Bill Cammack

So… A few hours ago @ Brian’s party, The Kid made a new friend… Well… Until she actually reads my blog, hahaha :D Her name is Jess, and she blogs @ Jess and Josh Talk About Stuff.

So, naturally, this morning, the mandatory e-Stalking session was in order. :D

I immediately landed on a series of posts entitled “The Great Catcalling Experiment”, and of course, The Kid was like awwwwwww here we GO!!! :D

I thought I’d comment on some excerpts from Jess’ series…..

“Jezebel just posted an article analyzing CNN’s lovely story entitled, “Catcalls – Creepy or Complimentary?” Hey, CNN – allow me to answer that question for you, since as a PYT living in New York, I am constantly the victim of bordering-on-sexual-harassment-catcalls.”

I’ll assume that PYT stands for “Pretty, Young Thing”, derived from Michael Jackson’s record. If it’s something else, someone let me know! :D

“Not only is it creepy, but it’s objectifying and downright annoying. I have never once stopped in my tracks, looked at my perp in the eye, sincerely thanked him and then handed him my number.”

“So why do men continue to catcall?”

Personally, I don’t indulge… but I see why a lot of guys do it. We’ll get to that later. :)

I don’t bother with catcalling because a) it doesn’t work, and b) it totally goes against my personal style. If you tell a chick how fine she is the first time you ever lay eyes on her walking down the street, you already gave your entire game away. You don’t have any leverage, because she knows you’re sweating her. It’s a Cro-Mag move, and really base… simplistic. If that’s how you want to present yourself to a chick you’re tryinna kick it to, be my guest. :D

Actually, I shouldn’t say it DOESN’T work… It’s actually a low-percentage play. IF the chick likes you, AND she doesn’t penalize you for your primitive tactics, you can get on. Quick & Dirty. Done Deal. If she doesn’t like you, no dice. If she liked you until you opened your mouth, no dice. What’s immediately obvious, however, is that if she likes you already, your comment to her actually did you no good. You didn’t GAIN anything by catcalling her (catcalling AT her?), and could have still pulled the digits if you hadn’t said anything at all… OR if you had said something decent or respectful, such as “hello”.

“Is it in their genes? Is it a cultural thing, since many of the men who vocalize appreciation for my “beauty” tend to be Hispanic and African American? (Though, yeah, some are white – and many of them are asshole Wall Street guys).”

hehehe This is a good question. Having met Jess in person, her results are going to be skewed because of her body type. In General, hispanic and black guys are going to be more physically attracted to her and white guys are going to be less physically attracted to her.

Having said that, I think that guys, black, white or otherwise will be more apt to catcall if they’ve experienced success with that tactic in the past, so I think it’s less “cultural” and more “situational”. Also, a lot of the white guys in NYC are imports. They’re not FROM NYC. They’re not used to walking past 8 or 9 girls on one block that they’d hook up with, so they never developed any street game. Some guys don’t even feel like talking to chicks in the street is appropriate at all. :D

“It’s a feminist issue, but it’s also a human issue. Why have so many women simply accepted this kind of harassment as part of the female job description?”

Partially, because women can’t win this situation. If you keep walking, he “wins”, or at least, he didn’t lose anything, because you would have kept walking anyway if he hadn’t tried to “throw his hat in the ring” (unless you were into him until he catcalled, as I explained earlier). If you stop and talk to him, he wins. That’s what he wanted. Even if you react negatively towards him, he’s still getting your time and attention and he doesn’t care what you think anyway, so all you’re doing by talking to him is giving him a chance to try to get on.

Of course, I’m talking about non-workplace situations.

“It doesn’t matter what I’m wearing, either. I’ve been hit on on my way home from the gym, red-faced, pony-tailed, wearing sweats and coated in a sheet of sweat (er, excuse me – glistening).”

Already covered => “Does it matter what women think?”. Basically, what you think of YOUR looks / attire has ZERO bearing on HIS interest in you. Also, your lack of indication that you want him (or anyone) to talk to you is completely irrelevant.

The entire point is Desire Fulfillment. His.

“This initial graph shows that the majority of men actually did want to pursue something with me beyond catcalling, which was… unexpected, especially considering it’s strange that they would use such a relatively offensive method of catching my attention if they actually wanted to go on a date with me. Or maybe they were caught off guard since I’m sure they never get a positive response from the women they verbally harass. Upon approaching them, they appeared rather flustered but still semi-confident. I gave them each fake phone numbers. Sorry, boys.”

This is why I mentioned success rates and “street game” earlier. Catcalling isn’t a “Never” proposition… it’s only “Low Percentage”. You can definitely get on with catcalling, and there are guys that do it all the time, I’m sure. My point earlier was that they don’t actually NEED to catcall, because the only reason they’d be successful is if the chick was already attracted to them.

The fact remains that there are gals that respond to catcalling AND will give it up relatively quickly thereafter…. um…. actually, that’s probably one of the benefits, hahaha. If you can pick her up by yelling at her in the street, she should be an easy lay. It’s kind of like a poor way to weed out chicks that you might have to put in some work to get. :)

“Woo! I don’t know if it’s the impending heatwave or the fact that I’m wearing a belted t-shirt as a dress, but every construction worker and his brother-in-law wanted to bang this hot mami this morning. Or, so they verbalized.”

“An anonymous commenter brought up the excellent point that just because the men positively embrace my response to their jeers, it does not mean they want to date me. Instead, it probably means they just want to fuck me.”

The difference being……..?

“So now we will operate under the premise that when they ask for my phone number they are simply trying to get in my pants.”

ummm….. Of Course. That’s all that’s going on. Guys are taking shots in the dark at getting laid.

There’s an endless supply of chicks in this town. By one report, there are 210,820 excess single women in NYC. This means that when it comes to kicking game, women are completely expendable. You can ruin a rap to 50 chicks every single day and NEVER run out of chicks to meet in this town that have never seen you before in their lives. I met Jess approximately 12 hours ago, read her blog this morning and blogged about it this afternoon. I met chicks the day before yesterday, and I’m going to meet more today. :D

The point is that catcalling is a last ditch effort, even if a lot of guys use it as their first attempt at kicking it to a chick. It’s low percentage, but it doesn’t matter if you burn that bridge. There are another couple of hundred thousand chicks to try to get on with before the end of the construction day.

“… If any fellow catcallers and readers of Jess and Josh want to take on this task and report back, we would be very grateful. Otherwise, I guess we’ll all have to keep on wondering… why men do the things they do zomg lolz.”

I think by now, I’ve gone over the basic points. When it comes to trying to get laid in a city with an endless supply of females, taking shots in the dark is a low-percentage play that MIGHT score you a chick that will give it up quick. Even if she hates you after the fact, it’s irrelevant, because there are another 210,000 of her that you haven’t offended yet. On top of that, there are women that will take ANY showing of attention from a guy as a compliment, due to an extreme lack of self-esteem. With so many extra females, every so often, you’re bound to run into one that’s tired of not getting some herself, and is susceptible to hooking up with some guy that catcalled her for her own personal pleasure.

As far as “dating”… Dating is just setting up opportunities to get laid, so we end up back at the nitty-gritty. He doesn’t care what you say. He doesn’t care what you think. He DOES care what you look like and that he’s physically turned on by you, and decides to utilize his primitive skillz to try to pick up women on the fly.

It doesn’t matter that you’re dressed in sweats and a hoodie. It doesn’t matter that you didn’t look at him or say anything to him to indicate that you wanted to be rapped to……

Having said all that… :D

I was chatting with Lux earlier, and her take is that catcalling isn’t really about sex… it’s about power.

That’s a discussion for another day. All I can express is the point of view of someone that knows professional catcallers and has the opportunity to catcall chicks every day. I opt out, because it’s low-percentage as well as low-brow. Catcalling usually indicates either desperation or disrespect. Neither one is good. :D

There are classier ways to throw your hat in the ring when you’re crossing a woman’s path that you’ll never see again in this city of millions.

Step your games up, Playboys! :D

Individual links:
Boys Will Be Boys, and So Their Balls May Suffer the Conseq…
The Great Catcalling Experiment: Day One
The Great Catcalling Experiment: Day Two
The Great Catcalling Experiment: Day Three, Uptown Version

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