Lord Rennard

It's so wrong, to minimise sexual harassment by referring to the perpetrator as 'an old goat'. It suggests a strong, healthy young woman could simply 'slap' the man, and that would be the end of it. No wonder people who have been sexually assaulted, or harassed, find it so difficult to complain with this type of response.

There's a world of difference between wanting to, or imagining, you could give someone a hefty slap, and carrying it out. It's one of many ways to cope with unbearable, unwanted behaviour and has helped many women on the receiving end of such abuse to think about their oppressor being powerless to cope with the aggressive acts they are inflicting on others. Calling him an 'old goat' doesn't diminish what he has been doing. I wonder how many more women gave been on the receiving end? It's unlikely he only started doing this in the last few years.

Not even a very 'old' goat. Born in 1960, he's younger than a lot of us, though his corpulent appearance makes him look much older.

Do you not think that the term "old goat" somehow denies that fact that he was for many years the most powerful man in the party - makes him seem like a silly eccentric?

Exactly, Jess.

He is just a man who reached the 'dirty old' stage prematurely.

I have a feeling that he know he isn't very attractive to women.

The subject of women dealing with men making passes at work came up on Matthew Wright's show this morning. Lowry Turner mentioned a case where a woman she knew made a formal complaint about unwanted touching at work. The man in question was duly reprimanded and the upshot of it was that when ever she had future contact with this particular man he made a point of exclaiming "frigid" to her in a loud voice. It put me in mind of having similar experiences when I was working in various offices in my late teens and twenties, and the response to a rebuff would be "are you a lesbian?" sorry no disrespect to lesbians. The arrogance of some men, usually unattractive I might add, is often to make some slur about their victim because they know that they are reviled as a lecherous slimeball.

anno Is there any man in the world who really believes that he is unattractive to women?

I think there are a few absent - they are not all arrogant and some of them have low self esteem.

Yes, plenty.

Yes, I agree. I think they do exist, though probably they would never admit it.

I do not think the majority of men or women expect every member of the opposite sex to think they are gods gift to them.

It is just that women are expected to be grateful if a man, any man, fancies them and the men that do go around thinking they are gods gift are so objectionable.

I think there are a small proportion of men that are confident to approach lots of women - they don't worry about knock-backs, they just keep steaming ahead.