Dogcalling

A colleague remarked:

"a golden retriever puppy is the ultimate chick magnet
when mine was 4 months old, no female passer-by could actually pass her by
so every time I took her out for a walk, I had at least three random conversations about dogs"

This sounds great if you want to have conversations, annoying if you just want to take the dog for a walk and mind your own business.

Well hey, one might say, if you don't want people to compliment you on your dog, don't leave the house with a 4-month-old golden retriever puppy.

All right - getting a cute puppy was a choice, and these interruptions won't happen for very long. Probably not even long enough to get sick of them.

Now consider an attractive woman walking down the street, and random people keep talking to her, telling her she's pretty, whistling, calling out "Nice ass!" or "Smile!" These are catcalls. They can be incessant. They can be infuriating when a woman just wants to get where she's going. It isn't twice a day; it's every time she goes outside.

She doesn't want to have a conversation about her ass. Yet she can't leave her ass at home.

Add to that, some catcallers are dangerous. My colleague wasn't worried about admirers kidnapping his dog. A woman does have to worry about a random male forcibly taking her ass, taking her very autonomy away from her. She never knows which of the hundreds of street harassers are also rapists.

If someone's chosen to walk around with a cute dog and you are attracted to that dog, your comments might still be unwelcome, but they're not threatening, and the dog owner can get away from them. When a woman walks around in her own body and you find that attractive, keep it to yourself.

If you want to start a conversation, try getting a cute dog.