This post follows 574 and 575 and cites tactics for women to use against unwanted sexual advances. If those primary tactics don’t work, these advanced tactics may.
Dealing with egregious advances, these behavior rules work best:
♦ Don’t act angry, don’t complain, don’t explain, and don’t answer questions he may express in surprised innocence. Especially show no empathy or sympathy for him, because you think your words hurt his feelings.
♦ Don’t stare him down if you work with or for him—he loses too much face to continue working well with you. Otherwise stare-down helps.
♦ Make him interpret your reaction all by himself. He can’t stand confusion and mystery, because it triggers both his producing nature and problem-solving spirit. Consequently, his behavior should change but not necessarily for the better.
When “Stop that” doesn’t work, other tactics may. Guilt, shame, and ridicule work, and the greatest of these is ridicule. These ideas penetrate the male psyche in ways that help her.
♦ Men are not vulnerable to female accusations about manhood etcetera. They retaliate as with any competitor. Men favor directness and have trouble with indirectness, which is the female forte. They are particularly vulnerable to female hints that indirectly claim they lack finesse and charm. For example: “You act underage, so I need father’s permission.” (Call him underage regardless of his age, and don’t clarify whose father.) Say nothing more.
♦ Threats can work but shock helps: “I’ll ask your wife.” Or, “My last knee-to-the-crotch was a real zinger.” Or, “You once again made my daily journal that I let others read.” For max effectiveness, create doubts, fears, and questions that make him deviate from his standard game plan. Make him face some unknowns simply because you act different than what he already knows how to handle. Shock and awe works for military conquest, and he may be trying it on you. However, it also works to prevent egregious attempts to conquer.
♦ Strike the guilt chord: “Does Jesus approve your adulterous thoughts?” Or, “Does your wife/girlfriend approve?”
♦ Strike the shame chord: Slap should work with most men. Or, if in public angrily shout “Stop that” or “No.” Stare him down but only if you don’t work with or for him—such as your professor.
♦ Many things can reduce men to little boys, virtual parenting as it were. For example: Ask a mature and impressive male friend older than the offender to intervene for you. It sends numerous messages. You have a big brother or father figure to protect you. It tells the offender he loses the respect of respectable men, his universal competitors. The older your friend relative to offender, the stronger it indirectly signals his behavior as childish. It changes you from his target for sex to him as offender of female dignity.
You ladies know better than I how to make these general ideas work at the individual level or even if they will. I offer them merely as insight to how the male mind would likely respond.
Many women are reluctant to so aggressively challenge offending males. I understand, but they should consider this: God made men hard-hearted. To deal with that masculine shortcoming, he made females hardheaded. Use it or lose it.
What Women Never Hear 