06 9:55 AM
I had a friend who used to grab my ass on occasion, and I would occasionally grab hers.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 01-27-06 9:57 AM
Sometimes I see an ass so fine and sexy that I put my hands upon it and squeeze, when I realize the ass was my own.
Posted by Joe Drymala | Link to this comment | 01-27-06 9:59 AM
213 -- Well, no. (I realize I'm being very literal minded about your question.) Lonely old lady" was not the air she gave off. More like a woman who had had her share of fun over the years.
Posted by Kyle | Link to this comment | 01-27-06 10:00 AM
222 -- Limber.
Posted by Kyle | Link to this comment | 01-27-06 10:01 AM
217 - um, what was the lessons learned?
Posted by matty | Link to this comment | 01-27-06 10:01 AM
221: I have a friend like that, Wolfson! [whispering] We sometimes grab other things. Is that wrong?
Posted by Tia | Link to this comment | 01-27-06 10:01 AM
damnit. pretend that were in english.
Posted by matty | Link to this comment | 01-27-06 10:02 AM
I'm known as the assrobat, Kyle.
Posted by Joe Drymala | Link to this comment | 01-27-06 10:02 AM
Holy shit! I was thinking that the world is full of savages, but now it occurs to me that I've grabbed an ass! It was more of a pat, really, but I think it counts. Some hot little Brazilian woman, years ago. But we were all drunk, and had stripped to our underwear to jump in a pool, so I think I'm in the clear.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 01-27-06 10:03 AM
I suspect you have an entirely different sort of friend, Tia.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 01-27-06 10:03 AM
Pubes can mean the region, brothers.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 01-27-06 10:04 AM
Sometimes when I get drunk in a public place I'll start wanting to grab women's asses. I contain myself, though.
Posted by Tia | Link to this comment | 01-27-06 10:04 AM
I see the comment-posting problem has not been solved at all.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 01-27-06 10:04 AM
See the update, little Ben.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 01-27-06 10:06 AM
228: Where is your sidekick, acrobutt?
Posted by Tia | Link to this comment | 01-27-06 10:06 AM
Yeah, people can still post comments.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 01-27-06 10:06 AM
Weiner, you pubes, it doesn't matter that it can mean that, when just about everyone typically takes it to mean something else. That's why I put that "normally" in my question to b.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 01-27-06 10:07 AM
I'm accepting applications for acrobutt.
Posted by Joe Drymala | Link to this comment | 01-27-06 10:10 AM
The first time I had my ass grabbed, it wasn't my ass--it was my pubes.
Well, I guess we can conclude that this wasn't you.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 01-27-06 10:11 AM
I am dedicated and hard-working at the task of admiring my ass. If you asked my previous employers to say what kind of employee I am, they'd say, "One who has a damn fine ass, and knows it." If I had to name one flaw, it is that my ass is too beautiful, and attracts too much attention, including my own.
Posted by Tia | Link to this comment | 01-27-06 10:13 AM
#239 -- I thought the dramatis personae in that joke were spozed to be Bitch, Ph. D. and Chopper.
Posted by Jeremy Osner | Link to this comment | 01-27-06 10:15 AM
I rarely go out in public anymore, since my ass is inevitably rubbed raw by the swarms of admirers, hungry for a stroke.
Posted by Joe Drymala | Link to this comment | 01-27-06 10:15 AM
Sorry, Joe. I was overcome by the urge.
Posted by FL | Link to this comment | 01-27-06 10:17 AM
In addition to admiring my own ass, I'm flexible, and I'm ready to handle anything that might come up outside of my job description, such as rubbing aloe vera on The Assrobat's chafing.
Posted by Tia | Link to this comment | 01-27-06 10:18 AM
226, 232, 240: Please see 27, above.
Posted by Matt #3 | Link to this comment | 01-27-06 10:19 AM
The opening for Acrobutt has been filled.
Posted by Joe Drymala | Link to this comment | 01-27-06 10:19 AM
237: Really? I usually take it to be the region -- with the most common usage, "shaving your pubes," applied by analogy with "shaving your head" or "shaving your balls." Though there's also "shaving your beard" or "shaving your moustache" -- and my intuition, that "shaving your beard off" and "shaving your moustache off" are OK while "shaving your pubes off" is off, is not borne out by google. So the tools of Advanced Linguistic Analysis show that pubes often is used for the hair. Well I'll be.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 01-27-06 10:20 AM
246: "for" s/b "of"
Posted by Joe Drymala | Link to this comment | 01-27-06 10:23 AM
I think the preferred nomenclature is the nether regions.
Posted by tweedledopey | Link to this comment | 01-27-06 10:23 AM
Thinking about it, this feeling comes from John Cheever's story "The Ocean," in which the narrator visits his daughter in bohemian scholar to find that she and her boyfriend have glued many expensive butterflies to a medical-supply skeleton, with one particular one at the pubis. I think it's 'pubis' and not 'pubes', but I won't look it up.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 01-27-06 10:24 AM
Acrobutt needs to learn who's on top here.
Posted by Joe Drymala | Link to this comment | 01-27-06 10:26 AM
I've always considered "pubis" to refer to the region, whereas "pubes" is the plural of "pube" which is short for "a pubic hair."
As in the oft heard exclamation from the summer I spend cleaning toilets, "Can you believe how many pubes were all over that seat?"
Posted by Matt #3 | Link to this comment | 01-27-06 10:26 AM
Pubes is the plural form of pubis.
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