Was this harassment?
While I was still a student, one afternoon I left Sixth Form College early because my last period was a free one and I wanted to go home. I rode the city bus into town to the bus station. From there it was just another bus ride home. It seemed that many students had the same idea that I had: they had free periods at the end of the day and wanted to get home early too, that’s why they were riding the city bus. I sat down in a free seat and stared out of the window. I felt very tired and sapped of energy. I closed my eyes to have a quick nap. The bus was soon in motion. The bus stopped again and I heard a young man’s voice. It woke me up with a start:
“Hey!” shouted the young student man far too loudly: “Who out of these men do you find the most attractive?”
“I beg your pardon? What is this all in aid of? Is it for charity?” I asked rather groggily. He had shoved my bag carelessly out of the way and was now occupying the seat next to me. His gaze met mine. He leaned over invading my personal space. He held a sheet with photos cut out of magazines of various men. I had no clue who any of them were.
He grinned like an over eager game show host:
“It’s in aid of my Psychology Coursework, I’m doing a survey. Please rate these handsome looking hunks from 1 to 10. Ten being the hottest and one being the least attractive.”
“What a bizarre homework assignment,” I said baffled: “Isn’t it rather shallow to judge people based on appearance alone? What about their personalities or what they are like on the inside? For instance, someone may groom him or herself well, but be rotten to the core on the inside. Similarly, people who are wearing rags and are covered in dirt may be very decent people who have hit on hard times. Then again, there can be people with poor hygiene who act in obnoxious ways. Sometimes life is complicated and people are multifaceted. I can’t tell what hobbies these men have just by looking at them. Do they play chess? Do they cook? Do they knit? Do they volunteer at an animal sanctuary? What are they like? Do they rescue people? Do they help the elderly? Are they school teachers? Do they comfort children at the hospital? Are they brave? Are they funny? Have they shoplifted? Do they like riding on rollercoasters?”
“Stop! You’re overthinking this!” he said in an irritated tone: “Just rate these men’s attractiveness from one to ten on the sheet.”
“No thank you,” I said: “I judge people as whole beings with personality warts and all.”
“But don’t you like any of them? Don’t you have any comments on any of them at all?”
“I can’t tell if I like them because I have never met any of these men in my life. Also they could all just be smiling for the camera and some of them may be feeling secretly miserable inside. I will say one thing though, that chap there looks awfully cold without his shirt on.”
“You mean hot right?”
“No, he looks freezing. Anyway I don’t wish to participate in your survey thank you.”
“But you have to write something!”
“No I don’t. You cannot coerce me into doing a psychology survey. You have to have my consent first. I don’t wish to participate thank you. You can’t just force people to take your survey.”
“Damn I forgot!” he said far too loudly so lots of people turned to look at us. It was very embarrassing.
He muttered something under his breath about me being an “awkward bitch” and left me alone. I was rattled by the whole experience. It seemed to me that psychologists were wasting their talents by asking people silly, trivial and pointless questions. How about using their talents in psychological analysis to improve people’s quality of life by trying to solve world hunger, educating young women and ending poverty for example?
FYI I am straight and sometimes asexual. I am attracted to men but life circumstances often prevent me from meeting men. I would like to try and look at men as whole three dimensional human beings with complex personalities, not just as 2D photos where I have to pick which bloke has most muscle or square jaw or whatever. That’s just silly.
The male student kept approaching young women on the bus. He didn’t ask them for their consent before he shoved the survey in their faces. He also didn’t ask about what their sexuality preferences were in the survey. He just ticked the female box when he approached any young woman on the bus and shoved a “rate how hot these blokes are” survey in front of her face! He automatically assumed that if you were female you’d be attracted to men and that if you were male you’d be attracted to women.
He seemed really disappointed when one young woman on the bus said no to him because she already had a girlfriend! Lesbian and bi women do exist. While not really my cup of tea, there is entertainment for young people based on lesbian romance: novels, films, comic books and even video games!
Also, would bi people have had to rate both men and women photos in the survey? I’m confused.
Wouldn’t it have been the polite thing to do to ask for someone’s permission before sitting next to the person and shoving a psychology survey in that person’s face?
Actually Research Psychologists doing surveys have to ask for participants consent for legal reasons.