*Warning this may be upsetting for some*
Ok if you’re really honest with yourself you know that cartoons like Pepe Le Pew is a problem. We’ve all had our own Pepe Le Pews at some point, if not, you’re lucky. Pepe has always made me uncomfortable because the girl REPEATEDLY turned him down but he wouldn’t stop.
So let’s take it out of the cartoon world and bring it into the real world. I had a coworker who would ask me out every weekend and sometimes during the week for months and I repeatedly turned him down, sometimes I’d give an excuse sometimes I wouldn’t. But it got to the point where I was trying to avoid being around him because I got so uncomfortable. Not only would he ask me out but he’d try to flirt, tried offering his home to me when I went out on Saturday nights, I heard him make voice memos about responses i would give him during normal conversations, he tried engaging me in conversations about sex, etc. One time he told me had an intimate dream about me and imagined i was a sensual lover….yes that happened. Now I could’ve gone to HR but honestly I had it under control and would put him in his place plus because of his age and poor health knew that nothing extreme would happen. Just because I had it under control didn’t make me any less uncomfortable, that didn’t mean I wanted it to continue to happen because I definitely didn’t. Thankfully after months of this he comes to me and says “I’m starting to get the idea that you’re not interested”…… yea, I know.
Now let’s take a trip to Chicago. My best friend and I are there for a music festival but decided to go out one night, get some drinks, soak up the scene. We chatted with a few people nothing too heavy but mostly stayed to ourselves. At one of the bars this guy comes up to talk to us asking about the festival and it’s fine until he tries hitting on us, both of us. My friend was married at the time so she wasn’t interested and I’m gay so definitely not interested, and we tell him this. This man did not leave us the entire night every bar we went to he came, we’d try to lose him but had no luck. My friend doesn’t know this but he repeatedly asked me if I was sure I didn’t wanna hook up with him that night, he even had the audacity to put his hand on the small of my back, I took care of it. He didn’t back off until we met this old guy from West Virginia who we became quick friends with and decided we’d shut down the bar together. So the dude finally went off somewhere, I was relieved…until the bar closed and there he was again. Our new friend from West Virginia just happened to be staying at a hotel that was the same direction we needed to take for the train so we all decided to walk together. Thank goodness for my Morgantown friend because he convinced the dude who’d been following us all night to go buy a pack of cigarettes and find another bar and we took that as our exit.
I say all of this to say, kids learn from the programs they watch and shows like Pepe Le Pew feed into that idea of not taking no for an answer. There are some instances when persistence is beneficial and pays off but romantic or sexual relationships is not one of those instances.
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