Nice legs, Daisy Dukes, makes a man go - no, this is unacceptable

Last Friday before leaving for home I was making the trek back to my dorm. As I got up to the door, a car drove by - a nice white Lexus. A couple of older guys were in it, and they were attractive. The driver shouted at me "I'd hit that," and winked. They drove away.

Before Thanksgiving break last semester I was making the same exact walk, and nearly the same thing happened. Except neither boy was attractive, and the driver shouted "Get out of here, grenade!" *

I liked the first one. I was crushed by the second one. Why is this?

Both are forms of harassment. Neither is intended to do anything other than provoke a reaction and make the catcaller feel powerful. But for some reason attractive dudes shouting an affirmation of my own attractiveness is acceptable?

Dodai of Jezebel recently posted an article about the globalization of Hollaback, the site where users can post incidents of groping, assault and other forms of harassment, including comments like the ones I got. A lot of the comments on the post were based on people's confusion between levels of harassment, as in "But they mean well! It was a nice comment! It's not something that needs to be reported!"

DepecheNode had the best that I saw:

It always amazes me how many people here and at other sites defend streets calls and "compliments."

In many cases, any kind of compliment is harassment, not to mention entirely pointless. As a man, I have never felt the need to yell, shout or comment anything to a woman walking down the street because, well, what's the point? She isn't going to hear what I said and think "Oh my, he's right! My ass is bangin'! Well, I'm gonna blow him right now!" I just don't get it.

But if I'm at a party or club, that's kind of the point isn't it? But that's flirting. And there's a difference between me going up to a woman and complimenting her after introducing myself and me going "shake it baby!"

As for glaring or staring...I think everyone does that to a degree, but shit, if you can't check someone out without looking like a perv you're totally doing it wrong.

Hollaback isn't going after men who politely flirt in appropriate settings (for the most part) they're going after pigs who think women are their own personal playthings.

Speaking of pigs, the most egregious case of this recently was when some random teenage kids in a truck drove by my mother - my mother - and called her a number of particularly nasty things. Now, really? If you catcall a girl your age you can explain it away. You can say you thought she was hot, or that you knew her. But this situation makes it incredibly clear what street harassment is about: power.

Guess what else is entirely about power that people explain away with discussions of attraction and the victim deserving it because of what they wore? OH THAT'S RIGHT. It's rape.

*Grenade: n. Created by Mike Sorrentino on Jersey Shore, an abomination of a television show. It means "The ugly and/or fat girl who goes out with a group of attractive, skinny girls, whom someone will have to hook up with in order to ensure his friends get laid." Yes. Really.