Don't Be A Creeper Archives - Paging Dr. NerdLove

How Can Men Look for Casual Sex Without Being Creepy?

March 12, 2021 by Dr. NerdLove Leave a Comment

Hello Doc,

My question is, honestly, is it truly possible for men to actively seek out casual sex or hookups without being creepy? Now, let me clarify some things about this question. Theoretically, of course, the answer is obviously “yes”, but practically? How does a man even bring up the idea without ever creeping out a woman? Many women seem to be repulsed by the idea. Some may like it, but only with certain men. Of course, it’s impossible to know if a woman would like hooking up with you, or even if she wouldn’t be utterly repulsed by you asking, without asking in the first place, so even finding out that vital part of the equation seems impossible to do without creeping a woman out, unless you’re ungodly lucky and every single woman you happen to ask just happens to not be repulsed by you asking.

Another thing is even approaching. Ask on Reddit about it, every single possible venue has its detractors.
“Don’t ask me at the store, I’m just there to shop.”
“Don’t ask me at class, I’m there to learn.”
“Don’t ask me at salsa lessons, I’m there to dance salsa, and I’d be uncomfortable dancing with guys who ask me.”
“Don’t ask me at the coffee shop, I’m there to read/work.”
“Don’t ask me at the bar, I’m just there to drink with friends.”
“Don’t ask me at the club, I’m just there to dance with friends.”

It would be one thing if these were just framed as personal preference, but these always carry the implication that any guy who would do this is probably predatory. And God help you if you DARE ask any follow-up questions about any of these. If you do, it’s obviously because you want to invalidate her opinion or you think you’re entitled to women’s time. Just about the only uncontroversial venue is Tinder. But for many men, that’s just a self-esteem destroyer, of constant one-sided swiping and ghosting.

Some may say that the best thing to do is through social circles or activity groups. But because of everything else I mentioned, I REALLY do not want to do that. If I creep out a stranger, that sucks, but there’s likely no more negative consequences than that. The fact that she even would meet me again is slim to none. But if I creep out a friend or a friend or someone else in an activity group, that’s just terrible. She could tell others about how I creeped her out, my already existing friends would be more suspicious of me, any future interaction with any female member of the group would be tainted, I might even get shunned from the group. That makes me never want to look to friends or activity groups.

So basically, how is it even possible for a man to look for hookups without being creepy? It sounds like he’d need ungodly luck. First, the woman has to not be offended by a simple approach. Then, she has to not be repulsed by the idea of hooking up, and then, to not be repulsed by the idea of hooking up with him. None of those are knowable without asking in the first place. But to ask requires approaching in the first place. And then if he asks, she would then know he thinks of her like that…

Seeking Something Casual

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The Trouble With Defending Jeffrey Toobin

October 23, 2020 by Dr. NerdLove Leave a Comment

Every once in a while, the universe throws a curveball at us. We think that — even allowing for the stress of a global pandemic, a presidential election that seems to be the last stand between democracy and fascism, right-wing and white supremacist terrorist groups threatening violence on election night and politicians openly embracing gonzo conspiracy theories — that we’ve seen it all.

And then we get a week of dudes not knowing when to keep their dicks in their pants and their hands out of them.

It says something about the week when this is the *least* disturbing story in the news.

But while some of these events are more salaciously comedic, some are more disturbing.

We talk a lot about what makes somebody creepy, where the lines are and how to avoid crossing them. After all, understanding what behaviors make women uncomfortable is an important part of creating a culture where women feel empowered to pursue the sex and relationships they want. However, whenever we talk about men behaving badly, we inevitably get the folks who want to defend them. The men — and it’s almost always men — who want to give cover to other dudes who crossed lines. Whether it’s writing it off as “locker room talk” or down-playing the seriousness of what happened, there always seem to be people who think that boundaries and limits are things that happen to other people.

So let’s talk a little about what it means when folks rush to defend other men from the consequences of their own actions.

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How Does He Rebuild The Life He Ruined?

October 16, 2020 by Dr. NerdLove Leave a Comment

Hello, Doc.
I have a series of problems, four points that I desperately wanted to address and have answers to. Just a note, I may well bring this up in case it changes anything, but I am diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome, and have difficulty socializing with others.

1) I’m still being haunted by the memories of friends I lost. I bonded with a wife and husband (in that order, I’ll refer to them as Jill and Jack respectively) over a game. We seemed to hit it off reasonably well, until Jill said that she was out on an anniversary with Jack. And I became obsessed and bitter at how well they have it; someone that’ll love you unconditionally, always be there, and eventually tie the knot with. It kinda grew to a point where Jill was disturbed, and eventually got me banned. I still kept in contact with them, and they did forgive me, but they’re still relatively guarded. One mistake sure, and they utterly despise me for using their names (not exact names, but inspired) in a story and making a dirty joke I thought they wouldn’t notice. (In April 1st, no less, making me the biggest fool of all). This destroyed my relation with them completely, and I thought I had moved on, but a friend of mine in the server said that they still hold a grudge for the previous incident, and aren’t keen on forgiving me (Jack, at least. He said Jill was probably willing to put it behind her). I really hit it off with them, and the guilt of being the one at fault for breaking the friendship still haunts me to this day. I still wonder, “If I hadn’t been so bitter.”, “If I could’ve kept quiet, kept all to myself.”, would we still have been friends.

2) After the above, I frequented another server, and I asked a girl user there for a face reveal (which I know now is a big no-no), which made her call me out as a perv, and made the other members of the server vilify me. I made another user block me for my emotional vampiric tendencies, and this incident effectively made me scared to talk to anyone I couldn’t ascertain the gender online. I regularly ask users I’m suspicious of if they’re girls, since I know to myself that, if they’re a girl, I’m going to inevitably ask them for a face reveal, they’re going to think I’m a perv, and they’ll hate me even if I just want to be genuine friends.

3) This segues into another case, I joined a mental help Discord server. As of writing, I am banned from the server for a public display of gynophobia, not malicious in intent, but still disturbing members. I came here seeking asylum and answers to my questions, and I did ask them about my problem communicating with girls, and they said my case must have come from a lack of physical affection, or ‘skin hunger’. How do I even solve this problem, especially with this pandemic quarantine in place? Touching or hugging myself does fuck-all, I’m too disconnected with my family to ask them. Friends? What’s that?

4) Leading all to this, I’ve lost passion. I play a handful of games, mostly RPG and turn-based games. Civ 5, Fire Emblem, Shogun 2. I’ve lost my passion for all of them. I don’t derive any enjoyment playing them anymore, yet I still do them for some reason. There are times where I just want to lie down on the bed, close my eyes, and never wake up. And I know these symptoms are coincidental with clinical depression. This isn’t helped that, after my ban from the mental health support server, the other server I visited vilified me for it even further, saying things such as “You’re a failure as a person.”, “Something’s really wrong with you if you got rejected by a mental help group.”, etc. The only thing they didn’t say outright was suicide.

I’m so lost and want to heal this, but carrying the guilt of losing Jack and Jill, along with everything else, I don’t know what to do. I want to see a therapist, but the quarantine forbids going outside. Worse yet, how do I regain my passion for the things I used to love?

Burning Down My House

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Fixing The Missing Stair — With Cliff Jerrison

July 10, 2020 by Dr. NerdLove Leave a Comment

DOCTOR’S NOTE: Today’s column is by Cliff Jerrison of The Pervocracy.

In 2012, I wrote a blog post about the missing stair – a person who is widely known within a community to be dangerous, but is allowed to stay while everyone else works around them. Welcome to the club, we meet Thursdays, the bathroom’s down the hall, call Alice if you’re locked out, and if Bob invites you to his house you should say no because he’s kind of our resident date rapist.

It’s like living in a house with a missing stair, where the inhabitants have become so used to taking that one extra big step, they’ve forgotten it’s a problem at all.

But it is a problem, and sooner or later someone’s going to break an ankle. Not everyone gets the whisper warning, sometimes being forewarned isn’t enough to protect you, and even if Bob never touches you, it’s not exactly a welcoming vibe. A lot of women quietly withdraw from the community. A visible dividing line emerges between Bob apologists and the Bob-wary. Because of this one person, and the well-intentioned actions of the people who work around him rather than against him, the whole community is poisoned.

My experience with missing stairs has mostly been with men who sexually harass and abuse women, and that’s the context I’m writing this post in, but similar dynamics can emerge with other genders, with people who have explosive tempers, racists, financial scamsters, and so forth. The details are different but the pattern of a community silently reshaping itself around a half-open secret is the same.

So that’s the problem. Harris has asked me to write about the solution. This is where things get messy and uncertain. There’s no single formula for fixing communities stuck in this pattern, I haven’t always had success with it, and a lot depends on how much the people with the most influence in the community are willing to help. But here’s some things you can do besides entrust lives to the whisper network.

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So Your Friend Is Making Porn: A Guide to Not Making It Weird

May 11, 2020 by Dr. NerdLove Leave a Comment

The COVID-19 pandemic and resulting lockdown has had a number of surprising side-effects. One of them has been an explosion of social-distancing influenced horniness. This in and of itself isn’t that unexpected; Thanatos and Eros go hand in hand, after all. Many people respond to stress and the threat of death by wanting to reaffirm life — and there’re few ways that make us all feel more alive than some good ol’ bangin’.

The problem is: social distancing, a lack of testing and no vaccines means that hooking up with people is a no-go. La petite mort has an entirely too high of a risk of bring la grande mort along with it. As a result: there are scads of horny people with nowhere to go and nowhere to blow.

Not that this doesn’t stop folks from trying anyway.
(via straightwhiteboystexting)

Of course, where there’s a demand, the market will rush to match the supply. So it shouldn’t be surprising that there has been a veritable explosion of people turning to making porn while they’re in lockdown. In fact, the influx of self-produced porn has become so ubiquitous that even Queen Bay herself dropped a reference to the subscription site OnlyFans in Megan Thee Stallion’s “Savage”, giving the platform both an awareness boost and a dose of social cachet. People who’ve turned to various forms of sex work, including lewd cosplay photos, camming, and video work, run the gamut. There are folks trying to make the ends meet, experienced sex-workers changing mediums, people who’ve always had an exhibitionist streak, and folks trying to stay in the spotlight.

But regardless of why folks have turned to amateur porn, one thing remains true: discovering someone you know is naked on the Internet can make things awkward in ways you might never have expected.

When it’s your ex, it goes from “awkward” to “this all ends in fire.”

This leads to a host of questions that many people never expected to have to find answers for: what do you do when you find out that your friend, your co-worker, your friend’s sister, or your kid’s babysitter is making porn? Do you mention that you know or that you’ve seen it? And is there any way of consuming their content that isn’t inherently creepy?

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