Livre d'Or

It would be a bit of a bad idea, I think, to expect a complete absence of any cultures where any given bad behaviour is acceptable. Because some cultures are in fact really sexist!

My guess is that a small part of the issue here is that urban liberal USian culture is out towards one end of the spectrum in how much touching women you don't know is considered threatening and socially inappropriate. There are lots and lots of cultures where everybody hugs and / or kisses people of the opposite gender on first acquaintance, for example. If a fan came from a culture like that he might well creep some woman out completely unintentionally. Or just a culture that has a smaller personal bubble than urban liberal USA; that is a very common source of inter-cultural misunderstandings. For women doing the Schroedinger rapist calculation, a man who stands too close, let alone touches her when it wouldn't be the norm in her culture, is going to come across as a threat. And if he does happen to be a perfectly lovely chap who is in fact acting within the social norms of his culture, well, that's unfortunate for both of them, but he still needs to back off if he's told to back off.