If these parties are so widespread, how come no one has posted any actual photos from these parties? I'm sure there's some of this going on, but it can't be as widespread as claimed.
Silicon Valley's Secretive, Orgiastic Side
141–150 of 219 posts
Re: Silicon Valley's Secretive, Orgiastic Side
#142Earlier quoted context omitted.
The entire article was on how these interactions are facilitated by the intentional use of illegal, mind-altering drugs. Aside from the obvious fact that the drugs are illegal, there is also the question of whether those who are under the influence of these drugs can consent to sex.
I think if you consent to go to the sex party, you consent to physical romantic activity, you consent to taking the drug knowing your context and what the drug will do, and then you consent to sex throughout the experience, it's hard to see how it's anything but consensual. If you have a colonoscopy done, the medication they give you will make it so you don't remember things or (I hope) feel things, but, my doctor to…
I think if you consent to go to the sex party, you consent to physical romantic activity, you consent to taking the drug knowing your context and what the drug will do, and then you consent to sex throughout the experience, it's hard to see how it's anything but consensual.
Fortunately despite your sense of things, try that as a defense for rape and you’ll be in a deep, dark hole full of other rapists. Consent can be revoked, can be modified, and taking drugs doesn’t imply that you’re up for being passed around like a joint.
Re: Silicon Valley's Secretive, Orgiastic Side
#143"Molly tablets that have been molded into the logos of some of the hottest tech companies" I'm going to call bullshit.
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Re: Silicon Valley's Secretive, Orgiastic Side
#144> Many participants don’t seem the least bit embarrassed, much less ashamed.
> And they believe that their entitlement to disrupt doesn’t stop at technology; it extends to society as well.
Had not realized that emily chang was so conservative
Re: Silicon Valley's Secretive, Orgiastic Side
#145What's up with all these sensational articles about Silicon Valley? Maybe the lifestyle is different as a VC, but as an engineer, this seems so disjointed from reality that it's almost farcical. I can barely get some of my coworkers to stop talking about code for more than a breath. There's no way that they're engaging in any of these activities. Can anyone vouch for this behavior being prevalent? To me it just seems…
"There's no way that they're engaging in any of these activities." How would you know? Maybe it's a side of their lives they do not want to share with their coworkers. I have a family member whose philosophy professor (back in the 70s) seemed to be as straight-laced as they they come. One day she discovered, to her astonishment, that he was the author of these books: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gor
Oh man, I haven't heard about the Gor books since the BBS days. I never read one cover to cover but had the misfortune of going through some excerpts. Plenty has been said about their content, much of which I agree with, but the writing is also awful.
As a young Linux enthusiast, I always thought it was funny that they involved a place called Torvaldsland.
Re: Silicon Valley's Secretive, Orgiastic Side
#146Earlier quoted context omitted.
You've missed the point. Orgies are fine. Drugs are fine (or at the very least your choice). There is however a huge contrast between smoking a bit of pot and going to an explicitly organized orgy with an enforced ratio and being fed MDMA and expensive presents by a CEO who wants to fuck you and your best friend.
women trading sex for gifts. Gasp. Say it aint so. Let's call pulitzer right now.
To take that attitude further, let's look at prostitution:
Prostitution is fine morally. However, the manner in which it is currently conducted in most of the world is incredibly exploitative. e.g. pimps beating the shit out of the people they're supposed to protect.
Re: Silicon Valley's Secretive, Orgiastic Side
#147At a Christmas party about 12 years ago I ran into a woman that I had been on a couple of dates with. Because she and a her girlfriend at the party were drinking I offered to drive them home. On the way home her girlfriend got a call, learned of a swingers party, and invited us to go with her. It was quite surprising for me. We didn't stay or participate, but I had no idea that such well attended parties were going on under my nose and overlapped to such a large degree with my social circle. (This wasn't in SV.)
Re: Silicon Valley's Secretive, Orgiastic Side
#148What's up with all these sensational articles about Silicon Valley? Maybe the lifestyle is different as a VC, but as an engineer, this seems so disjointed from reality that it's almost farcical. I can barely get some of my coworkers to stop talking about code for more than a breath. There's no way that they're engaging in any of these activities. Can anyone vouch for this behavior being prevalent? To me it just seems…
There is a sex/BDSM/cuddle party scene at a lower economic level, but that's a pre-existing part of Bay Area culture; the roots are more in the gay Leathermen/Folsom Street culture, and the hippie/tantra 60s counterculture, than in rich VCs. There is increasing techie representation in that subculture (mostly engineers), but that's because every Bay Area subculture that's open to the middle class has a lot of techies…
I'm glad you brought this up, because I think it's important to emphasize just how different and disconnected these scenes are, so that one doesn't get swept up in coverage of the other. Especially as the elites making up the one described in the linked article are contributing toward pushing out the existing queer/kink scene (eg. through loss of venues to gentrification). And the latter culture, as I know it, is far, far more concerned with consent and equity than you'll generally find in straight/vanilla spaces, tying back into decades-long histories of actual liberatory struggle.
Re: Silicon Valley's Secretive, Orgiastic Side
#149Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think if you consent to go to the sex party, you consent to physical romantic activity, you consent to taking the drug knowing your context and what the drug will do, and then you consent to sex throughout the experience, it's hard to see how it's anything but consensual. If you have a colonoscopy done, the medication they give you will make it so you don't remember things or (I hope) feel things, but, my doctor to…
I think if you consent to go to the sex party, you consent to physical romantic activity, you consent to taking the drug knowing your context and what the drug will do, and then you consent to sex throughout the experience, it's hard to see how it's anything but consensual. Fortunately despite your sense of things, try that as a defense for rape and you’ll be in a deep, dark hole full of other rapists. Consent can be…
I'm fairly confident that consent is an adequate defense against the charge of rape.
I completely agree that consent can be revoked or modified and that nobody should be passed around like a joint against their will. That's not what the article is describing though, at least not in my reading. The young woman who went to the party did consent, the whole way through, and didn't revoke or modify her consent until she decided to leave, and when she did, she left, presumably unimpeded. Furthermore, neither the woman in question nor the author of the article called this rape, so for you to imply otherwise seems a bit inappropriate.
Re: Silicon Valley's Secretive, Orgiastic Side
#150Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think if you consent to go to the sex party, you consent to physical romantic activity, you consent to taking the drug knowing your context and what the drug will do, and then you consent to sex throughout the experience, it's hard to see how it's anything but consensual. If you have a colonoscopy done, the medication they give you will make it so you don't remember things or (I hope) feel things, but, my doctor to…
Power dynamics radically changes that. That's why you can't have teacher meddling with their students, or a psychologists in a relationship with their patients.
I can see how it would in some situations. From the article's description though it sounded like a lot of the women at the parties worked in different fields. So, while I fully agree it would be a problem for the CEO to be hitting on interns, as an extreme example, I don't see the power imbalance of a rich guy from one field hitting on a woman in a different field - provided there is no implication of coercion (e.g. it would be a problem if a powerful investor threatened to get a real estate agent fired if she didn't sleep with him, but it's not a problem if a rich investor hooks up with a real estate agent because they like each other for whatever reason, even if his reason is that she's pretty, and hers is that he's rich).