My experience with sexual harassment in the Scala community • Hacker News Board

Re: My experience with sexual harassment in the Scala community

#461

Post by voces » Tue, Apr 27, 2021, 11:16 PM UTC

GavinMcG wrote: post #426

voces wrote: post #326

Since 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…

> because someone makes an advance towards you, instead of feeling flattered and politely declining Convenient to leave out the rape in the next sentence, and the other rape in the next paragraph: > 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. > There was another time that he insisted on having intercourse regardless o…

She talks like a doll lacking any kind of autonomy. It is not "we had sex", but "he had sex with me".

I don't know any woman who does not want to have unprotected sex, but just let it happen like that. Then come back for seconds, even though she is not in the mood.

Are there naive young women who lack self-authority and self-esteem to say no, to an older man who needs those women to get their fix and wants to make up for their unpopular youth? Yes. And that awkward dance of nature takes two to tango. Panicking and crying during or after sex does not a "rape" make (but the definition depends on jurisdiction anyway, and we haven't even let a court in the right jurisdiction look if it qualifies, so I'd like to avoid that term).

Unless you want to claim openly that a named person is now a serial rapist. I'd like to think it takes more than a Medium post for you to do that.

Re: My experience with sexual harassment in the Scala community

#462

Post by stephc_int13 » Tue, Apr 27, 2021, 11:16 PM UTC

_f1dq wrote: post #280

There is a lot about the sexual events in this post that, to me, highlights something I feel is important which is: we parents need to get better had having conversations with our children around sex. This girl was feeling uncomfortable and crying but at the same time "didn't think those behaviors were problematic". I can't help but wonder if her parents never sat her down and discussed situations like this and, I ge…

This is not an education or even an inherently sexual issue.

In case you didn't notice, there is a pattern, very often, the aggressor is in a relative position of power.

People with power feel free to abuse people with less power, simply because they've learned that most of the time they can get away with it.

Re: My experience with sexual harassment in the Scala community

#463

Post by Zelphyr » Tue, Apr 27, 2021, 11:17 PM UTC

suifbwish wrote: post #450

faitswulff wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

+1 but especially our boys. Girls and women already learn so much about how to avoid being harmed by men. It’s time for our boys to learn how to become kind men - and for those of us who are men to model that for them.

Are you implying that rape occurs because someone’s parents didn’t tell them not to or that they would not rape if their parents HAD told them not to do it?

Please don't put words in other people's mouths either. I think it's clear from GP's post that that's NOT what they were implying.

Re: My experience with sexual harassment in the Scala community

#464

Post by vsareto » Tue, Apr 27, 2021, 11:17 PM UTC

Gatsky wrote: post #438

epicureanideal wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sometimes character assassination is coordinated. I personally only slightly increase the probability of something being true when multiple accusers come forward. I still want to see proof. What if a bunch of your ex-girlfriends or ex-boyfriends got together and decided to ruin your life with accusations?

Is this theoretical or do you have an example of a case where a woman publicly made detailed accusations which turned out to be false? Edit: This is an honest question by the way. Thanks to those who did provide some examples.

I'm fairly certain that exists, but it's actually not a requirement to never have false accusations before justice can be pursued.

In the same hypothetical where character assassinations can be organized and bring someone down with false accusations, the same can be true of defending someone as well. Multiple people coordinating by speaking in defense of someone against accusations are just as possible.

I'd even speculate and say there's more instances of coordinated defense happening more often than false accusations, as powerful people being protected from accusations is what started MeToo

Re: My experience with sexual harassment in the Scala community

#465

Post by suifbwish » Tue, Apr 27, 2021, 11:17 PM UTC

stickfigure wrote: post #402

nawgz wrote: post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you think a crime as endemic as rape which is punished at vanishingly low rates indicates innocence of the perps instead of a fundamentally flawed justice system, starting at the point of evidence collection? Even after seeing those very evidence collectors, the police, flaunt their duties and the law repeatedly? Interesting.

I am curious. What percentage of all rape convictions would you tolerate being wrong (that is, the person behind bars is innocent) in order to ensure sufficient coverage of convicting the guilty?

What makes you think there is or should be a maximum acceptable tolerance for that sort of thing? The purpose of our legal process is FIRST to protect the innocent THEN to punish the guilty. The US legal system is not a hot dog factory where there is an acceptable concentration of rat feces levels in the food. If there is not evidence of a crime, no crime shall be punished. There are other countries where that sort of thing is tolerated.

Re: My experience with sexual harassment in the Scala community

#466

Post by elzbardico » Tue, Apr 27, 2021, 11:18 PM UTC

faitswulff wrote: post #302

_f1dq wrote: post #280

There is a lot about the sexual events in this post that, to me, highlights something I feel is important which is: we parents need to get better had having conversations with our children around sex. This girl was feeling uncomfortable and crying but at the same time "didn't think those behaviors were problematic". I can't help but wonder if her parents never sat her down and discussed situations like this and, I ge…

+1 but especially our boys. Girls and women already learn so much about how to avoid being harmed by men. It’s time for our boys to learn how to become kind men - and for those of us who are men to model that for them.

Not to mention that boys, small boys in particular are frequent targets of abuse. At certain ages even more than girls.

And an abused boy could well become an abuser in the future. Sad but true

Re: My experience with sexual harassment in the Scala community

#467

Post by tylerhou » Tue, Apr 27, 2021, 11:19 PM UTC

DyslexicAtheist wrote: post #410

kelnos wrote: post #337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm seriously curious to know what kind of proof you would accept that would make you believe these accusations. I hear your sort of response a lot, but it's mostly from people who won't change their mind no matter what (and will continue to move the goalposts as more evidence comes to light), or set the bar so high that it's basically impossible to provide the proof they want.

not OP and I believe the accusations. but if she would have wanted a) real justice and b) create even more hell for the accused while c) staying out of the firing line of misogynists on social media, and d) get closure sooner because people won't be after her for the next years to remind her, then she should have filed a police report. Given his situation (see my other comment[1] on why) she could have made his situa…

Have you ever filed a police report regarding rape/sexual assault? It can be incredibly dehumanizing, especially when it is nearly impossible to prove that someone date-raped you when there are no witnesses.

Re: My experience with sexual harassment in the Scala community

#468

Post by Ar-Curunir » Tue, Apr 27, 2021, 11:19 PM UTC

fishnchips wrote: post #84

I have no interest in Scala and never heard of Jon Pretty nor his accuser but the accusations are of a criminal nature (either rape or slander) and it feels like as a society we've long developed more reliable tools and systems to deal with such matters.

Right, a system where rape kits sit unprocessed for years

Re: My experience with sexual harassment in the Scala community

#469

Post by kelnos » Tue, Apr 27, 2021, 11:19 PM UTC

Manuel_D wrote: post #225

andrewzah wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Someone should coin a law for this phenomenon: Every single time a ~~woman~~ victim makes a public statement like this, in the comment sections a man must be discussing false accusations or the court of public opinion. I don't think I've ever not seen this. People who are abused are damned if they do, damned if they don't. edit: removed specific gender edit2: I'm not trying to be inflammatory here. This is a phenomen…

We need to be able to listen to accusers. We also need to be able to evaluate the accusations honestly. If it's taboo to express doubt or skepticism of accusations of sexual impropriety, then that isn't functional either. I think you've got the phenomenon backwards: when people are skeptical of a murder accusation or an alleged robbery, it's accepted as part of normal discourse. But showing skepticism of allegations…

Right. I think it's reasonable to be doubtful if there is only one accuser, and the accused can provide hard evidence refuting at least some of the accuser's claims.

But when several people stand up to make accusations, and there's a bunch of corroboration, it's hard to wonder if skeptics are skeptical out of bad faith, even subconsciously. I'm not sure we've passed this threshold with Pretty, but two accusations, as well as some others corroborating parts of the stories, is starting to look pretty compelling.

I'm curious to know what Pretty's response will be, but I think he already has a steep uphill climb.

Re: My experience with sexual harassment in the Scala community

#470

Post by GavinMcG » Tue, Apr 27, 2021, 11:19 PM UTC

voces wrote: post #461

GavinMcG wrote: post #426

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> because someone makes an advance towards you, instead of feeling flattered and politely declining Convenient to leave out the rape in the next sentence, and the other rape in the next paragraph: > 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. > There was another time that he insisted on having intercourse regardless o…

She talks like a doll lacking any kind of autonomy. It is not "we had sex", but "he had sex with me". I don't know any woman who does not want to have unprotected sex, but just let it happen like that. Then come back for seconds, even though she is not in the mood. Are there naive young women who lack self-authority and self-esteem to say no, to an older man who needs those women to get their fix and wants to make up…

> regardless of me saying I didn’t want to

Why are you making up this story that she couldn't say no? She says she said no.