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My experience with sexual harassment in the Scala community

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Re: My experience with sexual harassment in the Scala community

#691

Post by DoreenMichele »

koonsolo wrote: post #689
DoreenMichele wrote: post #684

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I downvoted you (I've reversed that now). I'm having trouble taking your questions seriously as good faith engagement. It sounds rather like you are asking "How much can I get away with?" If you really want to know how to reach meaningful consent with a sexual partner, investigating the details of "exactly where does the law draw that line" isn't especially useful and it's hard to try to reply to such a question in a…

Thank you for responding. I'm sorry I gave you the wrong impression about my question, I personally never had any issues with this. My wife is a relationship and dating coach, and so it sparks my interest where the law draws the line. I know from my wife, that nowadays men can approach women (on dates etc.) is to first ask for interactions, like "Can I place my hand on your leg", or "Is it OK if I kiss you". That way…

The law is something you turn to when things go extremely wrong. I spend very little time worried about the law.

I worry much more about how to ensure that things go right.

The problem with wondering where the law draws the line is that if you look for guilt, it's easy to find it. It's easy to take offense, to escalate offense, to dig your grave deeper.

I worry much more about cultural trends. Laws are written by people and interpreted by people. The same law that twenty years ago was used one way can morph into something else. What was once a protection can become a cudgel.

The law is certainly needed. But this problem won't be solved with laws and court cases.

It will be solved with mutual respect and civil discourse, which is why I chose to reply to you.

Thank you for pleasantly surprising me with this comment. I was about 90 percent certain I was making a terrible mistake and would regret replying.

I chose to bet a certain way, knowing the odds were long against it going well but it was the only bet with some hope of furthering civility rather than deepening the yawning chasm that so often stands between us and a better world.

Re: My experience with sexual harassment in the Scala community

#692

Post by hamburglar »

Pfhreak wrote: post #648
hamburglar wrote: post #555

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Totally agree with you, just didn't want to take a hard-line stance that it was 100% problematic always.

And pushing this boundary doesn’t help your case any if you do end up sleeping with them.

Re: My experience with sexual harassment in the Scala community

#693

Post by CryptoPunk »

DoreenMichele wrote: post #686
CryptoPunk wrote: post #685

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is it misogynistic? I base it on the prevalence of stories like this, where a woman ostensibly consents to sexual advances and later regrets it and feels she had be abused. The issue is not consent. The issue is vulnerability. Women are generally more vulnerable to advances from men and more likely to consent to an interaction when it's not in their best interest, than men would be, due to well documented physiol…

It essentially assumes incompetence on the part of women. That's not the only possible explanation. I don't even think it's the most plausible explanation. Social pressure and upbringing are large factors in human behavior and it takes time to make society-wide changes.

Is noting that women have two times less upper body strength misogynistic because it implies less competency in hand-to-hand combat or heavy manual labor?

I'm assuming women are more compassionate and less aggressive, which makes women less competent in competitive settings where self-advocacy is important, and more competent in scenarios requiring cooperation and caretaking, like child-rearing.

Whether these differences are inherent to female biology, or a result of deeply ingrained structures of human culture that mold girls in their upbringing is orthogonal to my premise. But as it happens, there is overwhelming/definitive evidence that much of these differences are biological in origin, and noting that is not misogynistic.

We do not make the world better by deceiving ourselves about it. An accurate model of the world is needed before any positive changes for it can be formulated. A positive but inaccurate vision of the world does not result in actions that improve the world.

Re: My experience with sexual harassment in the Scala community

#694

Post by CryptoPunk »

cloudfifty wrote: post #688
CryptoPunk wrote: post #685

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is it misogynistic? I base it on the prevalence of stories like this, where a woman ostensibly consents to sexual advances and later regrets it and feels she had be abused. The issue is not consent. The issue is vulnerability. Women are generally more vulnerable to advances from men and more likely to consent to an interaction when it's not in their best interest, than men would be, due to well documented physiol…

> I base it on the prevalence of stories like this So you've just pulled it out of thin air. What I figured. It's just victim blaming through misogynistic prejudices.

Personal observation is not 'pulling it out of thin air'.

And I did the opposite of victim blaming. I stated that even a woman's consent does not absolve men of responsibility for women suffering poor outcomes as a result of the interaction.

You mischaracterized my comment to an extreme degree, without even bothering to understand, let alone contend with, the points raised.

Attitudes like this are not conducive to constructively discussing complex social issues. They lead to the forwarding of certain propositions being avoided, out of a fear of eliciting exactly the kind of response you provided, which increases the possibility that society will settle on a faulty model of the situation, and thereby not institute changes that improve it.

Re: My experience with sexual harassment in the Scala community

#695

Post by cloudfifty »

CryptoPunk wrote: post #694
cloudfifty wrote: post #688

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I base it on the prevalence of stories like this So you've just pulled it out of thin air. What I figured. It's just victim blaming through misogynistic prejudices.

Personal observation is not 'pulling it out of thin air'. And I did the opposite of victim blaming. I stated that even a woman's consent does not absolve men of responsibility for women suffering poor outcomes as a result of the interaction. You mischaracterized my comment to an extreme degree, without even bothering to understand, let alone contend with, the points raised. Attitudes like this are not conducive to co…

Sorry, but what a pathetic tone policing reply to blatant misogynistic garbage about women being inherently "more emotional", "We've tried the 'rawr girl power", and so on. You're just wrong and clearly not worth the energy.

Re: My experience with sexual harassment in the Scala community

#696

Post by swagcombinator »

btilly wrote: post #587
elzbardico wrote: post #466

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

And an abused boy could well become an abuser in the future. Sad but true Are you talking sexual abuse? If so, then references please. There are a lot of ways that abuse goes down the generations. For example girls who were abused are more likely to get together with abusive men as adults. But I've encountered zero evidence that victims of pedophiles are particularly likely to become pedophiles themselves when they g…

I just did some research. To me I always hear pedophiles themselves admitting that they were abused when they were children.

for example here https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/72050039.pdf https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/2082860/

but both of the studies says that the self reports are questionable.

Re: My experience with sexual harassment in the Scala community

#697

Post by CryptoPunk »

cloudfifty wrote: post #695
CryptoPunk wrote: post #694

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personal observation is not 'pulling it out of thin air'. And I did the opposite of victim blaming. I stated that even a woman's consent does not absolve men of responsibility for women suffering poor outcomes as a result of the interaction. You mischaracterized my comment to an extreme degree, without even bothering to understand, let alone contend with, the points raised. Attitudes like this are not conducive to co…

Sorry, but what a pathetic tone policing reply to blatant misogynistic garbage about women being inherently "more emotional", "We've tried the 'rawr girl power", and so on. You're just wrong and clearly not worth the energy.

Being held to account for your false accusations is not "tone policing", so please stop gaslighting.

I didn't write that women are "more emotional". I wrote they are generally "more emotionally vulnerable".

It's irresponsible to make extremely harsh accusations against someone when the analysis that the accusation is based on is sloppy and low-effort.

And as an aside, claiming that women are generally more emotional wouldn't be misogynistic, any more than noting that men are generally more aggressive is misandrist. There is nothing sexist about claiming general psychological differences between the sexes.

Your accusations are extreme mischaracterizations, and the basis of your dismissal of my argument is based on a weak/entirely-ideological heuristic.

Re: My experience with sexual harassment in the Scala community

#699

Post by Humdeee »

Pfhreak wrote: post #284
Humdeee wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This article reads like she did not say no as much as she did not say yes, which leaves the reader in a muddled, grey area and unsure of how to interpret anything. Is she consenting, or more specifically, is she explicitly claiming to not consent? It's a very awkward article, leaving readers with more questions than answers at the end, which is never what you want your readers to feel when garnering support.

Consent is unambiguous and enthusiastic yes. The default assumption is that no consent is given. Not saying yes is the same as saying no.

I agree that this is morally correct but the law and the majority of real life intimate interactions don't reflect this. "Yes, I agree to have sex with you, and I am stating this without being under duress" or variations of that sentence is very rarely verbalized as such beforehand. Hence innocent until proven guilty and not vice versa, reasonable doubt, etc. and all the other law jargon applied.

Re: My experience with sexual harassment in the Scala community

#700

Post by GavinMcG »

voces wrote: post #606
GavinMcG wrote: post #593

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If he didn't do anything illegal, then your suggestion that she poke his eyes or break his finger is entirely misplaced. You don't get to hurt people when they're not legally a threat to you. Never mind how ridiculous a suggestion that is. Do you think maybe she made the rational decision not to risk her safety or even her life by escalating a fight she likely couldn't win? That's blaming the victim. You can say you…

> the rational decision not to risk her safety or even her life by escalating a fight she likely couldn't win The rational decision is to get the hell out of there, then call her dad or a friend. Giving in without a fight to what you consider to be rape by a Scala programmer is the poorest decision you could ever make, and I shudder to think any of my loved ones would be panicked enough to even entertain it. > the si…

You should talk to more women in your life about their experiences.

Every suggestion you're making here is premised on priors from your experience as a man that do not hold true for many or most women.

You say she should get out and call her dad or a friend. Yet your own reaction is one of questioning her experience and shaming her for "a long chain of bad decisions to end up drunk on your own wine, in a foreign country, in the apartment of a stranger you met on the internet." Do you imagine that a woman friend of yours reading your comment would trust that she should call you?

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