Quote from: Rachael on April 23, 2008, 01:20:14 AM
Innocent statements such as Nichole's can end up sounding quiet offensive without their intention.
Uh-huh. And I think that who
hears what they 'sound' like makes a HUGE difference? For instance
"All women are sluts." I think that sounds and reads offensively. So do scads of women I know and have known. Yet, I have known a few women, one in a class I was in last night, who do believe that "we seduce men unfairly in order to use them, since men have such an uncontrollable sex-drive."
I'm pretty sure that she'd remove herself, her daughters and her mother from that all-encompassing dictum. So "All women but four are sluts!" I still find that offensive, maybe more than the other.
It wasn't what I said, Rach, it was the subtext you added to what I said that made the statement 'sound quite offensive.' A lot of innocent statements get 'heard' by others who have added their own peeves and prejudices to those statements. Not all the time, of course, but sometimes anyhow.
Question is, I suppose, if I am offended at the way I read something you write, but didn't mean the way I read it, do you still owe me an apology?

N~