Not everybody wants to be accosted in an elevator, whether it’s an invitation to a date or a debate.
For context, see Rebecca Watson’s “The Privilege Delusion.”
Common sense says, Don’t make people feel uncomfortable. And if you’re a confident sort, don’t belittle those who are nervous. Your landscape is not their landscape. Richard Dawkins has probably never been raped in an elevator. Or a stairwell. Or a washroom. Or a car. Or at work. Or at home. Or in the street. Or behind a church, or in a church. And from his security, he can be sarcastic about people who don’t want to be propositioned in a moving steel box in the dead of night.
Science Notes 
July 8, 2011 at 04:28
I guess being asked for company while going down at dinner time to the restaurant would not be offensive to me, but going up would.
July 9, 2011 at 12:17
Something like that. The more I think about it, the more Elevator Guy’s actions match up to those of a rapist making the first moves: isolate your victim, impose on her, see if she will resist your advances or can be bullied into accepting them.