Yep.

I have to say, though, that most of the major harassment issues I've had have been at social/public gatherings (parties, bars, etc) and have resulted in being felt up, pushed against a wall, and other general nastiness.

The walking-to-car thing is just a habit. The "come to close to me and you get a spiked heel in your eye" thing at bars is a learned behavior.

it's not that I'm looking to not get mugged on the way to my car, it's that I'm looking to not be startled by a mugger on the way to my car.

And this is what makes you our ita.

Me, I try to park under a light. I've never checked the trunk and back seat, although God knows I should. (Is this still an issue if you lock your car?) I keep meaning to take Model Mugging and I really, really should; somebody on my LJ friendslist teaches it.

Holy crap, Sophia. That's some family...

The funny thing was I was just reminsicing to a friend how this family had the first VCR I ever sae. In the parents bedroom. And it had only 3 movies Superman 1, II and III. And all of the sudden I realized that they probably had other, more "adult" films, or they would have put the VCR in the family room and not had us all over their bedroom to watch Superman! They were also what I would have considered then to be REALLY rich, but I think now they were perhaps only upper middle class.

Re: the weirdly sexulized place of childhood:

a) This girl from the wrong side of the tracks sort of, now that I think of it, pretty much showed/taught me hw to masturbate on our front lawn when I was about 7. My mother shortly therafter forbade me to play with her. But I didn;t even realize it was sexual I just knew it felt good.

b) I wish I knew what play this was from, but once my acting teacher performed a sample monologue for us about a little girl learning that it felt good to rub up against something, an it to really captured the weird seaual yet non-secual vibe of childhood.

c) sometimes I think that when when become parents they forget this sort of innocent, oddly sexual pleasure, and forget being in 6th grade wondering if people have had sex(and I am not so young). Not everyone, surely, as DavidS pointed the vibe out. But, as my office runs a camp for 6th - 8th grades, I am often surprised at how innocent people think this age to be. We are supposed to be running a 2 week long overnight camp for 6th - 12th graders on a college campus, and I just think "We better keep these kids VERY busy!"

You know, if I was watching a woman approaching her car, and trying do work out when to jump her -- this might be when.

Now I'm entertaining myself with mental images of ita pouncing on people, flying out of nowhere like a ninja.

My parking garage beckons.

I have to say, though, that most of the major harassment issues I've had have been at social/public gatherings (parties, bars, etc) and have resulted in being felt up, pushed against a wall, and other general nastiness.

Walking through crowded spaces at game conventions (when I was regularly being sent to them by the game company I worked for) were the worst. I started refusing to leave the booth unless I had someone else walk with me.

I keep meaning to take Model Mugging

Heh. This sounds like a class on how to mug models.

"Distract them with cocaine, and then...YOINK!"

Be safe, shrift!

I started refusing to leave the booth unless I had someone else walk with me.

In college, if I was wearing a skirt, I'd have someone walk behind me at frat parties. I swear.

Now I'm entertaining myself with mental images of ita pouncing on people, flying out of nowhere like a ninja.

Huh. I was picturing ita-as-Sugar-Glider.

In college, if I was wearing a skirt, I'd have someone walk behind me

And let's not even talk about the "things being thrown into the cleavage" category.