Sexual misconduct
I had to unfriend former Dwellar elSicomoro.
He posted that men who are not involved should "say something if they see something". I was moved to say that we gents who are blameless don't really have a job to do here, our job is to just keep being awesome.
His group of yenta friends lept on me in attack. It's always the bad ones who will say something like that, they said, and it was off to the races, no real discussion to be had.
It was their big opportunity to attack in retaliation for god knows what. All I could think is, wow I have woken and angered this pack of apes and now I see them advancing, color in their eyes. Now I'm one of the bad ones. But I can see they love it; and once in ape mode there's no talking to be done. I stuck around and played for a little while, tried to explain how attacking me was absolutely wrong. But once I had "transgressed", forget it.
Sycamore's been an associate since 2001, and came to my 40th birthday party. Unfriended. Because who on this earth needs THAT particular kind of shit in their lives?
(Nobody, and that's why this place is barren now. But I digress.)
~
People have started to call it "virtue signaling" when somebody makes a public proclamation of how they support blah blah blah. I think that's an appropriate tag. Go out and publicly declare yourself good. Shame the Others to demonstrate how Good you are.
But it's the sort of thing Weinstein does -- they all do -- I posted a picture of Weinstein at the pink pussy march, on Syc's thread, to make a point of it. I'm not a predator, I am part of your pack, Weinstein and others are saying. Hunters trick the prey into allowing them to get as close as possible before the killing shot.
Because these public proclamations are NOT for the ears of the predators.
And the behavior of the apes showed it for what it was, as they circled to create and protect the perceived pack from danger. And the danger was....
...me! :dunce:
This from ElSicamoro who used a succession of women to carry him through life until a bankruptcy forced him to move to another city with sights already set on a woman who lived there whom he hoped would carry him. I understood, but didn’t approve, which is why I refused to be his best man. The irony is bright at the sun.
My whole life the lesson from peers, movies, books, TV, even biology class, was the goal in life was sex. Sometimes dressed up as reproduction or survival of the species, even wrapped in morality, marriage, family, missionary position, the bottom line was sex.
From early on I understood the captain of the football teem, movie stars, people with money and power, would attract women like moths to the flame. I was sure that many of the moths were hoping to win the flame’s favor but went away singed and bitter. So revelations like Cosby and Weinstein going over the top are not surprising.
For the rest of us it appeared women had the power, were in control, and guys like me would have to do the best we could to win [strike] favor [/strike] sex. We all used the tools we had, and for a few one of those tools was power. Whether the physical power to rape or social power of the paycheck, it’s not fair, not right.
When a bad behavior is extremely ingrained in the culture, calling it out is needed.
Maybe in a specific instance you make the calculation that "saying something" when you "see something" wouldn't be productive, but I don't see why someone would push back against the idea of doing it in abstract.
Maybe I'm too non-confrontational, or too shy, or whatever, to actually do it, but I congratulate those who do. And if I see someone being harassed, and don't say something, I should be ashamed.
"Virtue signalling" is required until the person doing so receives the response "well, of course; obviously", rather than "you think you're better than me!?!?".
Because these public proclamations are NOT for the ears of the predators.
No, they're for the ears of the victims who are afraid to speak out. It's fantastic that there's been enough so called "virtue signalling" to bring victims out of the shadows, and attempts to denigrate the victims to vindicate the predators are starting to fall on deaf ears.
Sure, predators will virtue signal, too, as a disguise. But as Wednesday Addams says, homicidal maniacs look like everyone else. That doesn't mean that looking like everyone else is a sign of a homicidal maniac.
When someone sees a murder and says nothing, then they are complicit in the murder. Same concept applies to other crimes.
but I don't see why someone would push back against the idea of doing it in abstract
It's the part where he's telling others how to behave. And then getting the praise of your fellow apes for being so virtuous... for actually doing
nothing at all
The phrase is "behave yourself" not "behave others". El Sic and, really, all of us, have plenty to address in ourselves. (Including me) And that is where we should focus our energies.
I'm too non-confrontational, or too shy, or whatever, to actually do it, but I congratulate those who do
Noting/rewarding the positive behavior? That's the correct way to operate, I believe, and is the only way to actually get the behavior we are looking for out of society.
Positive reinforcement: it's how we train our dogs. Let it be how we train our humans, too.
And now,
UnDeRsTaNd that if you had been in that thread, with those apes, and offered your position,
they would have attacked you for it.
Too shy to actually say something? Wow, like being shy is your big excuse or something? Someone being nearly raped and you can't even say one word? Now we see where the problem lies. It's you, you've actually been the problem all along. The rapers, they run off instinct, but you are supposed to be better than that - and you know that it's wrong, you admit that, but you say nothing? And you want to congratulate the ones who do say something? WOW!! What do you say in your defense? And by the way, if you don't want to talk about it any more? It's even more clear and obvious proof you're one of the bad ones.When someone sees a murder and says nothing, then they are complicit in the murder. Same concept applies to other crimes.
Did you just call HM a rapist?
Don't forget the cop trying to come between a feuding couple and gets the shit kicked out of him by both of them.
Seeing a crime committed and saying something isn't even close to seeing something you find morally/socially reprehensible and interfering.
It's the part where he's telling others how to behave. And then getting the praise of your fellow apes for being so virtuous... for actually doing nothing at all.
The phrase is "behave yourself" not "behave others".
What is the "doing nothing at all" here? Saying something if you see something, or saying that you
should say something if you see something?
The latter is more of a "behave others" thing, but it's not a "doing nothing at all" thing. The former is closer to "doing nothing at all", but further from "behave others", especially as a Facebook post not directed at any particular person.
If someone posted "Pay it forward! Do something nice today!", would you be huffy about them dictating your behavior?
Noting/rewarding the positive behavior? That's the correct way to operate, I believe, and is the only way to actually get the behavior we are looking for out of society.
Sure, but how does that work when you're "seeing something"? Wait until they stop harassing the victim, and then praise them for stopping? If you praise a dog when they finish ripping up a pillow, that won't help anything.
In my view, we should positively reinforce people who say something when they see something.
UnDeRsTaNd that if you had been in that thread, with those apes, and offered your position, they would have attacked you for it.
Too shy to actually say something? Wow, like being shy is your big excuse or something? Someone being nearly raped and you can't even say one word? Now we see where the problem lies. It's you, you've actually been the problem all along. The rapers, they run off instinct, but you are supposed to be better than that - and you know that it's wrong, you admit that, but you say nothing? And you want to congratulate the ones who do say something? WOW!! What do you say in your defense? And by the way, if you don't want to talk about it any more? It's even more clear and obvious proof you're one of the bad ones.
Perhaps. And I would, of course, agree to an extent, since it was explicitly described as a fault.
When someone sees a murder and says nothing, then they are complicit in the murder. Same concept applies to other crimes.
Did you just call HM a rapist?
Thankfully, I haven't witnessed a rape. But if I had, and done nothing, I would be complicit. The non-confrontational/shy thing was a hypothetical. No particular instances come to mind where it has come up, but it's entirely possible that they have, and I didn't notice, or I did notice, but have forgotten, since it didn't affect me personally.
Your 'apes' might very well castigate me for that manifestation of privilege, as well. To which I would reply, "well, of course, obviously". I'm extremely lucky not to be in a situation where I'm likely to be a victim of this sort of thing, and I will have blind spots.
What is the "doing nothing at all" here? Saying something if you see something, or saying that you should say something if you see something?
The latter. It's doing nothing at all.
I mean, for one thing, 99% of this behavior happens entirely privately. 99% of it represents a power game which we're almost never party to.
In that atmosphere, what does it mean to demand a moral behavior? I can't remember when I last witnessed a specific incident. (After 9th grade.) Have you? What was it? I have never seen a colleague play grabass with an unwilling secretary, or chase her around the desk cartoon-style, a la some sort of mid-60s sitcom.
Let me tell you what I *have* seen though. The unmistakeable evidence of a married 40 year old boss reaming his 25 year old secretary, on a Saturday afternoon, when the office was supposed to be empty and only the assistant IT guy would come in unexpectedly.
"Oh, uh... hi Cindy. Oh! Uh... hi Jim as well! Didn't expect to see you two here today. I'm just finishing up the work on the servers... well bye" (thinks: "wow, her hair was really messed up... like really really messed up... OH, uh, wait a minute! Oh shiiiit!! They were totally doin' it, and heard me in the hallway!
Had 30 seconds to stop before I got to his office!! :lol: ")
So, now, having witnessed that - dang should I have said something??
~
No. And actually, in this case, Cindy had all the power, and Jim was putting himself at great risk by doin' it with her.
Cindy was a family member of the founders; which was a really big deal.
The grocery store chain had her last name on it. The family members were "special", given enormous consideration and respect. They managed their situation within the company rather privately, and were untouchable (
from an employment perspective, cough). So Cindy literally could not be fired; when family members were judged not competent, they were inevitably given some other job.
So. There's also a possibility that they just liked each other, and liked doin' it, and that's the thought I went with as I went about my day not saying anything.*
If someone posted "Pay it forward! Do something nice today!", would you be huffy about them dictating your behavior?
It would depend on why they would say it; but, if I pushed back and there was a bevy of yentas screaming that I was foul, and part of the non-niceness problem, is.. is that cool?
Level of difficulty of the question: the demand was that I do something nice. The bevy is doing something not nice.
* OMG if you woulda seen Cindy. OMG. And then seeing her with her hair mussed up like that. OMG.
I got group-attacked for saying that the "bad" thematic elements in Blade Runner could be there because a dystopian future is bad by definition--THAT's THE POINT--and not because the...what was it they were all saying...?... "the filmmakers are showing their lack of empathy for disenfranchised groups by making a movie where bad things happen to disenfranchised groups' --actually I can't even reconstruct what their point was. Basically the filmmaker was doing something wrong, and the movie is bad, and because I said "maybe it's bad because it's dystopian, and it's supposed to be bad" that meant *I was bad* because I wasn't saying the right thing we were all supposed to be saying.
They can all go to hell. Friends of friends.
I mean, for one thing, 99% of this behavior happens entirely privately. 99% of it represents a power game which we're almost never party to.
I disagree. The very worst of this behaviour happens entirely privately - but there's a bunch of very overt stuff that all feeds into a culture in which this kind of behaviour becomes almost acceptable/expected/considered merely a natural outcropping of male - female interaction.
When a guy tells a rape joke to his mates - he is more than likely not himself a rapist, and probably would think doing such a thing vile - and it's likely most of the mates he's telling the joke too also think it vile - but that one guy, who doesn't think of himself as a rapist (because rapists wear balaclavas or ski masks and drag stranger women into the bushes) , but does see sex as a form of conquest and women as the prize, and is not above plying a co-ed girl with enough alcohol as to not be able to stand, might be laughing for different reasons - except he won't know he's laughing for different reasons because he probably assumes all his mates think the same way deep down.
Catcalling also doesn't generally happen in private. I have been insulted, flattered and frightened by catcalling, turn and turn about. When a car full of lads stops at the lights and one of them starts leering out the windows and making lewd comments to some 13 year old girls in school uniforms it's just a laugh - his mates probably laugh along, maybe call him a dickhead, but in an affectionate way - and then they drive off and it's forgotten.
Then there's the stuff that is very much in front of other people but which those other people just don't notice or pick up on. Like the boss who is always super picky with their female staff and super pally with the men, or gives the best projects to the men and passes over the women for promotion. I daresay it happens the other way around - but given the gender disparity in managerial roles across most industries, it is probably something that has tended to affect women more.
I've worked places where it has been known that one of the guys has wandering hands - was a bit of a lad. And there was a general attitude of oh well, what can you do . Though that is going back some years.
Not everything can or should be called out when you see it. But not laughing along at the friend who shouts 'show us your tits' to young teenage girls - or not laughing at a joke about rape where the rape victim is the butt of the joke and calling it out for the tasteless offensive shit that it is - that can sometimes be useful. Because it lets that guy, who doesn't really see women as human in the same way he and his mates are, know that his mates don't see women the same way. That it is in fact an aberation to see them that way and not the natural norm.
In reference to the original point, "good guys" have exactly the same responsibility as "good cops".
A couple of other thoughts:
I personally think we have, as a society, and for a very, very long time, magnified the fundamental differences between men and woman to an unhealthy degree. The whole men are from mars, women are from venus / male humans have more in common with male chimpanzees than they do with female humans attitude creates an unhealthy distance between us. Any one individual human is as distinct from or as alike as any other individual human as any differences between or commonalities across each separate gender.
We are bathed in this sense of difference - saturated with it from the womb to the grave - it's one of the cornerstones of our culture. Even as we learn how complex the true picture really is, we still carry that simple, polar understanding of gender with us. It underpins our language, our social structures, our expectations, both conscious and unconscious- it affects how we perceive the world around us and sets us in a feedback loop that continually reinforces it.
This othering of the opposite gender comes with a cost - and it isn't an entirely accidental one. At various times in our history (in some places right now) there have been efforts by concerned citizens and religious and political leaders to encourage proper behaviour in men and women - crises in gender have occurred at various times in various places. In the late 17th and early 18th centuries, gender roles in Britain were a little less narrowly focused and men and women often worked together (usually on different tasks) - amongst the elite there was a new appreciation for playfulness and art, for emotional expression and extravagant dress among men - the response to this was a moral crusade - the society for the reformation of manners (primarily focused on brothels, prostitution and gay sex) was one expression of this - another was a change in literary forms, and a massive public debate (in leaflets, news sheets, sermons, poetry and educational works) in which the 'female problem/problem of the Sex' and its twin, the debate over effeminacy, were discussed and through which a proper kind of masculinity and a proper form of femininity were openly codified and promoted.
We have sold the lie to ourselves for generations - but the cost is high. If generations of boys have been raised to see girls not as fellow human beings, as individual and unique as themselves, but rather as ineffable prizes for them to win, lesser, but desirable creatures who they can conquer, or terrifyingly powerful aliens who can rock their world in any direction - then is it any wonder some men have no ability to feel any kind of empathy for the women they are driven to want.
And yes, I get that there is absolutely a flip side to that.
I have a lot of optimism for the younger generation in this regard. Youngsters today seem to have a much more nuanced sense of gender than my generation.
Second point:
For the kind of accusations Weinstein faces, there's just no excuse. He understood his power and he revelled in applying it. But - I do sometimes feel sorry for the guys that get swept up with this stuff. Sometimes, I think guys are abusing a form of power without really perceiving themselves as powerful. Or not understanding their place within the power dynamic.
Once again Dana nails it, sugar&spice vs snakes&snails, and never the twain shall meet.. on equal terms.
I'm with you Dana, all except the part where rape jokes create rapists because they make rape more socially acceptable. I don't think the jokes do that and I don't think that's how rapists are made. It's just a guess on my part though. I could be wrong.
Influence of culture, it's like what Derek and Clive said about the influence of television. Does television make people do things?
[YOUTUBE]Sm8gxNXyIdM[/YOUTUBE]
The latter. It's doing nothing at all.
Which includes that it's barely even a case of "behave others".
I can't remember when I last witnessed a specific incident. (After 9th grade.)
...
I have never seen a colleague play grabass with an unwilling secretary, or chase her around the desk cartoon-style, a la some sort of mid-60s sitcom.
That's good. If you did see that, would you prefer that everyone else just averted their eyes and let the colleague do that?
Have you? What was it?
Like I said, I also don't recall such an incident.
So, now, having witnessed that - dang should I have said something??
As described, it doesn't sound like harassment. It sounds like you've given some thought into what the ramifications of reporting it to HR would be.
It would depend on why they would say it; but, if I pushed back and there was a bevy of yentas screaming that I was foul, and part of the non-niceness problem, is.. is that cool?
Level of difficulty of the question: the demand was that I do something nice. The bevy is doing something not nice.
My difficulty is in viewing a "do good things" posted out into the ether as an onerous demand on you in particular.
If I saw that someone had posted "pay it forward", I would appreciate the sentiment, but through inertia and laziness probably fail to actually do it. If instead, I had interpreted it as an unreasonable demand on my personal time, and complained to the poster that there are so many reasons NOT to pay it forward, I would expect that to be an unpopular position.
Now, I have no idea just how horrible the yenta apes were to you, so they may very well have gone too far, in which case it's for the best to disconnect as you did. But I also don't really get what you were going for with your initial reply to them.
I don't think rape jokes make people rape. I don't even think they make 'rape' socially acceptable - what they can do, depending on the target of the joke, is feed into a viewpoint and potentially reinforce or confirm it. It can, imo, act to downgrade how certain behaviour is perceived - like date rape, for instance, or domestic violence, or a penchant for very young teenagers (jail bait). Not for most of that group of friends - but for someone who is already leaning in that direction.
I'll have to go looking for them at some at some point, but there have been some really interesting studies into how young men (in particular) respond to peer attitudes to this kind of thing.
I should stress by the way, that I am not referring to all rape jokes. There is a particular strand of humour that has the victim of rape as the butt of the joke. It's the kind of joke that invites the audience to vicariously participate in that power relationship. Similarly there is a strand of humour that has the battered wife or girlfriend as the butt of the joke - and again, the audience is invited to associate in to the one assaulting her.
With that particular strand of humour, there's an undercurrent of 'we'd all like to do this really'.
Which includes that it's barely even a case of "behave others".
That's good. If you did see that, would you prefer that everyone else just averted their eyes and let the colleague do that?
Like I said, I also don't recall such an incident.
As described, it doesn't sound like harassment. It sounds like you've given some thought into what the ramifications of reporting it to HR would be.My difficulty is in viewing a "do good things" posted out into the ether as an onerous demand on you in particular.
If I saw that someone had posted "pay it forward", I would appreciate the sentiment, but through inertia and laziness probably fail to actually do it. If instead, I had interpreted it as an unreasonable demand on my personal time, and complained to the poster that there are so many reasons NOT to pay it forward, I would expect that to be an unpopular position.
Now, I have no idea just how horrible the yenta apes were to you, so they may very well have gone too far, in which case it's for the best to disconnect as you did. But I also don't really get what you were going for with your initial reply to them.
This.
If you did see that, would you prefer that everyone else just averted their eyes and let the colleague do that?
are you just a being a dick. do we have a problem here.
My difficulty is in viewing a "do good things" posted out into the ether as an onerous demand on you in particular.
Oh now I get it. No, it wasn't about me. It was about ALL good guys.
And as is the case with such things, it was about the poster. That's why he posted it. It wasn't to encourage good behavior.
One moment's aside: remember, he's on Facebook. He's not talking to the world. He's talking to his self-selected friends. This are his chosen friends. And the women who will reflect on his moral status after his statement. That is his biggest audience.
My pushback was speaking from the point of view of one of the good guys.
I suppose you might not find that obvious but I did assume Terry would see it that way. From the good guys point of view, we don't need any coaching. We're good to go, Ace. We're the ones rocking the house. Our job is to keep being awesome.
And frankly, as xoB points out: in a world where the alpha males get the pussy -- and we are biologically driven to pursue the pussy -- that is No Small Task In Itself. But we stick to it, because we're fucking awesome. And because we thought about it, and are civilized, and are pro-human.
Not because someone posted about it on Facebook.
Sorry to triple post. Here's one way to think about this. Sometimes we get the advice, don't say anything to someone that you wouldn't say in person.
That just makes sense. that is a good way to think about things.
What if your friend got up in a room of all his friends and moralized like that. How would that be? It'd be like, hey friend, nice gesture but uh -- kinda wasn't needed -- you just got weird at the very least -- I mean at least based on your own past history --
Like the niece who stood up in the middle of one family Christmas party and said now let's take a minute to think about the homeless! Okay that is all perfectly fine, and a marvelous gesture, and we do care very much, but at the same time everybody knows that little display didn't actually help anyone, and was far more about Alison than about the homeless, and was not necessarily the best thing to to, it being Christmas and the family and all.
I had to unfriend former Dwellar elSicomoro.
He posted that men who are not involved should "say something if they see something". I was moved to say that we gents who are blameless don't really have a job to do here, our job is to just keep being awesome.
His group of yenta friends lept on me in attack. It's always the bad ones who will say something like that, they said, and it was off to the races, no real discussion to be had.
It was their big opportunity to attack in retaliation for god knows what. All I could think is, wow I have woken and angered this pack of apes and now I see them advancing, color in their eyes. Now I'm one of the bad ones. But I can see they love it; and once in ape mode there's no talking to be done. I stuck around and played for a little while, tried to explain how attacking me was absolutely wrong. But once I had "transgressed", forget it.
Sycamore's been an associate since 2001, and came to my 40th birthday party. Unfriended. Because who on this earth needs THAT particular kind of shit in their lives?
(Nobody, and that's why this place is barren now. But I digress.)
~
People have started to call it "virtue signaling" when somebody makes a public proclamation of how they support blah blah blah. I think that's an appropriate tag. Go out and publicly declare yourself good. Shame the Others to demonstrate how Good you are.
But it's the sort of thing Weinstein does -- they all do -- I posted a picture of Weinstein at the pink pussy march, on Syc's thread, to make a point of it. I'm not a predator, I am part of your pack, Weinstein and others are saying. Hunters trick the prey into allowing them to get as close as possible before the killing shot.
Because these public proclamations are NOT for the ears of the predators.
And the behavior of the apes showed it for what it was, as they circled to create and protect the perceived pack from danger. And the danger was....
...me! :dunce:
Maaaaaan, that's a lot of whining right there. I will say I'm sorry a bunch of Syc's friends were mean to you. I'll speak up here and now and say that's *not cool*. Your remark doesn't justify an ape pack attack.
I have some questions though. What kinds of behavior that you can imagine seeing that would prompt you to say something? Give us a sense of your threshold for speaking up. A couple examples would do nicely. But, maybe you're a keep it to yourself at all times kinda guy.
I'm also curious as to what virtue you're signalling with this thread, your statement of lane-staying, blameless awesomeness. What are you propounding?
are you just a being a dick. do we have a problem here.
You're pushing back against "if you see something, say something", and then mentioned a thing that one might see. It seemed like a situation where one might say something.
Oh now I get it. No, it wasn't about me. It was about ALL good guys.
And as is the case with such things, it was about the poster. That's why he posted it. It wasn't to encourage good behavior.
One moment's aside: remember, he's on Facebook. He's not talking to the world. He's talking to his self-selected friends. This are his chosen friends. And the women who will reflect on his moral status after his statement. That is his biggest audience.
I don't use Facebook, and I have no idea how many friends he has, but I've had the feeling from ambient cultural exposure that many people treat Facebook as if they're announcing to the general population.
My pushback was speaking from the point of view of one of the good guys. I suppose you might not find that obvious but I did assume Terry would see it that way. From the good guys point of view, we don't need any coaching. We're good to go, Ace. We're the ones rocking the house. Our job is to keep being awesome.
"See something, say something"
is a request to the good guys. If he were talking to the bad guys, he'd say "stop harassing women". But good guys can have blind spots.
Like the niece who stood up in the middle of one family Christmas party and said now let's take a minute to think about the homeless! Okay that is all perfectly fine, and a marvelous gesture, and we do care very much, but at the same time everybody knows that little display didn't actually help anyone, and was far more about Alison than about the homeless, and was not necessarily the best thing to to, it being Christmas and the family and all.
If you "yes and"ed her, she'd either be delighted, or shown up, depending on what her actual motivations were. Or, if you smile and nod, the event is over. But if you respond with "I give change to homeless people
*, and you don't really care about them, you're just trying to look good to the family", then even people who might have found her speech tedious may very well end up defending her.
"Don't say anything to someone that you wouldn't say in person" seems to apply much more strongly to the response than the request in this case.
* Or whatever the equivalent of not harassing women is in this analogy.
snip-- (It's all good, but this part is the best)
For the rest of us it appeared women had the power, were in control, and guys like me would have to do the best we could to win [strike] favor [/strike] sex. We all used the tools we had, and for a few one of those tools was power. Whether the physical power to rape or social power of the paycheck, it’s not fair, not right.
It isn't fair, it isn't right.
I believe that I should try to do what *is* fair, what *is* right, all the time, to the best of my ability. I fall short of that ability practically all the time, with occasional spikes up to the line of my ability, then back down to "if I'm not too tired".
Sex... whoooooo....
What a loaded topic. Just freighted with all kinds of stuff, power, desire, violence, romance, tenderness, and on and on and on and on. And I know you all know what I mean and the degree to which this is understated. I'm a grown goddamn man and it's still a delightful, frustrating, satisfying, complex, fulfilling, enticing, teasing *MYSTERY*, day by day. There's so much to it, and yet it can still be focused to a pinpoint, figuratively speaking.
I think of an orchestra, when it's at it's most fulsome and graceful. And sometimes I just feel like a Buddy Rich solo, so to speak. The coming together (pardon the pun) of two people each with their own baggage, present mental and physical state, can we be heard?, can we be seen, and on and on....
That people do get it on at all peaceably and mutually seems more a miracle, more surprising than the current domination of the news of So. Many. Assholes.
In my experience, and using my experience as context for what I'm reading and hearing, there is a WIDE RANGE of gambits and a similarly wide range of responses. And context is king. No, strike that, Consent is King. Anyhow, I think I mostly (stupefying understatement) don't know all the facts, or even many of the facts of what's in the news lately. But I also know that I have had my words and intentions misunderstood. Sucks for me. But for someone on the other side of the conversation, maybe their experience wasn't just "darnit, let me try to rephrase that", but something much more alarming, more horrible.
That mismatch, man, I hate it when that happens. But some of these fucking assholes are COUNTING ON THAT MISUNDERSTANDING, as several, including you, UT, have pointed out. Who the fuck likes being tricked? And then fucked in the bargain? Right. Nobody. Doing it with deliberate deception is just evil and/or criminal. Those fuckers should burn.
And along the spectrum, being crass, being boorish, being a clue-challenged asshole shouldn't be grounds for criminal prosecution, and maybe not for being forced from one's job. Maybe maybe baby baby... what the hell do I know.
Using the tools one has, pursuing the goals one has, engaging and communicating with another person, enjoining them to join together, so to speak, that's how it's done. But if my tool is power and her tool is her body, and my goal is an orgasm and her goal is to keep her job... it's not gonna end well, not for her. Just because you can doesn't mean you should. We all know that. But we now see many many instances of justification, if you're not caught, you're not guilty. If you don't resist, you don't have to go on unemployment.
Yeah.. that's not right.
I'm with you Dana, all except the part where rape jokes create rapists because they make rape more socially acceptable. I don't think the jokes do that and I don't think that's how rapists are made. It's just a guess on my part though. I could be wrong.
I don't think she said they create rapists, she said the rapist doesn't realize the others aren't laughing for the same reason.
BigV, ever since "go forth and multiply" or "Be fruitful and multiply" that's been the mandate our lives wrap around. :blush:
All of which is to say, Facebook is breaking us. It was an interesting experiment sharing our individual truth to a large self-chosen group but group think is reinforced across politics, religion, race, and gender. Nothing subtle is expressed, we get puritanism from each group but people are not pure, we are damn messy and need to think out loud. Fuck it, I'm going to work.
I don't think she said they create rapists, she said the rapist doesn't realize the others aren't laughing for the same reason.
She said "because he probably assumes all his mates think the same way deep down." The suggestion is that the rape will now happen because the rapist believes there is an element of acceptability.
I'm just guessing, because I never took abnormal psych or anything, but I imagine rapists are generally sociopathic.
The calculation of "those guys think it is ok therefore it is ok" is OUR logic because we are normal. But it's not the way a sociopath would reason; with a lack of empathy, what other people think and how they will cast judgement is not important to them. I would imagine that a sociopath is more likely to rape because it's NOT socially acceptable. But like I say, that's just my guess.
Facebook is breaking us
It really is, and that's the bottom line of this thread if anything.
As people react to my poorly-communicated reaction, it requires long text to really discuss well; it requires a little knowing about each other; it requires a little angry back and forth to be permitted; and a little faith. None of this can happen on Facebook.
Which is why the unfriending. People are going to be political on Facebook, but we can't
discuss it. We can't talk, it's a horrible venue for discussion of any kind, and in this case leads immediately to tribal ape behavior where the outsider must be purged. Fuck that; as the outsider I will just purge myself and make it easier on everyone.
You're pushing back against "if you see something, say something", and then mentioned a thing that one might see. It seemed like a situation where one might say something.
Just being argumentative has led you to casting me as bad. Yeah don't do that. Assume I'm good. You've had 15 years and 25,000 posts to figure me out, you should know by now.
You can assume I would actually say something if I were ever in the position of being able to do so and assuming this situation was understood and there was benefit. I don't know why I have to say this.
And again, that is partly why the moralizing is empty, and meaningless, and ineffective at trying to change things.
Trying to paint me as someone who is bad in order to win a point is infuriating, and I won't stand for it. If this happened in person it would be immediately obvious where the transgression lies. I don't get violent, but I wouldn't let someone finish their sentence. If I'm BAD, the discussion is over.
as the outsider I will just purge myself and make it easier on everyone.
Don't
Facebook is best when people just post about their lives. The ball game they went to or the trip they took. The gig they played.
A lot of it ends up being boring and of no interest, but it's nice to see what's going on with people and you can scroll past the stuff that doesn't interest you.
The shit that Facebook feeds me is when a friend comments on a stranger's post. I don't want to see that. I don't know that person and I don't care about their conversation. I also don't want to see anything that is shared, because it's almost always political bullshit. They are trying to persuade me. I'm guilty of this myself because I have shared stuff, but the stuff I share is cool and non-political. Finally, I don't want to see anything that a friend has liked on a stranger's post. Likes should be visible only to the person being liked and to anyone who is already going to that post.
What do I want to see? Original content posted by friends. Tell me about your life.
I think the problem is that very few people tell you about their life, and so Facebook has to fill your feed with something. And if they fill it with controversial shit that makes you mad, you will stick around longer looking at their ads.
Oh, and for the record, I oppose sexual misconduct.
All true
The one thought I had about unfriending Syc was, well, it's not a big deal; he knows where to find me...
Found an interesting piece on workplace training.
Many people are familiar with typical corporate training to prevent sexual harassment: clicking through a PowerPoint, checking a box that you read the employee handbook or attending a mandatory seminar at which someone lectures about harassment while attendees glance at their phones.
At best, research has found, that type of training succeeds in teaching people basic information, like the definition of harassment and how to report violations. At worst, it can make them uncomfortable, prompting defensive jokes, or reinforce gender stereotypes, potentially making harassment worse. Either way, it usually fails to address the root problem: preventing sexual harassment from happening in the first place.
“Organizations often implement training programs in order to reduce their likelihood of being named in harassment suits or to check a box for E.E.O.C. purposes,” Ms. King said, referring to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. “If we’re actually trying to change or reduce the likelihood of sexual harassment, that’s a different outcome altogether. That’s not a knowledge problem, that’s a behavior problem.”
Humphrey Bogart grabbed the girl and kissed her. Everyone wanted to be a man just like Bogart. Today that is sexual harassment.
But Bogart followed the three simple rules. The great Fred Armisen, the great Amy Poehler, the great Tina Fey, and the Greatest Of All Time Tom Brady explain, in this public service announcement.
http://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/sexual-harassment/2751966?snl=1Just being argumentative has led you to casting me as bad. Yeah don't do that. Assume I'm good. You've had 15 years and 25,000 posts to figure me out, you should know by now.
You can assume I would actually say something if I were ever in the position of being able to do so and assuming this situation was understood and there was benefit. I don't know why I have to say this.
Back to my first response then. When someone says you should do something good, say "well, of course, obviously!"
I do assume you're good, which is why I was surprised at your reaction.
Using "virtue signalling" as a pejorative is just about the definition of assuming that people are bad, and would only advocate for something good to trick you.
So you're on Team Yenta, is what you're saying.
:D
I'd have to friend him again to fetch my actual wording. I've described it, but you could assume it was something like
"Good guys, you don't need any additional instructions. You were on the right track all along. Just keep being awesome."
Horrified gasp? Unleash the hounds?
I don't believe most men who rape or abuse women are necessarily sociopaths. I think there is a gulf of difference between not being capable of empathy and being unpractised in applying empathy to a group of people who you've been raised to believe are fundamentally different from you.
There's also, I think, a tendency for some men to desire women, and also resent them for being desirable and feel they are entitled to them: They've done everything right, they're a nice guy, they don't beat women up or treat them bad, so what gives those bitches the right to throw their desire back in their faces, when they should be rewarded - after all they earned it. I mean, even the way they walk is an invitation right? They must know the power they hold - just by being desirable - and they hold that over the guy, right? They fucking know.
A sociopath isn't going to give a shit what others think. But different perhaps for an emotionally immature young man who has been raised in a culture/family that has coded women as fundamentally other - and as a thing to be won/earned, and maybe surrounded by other men who see girls in terms of prey or conquest, with more than a little stripe of the Enemy in the War of the Sexes ( the We Were Kings attitude)
Jokes and the general cultural noise that surrounds can confirm all of that or challenge it. And men who don't really see women as being the same or equal are far more likely to listen other men that they respect or can relate to.
Not saying it would prevent a determined rapist from acting, nor convince a sociopath to change their ways - but it might help clue some young men in to the fact that their way of perceiving women isn't actually the norm, nor is it healthy
We seek validation and confirmation from our social peers. For young men who see female as fundamentally other, those peers are male.
I don't believe most men who rape or abuse women are necessarily sociopaths.
Why would anyone even assume that?
This attitude change is coming in waves. An eariler wave was, for example, Farrah Fawcett's Burning Bed movie. It resulted in law enforcement actually enforcing domestic violence laws.
Second was Anita Hill's testimony before a Senate Judiciary Committee. Clarence Thomas got confirmed in part because the 'good old boy' network suppressed testimony of Thomas' repeated sexual harassment of many women. Clarence Thomas, in history, will probably among the weakest Supreme Court justices. But that is not as significant as the controversy that Anita Hills testimony started. Sudden people began to understand what sexual harassment is.
In this third wave, we have finally decided that sexual harassment is justification for legal action. Since Anita Hill's testimony, it should have been. But it took this long for some to finally admit it even exists.
So what might be a fourth wave in 20 year? What is the next step in admitting, addressing, and eliminating this situation? Will it go from a western 'industrial nation' domestic problem to an international one? Or will there be a backlash when it goes too far?
Since Anita Hill's testimony, it should have been. But it took this long for some to finally admit it even exists.
Between Anita Hill and now, there was a pause in our evolution due to an unfortunate national sequence of events that happened.
I'm waiting for an instance of one person being charged with sexual harassment by another; but, both being so desperate for publicity that they agree on an apology, forgiveness, and make-up sex just to get their names out there.
I am troubled by some who immediately react to allegations. It is difficult to know whether some accusations were vetted before dismal or suspension. That creates prime opportunity for the fake news people (Trump organization, Russians, etc) to invent allegations with bogus witnesses.
The calculation of "those guys think it is ok therefore it is ok" is OUR logic because we are normal. But it's not the way a sociopath would reason; with a lack of empathy, what other people think and how they will cast judgement is not important to them. I would imagine that a sociopath is more likely to rape because it's NOT socially acceptable. But like I say, that's just my guess.
The Stanford Experiment showed we're
all just a half-step away from being sociopaths. We're herd animals, more like, and we follow what we see (or what we perceive, at any rate--and in the absence of clear signals, we see what we want to see.)
It's true that good guys don't
have to do anything but keep being awesome. But like Dana said, it's also nice when the good guys can evangelize a little to the mediocre guys, because it helps out us folks who the mediocre guys see as objects and would never have listened to in the first place. However, I do agree that large public pronouncements are often virtue signaling, and sometimes even evidence of a hidden problem--like Weinstein at the Women's March, or to a lesser degree, Syc's really weird possessiveness of his new wife's kid. What matters is not what you declare on Facebook, but what you say to your best friend, one-on-one, when the two of you are talking about that chick you wanna bang. You are good, UT, and I trust that you'd want to say the right thing. But also, sometimes we're all Billy Bush, laughing along at the horrific guy because we don't know what else to do and we want whoever we're talking to to like us in the moment.
I am troubled by some who immediately react to allegations. It is difficult to know whether some accusations were vetted before dismal or suspension. That creates prime opportunity for the fake news people (Trump organization, Russians, etc) to invent allegations with bogus witnesses.
They already tried. The Washington post was targeted but they did due diligence. It was that same nutter who said Planned Parenthood was selling babies to Chik Fil A
.... Planned Parenthood was selling babies to Chik Fil A
OMG. Hilary Clinton was running a sex ring out of a pizza shop. Good thing we have so many people with big guns to stop it. He should have used his 155 mm howizter. We need bigger guns to stop all this evil.
Just say'n.
... But also, sometimes we're all Billy Bush, laughing along at the horrific guy because we don't know what else to do and we want whoever we're talking to to like us in the moment.
What in the way of sexual misconduct are women laughing along with the horrific woman about; because, they don't know what else to do and they want whoever they're talking to to like them in the moment?
The women often have to laugh along with horrific men, because for them the interaction has a threatening overtone, and humor is often the fastest way out of a situation. I have absolutely laughed off comments that terrified me so that I could remove myself from the conversation.
I have absolutely laughed off comments that terrified me so that I could remove myself from the conversation.
Yup
That doesn't address the gist of my question. What in the way of sexual misconduct has women laughing along with another woman because she makes them feel threatened; or, intimidated and they want to gain her acceptance?
Is there no sexual misconduct by women that does that?
I have absolutely laughed off comments that terrified me so that I could remove myself from the conversation.
Yup
You hot babes are always at risk. :yesnod:
That doesn't address the gist of my question. What in the way of sexual misconduct has women laughing along with another woman because she makes them feel threatened; or, intimidated and they want to gain her acceptance?
Is there no sexual misconduct by women that does that?
Statistically, no. The closest analogy would be an adult woman making lewd comments about an underage male--perhaps a high school student being preyed on by his teacher, for example--but that shit just doesn't happen, because other women would immediately freak out at any woman who said that, and likely put in a tip to the cops. The "good" women have proven that they will speak up and be proactive, you see, not simply refrain from molesting teens themselves, thus the behavior is perhaps less rampant than it would be if all us moms got together for coffee and leered at the high school kid busing our table and talked about how we were gonna ride that underdeveloped dick all night.
"but that shit just doesn't happen, because other women would immediately freak out at any woman who said that"
That's all fine, and if our [strike]brains were identical[/strike] response to the different hormones our bodies create were identical, we'd be down for that approach too.
But they aren't, so what if the "locker room talk" is a necessary part of getting those feelings figured out? What ARE we going to do with these feelings if we can't talk about them?
The feelings are quite different, despite Dana's objection and here is the crux of our differences. For 100,000 years, with no culture to assist, it kept the species thriving under many different conditions, so it is one of the most powerful things we know.
So please feel free to translate:
"Holy shit, I would *destroy* that ass."
to:
"Guys, that waitress over there? I feel a remarkable, mostly inexplicable but unattainable attraction to her, that I cannot possibly just ignore. I would never actually act upon this, and must assume she would not permit it, as a default condition. That is why I must express this in the fiercest way possible, so that it indicates how crazy my own brain is driving me right now. Do you agree because I would like to know I'm not alone in this feeling."
Also you women may not have noticed a different kind of harassment preventative male chatter that happens routinely. It, too, is along the lines of "if you see something, say something" and it goes like this:
"If you so much as look at my woman I will break this cue over your head."
I know there will be objections to the word "my" and etc. so I'll note it doesn't have to be "my" and it doesn't have to be "woman"... "girlfriend" "boyfriend" "daughter" "wife" "friend" or it often just goes unsaid.
"If you so much as look at my woman I will break this cue over your head."
Maybe that's where we went off the evolutionary track--we became a polite society first, where men didn't break cues over each other's heads, and then the bad apples became more confident, because they knew no man would make that threat anymore, let alone actually follow through with it? I'm not saying it's a better way to be, I'm just noting that no man was, or even is now, punching Weinstein in the face.
"Holy shit, I would *destroy* that ass."
I totally buy the evolutionary nature of this stuff. But isn't the most effective way to temper those feelings for a man to actually be getting laid on a regular basis? And isn't part of the thing that keeps some men from getting laid on a regular basis their poor socialization with regards to women?
We know very little, almost nothing, about how early man interacted and socialised. The idea that we have an unbroken 100,000 years of a particular way of men and women interacting and expressing emotional and sexual needs is one that doesn't really hold up to close scrutiny.
We have recorded history, to give us clues, for the barest fraction of our time as modern humans. The archeaological record is even scanter for periods before cities and settled civilisations.
Even through that small fraction of known human history there have been very different ways of organising societies, very different ways of understanding gender at various times and in various places.
I don't think there are no differences between men and women - I just think that society and culture magnify these beyond what they would naturally be without that cultural influence. There is so much variance between women and between men that it outweighs many of the apparent differences between men and women.
Except that, culturally, men will have a particular set of experiences women generally won't and vice versa.
For instance - we have the notion that men are less in touch with their emotions and women are better at expressing theirs - but I know plenty of women who suck at expressing or understanding their own emotions, and I know plenty of men who have a very nuanced understanding of their own emotions and high levels of empathy.
Things may be weighted one way or another - but often the statistics for tests of emotional maturity, or word usage, or preferences in play for kids, or aptitude for maths and science, caring and languages etc etc show a vast middle ground in which the determining factor is not gender, but much more individual.
In terms of what is or is not acceptable in sexual conduct - well that's a bit of a different thing. Though I don't doubt predatory behaviour can be found in males and females, as can passivity.
Again, though - we can only really judge our time and recent times for any sense of what is, is not, and has been acceptable.
"Holy shit, I would *destroy* that ass."
Also - that's not really the stuff that needs quashing, so much as the things that hint at (or outright reference) a lack of consent or a sense of predation as ok. That includes catcalling young girls, getting a girl too drunk to object, or joking about rape.
"Holy shit, I would rape that " would be a different matter. Now that's probably not something you'd encounter in your age group - but it's something younger lads have been heard saying.
A few years ago, a group of young men at a party gang raped a young woman who was unconscious. They filmed it on their phones and posted it on Facebook. They didn't think it was rape - she wasn't forced at knifepoint, she wasn't screaming - she didn't say no.
There is a disconnect there where they just didn't see her as a human being. She was a thing to be used. And they didn't see it as an issue - nobody in the party stopped them. They didn't hatch their plan in secret and not speak to anybody not in their circle about it. They did it at a party and posted the video on social media.
I do think things are getting better though. Girls and boys are growing up in a very different culture now and I feel pretty optimistic about the kids coming up now and approaching adulthood. But part of that, I think, is borne of the debate we've been having in our society for the past couple of decades. I also think it's because boys and girls lives and interests don't seem to diverge as sharply as they once did - there are a lot more areas in which they intersect and interact. They have more opportunities to interact with each other in ways that demonstrate the things they share.
Maybe that's where we went off the evolutionary track--we became a polite society first, where men didn't break cues over each other's heads
We... we don't?
There is a lack of awareness of this issue, so I am asking any of my fellow guys in the thread, who have been assaulted, or at least physically harassed to the point of being truly frightened, to please use the hashtag #MeAlso in your messages.
#MeAlso
(Me: assaulted several times. Worst assault required plastic surgery. Once was by a teacher in a full classroom. I've faced being beaten by school officials of course, in the north of England and the red[strike]neck[/strike] zone of America. I've run in fear a handful of times. A friend was assaulted two years ago, and another friend threatened a [strike]pool cue[/strike] solid body guitar assault eight years ago. I'm guessing my experience was average.)
I'm just noting that no man was, or even is now, punching Weinstein in the face.
Part of his calculation was putting himself in a place where he couldn't be assaulted. Otherwise he would have been; every man knows this. Also, we don't know that he wasn't punched. I imagine he probably was.
Men relentlessly keep quiet about their assaults out of shame.
#MeAlso
But isn't the most effective way to temper those feelings for a man to actually be getting laid on a regular basis? And isn't part of the thing that keeps some men from getting laid on a regular basis their poor socialization with regards to women?
'Cept those sexually aggressive guys often wind up socialized specifically for sexual pursuit (and are terrible people in real life, narcissist pricks etc). The ones who are, get laid more regularly than the guys with girlfriends --
we know, we did the math or at least had the math explained to us.
OMG
1 in 200 men is a direct descendant of Genghis Khan. That was a different time. But still, 1 in 200! Dang!
"If you so much as look at my woman I will break this cue over your head."
"If you don't want your woman to be looked at, keep her at home in the basement."
And then I got my ass handed to me. I wasn't bleeding alone, though.
True Story™.
Maybe there were a few more sentences involved.
Is it misconduct to stare?
'Cuz if you're a particularly attractive woman, I will stare right at your pretty.:mg:
And if you're the prettiest woman I've seen that day, it is not unheard of for me to tell you that.
Is it misconduct to stare?
.
Depends how long you hold the stare and if you drool.
And if you're the prettiest woman I've seen that day, it is not unheard of for me to tell you that.
Depends on the context for that one. If, for example, the prettiest woman you've seen all day is the one bringing you your meal in a restaurant - don't tell her. If the prettiest woman you've seen all day is a total stranger at the train station with whom you've shared not one word - don't tell her.
Maybe that's where we went off the evolutionary track--we became a polite society first, where men didn't break cues over each other's heads...
Not in my world, I've been seriously threatened with physical violence and weapons... and have threatened.
What in the way of sexual misconduct are women laughing along with the horrific woman about; because, they don't know what else to do and they want whoever they're talking to to like them in the moment?
I've never been in a situation where another woman did the equivalent of telling a rape joke, or otherwise discounting consent -
I think the closest equivalent I can recall is: being in a situation where a co-worker/sometime friend talked about guys she had dated or was interested in, in a worryingly mechanistic way. She used men for what she could get out of them, and knew exactly how desirable she was. I recall being a little uncomfortable but she was older than me. I'd never have felt comfortable saying anything.*
* I have witnessed raucous women on a hen night being way too handsy with bar staff and waiters. I wasn't myself part of any of those groups so I wasn't in the position of having to laugh along.
Thank you for your candor.
There's plenty of women who engage in sexual misconduct like having sex with a man to get a job, promotion, living beyond their means. Plenty of them brag about it, like how they have that person wrapped around their little finger.
I haven't seen where it's any more likely that "good" women will get involved in deterring bad sexual behavior by other women anymore than "good" men will with other men.
It's all sexual misconduct. It's just more likely to be nonconsensual when men engage in sexual misconduct and consensual when women do it. It seems that when a discussion on sexual misconduct comes up, women mostly think in terms of nonconsensual behavior or harassment. The consensual sexual misconduct, like women leading men on to take advantage of them, seems to fall by the wayside for "good" women; unless, it's the "good" woman's man that's being led on by another woman.
Statistically, no. The closest analogy would be an adult woman making lewd comments about an underage male--perhaps a high school student being preyed on by his teacher, for example--but that shit just doesn't happen, because other women would immediately freak out at any woman who said that, and likely put in a tip to the cops ...
Well now, I remember a male boss of mine telling me that when he was a teenager on a summer job at a chicken processing plant where all the factory employees were women, he got heckled, cat-called, harassed, felt threatened by the floor manager, and all the women were just cheering her on. He told me this in the context of harassment training we were undergoing, but I can certainly believe it to be true, and not to be an isolated incident.
Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely. Usually men have the power, which is the only reason men exercise it more frequently.
* I have witnessed raucous women on a hen night being way too handsy with bar staff and waiters.
Former waiter at the bar/restaurant had a table full of 40-50ish yo fairly attractive ladies (cougars). The five of them ordered one of the bar specialties, the Cougar Tea. My boy brought out the drinks and said to them "Five Cougar Teas, I hope the irony here isn't lost on you ladies tonight.", with a big smile as he sat the drinks on the table.
He told me "The
entire rest of the night was
rewr." and made a pawing/clawing motion w/his hands. They were all over the guy. He said later on, "Y'know, that might could have been the best night of my life".:lol2:
Ya had to see the presentation and know the guy to get just how funny that story actually is.
Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely. Usually men have the power, which is the only reason men exercise it more frequently.
I think that nails it.
#MeToo is now officially over. Sorry ladies.
Aziz Ansari is accused of sexual assault by a woman. A woman who got naked with him, gave him oral twice and allowed him to give her oral once, decided she didn't want to have actual sex and so it became awkward and she left.
https://babe.net/2018/01/13/aziz-ansari-28355
It was a bad, aggressive date with a woman who at first appeared to be into things and then had second thoughts. Now Ansari's career will be affected if not ruined -- or the entire movement will experience its backlash. Which one?
This is exactly what should not happen - awkward advances and misreading of "non-verbal cues" must not turn into assault after the fact when you decide it was a bad time when the guy couldn't read your goddamn mind.
(Also, sucking a guy's dick is a huge "non-verbal cue". If you say no, no, no, ok I'll suck your dick, you should assume that the previous no's are wiped out by proxy.)
This story discredits the entire movement. The ending should have been, sorry you had a bad time. Sex is like that. Human relationships are like that. It's awkward and there are weird pressures and feelings around it. But if no stayed no, you weren't
assaulted and you really must STFU
for the sake of all the women who actually were.#MeToo is now officially over. Sorry ladies.
This story discredits the entire movement.
--edited for clarity
This is 100 percent bullshit.
UT, you're capable of much better thinking and argumentation. This reads like it was scraped from woman-hating comment thread. I am shocked you put your name to it.
I concede overreaction/overstatement. If the story gets more play it will start discrediting it going forward.
If people just say meh this happens, fine. If Ansari has no more career, serious implications.
Aziz Ansari's career swirling the bowl would not impact--well, anybody but him. Dude's not all that humorous.
I tried, and cannot imagine the woman that would suck his dick.
She was prolly sucking his wallet, and found out it didn't go all way down to the turtles.
I wonder when the movement will try to take down God for abuse of power after what he did to that poor virgin, Mary. We'll have to wait and see how many other women come forward to say that God did something similar to them. Maybe we'll find that theists have been paying out hush money. It'll be interesting to see if any Churches fire God.
:corn:
This is 100 percent bullshit.
UT, you're capable of much better thinking and argumentation. This reads like it was scraped from woman-hating comment thread. I am shocked you put your name to it.
“I was debating if this was an awkward sexual experience or sexual assault. And that’s why I confronted so many of my friends and listened to what they had to say, because I wanted validation that it was actually bad.”
It didn't go the way it had played out in her head ahead of time, but needed her friends to validate it's was his fault and she'd been assaulted. She's hardly the first to cry rape after making bad decisions and regretting it.
Cite.
Show me where the woman say she was assaulted.
Grace says her friends helped her grapple with the aftermath of her night with Ansari. “It took a really long time for me to validate this as sexual assault,” she told us. “I was debating if this was an awkward sexual experience or sexual assault. And that’s why I confronted so many of my friends and listened to what they had to say, because I wanted validation that it was actually bad.”
PRO TIP: ctrl+f gives you a search window to search for specific words on a page
Cite.
Show me where the woman say she was assaulted.
Did you read UT's link or just climb or you high horse and charge the windmill? :eyebrow:
The New York Times has now weighed in, with an opinion piece entitled "Aziz Ansari Is Guilty. Of Not Being a Mind Reader."
Their writer used about the same level of overstatement as I did...
...arguably the worst thing that has happened to the #MeToo movement since it began in October. It transforms what ought to be a movement for women’s empowerment into an emblem for female helplessness.
That's pretty rough. But a feminist wrote it, not me, so.
Oh yes, Barii Weiss, gets it! :thumb:
So now it's no longer the #MeToo movement; but, the #MeToo bandwagon.
Or perhaps it's #MeTooMaybe
#Me2BORNOT2B
#MeTooButNotYou
#MeTooLimited
Or maybe simply $MeToo.
This is so depressing.
Grace’s story was met with so many digital hosannas by young feminists, who insisted that consent is only consent if it is affirmative, active, continuous and — and this is the word most used — enthusiastic. Consent isn’t the only thing they are radically redefining. A recent survey by The Economist/YouGov found that approximately 25 percent of millennial-age American women think asking someone for a drink is harassment. More than a third say that if a man compliments a woman’s looks it is harassment.
I can see where this is going. Millennial men stop asking women for drinks, they stop having actual experiences with women that they can learn from and grow from, so they get all their experience from watching pornos. They learn all the wrong lessons about sex from that porn, and it makes matters only worse. It's a negative feedback loop.
It was inevitable; all pendulums swing too far and then correct. I, for one, am glad to see that this one is correcting quickly, by women, and--it seems, though time will tell--gently, without a backlash against all the legitimate cases of harassment and assault.
What if the IRL gist of the 'movement' being publicized as having monolithic, prescriptive goals, is really just a simple idea, like, "please treat women with more respect"?
What if people are just saying: we should call attention to instances of women being disrespected, to raise awareness of how it happens, how it makes us feel, and H O P E F U L L Y to trigger an empathetic reaction, where people conclude "hey, we shouldn't do that"?
Wouldn't the Aziz Ansari story be a worthwhile example of disrespectful behavior? As a society, should we have 'more' or 'less' men behaving like that? Should we just 'not talk' about it?
My internal sense of ethical responsibility tells me, after reading the Aziz Ansari article, that this was really wrong and really disgusting, and honestly probably happens that way all the time, and, I wonder, does "technically illegal" constitute the only bar we require people to meet?
Gross, society. Do better.
well, the argument made by the NYT Opinion writer is that it is anti-feminist to say that women need that level of protection from awkward sexuality
and that a strong, empowered woman is what feminism should be shooting for, and that a strong woman can leave a situation that is uncomfortable, but not coercive, and feel 100% fine having done so
and if it happened would have no interest in trashing a person's entire career out of such an event
because that is also gross, insensitive behavior
It was a bad, aggressive date with a woman who at first appeared to be into things and then had second thoughts. Now Ansari's career will be affected if not ruined -- or the entire movement will experience its backlash. Which one?
If her description of the encounter is accurate that is way more than just an aggressive date - and a heck of a lot more than someone clumsily missing signals. He seems to have acted in a predatory manner with her - very manipulative behaviour.
her description of trying to physically move away from him across the room and him intercepting her - of her trying to give off non-verbal cues, because that is a very difficult situation to be in and knowing how to react in the moment is tricky - the potential threat of that situation because she doesn't know how far he is going to push this, but set against the other thought likely to occur at that moment, of 'am I over playing this, is this really a potential threat? Is this ok?' that sort of stuff puts you into a really strange head space where you can find yourself doing very strange and uncomfortable things because you don't want to offend that person - and where you don't want to act weird or because you just don't know what else to do - it's like a kind of freeze compliance - hard to explain.
Some men - and I know more than one - play on that. They specifically aimto get women into that headspace and then capitalise on it by, for example, demanding that the woman touch their cock, or take off their top - and the woman, often, finds themselves doing exactly what they've been told to do- without enthusiasm maybe, but somehow just doing it.
I've been on the other end of that little game - but it was a few years after before I really realised what that was and what it meant.
She doesn't sound like someone who was into it and then changed her mind. She went on a date with a guy who pushed her past where she was comfortable being and ignored every non-verbal
and verbal cue that she was not up for that kind of date just now.
He applied and then withdrew pressure then applied again, breaking down her resistance - and attempting to push her into doing something he must have known she did not want.
As the article points out, this is not some clumsy teenager, this is a man in his mid 30s who has built a comedy and writing career out of understanding romantic communication between men and women.
Unlike the 22 year old he tried to pressure into having sex with him. And successfully pressured into oral sex
A few thoughts:
One of the difficulties in discussing this sort of stuff is that men and women generally have very different perspectives on it - there is a bunch of common ground that we all kind of accept and share an understanding - but then there are some tricky areas.
One of the things that strikes me whenever the question of motive and communication comes up, is that on paper the clumsy novice misreading signals or mis-communicating intent looks awfully similar to the intentional and manipulative attempts at coercion that border on a kind of assault. And so it looks really easy to confuse the two.
I think it is different when you're in it.
There is a side to some men that other men generally don't get to see. And because most of those other men don't really get to see it, what they get is a description of a way of behaving, or a set of actions in which they can see echoes of their own clumsy, youthful attempts at sex and communication. What they don't get to see are the eyes of that kind of man when he is doing that kind of stuff.
See, that is something that is generally only seen by women (or gay men) who encounter this kind of man. And most men who get told about this stuff are decent human beings who don't think the way that guy does and for all the much publicised locker room humour, have probably been exposed to much less of that way of thinking than your average woman has, by the time she hits her 25th birthday.
I've experienced youthful (and in one case not so youthful) clumsy fumblings and I've experienced predatory and coercive men. Fortunately not in great numbers.
It's hard to explain but I do think you know it when you see it. The lizard brain does not scream threat over inept fumbles. But that is a distinction that is very hard to pin down after.
well, the argument made by the NYT Opinion writer is that it is anti-feminist to say that women need that level of protection from awkward sexuality
That seems like a fair point of view. Of course, we could take the labels off this and stop caring whether it meets one person's criteria of feminism.
I think we agree there are two elements:
1) an empowered person being competent at defending their boundaries
2) an ethical person not putting others in a situation requiring them to do so
There is a central argument in my mind which states, if person #2 doesn't commit the initial offense, then person #1 would not be in the situation to require any kind of response.
It seems to me that it is wrong, gross, and piggish to gloss over person #2's actions and require person #1
to do anything at all to "fix" the situation that they didn't create. That's totally backwards. It makes more sense to simply address the problem--the behavior.
Doesn't a just society have standards of what is acceptable? Don't we judge people who don't meet them? Yes we do, and we should judge men who do this. That's how society works. If they are not "called out" for this, it means we don't care--we're okay with it.
I should probably add to what i said up there, that there is also no doubt a side of some women that other women don't generally get to see as well
And successfully pressured into oral sex
Pressured - in both directions! Pressured her into receiving oral!
You know how you women always have pressure us guys into receiving oral. It's always a difficult argument to have with us, I know. We just don't like receiving. It makes us feel less sexy.
So that's part of where the thing goes off the track with us. Hard wiring. So to speak.
Mens and Wimmens Be Different!!
Well - I have only ever had a guy go down on me after I've been persuaded and I fucking hated it. Really not something I have ever wanted any guy to do ever.
Mens and Wimmens Be Different!!
Yes - but some of that difference may well be in how we grow up and how that forms our sexual selves and outlooks.
That article I posted a link to is really interesting on that score.
I want to be clear: I do not believe that either of these encounters qualifies as sexual assault, nor do I think that the men involved were being intentionally thoughtless or harmful. But in both of these cases, I ended the night feeling gross and a bit violated. I wondered why I had let these men into my private space or entered theirs. I wondered why I hadn’t articulated my boundaries more clearly. I wondered why so little care or attention had been paid to my verbal and nonverbal cues of discomfort and disinterest. I wondered whether or not these men were rehashing these concerns, too.
I thought about the two encounters again when I read a 22-year-old photographer’s account of her date and subsequent sexual encounter with actor and comedian Aziz Ansari. The photographer, referred to only as “Grace,” described a night in which Ansari ― a famous man who makes woke TV and who wrote a whole book on modern dating ― repeatedly escalated a sexual situation, allegedly barreling past Grace’s verbal and nonverbal cues that signaled she felt uncomfortable. At one point she describes telling him, “I don’t want to feel forced [to have a sexual encounter with you] because then I’ll hate you, and I’d rather not hate you.” A few minutes later, she says he instructed her to turn around and go down on him. And she did.(Ansari has called the encounter “by all indications completely consensual.”)
It would be easy to look at the Aziz Ansari story and dismiss it as the #MeToo movement run amok. (Author Caitlin Flanagan has already written Grace’s feelings of violation off as mere “regret,” and described the published account of her experience as “3,000 words of revenge porn.”) The story is messier than most that we’ve heard since The Reckoning began in October. Ansari’s alleged misconduct is not the same as Harvey Weinstein’s ― or Matt Lauer’s or Charlie Rose’s or Kevin Spacey’s or Roy Moore’s or Louis C.K.’s. But ifthe #MeToo movement is going to amount to sustained culture change ― rather than simply a weeding out of the worst actors in a broken system ― we need to renegotiate the sexual narratives we’ve long accepted. And that involves having complicated conversations about sex that is violating but not criminal.
The sexual encounter Grace described falls into what I see as a gray area of violating, noncriminal sex ― the kind of sex that Rebecca Traister described in 2015 as “bad in ways that are worth talking about”; what Jessica Valenti described on Twitter as an interaction that the “culture considers ‘normal,’” but is “oftentimes harmful.”
This is a kind of sex that is not only worth talking about, but necessary to talk about. Behavior need not fall under the legal definition of sexual assault or rape to be wrong or violating or upsetting. And when nearly every woman I’ve spoken to about the Aziz Ansari story follows up our conversation with a similar story of her own, it’s worth thinking about why that is.
I believe that Ansari didn’t realize in the moment that he was ignoring Grace’s cues, nonverbal or otherwise. And that’s part of the problem. “When you have a sexually harmful behavior, we have the assumption that people view these behaviors in the same way,” Maia Christopher, executive director of the Association for the Treatment of Sexual Abusers, told HuffPost last year. But, oftentimes, we don’t. We step into interactions, sexual or otherwise, with different ideas of what constitutes a violation.
As our culture shifts to acknowledge the kinds of violations women have been too scared or discouraged to report, we need to not only make space for more discussion, but update our shared sexual scripts, as well. We need to introduce new language and ways of talking about gray areas that help us to make public the awkward and messy conversations we’ve been forced to have in private.
The language we currently use to talk about consent is, admittedly, complex.Research has shown that in their daily lives, both men and womenemploy verbal cues to indicate “no” that don’t explicitly contain the word “no.” For example, if someone extends a social invitation that you don’t want to accept, instead of saying “No, I don’t want to do that,” you might say, “That sounds great, but I think I made plans with a friend,” or “Not sure I’ll make it.” These same kind of communication tactics come up in sexual situations. Language like, “It’s getting late,” or “maybe later,” or “next time,” often serves as a stand-in for a hard “no.”
However, in a 1999 paper by Celia Kitzinger and Hannah Frith, the authors conclude that that “both men and women have a sophisticated ability to convey and to comprehend refusals, including refusals which do not include the word ‘no’,” positing that when men claim to not understand these types of refusals, they may actually be employing “self-interested justifications for coercive behavior.” A 2008 analysis reached a similar conclusion ― that “young men share the understanding that explicit verbal refusals of sex per se are unnecessary to effectively communicate the withholding of consent to sex.”
So, what’s going on here?
Women are socialized from a young age to cater to the comfort of those around them ― especially if those around them are men. As Christopher said, girls are simply “taught from a younger age to be more concerned about their environments, about potential threats.”Conversely, many men are taught that they are entitled to women’s time, attention and physical affection ― and that if those things are not readily offered to them, they should be aggressive and take it. This creates a dynamic where women often defer to men’s needs in an effort to avoid embarrassment, verbal conflict or physical violence, and where it may not even occur to men to check in with women’s needs.
Acknowledging this dynamic doesn’trequire us to label all men monsters or all women “helpless” weaklings in need of a fainting couch. It means that we’ve all grown up with a fucked-up sexual script ― governed by questions like “Did he/she/they say yes?”― that ultimately works for no one.
The article has a lot more to say and it's well worth a read
Well - I have only ever had a [person] go down on me after I've been persuaded and I fucking hated it. Really not something I have ever wanted any [person] to do ever.
...said no man, ever.
Tim Gunn said it. But he's broadly asexual, not just anti-oral.
Well - I have only ever had a guy go down on me after I've been persuaded and I fucking hated it. Really not something I have ever wanted any guy to do ever.
WTF !?! You just shattered my dreams, drove a stake through my heart. :mecry:
If God had not intended for man to eat pussy, he wouldn't have made it look like a taco.
...said no man, ever.
Again that may be biological difference - or that men and women grow up with different signals and form different relationships with their bodies because of that. We develop different hang ups because we are subject to different assumptions and messages.
I'm sure there are plenty of women out there who do like it
Men and women are different. But, are we saying men just can't understand even the most basic things about women that they are literally blanketing the airwaves and news cycles with?? PLEASE RESPECT US, PLEASE TREAT US WITH RESPECT. And men are just like, "huh huh, I like it when my wiener gets touched and you should like the same things, with your own body--you should have the same boundaries we do, and if you don't, well DURR DUHRRR me brain not hear that." Come on, grow up.
The message of the #MeToo movement was "sexual abuse and workplace harassment will not longer go unreported." Saying it's about general "respect" is a serious dilution/broadening of that which is not good for the movement.
Ansari is a self-described feminist man, celebrates the #MeToo movement and is considered woke. He probably believed he was respecting her. He texted her the next day (unprovoked - hurr durrr neanderthal man would not text or call, and that would be seen as a sign of... disrespect) and he was surprised to find it didn't go well.
How do you allow someone to stick their fingers down your throat repeatedly against your will. Wouldn't you pretty much just close your mouth after the first time?
The message of the #MeToo movement was "sexual abuse and workplace harassment will not longer go unreported." Saying it's about general "respect" is a serious dilution/broadening of that which is not good for the movement.
I've already rejected that premise. I reject the utter ƒuck out of the idea that we can't do better than discouraging things that are ALREADY ILLEGAL.
What if the IRL gist of the 'movement' being publicized as having monolithic, prescriptive goals, is really just a simple idea, like, "please treat women with more respect"?
Like, really, in 2018, we can't make this a general goal? Too ambitious??
How do you allow someone to stick their fingers down your throat repeatedly against your will. Wouldn't you pretty much just close your mouth after the first time?
How do you keep sticking your fingers down someone's throat who is repeatedly letting you know they aren't into it? WHY would you?? Wouldn't you just NOT do that?? And if you did--
wouldn't you be a piece of shit??
I heard that Ansari's career will be hurt because millennial women are a lot of his fan base and they don't like this story. Well guess what--millennials can *decide for themselves* that they *don't like someone's behavior* and they *don't like that person* It's. That. Simple.
Like, I'm sorry you're a creepy predator and people don't like creepy predators?? HaHa!!
it doesn't work that wayHow do you keep sticking your fingers down someone's throat who is repeatedly letting you know they aren't into it? WHY would you?? Wouldn't you just NOT do that?? And if you did--wouldn't you be a piece of shit??
I guess she wasn't very good a letting him know. I guess she isn't very good at shutting her mouth if she didn't want fingers or a dick in there... multiple times.
How do you keep sticking your fingers down someone's throat who is repeatedly letting you know they aren't into it? WHY would you?? Wouldn't you just NOT do that?? And if you did--wouldn't you be a piece of shit??
I heard that Ansari's career will be hurt because millennial women are a lot of his fan base and they don't like this story. Well guess what--millennials can *decide for themselves* that they *don't like someone's behavior* and they *don't like that person* It's. That. Simple.
Like, I'm sorry you're a creepy predator and people don't like creepy predators?? HaHa!! it doesn't work that way
I'm thinking she didn't effectively let him know she didn't like it, or changed her mind after about liking it..... Or the whole thing was a set up to get DanaC to write another million words about feminism.
I reject the utter ƒuck out of the idea that we can't do better than discouraging things that are ALREADY ILLEGAL.
Like, really, in 2018, we can't make this a general goal? Too ambitious??
Why stop at women's respect? Let's go all the way and talk about respect for all. It's definitely not just a feminist issue! I've already talked about the male equivalent of sexual assault being physical assault. We've shared stories. We've shown it to be a massive problem. It would be great if we could convince people to stop physically assaulting males. It's something that is "ALREADY ILLEGAL" and we
never even talk about it.
#MeToo I was physically assaulted so I am taking the tag for my OWN purposes.
What, is that offensive?
What, too general?
Wasn't the problem YOU PERSONALLY were hoping to address?
You ReJeCt the PrEmIsE?
I'm sure you now see, I don't get to do that, and you don't get to do that, because that is not how this works.
I think it is clear and obvious that there is a massive, longstanding, global deficit in the levels of basic human decency and respect that is paid to women--specifically, and I think it's clear and obvious that the issue currently has traction and visibility, so now is the time to press that advantage and discuss it to the maximum possible extent. All the rest is blah, blah, blah. This is what's happening.
global deficit in the levels of basic human decency and respect that is paid to women
Oh great slogan. Every man in the world can nod and say good idea, but that applies to someone else, someone in those shithole countries, or the ragheads, Commies, etc, certainly not me. Generalities only work on paper.
Seems like the only thing worse than generalities are specifics. Specifics are rebuttal fodder.
I think it is clear and obvious that there is a massive, longstanding, global deficit in the levels of basic human decency and respect period.
So why don't we make it about all assault?
This is sounding a lot like Black Lives Matter vs. All Lives Matter.
So why don't we make it about all assault?
You're free to organize that.
What society is getting better at raising awareness of is what the victims of an injustice say are the issues they have with it, not what an unaffected person's opinion is of whether they're saying it wrong.
Nobody should stop you from organizing the thing that matters to you.
Everyone has a valid voice and experience, and if it resonates with other people, a 'support group' develops--this is an awesome thing happening, facilitated by technology. It's open to all.
There can also be a backlash. Sometimes retributive movements are conceived of to minimize other people's voices, rather than listening to them. Sometimes "all" is used to drown out an uncomfortable specific.
Mmm. Well #MeToo is hereby diluted in this thread, let's see how it goes in real life.
I noticed.. you're saying that broadening #metoo from "sexual assault" to "respecting women" would dilute the message, and I'm saying that broadening #metoo from "sexual assault" to "all assault" would dilute the message.
Whereas actually, as it's not about us, whatever either one of us thinks is academic at best.
that was my entire actual point ~ we are now on exactly the same page. i think
Again that may be biological difference - or that men and women grow up with different signals and form different relationships with their bodies because of that. We develop different hang ups because we are subject to different assumptions and messages.
Well, this leads to the question that I suppose all of us realized was inevitable:
What do cross-cultural studies say about head?that was my entire actual point ~ we are now on exactly the same page. i think
Yeah, I think so.
Like, I guess, I hope you were being sarcastic --
portraying a guy who wants to purposefully undermine a movement, with a counter "all" movement--and I took you literally?
It was a supposition, a common approach to debate
I would love it if people found out that the male[-ish] equivalent of sexual assault is plain old assault, but I don't dare think I could sway the #MeToo movement that way, and I don't really want to. It should be a new movement.
yes - a new movement. Men (and women) standing up and saying: let's stop the violence. Let's stop the appalling risk that most young men face at some point in their lives from, mainly, other men.
There are huge issues facing young men in particular. Suicide rates are tragically high - and so are injuries and deaths from violent assault.
But for these there are often a different set of dynamics involved than those at play in sexual misconduct It needs to be tackled but not necessarily in the same conversation .
We really need to stop treating this as a zero-sum game. And here's the thing - most women have men in their lives. Speak to any mum, sister or wife about the scourge of violence affecting men in our society and you will find they share your concern.
I actually do not see 'assault' as the male equivalent of sexual assault. Assault .... is assault. It affects both men and women - but men are more likely to suffer it than women (except in the home/ in the context of a relationship).
Sexual assault is sexual assault - it is suffered by men and women, but women are more likely to suffer it than men.
The triggers for violent assault are not necessarily the same as the triggers for sexual assault - they are often bourne of very different motivations and contexts.
I think Bruce made a really interesting point somewhere that - what marks most of these allegations of sexual misconduct is a power relationship, and since men are more often in a position of power over women than the other way around, men are the primary perpetrators. If more women were in positions of power or authority over men, we could well see an increase of women abusing that power in much the same way.
The primary distinction for me between the kinds of violent assault that many young men risk when they go out in the evening and the kind of assault women face sexually, is that one is brutal and impersonal while the other is much more intimate.
Setting aside stranger rape, and the masked man in the bushes, which are by far the rarest kinds of sexual assault, women are, in large numbers experiencing violence, threat, or simply a dehumanising form of predatory behaviour from men they are either intimate with, or economically subordinate to in some way.
Setting aside violence in the home, which is not the most common violence suffered by men, and which bears far more resemblance to the sexual assault/abuse/exploitation described above than to any other form of violence, men in large numbers experience violence, threat or intimidation from other men with whom they have neither an emotional connection nor economic relationship.
It is a disgrace that for many young men the streets are a dangerous place. It is also a disgrace that for many women the bedroom and boardroom are dangerous places.
They are two very different issues. They are not each other's gendered equivalent. And they impact differently. But they do overlap.
Here's the thing though - most violent assaults are carried out by men. Women assault men too, and other women, but most violent assaults, and certainly most serious violent assaults are carried out by men.
Most men who suffer violent assault suffer it at the hands of another man/men. Most men who suffer violent sexual assault or rape, suffer it at the hands of another man. Most women who suffer violent assault suffer it at the hands of a man, and most women who suffer sexual assault, suffer it at the hands of a man.
So - when women start kicking up a fuss about being abused by men, and a man says: yeah, but what about the violent assaults suffered by men? What is it exactly, that he wants to hear from women? That we care? Fuck yes, we care. My best friend and former partner, J, was beaten up by a gang of lads at a train station a few years ago. It was a horrible experience for him, it shook him to his core and everybody, me included was horrified. They were only in their teens. They'd been harrassing an elderly chap and J tried to intervene in a light and friendly tone and they just went fucking nuts.
That shit worries the hell out of me. It worries a lot of people.
Women saying to men 'please stop ignoring what we're saying and just assuming your needs outweigh any of ours up to and including bodily autonomy' is not the same thing as women saying 'we don't give a shit about any of the problems and risks faced by men'.
... stop ignoring what we're saying and just assuming your needs outweigh any of ours up to and including bodily autonomy ...
#MeToo won't accomplish that. Not even if people would like for it to. It's not structured for that.
Of course the #MeToo movement won't accomplish that. I doubt very much anybody expects it to. I certainly don't.
The #MeToo movement is one expression of a much wider discourse. A much fucking longer discourse as well.
What #MeToo will accomplish is expending the public's attention span so a wider and more lengthy discourse is put on hold even longer.
Like the HuffPo article it seems the starting point for women is what kind of sexual assaults/sexual harassment/bad dates they have experienced. When women talk, it turns out they pretty much all have had those experiences. That's shocking.
As an empathetic person, I have an urge to compare my own notes. But I was never sexually assaulted. Just regular-assaulted. Then we compared notes as men and it turns out we pretty much all had those experiences. But nobody was shocked.
Because that's "just how it is". I suspect it's FAR worse for men physically, and a LITTLE worse for women emotionally; SCARIER for women, in general, because they are more vulnerable and are more likely to be killed in a one-on-one end-all conflict.
Here's the thing though - most violent assaults are carried out by men.
The fact you figure THAT'S important, is why there's no movement for the regular assault problem. We're serious victims, but we're also born perpetrators just by gender, so...
kinda evens out, huh?
That's a wretched way to think about it. And, it's pretty much how everyone thinks about it.
Apropos of nothing I give you two statistics:
1. Percentage of men who are the victim in severe domestic abuse cases ("beaten, burned, choked, kicked, slammed with a heavy object, or hit with a fist"): 40%
(source: CDC via Yahoo)
2. Height of Aziz Ansari: 5' 6"
:D because i knew you wanted this information :D
For those following the Grace story -
A great exchange happened between Ashleigh Banfield and the writer of the Grace story (not victim Grace, but journalist Katie Way). On Monday,
Banfield criticized the story on HLN. On Tuesday, HLN asked if Katie Way wanted to come on and discuss it. She wrote an email in return. Here it is in full.
It's an unequivocal no from me. The way your colleague Ashleigh (?), someone I'm certain no one under the age of 45 has ever heard of, by the way, ripped into my source directly was one of the lowest, most despicable things I've ever seen in my entire life. Shame on her. Shame on HLN. Ashleigh could have "talked" to me. She could have "talked" to my editor or my publication. But instead, she targeted a 23-year-old woman in one of the most vulnerable moments of her life, someone she's never fucking met before, for a little attention. I hope the ratings were worth it! I hope the ~500 RTs on the single news write-up made that burgundy lipstick bad highlights second-wave feminist has-been feel really relevant for a little while. She DISGUSTS me, and I hope when she has more distance from the moment she has enough of a conscience left to feel remotely ashamed — doubt it, but still. Must be nice to piggyback off of the fact that another woman was brave enough to speak up and add another dimension to the societal conversation about sexual assault. Grace wouldn't know how that feels, because she struck out into this alone, because she's the bravest person I've ever met. I would NEVER go on your network. I would never even watch your network. No woman my age would ever watch your network. I will remember this for the rest of my career — I'm 22 and so far, not too shabby! And I will laugh the day you fold. If you could let Ashleigh know I said this, and that she is no-holds-barred the reason, it'd be a real treat for me.
Thanks,
Katie
On Tuesday, Banfield read the letter on HLN, saying
The reason I want to share that is because if you truly believe in the #MeToo movement, if you truly believe in women’s rights, if you truly believe in feminism, the last thing you should do is attack someone in an ad hominem way for her age, I’m 50, and for my highlights, I was brown-haired for a while when I was a war corespondent, interviewing Yasser Arafat, and in Afghanistan and Iraq, Gaza and the West Bank. Google those places...
...
That is not the way we have this conversation, as women or men... We do not attack people for their age, or their highlights, or their lipstick, because it is the most hypocritical thing a woman who says she supports the women’s movement could ever do -- and that's the caliber of the woman who was given all of this power, and was able to wield this power.
My point about both types of violence mainly being perpetrated by men was not to suggest that it is less important that men face that kind of violence - it was to suggest you are focusing you're ire in the wrong direction if your concern is violence against men.
I've come down from my comfy spot in the Cellar tagline to say:
I get the impression he's drawing attention to the disparity between counter-violence movements for women and men exacerbated by the "Me" in #MeToo meaning just women. Why do the women need/have that while the men don't? They are both, after all, being victimized by men.
Now I'm going back up to the tagline to gaze down upon this thread an nod knowingly.
Yeah let us not have misdirection here, I am 100% in favor of the non-diluted #MeToo movement, as well as most brands of traditional feminism* which is why I am appalled at how it was, in my opinion, abused in or by this particular case. I don't think my ironic point bears on any of that. There are lots of ironies in life, that's just one of them.
I await my own movement. Perhaps I shall start one. Lol, in this environment. Lol.
*those broads are always yapping but, for chicks, they have some good ideas
Why didn't the people making it happen make it happen earlier when others were coming forward over Bill Cosby?
Oy. I'm changing your tagline.
I feel as though I've been violated ... #MeToo!
Anyone got Rose McGowan's telephone number?
[SIZE="1"][COLOR="LemonChiffon"]True story: Once upon a time I had a fling with a gal named McGowan. Early in the relationship I asked if she had any siblings. She said "No ... I have a cousin named Rose." Then she denied it. She was just kidding; but, this topic reminds me of that. She was more attractive than Rose.[/COLOR][/SIZE]
I vividly remember one night after months of dinners and small talk, she was naked, I was not. I was giving her a long slow backrub with an occasional kiss on the butt. She suddenly jumped up, ran in the bedroom and threw on her robe. Confused, I followed her and said, at least tell me what I did wrong. With fire in her eyes she spit out, you didn’t roll me over! Never saw her again.
I wasn't aggressive enough? WTF?
Could be that she was just really horny and became sexually frustrated when you didn't jump her bones right away.
Could be she thought you didn't like what you saw enough to go face to face and she was either insecure or vain about it.
Could be that she couldn't go through with it for some other reason and decided to let you think it was your fault.
Could be that she really wanted a foot massage.
Could be that she really wanted a foot massage.
"Suck my toes and I will follow you everywhere."
Maybe we don't want that ....
Maybe she wanted to tangle beards.
Whut?
[YOUTUBE]II-OP6vdMs8[/YOUTUBE]
The video failed for me. Not technically, but a few seconds in once I realized it was Samantha Bee, I started involuntarily projectile vomiting.
i'm sorry that was again too much overstatement. change it to
'i just have this weird semi-irrational dislike for her brand of snark'
i've had a bad day sorry
The video was OK, as humor. As a serious piece it would have at least a couple fatal chinks in its armor. One being that women (or anyone) gets a pass for not owning up to their conduct in threatening situations; because, they didn't want to offend or were afraid. They don't get to blame being indecisive; or, compliant on anyone else. You can't respect someone who kisses your ass and A coward dies a thousand deaths, a brave person dies but once are a couple of the names that tune goes by.
Which brings us to another fatal flaw, the notion that women (or anyone) can demand respect. Respect, like trust, is earned, not demanded. Women's behavior has to change. Men who present as easy victims have to change. If not, they'll fall by the wayside. They can go in the #MeToo direction; but, the path of retribution is short and won't get them far. We have penal institutions; but, people still commit crimes and there are repeat offenders.
#MeToo is a reactionary measure. Anyone jumping on that bandwagon thinking they're being proactive is delusional. The movement is like trying to prevent getting a disease by taking a placebo that makes people think they'll be OK when in actuality their well being will deteriorate because they refuse to acknowledge the underlying vulnerability is their own ineptitude at prevention.
The idea that we will always have criminals only works if this kind of experience is the exception, rather than the norm. #MeToo is about the fact that it has happened to basically every woman out there. And when we try to fight our vulnerability like you suggest--say, by creating a list of shitty men in a particular industry, to quietly spread the word and help keep ourselves out of those very situations you blame us for being in--we get attacked for gossiping and wielding anonymous power to destroy random men's lives for fun. It's hard to be proactive when it's e v e r y w h e r e.
There has been both enormous societal change and also an enormous drop in crime over time.
If you can get a new cultural rule into place, and have it stick, it wins.
I remember last time. It was the early-mid 90s. My ex came home from work and said that her co-worker, who was an acquaintance of ours, had gotten a sexual harassment charge, and he now faced a serious career threat, if not outright firing.
That hadn't been the case just a few years earlier. But there was this sense of change in the air. HR departments everywhere were on guard. Everyone knew, a new normal was well on its way. Most of us felt it was totally overdue.
And then, that all suddenly came to a Full Stop, exactly 20 years ago, as -- incredibly -- many feminists went silent and many even actively considered how harassment wasn't really that terrible of a crime after all.
Politics Makes Us Stupid
Politics can normalize things we'd previously agreed were bad things. Even near-universally accepted bad things like pride, greed, lust, envy, gluttony, wrath and sloth. But especially under-the-radar things like racism, bigotry, misogyny, and xenophobia, that people had quietly clung to.
And it's always the other guy, on the other side--because we're the good guys and y'all are the bad guys.
The idea that we will always have criminals only works if this kind of experience is the exception, rather than the norm. #MeToo is about the fact that it has happened to basically every woman out there. And when we try to fight our vulnerability like you suggest--say, by creating a list of shitty men in a particular industry, to quietly spread the word and help keep ourselves out of those very situations you blame us for being in--we get attacked for gossiping and wielding anonymous power to destroy random men's lives for fun. It's hard to be proactive when it's e v e r y w h e r e.
Very true.
... to quietly spread the word and help keep ourselves out of those very situations you blame us for being in ...
That's a mischaracterization even if it's a collective "you." I (we *Royal wave*) are not blaming you. Perhaps an analogy will help to clarify:
There are a lot of bad drivers on the road. You can drive along, exercising your right of way as a driver, even if it means having bad drivers crash into you. You can take their names, tell as many people as you can about them, sue them and maybe even have them put in jail. It's all reactive. You still have to deal with the aftermath of being in a crash.
So I point out that your situation isn't going to change unless you become proactive. You should do something to avoid the crashes in the first place. You should learn to recognize bad drivers before they crash into you and learn sound evasive action techniques.
Well lo and behold, there's a thing called a Defensive Drivers Course. Part of it is learning that it may be necessary to relinquish something (right of way) in the near term to gain something more (avoid a crash) in the long run. Suggesting you attend one is not blaming you for any crashes.
You can be proactive (even if you and others in a given situation have to devise the means); but, you don't have to be proactive. I'm not going to blame you for the crashes either way. I am going to get tired of listening to you complain about bad drivers crashing into you if you don't become proactive because I know there's a good chance it was avoidable with more effort on your part
even if you weren't to blame.
My biggest assault was the aftermath of a crash, so I am a double loser in this blame the victim game.
I take it you hurt two fingers. I'm not sorry about one of them.
I'm not going to tell you which one.
See now if you had been proactive, say holding a gun, you wouldn't have been assaulted. :haha:
Sounds like xoB is sorry about your trigger finger.
Your cow orkers are not your friends.
But I think there's a better alternative: Don't hug people at work, because hugs are usually not appropriate in the workplace. In fact, much — if not all — of the marginal behavior that has these men worried about misunderstanding is suited more to friendship or family than the office. Outside of exceptional circumstances, it is too informal for work.
Unless you work with your actual sister, your office environment should not be one "where you just treat everybody the way you'd want them to treat your sister." Give coworkers the respect your sister deserves, yes, but not the familiarity. Work is (or rather, should be) a more formal place where the line these men worry they have unwittingly crossed is big and bright, not nebulous and dependent on personal preference.
You should learn to recognize bad drivers before they crash into you and learn sound evasive action techniques.
Ah... you mean like the guy who I figured out was a whackjob after a few simple phone conversations, and quietly stopped interacting with, except he still stalked me for six months? Just getting out of the room/restaurant/neighborhood is almost never enough.
No, I didn't mean that. That was the driving analogy correlation to a countermeasure.
Let's try something else.
Those with formal leadership training know there are often two solutions to a problem, a short term (interim) solution and a long term (permanent) solution. The short term solution helps alleviate apprehension, confusion, and fear by giving people a direction, focus, and restoring a sense of control. It may not be a permanent solution; but, it may be the only solution available at the time ... perhaps during your lifetime. It isn't a placebo, it's a catalyst. It helps people achieve a long term solution sooner.
The long term solution lies in changing the way men treat women. The short term solution needs to be proactive towards that end. Simple evasion as you did doesn't accomplish that; because, it doesn't change men's behavior, it just avoids it. It's not an effective countermeasure like it was in the driving analogy.
NOTE: I'm talking about harassment here. In cases of violence, creating distance can be paramount. END NOTE.
An EXAMPLE of a short term solution that initiates changes in men could be for women to establish a protocol for what to say and do when they begin to feel harassed. With all of them saying and doing the same thing, there can be little doubt in men's minds that they're out of bounds as far as the woman is concerned whether they agree with it or not. Next comes a protocol for what steps to take afterwards.
Another EXAMPLE could be taking assertiveness training (even self help courses). Learn what behaviors work best on men to prevent untoward initiatives. It's a transferable skill and an ounce of prevention is still worth a pound of cure.
I'm sure women are capable of doing more than just retribution in hindsight. Be women of vision.
no, he didn’t mean the thing that happened
See, Flint gets it.
He's still working on how to begin and end sentences though.
The National Gallery of Art will not present solo exhibitions by painter Chuck Close and photographer Thomas Roma, both of whom have been accused of sexual misconduct.
The Close exhibition was supposed to open May 13, while the Roma show was planned for September. The decision to halt the shows was made earlier this month and marks the first time the gallery has canceled exhibitions because of public allegations against the featured artists, according to Anabeth Guthrie, the museum’s chief of communications.
linkThis weeks latest example:
A complaint filed with the Pennsylvania House of Representatives alleges Rep. Nick Miccarelli of Delaware County threatened to kill one woman and forced another to have sex after they broke up. The lawyer for two women confirmed what was first reported by The Philadelphia Inquirer and The Caucus newspaper
Rep. Nick Miccarelli's accuser talks to investigators.
Nick Miccarelli is so paranoid as to carry a gun into the state house. He has been described with an obsession for violence and firearms. He is now the only legislator required to submit to metal detectors and had been banned from the State House underground parking lot. One forceably attacked woman was Luzerne County Representative Tarah Toohil.
When does Bill Cosby go to trial?
Ha, when the leadership of UAW local 1069 endorsed Miccarelli over a local member (Democrat) running against him. I told them he was an asshole. I was right. :yesnod: