Terrible advice.
Report them to the police for what crime, exactly? “Arrest this man – he’s unattractive and I don’t like the way he’s looking at me!”. The “tell them that they are ugly” part reinforces the trope that women are hypocrites when it comes to judging men’s behavior – there’s an SNL sketch about workplace sexual harrassment that has a punchline “Don’t be unattractive”.

Yelling and screaming might get some passing chivalrist guys to beat up the leerer, I suppose – great way to leverage patriarchal norms if you’re a pretty girl, but smacks of crying wolf. Save it for real physical danger.

There are other ways to assert onself – a “Please stop staring at me” said loud enough to be within the earshot of others is usually enough to shame these guys into stopping their behavior and leaving the area.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18787882

http://www.mentalhelp.net/poc/view_doc.php?type=news&id=136268&cn=114

Here’s a truly tragic case. I doubt that the man in this situation would consider this to be the “real” him.

http://neuro.psychiatryonline.org/article.aspx?articleID=101849

I don’t think that’s exactly the point Andrew was making.

If you know you behave badly on drugs — and let’s admit the fact that drugs have an effect on the mind, it’s the reason people like taking them — if you know you’re going to be irresponsible or violent, then you have to take responsibility by admitting this and not take them.

It’s almost the opposite of what some people with bipolar disorder experience after they stabilize on drugs. They think they don’t need to take their drugs any more because they’re “normal.” The problem is that the reason they may be more balanced is that they’re on drugs.

Anyway, here’s a page on how drugs effect the brain and behavior.

http://www.drugabuse.gov/publications/science-addiction/drugs-brain

From the page.

“Chronic exposure to drugs of abuse disrupts the way critical brain structures interact to control and inhibit behaviors related to drug abuse. Just as continued abuse may lead to tolerance or the need for higher drug dosages to produce an effect, it may also lead to addiction, which can drive an abuser to seek out and take drugs compulsively. Drug addiction erodes a person’s self-control and ability to make sound decisions, while sending intense impulses to take drugs.”

They simply break down your inhibitions so that the most unpleasant version of the real you can come out.

The real you…. Your conscious and your evil impulses — it’s all part of you, isn’t it? How they all work together — that’s the real person.

There are concepts you are mixing together and, unless you have some background in addictions treatment, it’s going to be difficult to understand.

Ah, nice one. The ever-so-subtly implied “You’re not an expert like me, so STFU” card.

Allow me to clarify then. I’m not mixing things up at all. What I’m doing is using my scalpel to slice through the obfuscating layers of responsibility-dodging excuses folks like you trot out and dress up in academic gibberish. Hugo violated trust by treating female students as his private harem, and made one flamboyant murder-suicide attempt. That he did all this at a time in his life when his system was swimming with alcohol and drugs, far from being something we should look at and hand-wave away with an “oh well, that explains it,” simply gives him one more thing he needs to show honest remorse for.

The amends process is not about “appeasing others,” it’s about doing your best to correct wrongs to those you have harmed.

Your victim, the numerous other people and community (including loads of admiring students, professional colleagues, and an online readership, all of which Hugo cultivated) who formerly considered you trustworthy…these aren’t “others”?

It’s some people’s perspective on actions he took years ago while under the influence.

Hugo committed the crime of attempted murder. I would suggest it was the act, not people’s “perspective” on it, that’s the problem.

Your whole apologia reminds me of something similar that happened not long ago when Mel Gibson went through a series of PR nightmares that effectively derailed his career, which included making atrociously racist and misogynist remarks to police and threatening to beat the living shit out of his girlfriend. While most people were rightly appalled, there was the small apologetic voice from those who were quick to point out that Mel, well, he likes to have a little drinkie or three now and then, and, see, he may be an alcoholic, so we shouldn’t be too hard on him, because you know how people are under the influence! It would just be so unfair to hold Mel responsible for his own actions when he clearly wasn’t in control of himself. And so on and so on. What was missed by the bleeding hearts? The little inconvenient truth that alcohol and drugs don’t turn you into another person. They simply break down your inhibitions so that the most unpleasant version of the real you can come out.

So nope, none of what you’ve written convincingly refutes my point that Hugo should take care not to be perceived that he is using his addictions as a “get out of responsibility free” card. Own the addictions, own the decisions made under the influence, but at no point come across as saying, “Look, I was drunk/high, okay?”

Rachel, turn it on them…take your cellphone camera out and take a picture of them….realize that these jerks do it to many girls over the course of the day…if it’s safe, yell, scream and tell them you think they are ugly and swanky and if they don’t stop you are going to report them to the police and post their picture to the local newspaper…Dont’ take it!