We've celebrated attempts at discouraging street harassers before, but through non-violent means like posting humiliating images online of offenders. This weekend, though, the media was aflutter with bizarre news of a gang of women in New York who favored the violent approachturning on an admirer, beating him up, and ultimately stabbing him with a steak knife.
The New York Times runs down the interaction as such: Last Friday, the victim, Dwayne Buckle, was standing outside in the West Village, when a group of women passed. One woman in particular caught his eye, so he innocently-enough called out, "Hey, howre you doing?" The woman shrugged the comment off, but a female companion retorted that Buckle's shoes were cheap. He shot back with an insult--the article doesn't say what, exactly--and a heated argument ensued.
A woman then slapped him, another spit in his face, and he spit back. Then "the entire group attacked him, raking their nails across his face and hitting him in the back," according to the Times. He was then pummeled by a dozen or so people. Only after the fight broke up did he realize he'd been stabbed in the abdomen. The women were found soon after--one carrying a bloody steak knife--and arrested.
But, boy, did the media get excited when they got news that the women were lesbians and seized the golden opportunity to print variations on the headline "Lesbian stabs unwanted male admirer." According to the Daily News, the women responded violently after Buckle dished out anti-gay insults. One of the women said, "He spit on us and threw a cigarette. This is a hate crime." Buckle denies the claim, saying the women "hate men" and that he was the victim of a hate crime: "It was a hate crime against a straight man by a ton of lesbians. This is what the world is coming to," he told the Daily News.
Well, lesbian gangs aren't yet roving the streets looking to stab unsuspecting straight men, so we're inclined to write this off as an off-the-wall, albeit frightening, anomaly. One thing's for sure, as Buckle puts it, "It's not a crime to say hello to a human being." We'll let the courts sort out the rest. In the meantime, Buckle says he's learned "which girls not to talk to." The ones who carry around steak knives, I suppose?
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