Guy's Perspective: I Ain't That Hollah Back Boy

"Damn girl, that ass is bodacious!" exclaims a rather unfortunate looking, 20-something-year-old, thug-gangster-wanna-be to my friend Nikki as we walk down the halls of my university's academic building. He speaks in a vernacular that suggests that while he very well may know what the term bodacious means, he certainly doesn't know how to spell it.

She shakes her head and we keep walking, as I attempt to stifle the strong laughter that threatens to explode through my chest.

Working our way outside the building and towards the parking lot, Nikki's posterior doesn't requisition any further shouts or "hollers," though I do catch the occasional guy stopping to stare and performing the cliché reactions expected of 20-something-year-old college guys—stammering over words, bumping into walls, getting that glazed over look in their eyes.

And who can blame them? Nikki is in fact, quite fetching.

I won't deny that she does look quite fabulous in her black yoga pants, and maybe, just maybe I caught myself tilting my head to steal a glimpse while she wasn't looking (I am aware she will be reading this article, so Nikki, yes, I confess), but as we continued our stroll to her car, I wondered, how do guys like this manage to meet girls? How do they reproduce, using awful pick-up lines and a method known as cat-calling?

Identifying a Cat-Call

There are many techniques used in the common “cat-call,” For those unfamiliar with this term, a cat-call is street pestering, a type of verbal sexual harassment that occurs when a male makes various sexually explicit comments and/or noises towards a female. Given, this can also occur the opposite way, but I’ve seldom heard of such a case. When was the last time you heard a woman yell, “do those legs go all the way up?” to a construction worker?

The men who shout these things generally have an IQ number that hovers somewhere around their shoe size. As a guy who doesn't partake in any type of these activities, I often find myself looking on in horror as my friends resort to this embarrassing activity one, and, sometimes combine cat-calling with one or a combination of the following:

1. The famous beeping-from-the-car-with-window-rolled-down technique; often the person yelling is in the back seat without a license.
2. Referring to a girl as one's mother, e.g., "Sup Ma?" or "Hollah Mami!"
3. Using a term that suggests the woman is some sort of farm animal (like chick, broad, bunny…you get the point).
4. Employing the usage of nonsense words such as “yo,” “thang,” “sup,” “yerp!” and “day-um.”
5. An array of unintelligible noises, grunts and whistles.

Steph’s Story

“I don’t think that guys who cat-call girls have any interest in them,” says Stephanie Ganz, 22, “I think they just do it for the same reason people tease little animals. They’re bored, pathetic people who can’t interact with humans.”

“I was driving my car and pulled up next to a truck full of dirty (literally and figuratively) landscaping men. They were whistling at me while I smoked a cigarette. I looked over and gave them a dirty look, but they didn’t stop! We met again at the very next stoplight. A man called out to me, “that cigarette isn’t the only thing in that car that’s smokin’.’ I looked over with a sneer and flicked my cigarette onto the hood of their pick-up truck. I flashed them a smile as I drove off.”

While Steph’s expert technique of throwing a cigarette at her cat caller’s car (say that three times fast) and driving off is a good one, there are other fantastic methods of thwarting these unwelcome come-ons. Try taking photos of him with your cell phone. Think I’m kidding? Check this out.

Stopping the Cat-Call Culprit in His Tracks

There are in fact, multiple Web sites and initiatives taking place to battle cat-calls, such as the Street Harassment Coalition (www.streetharassmentproject.org ) and Hollah Back NYC (www.hollahbacknyc.com ), which uses camera phone technology to snap photos of the culprits, with the motto, “If You Can't Slap 'Em, Snap 'Em!”

Imagine the look of surprise on a guy’s face, recalling the assortment of offensive remarks he made at you and your friends in the subway, as he sees his photo posted up on a Web site viewed by thousands of people everyday. And a story about what he did, nonetheless!

As Nikki and I continue our walk to her car, we suddenly hear yet another cat-call, “Listen girl, he ain’t worth it,” yells a tall and lanky student from his car, smiling smugly at me, “Just leave him and come talk to me, I'm worth it!” I take one look at his horrible hair, his poor fashion sense (are those wind breakers with snaps!?), and this time, I can’t hold in my laughter. Nikki gives me a little punch in the side, laughing, as we approach her car, which unlocks with a little bleep-bleep! And I know then and there, that I am worth it.

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