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We were wrong

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Re: We were wrong

#461

Post by blocking_io »

thatswrong0 wrote: post #390
blocking_io wrote: post #306

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a direct quote from a guide written by the author of the guide under discussion: Never, ever, ever, wait for a SIGN before you escalate! You will miss out on the vast majority of chances if you sit around waiting for SIGNS. Men are notoriously bad at reading women's minds and body language. Don't think that you're any different. From now on you must ASSUME that she is attracted to you and wants to be ravished…

> The author advises his readers to assume that their partner consents to sexual activity. And this is a direct misinterpretation of what the author said. The author states: > From now on you must ASSUME that she is attracted to you and wants to be ravished. There is a difference. The author says that you should assume the woman is attracted to you, not that she is consenting to sexual activity. It's pretty damn clea…

No you are misreading it. The author is saying do not think that she does not want to have sex. As in, get rid of any doubt in your mind.

Re: We were wrong

#462

Post by figglesonrails »

Cushman wrote: post #439
figglesonrails wrote: post #432

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whatever works for you. Your scenario actually seems somewhat atypical to me, but it helps me understand why you come off as "white knight" to everyone. EDIT: which is to say, it's not wrong that this works for you, this isn't a criticism of that. I think you may be mistaking a local optimum for a global [in the sense of math - so the country/dating pool] optimum because it works so well for you; i.e. the false-conse…

Did I say we don't have extremely hot sex? Of course, I realize I'm in a really fantastic relationship and most people don't have the luxury of being frank with their partners about their desires. But I'd encourage you to consider those things may not be unrelated.

Touchy, touchy.

No, you didn't say "We don't have hot sex". I didn't say "You don't have hot sex" either. Now that you're feeling validated, please consider what was written again, but without getting offended.

You stated what worked for you, and you measured its "workingness" by unambiguousness of the process, the lack of bad feelings on rejection, and (ostensibly most importantly, seeing as how you put it in italics) the quantity. I'm happy for you.

But what if what you are suggesting can come by following your advice //is not what I value//? What if I can achieve what is optimal for my relationship in a different way? What if, and this is crazy but, what if what works for you and what is best for you, isn't best for everyone? -> False consens effect.

I was remarking that I find it interesting that you're defending a particular strategy that works in your relationship and is not a cultural norm (hence, atypical), while at the same time suggesting that all men should act more like you. Too fast there cowboy! If all men woke up tomorrow and acted like that, there might be a few (million?) women who find their choice of mates underwhelming all of a sudden. Why? Because it violates our cultural norms. But at the level of one couple, you and your partner, sure, you have the luxury of making such "optimizations" and being "absolute" about what is best.

There is no need to defend yourself, your sex life, or your relationship. I'm sure you're in a great one; may you two be together forever. Communication is great and key. However, please consider as well that I am not going to follow your advice, and that I, too, am delusional about how awesome my relationship is compared to everyone else's. :) :) :)

Re: We were wrong

#463

Post by blocking_io »

merlincorey wrote: post #422
blocking_io wrote: post #384

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here you go: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:40tT3ne... Search for 'permission' to find him directly telling the reader not to ask for consent.

The chapter linked appears to be called "Physical Escalation and Sex" and seems to be very late in the book. Consent is assumed in the situation because of all the stuff leading up to it. Like the getting the number, the going out on dates, talking a lot, and finally ending up alone with them in their or your own residence. Are you sure you've had sexual congress with a woman before? As many other posters are pointin…

>Consent is assumed in the situation because of all the stuff leading up to it. Like the getting the number, the going out on dates, talking a lot, and finally ending up alone with them in their or your own residence.

Consent should never be assumed. Just fucking ask. This chapter is explicitly talking about transitioning from a non-sexual to a sexual relationship. Assuming that your partner wants this to happen is a recipe for sexual assault.

Re: We were wrong

#464

Post by hackinthebochs »

6d0debc071 wrote: post #430
WA wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ask 100 women if they find it romantic to be kissed without being asked or if they want to be asked first. I'm pretty sure the answer is: being kissed, don't ask. The author writes on reddit: IMPORTANT NOTE ON RESISTANCE: If at any point a girl wants you to stop, she will let you know. If she says "STOP," or "GET AWAY FROM ME," or shoves you away, you know she is not interested. It happens. Stop escalating immediatel…

> Ask 100 women if they find it romantic to be kissed without being asked or if they want to be asked first. I'm pretty sure the answer is: being kissed, don't ask. That depends on the man. I don't want someone I don't want to kiss me without asking. I don't want them to kiss me at all, but I'd prefer that they ask than just try it. Do you think that women just want men to randomly walk up to them in the street and k…

>Do you think that women just want men to randomly walk up to them in the street and kiss them?

This is the absolute most obtuse reading of the situation you could have mustered. And this is the problem with this entire debate: those who are arguing against these "seduction" techniques must resort to strawmen and imagined scenarios to show how awful this is. Unfortunately, this is the stuff that social interaction is made of. You're not going to change it by suddenly defining normal interaction as assault.

Re: We were wrong

#465

Post by malandrew »

king_jester wrote: post #445
malandrew wrote: post #377

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"That could be instructions for rape. Or it could be instructions for the kind of a sex that millions of straight couples have every day. It all depends on the quote's context, right? Exactly. I highly recommend anyone that disagrees or doesn't believe this statement to watch the interviews commonly found at the end of any BDSM kink.com videos. Those interviews at the end are enlightening for anyone with a narrow van…

Folks into BDSM are (or should be) overwhelmingly clear about consent, pre-negotiating their play and having things like safe words. That is worlds apart from what the project is advocating, which is to take actions without pre-negotiated consent and to ignore objections made by your partner. Anybody in the scene will tell you that engaging in that kind of shit without clearing it ahead of time (esp. way ahead of tim…

I completely agree. The point I was trying to make is that there are wildly different variations of what is and is not consensual behavior. For folks who actively participate in the BDSM community the social norms are very much in favor of clear, adult, responsible communication. However, there exist lots of men and women who have inclinations towards BDSM and are turned on by BDSM practices who have never been introduced to the community and have not learned these "best practices" in terms of communication. This means that there are many men and women who enjoy and like aggressive sexual advances who have never been taught how to communicate their interests as an adult, and that entire population of people who are inexperienced create a grey area. BDSM and other non-vanilla interests going mainstream would go a long way to raising the general level of discourse and communication about sex in general.

Just to be clear, please don't take my comment as excusing the problems people have raised here, but as simply an impartial anthropological description of the reality of the world.

Re: We were wrong

#466

Post by riggins »

ebbv wrote: post #107

Dear fellow HN dwellers, If you read the writings of the Guide's author and do not recognize that it is misogynistic and advocating sexual assault, you have a problem. That problem is that you are mistaking sexual assault for "taking the first step." You do not need to resort to pulling out your dick and forcibly placing the woman's hand on it in order to "make a move." There's literally hundreds of other things that…

this reminds me of this chris rock skit

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YIv4phFcAAs

Re: We were wrong

#467

Post by 6d0debc071 »

hackinthebochs wrote: post #464
6d0debc071 wrote: post #430

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Ask 100 women if they find it romantic to be kissed without being asked or if they want to be asked first. I'm pretty sure the answer is: being kissed, don't ask. That depends on the man. I don't want someone I don't want to kiss me without asking. I don't want them to kiss me at all, but I'd prefer that they ask than just try it. Do you think that women just want men to randomly walk up to them in the street and k…

>Do you think that women just want men to randomly walk up to them in the street and kiss them? This is the absolute most obtuse reading of the situation you could have mustered. And this is the problem with this entire debate: those who are arguing against these "seduction" techniques must resort to strawmen and imagined scenarios to show how awful this is. Unfortunately, this is the stuff that social interaction is…

> This is the absolute most obtuse reading of the situation you could have mustered. And this is the problem with this entire debate: those who are arguing against these "seduction" techniques must resort to strawmen and imagined scenarios to show how awful this is.

I didn't even attempt to portray that as his argument. I said that if you don't then there must, of necessity, be some communication going on. -le sigh-

> Unfortunately, this is the stuff that social interaction is made of. You're not going to change it by suddenly defining normal interaction as assault.

Uck, for a block user function.

Re: We were wrong

#468

Post by hackinthebochs »

malandrew wrote: post #418
tanderson11 wrote: post #407

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The cultural acceptability and effectiveness of the asking for consent is incidental to the issue at stake. I honestly find it shocking that so many people on HN are having such difficulty accepting the principal of expressly verbalized consent. Surely we can move on from the notion that men need to "be dominant" and "force her to rebuff your advances". While a particular culture may call for certain shifts in attitu…

"While a particular culture may call for certain shifts in attitude, that does not mean verbalized consent is not important." Nor does it mean that verbalized consent is important or necessary. Not all human communication is verbal. "but I feel that Kickstarter's stance is defensible from the position of not wanting to be associated with such dangerous and callous material." Do you find the financial embargo of Wikil…

>Not all human communication is verbal.

Good god this. Until these guys can explain why we must suddenly ignore a million years of hardwired non-verbal communication, their argument is completely moot.

Re: We were wrong

#469

Post by Zelphyr »

zedshaw wrote: post #385
Zelphyr wrote: post #333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Brilliant actually. Look at all the people talking about his book now.

Looked like he already had people talking about it, and this was definitely not planned. It's a stroke of pure luck not genius.

The point I was trying to make is that publicity itself is often the reason projects get put up on Kickstarter.

I suspect the author did the Kickstarter project knowing he could effectively publish for free but wanted to generate the buzz that currently comes with having a Kickstarter project. And maybe even to gauge interest. If he wouldn't have been able to raise $2K then it may have been worth dropping the idea altogether.

The negative publicity is the stroke of pure luck. Now he'll make even more because of the free publicity the book is getting now.

Re: We were wrong

#470

Post by hackinthebochs »

king_jester wrote: post #453
tomp wrote: post #380

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, because sensible people (men and women) wouldn't call a well-meaning, but miscalibrated and thus unwelcome kiss sexual assault.

Survivors of sexual assault and rape may most certainly call an unwelcome kiss sexual assault and it may be a hugely triggering thing that causes a relapse. You don't get to decide what someone's boundaries are just because you want something from them.

Now we're getting somewhere in this conversation. What you're advocating is that we should universally change established cultural norms to protect the very small minority who might be actually harmed by a misread signal. Most people wouldn't agree. Most people can accept the fact that miscommunications happen and brush it off as a fact of navigating a complex social world. It's unfortunate for those that can't do this due to past trauma or whatever psychological quirks they have, but that is not the problem of the entirety of society.
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