The Harassment Chronicles: Politeness or Harassment?

When a fellow on the street insists, No, please, after you: which is it? Gentlemanly valor or a less noble urge to fix his eyes on your behind?

Alright, here's the scene: Waiting for the bus, snooping in on two teenagers talking music. You heard that...Fat Joe...Akon...&c. (Yeah they're black, but as Crim said when his arguably racist Southern grandma asked him whether a friend he'd made as a child was white or black, "What difference does it make?" Sometimes, sigh, it does make a difference.)

One kid kept repeating, in that irritating this-is-in-my-head-so-you'll-all-suffer-it way, some lyric that went, We supply the whole port, not the port-o-pot. Which is a stupid lyric and unbecoming the gentlemanly manner both guys adopted when it was time to climb onto the bus.

Experience has taught me that such chivalry sometimes has ignoble motives. Many are the cars I've walked past at stop signs at the driver's persistent insistence, only to have his eyes track me mercilessly across the street.

Ladies first! they implored, and I thanked them, unprejudiced, and went first, leaving my ample hindquarter exactly level with their teenage eyes for the long moments while the person ahead of me rummaged for change. There was heh-heh-ing behind me and whisperings of of Please! After you! which did not bode well.

Still, I want to think highly of the youth of my fair city. You know what happens when you assume.

As street harassment goes, the Leering Opportunity Disguised As Politeness is a very mild form. Much milder even than the next mildest form, Talking Amongst Themselves About You (Unobtrusively and in Non-Profane Language).