he was in a high position of power and used that to set up situations that were dubious at best. if he even did like 25% of what was claimed he deserves whatever is coming. it's like the boss having questionable relationships w/ his employees then turning around and hiding behind the "it was consensual so that's that!" without understanding the fucking power dynamics.
My experience with sexual harassment in the Scala community
641–650 of 779 posts
Re: My experience with sexual harassment in the Scala community
#642Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think the paragraph that you identify as a strawman is actually the core of our disagreement. I don't intend it as a strawman of your idea but as an illustration of why I struggle to accept the idea that you can retroactively change whether or not you consented - or, phrased in a way you might be more likely to agree with, whether or not you can reevaluate your consent decisions after the fact. If she doesn't know…
> If she doesn't know whether she genuinely consents to sex or not, then how is it morally acceptable to have sex with her? Thing is, this is all a nonissue if your partner is enthusiastically into having sex with you. So maybe more mutually fulfilling romps and less "well it was borderline but I did it anyway."
The problem is enthusiasm varies wildly. There are people I know whose sex would never be described as enthusiastic. There are lots of mild mannered anxious lovers out there. And I could see how it would be difficult for someone to judge the exact level of enthusiasm in a new lover.
Re: My experience with sexual harassment in the Scala community
#643Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think the paragraph that you identify as a strawman is actually the core of our disagreement. I don't intend it as a strawman of your idea but as an illustration of why I struggle to accept the idea that you can retroactively change whether or not you consented - or, phrased in a way you might be more likely to agree with, whether or not you can reevaluate your consent decisions after the fact. If she doesn't know…
Convincing herself it was consensual after doesn't mean she consented during. What does consent mean to you? Not saying no? Or an enthusiastic yes?
I've had plenty of sex I wasn't super enthusiastic about but I wouldn't consider any of those exes rapists because I didn't say no.
When you're in a relationship for years not all of the sex is super enthusiastic. There were times when I had sex because I didn't want to hurt their feelings or they traveled a distance to see me.
And I'm sure there were times when my partner wasn't that in the mood and had sex with me for reasons besides they really wanted to have sex at that moment.
Personally outside of established relationships I always waited for the other person to make the first move because I was always so terrified of kissing someone who didn't want to kissed.
But talking with plenty of men and women over my life the majority of sex does not involve an unambiguous yes.
Re: My experience with sexual harassment in the Scala community
#644Earlier 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?
Less than 1% of rapes lead to felony convictions: https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2018/10/06/less-than... Same article notes that between 2-8% of rape complaints are false. Worries about false rape claims are wildly overblown.
Re: My experience with sexual harassment in the Scala community
#645Earlier 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.
Doesn't this remove agency from women? If two adults get together, fly together, get a room together, drink wine together, have relations... Then we're supposed to say that consent can't be given because the woman is drunk. But they're both drunk. Isn't it essentially the patriarchy to say that a woman can't make that choice? Like if they're equals and they're both drunk, why do we blame the men? Because they aren't…
When someone goes along with something but ends up feeling uncomfortable or even resentful about it, they can talk about it with the other party. And that party should acknowledge it. They may have meant no harm or even be surprised or feel hurt, but a decent person would consider the other's feelings and admit they may have had poor judgement. This Jon Pretty guy allegedly has a pattern of maneuvering women into vulnerable positions, inappropriately bragging about his "conquests" and from what multiple sources confirm shows a bunch of telltale signs of an emotional abuser and manipulator. It wasn't one instance of them being drunk, it was an extensive period of pushing boundaries, coercion and probably gaslighting.
You'll always hear questions along these lines. "Why did she stay around him if she was uncomfortable/mistreated/abused?" "Why did she wait so long to talk about it if it bothered her so much?" "Why didn't she collect proof?" "Why didn't she just say no?" These questions interpret the situation as far too simple. Abusers are great at creating doubt. They do something wrong, they make their victims feel as equal accomplices. Good and fun times are alternated with bad ones. They don't outright break the law or force someone but will push boundaries and wear someone down repeatedly to get their way despite the discomfort of the other.
That's why it's so hard for a victim to come forward. It's exactly because everyone says "well you didn't set hard boundaries, did you?" It's because maybe no crime was committed according to the letter of the law so they don't feel like they really have a case to make. It's because the victim initially feels like they share as much responsibility or it's their own fault and they should have known better. Abusers are great at walking that line where they get what they want while still maintaining plausible deniability, making it impossible to fully dismiss the argument that the other person is responsible too. It lets them justify their actions to themselves and others, believing it was as much the agency of the other party as their own. Meanwhile they're constantly using a position of power and a victim's weaknesses to manufacture precisely the situation they want.
They call them predators for a reason. It's cause they seek out prey. They know what to look for in a potential target. Don't blame a victim for being possibly naive, inexperienced or easy to sway when those were exactly the preconditions to be taken advantage of. It doesn't justify someone doing just that.
Re: My experience with sexual harassment in the Scala community
#646We are now at that point on HN.
Re: My experience with sexual harassment in the Scala community
#647Earlier quoted context omitted.
Absolutely, agree. One thing you may be missing is that description doesn't mention anything like that happening and the opportunity to mention it is right there. Why wouldn't this be mentioned if it happened?
It literally mentions she tried to decline but he insisted.
It says "there was another time that he insisted ..." which unfortunatelly forms ambiguous sentence, it's not clear if it happened or he just insisted and that's it.
Later paragraph reads "I maintained friendship with him for a few months after May, because I was convinced that it was all consensual ...".
I'm not a lawyer but the case of "being convinced of consent" at one time and after few months changing mind about the situation and realising it was not a consent makes an interesting case.
Re: My experience with sexual harassment in the Scala community
#648Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
I agree that by itself it wouldn’t necessarily be a “problem” but even so, it would strike a lot of people as pushing the boundaries of appropriateness.
Re: My experience with sexual harassment in the Scala community
#649Earlier quoted context omitted.
Edit: Would you characterize that part as "a bit like a public lynching"? Because I definitely wouldn't, even if I disagreed with it or felt it was too much. --- I think you are very uncharitably reading that comment. There's a difference between, "This person checked some code into a repo" and "this person is the maintainer of a project". And I think that it's reasonable for people to hold the stance of, "I don't wa…
If you are not going to fork and maintain the repos yourself encoraging others not to use open source is a weird group control method that doesn't feel right. Remember the code is open and apolitical. Even thought I disagree with the group who signed the document I will still use whatever they maintain if it makes sense for my project.
Re: My experience with sexual harassment in the Scala community
#650Earlier quoted context omitted.
Agreed. I can't believe a woman would be naïve enough to share a room with a man. For crying out loud, if a man invites you to a room with him alone he wants to have sex. It's that simple. I think boys already are told what is acceptable and what isn't. We got taught, in no uncertain terms, what would be considered rape or sexual assault. But I think people are afraid to mention the obvious when it comes to things li…
> I think boys already are told what is acceptable and what isn't. Maybe things have changed since I was young but, that may be overly generous. The kind of discussion I'm suggesting never happened with me, or, if it did, it happened only once. My parents left me to figure that out on my own. I don't want this to sound like I'm attacking my parents because I'm not. I had great parents, but the topic of sexual behavio…
But it always, always has to be "the boys need to learn". Women are treated like children: nothing is ever their fault and they're easily manipulated. Men are held to a much higher standard. Anything happens it's their fault, always.