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Originally Posted by Jae Rae
Not to offend you or anyone else, but do you think this is a Southern thing? I have a friend whose family is from S. Carolina and we talk about overcoming this "nice" thing all the time.
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Oh hey, no offense taken at all. It IS a Southern trait. Usually, the culture of pleasantness works out, but it requires all parties in a situation to be aware of the unspoken rules. If someone gets vulgar or rude, then I think past history called on the Southern man to defend the offended woman. This doesn't work AT ALL now. So we have to unlearn all of that unhelpful politeness. To me, it's like a form of learned helplessness.
Of course, when I was in school in Ireland, I encountered the "play nice" in the girls I was in class with to an extreme that I've never seen before. They treated Pink and I like we were both Rambo for telling a guy to step off. lol
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Years later, I had an encounter with a middle-aged guy who came to the Rare Book Room where I worked every Saturday. We chatted politely. One day he came in, gave me a picture he'd drawn, then jumped at me and tried to kiss me. Instead of yelling loudly and telling him to go away and never come back, I ran out and got one of the male employees to stand by me when I told him politely to stay away from me. When I told a male friend this story, he actually felt sorry for the guy. "It's hard for older men to get affection." Be nice messages are quite ubiquitous.
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HOW awkward! And what was your guy friend thinking?!
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And then we, as women, are made to feel there's something wrong with us for wanting our bodies to remain our own and for not considering how the guy feels. 
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Exactly. Wonderfully stated.