non-science

[rm]

Sorry, new and improved version. I left out some important options.

I realize this is entirely non-scientific and because LJ skews towards women even more unscientific for that. But I tend to think these little exercises still have their uses and least when it comes to reminding people about privilege (or I may turn out to be totally wrong).

ETA:

to answer some frequent questions:

1. Unwanted contact from a person you are in a relationship with should be read as a sexual overture (possibly entirely appropriate but you weren't in the mood) was made that you rejected, BUT the rejection was then not heeded in a fashion that you feel harmed you/violated your person/rights.

2. I know, I left out a choice for boss/coworker/clergy member/teacher/professional relationship/person in position of authority -- please put it in the acquaintance category. This was noticed too late to redo the poll and I'll note it when I do the results summary post.

3. If you are trans, genderqueer, etc. and want to answer in more than one category based on how you were presenting at the time, that's fine.

4. The way LJ shows the answers to this isn't actually that statistically interesting to what I'm trying to capture, and I will eventually make a post about some other things I'm seeing somewhat buried in the numbers.

5. Yes, your answers are viewable to everyone. There's a point to that too that will be discussed later as well.

6. Feel free to link to this in your own journal.

7. THANK YOU.


[Poll #1175760]

Comments

[spherissa.livejournal.com]

BTW for what it's worth for your dataset, which isn't much as it's not asked for and thus not generally supplied i guess! I'm 27, I've always been and identified as female. I'm bi. The contacts have come from people identifying as both male and female and in a n equal or empowered position over me.

[beandelphiki.livejournal.com]

Got linked here, so I filled out your poll. I'm an FtM, so the way I answered it was to put under, "I am a woman," what I experienced when I presented as female (although since I came out just before my 16th birthday, "woman," is not really appropriate for much of it), and under, "I am a man," what I've experienced since I began presenting as male.

"I am both/neither/intersexed/trans," is the sum total. Although some things are too personal to put down publicly, this is probably about 90% of it.

I've experienced all variations, i.e. female/female, male/female, female/male, male/male (due to my change in presentation), and I assumed I'm including everything from insistent groping to molestation (or attempts at such).

[eriktrips.livejournal.com]

it's too late, but I should amend my answers to show that I was female-presenting--and a child--when I was molested by a family member and then raped by stranger.

all other unwanted sexual contact has been while androgynous-to-male. it's dropped off considerably since I've been male-presenting.

[lexica510.livejournal.com]

I have a feeling I'm going to realize "oh, yeah, and there was that time I forgot about... and that other time..." Gee, I should have ticked more boxes, shouldn't I? *sigh*

I've had one experience that I had to think about whether to include. A former friend was the type of man who thinks that if he's attracted to a woman, the only legitimate reason for her to turn him down is if she's already involved with someone. Otherwise, if she wasn't interested in being involved with him sexually, he didn't want to be friends with her.

Now, I was married the entire time we knew this guy, so he never made advances on me. But I knew that he found me attractive, and that if I weren't involved, I'd be subject to the same bullshit.

And you know, I decided that if there was a likelihood that it was going to come down to me saying "NO, I'm not going to sleep with you, and NO, I'm not going to change my mind, and NO, I don't care if this means you don't want to be friends anymore" at some point — well, might as well just get that over up front.

So this didn't exactly feel like unwanted sexual attention, but it felt like a situation that would have turned into unwanted sexual attention if I hadn't done something to avoid it.

[nightengalesknd.livejournal.com]

I'm aromantic and asexual (and female) and have never experienced unwanted sexual contact. Of course I would find any sexually related contact unwanted. I have had classmates in junior high make taunting verbal advances but I don't count those.

However I dislike being touched without permission so I have often experienced unwanted physical contact in general. Touching me on the arm unexpectedly is unwanted. It comes mostly from acquaintances and coworkers. My real friends know better than to do this to me.

[poets-hand.livejournal.com]

I found this through joedecker . I'd like to see as an additional category "somebody in a position of trust, ie doctor, teacher, police officer, etcera". I wasn't in a relationship with my doctor, but he was more than an acquaintance, and not a close friend or family member.

[owlqueue.livejournal.com]

and i screwed up the poll by not including [X] for complete stranger. doh!

[vastatuuli.livejournal.com]

You can actually change your answers afterwards:
http://www.livejournal.com/poll/?id=1175760&mode=enter