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buybuydandavis comments on LW Women Submissions: On Misogyny - Less Wrong
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Speaking solely from my own experience and language usage, I think of creepiness as related to clinginess. A creep is a man who gives the impression of trying to insist on unwanted intimacy (there's some sort of emotional/physical intersection there) and of unwillingness to go away. I believe that "skin crawling" is a common metaphor for the experience of being around someone who is creepy.
I've actually been threatened a couple of times, and I went into a useful emotionally dissociated state. The men involved didn't strike me as creepy.
I'm not denying that there can be some status issues, but they don't offer a universal explanation. There are reports of women who find some high status men creepy, and not all low status men are creepy. If women keep saying "No, low status doesn't explain creepiness", then maybe it's incumbent to at least ask what else they think is going on.
I believe part of the problem is that a good many men don't seem to have had the experience of being creeped out, so they're guessing about possible patterns. Unfortunately, the low status model leaves out the possibility that one reason some men are reliably unattractive is that the men quickly give the impression of being bad emotional matches.
That's pretty much what I consider to be the essence of creepy. I consider it the threat of a desire for increased intimacy where it isn't wanted - not really insisted upon, because isn't the guy hangs around but won't come to the point even more creepy than the guy who directly asks you out?
But others insisted that it had to do with threat of assault, sexual or otherwise. Likely people just have different usages, but I'd think fear, anger, panic would figure much more into that case, besides just revulsion and aversion. Creepy seems much more of an ick factor related to a person who wants to get closer to you.
I absolutely agree. I don't think the status issues are universal, they're just one form the threat can take. Much of it is just the natural discomfort of having to deal with rejection. Rejection makes people uncomfortable from either side. Having someone interested and having to reject them is no fun. Part of creepiness is not following through on the "threat" and propositioning, so that the threat is always just hanging out there floating over the creep, and he seems even lower status for his fearfulness and lack of confidence.