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Shedding Light on the “Black Box of Inappropriateness”

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Re: Shedding Light on the “Black Box of Inappropriateness”

#121

Post by [deleted] »

tptacek wrote: post #114
harryh wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a matter of law you are incorrect (at least in the United States). "Sexual assault is any type of sexual contact or behavior that occurs without the explicit consent of the recipient. Falling under the definition of sexual assault are sexual activities as forced sexual intercourse, forcible sodomy, child molestation, incest, fondling , and attempted rape." https://www.justice.gov/ovw/sexual-assault

That's what the DOJ says. But the standards in the individual states, where these cases are certain to be prosecuted if at all, vary wildly . In some, the assault has to involve an intimate body part. In some, the contact has to be (ugh) "penetrative". In some, any form of coerced touching done for sexual arousal will qualify.

[deleted]

Re: Shedding Light on the “Black Box of Inappropriateness”

#122

Post by gizmo686 »

jacquesm wrote: post #100
gizmo686 wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>ask the women you are close to in your life if they've been raped or assaulted. The answers may surprise you. That is not the number under dispute. There are two fundamentally different theories about what is going on: 1) Most men sexually assault women, or 2) A minority of men sexual assault a large number of women. Based on statistics of victims, it is impossible to distinguish between these two scenarios. However…

> You seem to believe that we are in scenario 1. What I've seen professionally makes me believe this, definitely. And that view is consistent across 30 years in the industry with stints in various sub-branches of IT and/or fields that require IT services (which is pretty much anything nowadays). Let me reprhase this in a more direct way so there is no misunderstanding: I have yet to see a female friendly company in I…

>I have yet to see a female friendly company in IT.

This is a very different claim than what you made above. Even within a company, a minority of people can cause a majority of the problems. Indeed, for any toxic behavior I can think of, it only takes one employee to take down a team, and the problem often spreads beyond that team. I see no reason to believe sexual assault is any different.

Again, the question of if we are in situation 1 or 2 is vitally important. If we are in situation 1, then we are looking at a generational struggle to change men's attitudes towards women. Essentially, we need to wait for the old guard to die off, then wait for the new guard to die off, then hope that our actions made the new-new guard behave respectably.

If we are in situation 2, then the above solution is almost useless. Instead, we are facing a managerial problem where we fail to root out the bad actors. As with any other toxic behavior, this can cause them to contaminate the entire environment. Of course, in this context, "manager" does not only refer to the managers of companies, but also the "managers" of social communities. Effectively, in this scenario, the problem description is not so much that too many people rape, but rather that we are ineffective at dealing with those who do.

Re: Shedding Light on the “Black Box of Inappropriateness”

#123

Post by pharrington »

jacquesm wrote: post #6
Insanity wrote: post #4

It is unfortunate that these kind of things happen. They shed a bad light on our industry as a whole due to (hopefully a few) rotten apples. Thanks for writing this, takes courage!

> a few) rotten apples. Wow, that's really incredible optimism. I'd be more than happy if there was a 50/50 split between the kinds of apples but I fear that it is more along the lines of 20/80 or worse based on what I see and hear around me when no women are within earshot.

It seems more that as with most types of abuse and non-retributive violence, the sexual abuser tends to be in a position of disproportionate power to the abused. Also, because of the greater variance in the Y chromosome, human males display more phenotypically outlying (in this case, aberrant) behavior than human females.

Re: Shedding Light on the “Black Box of Inappropriateness”

#125

Post by dzhang50 »

_wmd wrote: post #82
jacquesm wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you tell someone to leave (NOW!) after they indicate they want to sleep in your bedroom when they've been offered the couch and then they forcibly kiss you that is in fact sexual assault, in fact even if none of the former had happened it would still be sexual assault. Force => assault. When someone has sex with another person without their permission it is rape .

I'm by no means a burly red-blooded gentleman, but I can't think of any example from my previous relationships that did not start with either myself or the other making a move which could later have been construed as assault. Of course adding context to all those situations, it's easy to see that I or the recipient would in all probability welcome the advance, and so it is not assault, however the fine line between "…

The situation and context matters. David McClure knew that the event at her apartment was a business meeting, there were many other colleagues, he followed her into her bedroom after the business meeting finished despite her objecting, he propositioned her and she objected and moved away, and THEN he finally tried and failed to kiss her after pinning her into a corner until she could no longer escape. Were your actions in your previous relationships like this? I hope not - for your own sake. Your strawman about a "written legal waiver" does not apply to this scenario.

Re: Shedding Light on the “Black Box of Inappropriateness”

#126

Post by sotojuan »

at-fates-hands wrote: post #108
ithinkinstereo wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Enough to keep on doing it year after year after year.

Which is the part that puzzles me. Successful guy, plenty of money. Get a high priced call girl, go on a sex site and get a woman who wants what you want. I mean I used to be in a band and it was easy to have a woman in nearly every city you could call when you feel lonely. If he was after something deeper, hire a dating consultant and find something worthwhile. It just amazes me that people who have both the means a…

People like him may be bored of using money as a means to get girls (no need to resort to prostitution for this even). Instead, they probably get off from methods like these.

Re: Shedding Light on the “Black Box of Inappropriateness”

#127

Post by dang »

TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #14

Because women are weak victims of the inappropriate behaviour of men . Why can't women be strong and have power? Because that wouldn't fit the narrative.

Please don't do ideological trolling here. If you have a substantive point to make, make it thoughtfully; otherwise please don't comment until you do.

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14692413 and marked it off-topic.

Re: Shedding Light on the “Black Box of Inappropriateness”

#128

Post by jmcgough »

at-fates-hands wrote: post #108
ithinkinstereo wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Enough to keep on doing it year after year after year.

Which is the part that puzzles me. Successful guy, plenty of money. Get a high priced call girl, go on a sex site and get a woman who wants what you want. I mean I used to be in a band and it was easy to have a woman in nearly every city you could call when you feel lonely. If he was after something deeper, hire a dating consultant and find something worthwhile. It just amazes me that people who have both the means a…

It's probably some mix of a lack of impulse control and enjoying the chase. He meets an attractive woman and pursues her, without stopping to think whether or not what he's doing is inappropriate or even assault.

Edit: I just finished reading the article. I hope this comment doesn't seem like I'm dismissing him as "Dave being Dave", because what he did was horrible. Plying her with copious amounts of alcohol and then backing her into a corner, refusing to leave her house. That's really messed up, like a frat boy's limited understanding of consent.

Re: Shedding Light on the “Black Box of Inappropriateness”

#129

Post by aaron695 »

pandler wrote: post #107
crush-n-spread wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you think so many westerners goto Asia to "teach" English? I think they go there mostly to experience a culture totally foreign to them. The food and lifestyle is cheap, it's very beautiful, and quite safe.

This. I find it hard to believe the entire "teach English in Asia" industry is fueled by people who base their decision on some fantasy to have sex with Asians (or just their students? I'm not sure what they are implying), and it certainly doesn't mesh with my experience of English teachers abroad.

"teach English in Asia" (....Imply are slightly dodgy, my interpretation)

This part of OP's comment is a very well known trope for people working in Asia.

It could just be a incorrect sterotype but personally this part of the comment should not have been flagged.

(Currently there's a trope the IT field has a issue)

Re: Shedding Light on the “Black Box of Inappropriateness”

#130

Post by dang »

pikachuaintcool wrote: post #116
jacquesm wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But all I can glean from this article is that the woman who wrote it is blowing her interactions with him a bit out of proportion. Where do you get this from? It read pretty factual and dry to me. It also puts the lie to his statement about that other encounter that he 'misread the situation', there clearly was no misreading the situation here and yet he persisted, twice.

Sorry, this discussion isn't happening. I just noticed my comments got removed. Clearly, my opinions aren't wanted here.

We've banned this account for repeatedly violating the HN guidelines. Would you please stop creating accounts to do that with?
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