This umbrella category includes all generally appreciative comments. The actual content of the comment is usually not of a particularly shocking nature.
While this is the most obviously harmless type of hassling, I also find it to be the most insidious. These people are not my friends, and it gives me a yucky feeling in my stomach when they talk to me like they know me. I have no problem with smiles from people I don't know, however.
Any appreciative noise made by the occupant of a moving car. Honking is the most common type of auto-based hassling.
Other, more verbal, things are often shouted from moving cars, but usually they are moving too fast for the remarks to be understood. Being hassled from a moving car makes me understand how animals in those fake drive-thru safaris must feel.
Direct sexual propositions, graphic descriptions or mention of body parts.
This type is the most likely to make me break the common-sense law of street-smartness and scream something obscene. I know this is the exact desired response, yet I cannot control myself. It is a bizarre false self-defense reflex. Must be that thing they call "pride" talking.
Whistles, grunts, extreme ogles and other noises.
There is also the physical type of street harrassment. In some ways this is related to the other types of hassling, but it can have much more serious results, both psychologically and physically. Even minor physical harrassment can feel like a real violation.
One friend of mine had her boobs grabbed by a passing bicyclist.
When she told the story, she was sort of laughing, but I don't think she really thought it was funny.
Although there are a million things I hate about street hassling, I have distilled them down to three major reasons.
