Touching Female Cave Students By Consent: An Instructor's Perspective

[rjack321]

Person 1: "Do not, under any circumstances, touch me."

Person 2: {touches Person 1 under any circumstances... in doing so commits assault}

Only on the interwebs would this be a contentious subject. And chunks of the US.

 

[tarponchik]

Person 1: "Do not, under any circumstances, touch me."

Person 2: {touches Person 1 under any circumstances... in doing so commits assault}

OK, sue me.

 

[lairdb]

(Disregard. Not gonna get into it.)

 

[ams511]

Have we females become so fragile that we risk falling apart with a little *man*handling when necessary for the situation? Are we no longer able to differentiate between appropriate and inappropriate touch?

I don't think it is a gender thing but more a society thing. Now the "OK" sign is considered a symbol of white supremacy. I don't know where these ideas come from.

To the male instructors, are you also as concerned with female dive buddies?

Not an instructor but I did feel uneasy having to touch my female partner during the first aid part of rescue. She didn't seem to mind though.

 

[tarponchik]

Reading my diary, I came upon this case of my uninvited invasion into someone's private space.

Bonaire, Dec 2014. We got out at Andrea II and already packed our gear when suddenly swells picked up. A couple about 65-70 yo was coming out of water. He got out OK, she was somewhat behind. She took her fins off in time but fell at about knee deep and lay there helpless. He went back into the water to help her but made a mistake of not taking off his BCD and weights, so he was pretty much useless except for taking her fins. When I saw him trying to pull out her integrated weights, I just could not stand this. So I came up, stabilized her by grabbing and holding onto her stage 1, told her to unbuckle her BCD, took the BCD off her and lifted her up to her feet. She could not lift herself up even w/o the BCD.

But the show was going on. Next, a couple about 35 yo was coming out of water. Again, he did OK but she did not take off her fins in time and ended up standing on all 4 in full gear in knee deep water, waves crushing against her butt every 30 sec or so. The guy was obviously trained not to touch female partners, so he just stood there next to her, slightly bending forward, hands against his knees, probably giving her some helpful advice. I figured folks half my age shouldn't need my help, so we left.

 

[divezonescuba]

I had a tec student who forgot to buckle his crotch strap and could not do it himself. I prefaced connecting the crotch strap with the statement "this doesn't mean we are dating".

 

[Seaweed Doc]

I had a tec student who forgot to buckle his crotch strap and could not do it himself. I prefaced connecting the crotch strap with the statement "this doesn't mean we are dating".

Street prostitution is rife at our local dive shop, so the version I tend to hear is "just think how much they'd charge for this on the corner, and here I'm doing it for free" when fastening a crotch strap.

 

[ofg-1]

I don't like to be touched.

I have never suffered any sort of trauma or abuse (as far as I can remember, anyway); I just don't like being touched. It freaks me out and makes me extremely uncomfortable. And yet people assume it's just hunky-goddamned-dory to come up and hug me all the time. Hello or goodbye or whatever. It's icky. I really don't like it.

You know, the Siberian people came up with a solution to your hugging problem 120 years or so ago. Spiked anti bear suit.