"creepy" is just a code word for "unattractive" or "awkward"

i've been called hot, sexy, and creepy in the same hour span on a night out.

speaking up in the conversation at the wrong time, or just having the wrong look on your face can be "creepy". staring off into space while thinking about code? watch out, you could be creeping someone out. overhear something and decide to but in with a "hey i think i know what you're talking about..." - watch out. potential creeper.

it is a word that is rapidly losing meaning due to massive overuse. i'm guessing a lot of people have been called 'creepy' before without knowing why (the accuser NEVER, EVER will tell you why, as it's usually a "feeling" and not a "fact") and that's why the accused are getting upset.

Because it is an attack on gender. Creepers and harassment are exceedingly rarely discussed in gender neutral ways- it is usually a man doing something to a woman, or sometimes a discussion of the reverse. It is not often both in a neutral way.

Additionally, the behaviour are things that a lot of people still do. Whereas with racism, to use the author's example, might draw the same ire (and it does in certain cases) as it divides people- there is mostly a generally accepted line that we know is publicly agreed on. But with harassment, until men are not so testosterone filled to constantly chase women, there will always be an element of their behaviour that women are going to find "creepy" at some point.

As such, in every post you are condemning behaviour that around 50% of the population will have done at some point. You're asking more than half of your readers to carefully evaluate the proposition and say "I see that my behaviour sometimes can have adverse affects. This doesn't necessarily make me a bad person but we should all actually think about how this affects other people more often, because this is a bad thing". Whereas a good number of people are simply going to see an attack on them, and reply in kind.

Note that talking about racism does make people very angry when you do the same thing- if you're talking about something that is murky and not clearly one way or another- say using a term that some people find offensive but many do not- then you're going to get exactly the same angry responses because now a good % of your readers are feeling targeted.

I think at least part of the problem stems from society's expectations of the "role" of men in relationships. Right or wrong, men are still largely expected to be pursuers but the rules are not well defined - often different women will have different ideas of what is appropriate which makes the whole thing clear as mud.

One approach is to avoid it all completely, to act as if everybody within a professional context is completely asexual. I think that approach really only works for robots and people who have zero social interaction with other people at work. It's unrealistic, so back to square one with the ambiguity of being human around other humans.

We end up with a cognitive dissonance born of competing and vaguely defined requirements and expectations. That's a recipe for frustration in any context - add the emotional and hormonal aspects and its going to be really stressful for a lot of guys - and that stress is going to come out in unpleasant ways.

The reason it makes people angry is that "creeper" has become the male equivalent of slut shaming. I was thinking long and hard about this and it suddenly hit me.

1) It entirely a judgement in the head of the person making the claim. There are no objective agreed upon standards for it, so there is no way to refute the claim. When someone calls another person a slut, they are using their own standards of sexuality, something about which there is no universal standard, and judging the person against that standard. Because the standard is the accuser's own there is no way to claim that they are objectively wrong.

2) Because of the above, it is entirely context dependent. As others have brought up, this means that the exact same behaviour from two different people can be called "creepy" in one instance, and desirable the next. Examine the difference in reactions between a person who does not fit the idealized marketing body type making themselves sexually avalable and a person considered "hot". I have seen women called slutty for the same behaviour that was proclaimed as "awesome" all because they were seen as less conventionally attractive than the other woman.

3) It immediately associates that person with a negative societal perception and group. Because of this both words have incredible power, although much good work has been done to dull the impact of slut but it is still damaging.

Due to all of the above, calling someone a creeper is an incredibly powerful way to immediately disempower that person, place them on the defensive, and quickly impact them in a negative fashion. We recognize that a combination of the above three points makes the word slut an incredibly negative word that should really never be used, and I'm sure we'll get there with creeper/creepy. But if you want to know why it makes people angry, well just remember that question the next time you get worked up over someone casually dropping a "slut" bomb on someone else.

I think it's because the group in question -- nerds, essentially -- are among the least sexually successful population of males. And, generalizing here, that's because in various ways, they typically don't understand other people in a relatable way. So, owing to not being able to understand women, they get rejected and they can't understand why -- it feels like a black box. This feels unfair, and creates a sense of victimization.

So to tell people who are (maybe understandably) bitter and resentful, who are feeling like rejects and victims, that their behavior is the problem -- well, that just feels spiteful and insulting. From the perspective of the nerds, women are arbitrary and cruel, so fuck them and what they think of us. Further, now that women are becoming integrated into parts of nerd culture, this feels like an encroachment into the territory which was previously able to provide a haven/escape from female rejection.

This, at least, is what my experience has been in talking with others. I don't think I personally ever felt this way, but I also have never identified strongly as a nerd either. I'm definitely generalizing heavily.

This entire essay is about how other people perceive a certain thing in a more extreme matter than would be warranted by logic, but the author makes the mistake of using the same extremities in his essay, thus nullifying his own argument. (Did that make sense? If not, it basically means: he is saying "there are a lot of nutters who are angrily responding to discussions about creepers and harrassment", but he doesn't really define what a nutter is, and by calling them a random pejorative term since they are disagreeing with him, he is making a similarly extreme statement.)

Let us examine some of his statements to illustrate what I'm talking about:

"What I'm doing is questioning the disproportionate and, to be blunt, disturbed anger that arises over this particular subject." ← What do you mean by disproportionate? Disproportionate compared to what? Plus, 'disturbed anger' s kind of a tautology, people are usually disturbed when they are angry. I have a hard time visualising 'undisturbed anger'.

I'm questioning why the — pardon me — hysterical terms like "lynch mob" are so quickly brought to bear when this is the subject. ← Hysterical itself is an extreme term. Why is he using it without clearly illustrating what he means? Maybe some of the people who are angrily commenting have suffered through accusations of sexism that they felt were completely unwarranted. Or they could have psychological problems. We don't really know.

"I'm questioning why on some issues — say, race — incoherent basement-stinking fury is relegated to places like Stormfront, but when it comes to sex it's alarmingly close to the mainstream." ← Alternately, it might just you who thinks that the largely mainstream thought is basement-stinking, another unnecessarily pejorative term, probably relating to the basement-dwelling unwashed nerd stereotype

"I'm asking why is it that if I write about racism, truly nutty and racist response are fairly rare, but if I talk about sexual harassment or sexism, I can count on being classified as a "white knight" or "mangina" or "pink shirt" or homosexual or something." ← Well, but you are similarly accusing those who disagree with your views as having "basement-stinking" fury, right?

In general, I this article provides little logical meat to chew on and more of the same extreme-termed language that it claims to be against.

(H'm, not sure why I was downvoted on this. Can the downvoter comment?)

I think it's because the men in the ensuing backlash put themselves in the place of the creeper and empathize with a feeling of persecution or believe the behavior to be misinterpreted by the author/experiencer. Most men won't feel intimidated or fear for their safety just by the unwanted presence of a woman, so it may be difficult for some to empathize with the opposite of this experience. Add on to this that, as humans, we judge others for their actions, but ourselves for our intent. Many men are not going to physically hurt women, and commenters that empathize with the creeper come to assessment that since they wouldn't hurt her, then she must have been over-reacting. (This fails to take into account that the woman in the situation doesn't at all know what the man she is intimidated by is going to do or what kind of harm he could cause her.) Add the stereotype of the regular nerd culture participant as being socially awkward and thus unaware of many rules regarding social interaction, and it's easy to paint a caricature of an unaware fool who was just misunderstood and is now being bullied for his awkwardness.

"Most men fear getting laughed at or humiliated by a romantic prospect while most women fear rape and death." -Gavin de Becker

Is the author of the original post as dense as he professes to be in his total inability to understand the angry responses to the discussions of "creeper?" I have a hard time believing that, so I conclude he is writing in a mode of rhetorical trolling in service of making his point.

either case, his obtuseness as to why labeling people as creepers might cause anger is dismaying, particularly coming from a high status make with a privileged background. (Harvard Law and ask that).

Of the many problems with his essay, probably the simplest to point out is the snide callousness of defining people as "creepers" who allegedly engage in "creepy" behavior.

As an anecdotal observation, when I hear female acquaintances use the term creep/creeper it almost always refers to unwelcome sexual advances by lower status males.

I have not heard the term used much to describe the more harrowing examples of sexual harassment outlined in helpful internet posts describing just what "creeping" is. Or if the term is used, there is clarifying language ("asshole, jerk") to make the distinction that it was a more serious situation.

I wonder if it might just have to do with the fact that the people most inclined to comment on an article are the people that disagree with the premise most strongly. That goes with /any/ subject, not just this one. People that agree usually just hit "like" or move on. So if you're only paying attention to the direct comments, you're going to get a skewed view of things.

I neither agree or disagree with his premise, but I don't know that you can take the responses to his articles to represent some "trend", because you're basically filtering for a certain thing (disagreement) when you write on controversial subjects and just read the comments.

I guess I just read that article as: "I presented a strong opinion to the entire world AND PEOPLE DARED TO DISAGREE WITH ME?! WHO ARE THESE MONSTERS?!". Well I mean, you presented it to the entire world, what did you expect, 100% agreement? It doesn't necessarily mean anything though.

If I am thinking of the same situations as the author, it goes something like this:

Person X experiences a completely mundane situation (a respectful but unwanted sexual advance in an elevator, overhearing a PG-13 discussion at a conference) and writes a blog post about it.

The initial response is an equal mix of "Hurray for you, Person X! You are the bravest person on Earth!" and "Wait, this is a completely ordinary and inoffensive situation."

Later, the person making the advance or having the conversation are fired from their jobs or questioned by the police, and the "wait, this is not a big deal" group of people become very upset.

> Why Does Talking About Creepers And Harassment Make People So Angry?

Because it is usually followed by demands and hate. "I am woman, you are sexist because you are a man, now gimme your money".

Human nature is often shitty and here's the status ranking that tends to emerge, except in mature/stable monogamous couplings:

    High-status men > High-status women >>> Low-status women >>> Low-status men

Few people will put it that nakedly, but let's get it out there. I'm not defending this. I hate that it's that way. It's unfair to women (who have a ceiling placed above them) and unfair to low-status men (who are treated as garbage, criminals, effluent).

This rank-order exists because humans are not naturally monogamous. High-status men can have more reproductive yield than any woman (200+ children, easily) so there is more incentive to compete and, in pre-monogamous times, it was aggressive men who took the most risks and ended up on top (or dead). Low-status women outrank low-status men because they still have wombs (a scarce resource) while low-status men only have unwanted genetic material (and are a risk of upset to the high-status people).

Most "creepers" or "sketchy guys" are socially awkward, low-status men who get scapegoated for the horrible things done by a small minority of (high- and low-status) terrible men. Most are not guilty of anything other than being socially unwanted.

Society is so bad at finding and punishing the actual male criminals (who are still out there) that the hammer tends to fall on the socially awkward instead... because they're not quick enough to get out of the way when it's falling.

There's a perfect storm for flamewarring on these issues because both genders have a genuine injustice to get angry about. For women, it's the fact that most societies still are pretty horrible to them, that they are forced to compete in a career game that favors sociopathy (more commonly male), and that a small minority of very bad men still commits disgusting crimes (and sometimes gets away with them, especially when it's high-status men involved; see: Stuebensville). For men, it's the hypocritical nastiness (hypocritical because the most common offenders when it comes to, for example, rape are usually the entitled, arrogant high-status men) directed at low-status men. Note also that almost all men (probably 75%) will have low status at some point in their lives (especially risky times are the freshman year of college and the first 2-4 years in the work world).

For the same reason that people lose their damn minds when the word "privilege" comes out. They don't understand the issue, they don't understand what it's like to be on the other end of it. "She should take it as a compliment", etc. It's a defense mechanism for those that realize they might be creepers.

Anytime someone uses the word "Creeper" it quickly identifies the person as a Millenial. It sounds passive-aggressive.

The word is "Stalker" kids. A creeper is someone who creeps around at night.

whaat. where the creep pride

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tLPZmPaHme0

I'd also like to add that the word "creeper" should be kept out of these discussions. It seems obvious that sexism is very common in United States computer culture. But the word "creepy", when used to describe an undesirable man, is every bit as derogatory as "fattie" or "slut" when applied to a woman. It's the kind of word that is used for character assasination.

As you say, it doesn't go well when you imply that every man in a large group is supporting sexist behavior. The proper way to handle this issue is to just be direct when someone is behaving inappropriately and not use ambiguous language:

"Don't touch girls who obviously don't want it - that is sexual harassment. Not cool."

"Stop treating this woman like a sex object in a social setting - it is inappropriate."

"Don't stare, it makes people uncomfortable."

One final thought which I haven't heard from anyone else: I think one thing that can make a lot of nerd guys angry when it comes to this kind of behavior, is that many less-than-socially-masterful guys observe that women may respond very negatively to behavior that other men get away with. How sexual harassment is handled by women is very dependent on the situation and instigating person. The exact same behavior which would be met with disgust and derision at a tech conference, could be considered flirtatious and hot if it came in the right tone of voice from a hot guy at a nightclub.

This is obviously no excuse for acting like an asshole in the tech community. But I think a lot of people severely underestimate the role that status, attractiveness and social skill has when it comes to these questions. The tech scene is not the only social environment where sexism and misogny occurs, but it is certainly the one with the highest concentration of men that can safely be shamed for it.

A man doesn't even need to chase women to be stigmatized as "creepy". Merely being single and being in a place where someone doesn't want you to be, or doing something simple like opening a door or complimenting someone, is often stigmatized as "creepy" just because the recipient of the attention doesn't want it from the individual giving it.

This is not to excuse any cases of actual sexual harassment, just an observation

You were doing so well until you made a sweeping generalisation about why men are different to women ("testosterone filled to constantly chase women"). The differences between men's and womens sexuality can be put down to a number of things:

1. Women being pressured to follow old ideals how they should behave. (i.e. fear of being a 'slut')

2. Women also feeling pressured to make themselves sexually available and attractive by the media.

3. The perception pepetuated in the media to men and especially geeks that everybody is having more sex than them . This results in a kind of angry justification for bad behaviour that the world is stacked against them and in favour of that douchebag jock from high school.

You will notice that none of these reasons are set in stone, we can change them. Sexual politics does not have to stay this way.

One more thing: Your statement that 50% of the population has done the behaviour in question seems a bit over the top and you seem to be almost implying that it's inevitable. If that were the case then it would be a horrendous statistic. Although I do think that a very high proportion of men have done something resembling harassment of a woman at some point in their life.

> As such, in every post you are condemning behaviour that around 50% of the population will have done at some point.

I agree with this exact sentiment. For example, hand holding is a thing commonly done among women friends in Japan. This sort of a thing in the US, however, would be viewed as 'creepy'.

However, most of the examples that the author points to, IMO, would not fall under creepy, but rather offensive. Offensive, however, has a 'higher burden of proof' so to speak whereas creepy is just a feeling. Therefore, creepy gets used much more and consequently it makes men feel more violated because there is no way to rebut it. E.g. "the way you said hi to me was really creepy." There is no response to that which an honest person can give: apologizing means that you were indeed creepy and arguing makes you look stupid.

It's not the language that makes people nutters. They might have downvoted you for discounting the entire article for something that doesn't matter.

Have you never seen the reactions the article is talking about?