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October 18, 2011 at 12:00 pm 
PZ Myers Gentlemen, the webcomic Girls with Slingshots has been giving lessons in proper dating protocol. You might want to follow along. Start here and work your way forward. Here’s the latest:
It’s rather clearly written for the obtuse nebbishes who whine about how they can’t know what a woman wants unless they proposition her.
Posted in
That should work at ERV.
at this point, I’m thinking of making a special take on the old Chris Crocker “Leave Britney Alone!!” video, just for our special cupcake, mercurial.
can you guess who it will feature?
I’m sure you can.
do you really enjoy painting yourself as a blithering idiot?
it’s quite remarkable.
there’s a guy with the nym “Selache” on the old sciblogs version of Pharyngula who “argues” just like you do.
Is it senility plus OCD?
meh. I frankly no longer care.
Just BANHAMMER THIS IDIOT, PLEASE.
#799 was yet an other act of distortion theater as presented by the distinguished Mucus Muse.
And ladies, don’t forget to write your congressmen and tell them that you demand the right to register for the draft. Can’t let the men get away with their entitlements. You too should enjoy the benefit of possibily being killed against your will, at the behest of neocon warmongers. I know this would go a long way toward realizing your dreams of true equality.
http://www.sss.gov/FSwho.htm
Yes, usually when you remove an event from the context it occured in it loses some meaning.
To me it honestly doesn’t matter if EG was aware of Ms. Watson’s many publicly expressed wishes not to be approached for sex, touched or fondled at atheist gatherings. He followed a strange woman out of a bar very late into the night, followed her into an enclosed and isolated space and asked her back to his place for ‘cofee.’ That may be a common occurence but it’s definitely not a situation where I’m going to penalize a woman for being a little creeped out or uncomfortable. Nor am I going to berate her for being ‘anti-sex’ and ‘demonizing men’ over it.
It’s a harmless rebuke and an entirely fair one.
And here is the Mucus Muse going after people with a non issue in US politics. It has been ten years of war and there still is no draft.
But brave, brave Mucus Muse has to take a jab at a hypocrisy, even if the hypocrisy is to be found within his own dripping skull.
For some people unclear on the concept, the Mucus Muse is a textbook troll.
Fuck off, dishonest shit-for-brains troll. Here, I shall quote Rebecca Watson herself,
Oh, what’s that? It takes only a quick look to see that there is evidence that elevatordouche heard her express her desire to go to bed? Well look at that, MM must be lying again. Yep, like I said, Mercurial is a bore.
*sigh* I know it’s just MM repeating for the 499th time, but still:
Most of the actual discussion in this thread has been about getting to know women and forming a relationship with them BEFORE trying to get personal about it. Asking a stranger to your room AS THE FIRST AND ONLY INTERACTION is bad, bad form.
You_monster, you know that girls lie. You know that Rebecca Watson only added that little detail that the guy was in attendance at the pub just to make him look extra creepy and rapey. The Mucus Muse would never distort a thing. That is why his screeds are so informative. He is not a girl and therefore, a better witness than Rebecca Watson could ever be.
(Am I laying it on just a little too thick?)
clearer mucusy:
blah-blah nonsequitor blah blah, inanity, blah blah blah.
why is it still here?
why?
How do we know Watson didn’t take the stairs?
huh?
Any evidence for elevator use in the first place other than the assertion of a woman?
I rest my case.
Totally off topic:
Did y’all break FreethoughtBlogs’ commenting system? I was up to, oh, #590-something, I think, and hit refresh, and suddenly it says there are 810 comments, but only ten show up…
“…I was invited back to the hotel room of a man I had never spoken to before and who was present to hear me say that I was exhausted and wanted to go to bed.”
{…present to hear me say}
That means the guy was in the bar and Watson assumes the guy overheard her. You can tell it’s bullshit. Either the guy heard her for sure — in which case Watson would have made damn sure to say “THE GUY HEARD ME SAY…” — or he likely did not hear her, which is why she used the deceptive phrase; “He was present to hear me say…”
Who the hell posits certainty like that?
Nobody.
@Omegamom: Yah, at post 800 it starts page 2 of comments. There’s an “Older Comments” link just above “Leave a Reply”.
OmegaMom, it’s pagination, it kicks in at 800 comments. See the ‘Older Comments’ above “Leave a Reply”? Click that to go back to the first page of comments.
OmegaMom, at this new sire, when a thread reaches eight hundred comments, a new page starts for eight hundred and one. If you want to get to the first page, just hit “Older Comments”. You can find it near the bottom of the page just above “Leave a Reply”.
Aren’t we all helpful.
Chas:
Now I have this in my head:
Yesterday, upon the stair,
I met a man who wasn’t there
He wasn’t there again today
I wish, I wish he’d go away…
When I came home last night at three
The man was waiting there for me
But when I looked around the hall
I couldn’t see him there at all!
Go away, go away, don’t you come back any more!
Go away, go away, and please don’t slam the door… (slam!)
Last night I saw upon the stair
A little man who wasn’t there
He wasn’t there again today
Oh, how I wish he’d go away
Janine:
It’s more interestin’ than paying attention to mm the asspimple.
Ahah! Thanks, Pteryxx, Caine, Janine. Didn’t even see that.
Now to decide whether I really want to continue reading. I have no idea why “no means no” is such a hard concept to grasp.
See, the Mucus Muse knows better than some lying ass girl what is truthful and what is possible.
Can’t trust those bitches.
Person leaves hotel bar at 4 AM.
There’s no way anybody could possibly know the person was tired and heading for sleep unless the person was clearly overheard saying so.
You all are so hard on poor EG. He probably didn’t hear! OK?
mercurial:
Yet here you are pontificating about this purported non-incident, months after the fact.
(You have no idea of what the word means, do you?)
Inane Janine, OM, oh right, how silly of me. Obviously she was lying. I’ll just take MM’s word for it. Another example of the womenz falsely accusing perfectly good dudes of rape. That is exactly what happened.
(and no, the thickness is good, I like my sarcasm extra chunky)
Chas:
So…is “hard of hearing” gonna be the next hot theory?
It’s a freedom of speech issue. It’s humorous that the same group of people who evangelise freedom to offend the religious are also against freedom of speech if it might make neurotic women feel like they’re going to be raped.
It doesn’t matter what women *feel* about what you say and how that relates to their personal experience of sexism or societal judgements about gender roles, it’s about what you should and shouldn’t be allowed to say.
In a progressive society, one should be able to ask anything up to and including ‘nice shoes, wanna fuck?’.
Random yoofs on the street can make me feel threatened for my life by saying ‘got any change?’. That doesn’t mean the correct response is to try to ban people from asking for change.
“…He followed a strange woman out of a bar very late into the night, followed her into an enclosed and isolated space”
Stalking is a separate issue. If Watson wanted to berate the guy for stalking her, I might have gone along with it. She could have made her case and stop, victoriously, at that point. “The guy stalked me from the bar and onto the elevator, alone, at 4:00 AM”. Okay, that’s creepy. I agree.
But then she fixates on the common event: “The guy asked me for coffee, I said no, and he backed off politely”. Okay. So what. Guys do that sometimes. And most guys who do it aren’t rapist/stalkers. We need to separate the creepy from the non-creepy.
MM
What possible reason could you have for posting such a blindingly ignorant lie?
trolling, trolling, trolling
keep the lies a rolling….
And in that same progressive society, the said woman is free to tell that skeeve to shove a porcupine up his ass and warn other women about the skeeve.
Assclam.
Also, fuckface, some of these women that you dismiss as “neurotic” have been raped before.
“And in that same progressive society, the said woman is free to tell that skeeve to shove a porcupine up his ass and warn other women about the skeeve.”
Yeah, I’m totally for that too. Freedom all round.
“Assclam.
Also, fuckface, some of these women that you dismiss as “neurotic” have been raped before.”
So? Doesn’t mean they’re right about anything.
LOki
Freedom of speech???!! Oh puleeze! Being/acting like a stalker is not in any way related to freedom of speech.
I honestly do not understand why if EG was (or is) socially inept, giving him a for the most part polite ‘Don’t do that’ is so terrible. If he didn’t know, now he does and he can use this experience to better approach the next woman he’s interested in. Maybe a series of these and he’ll learn maybe going for sex on the first minute of the intro conversation isn’t necesarily the most respectful way to approach someone.
I would think a group of people who’ve committed themselves to expanding their horizons and learning more would appreciate such a thing.
Loki, still the idiot, I see. Ah, some things never change.
Nope. It’s about treating women like full human beings and paying attention to how they feel and what they think, along with being aware of sexism and societal judgments. Seems that’s waaaay to big of a burden for many, like yourself.
Anyone is free to say “nice shoes, wanna fuck?”. An intelligent person is one who would know when that’s appropriate. If they don’t, they shouldn’t be surprised by the various responses they garner.
And, as it been pointed out repeatedly (Not that it means shit to the Mucus Muse.) there are boundery issues. As well as the woman not being able to read his mind and therefore, cannot tell what his intentions are.
So, assclown, hw many fucking times have people pointed that out to you.
You are the fucking Ken Ham of the MRA crowd.
oh boy, more wisdom from MM,
You’re right MM. Being present to hear someone say something does not necessarily equate to actually listening and understanding what they are saying. Take you for example; you have heard the explanation for why elevatordouche’s behavior was unacceptable many times, but nothing has filtered through your thick skull.
Only if elevatordouche is as shitty at listening and comprehending as you (unlikely considering how stupid you are), would it be possible that he was present but could still claim to think Rebecca Watson wanted his attention.
Oh Janine, you know that doesn’t matter. Who cares about bitches being all hysterical about their experience being raped or assaulted? Ain’t nothin’ on the terrible burden of being a manz.
What a load of bullshit loki. You have the right to be a fucking douchebag, we have the right to call you one. Another fail for the “I am decent human being” test.
Dismissive little creep.
Ah, but normal well-adjusted wimminz LIKE being hit on by every random dood that comes along! If they have inconvenient opinions of their own, obviously they’re NEUROTIC. (And they damn well better LIKE it or else!)
“Freedom of speech???!! Oh puleeze! Being/acting like a stalker is not in any way related to freedom of speech.”
In what way is being free to say things to people not freedom of speech?
“Nope. It’s about treating women like full human beings and paying attention to how they feel and what they think, along with being aware of sexism and societal judgments. Seems that’s waaaay to big of a burden for many, like yourself.”
No one pays attention to how everyone feels and thinks. People get overlooked or ignored all the time, by everyone. Why do women deserve a higher standard? Also, I’d be very impressed if you could show a single way in which I’ve been sexist.
“Anyone is free to say “nice shoes, wanna fuck?”. An intelligent person is one who would know when that’s appropriate. If they don’t, they shouldn’t be surprised by the various responses they garner.”
That’s really the point, intelligent people will mostly not do it, stupid people often will. Both should be allowed as freedom of speech, and while people should by all means be allowed to say that they don’t like this situation, they should respect peoples right to say what they want.
Congratulations you win the douchebag of the year award.
Dude, seriously, are that dense? You don’t feel the experiences and opinions of people who have actually been on the receiving end of sexual violence and the disparity between the genders matter? Are you that big of an asshole?
I refuse to believe that. You must either be intentionally trolling or so hung up on being right you’ll dismiss anything your ‘enemy’ says. So which is it, loki?
And if people can’t figure out the short sentence “don’t do this because it’s rude”, it’s not because they’re stupid. It’s because they’re assholes.
@Caine
“Oh Janine, you know that doesn’t matter. Who cares about bitches being all hysterical about their experience being raped or assaulted? Ain’t nothin’ on the terrible burden of being a manz.”
Did I say that? I said it’s irrelevant to the strength of their arguments.
@Philip
“What a load of bullshit loki. You have the right to be a fucking douchebag, we have the right to call you one. Another fail for the “I am decent human being” test.”
I’m frequently a douchbebag, I’m ok with it. Doesn’t mean I’m wrong though.
@Pteryxx
“Ah, but normal well-adjusted wimminz LIKE being hit on by every random dood that comes along! If they have inconvenient opinions of their own, obviously they’re NEUROTIC. (And they damn well better LIKE it or else!)”
Are you saying you think elevator rape in hotels is common enough to seriously worry about? I’d guess it’s more like the odds of getting hit by a meteor.
Julian:
Yep. Been an asshole for quite a long time now.
The dismissal of the fears of rape survivors. Your unwillingness to aknowledge a woman’s feelings should matter (especially when it comes to trying to pressure them into sex).
{anecdata}
I have three adult sons. I have discussed the EG incident with each of them (seperately) just to get their perspective as males.
Son 1- What a jerk.
Son 2- Wow really? How are guys that stupid?
Son 3- What a creep! He’s lucky she didn’t mace him.
Niece- I would have kicked him in the balls. What a creeper.
So, the younger generation gives me hope.
And so it is quite alright if a loki style manz does not pay attention of what the bitch thinks and feels because all he wants to do is fuck the body. The person is irrelevant.
Also, fuckface. None of us is actually asking for a higher standard. Just that men actually give credence to a woman’s opinion.
You are sexist to your very core.
Loki the limp-brained,
@Julian
Many of the radfems are attempting to discern general rules from situations like elevatorgate. Personal experience is obviously relevant to the individual and how they act, but it’s completely irrelevant to creating general rules of behaviour. Generally asking people for coffee is fine. If the person you ask happens to have been raped, assaulted, or just generally have a bad childhood experience with coffee which causes them to feel uncomfortable, that’s *their* problem.
@Pteryxx
“And if people can’t figure out the short sentence “don’t do this because it’s rude”, it’s not because they’re stupid. It’s because they’re assholes.”
No, people just disagree that it’s objectively rude, and all the radfems seem to think it’s self-evident enough to avoid the need for justification. I don’t think it’s rude to ask for coffee. Can you prove to me that it is?
An other waste of meat that I would cross the street to avoid if we knew each other in meatspace. I’m ok with it.
And the misogynist Gish gallop begins.
I’m curious why Rebecca didn’t feel more threatened by the fact EG stalked her to the elevator, than she did about EG asking her for coffee on the elevator. It seems that she was fixated on the guy’s akward come-on. Her public complaint to the athiest community wasn’t even about the stalking, it was about his speaking. I’m not sure she understands where the true threat lies. If her true concern was elevator rape (which I think a lot of her defenders wrongly assume), then why is is she so fixated on the polite verbal exchange which makes her feel “objectified”? If she was truly in fear of being raped, I think any implied objectification would have taken a back seat to any real thought of rape.
@Julian
“The dismissal of the fears of rape survivors. Your unwillingness to aknowledge a woman’s feelings should matter (especially when it comes to trying to pressure them into sex).”
Fears of rape survivors and women’s feelings in general are pertinent in *specific* situations, they’re not pertinent in *general* situations, because individual experiences and fears are individual. The same logic is true for any situation involving men or women, so it definitionally isn’t sexist.
@Inane
You are asking for a higher standard, because men are asked things that annoy them all the time. Why should women not be too?
And saying I’m sexist to the core isn’t an example, it’s an admission that you don’t have any.
There’s no need to state the obvious, fuckwit.
@Pteryxx
“And the misogynist Gish gallop begins.”
You guys really like calling people names, but really don’t like responding intelligently to arguments. Try it sometime.
Idiot mercurial, you’ve completely reversed what Rebecca said. She said she was made uncomfortable by Elevator Douche objectifying her.
@Caine
“There’s no need to state the obvious, fuckwit.”
I’m a fuckwit too, I’m sure. Got any more?
Loki,
Shit-stain on the underpants of humanity?
@you_monster
Whatever makes you happy buddy. If you guys run out of insults do you think you might accidentally start intelligently discussing the arguments?
Fuckfaced loki; Pteryxx, Caine, julien, you_monster, Philip Legge and I have pulled out and commented your sexist statements. But you dismiss all of that as radfem whining.
Fucking waste of meat.
Expired douchenozzles from the forgotten corners of the pharmacy’s half-price shelf?
(Damn, I’ve got a ways to go to compare with my hero FossilFishy.)
Had he asked for “coffee” in the bar, it would have been rude.
Following her onto the elevator to ask for “coffee” puts his behavior at creepy + rude.
Nobody has a right to be rude or creepy.
You_Monster:
I prefer festering, putrid, pus-filled, odoriferous pimple on humanity’s arse. Asspimple for short.
@Inane
Did I dismiss them as radfem whining or did I critique each point and explain why I thought it was wrong? I’m reasonably sure a cursory look up the page would answer that question.
@Caine
Strong stuff. It wouldn’t get you a philosophy degree, but maybe a gender studies one.
No you don’t mean coffee. You mean sex. Everyone here means sex. Everyone has always been discussing sex. And we all know damn well ‘Wanna come back to my place for a drink’ does not mean ‘You want coffee?’
It is our problem. We are approaching them for something. We are trying to elevate your interaction with someone to a level you have no way of knowing if they’d be ok with. We are taking away any oppurtunity they may have to let us know this may not be a good idea. That we might open real wounds. That we might be piling on where others had already started.
We are taking away their comfort and placing them on the defensive. And why? Because we want sex from them? Why is that more important than their wishes? Why is our want (not need) for sex from them more important than their life or their experienes or, fuck, their right to go through the day without being pestered and harassed by strangers?
It is our problem, loki. We don’t get to put our selfishness before others, especially when that selfishness can cause them real pain.
perpetual-brainfart-Loki,
No one is trying to establish “it’s rude to ask for coffee” per se as a general rule. There, I have substantively addressed your argument. I’ve informed you it is a strawman and therefore not an argument at all. Now can I get back to the insults?
Loki:
(Fuck, but you’re a predictable troll)
1. Accuse your opponents of what you do.
2. Immediately do what you accuse your opponents of doing (and poorly, at that).
“…mercurial, you’ve completely reversed what Rebecca said. She said she was made uncomfortable by Elevator Douche objectifying her.”
That’s what I’m saying. She explcitly said that her beef was with the way EG objectified her. Her argument was soundly defeated by the realists, including Dawkins. And then the feminist community tried to defend her by spinning her case; “Oh, but wait, she could have been raped in that elavator”. Yes, that’s true. But that wasn’t her complaint! Her complaint was that some guy talked to her and objectified her when she really wanted to go to sleep.
Loki,
When you have 1/4 to 1/3 of women in the US having been raped….
when rape is an act of terrorism in conflicts the globe over…
when you have rape charges dismissed by clueless judges based on the victims’ attire…
and on and on…
then fear of rape is NOT an individual experience. Rape is terrorism directed at 50% of the human race. And all they know is that the terrorists are among the other 50%. Sounds like a problem to me.
The context is irrelevant. Elevator, 4am, being followed and isolated: none of this matters.
What matters is only that she was offered coffee.
And an offer of coffee can never, ever be wrong, in any way, ever.
Expecting men to treat others with respect is not a radical concept. It’s basic manners.
Mercurial fuckwit: Rape begins with objectification. Relationships begin when a man stops objectifying the woman. Those relationships can be friendships or they can be significant otherness or they can be marriages. You don’t make friends with objects or with objectifiers.
@Julian
“No you don’t mean coffee. You mean sex. Everyone here means sex. Everyone has always been discussing sex. And we all know damn well ‘Wanna come back to my place for a drink’ does not mean ‘You want coffee?’”
Ok, but the point I was making is that even asking for “coffee meaning sex” is not a threatening act in itself for most women *in general*. If you happen to find it threatening because of personal experience that’s not the asker’s fault. The transformation from ‘clumsy/creepy proposition’ to ‘likely rape attempt’ is solely made in the woman’s mind, and therefore the guy can’t be culpable for it. That’s why personal rape experience isn’t relevant.
“It is our problem. We are approaching them for something. We are trying to elevate your interaction with someone to a level you have no way of knowing if they’d be ok with. We are taking away any oppurtunity they may have to let us know this may not be a good idea. That we might open real wounds. That we might be piling on where others had already started.”
But to extend that ad absurdum, if someone had some serious wounds to do with clowns and you get into the elevator going to a party dressed as a clown, the additional damage to that person compared to a non-clown-phobic person isn’t your fault.
It’s about what you consider a reasonable expectation for a woman you don’t know. I’m arguing that seeing everyone as a potential rape victim is silly because they’re a minority.
And you say it’s our problem, but there are of course girls who enjoy a level of sexual forwardness higher than is being suggested by many of the radfems around here, and by making everything super super deferential, you’re potentially impacting in a negative way on men who want sex, men who just want to chat/flirt, girls who want sex and girls who just want to chat/flirt. All for the relatively small subgroup of women who really really don’t like it.
Thanks for responding intelligently, btw.
Straw-burning rampaging wind-up denialmobiles! (Gah, I suck at insults…)
It’s all been answered, and meta-answered.
http://freethoughtblogs.com/lousycanuck/2011/10/04/the-problem-with-privilege-or-evidential-skepticism/
No
Men who approach women for sex in creeepy ways deserve ball-kicking and macing. Not respect.
Yep, soundly defeated. Just assume that she lied about ED being present when she expressed her desire to go to bed, then there is no evidence of her will being disregarded. Poof, presto, pop! No objectification here.
Ah, good timing for that post, Pteryxx. It can’t be that a woman was objectified! Womenz always be lying.
@you_monster
“No one is trying to establish “it’s rude to ask for coffee” per se as a general rule. There, I have substantively addressed your argument. I’ve informed you it is a strawman and therefore not an argument at all. Now can I get back to the insults?”
I was unclear, that’s my fault. I was talking about “coffee meaning sex”. I’m saying that’s not a bad thing to ask either. if you think it is, then why do you think that?
@a_ray_in_dilbert_space
“When you have 1/4 to 1/3 of women in the US having been raped….
when rape is an act of terrorism in conflicts the globe over…
when you have rape charges dismissed by clueless judges based on the victims’ attire…
and on and on…
then fear of rape is NOT an individual experience. Rape is terrorism directed at 50% of the human race. And all they know is that the terrorists are among the other 50%. Sounds like a problem to me.”
Of course it’s a problem, I never said it wasn’t, I’m just trying to suggest that there’s a more nuanced debate to have which would be more helpful.
Yes, the numbers are high, and some aspects of male interaction that are seen as normal are clearly unacceptable. Yes, judges and rape trials are often shit and need improving. I’m totally pro slutwalk btw.
However these facts don’t mean that *all women* live in fear of rape and shape their lives accordingly. They definitely all don’t. I know many girls who have said that. So when you’re suggesting ‘rape fear’ should change the way people act in serious ways, what evidence do you have that it’s 1) felt by a majority of women and 2) felt ‘strongly’ by those women. (Strongly in this sense perhaps meaning giving them a significant amount more fear than a man similarly capable of defending them self if put in the same situation).
@Pteryxx
The majority of responses I’ve seen from intelligent people who disagreed with Rebecca weren’t suspicious at all of her account. I’m reasonably sure she was telling the truth.
The question most people have posed is “was the guy’s behaviour inherently sexist or unreasonable?”. To which the answer isn’t crystal clear. He was polite, he didn’t act aggressively and he backed off when told ‘no’.
The key points about what makes it potentially ‘rapey’ seem to be that he followed her to the lift and decided to proposition her in a confined space. And while that is definitely not ideal, it does seem to me to fall under the category of ‘dumb’ rather than ‘sinister’.
Would she have reacted the same if it was a woman in the lift, do you think?
Loki you are full of BS
All women are taught from a very young age that they must always be wary of putting themselves into a situation where they may possibly be raped.
ALL OF THEM
no
following her onto an elevator to ask for sex is NOT polite.
“…The majority of responses I’ve seen from intelligent people who disagreed with Rebecca weren’t suspicious at all of her account.”
Which one? She had two accounts that I’ve examined. And the first one never said the guy heard her say she was tired and going to sleep. That was subtly slipped into her second account. Besides, we don’t hang the accused without first hearing their defense. Elevator gate doesn’t even rise to the level of “he-said/she-said”. It’s only “she-said”. Any competent judge in the U.S. would throw the whole case out of court.
@Tethys
Apart from the fact I’ve got lots of female friends who have said they just *aren’t* afraid of being raped (except in dark alleys and things where normal people are scared of muggings or whatever), have you just never been out in a city on a Friday night? The number of girls wandering around by themselves getting wasted in the midst of huge groups of potentially predatory guys suggests that getting raped really isn’t the first thing on their minds.
@Tethys
Obviously I was talking about the nature of his verbal request, which I think was pretty obvious, but consider it clarified.
Also, what’s the quote tag?
Tethys,
“Had he asked for “coffee” in the bar, it would have been rude.”
If he did it there when she was in even a loose group with others, it would have been. You’re supposed to do those sorts of things privately and one-on-one, not in a group.
mercurial, arch-bullshitter, first have a read about objectification and inform your ignorant ass, then get back to us about people like Dawkins et al., who like you could only “refute” Watson by gratuitously ignoring most of what she had said.
Oops, ignore 84. I read it wrong (“wouldn’t” instead of “would”).
But I would ask when asking for coffee WOULDN’T be rude …
Yes, you are unclear. If you are asking whether I think it is ok to use the euphemism “go out for coffee” when asking someone if they would like to knock boots, then I say of course it is. Obviously this is context-dependant though. So long as you respect other people’s autonomy, ask if they are interested in you any way you like. In some contexts (many contexts), asking someone for a date/sex/if they are interested in you/out for coffee is inappropriate and disrespectful. Use some common sense, wait for some evidence that your advances are wanted, then act. If the attraction seems to be mutual, just be direct. Its just be generally compassionate about other people and treating the person you are interested in as an equal. Not too hard. Just remember, context + giving a shit about other people = no longer part of the problem.
Here is where you need to work on your giving a shit about other people skills. Rape fear is real for many people. Even without the fear of rape, many people feel uncomfortable being hit on when they are not interested. Since it is not that hard to talk to people in order to form an educated opinion about whether someone would welcome further contact with you, you have no excuse not to.
Being aware of something does not mean living in fear of something.
Wandering around by yourself within a group is a bit of an oxymoron.
@Verbose
“But I would ask when asking for coffee WOULDN’T be rude …”
That’s the point. If people are after the eradication of casual sex, then who are they to speak for the people of both genders who like casual sex?
They don’t have to be rape victims or even sexual assault victims. The number of women who face sexual harassment regularly (in the form of cat calls, groping and, yes, overally forward men asking for sex or making lewd innuendos about how awesome them fucking would be) is high enough for you to have to factor that in when approaching a complete stranger.
And I’m not seeing every woman or man as a rape victim. I’m seeing them as someone who a I don’t necesarily know all that muh about so I shouldn’t presume how far they’re willing to go with me in any given context. Should I play punch every man I know on the shoulder because I know that’s gesture some men don’t mind? Should I forego the handshake and just grab new aqauintances in a passionate hug as a way of saying hello?
This isn’t new stuff. This is, as you’ve agreed, basic human interaction. There are borders and limits you’re going to have to consider when meeting new people.
#79
“…All women are taught from a very young age that they must always be wary of putting themselves into a situation where they may possibly be raped.”
Feminsists would call this a form of rape apology. It is only the rapist who is accountable for his actions. The victim is never to blame. That is why we have slut walks. Congratulations, Tethys, you are a rape apologist. How does it feel?
who the fuck is anti-casual sex here? This is a pro-sex blog (not that I speak for it, but I know it well enough). More strawmen…
The issue is when one person (almost always male) persists in seeking casual sex with someone who has expressly said “no.
You and Mercurial are both getting pretty old.
@you_monster
“Use some common sense, wait for some evidence that your advances are wanted, then act. If the attraction seems to be mutual, just be direct. Its just be generally compassionate about other people and treating the person you are interested in as an equal. Not too hard.”
That’s one way of doing it. Another is asking politely and then accepting no gracefully. Some women would prefer the former, some would prefer the latter (because it wastes less of their time, if nothing else). Why should men act as if all women prefer the former?
“Here is where you need to work on your giving a shit about other people skills. Rape fear is real for many people. Even without the fear of rape, many people feel uncomfortable being hit on when they are not interested. Since it is not that hard to talk to people in order to form an educated opinion about whether someone would welcome further contact with you, you have no excuse not to.”
Well yeah, that’s how most people act already. Bearing mind most people are part of a bell curve, the elevator guy could just be an outlier. Also people do dumb stuff when they’re drunk, and it was late. No one’s saying that flirting first and gauging reactions are a bad plan, it’s what most people do *right now*.
Pteryxx@74,
I am skeptical about anything Rebecca Watson says regarding the internal mental state of EG, which includes his knowledge and intentions. And rightly so, since she actually doesn’t have direct access to it and we do know that we can read things into memory. So I interpret, for example, the line of “He heard that I wanted to go to bed” as “He HAD to have heard that I wanted to go to bed given my interpretation of how things went there”, and then immediately wonder if he really did hear that or if she thought that his near presence for part of the night meant that he had to have been there and paying attention when she said that.
Obviously, “sexualized” is even more open to reasonable skepticism.
I disagree – “no” doesn’t always mean “no” when it comes to dating. The matter of fact is, both sexes engage in all sorts of odd behaviors (call them games, tactics, or whetever) that range from subtle to blatant as a means testing, seducing, and evaluating potential sexual partners. A cursory examination of online dating advice for women and men is testament to this.
I’ve known women who play the “hard to get” game because it supposedly allows them to sort the males who are really interested from the males that aren’t. I’ve known some women who think men are biologically programmed to chase, and if they don’t chase, then aren’t really interested. Heck, I’ve even seen women deliberately flirt with other guys as a tactic to make their boyfriends jealous. If the boyfriend did get jealous, the woman saw it as an affirmation of his desire for her.
Men play games as well. One of the favored tactics in the male so-called “pickup artist” community is to casually flirt with the woman, then stop and walk away. This is supposed to demonstrate that you aren’t clingy, but strong, confident, and independent (this is probably the equivalent to a woman playing “hard to get”). This, in turn, is supposed to arouse desire in the woman. The whole Nice Guy ruse is another tactic to seduce.
This behavior is by no means even limited to the person of affection. Often, men and women alike will engage in some incredibly nasty behavior and aggression toward those they see as competitors (even if the “competitor” isn’t really competing). I’ve been on the receiving end of that myself.
Anyway, my point isn’t to discuss these games, nor am I saying these games are played uniformly by all men and women. My point is that the game of love and sex has a lot at stake for those who play it – egos, attitudes, and emotions are put on the line and often harshly tested. The outcome of playing is often highly uncertain. So, it’s no surprise to see both sexes engage in weird and often befuddling behavior. It’s also worth pointing out, in the extremes, the games and behavior can even get dangerous.
@you_monster
“The issue is when one person (almost always male) persists in seeking casual sex with someone who has expressly said “no.”
So not elevator guy then?
Verbose Stoic
It’s rude because Rebecca was quite clear that she did not want to be propositioned at all.
If you want sex, first you must establish a basic level of trust. Following someone who has clearly stated she does not want to be propositioned onto an elevator to proposition her shows that you have no respect and are not to be trusted.
loki@89,
“That’s the point. If people are after the eradication of casual sex, then who are they to speak for the people of both genders who like casual sex?”
Well, it’s worse than that, because it isn’t clear that asking for coffee means asking for sex (back to your room is a little more likely, but not certain). I know myself that if I asked someone out for coffee, I wouldn’t be expecting to get sex, and if it was offered after or during the coffee date I likely a) would reject it and b) would think less of the person I asked out for coffee, to the extent that that would likely mean that I’d consider her a bad choice for me for a relationship, which would be MY main purpose to asking her out for coffee.
Maybe I’m just too conservative, old-fashioned, or prudish, though …
Oh, so now you can read the intent of Elevator Douche as ‘dumb’ rather than ‘sinister’ from the report of someone who actually met him, and said moreover that ‘there was nothing — not a single thing — that led me to believe that the man in the elevator was “awkward.” He was bold, direct, and confident.’ That must be a particularly magical ability of yours.
Methinks you are protesting too much.
Mercurial
Does it hurt to be so stupid?
@Julian
Yeah, it’s really just about where the borders and limits lie, and who’s obliged to uphold them. I’m just more on the libertarian side of things in that I think people should be free to express themselves even if it makes other people uncomfortable and that the actual transgressions only occur when people become threatening. I feel like the radfems are trying to shift the paradigm into men having to be super careful of how they say and act *just in case* they might offend.
e.g. catcalls in public near other people -> acceptable, catcalls out of a car in a dark street -> not acceptable.
They’re both sexist, but the former is just stupid, whereas the latter is threatening.
Tethys,
You are presuming, however, that he was propositioning her for sex as opposed to actually wanting to get to know her better, perhaps in the interest of maybe getting a relationship. Is that itself what she was expressly disagreeing with? What does “hitting on” or “propositioning” mean, especially in a sexist context? We can agree, perhaps, that “Hey, baby, wanna f***?” is that sort of thing, but is a polite request for coffee one of those?
I don’t know what her speech was and none of us know what EG heard of it and what message he took from it. Speech is ambiguous, which is one reason why philosophy spends so much time wrangling over precisely what each word means and in choosing the right words.
Note, BTW, that I do agree with this “At 3 am in an elevator with a mostly stranger, don’t invite her back to your room. It’s a bit creepy” advice. It’s the “that’s sexualizing/objectification” part that I’m skeptical of.
#900
I know you are but what am I? huh huh.
@Verbose
TBF, I’m pretty sure he meant sex. My contention is just that it shouldn’t matter because he wasn’t being threatening (IMO) the things that Rebecca found threatening were part of her perception of events, not indisputable truths.
@Philip
It could be either, but the real point is that it wasn’t obvious. Why would I assume that Rebecca is a better judge of character in the brief time she saw the guy? Interpretation of intangible things is just as much about the person interpreting than the person giving the signals.
“Methinks you are protesting too much.”
And yeah, I rape people, obviously.
Meh, I grow weary of arguing with you Loki. You are not interested in learning anything. Do you really believe that there are women out there that would actually prefer men to proposition them out of the blue before they get to know them at all first? My “way of doing it” involves talking to someone first, you know, seeing if you like them and if they like you. Your way involves asking before you know anything about them. Even if there is a substantial number of women this appeals to, do you think your desire to bed them outweighs the desires of of women not like this to not be made uncomfortable? Again, like iI said. It requires little effort to chat with someone for a little bit. It takes only a little “work” (hint, this shouldn’t be considered work), to ensure that you are respecting the vast number of women who do not appreciate this.
Do you care about this person you are talking to? Clearly not if you know nothing about them.
Why don’t you care about women? Why do you see them as objects?
Christ on a stick you are stupid, Loki, I already fucking addressed this.
Rebecca Watson herself,
You get the same goodbye as MM: Fuck off, dishonest shit-for-brains troll.
Caine’s “asspimple” imagery is not disgusting enough to represent my feelings for you.
Verbose Stoic
If he just wanted to talk, he would have approached her at the bar. He choose to ask in a creepy way, so I’m not going to buy that he had honorable intentions.
Verbose Stoic:
After someone has spent some time getting to know a person.
Oh FFS, not this never ending crap again. It’s quite obvious to anyone with a functioning brain that waiting until a woman is tired, on her way to bed to sleep, in a closed elevator at 4 am that what was on EG’s mind wasn’t “getting to know her better”.
As I pointed out to many fucking times during 3D4K, if he actually wanted to get to know her better, then he could have caught her attention before she left the bar and said something like “I really enjoyed your talk. Will you be meeting up with people tomorrow? I’d like to have coffee with you and discuss things more.” He could have even managed to open his mouth in the hallway, long before the elevator.
He had no interest in doing that. This is quite simple, it’s been very fucking clear from the outset.
And in case you hadn’t noticed, this thread isn’t about Egate. It’s just a matter of trolls attempting to derail. If you’re just dying to re-hash Egate, go do some reading:
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2011/07/always_name_names.php
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2011/07/the_decent_human_beings_guide.php
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2011/07/oh_no_not_againonce_more_unto.php
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2011/07/gynofascists_are_invading_the.php
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2011/07/go_read_jennifer_ouellette_rig.php
Verbose Stoic,
Because “Don’t take this the wrong way… would you like to come to my hotel room for coffee?” couldn’t possibly be an indirect euphemism for wanting sex. Not at 4 am in the fucking morning. Oh no, never.
You_Monster:
Loki isn’t worth talking with, xe’s just another troll looking for attention and derailment. Besides, there’s fresh asspimple in the thread. (Good cue for me to head for bed.) For those who need it and have Firefox, you can get a killfile here.
Have you bothered to read the other comments ? Only this has been addressed more than once. I note you have not bothered to address any of the criticisms that were made of this argument the previous times they were made.
“Meh, I grow weary of arguing with you Loki. You are not interested in learning anything.”
Hoisted by your own petard, methinks. How do you know you aren’t you the one who needs to learn things?
“Do you really believe that there are women out there that would actually prefer men to proposition them out of the blue before they get to know them at all first?”
Seen ‘em, sexed ‘em. Do you think girls don’t just get horny too? Lolz.
” do you think your desire to bed them outweighs the desires of of women not like this to not be made uncomfortable?”
What about the girls who just want sex. Again, you’re blaming me for not taking in girls opinions while not doing so yourself.
“Why don’t you care about women? Why do you see them as objects?”
I care about my female friends, they care about me, don’t you worry yourself about it.
Philip:
And it should go without saying that anytime someone prefaces with “don’t take this the wrong way” they are well aware they are about to say something they shouldn’t.
@Tethys
“If he just wanted to talk, he would have approached her at the bar. He choose to ask in a creepy way, so I’m not going to buy that he had honorable intentions.”
Using contextual clues for hints is fine, but most people would avoid skewering someone quite as definitively as the guy has been skewered by the radfem community, just based on clues.
Justicar, is that *you*? I haven’t seen that tactic in quite a while.
This is what our feminist society has been reduced to:
Men are expected to read women’s minds. They are supposed to be able to read a woman’s “signals” to tell if she is agreeable to conversation or sexual advances. Therefore, only a chosen few women should meet the criteria for such advances.
Women are NOT expected to read men’s minds. Women are not expected to read a man’s signals to tell if he is about to rape her on the elevator. Therefore, ALL men should be considered potential rapists until proven otherwise.
There you have it. Men, you’d better be good at reading women’s signals. But women, you are off the hook. You don’t have to learn how to read men’s signals. It’s easier to just assume that all men are rapists.
@Caine
“And it should go without saying that anytime someone prefaces with “don’t take this the wrong way” they are well aware they are about to say something they shouldn’t.”
It should go without saying that anyone saying “it should go without saying” knows they’re trying to gloss over a contentious point. Especially one so obvious as saying “don’t take this the wrong way” to indicate their situational awareness of the potential dubious nature of the situation and their eagerness to be a nice person and clarify that that’s not what they’re trying to do.
@Philip
Don’t respond to the silly part of the post, you were doing so well.
mercurial, the continual bullshitter, sets more strawmen ablaze:
Won’t someone please save the strawpeople!?!?
Yeah, because you joking about being a rapist is really funny – you insensitive twit, you’re talking to people in this thread who have been raped.
It’s also the same completely disrespectful bullshit that trolls before you have tried to indulge in some gratuitous self-inflicted insults to mock the reality of victim shaming.
*Sigh*
Rape is often funny. Just like murder. And natural disasters. I don’t know if you’ve ever noticed, but humour isn’t actually always PC.
But seeing as you’re just interested in deflecting and not discussing things intelligently, have you tried 4chan?
Or, on la main gauche, the phrase “don’t take this the wrong way” is a deliberate rhetorical manœuver to disarm the other person from objecting to a baldly unreasonable request, in exactly the same way as a phrase like “I’m not a racist, but…” or “Some of my best friends are black, but…” is used as a dodge before the uttering of a barely disguised racist comment. In both cases, it’s what particular strain of music that follows the overture which tells the listener how plausible the speaker’s good intentions are.
@Philip
All I said was that it was contentious. I didn’t express an opinion one way or the other.
Loki, there you go breaking any possible accord at reasonable discourse. Why don’t you go to 4chan if you wish to discuss this further: rape and rape apologetics isn’t treated as funny here.
*plonk* Comment by loki blocked. [unkill][show comment]
When they end up lying on a couch in a small room at 3am, in mute shock, waiting for me to examine them and take forensic samples for the police, it’s likely to be the only thing on their minds for a very long time.
A lot of women in their teens and early twenties dismiss rape as something that won’t happen to them.
That a significant number of them are wrong doesn’t make them stupid; that a large number of women know the risks either first or second hand doesn’t make them unworthy of paying attention to.
It’s like arguing that all the drunk young male drivers hooning on the roads round here aren’t afraid of crashing and ending up quadriplegic, and using that as an argument against those who try to speak out and warn that it’s actually potentially quite unsafe.
Wow, the denialism really has reached a new level.
So, if EG hadn’t heard RW say that she was tired he would have no reason to think that she might be*.
It was, after all only 4 am and Rebecca Watson had been at a busy conference all day and socializing all night, so yeah, that’s almost as impossible as assuming that somebody who just walked through a heavy rain with no raincloths or umbrella might be wet.
But anybody notice that loki’s definition of free speech is exactly like that of the conservatives?
They don’t mean “free speech”, they mean “my right to utter hateful shit without anybody ever calling me out on it or criticising me or actually openly opposing me” which is, in their shared worldview about the same as a Salem witch hunt.
*Apart, of course from the fact that either EG heard RW at the conference and knew her position on “being hit at” and was ignoring her request or he wasn’t in which case he was lying when he said he found her position interesting and wanted to talk more.
And, of course, totally ignoring the fact that multiple people have already established that there were no coffee making facilities in the hotel rooms
In my experience, my friends who are open to casual sex make it very clear, in bars, at parties, at clubs.
They don’t repeatedly say they are not interested in being propositioned, show no interest in someone and then change their minds when that someone follows them out of the venue unasked.
The casual sex defence simply doesn’t hold up – people who are up for sex with strangers are open about it and the signals are clear.
[COI - one friend an ex-glamour model, one a prostitute who worked the commuter trains on routes into London]
Tushcloots waaay back at 783:
You take care of yourself, too. I’m sorry all of that shitstorm happened because of one unclear statement.
Philip writes”
“…In both cases, it’s what particular strain of music that follows the overture which tells the listener how plausible the speaker’s good intentions are.”
Question: does this apply to PZ as well?
His first paragrapgh from a previous blog post:
“…There’s nothing wrong about being pretty, or sexy, or shopping, or being interested in traditionally girly things — but there is a big problem when that’s the only option you’re given.”
In other words, being a traditional girly girl is fine, but better you had other choices to see the error in your ways.
oops – just realised I’m not sure about the appropriate term here; my friend always referred to herself as a prostitute, not a sex worker, so that’s the descriptor that springs to mind when mentioning her.
Also the “some women like X” is the shittiest excuse ever. Just like there might be people out there who like being fucked in the ass with a broomstick. That’s not an excuse to do it to anybody who hasn’t enthusiastically declared that this is the very thing they’d like you to do.
If you want to have sex with anyone, approaching them in a creepy manner is going to come across as creepy.
No Sex For You!
If you can’t show a prospective partner basic courtesy, why would they wish to engage in any activity with you?
I would agree that you can occasionally make a satirical point this way. But humour?
I’m afraid that anyone who thinks rape, murder or natural disasters are topics for humour is like a kid laughing at his own fart jokes while the adults hope he’ll grow up soon.
That you cannot see what a sick puppy you are does not mean that you aren’t one.
mercurial, your unwillingness to stay on topic is noted. (Why don’t you ask PZ about his intentions in writing that sentence the way he did? The main message in it, that forcing only one narrow set of gender expectations on girls is bad, is a good message.)
@tielserrath
Sure, I’m not saying they’re bright. I’m just saying that asserting the universality of rape fear is a very dodgy point.
@Giliell
“But anybody notice that loki’s definition of free speech is exactly like that of the conservatives?
They don’t mean “free speech”, they mean “my right to utter hateful shit without anybody ever calling me out on it or criticising me or actually openly opposing me” which is, in their shared worldview about the same as a Salem witch hunt.”
I’d call it First Amendment free speech actually. Britain’s laws on free speech are repellent. Regardless, I’ve obviously not tried to stop anyone criticising me, so that’d be a little straw man of your very own, wouldn’t it?
@tielserrath
“They don’t repeatedly say they are not interested in being propositioned, show no interest in someone and then change their minds when that someone follows them out of the venue unasked.”
It was a response to the (ridiculous) point that girls never want to be hit on for sex, not a response to elevatorgate.
“…I’m not sure about the appropriate term here; my friend always referred to herself as a prostitute, not a sex worker, so that’s the descriptor that springs to mind when mentioning her.”
What about “slut”? You got the slut walks and everything, so it’s become more something to aspire to.
First point was RE: 124.
#69 a_ray_in_dilbert_space :
Eh, you are sort of making a significantly incorrect statement. It’s worse.
Not only do men rape women, but women rape men, women rape women, and men rape men too. While the other variants are less common, they still are a problem too.
My point is just that potential violence against oneself is scary, and you have to watch out not just for men, but women too. Even men can get roofies put into their drinks at bars, not just for getting mugged outside, but for getting raped instead. Behaving in non-creepy ways is good for anyone and everyone, even though the finder details of non-creepiness get muddled with travel and various cultures etc.
And would make fraud and tax evasion a matter of free speech. Coincidence? Methinks not.
No, I don’t believe that was the point.
The statement made was that women don’t want to be propositioned out of the blue.
And they don’t. Even those who want casual sex indicate their availability with eye contact, positive body language and often also verbally, either direct or indirect.
I didn’t mention an elevator – I was thinking of someone being followed from a club by someone they’d shown zero interest in or had minimal contact with, and being propositioned on the street outside.
Why are you so obsessed with elevators?
“The statement made was that women don’t want to be propositioned out of the blue.
And they don’t. Even those who want casual sex indicate their availability with eye contact, positive body language and often also verbally, either direct or indirect.”
Some do. And all of those things are subjective. you’re trying to find a concrete behavioural dividing line for right and wrong, but there just isn’t one. The situations overlap and sometimes you’re going to misinterpret things and make mistakes. The important thing is how you act once you realise you’re mistaken, not going to crazy lengths to avoid offending someone by accident.
Sorry guys – this was a bit of a drive-by.
It’s late downunder, and I’ve got an early shift tomorrow.
Keep on with the whack-a-troll.
Your knowledge of biology would seem to be woeful.
Couldn’t resist one last MRA soundbite:
Where your definition of crazy lengths is having the self control to not proposition someone who has given zero indication that they would welcome a proposition from you.
You’re not just creepy, you’re fucking scary.
So, I’m trying to do a bit of positive derailing. Back on the other page a link was posted to a German study about sexual abuse.
This was only the second study of that kind, the first being from 1992 with 3300 subjects, while this one had over 11.000.
The focus was sexual abuse before age 16, the subjects were between 16 and 40.
What they found was that younger people had lower numbers of sexual abuse than older participants, indicating that within the last 20 years, sexual abuse of minors was declining.
They gave several reasons for this:
-victims are more likely to report the crime
Of those victims who are now between 30 and 40, only 5-13% reported the crime, while those between 16 and 20 reported the crime in 28-41% of cases*
*the range is explained by different rates for different crimes.
-public awareness and sympathy for the victims
Campaigns that educated the public, parents, teachers, that encourage the victims to come forth seem to deter possible criminals.
-Outlawing corporal punishment
Sexually abusive parents are often also physically (other than sexual) abusive parents. Society and authorities pay attention to possibly abusive parents when they turned a blind eye before.
I think especially the second reason they gave plays a huge role in the discusion here. If we can manage that adult rape victims get the same public support as victims of child abuse get in Germany, we would have won a huge battle against rape-culture.
in this instance it might be your knowledge of rape that’s lacking Matt. *But* the only use a discussion of non-male-on-female rape has in this discussion is as a derailment tactic. So let’s not discuss it. Ok? (Frankly I don’t care if it’s ok or not. I’m not going to comment on it in this tread except that it’s a problem. but it’s not a problem we should discuss in this context. If anybody yearns to discuss the finer nuacances of this small, but serious problem I’ll promise to scan TET later tonight and pick up again the discussion there. Not here)
“Women are NOT expected to read men’s minds. Women are not expected to read a man’s signals to tell if he is about to rape her on the elevator. ”
Um… I am confused. I was under the impression women were trained to be more attuned to social cues, especially the social cues of men. The advice for how to “read” “men” in various contexts galore (though a fair bit exists for men to read “women” in sexual/argumental contexts too) – am I imagining all that? *pokes the tons of articles and pages on the intarwebs about it*
I have been fortunate enough to be fairly sheltered to some extent while not looking worthy of mugging or the like: When I was talking with a female friend about walking home alone in the dark I was being very fond of the memories and expressed desire to do so soon again, while she spoke in ways that revealed she was afraid of getting raped or mugged – she makes sure to keep attuned to the body language of various people around the areas she walks through, while I tend to not pay attention to them.
This is something I keep hearing about from females, so while not all suffer from that, clearly a significant amount do.
I would guess a fair bit of males also habitually “size up” other males in potentially confrontational situations, e.g. when walking in the dark and seeing potential muggers down the street. For many women, the difference is that they have to “size up” the strangers more often than men and be keenly aware of that any resulting confrontations can be far worse than “just” violence. Violence can kill or cripple you, but it will not be in an as intimate and psychologically disturbing manner.
Or am I mistaken?
loki
It ain’t, loki, it ain’t, ’cause you styled it as a threat to your free speech when people talk abouut how to approach women resectfully and without creeping them out.
You got your knickers in a twist that such social rules* would infringe on your free speech rights.
To quote you:
Which is, of course a strawman in itself since this was never a matter of legal rights.
Unless, of course it is, like in harrasment cases. Judges even in the USA don’t seem to accept the “freedom of speech” excuse when a boss tells his secretary that she’s really looking sexy today and would she like coffee back at his place after work.
*you know, like social rules that you don’t turn up in a weddingdress at a funeral, or tell the mourning widow that you couldn’t stand her husband because he always stole your paper-clips at the office, or to name one closer to home, that you don’t give strange kids candy unless it’s Halloween and they’re knocking at your door
# 142 Matt Penfold:
Even if we narrow the rape definition down to penetration of lower body orifice, rape is easy. You do not need to use a penis or a vagina to rape someone.
Vagina: There have been legal cases where males penetrating female anuses without permission was deemed rape – so it is clear you do not need a vagina.
Penis: There have been legal cases where women have been penetrated by an object used by a man without consent that was deemed rape – i.e. you do not need to use a penis.
People can use all sorts of things to shove into your lower body orifices in pseudo-sexual manners.
Gnumann,
Women do not have penises. Since rape is the insertion of a penis into a body orifice without consent, women by definition cannot commit rape.
They of course commit sexual assault, but that was not what was claimed.
Please, words have meaning. Do not change them at will.
Here is the definition of Rape in English law:
1-(1) A person (A) commits an offence if—
(a) he intentionally penetrates the vagina, anus or mouth of another person (B) with his penis,
(b) B does not consent to the penetration, and
(c) A does not reasonably believe that B consents.
That makes it very hard for a women to commit rape wouldn’t you say ?
Rrr
You are confused because you took the statement from one of the nastier misogynists as something with a relation to reality.
So, yes, women are in general much more cautious than men, trying to evaluate their behaviour much more carefully than men do (women are also more conditioned to constantly search for the cues other people might be giving the as to please them better).
On the other hand, no, we can’t read minds, just like men can’t. So what we try to err on the side of safety.
If a man sets off our alarm bells, we cannot afford to ignore them. Exactly because we can’t know.
I’ve been saying this in other places before:
It might help a good deal if men knew what women know about rape and rape culture.
That probably won’t help against the real rapists, but if the decent guys know what women have been taught to fear, they can avoid those behaviours in order to not make then unnecessarily uncomfortable.
BTW, it’s good that you’re listening to your female friends and accept their experiences. We sadly live in very different worlds when it comes to those things. And just because their experiences contradict yours doesn’t mean they’re not valid.
“*But* the only use a discussion of non-male-on-female rape has in this discussion is as a derailment tactic. ”
Sorry about that. I essentially just did drive-by commenting and so I did not quite get the proper context. I only read this comment page, and not the older page, before commenting. It’s just the stereotype minority kneejerk reaction: “Being not creepy is not just for straight guys talking to women. You totally can’t use that as special pleading, trolls in here.”
Sorry about that.
Matt: What part of not fucking here not fucking now did you not hear?
I haven’t got the time to do your homework right now, and this is not the place. Since I’m predisposed to like you I’ll probably be inclined to do it later, in another venue, but not fucking here. It’s an unnessesary derailment.
Gnumann,
Ok. I think you are wrong, and out of line but I will say no more since I too am predisposed to like you.
Matt Penfold
Yeah, but that’s definetly a stupid definition and should be changed.
Other objects then penises can be inserted and it is possible to drug-rape a man, too.
German definition is broader:
I translate and shorten:
This includes giving the victim a blowjob against his will and doesn’t make any reference to the sex of the rapist.
151 Giliell, connaiseuse des choses bonnes:
I grew up directly observing that the variation between genders was smaller than the variation within genders. So yeah, I have never been ignorant enough to think the world consists only of me and me-clones. Always confuses me to hell when people not only initially reveal this sort of view, but also keep insisting being like the aforementioned person is the norm for everyone and that the few people who do not fit into their world view are clearly some bizarro mutant freaks that are irrelevant. (eh, as in being like the ignorant person, not the attitude. I don’t know how common it is, but it is a lot more common than I would like it to be)
Matt Penfold:
Different countries, different legal definitions. This is The Internet, it does not belong to a single country. Thus, your legal word definitions are not universal, not even for all English-speaking countries. I’m sorry about your inability to realize where you are. I hope you get better, cupcake <3
Matt Penfold: …I am sorry, that sarcasm was uncalled for. I’ll GTFO the internet and get some lunch and stuff. Sometimes I get bitter too quickly, and I don’t always manage to catch it. I’m sorry.
“…Um… I am confused. I was under the impression women were trained to be more attuned to social cues, especially the social cues of men.”
It may be that women are able to read social cues of men, but society does not hold women to these standards. Society does not expect women to discern suitor from rapist. For example, Rebecca Watson was defended by an army of feminists who claimed that she could not possibly tell if EG was about to rape her. On these grounds, EG was prejudged as dangerous, even though he gave no real indication of being a rapist. The fact that he was merely standing in that elevator was enough to condemn him. Turns out he was not a rapist, and nobody was held to account for their misjudgment of EG after the fact.
On the other hand, feminist society does hold men to account when it comes to discerning between women who wish to be pursued and those who don’t. Proof of which is the extent to which EG has been vilified all over the web as a creepy stalker/potential rapist. He could have saved himself a lot of humiliation if he were able to successfully read Watson’s social cues.
Rrr,
I clearly made a mistake when I thought you might be a reasonable person. Sorry about that. I will not make that mistake again.
Rrr,
Thank you. That was gracious. I too apologise for my intemperate remarks. The one at #159 was posted before I saw your apology so please ignore it.
Phillip,
“Because “Don’t take this the wrong way… would you like to come to my hotel room for coffee?” couldn’t possibly be an indirect euphemism for wanting sex. Not at 4 am in the fucking morning. Oh no, never.”
Speaking of strawpeople …
I never said it couldn’t possibly be such. I am skeptical that, in this case, it was. Why?
1) Indicating that you want sex is not, in and of itself, sexualizing. There is no indication that EG didn’t see her as a sexually attractive PERSON.
2) Just because it CAN be a euphemism for wanting sex doesn’t mean that it always is.
3) Sexualization is again a reference to an internal state of EG that we do not have sufficient evidence to infer. She can’t read his mind, and we certainly can’t now.
So, no, there just isn’t the evidence to say that no one should be skeptical about the conclusion that this involved sexualization; there are myriad other possibilities. And I, myself, have even more reason to be skeptical since I PERSONALLY would NEVER use that as a euphemism for casual sex. Since I therefore have evidence that I myself cannot doubt that the generalization does not always hold, I must remain open to the possibility that it didn’t hold in this case either.
Now, am I saying that I or anyone knows that there wasn’t sexualization going there? Not at all. I’m merely saying that we don’t know that there was sexualization going on there either. And if any argument turns on knowing that fact, then that argument is, well, undersupported, to say the least.
Question:
How does a feminist have sex without feeling sexualized?
Typical rationalization using skepticism. Yawn. The MRA’s are so funny when the try this tactic. Shows how they know they are in the wrong.
Mercurial, how goes the child support payments, you amoral loser?
Caine,
How much time do you have to spend getting to know someone before asking them for coffee?
And I was not the one who reintroduced and wanted to rehash Elevator Gate, as you yourself note. I was replying to what other people had said, which should be on topic for the comment thread. If you think it derailing, fair enough, but then you have to take on all the people who are leaping off the rail as well, and not just me.
I also do not think it as obvious as you do that it was about sex, but that may simply be a matter of different perspectives on the matter. I explained this in more detail in my reply to Phillip. And I have followed this story since the beginning and made an early post on it on my blog as well as made comments on it at other places, so I don’t need to be pointed to those links. But thanks all the same.
Nerd of Redhead,
It is quite interesting that you know that somehow I am an “MRA” from one comment that you didn’t even bother to keep the context of. Shouldn’t skeptics be more skeptical than to make such snap judgements?
Really? Coffee at 4:00 a.m. just coming from a bar that serves coffee to go into a hotel room to have crappy instant coffee seems more plausible to you than a euphemism for sex. Really?
Tethys,
“If he just wanted to talk, he would have approached her at the bar.”
I’d accept that except for what seems to me to be a strong cultural influence to not do such approaches too publicly or when she is with a group. It’s not only considered rude, it’s often quite difficult for people when they feel like they’re putting on a performance, which also gets into issues of the ego being more involved when everyone can see you fail putting more pressure on everyone involved. I imagine that most of the time she was in a group of people since she’s not unpopular which would make such an approach difficult, which is why I’m more willing to chalk up the creepy approach to cluenesses of the sort of simply not realizing that an offer that was probably intended to be made at about 11 has a completely different connotation at 4 am.
Khantron,
In this context, yes. Why? The bar wouldn’t be a one-on-one interaction. So I think he more screwed up than anything. But, yeah, I can see why you’d take that as a proposition to sex, and I concede that it may well have been one. I don’t know that it wasn’t, nor am I claiming that, nor am I really claiming anything about what is more plausible — I may have inadvertently hinted such, but if I did I apologize as that was not my intent — I am just saying that I can plausibly see a different interpretation of EG’s internal state that would not justify a charge of “sexualizing”.
So, to maybe mollify Caine and move this back on topic, if EG had said “Don’t take this the wrong way, but I find you really interesting and would like to get to know you better. Would you like to meet up in the hotel restaurant for coffee before tomorrow’s lecture starts?” would that have been in any way wrong? If yes, then why?
@Matt Penfold
I think you have misunderstood. I am saying the literal statement, “No ALWAYS means no”, is absolutely false when applied to dating for a subset of women, and I don’t think anyone will contest that. The broader point is dating lacks logic, and is largely an affectively driven process liable to a lot of errors, mistakes, and odd behaviors. That is all I am saying.
I should add there’s lots of compounding factors like social, cultural, religious, and institutionalized expectations as well. Note I am not using this justify any sort of dating behavior. For the record, a man who asks a woman unknown to him to return to his apartment at the early hours of the morning has clearly got no clue.
Months since “elevatorgate”, and it is still being discussed, to my amazement. No, I am not going to demand people stfu, I just think it’s fascinating how many angles people keep working it through, or using as vehicle for. Interesting symptoms of the complexity of life, and certainly different to my standard diet’s side-dish of serious alternative-angle fanfictions.
So, a man comes across as creepy to a woman, woman goes “This definitely comes across as creepy, don’t do it”, other women go “not definitely, here are different ways”, and others are going “argh shame on you for public shaming” and flamewars and other parts.
It feels like there should be a wiki or something for this, outlining the various different issues people have with it. Feels like it would be – while not “settled” or anything – a lot easier for people to point at the specific bits and work out the details in a more orderly and structured fashion.
So, is there a wiki or similar where I can check what other issues people have with that situation except for the specific ones I already mentioned? Reading many disorganized 1000+ lengthy comments on various webpages sounds like a terrifying amount of work. Though it would be awesome if a sociology student or such wrote a paper on the issue.
Verbose stoic:
“…How much time do you have to spend getting to know someone before asking them for coffee?”
Now that’s an excellent question. It reminds of this movie, I don’t remember the title. I think it was Dustin Hoffman who asked a stranger for a date. She said, “but you don’t know me”. He said, “I know, that’s why I want to date you. To get to know you.” She laughed and agreed to the date.
In the days before the internet, the way you got to know a stranger was to go out on a date. But with the advent of internet dating websites, the decision to even have a first date is predicated on successful profile matches, google searches, emailing, IM’ing, etc. It’s about as romantic as a dentist appointment.
@Mercurial Moron:
Did you just quote a fucking romantic comedy as if it had any appropriate basis in reality?
What an odd world you live in. It is a world where normal social mores do not seem to exist, and interactions with strangers is all about seeing if you can get to fuck them.
I don’t know. They say life imitates art. I’m going to use Hoffman’s line some day and see if it works.
“…and interactions with strangers is all about seeing if you can get to fuck them.”
No, get to KNOW them. Why do feminists always assume the worst?
Oh yeah, I forgot. All men are rapists.
@Mercurial Moron:
Good luck with that.
One does not need to go on a date to do that. A date implies romantic interest after all.
Why not just go for a meal, coffee, drink with someone and talk ?
“It’s about as romantic as a dentist appointment.”
Eh, different people have different ideas of what romantic is. Some people think not dating strangers is cheating, some people think having romantic dates with strangers is boring etc.
Some people consider flowers and chocolate to be romantic, others find it disgustingly lazy and boring and would much prefer for instance the Amulet of Yendor, or tickets to [something the recipient has coveted but failed to get], or origami flowers and chocolate covered organic packing peanuts.
I’ve been a skepitc for 25+ years. If the Foo shits, wear it. And I’ve seen the exact same apology form MRAs for months now. You haven’t done your homework.
So, to maybe mollify Caine and move this back on topic, if EG had said “Don’t take this the wrong way, but I find you really interesting and would like to get to know you better. Would you like to meet up in the hotel restaurant for coffee before tomorrow’s lecture starts?” would that have been in any way wrong? If yes, then why?This would be OK, but if you have to ask why, you don’t get why EG was wrong, and you are wrong.
Bah, blockquote error #181.
Why do MRAs always shove the worst right in feminists’ faces, all the while complaining about how they get mischaracterized?
-
RE: The use and meaning of MRA
Since my main exposure to the term has been post elevatorgate, I can’t help thinking of them as Male Rape Apologists, as someone else mentioned above. But at the same time, I also associate it (especially in here) with the U.S. military term MRE – Meal Ready to Eat. Seems appropriate somehow.
I slouch corrected.
If you agree both actions are sexist why don’t you agree both are wrong and behavior we should condemn? How is sexism acceptable?
Deferential?
First of all, I don’t care about negatively impacting men and women who want sex. Those who want sex from strangers can go get it from a prostitute (some reservations on that) or any hook up site online for all I care. This is not a group who is being hurt in anyway by any of the very mild requests being made here. They are still free to pursue (a word I absolutely detest when it comes to relationships) any partner they want. They just have to mindful of his/her boundaries. (I’ve heard some stories from men who were harassed by women at the workplace. It isn’t as common but it can cause just as much pain.)
Secondly, no one is stopping anyone from enjoying flirting. Where did you see that? Flirt, enjoy yourself! Go out, do some body shots and let loose. But be mindful of who you’re interacting with. If they don’t appreciate your advances, stop. If all they’re comfortable with is laughing over a drink, that’s all you get. Don’t assume because they flashed a camera they don’t mind you ripping off their shirt or copping a feel. Or that because they’re laughing while such activities are going on they want you to yank down their top. Stop pushing for something they aren’t comfortable with or don’t want to engage in. I don’t understand why that’s such a huge point of contention.
And back to deferential, when you’re trying to form a relationship with someone you always defer to their limits. (That goes both ways.) In fact, that’s the cornerstone of any relationships. Yes you check to see if those boundaries have moved a little, but you never completely ignore them. Doing so is best case scenario rude.
loki, I have no idea what it is this incredibly small portion of women don’t mind. Is ‘it’ strange men propositioning them out of the blue? Is ‘it’ not being fondled on the subway or at work? Is ‘it’ having to endure cat calls every where they go? Is ‘it’ men assuming when they say no they really men try harder? Is ‘it’ all of the above?
Obviously you can’t mean flirting because many of the very women you’ve been calling radfems on this board enjoy flirting and do engage in it. You can’t mean casual sex as that’s never been something anyone here has objected to. (At least protected casual sex with many partners.)
Do you agree
stupid submit button. Yeah it’s not very good but what I meant to say is there for the most part
@ Pteryxx:
I love pedants. I play one on a regular basis! :)
The blog post itself is primarily about spoken language, but the excerpt from the study does mention body language as part of the communication process.
I’ve been trying to find a copy of the study on a site that doesn’t require a user fee, but no luck so far.
“I’ve been a skepitc for 25+ years. If the Foo shits, wear it. And I’ve seen the exact same apology form MRAs for months now. You haven’t done your homework.”
I’m not sure what homework on MRAs I’d need to do to make up my own mind on a subject. You are the one who hasn’t done your homework since you haven’t bothered to figure out what my position actually is.
“This would be OK, but if you have to ask why, you don’t get why EG was wrong, and you are wrong.”
Of course, my question was “Would the updated account be in any way wrong?” with the additional question — fully expanded for your convenience — that if you think it wrong you need to say why my proposed scenario would be wrong. You think it would be okay, if I’m reading you right, therefore I would not ask you to tell me why it is okay, which would imply that I at least have a shot at knowing why it is okay, which would imply that I at least have a shot at getting what you think I should be getting, which means that my being “wrong” seems unlikely to have anything to do with that, if I am wrong at all.
Well, you could start your homework by reading some of the other related threads on this blog. Ever since the elevator incident, every post PZ makes with regards to feminism gets invaded by angry menz, all positive that they know what’s what, and they make the same goddam stupid arguments. Every. Fucking. Thread.
So start your homework there. Don’t worry – by the time you’ve done that, the menz will have found a new thread to get all het up over and you can jump right in.
Mercurial the MRA said:
The problem here is not that Rebecca Watson was oblivious to signals and assuming that EG and all men are rapists until proven otherwise. The problem was that he was sending off very strong signals that he might be a rapist!
Let’s look at all the things that EG had to be oblivious of (or ignore) to think it was okay to hit on her that night:
1: She had just given a public speech about how getting constantly hit on at atheist get-togethers was the main reason why there were so few women at atheist get-togethers.
2: She had just announced (within his earshot) that she was very tired and heading to bed.
3: He’s never spoken a word to her ever, and she has no idea who he is. She’s in a foreign city where she knows almost nobody.
Despite all these very clear signals that she probably doesn’t want him to hit on her, he decides that his desire to put his penis inside of her is more important. This makes him a douchebag. (And, just so I’m clear, arguing that any of these things are NOT clear makes YOU a douchebag. He may well have been ignorant of any and all of these things. That’s what makes him a douchebag – he didn’t either didn’t think about any of these things, or he didn’t care.)
Now, he follows her after she leaves the bar to hit on her. He waits until she gets on the elevator and follows her onboard. There, he propositions her. Waiting until she was on the elevator (and can’t dodge his advances, should they be unwelcome) makes him a creepy douchbag. He didn’t need psychic powers to see all this. He just needed basic fucking awareness of human interaction.
Lets look at it from her perspective, shall we? A complete stranger has just propositioned her – despite all of the above factors. This makes him a douchebag, no matter how politely he phrases the proposition. He’s also waited until she’s on an elevator to do it. That makes him a creepy douchebag, whose only outward concern for her is his desire to use her as a penis sheathe. She says no, and he relents.
Here’s the thing. Right up to the point where he relented at her ‘no’? He has shown very clear indications that he little concern for her outside of her ability to provide him with an orgasm – including disregarding her very clearly announced wish to not be treated in this way. Until he relents at her ‘no’, his actions are indistinguishable from those of a man about to rape her. And (for some mysterious reason) this made her very uncomfortable.
Did he know that he was making her uncomfortable and acting like a rapist? Probably not. And THAT’S why she said something about it on her vlog. She assumed that he (and others like him) were not aware that they were acting like rapists. So by educating men on actions that are exactly like the actions of rapists, so that they don’t do it, she helps everybody. She helps non-rapist men not be mistaken for rapists. She helps women be in fewer uncomfortable situations where they don’t know if they are about to be raped. And she helps women identify actual rapists (since there is, hopefully, less instances where non-rapists act like rapists). At no point did RW even suggest that the guy was actually a rapist, or that he actually tried to rape her. Probably on purpose – look how many people assumed she WAS accusing him of these very things, despite the fact that she didn’t even mention the word ‘rape’. She was simply trying to raise consciousness about inappropriate behavior, and how an oblivious person can make another person extremely uncomfortable just by being oblivious.
The only people who aren’t helped by this consciousness raising are rapists. And MRA assholes who think that their desire to get their penises wet should trump all considerations for female safety – who are only one step removed from the rapists they are protecting with this behavior.
So how many have to feel fear before you take it seriously? It seems like you are saying that a majority have to feel it. 49% wouldn’t cut it, I guess? The point is you are seriously underestimating this. We already know that a large number of women have already experienced rape, and that they don’t exclusively make up the number of women who have experienced attempted rape or being flashed or being groped etc. Just going by the numbers of rape alone you have a 1 in 4 chance of addressing a rape victim. That is a pretty substantial chunk of women, and they deserve consideration. The way that you treat the most vulnerable members of society is a pretty good indicator of your worth as a human being.
As far as the idea that there is a “more nuanced discussion” to be had- you have this detachment about the subject that is fucking annoying. You are talking to women who deal with sexist bullshit every day and expect them to discuss it on your terms rather than theirs. Why the fuck should we? Because you insist you are “right” over and over? That isn’t good enough for me. These problems are pragmatic in nature and if the people who actually experience the problem have something to say about it they should be listened to rather than dismissed as neurotic or a minority.
On the topic of MRE’s
Why the fuck can’t I ever find one with skittles?! And who the hell keeps ordering boxes with Veggie Omelet? No one fucking eats that!
How does “Hey, instead of immediately trying to jump into someone’s pants/skirt, maybe you should take a few minutes and talk to them a bit first!” mean that you need to read minds?
Fuckwit.
This is Verbose Stoic. The ‘nym alone should give you a hit as the kind of freethinker you are dealing with.
Pharyngulites need to come up with a name for this phenomenon. I cannot count the number of times a tv show or some other form of entertainment product has been brought up to demonstrate some dumb shit from MRAs. They seem unaware of the impact of marketing and PR on mainstream entertainment, as if the point of them is to reflect reality instead of sell shit. I don’t know if these dudes just don’t know actual women or think that television is at all representative of female reality or what, but its a weird recurring theme in these discussions. Someone linked to a louis ck bit in the last page of comments, like it proves something about any group of people. Are you dumbasses unaware of sociology? They track and measure social trends of all sorts with actual study and data.
You are discussing rules, we are discussing principles.
Rules are strict, inflexible, and specific. Something like “do not pull on the cat’s tail.” It turns children into little lawyers. They may conclude that it is okay to pull on the cat’s ears if all you do is give them strict rules to live by, under the threat of punishment.
If you give a child a principle like “be nice to the cat”, and a reason like “being mean to the cat hurts it”, they will figure out the rest on their own. Not pulling on its ears or tail or poking it or throwing it are outlawed because it is a natural extension of the principle.
I learned about the distinction from Sandra Dodd, and I think its a damn good one. Of course it was discussed in the context of parenting children, not managing adult MRA scum, but you all are so childish that the examples fit. Pharyngula is saying “don’t make women sexually uncomfortable”, and you all are throwing a fit because no one will hold your hand and tell you exactly what is ok and what isn’t. No one can do that for you because all women are different. It is a natural extension of the first principle, because it is hard to strive to make women comfortable without respecting them as individuals. You would not need a list of rules if you simply took a few minutes to actually exercise empathy and examine what it would be like to be a woman. If you are truly incapable of that level of empathy, there are plenty of women here who have gone to great lengths to describe it to you. All you have to do at that point is listen.
Argument ad Hollywood?
‘Reaganing’?
Your words and logic have been used repeatedly here by MRA and MRA apologists. I have a good memory, and I have read all 5000+ posts to date, so the background is there. You aren’t saying anything new, which you would understand if you did your homework. You are just trying to pretend to be skeptical, and are showing attitude. Still waiting for you to say something new…
What strikes me is odd is the presumption that it’s perfectly natural and ok for a guy to hit on a strange woman, including asking her to his room for “coffee”.
It’s not.
If you are a guy and really want to treat women with respect, then you should treat females strangers like you treat male strangers.
In other words, no chatting her up with flattery about how she has a pretty smile or how nice her hair is all while trying to make eye contact. She’s not dumb and you are not being clever; she can see right through that and is already pigeonholing you as a creeper.
Surely you have some topic of interest in common. Talk about that. Not her. Not how much you could bench press when you were working out.
If she finds you interesting, she will let you know. And hey, you might actually find out that she’s is also a Phillies fan just like you… what are the odds? Or you might find out she’s not and totally lose interest.
Besides, you just spotted a hotter girl 30 feet away. Go talk to her.
Verbose idjit claims to have done hir homework,
Yet, xe still thinks that asking someone back to your room for coffee, even though the hotel had no in-room coffee makers (this was in one of those threads you claim to have read), isn’t necessarily asking for sex. Like that even matters; that euphemism is fucking obvious.
The MRAs remind me of conspiracy theorists: paying lip service to skepticism while they fail at it.
Verbose, you fail at critical thinking. Either that or you understand the issue and are being purposefully obtuse. In any case, you are a poor skeptic.
Well, we all know that True Skepticism means refusing to believe anything you don’t like.
I’d put money on all the people saying things like “Coffee doesn’t mean sex! He might just have wanted to talk blah blah blah” would be the first to say “Well what did she expect going back to his room with him? Everyone KNOWS coffee means sex, she was totally asking for it” had the situation gone somewhat differently.
And for the “so we can’t even ask a woman for coffee without being called a mysogynist rage rage rage feminism is to blame for all that’s wrong in the world rage rage rage” folks – Nobody is saying you can’t ask someone out. There is an appropriate time and an appropriate place (generally, not with a stranger at 3am) and we reserve the right to feel creeped out if you do not abide by this. If you are coming across as creepy, nobody is obligated to give you the benefit of the doubt.
Interesting. Maureen Brian just posted this on the thread about the murderer:
This is one reason so many women find it difficult to say “no” forcefully and outright instead of just trying to “let the guy down easy”; getting assaulted and/or murdered is common and “understood” enough that a lawyer is using it for an actual defense, risking his client and his own reputation on the odds that a jury will find it understandable. I mean, bitch said no, what can you do? Of course he was going to get mad about it.
Want to change it? Accept no as a real no, don’t take is as an assault on your own entitlement, and encourage others to do the same. If everyone was clear on what no means, then certain women who think it’s expected of them to be coy will stop it, and those who really want to say no will feel ok saying it. In the meantime, don’t put women in the situation of trying to figure out if you’re the one who is going to snap by not cold-propositioning them everywhere you go.
This kind of “defence” ought to qualify the lawyer for sharing the penalty with his* client.
*I’m going out on a limb with regards to the gender of the lawyer here…
It will be interesting tomorrow when Tabak is going to give evidence.
@Carlie
And it’s story’s like that that have given me my (somewhat unfair) disdain for people like Verbose Stoic. They’re living in the best of all possible worlds when they put the philosopher cap on and refuse to recognize the very real issues going on around them. It’s like they genuinely believe that by ‘disproving’ that you are right in being worried about rape or that you aren’t really taking it seriously they’ve made the situation better.
“Look!!! Some women are coy therefore ‘no’ cannot be said to actually mean ‘no’ in every situation. And because men cannot know ahead of time which women actually mean no they cannot be faulted for continuing to pursue them!”
“That’s nice and all but why do you keep touching my lower back. And get your arm off my shoulder!”
Pardon – where the heck is this thread? I fail at search.
But how do I know this is not exactly what you want?!?!?! Even after you tell me to remove my arm, I don’t know you aren’t just playing hard to get…. [proceeds to smell your hair and tell you "I like feisty women"]
fucking creeps
MRAs, no one is arguing with you, people are informing you that you are being creeps. People’s experiences of being objectified aren’t really the type of thing you can have any meaningful disagreement about. “I feel creeped out when you do X”, MRA response: “nah uh, your feelings aren’t valid because I didn’t intend X as creepy”.
Pteryxx- the next-door one: http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2011/10/18/if-only-hed-been-a-good-christian-he-might-have-gotten-away-with-murder/
Pteryxx,
It is here:
http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2011/10/18/if-only-hed-been-a-good-christian-he-might-have-gotten-away-with-murder/
*beakdesk* Durr – thank y’all.
myeck waters,
“Well, you could start your homework by reading some of the other related threads on this blog. Ever since the elevator incident, every post PZ makes with regards to feminism gets invaded by angry menz, all positive that they know what’s what, and they make the same goddam stupid arguments. Every. Fucking. Thread.”
And what makes you think I HAVEN’T read them? I disagree about how stupid at least some of the arguments are, and if you read my ACTUAL argument will note that I never claimed to know what’s what, but simply said that the leap to sexualization from the incident is too quick based an awful lot on my own experience of what I mean when I use those words.
If YOU and everyone else wanted to do YOUR homework, you could start by finding my actual post on the topic and reading it:
http://verbosestoic.wordpress.com/2011/07/04/the-whole-watsonmcgrawelevator-guyrichard-dawkins-mess/
Short precis of the parts relevant to this thread:
Watson was right to find EG’s actions creepy.
The move to sexualization wasn’t really justified, nor is thinking of someone as primarily a sexual object necessarily a really bad thing as long as it is in the right context.
Dawkins was right to think that this wasn’t necessarily an indication of some general social problem but wrong to dismiss the concern as being all in Watson’s head.
julian,
“This is Verbose Stoic. The ‘nym alone should give you a hit as the kind of freethinker you are dealing with.”
I never claimed to be a freethinker, or even a skeptic — at least philosophically. I’m actually not a skeptic in that sense mostly because I can’t figure out what it means to be a skeptic or a freethinker in any meaningful sense. A lot of the time both positions seem to be asking me to abandon free thought or being skeptical, which just seems odd to me.
Nerd of Redhead,
“Your words and logic have been used repeatedly here by MRA and MRA apologists. ”
Which does not make them wrong, and I disagree with the supposed refutations. I don’t really care if you consider it “new” or not. If you find it boring, don’t read it. None of that makes me an MRA or an MRA apologist in any way beyond mere stipulation.
you_monster,
“Yet, xe still thinks that asking someone back to your room for coffee, even though the hotel had no in-room coffee makers (this was in one of those threads you claim to have read), isn’t necessarily asking for sex. Like that even matters; that euphemism is fucking obvious.”
I will admit to have missed the detail of “no in-room coffee makers”, but surely that’s simply an argument after the fact. I find it incredible to think that either Watson or EG thought about that fact when the interaction was occurring, which means that you have to do a lot of argumentative gymnastics to use that as a fact that proves EG’s intent since you may simply run into a legitimate case of “I didn’t think that you couldn’t get it here”.
That being said, let me restate that I do think the approach was creepy and that Watson was right to feel uncomfortable. And also that I never claimed to be a skeptic.
Twist,
“I’d put money on all the people saying things like “Coffee doesn’t mean sex! He might just have wanted to talk blah blah blah” would be the first to say “Well what did she expect going back to his room with him? Everyone KNOWS coffee means sex, she was totally asking for it” had the situation gone somewhat differently. ”
Hmmmm. This was actually thought provoking. I would, I think, find it a bit imprudent for her to go to his room at that time of night. I would not, however, say that coffee means sex. I also would not, in fact, imply that she was asking for rape if she did or justify it on that basis. And it’s the first line that I use to justify, in fact, the “creepy” line; if he had asked her to the hotel restaurant for coffee the next morning, as I have already said, that would be okay because it removes that connotation. Again, coffee does not mean sex, but inviting back to a hotel room does.
julian, once more,
I actually don’t talk about that sort of thing at all. I think that his approach was creepy because of the connotation of the room, and accept that “No means no” (while noting that sometimes it doesn’t). On this specifically, I did hear a lot of PUA talk on the shyness newsgroups I used to frequent and noted that even if their techniques worked — which could include persistence — I didn’t want to get a woman that they’d work on. As for my argument, recall that it was based on an analysis of what _I_ would mean when I asked out someone for coffee, and how I’d react to it being taken as an invitation for sex. Hardly Ivory Tower there, I think.
you_monster,
Well, since that impressive rant followed on from me, let me point out that I would do none of that. I would, in fact, be quite nervous to even START touching a woman, smelling her hair, or doing any of that and would certainly stop if she gave any indication that it was making her uncomfortable. This is, thus, again, simply you applying a generalization to people you know absolutely nothing about.
If I am in any way being a creep — which is unlikely since I am now, at least, smart enough NOT to do most of the things that you call creepy except, perhaps, asking women out for coffee — it is completely unintentional and I would stop if informed about it.
I had no idea teal deer were in season.
With regards to casual sex: I’m all for it. I have engaged in it on several occasions myself, with men I met that very same day or night.
On none of those occasions was it the result of a “cold” proposition. On every occasion, there was eye contact, conversation, and dancing leading up to the “want to come home with me?” moment. This is necessary because men are so extraordinarily varied in their sex skills. I mean, apart from the whole rape question, having sex with a guy who regards you as a fucktoy rather than a person is just No Fun, and the whole point of casual sex is Fun.
That’s what you guys are missing: in a woman’s mind, the odds of Fun casual sex with a man who asks you for sex before he knows anything about you are so incredibly low, it’s really not worth it. So, it’s really not ever going to work.
As has been pointed out numerous times, your defense of a tactic which is pretty much guaranteed to fail raises the question of why you are so irrationally attached to this tactic in the first place. Perhaps you get more jollies out of making women uncomfortable than you do from actually sexing them? I don’t know, I’m just speculating. If I’m wrong, please explain why you are so passionate about being able to use a method of obtaining sex that is pretty much guaranteed to not get you sex.
Sally: I’m guessing because it’s easy? And because they don’t have to tailor the approach for individual women?
I really cannot hide my scorn when guys do that.
1- Can you figure out the difference between thinking of someone as primarily a sexual object and treating someone as primarily a sexual object?
2- Can you figure out the difference between thinking of someone as primarily a sexual object and thinking of someone as primarily a sexual person?
Vapid Stoic,
Nope, sorry. No mental gymnastics required to realize that EG was propositioning RW.
Stopping after the indication that your inappropriate behavior wasn’t welcome is too fucking late, shit-stain.
@ mouthyb – Right, the old PUA* numbers game. Use one tactic, hit on hundreds of women, odds are it will work for one of them. Never mind that it works because she’s feeling low self-esteem that night, or is desperately horny and drunk, or whatever, and nevermind that the sex is likely to be boring. Whatever gets your dick wet.
*For the n00bs: Pick-Up Artist. Basically it’s a bunch of men who don’t think being decent human beings towards women will ever work as a means for getting sex or a relationship, so they’ve made an industry out of instructing allegedly shy (or maybe just borderline sociopathic) guys on how to exploit sexist social cues and women’s insecurities to manipulate women into having sex with them.
Yes, it is. I am a person. A sexual person, but a person. A sexual object is a blow-up doll or a fleshlight. I am not one of those things.
Pterryx,
“1- Can you figure out the difference between thinking of someone as primarily a sexual object and treating someone as primarily a sexual object?”
The first should lead to the latter, no? Now, in actual interactions with actual people, treating someone as an object in any way — sexual or otherwise — is a problem. In impersonal settings, not so much, I think. Can I not, for example, simply look at a swimsuit model and care nothing about her personality? Isn’t that both thinking of her and treating her as a sexual object.
(As an aside, that sort of thing is really difficult for me; I have a strong tendency to link attractiveness with an impression of a personality, stereotyped and wrong though it may be. Which is why the type of woman that I find myself most appealing on all levels is basically your standard Meganekko).
“2- Can you figure out the difference between thinking of someone as primarily a sexual object and thinking of someone as primarily a sexual person?”
I actually, personally, find it really hard to think of people — especially in person — as objects instead of people, so I’m with you on that. But the distinction isn’t always clear, and I can think of my being quite easily able to think of, say, the store clerk as merely an object that takes my money as opposed to a person on a bad day, when I’m tired and not feeling sociable at all. I’m not sure, then, why it would be always bad to do that when it’s about sex … as long as you confine that sort of thinking to the right contexts. And if you can’t, the Stoic in me would THEN say that you really do need to drop it entirely.
I never read blog whores, which is what you are doing. They aren’t wroth the click.
VS, we don’t give a shit what you think. Personal anectodote =/= data. That doesn’t show good thinking skills, but typical apologists skills.
Sally Strange,
“Yes, it is. I am a person. A sexual person, but a person. A sexual object is a blow-up doll or a fleshlight. I am not one of those things.”
Yes, everyone should be treated as persons, at all times. But there are times when you just don’t do that. Do you treat, say, when you’re walking down the street and in a hurry all the people you encounter as persons as opposed to obstacles to overcome? Have you never seen a picture of an attractive member of the appropriate sex and simply reacted to that, with no thought of them as a person?
you_monster,
“Stopping after the indication that your inappropriate behavior wasn’t welcome is too fucking late, shit-stain.”
Then you do indeed want me, at least, to be a mind-reader, so that I can be so perfect as to never misinterpret a sign and never make a mistake. That’s not a realistic expectation.
Thanks for outing yourself as an MRA asshole , VS. Saved me some valuable preening time.
Or you could just engage a person before propositioning them out of the blue. Attempt to discern their will. I don’t expect you to never make mistakes, just to make an effort to respect other people.
Unfortunately, those were real questions with real, very serious answers.
…No. Wrong answer.
No. Wrong answer.
There’s a very simple correct answer to both those questions. First, as soon as you interact with a person (as opposed to merely thinking about one), you are dealing with an independent entity with rights and freedoms equal to your own. Second, the difference between a person and an object is that a person is an independent entity with rights and freedoms equal to your own.
Until you realize that people are not simply confusing and recalcitrant special-case objects, you are not competent to have this discussion.
We were talking about having sex, not walking down the street. Are you being deliberately obtuse?
A picture is a thing. An object. Not a person. Picture = thing. Woman = person. Do you have trouble telling a picture of a woman apart from an actual woman? Ceci n’est pas une femme.
you_monster,
“Or you could just engage a person before propositioning them out of the blue. Attempt to discern their will. I don’t expect you to never make mistakes, just to make an effort to respect other people.”
We were talking about things like touching her arm or back, not just propositioning. And I agree that an effort should be made, but let’s recall your actual comment that I replied to:
“Stopping after the indication that your inappropriate behavior wasn’t welcome is too fucking late, shit-stain.”
Now, if you mean that I intentionally do inappropriate behaviour and then wait for an indication that it isn’t welcome — ie I do it when I know that it ought to be unwelcome — then we’re in agreement; you really shouldn’t do that. But if we presume that I make a move that I merely am not CERTAIN is welcome but may well be — be it a coffee invitation or a touch or whatever — and get it wrong, I think we can again both agree that stopping after getting that indication is the right thing to do and there’s nothing bad about my simply and legitimately making a mistake. Intent, we agree, matters, no?
Pteryxx,
“Until you realize that people are not simply confusing and recalcitrant special-case objects, you are not competent to have this discussion.”
Except that as I pointed out, I DO realize that. Here’s what I said that you snipped:
“The first should lead to the latter, no? Now, in actual interactions with actual people, treating someone as an object in any way — sexual or otherwise — is a problem. In impersonal settings, not so much, I think. ”
and for the second line:
“I actually, personally, find it really hard to think of people — especially in person — as objects instead of people, so I’m with you on that. But the distinction isn’t always clear, and I can think of my being quite easily able to think of, say, the store clerk as merely an object that takes my money as opposed to a person on a bad day, when I’m tired and not feeling sociable at all. ”
Thus, when interacting with people, I do in fact do what you suggest I do, and said it in the comment you quoted. Did you just miss that, then?
Sally Strange,
“We were talking about having sex, not walking down the street. Are you being deliberately obtuse?”
Why is thinking of someone as an object only bad when you think of them as a sexual object? This isn’t being deliberately obtuse, but asking a real and meaningful question.
“A picture is a thing. An object. Not a person. Picture = thing. Woman = person. Do you have trouble telling a picture of a woman apart from an actual woman? Ceci n’est pas une femme.”
Why is it okay to look at a picture of a person and reduce the person to the object, both to the picture — as you do here — and to a sexual object? That picture is not a picture, but is a picture of, in fact, an ACTUAL PERSON. Why is it that you’d have to magically consider them a person if you, say, met them but have no need to if it’s just a picture? If I show you a picture of someone who is suffering, would you still say that a picture is a thing and an object and not a person, and so it would be okay to ignore the suffering because, hey, it’s not a person? Of course not. So why does this divide suddenly come into play here?
Djeeez!
Is VS really this dense or is he trolling?
I’m at a loss to reconcile your proclaimed inability to treat/view people as objects with your passionate defense of treating/viewing people as objects. Are you sure you’ve thought this all the way through?
Ugh. SIWOTI. What the hell/
I’m not necessarily endorsing treating people as object when you’re walking down the street, but I think that treating people as object when you’re sexing or trying to sex them has a much greater potential for emotional or physical harm to result. Also, objectification of sidewalk-blockers is not a widespread societal problem relating to the millennia-long oppression of 50% of the human race, whereas the sexual objectification is.
My main point was that sex with someone who treats you like a fucktoy is No Fun. If you want sex with a fucktoy, purchase an actual fuck toy. Is this too complicated for you to understand?
Because the picture has no feelings. The picture has no rights, no personal autonomy, no desires, no dreams or aspirations, no sense of moral justice. Because the picture is not the thing it is a picture of.
No dispute there, but if I’m looking at a picture, when no one else is in the room, am I dealing with an actual real live person? No. I’m dealing with a picture. An object.
Because a picture is not the thing it is a picture of. Picture of person = thing. Person = person. Do you need someone to draw you a diagram?
If I show you a picture of a starving person, do you attempt to feed the picture? I’m starting to think you really are that stupid. That, or trolling.
Correction:
Also, objectification of sidewalk-blockers is not a widespread societal problem relating to the millennia-long oppression of 50% of the human race, whereas the sexual objectification of women is.
Sally Strange,
A lot of that is driven by, in fact, the pornography debate. One of the issues raised about pornography is that in it you treat the woman (usually) as merely an object and not as a person, and it drives objectification, which means treating her and thinking of her as an object. But if we accept that — and you seemed to with your reply — then you’d either have to say that that sort of objectification is wrong and bad or accept my view that in some cases treating someone only as an object is acceptable. I accept the latter and claim that I don’t, in fact, have to ensure that I treat the woman in the picture as a full person IN THAT CONTEXT; it’s fine to treat her as an object as long as it stays in that context. If, say, she was applying for a job or I was interacting with her, the context changes and so it would not longer be appropriate.
So let’s, then, move out from there. If I see an attractive member of the appropriate sex in the street, and have a momentary or even prolonged thought about her purely sexually and not as a person, is that wrong? I see it as being similar to the pornography case; the context is such that it isn’t a problem, as long as it stays in that “passing glimpse of a stranger” type of thing. Any new context would be inappropriate.
So, moving on to a proposition for casual sex. For me, it is not appropriate to consider that sort of partner as merely a sexual object, because if I thought of them as only a sexual object I, bluntly, wouldn’t actually want to have sex with them. So I treat them as a person in those cases. But I’m not prepared to extend that to all people, so people who CAN make that separation are more fit to comment on that specifically. However, if the context changes — ie consent to a simple sexual contact is withdrawn — then I’d say that you need to start thinking of them as persons again, and STOP. So I would not allow that “sexual object” excuse for a rape; at that point, you do need to treat them as a person.
If someone can’t make that sort of switch — and a lot of people can’t — then you would have to make a general refusal to treat or think of people as objects ever.
No, I didn’t miss it. Nothing you said in any way mitigates your basic error. People are NEVER objects. This is not a continuum. What you describe when interacting with people is not treating them as objects, it is treating them as strangers. Some random stranger on the street is not an object like the lamppost beside them, even though my interaction with both of them consists of walking past. I would be justified in leaning against the lamppost to tie my shoe. I would NOT be justified in leaning against the person.
VS, have you ever had sex with someone, and then realized afterward that they didn’t think of you as a person, but more like a warm fleshy robot there to dispose of their semen? I’m guessing not. It’s unpleasant. That’s all. The rest is just you being an ass.
Sally Strange,
See, the real problem here is that we agree that it’s the context that determines if it’s okay to objectify or not. My comment was entirely that sometimes it isn’t a problem to think or treat someone as a sexual object. I do think that looking at a a sexual picture of someone and thinking of them only as a sexual object IS objectification, because while you’re right that the picture is not the person the person is involved. My argument in that case is that we agree that it’s okay, but you don’t seem to want to claim that that’s objectifying a person, at which point I’d just point you to all the feminist theory that says that it is. So that, you must admit, is at least a debatable point, but mostly irrelevant because right now neither of us is saying that that’s a problem.
Onto specific points:
“My main point was that sex with someone who treats you like a fucktoy is No Fun. If you want sex with a fucktoy, purchase an actual fuck toy. Is this too complicated for you to understand? ”
No, since I’m in agreement with that, except for one small caveat: if two people are treating each other as fucktoys, are aware that they are treating each other as fucktoys, and are okay with that with consent all around, is that still a problem?
“If I show you a picture of a starving person, do you attempt to feed the picture? I’m starting to think you really are that stupid. That, or trolling.”
No, I try to feed the person, because I look PAST the picture TO the person. So the question is why shouldn’t I do the same looking PAST the picture TO the person in the other case? Why isn’t it an affront to the dignity of that person that I might feel the need to reduce them to nothing more than, say, a masturbation aid?
This, again, is the HEART of the feminist pornography debate. Seriously. Even your comments about the objectification of 50% of the human race are arguments that feminists have long used to argue that pornography is bad because it indeed contributes to that objectification. To dismiss that as either stupid or trolling boggles my mind, really.
Pteryxx,
Interesting point, although it does start to get into semantics. But I’m not sure, then, what basic point of mine this refutes, since it would be based on at least a slightly different definition of what it means to think of someone as an object, and I’m not sure that lamppost/leaning example captures what it would mean to think of someone as merely a sexual object. But, if I altered my view to say that it’s not always wrong to think of someone as primarily as sexual person — ie a person that you are considering for the purposes of sex and not much else — then I think that we’d still run into the same sorts of questions and it could still be objected that “sexualization” was going on in that case and was wrong.
Sally Strange,
“VS, have you ever had sex with someone, and then realized afterward that they didn’t think of you as a person, but more like a warm fleshy robot there to dispose of their semen? I’m guessing not. It’s unpleasant. That’s all. The rest is just you being an ass.”
Yes, that would be horribly unpleasant and a bad thing. Where did I ever deny that? My only comment would be that it should be far less unpleasant if it was made clear in advance and you accepted having sex anyway.
Tedious Stoic:
Just leave, ok? Your tedious trolling is transparent to everyone but yourself and possibly a lurking MRA or two (NO! This does not mean the lurkers are on your side).
You’re the annoying little fly on a hot day that’s not even worth my energy to swat.
Yawn, still nothing new. Nothing but MRA aplogetics. It’s like putting lipstick on a pig. It’s still perambulating bacon.
An object cannot consent or withdraw consent for sexual contact. If you are thinking of your sex partner as a sexual object, odds are high that you place low value on his or her ability to give or withdraw consent. In other words, odds are high that you are going to sexually assault this person.
This is what I meant when I said that the stakes are higher if you treat someone as an object in a sexual situation, as opposed to wishing you could just pushing someone out of your way on the sidewalk. Although, as Pteryxx points out, you would push an actual object out of your way on the sidewalk; refraining from doing so indicates that you are still regarding that person as a person, not an object.
How odd. Why would anyone accept that? For money? Even prostitutes deserve to have their personhood respected, even though a lot of the time this doesn’t happen.
VS, you are a tedious troll. Goodbye now.
Sally said
How about a painting? ;-)
It’s the troll variant I’ve dubbed the Solomon. Named after the alien family from 3rd Rock from the Sun; the Solomon acts like he’s just landed from Andromeda and has absolutely no knowledge of human norms and language. They claim ignorance of basic cultural metaphor and allegory that anyone should have absorbed via casual cultural osmosis. The Solomon is the person who insists the mobster didn’t threaten you or shake you down for money…he was just commenting on how nice your family was and how horrible it would be if something happened to them! Solomon’s take intentional obtuseness beyond the humorous level (Can you hand me that? I can….did you mean to ask if I would do that?) and insists that everyone means only the literal meaning of their words outside of any cultural context. They claim the language skills of Bablefish.
Précisement, ma chère! C’est à ça que je pensais quand j’ai écrit <<Ceci n’est pas une femme.>>
One more thing: obtaining someone’s consent to treat them as an object is not treating them as an object, much in the same way that looking at an image of a person is not looking at a person.
An MRA in his native garb.
You really need to stop conflating “person” with “nonsexual” and “object” with “sexual”. Remember what I said about the concept of a sexual person? No. Treating someone as an object is never, never okay, and NEVER contigent upon whether they are being sexy!
Also, if you’re conflating “object” with “consents” and “person” with “disagrees” then you REALLY have a problem. People ALWAYS retain the right to consent or disagree. Objects NEVER do.
I’m not so sure. Do the MRAs have the ability to fake remorsefulness? Faking emotions usually requires a minimum of empathy…
Some can manage it for one post…but they rarely stick the flounce.
I think The Clown from Spawn is actually a better mascot for them.
Hideous deformed old man clown that’s really a giant alligator worm demon.
Oh and it’s demon true form is called Violator
It works on every level.
Well, there are plants that can mimic their pollinators accurately enough. Maybe it’s something like that.
Ach! I feel like a small grasshopper/padawan again. Can I hold your cloak while you do the kicking Master?
I think that is true for many of the MRA trolls that have shown up, but is too charitable for some. Some of the trolls here are the mobsters. They understand what is being said, but they are playing the Solomon card to cover their asses.
wait, you made that distinction,
To all unintentional Solomans – sweet Om you are ignorant, work on that.
To all intentional Solomans – fuck off and stop being dishonest trolls.
TV Tropes warning. Do not click the link if you have stuff that needs done soon.
Yeah, I know what you mean, happens to me all the time, too. I can tell you, it was damn embarassing last time I invited somebody out on a cruise. Arriving at the harbour and remembering that I d not in fact have a boat was really bad.
But in the heat of the moment…*
Almost always the Solomon is an intentional obtuseness. if not the person should have wound up dead in an ally because they’re too clueless to live in our world.
I’ll agree with that. I shouldn’t have said “many”. Most are being intentionally obtuse. It is very tough to be as dense as to be an unintentional Solomon. Honest Solomons are rare (but are still annoying when they make no effort to change).
Blockquote-fuck-up
Will you believe that this is the only post I didn’t preview today?
Gilliel,
“Yeah, I know what you mean, happens to me all the time, too. I can tell you, it was damn embarassing last time I invited somebody out on a cruise. Arriving at the harbour and remembering that I d not in fact have a boat was really bad.”
I know this is intentional, but it unfortunately is so extreme that it misses the argument it’s supposedly aimed that. It is quite reasonable for someone to completely not consider that you might not be able to get coffee in a hotel room, especially since the “Want to get coffee?” is such a cliched line.
“First of all, I always think of them as individual agents who will make their own decisions and move, as opposed to say, lampposts. So I try to make eye-contact to find out whom is going to move into what direction. Sometimes this fails spectacularly and two polite people try to move out of each other’s way into the same direction. Funny anecdotes those are.”
How would this be different than how you’d interact with either one of those room vacuuming robots or a bunch of moving children’s toys?
“Secondly, people who are in obvious need of help are people who are getting my help. So, if somebody is lying on the way, bleeding, do you call the ambulance or do you just step around them?”
I’d argue that that changes the context, and that once you see their suffering you stop thinking of them as objects and start thinking of them as people. In the exact same way as when you see the person suffering in the photo you don’t see it as a photo but look through it to see the person. Or how I might be admiring an attractive member of the appropriate sex and immediately change context should she ask me for the time. But this is a bit esoteric and philosophical so we might not need to pursue it here, and we’re probably pushing the analogy further than it could really go.
Anyway, see the issue here is about what it means to see someone as an object. I’m not using it in the sense of direct comparison to lampposts and the like, but instead in the sense that, say, I think of them primarily as a means to some end — or an obstacle to it — and have no idea and no interest in the properties that make them a full person. This, to me, is what is standard in the “sexualization” discussions in feminism and in discussions of “sex objects”: the idea that treating a woman as a sexual object is thinking of her primarily for her sexual attributes and ignoring and not caring about anything else. And I think that that sort of “objectification” is indeed fairly common; for all of those people on the street, you don’t care about their family or their name or what they’re feeling. You just want to get through them to your destination. For sexual objects, you are only considering their sexual attributes. And in some contexts, I argue, this is okay, such as in looking at pictures or even a live person on the street that you have no interaction with and don’t know.
I also say that I’m not certain that simple casual sex is not one of these cases. To me, if you could consider hooking up with an attractive person you met at a club where your total knowledge of them is that you find them hot and maybe their name, you are incapable of treating them as a full person because you don’t know that. Yes, in the sexual context you get consent and all sorts of other things, but that’s still not treating them like a full and complete person, and as far as I know that’s the main feminist objection when you talk about “sexualization”. I want to treat people as far more than just a hotness classification and a name when I have sex, but I can’t say that all casual encounters are like that. And for me, only having that is not treating them as a full person, but I can’t judge that wrong IF that is what casual sex can entail without judging casual sex, and I’m not prepared to do that yet.
But, again, I might be just too conservative, old-fashioned, and prudish, and casual sex in reality is nothing like that.
Ahh, so now “coffee” suddenly doesn’t mean hot beverage with caffeine anymore but, well, something else?
You are that dense, aren’t you?
Pteryxx,
“You really need to stop conflating “person” with “nonsexual” and “object” with “sexual”. Remember what I said about the concept of a sexual person? No. Treating someone as an object is never, never okay, and NEVER contigent upon whether they are being sexy!
Also, if you’re conflating “object” with “consents” and “person” with “disagrees” then you REALLY have a problem. People ALWAYS retain the right to consent or disagree. Objects NEVER do.”
As I have stated, I’m not doing either. You and I mean different things when we talk about what it means to be an “object” as opposed to a “person”. I think that if you reduce a person to a set of properties that do not or would not identify a person as a person, you are objectifying them, and that is what is usually involved in complaints about “sexualization”. You seem to disagree on that. Fine. Returning to some kind of a relevant point, then, I argue that one can consent to being treated for merely their sexual properties — ie my definition of “sexual objectification” — but when they withdraw that consent you have to stop thinking of them as just their sexual properties and as a full person. To put it in Kantian terms, a person can consent to being treated as merely a means, but when they withdraw that consent they must be considered as an end in themselves as well, which means that you stop with the sex or sexual context.
Sally Strange,
“One more thing: obtaining someone’s consent to treat them as an object is not treating them as an object, much in the same way that looking at an image of a person is not looking at a person.”
Fine. Conceded in that case. It’s not relevant to the argument because that would still be sexualization, I think. Or am I wrong about that?
“If you are thinking of your sex partner as a sexual object, odds are high that you place low value on his or her ability to give or withdraw consent. In other words, odds are high that you are going to sexually assault this person.”
I’ll concede this as well, but only the point that I already stated: that if you can’t switch out of contexts and drop the objectification in time to avoid that, then you really should indeed never treat them as an object, or at least not in cases where you will make such errors. I am not and have never claimed that objectification is good, and did I believe explicitly argue that if it would lead you to rape you should stop doing that. I only claimed that it isn’t always unacceptable. But this does depend on what is meant by object, and I have clarified that I use it differently than you do.
Giliell,
“Ahh, so now “coffee” suddenly doesn’t mean hot beverage with caffeine anymore but, well, something else?”
I never denied that it meant something other than that. I just denied that it always meant “I want to have sex with you right now” as opposed to “I’d like to get to know you better”. I think in most cultures the latter is the more standard interpretation for coffee, while the former is indeed — as I have said — the more standard interpretation for “Come back to my room”. That, in fact, is why I claim that Watson was right and reasonable to be a bit creeped out by EG.
“You are that dense, aren’t you?”
You argued that you aren’t treating them merely as objects because you try to get out of their want and try not to bump into them, making eye contact so that you can predict where they will go next. Other than making eye contact, you do the same thing for those other things, which are clearly objects and you are clearly treating them as such. Thus, your supposed counter-example is not one. And I addressed specifically the counter-example that was, in fact, one … and you ignored it.
Total, utter nonsense.
Eye-contact is made to communicate, ya know, things I can’t do with a fucking vacuum-cleaner. Also, of course, with objects I evaluate how much kicking them would actually hurt, so how much care do I have to apply.
You know, just because I give water to my plants and to my kids doesn’t mean I’m treating one like the other.
So don’t try to turn my words around. I also notice how you do frankly dismiss the clear statements I make and flat out doubt the information I give about me in plain language.
Yes, I ignored it because you give the bullshit about how I saw people as objects, when I clearly said I didn’t.
Why shoud I have to defend myself against strawmen you’re putting up.
Well, Vapid Stoic has received plenty of patient responses to his blathering. His trolling merits a few impatient ones as well.
It must be a lonely world for you, Vapid. Walking the streets involves wading through a see of robots. You know, seeing people as people really makes the world a more enjoyable place.
Some lyrics for you,
Vapid Stoic is so stupid he thinks the fact that there are people who like being subs justifies his sexism.
Vapid is so inconsiderate that he thinks that touching people who don’t wish to be touched is a simple mistake and that there is “nothing bad” about it.
Alright, because I am so nice, I shall be patient one last time and explain (probably not to your benefit, because it doesn’t seem that you are interested in reflecting on your own actions at all) why this is wrong.
First, no one is demanding that you be absolutely CERTAIN (CAPS lock and all). That is a strawman you are pushing on those of us who argue that you should respect women as people.
Second, it is bad because it takes no effort at all to find out if your advances are wanted. You should never assume that people want you touching them. It’s fucking simple. Just because you can’t be certain if someone is interested in you, doesn’t mean you have the right to touch them, and then just say “my bad” when it turns out they are creeped out by you.
I’ve never touched anyone and then found out later they didn’t welcome my contact. I don’t think this “mistake” you speak of happens to people who are concerned about how their actions might effect other people.
If you are touching people without their consent, you are a filthy, harassing, waste of atoms.
Don’t want to be a skeezy piece of shit? Get clear consent before you molest people.
Alright, I ended up explaining to you why you are being an idjit, yet again. That is the last time.
Verbose agreed way back @103
It’s more than a bit creepy. It is a clear sign that he is a narcissistic wanker who puts his comfort above her comfort.
He is also probably really bad in bed for the same reason.
If he had followed her onto the elevator and asked for coffee the next morning in the hotel restaurant, we wouldn’t be having this discussion.
I thought this might be of interest:
————————————–
For a 1989 study, researchers trained young men and women to approach opposite-sex individuals of a similar age and proposition them. In a striking contrast, 70 percent of the men approached by a woman seeking sex said, “Sure.” Not a single woman agreed.
The result could be taken to mean that women aren’t interested in casual sex. But there is evidence that cultural factors play a major role, Conley and her colleagues wrote. When women are asked to consider a hypothetical offer from someone more familiar or very attractive, they become much more receptive. Likewise, gender differences in one-night-stand interest evaporated when men and women were asked to consider sleeping with someone famous.
Conley, in yet-unpublished research, said she has found that women being propositioned by a strange man simply expect him to be no good in bed.
“Women accepted fewer casual-sex offers from men than vice versa,” she wrote, “because male proposers were perceived to have relatively poorer sexual capabilities.”
http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/44960857/ns/today-today_health/#.Tp9EpflF6Jk
————————————–
A 2009 study published in Psychological Science found that people are choosier when they’re approached by a potential partner, and less choosy when they’re doing the approaching. The experiment, conducted in a real-life speed-dating environment, showed that when men rotated through women who stayed seated in the same spot, the women were more selective about whom they chose to date. When the women did the rotating, it was the guys who were pickier.
—————————————
In a study published in 2011 in the Journal of Sex Research, psychologists asked research participants to record their thoughts throughout the day. They found that men pondered sex 18 times a day to a woman’s 10 times a day, but men also thought about food and sleep proportionately more than women. That suggests sex doesn’t hold as vaunted a position for men as you might expect.
—————————————
In a study published in the book “Families as They Really Are,” (W.W. Norton and Co., 2009), researchers asked more than 12,925 people about their sexual experiences. They found that women reached orgasm only about a third as much as men during first-time hookups, and only half as often as men during repeated hookups. But in committed relationships, women has orgasms 79 percent as often as men.
—————————————-
There you have it…evidence that women enjoy sexy times just as much as men, women tend to prefer to have some sort of connection before initiating a one-night stand, women are more likely to enjoy sex if their partners give a shit, and picky behaviour isn’t all on the woman’s side.
I see Verbose Wanker is still wanking up a storm, and saying nothing new. And like liberturds and MRAs, it thinks its inane opinion is the only one we are interested in, and we have never seen the equal of their drivel before. Since I see nothing new in its posts after 5000+ posts on the subject, there is nothing there to cause me to reevaluate in my decisions on this matter of EG. MRA apologetics and mansplainin’ all around.
According to the law, any unwanted touching constitutes battery.
There no reason to start wondering about how good he is in bed. That strikes me as over the line (even though I get you’re trying to tie it into a larger point about men who dismiss the feelings of their partners) and unjustified considering we know so little about him.
He was creepy. That’s enough to make the case against that kind of behavior.
Passive encounters are not active engagement. Had EG merely taken the elevator would we be having this discussion?
___
And I note we have drifted a bit back onto older waters. Guess I can just throw this out again: If you are wanting to approaching someone you don’t know and you think you need to lead with “Don’t take this the wrong way…” You have already lost your way. Don’t. Stop, think about something to say that you don’t need to qualify and defend before you even say it. Barring that, keep your mouth shut. If you think it might be taken as offensive, then it just might, you know, be taken as offensive. People who care about other people can easily set themselves apart by not saying shit that they suspect will come across creepy.
___
Having spent some time in Radfem country, no, I don’t think that description fits here.
___
Or just as easily that they want to play on that notion while not being nice. A nice person however can also choose to say nothing at all, so they don’t provide cover for the asshole next week.
___
In the group is the time to make yourself known though, talk, say something non-threatening, generate interaction. In the group she is safe, respect that and say something then.
___
How about we don’t start without checking that it’s okay. Verbal confirmation with positive enthusiastic response means it’s okay to try moving to a different level of relating.
___
How long must you know someone before you know them as a complete person?
___
Skeptifem,
198 was awesome.
Julian
As someone who does enjoy casual sex, I find that people who pay attention to non-verbal communication are simply better lovers.
The study that the Y’s posted above (Thanks Y’s btw) seems to confirm my experience.
In casual sex, your skills in bed are quite pertinent. If you can’t be bothered to develop non-verbal communication skills you are probably going to be bad at an activity that’s mostly non-verbal.
[Wow, that was some verbose tediousness above.
(Pretty obtuse, that one)]
The Ys,
many thanks for your information at #272, it was quite enlightening even if I was already somewhat acquainted with one of those studies.
One of the trolls suggested earlier that if we had an entirely progressive society, then anyone would be able to walk up to anyone else and cold proposition them for sex. I’d really like to see this man (and I’m assuming “he”, since on these threads they invariable are male, and stunningly obtuse to boot) go up to random men in a crowd and see what varying types of reaction he got.
The whole “hello, I’ve never met you before, do you wanna fuck?” method of finding new sexual partners naïvely assumes that there are no potential costs for engaging in sex, when this is patently not true for both men and women, but weigh more heavily for one sex than the other.
For example, one or other of the parties may be an atypical carrier of an STI and is unaware they have it, and even if a condom or other form of intervention is used the infection may unwittingly be passed to the other person. Sex is fun and we’re wired to enjoy it, but it is invariably a messy process.
Obviously if the proposed interaction is vaginal sex to orgasm involving a fertile man and a fertile woman, then pregnancy is a potential outcome and no form of contraception is 100% effective, even if multiple forms of contraception (condoms, the pill, etc) are in operation. The condom can break, the effect of the pill might be mitigated by some other illness (or the antibiotics prescribed for the illness).
To pretend the asymmetric outcome for the man and the woman in the event that a pregnancy results is going to be cheerfully ignored by the woman so that it doesn’t even cross her mind when she is asked “wanna fuck?” is ludicrous in the extreme. I think some of these trolls must be inhabiting a parallel universe where there are unicorns and magic, as well as no unintended pregnancies.
@Phillip
It also ignores the cultural aspects.
Going up to someone randomly and requesting sex is rare and unusual in our culture. However, there are ways and contexts upon which someone can request it. I suspect that if this was done you’d see less of a gender asymmetry.
It’s like asking for food at a restaurant while being shirtless and shoeless…you can’t presume from that that most restaurants don’t serve food.
Philip and Tethys – my pleasure.
Yes, the possibility of pregnancy does tend to weigh on the mind…but it didn’t stop me from having sex with men. It just meant being very sure to take precautions.
When someone cold-propositions me without bothering to find out a thing about me, that person gives off an inherently selfish vibe. I have no interest in sexual activity with a selfish partner. Anecdata: the more selfish the partner, the less likely the man will be willing to use a condom – or so I have found.
If I have to fight to get a man to use one, it leaves me wondering just how often he’s had sex without one…and that’s a real desire killer. If my safety and protection aren’t valued, odds are the guy won’t be terribly attentive to anything beyond his own needs during sex either. And I also have to wonder what STDs he might be carrying.
Why would anyone want to have sex while worrying about all of that? Yeesh.
The Ys, I totally agree. It’s exactly what I was saying earlier: the cold proposition is pretty much guaranteed to fail because it is an indicator that you suck in bed. Unless it’s in specific circumstances. A sex club, for example. Or a crazy hippie festival. :)))
I have never seen it work in a sex club either. We have standards.
Actually, let me amend that. Even at a sex club, a cold proposition sans eye contact and preliminary contact is still guaranteed to fail. Its just that the preliminary communication, both verbal and nonverbal, is drastically condensed.
I mean seriously, sex is communication, at the core of it. Good sex is a dance between two interested, skilled, enthusiastic parties. If you aren’t communicating with your partner, you might as well be masturbating. And I’m sorry, if you can’t distinguish between me and a fleshlight, then I’d prefer you stick to the fleshlight, because obviously my skills are wasted on you. Goddamn. Such entitlement.
Ha Dhorvath, you beat me to it.
I’m in the Society for Creative Anachronism. We ladies tend to wear lots of low-cut dresses and things like corsets…and shockingly enough, I never got harassed while wearing one. I’m not sure if the medieval activities just draws a crowd that tends to concern itself with manners, or if it was peer-influenced…but it’s pretty much the only place I’ve ever been able to relax and not worry about harassment. Quite a bit of staring, yes…but no one took the flash of skin as permission to do more than just look.
Shockingly enough, those SCA camping events were where I tended to have more partners and more sexual activity. Good times. :)
It’s nice to not have to be on the defensive. I got hit on a fair bit – but the guys weren’t idiots about it (in general), and I only remember getting one cold proposition while at an event. And it was because the guy was hammered and hitting on every woman he walked by…real charmer, eh?
I wish everyday life was like that – I really hate it when I’m in the middle of doing something and some random guy interrupts me to tell me something OH-SO-IMPORTANT about himself. *eyeroll*
If these guys were actually interested in me as a person, it would be nice if they started a conversation by asking if they were interrupting me rather than spewing out random facts about their lives.
Thank you for that Sally, it’s a common misperception that people at sex clubs are easy or indiscriminate in their partners. They are interested in finding partners for sexy play, but that doesn’t say anything about how likely they are to get together with a specific person. Hell, it doesn’t even predict how likely they are to make a connection on a given evening.
Well I tried to read most of the posts but kind of skimmed the second page of crap.
I didn’t see anyone say this, so I just wanted to add:
I should not have to say, “No. Not now, not ever. I will never date you, I will never change my mind, no forever, this is not a game, I am totally and completely serious, eternal no, no times infinity, NO” for someone to like, actually take me at my word.
APPARENTLY some people need me to say that, though? I don’t really see what is so hard about believing people when they say no. Oh, everyone says no to you? Gosh that is too bad, perhaps you should go home and hug a pillow and masturbate.
Approaching someone you have never spoken to before and asking them out is like, “wtf who the fuck are you?” followed by, depending on the person, “oh no what if this is some crazy person and they are going to FLIP THEIR SHIT when I say no? What if they just freak out and start yelling and calling me a bitch/bastard/asshole/etc? Crap what do I do now?!”
So I guess the question is, are you an insensitive asshole that doesn’t care if the target of your, uh, “affection” is one of the people that has that second thought run through their heads, OR are you going to be part of the solution and always take a no AS a no without flipping your shit so that, eventually, one glorious day, no one has to worry about someone coming up to them out of fucking nowhere to ask them out and then flipping their shit when they say no.
Or if you’re the kind of asshole that keeps pressuring the person and then inspires the thoughts of “I just said no! Why is this asshat still talking to me!? Are they planning something? Is this a mugging? Are they going to follow me home? Why won’t they leave me alone!?”
Now I’m not saying those thoughts go through EVERYONE’S head in this situation, mind you. But they’d go through my head. They’d go through enough people’s heads that, you know, do you really want to risk being THAT big an asshole? Really?
Oh and just for good measure, preemptively to everyone on this website: No. Not now, not ever. I will never date you, I will never change my mind, no forever, this is not a game, I am totally and completely serious, eternal no, no times infinity, NO.
Hope that clears everything up on MY end. Not that I would be so incredibly presumptuous as to assume anyone here wanted to date me, I just wanted that on the record so that there were no mixed signals/messages of any kind.
kthx!
Awww, come on Alukonis. Just give me one more chance. I promise I’ll stop sending creepy singing pajamagrams to your workplace, okay?
Alternate story for the romantic inclined:
Man sees woman
Woman sees man
Woman leaves the bar to give the man a chance to approach her
Man does and woman is happy
They marry and live happy ever after
“No. Not now, not ever. I will never date you, I will never change my mind, no forever, this is not a game, I am totally and completely serious, eternal no, no times infinity, NO” for someone to like, actually take me at my word.
I do not like
green eggs and ham.
I do not like them,
Sam-I-am
;)
@ 290
Another alternate story for you:
Man sees woman
man propositions woman
woman says no
man is unhappy
some altercation follows during which woman screams
man strangles her to shut her up
man is now on trial for her murder.
See: http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2011/10/18/if-only-hed-been-a-good-christian-he-might-have-gotten-away-with-murder/
Woman and man must know each other then. How exactly would she know to leave the bar to give him a chance to approach her? Is she surrounded by chastity protectors or something? Is the man physically unable to talk to her at the bar.
This is somekind of quickie, I take it? It can’t be for conversation otherwise they wouldn’t need the privacy. Are they both to shy to talk to one another? So why re they at a crowded bar? And why does he have to approach her? Can’t she talk to him? Can’t she initiate the conversation?
Seriously, why bring random fantasy scenarios into this conversation? It’s already got enough nonsense in it, what with VS oozing puddles of tedious stupidity all over the place.
—
Here’s another hint for the willfully stupid: Not all women are going to go “get your hands off me, asshole!” Even if they want to. Even if they’re terrified. Maybe especially if they’re terrified. So while you’re happily assuming that silence means “go ahead!”, especially if you (let’s be extremely charitable here) know you have trouble reading social cues, you may in fact be causing a lot of discomfort and fear without even realizing it. Better to go for the enthusiastic yes than the absent no, okay? And if you’re not getting the enthusiastic yes, that means stop. I don’t have any tolerance for this “then I’ll be single forever! waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!” bullshit some of you assholes were pulling earlier.
I’m gonna go ahead and take this back with some trepidation. Y’s post at 272 and 281 have given me a different look at EG’s proposal even if I still feel it isn’t cool to discuss how good an individual is in bed.
(May just be that even after all this I can sorta relate tohim and that was a huge fear I had when I started dating in High School; that my prospectiove partners were gauging how good I was or was not in bed from my appearance. Anyway I suppose it doesn’t even matter in this case as we aren’t discussing an individual. We’re discussing some random guy no one has any idea who he is.)
The Ys
I think that the factor that the cost of sex in terms of risks is always higher for the woman. Not just with rape and consent, also with pregnancy and STDs. Apart from STDs, they are hardly a risk for him (and for the STD he is the one who has the final say on wearing a condom, too*) So, a woman who approaches a stranger has evaluated those risks for herself, while a woman who is approached by a stranger has not made that evaluation.
As somebody who also likes hanging around at pseudo-historical fairs: I kind of think it’s the public they attract. One reason MR. sometimes agree to go with us even though he’s not into it is the good atmosphere and the generally decent behavior of the participants.
*Of course she has the final say in taking or leaving, only if things were that easy.
My wife falls into that category or did at least. (She’s gotten much more assertive with strangers since we got married.) Whenever her boss or co workers would hit on her will at work she’d always get unomfortable and say ‘I’m with someone.’ To which she’d always hear, ‘He can’t be that good if you hasn’t given you a ring. Let me treat you right.’ or some variation. And this would happen every other day. You’d think they’d get the hint after the first couple months but no.
Her new boss is gay and her oworkers are almost all women. Now all she has to do is put up with the customers who think they’re equally entitled to ever woman they meet. Fortunately her new boss is also more than willing to tell an obnoxious customer making his employees uncomfortable to get lost and not come back.
Penfield writes:
“..One does not need to go on a date to [get to know a woman]. A date implies romantic interest after all. Why not just go for a meal, coffee, drink with someone and talk?”
Um. Yeah. That’s called a date. You bump into a stranger, you chat, and maybe you get her phone number. And then you call to make a date for drinks or dinner or whatever.
Look, I’ve been dating for over 25 years. I’m not going to argue over semantics with young people today who are too “cool” to call a date a date. If you need to shelter your ego by calling it “drinks”, then fine. Whatever. It is what it is. Deal with it.
“…The Ys, I totally agree. It’s exactly what I was saying earlier: the cold proposition is pretty much guaranteed to fail because it is an indicator that you suck in bed.”
I take it you’ve had a thousand poor one-night stands to come to this conclusion. Either that, or it’s all made it up in your head because it sounds good enough to keep men in their proper place. Nice try.
“…I mean seriously, sex is communication, at the core of it.”
Okay Dr. Phil. So now sex can’t be just sex. Sex must be sex + communication. Just because you fixate on communication doesn’t mean you have to condemn everybody who doesn’t communicate to your standards. We are all sexual creatures whether you like it or not.
“..Good sex is a dance between two interested, skilled, enthusiastic parties. If you aren’t communicating with your partner, you might as well be masturbating.”
That’s nice. Real nice. I guess Hellen Keller needn’t have bothered with a sexual partner. Though you’d be gracious enough to allow her to have a dildo. Such a prize you are.
PZ, banhammer needed in aisle 5.
You are one sick person. The only relationship you can possibly envisage having with a stranger is a romantic one ?
Very odd and very disturbing.
Oh, and the name is Penfold you illiterate fuckwit.
This tells us all we need to know about you. There is no need for you to post anything more.
Isn’t there a remote island you could move to? Or were you voted off already? Don’t answer that, it’s rhetorical.
Anyone having sex with Hellen Keller who hadn’t already learned how to communicate with her was a rapist: if you can’t communicate with someone, they can’t consent. Get that through your head.
You sick piece of shit. What you have just said is that it’s ok to have sex with someone you won’t communicate with. Then how the hell do you know they want to have sex with you?????
You seem to see that as optional, which puts you pretty firmly in the category of potential rapist.
Dhorvath and Carlie already responded well to the Helen Keller comment, but I just want to throw in an anecdote. My best friend once brought a woman back to the house we were renting and they had casual sex. My friend only speaks English. She spoke no English, or at least not more than a few words. I forget what language she did speak. She was from east Asia. Japanese, I think. They still managed to communicate their interest in each other well enough at the bar. Back at the house, they sat down at his computer and conversed through Babelfish for a while.
My point is, if you’re both actually interested then you’ll find a way to communicate it.
Sex without the communication of consent isn’t sex. It’s rape.
@ Julian:
I don’t generally think it’s cool to discuss how good specific individuals are in bed. I simply don’t think we should hesitate to point out that this is what some women, at least, are thinking when they get propositioned. If the guys propositioning them don’t make any effort to learn anything about them, that’s an inherently selfish stance on the men’s part. The same would go for women who proposition men without trying to learn anything about them, except that men don’t have all of the same worries that women do when it comes to sex.
Taking a few minutes to strike up a conversation and learning a bit about the other person is just…smart. And unselfish. And demonstrates that you see the other person as an actual person, and not just as an object that can give you pleasure.
Why is it so difficult for some guys here *cough*MM*Loki*cough* to accept the radical notion that they should treat women as people?
I wonder if mercurial isn’t just having a knee-jerk reaction to the word “communicate” as if it has to mean, you know, sitting on the settee having scones and talking earnestly about your positions on macrame or how sexy Hugh Jackman is or whatever the fuck it is that the menz are supposed to be afraid of discussing.
And that too.
MM simply doesn’t wish to agree that women are people. The wimmins is just here to make him sammiches and make his pee-pee feel good.
Pure guesswork on my part but I think some might feel indignant about the difference between expectations. They (and both mm and loki are free to correct me) are looking to get off in someone and maybe fondle them. So long as they actually climax all’s good while women (and any woman who this does not apply to feel free to tell me off) want more. Eeven if that ‘more’ is just an expectation not to brag about the encounter with every other guy they meet or going for mutual climax and satisfaction it unfair because they (us men) don’t expect that or at least don’t consider it as important.
What
The
Fuck?
Dodododo dodo dodo hammer time.
Julian,
Or, as is often the case, they are seeking validation with their male cohort. The woman they pursue, and it is pursuit, is not interesting in herself, but in the social currency getting with her represents. Sex then becomes a performance, ‘look at how good I am at sex’ with an audience not just of the woman he is having sex with, but from his perspective all of his male friends are there by proxy and since women are a group, all of her friends as well. The violation is larger, sometimes even to the degree that it is made explicitly such as with photographs and video recordings. Sex becomes a conquest, a business deal, a situation where one person gets the better of the other.
Mucus Muse, you are a fucking liar. You do not give a flying shit about the opinions of a mere woman. Why would you care about Helen Keller.
And here is one think that you are omitting, Helen Keller was able to communicate. And communicated well enough that some people wished she would shut up. They did not like her socialist politics.
That just hit me like a punch to the gut. I still think like that right down to ‘look how good I am at sex.’ Man, I need to go make my head go numb. Jesus, and I was even about to start feeling righteous about being disgusted by guys who pass around nude pics of their exes.
And it’s not even “look at how good I am at sex”, it’s “look at how good I am at getting sex”.
Yikes, julian, I think you’re onto something. These really selfish and self-centered types may WANT sex where their partner (and I use the term with trepidation) just lies there and accepts whatever happens. In the stupid madonna/whore passive/active narrative, that’s what sex IS! Women can’t actually have opinions or expectations of their own, they’re only Good Wimminz if they take whatever a man offers to them and like it! And if they say no, it can’t be because the woman is a person with her own preferences… the guy must not be enough of a Manly-Man to work his passive clay sufficiently.
I can even see where it would be a game-breaker for the (passive, recipient) partner to give any suggestions at all during sex, much less say “I don’t like that” or “Can I do [x] to you?” How dare xe suggest I’m Less of a Manly-Man! I don’t need the clay to tell me I’m doing it wrong! (sadly, this would explain a LOT about my abusive former partner…)
And that could be why they can’t tell the difference between a sex partner and a sex OBJECT, no matter how much we try to explain it.
Yeah, now I’ll darn well agree with the statement above: A self-centered cold-propositioner is probably a self-centered and thus terrible lover. THE HELL WITH THAT. I want partners who enjoy pleasing me and enjoy ME pleasing THEM. And when MY partner lies there and lets me do whatever, it’s because xe covered xir own eyes and whispered “Surprise me.”
Haha. I guess we hit a nerve. No, Mucus muse, it’s not about sex + communication.
Sex IS communication. Sex is a form of communication. There are other types of communication that do not involve sex, but all sex is communication.
Why is that? Because there are two people involved.You do one thing, your partner says, “ah”, you keep doing it. You do another thing, your partner winces instead of moaning, you stop doing it and try something else. That is what distinguishes sex from masturbation, which is why I say that if you can’t communicate with your partner, you may as well be masturbating. Or raping somebody, as the others have accurately noted.
Logic, buddy.
Too bad your testerical attachment to your biases prevents you from seeing how fucking obvious and clear that concept is. Disgusting bigoted piece of potential rapist trash.
“Look how good I am at getting sex, from a woman who did not want to ‘give it up,’ as they say.”
Rape culture.
I’m not sure. Maybe there are several, partly contradictory tropes at work.
Because the “I’m sooo good at sex” is definetly out there, too, and for that they need at least the impression that they’re good lovers.
Actually, the one time I was cold-propositioned, the guy especially praised his qualities in bed as being “what I need”.
Somehow their dick is what we really need. But on the other hand, they know better what we need than we ourselves, so probably our evaluation of the whole thing doesn’t matter after all.
mercurial @ 300;
I know other commenters have already covered this ground, but it it is worth repeating; are you honestly incapable of seeing that if there is no communication in sex, then there can be no communication of consent? Sex without consent is rape by definition. You have just articulated the basic rape apologia logic – sex by any means is the end goal in itself, and the consent of the other person is irrelevent.
So, are you advocating not developing a mechanism to communicate with her, and simply having sex with her sans communication – raping her – as a preferable alternative?
—————————————————————-
Sally Strange, OM @ 319;
You’re right on the money here. It is one of the many things that is wrong with the prevailing ‘notches on bedposts’ sexual culture.
Yeah, for many it’s not passive, it’s reactive that they want. “I’m a good lover because of how she reacts.” But I have seen people like this say to ignore signals, to keep doing something that they think their partner should, in their warped opinion, find pleasureable until they decide their partner has had enough. So it’s not necessarily a positive reaction they want, just a strong one.
This. Yes, my first boyfriend was of this type. My vocal reaction was what he craved. I got very good at getting myself off regardless of what he was doing, because he was always very vigilant about making sure I orgasmed and would to a Geiger-esque dance of manipulation, guilt and self-hatred if I revealed I hadn’t. My orgasm ended up being a performance aimed at him rather than something for myself. Eventually, he revealed that having me weeping in emotional distress was equally as acceptable as a loud moaning orgasm, as a response to sex with him. Pretty fucked up.
That was the same dude, in case you are wondering, who blamed me for getting sexually assaulted while I was traveling in Europe, and treated it as me cheating on him, and guilt-tripped me about it for 2 years afterwards. Yes, it took me two years to get out of that toxic relationship. And years more to realize just how toxic it was. Nothing in my upbringing prepared me for that. That’s why I say that it’s not enough to try to bring your kids up without sexist expectations, you also have to educate them about sexism and how it works.
Eeeewww…
He ended up joining the 12 Tribes Christian hippie cult, natch.
Again. Eeeewwww…
more anecdotes about asshole men, please
@ Sally Strange, OM;
And;
I know it is not constructive, and I know that my first impulse should not be violent, but everytime I hear about something like this there is a part of me (fortunately a well controlled, sublimated part) that wants to find the nauseating bastard in question and hit him.
With a heavy and/or sharp object.
In the head.
Until he falls over (and maybe a bit more after that).
I flatter myself that I am a rational man and a pacifist, but abusive jerks like this make me very angry indeed.
I am so sorry you went through something like this, and I am glad that you got out in the end, before he became violent.
in b4 misinterpretation as sarcasm:
I’m not kidding. I find them fascinating and rather self-affirming.
Ah shit Sally, I am sorry to hear about that. No one deserves that kind of treatment, and anyone who dishes it out has naught but derision and contempt from me. Being on the inside makes it hard to see these issues, don’t beat yourself up over the time it took.
I see MM is a reader of the Zap Brannagan Guide to Making Love At a Woman
Kif, I have made it with a woman. Inform the men.
Mercurial – once again, an elevator, ie small enclosed space with no easy exit, is a bad place for a come-on. Rebecca did nothing other than state, hey guys don’t do that.
Oy – teach me to notice that we’ve broken the 800 mark.
@ Sally & Ichthyic: Nope, stiiiiiiiiill no :P
By the way, if all you cared about was how good in bed your partner was, then you’d be a bisexual (pansexual?) with zero preferences about looks, age, marital status, socioeconomic class, or personality. I’m pretty sure not even the Stranger in a Strange Land was THAT relaxed about it (although it’s been a while since I read that book).
How good someone is in bed usually is a point in deciding whether to keep sleeping with them, and much less so in deciding whether to do it in the first place. Plus people lie all the time, I know I don’t believe potential suitors without three letters of reference from previous lovers.
I am not following you.
Were heading toward a 1000 posts.
Everybody remember when MM first appeared? Apparently he had sex with a woman, who became pregnant, and decided to have the baby. He felt since she didn’t have an abortion, he was off the hook morally for child support payments. Typical MRA loser bullshit, plus showing he is anything but a responsible adult in real life. He dips his wick, he pays the piper…
Alukonis:
By the way, erecting straw figures to attack instead of addressing the actual contentions is pretty low.
Other than some sort of bigotry against bi people (hur hur anything with a pulse hur hur) I can’t discern any possible thought or meaning from this.
“..Good sex is a dance between two interested, skilled, enthusiastic parties. If you aren’t communicating with your partner, you might as well be masturbating.”
Sally Strange, are you the sex police? There are many women out there (and just as many men) who are socially inept and stunted in the communciation department. You would comdemn them to a life of dildos and jack lube because they don’t rise to your arbitrary standard of communcication to make sex “good”. And furthermore, who the hell are you to dictate what is and is what is not “good sex”? This is not about obtaining consent for sex. You’re talking about what makes sex “good”. To be more precise; what makes sex good for you.
Dhorvath:
She’s saying that if the only thing someone cared about was sexual skill and expertise, then the other parameters wouldn’t matter. Of course, that’s not how [most] humans operate, so it’s dishonest on the part of anyone who says “all I care about it is whether or not they’re [potential partner] good in bed.”
MM is absolutely raping that strawman of his.
mercurial:
Stupid, hoary old disingenuous sophistry that you’re engaging in, here.
That’s your position, O wretch, and you don’t get to accuse others of holding it.
(Sally’s is that it’s about sharing, not about taking)
You’re so very, very blind.
He does that every time. What a fuckwitted loser. Hasn’t said anything cogent or pertinent since he first appeared. But of course, that starts out with the concept he is responsible for his actions. He still isn’t responsible for his actions and words….
Matt Fatfold writes:
“..The only relationship you can possibly envisage having with a stranger is a romantic one?”
If I run into a female stranger in the supermarket and I strike up a conversation, it’s not because I need another friend. A word to the wise here, ladies, if a straight guy (stranger) walks up to you for a chat and tells you that he’d like to have you around as a friend, ask him what happened to all his guy friends. If it turns out they all died in Iraq, then maybe you can take him seriously. Otherwise, he’s playing you.
MM how many times do you have to painfully pluck hay seeds out of your urethra before you learn your lesson?
Wow you’re an asshole.
What about us bi-folks? A large majority of my friends I do not fuck…nor do I make them with intention of fucking.
Fixed, ya alfalfa fucking loser
A comment on this board’s expectation of male/female interaction: It seems to be acceptable for a strange man to approach a woman seeking “friendship”, but it is not okay for that strange man to approach a woman for romantic reasons.
Why not?
Wouldn’t the uninvited male attention create stress for the woman in either case? Or is it just a matter of hypocricy I’m contending with?
Ing:
As another bisexual, I’ll add to that, it’s the same for me, always has been.
I wrote:
“This is not about obtaining consent for sex. You’re talking about what makes sex “good”.
John Morales writes:
“You’re so very, very blind.”
I respond: blind to what? Is it not possible for a woman to experience bad sex without being raped? All those women who complain about bad sex like – “My boyfriend’s dick goes limp! “He ejacualtes prematurely!” Etc. — that’s rape?
In what universe?
Yes, that is our radfem hidden agenda. We will continue to openly and honestly teach what constitutes healthy relationships. (even a relationship thats just for one night)
In this way we will ensure that assholes like MM never get laid. Eventually such idiots will be weeded from the gene pool, and the rest of us will happily spend our lives having awesome sex.
I can picture Sally Strange anticipating an evening of great sex with her wonderful communicative partner. And then his dick goes limp inside her. Then she calls 911 and cries rape, because the sex was bad. Because bad sex = rape. Always.
[Yeah, you're done here. Goodbye. --pzm]
Obviously since MM doesn’t believe in feedback, he must masturbate under local anesthesia. Which might also explain his stubborn insistence upon strawfucking…
Die in a fire, alfalfa fucker.
Ok, having been the donor of 4 orgasms in the past 24 hours, I’ll skip the lolsome Freudian projections you people have been kicking out. Except just to agree with your observations that the way people talk about sex does indeed reveal a fair bit about their current situation.
Instead I’ll return to a larger point.
The fact is that I’m actually very pro-women’s rights, as I’ve both said and demonstrated, but people have still been trying to throw me under the bus in hilarious ways by attempting to discredit what I’ve been saying through reference to my character. Now of course I appreciate that part of the joy of these kind of polarising conversations is that you don’t even have to troll to get a rise out of people, all you have to do is be honest and eventually (within seconds) someone will get vitriolic. On the other hand I would invite you to consider the fact that, if the success of your arguments is their actualisation, it’s not like I even need to bother talking. The world we live in is much closer to the way I’d like things than to a radfem wonderland.
Given this situation, shouldn’t it worry you that you can’t even hold a conversation with a relatively benign, educated person like me? As I recall I had to spend about 10 posts trying to make people do things other than swear incoherently. What if holding a conversation like actual adults would have worked? Just think of all the people I might accidentally sexually abuse because of your stridency!
If only you’d tried just a little harder, maybe those girls would have been safe from my intoxicating good looks and charm…
mercurial @354, you don’t need to exhibit your sick fantasies; your sordidness is already evident.
@352:
To the very message of this post no less than to the concept that much of what makes sex “good” is knowing you’re pleasing your partner(s) as you’re being pleased — for the non-psychopathic amongst us, anyway.
(That’s why you debouch into irrelevance; this is a cognition you will likely never grok, damaged as you are)
Yeesh, one has performance anxiety, the other brags about being an MRA who generously donates orgasms.
But the poor testerical things can’t imagine why they get treated so poorly.
Loki wants to gain credibility… by boasting about having sex! lawl!
This one’s done. Take the trash out.
I have just killed a moose using my penis as a cudgel!
And in doing so he’s helping the future happy parents of whoever visits the fertility clinic in the future
I had a similar experience at a Science Fiction convention. A man there followed me and a friend around, brushing up against us, staring at us, and literally breathing down our necks. I asked him quite bluntly to stop, I had a couple of male friends tell him to stop, I had Event Security tell him to stop (they told me they couldn’t take his badge away unless he did something I pressed charges for). Finally, on the party floor, I bellowed at him at the top of my lungs “Get at least 5 feet away from me!” He went away, with the sea of people parting to let him through, and I haven’t seen him since. I have the strong impression from this post that at an Atheist/Skeptic convention, many attendees and panelists would have strongly criticised me for my reaction, rather than being supportive. :( I don’t think this is necessarily true of Atheists/Skeptics in general, though.
If someone asks me to go to their room/home when I don’t know them, that’s rude. If they continue that same day, that’s creepy. If they hit on me in a location where I am alone with them and can’t easily get away, that’s red-alert scary. It’s not because I assume they are a rapist, it’s that they’ve made it obvious they have no concern for my boundaries (or are possibly so oblivious to social behaviour that their ignorance makes them dangerous).
I agree that “hitting” on someone can be a bit fluid, even with the same words, since body language, tone, and expression play a part. Asking for a date is clearly hitting on someone, asking someone to go to their room/home even more so, and flat-out asking for sex from a stranger makes me assume they are drunk or high. Generally speaking, don’t put someone in the position to say “no” to you when they don’t know you, talk to them before asking them out.
Mercurial has been banned.
I just saved five civilians by using my penis to bridge the flooded river!
John:
The sociopathic misogynists always seem to have a deep need to hoggle™ in public, thinking it will somehow impress. It does impress, just not in the way they think.
Ing:
I agree. That was seriously over the line, to say the least.
I saved Pompeii by ejaculating into the volcano!
PZ:
Ah, good. Thank you very much. No one should be subjected to what he was writing.
I single-handedly (*cough*) ended the drought in Texas!
What, other people don’t donate orgasms to those less fortunate than themselves? How selfish.
And then brag about what a wonderful person they are for doing so? *snrk* Yeah, right.
I am not surprised. I read what he wrote @ 354 about Sally Strange. He really is a very nasty piece of work with a seemingly total inability to recognise that women are actual human beings.
That he needs help seems evident, but he is too invested in his privilege to ever seek it. Perhaps I should pity him, but I am rather more concerned about the threat he presents to women.
At least we won’t have to put up with him stinking up the threads with his misogyny any more.
Ah, the IQ level and adult responsibility average just shot up to near normal.
Well yeah. And if I hadn’t hit on her in a bar apropos of nothing she wouldn’t be having such a fabby time.
Technique validated!
And Lo it came to pass that the Trolls evil pestilence upon the Pharyngulites caused them great annoyance. Tho’ the Pharyngulites (blessed in his squidly gaze) constantly beat the pestilence over the head with knowledge, it remained steadfast in it’s stupidity.
But forsooth: The Squidly Overlord did stretch forth his mighty tentacle, and the pestilence was cast into the dungeon of ignominy.
At this the hordlings chortled merrily, and danced about in joy.