Many Hacker News users belabor the "innocent until proved guilty" angle when it comes to sexual assault.
Could it be that users of a software focused site are overcorrecting for the threat of being labeled creeps?
My experience with sexual harassment in the Scala community
341–350 of 779 posts
Re: My experience with sexual harassment in the Scala community
#342Since the pattern is so similar, I now recognize this as a form of harmful #metoo activism. - Attack entire community, not individuals - Court of Public Social Justice - The charges amount to unwanted advances being made during a social interaction where that would be acceptable -- not sexual harassment, nor illegal behavior. Compare https://medium.com/@kristianlum/statistics-we-have-a-problem... Make the problem abo…
All for a "he hugged me", not even anything sexual
Re: My experience with sexual harassment in the Scala community
#343Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, you are victim blaming. Men aren’t wild bears, they’re human beings who should be held accountable for their actions. How drunk someone is around another human being has nothing to do with the perpetrator’s culpability.
I don't think that's what the parent meant. If someone is intoxicated, I agree that it seems weird to disregard their consent when drugs+alcohols are the social lubricant of society (and very interwined with sex). Also, of course you are responsible for your actions even when under the influence (drive and kill someone? no excuse because you were intoxicated - it's your fault). It's crazy to me that people call that…
If you get drunk downtown, does it make getting your pockets picked and your smartphone stolen your fault?
You’re stupid if you get drunk downtown with an expensive smartphone where it can be easily stolen. Still, does it mean that you have somehow to share jail time with your thief, or does it mean that the thief has to serve less time, or that your thief may go with your smartphone because it’s your fault to get drunk downtown in the first place?
Explain please.
Re: My experience with sexual harassment in the Scala community
#344Earlier quoted context omitted.
"The problem is that only a tiny percentage of harassers and rapists are ever convicted." How can that be known? Why do you presume that someone is a harasser or rapist if they weren't convicted?
Do you think that OJ was innocent? And if not, doesn't that imply you also agree (to an extent) that trials/law enforcement on heavily politicized cases have the potential to be totally mismanaged and end in injustice?
OJ probably did it but the prosecution failed to prove him guilty so he walked free as he should.
He's lucky he was a wealthy celebrity or he wouldn't have gotten the full protection that the courts supposedly afford to the accused.
Re: My experience with sexual harassment in the Scala community
#345> I don’t remember how much I drank. I don’t remember him drinking. But I remember feeling uncomfortable when he made advances on me. I felt being taken advantage of that he had unprotected sex with me when I was intoxicated. Nothing felt right. I remember panicking and crying. I don't want to victim blame here because this guy sounds like a grade A creep and predator. But does a person not have some responsibility h…
Responsibility is the wrong word. There is a difference between good advice and victim blaming. Just because the victim was careless doesn't make them in any form responsible for the crime. Nevertheless, I would certainly advise my daughter against getting drunk in such a situation.
>> But does a person not have some responsibility here to not
>> get so intoxicated when alone with a member of the opposite
>> sex in a private space?
>
> Responsibility is the wrong word.
It's not a responsibility in ethical sense yet it is street smart behaviour.
A less amplified example: if you walk into a biker bar, insult that the regulars are assholes whose bikes you just kicked over outside, they have no moral justification to hurt you just as people are ethically bound to not sexually abuse intoxicated persons in our society. But there's some chance the guys in the biker bar won't just call the police and politely retain you until they arrive and, instead, you get beaten into some half-liquid state of matter.
The reason for that is because the regulars likely follow their own rules and not yours or the greater society's. Similarly, predator-type people don't follow the morals that we recognize. If all you can resort to is morals, you will lose with people who don't play by your rules. If someone doesn't see a moral problem in the sexual abuse of a passed out person it won't help to merely remind this person of just that: the abuser simply doesn't give a shit but plays a whole different game.
This is where the society could step in with its justice system and link the abusive behaviour to something the abuser does actually mind, like a harsh enough conviction to make the abusive behaviour less inviting. But society also has to be fair so as to not give harsh convictions to people who have not abused anyone despite being accused of doing that, and then the waters get muddy again. In many cases there's no objective verdict to be reached because no third party can ultimately tell what the heck happened, even if actual abuse did take place.
This leads to the bizarre but common pattern where the potential victims have to become proactive in taking measures to not actually become victims, and in doing so limit their choices and decisions of what to do, where to go and with whom. The onus somehow gets transferred to the person who shouldn't have to use time and energy to prevent these things from happening. The potential victims are the only party in the game who follow the society's rules and they have that losing stance because of that.
They shouldn't have to have -- and they don't have -- a moral responsibility to prepare for the worst: the moral responsibility single-handedly falls on the perpetrator -- the one who doesn't ever consider morals! So, the result is that the potential victims are imposed by purely practical concerns to limit their choices in order to secure themselves against wrongdoings, just in case. It's not right but it's also smart -- that's the big dilemma.
Re: My experience with sexual harassment in the Scala community
#346Re: My experience with sexual harassment in the Scala community
#347Earlier quoted context omitted.
To me it sounds generous and possibly completely harmless.
It creates a power imbalance, or increases the power imbalance that already existed between the two. If you have a boss/employee relationship, or a mentor/mentee relationship, or a professor/student relationship, you need to tread extra carefully around consent. One party in those relationships holds incredible power over the other, and can coerce the weaker party into things they may not be comfortable doing. Likewi…
I don't agree. The crime here seems to be rape and the use of power to extract sex from another. That's the problem. I don't see how sharing an AirBnB is by itself a problem. In light of everything else, it fits a pattern of manipulation, but it by itself isn't harmful.
Re: My experience with sexual harassment in the Scala community
#348Earlier quoted context omitted.
Have you ever been in an abusive relationship? Or seen one firsthand? People can be made to believe all sorts of things that aren't true by charismatic or powerful people. It may take them some time to realize they are being tricked or abused. You absolutely can be told you consented, and trust that person's word, and realize later that no, actually you had not. It's just convenient for the abuser for you to believe…
>You absolutely can be told you consented, and trust that person's word, and realize later that no, actually you had not. It's just convenient for the abuser for you to believe you had. There has to be a line drawn somewhere when you start talking about hardcore felony level criminal accusations though. Should anyone who's ever had an (at the time) consensual intimate encounter then have cart blanche to hold accusati…
Perhaps why she did not explicitly call out rape in her message. However, it's a very realistic abuse and harassment claim, that in itself is already extremely problematic.
Re: My experience with sexual harassment in the Scala community
#349Earlier quoted context omitted.
And yet you wouldn’t like to fall within those 2-8%.
Aren't you more worried about the 99% of rape victims who receive no justice of any kind?
No. The two concepts have nothing to do with eachother. It’s bad that victims don’t get justice but it’s also bad if people are convicted of crimes they didn’t commit. Wrongfully punishing people without sound evidence just to satisfy the feelings of someone who was wronged is not a sane justice system.
Re: My experience with sexual harassment in the Scala community
#350Earlier quoted context omitted.
It creates a power imbalance, or increases the power imbalance that already existed between the two. If you have a boss/employee relationship, or a mentor/mentee relationship, or a professor/student relationship, you need to tread extra carefully around consent. One party in those relationships holds incredible power over the other, and can coerce the weaker party into things they may not be comfortable doing. Likewi…
I don't agree. The crime here seems to be rape and the use of power to extract sex from another. That's the problem. I don't see how sharing an AirBnB is by itself a problem. In light of everything else, it fits a pattern of manipulation, but it by itself isn't harmful.
She would not otherwise have been able to attend. She is able to attend specifically because of his "generosity". This wasn't something she proposed, and when she tried to bring others into the arrangement he pushed back, insisting it was just the two of them.
So yeah, sharing an AirBNB isn't necessarily bad, but in this case specifically it appears to be predatory.