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.
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.
I raised Jesus from the dead by piercing his side with my spear!
@Loki
I can make people organism just by screaming at their nipples!
Loki, Teddy Roosevelt and myself once entered a dick measuring contest.
Teddy and I tied with infinity
Eventually the woman-haters reveal themselves as such. Always. Even if it takes several years, as with Gregory. This is why it’s so important to challenge sexism. Because MM’s type of filth is what lurks under the surface.
Also, “orgasm donor”? Loki sounds exactly like my toxic ex.
@Sally
In his defense he did donate via using an Orgazone Chamber and simply handed her the bottled goods.
I used my penis to stop a bus from running over a puppy!
I no longer need to buy plan tickets. I simply lay face down and think about sex and flap my arms to aim myself once flung into the air.
I raised the Great Wall by fondling China!
shit…plane*
I had to put so many notches in my bed post I sleep on a pile of saw dust
Wow you’re an asshole.
Bedpost notching? *scoffs* I bring my partners to orgasm just by tracing my autograph somewhere on their bodies.
My sexual partners dissolve into multiple orgasms at the slightest glimpse of my manhood.
That’s nothing. I can bring a woman to orgasm by autographing her picture.
She doesn’t even have to be there.
Pfft. I can touch a person’s picture and bring the picture to orgasm.
Losers. I can bring a person to orgasm just by whispering their name. They don’t even have to BE there.
My cunt is so wet, farmers pay me to masturbate in their fields whenever there’s a drought.
…is that what happened here in upstate NY around 10:30 am Sally? It went from sunny to raining torrentially to being sunny again in the space of 20 minutes.
I simply have to think about nuts and an entire 5000 mile radius will cream themselves!
Nope, the prevailing winds around here were westerly at that time… musta been someone in Ohio.
This is why the tsundere archetype is terrible
Whispering? Pffft. All it takes for me is to have a thought. The merest whisper of a thought and the orgasmatron waves go outward, in tidal, engulfing waves…
Speaking of cream, I’m such a great lover that back in the day, some of my prehistoric partners grew nipples from all the petting and gave rise to mammals.
Ewww…someone just IMed me out of the blue, total stranger, looking for web chat.
Ing:
There’s been a rash of stalkery behaviour around here the last few days.
Gotta say, I just love the direction this thread has gone in lately. :D
That’s nothin. You ever heard of a little thing called the “Big Bang”? That was me, having a wet dream about making a universe.
That was nice and all, but I was the dancing orgasm at the heart of deep, wild chaos, so cold I burned with heat…
Oh hey guys sorry let me explain that comment:
What I meant was that in terms of like, just sexual skill, i.e. someone being able to please you, being your only standard, it would mean that any other standards about the person wouldn’t matter. You know, like a sex robot or something. You don’t care about the person at all because the only thing you give a crap about is your own pleasure. Hence, the whole argument of judging people only on their ability in bed is bull. I was attempting hyperbole to illustrate how many factors BESIDES skill in bed go into selecting sexual partners.
This was in response to this:
…and also the discussion about “look how good I am at sex” being your only pick up line.
I OBVIOUSLY did a terrible job of expressing this, because so many people were calling strawman.
Also I just jotted this off without reading all the rest of the stuff to catch up so sorry for bringing it up again? I should probably not be trying to make rational internet posts with a head cold.
Also that blockquote was from a post by the Ys way up there, and was quoted by someone but like I said it was an ill-referenced rebuttal to a different discussion and I was only trying to say that convincing someone you are awesome in bed does not mean they are gonna jump your bones.
Does… does that make sense? Or have I failed in my argument yet again?
You haven’t failed your argument…it just sucks
Except humans respond to other people’s pleasure. There is an actual difference in chemical release between an organism from masturbation and one with a partner present.
Oh no I just read the whole thing and I stepped on all the orgasm jokes!
Talk about premature ejaculation :(
@Alukonis
There’s no premature…those are warning shots
Damn, Ing, I wondered why the upstairs window broke.
Ok, Ing, but that was the point I was trying to make. Like this person who says they only care about how good their partner is in bed is disingenuous at best. Like I’m trying to say this hypothetical person does not exist.
Maybe not using second person would make that clearer? Possibly? I would like to learn from my mistakes to improve my rhetorical skills, to avoid future curt, annoyed, dismissive responses.
…. not that you were being dismissive, Ing, it was other people upthread.
Gah I should not be allowed on the internet today.
@Alukonis
I’m failing to see the point I’m afraid. Even if it was 100% serving, people would still have preferences and thus would weigh the subjective nature differently thus ruling out pansexualism
Alukonis, fwiw, I got what you’re saying (#342).
Alukonis
Why are you bothered by a study that supports the idea that women will make assumptions about a males sexual skills, based on how that male treats them in a social situation?
@Caine
Yes! That’s what I was trying to say. Thank you!
I totally feel like I walked into a sports bar full of Red Sox fans and went “HEY HOW ‘BOUT THEM YANKEES?” (A sports analogy to describe my awkwardness. Not intended to imply anything about either the Red Sox or the Yankees. Don’t even ask me about baseball I know nothing.)
*koff*
Enthusiastic consent! Boy, isn’t that great stuff? It suuuuure is! Yes means yes everybody! Hooray!
A recurring theme in pornography is using a little force on a woman who THEN discovers that she just loves whatever abuse a dude will heap onto her. That is always the outcome of force in mainstream pornography. It doesn’t seem contradictory to dudes who think sex should be based on pornography happenings. It is the main source of sex education for young men who have abstinence only education in school.
Also, reading this thread from the bottom up was really fucking confusing, but funny. I wish I had a clever dick joke to contribute.
OK, reading up I just cried
with laughter.
Gosh what a bunch of beginners you are.
Actually that multiverse thing?
That was a particularly good night at my house…
Alukonis
Yes, I think the point was that people want a partner in bed who’s interested in a mutual wonderful experience, not in a hole they can rub their penis in. So, if somebody approaches me without any interest in who I am and what I might like, that person is pretty likely not to care about it later.
BTW, some time ago I stopped at a parking area along the Autobahn for a trip to the toilet.
There I found out that this is the meeting place for people interested in casual, kinky sex. (I found out by reading the “ads”. I will never go there after dark).
So they wrote their “I’m offering/I’m looking for” at the walls. So, for the most casual sex they start by comunicating their actual likes and dislikes way before they ever even meet.
*sniff* That’s so beautiful. I love you guys.
Sally Strange, OM @ 379;
Just to clarify, you are speaking about the other Gregory who posts on these threads, right? The one without the deciduous surname?
—————————————————————
Re: penis jokes.
I found the various penis jokes rather funny. It is pretty much the attitude of many MRAs; they seem to think that everyone should bow down in awe before their supposedly mighty members, as if they could cure cancer, reverse anthropogenic climate change, restore extinct species and resolve the global energy crisis, all at the same time with merely a state of tumesence. Thus, they think it natural that any woman should be honoured that they have ‘chosen’ her to be their penis-warmer of an evening.
I find it hard to imagine why anyone would be quite so obsessed with their own genitals, but there it is. The attitude seems worryingly common.
Sorry Gregory, that was a total brainfart. I mean Benjamin Geiger. Whom I note we have not heard from much since we pretty much called his ass on the carpet.
Man, I’m actually glad I checked back in on this thread.
Got any sexy jokes to tell Rey Fox?
We could use a few more, I think.
Most men shake their penis when they’re done peeing to get rid of the last drops of urine.
I just give mine a kick.
I cannae do it. Very funny stuff, but I am just a little to close to that to do it, however ironically.
___
Alukonis,
Sorry, I missed that you were trying to say that such people didn’t exist. It was too high level for me I guess.
___
Loki,
You don’t give orgasms, you might help find them, but they weren’t yours to give. You can give attention, understanding, time, action, and so on, but an orgasm is not in the list. Get over yourself.
Am I dreaming, or did the Vermin Stoat just boast about this thread on his blog?
SOMEBODY is definitely dreaming at any rate.
Suddenly On Topic
@myeck waters
He did. I actually went over there and read it.
Shorter vapid stoat:
Oh yeah,
This is the gem from Verbose.
O_o Thus is Verbose’s contribution to the dick-joke thread:
“When I have sex with someone, I CONFER PERSONHOOD upon them!”
Personhood is to be found in a man’s dick?
It’s in the foreskin. PersonHOOD after all. Why do you think the mras whine about cutting all the time?
So, it’s simply not possible to objectify, is it? I wonder, does rape come in under the heading of casual sex?
Janine:
It seems that is where the magic lies. Looks like all the lesbians are outta luck. Absolutely no way to be seen as full human beings. Nope.
Is touching enough to confer personhood or should it be rubbed like a genie’s lamp? And how long does personhood lasts before it evaporates?
Caine:
Yes, that’s exactly right. I got given personhood by a really great guy, but I decided that it wasn’t for me. So I dumped it and now I revel in my non-personhood.
Janine:
Hey, it works for corporations. What damage can it do?
It definitely needs to rubbed, preferably with lotion. And personhood doesn’t so much evaporate as get crusty.
I got personhood in my hair once. It was gross. I had to shampoo twice to get it out.
Panspermia – the event where God gave personhood to the human race. With his penis. But not like in a gay way. He was totes thinking about Eliza Dushku the whole time, that makes it not gay.
This is anecdotal but I’ve found that applying a certain amount of personhood can help stimulate hair growth.
I once impregnated a tank!
Didn’t that … chafe … a bit?
Oh, pick me mr. Kotter, pick me. This one I can do.
The tank got better.
So, a misogynist who views women as nothing more than particularly desireable living sex toys – as sub-human bags of meat that exist solely for his own gratification – is not objectifying a woman he is having sex with because it is supposedly impossible to treat a person you are having sex with as less than a ‘complete person’?
I wonder, what magic attribute of sex wards away the objectification cooties? Given that not all rape is violent, and that – in a purely bio-mechanical sense – rape can, in some instances, be visually and physiologically not very different from consensual sex (in the case where a woman doesn’t resist out of fear, for instance) then does this mean that Verbose belives that rapists are also somehow incapable of objetifying their victims? What if a man is raping a woman, but doesn’t realise the fact because his actions have been normalised by rape culture to such a high degree that he believes that what he is doing is simply ‘playing the game’? That sex is the end goal, the prize, and that women simply ‘play hard to get’ in order to measure how determined the man is to ‘win’? Would this qualify as non-objectifying rape to Verbose?
Another example is the fact that Verbose cites financial transactions as cases where it is sometimes possible to consider another person as an ‘object’ whose value to you is soley represented by the economic function they carry out as part of their employment. Does that mean that sex workers are a special class of employee? That because sexual intercourse is involved in some transactions involving sex workers, a client is incapable of treating a sex worker as less than a ‘complete person’ in the event that sexual congress is involved, even though the sex in question is bought and paid for?
Does anyone else get the impression that Verbose got terribly carried away with what he believes is his insight and semantic skill, but didn’t actually think this through very well?
@ Alukonis:
More or less, yes. When someone propositions another person out of the blue and makes no effort to find out anything about that other person, the propositioner doesn’t care about any other standards other than getting some sex.
If someone cares about more than sex, he/she spends time getting to know the other person.
Most people are aware of this, and that is why cold-propositions are met with so unfavourably by most women. We know the person asking doesn’t give a shit about us as people, and that means we’re nowhere near as likely to enjoy the sex…and when you have the additional risks of STDs and pregnancy, why would you bother? Men don’t have to worry about becoming pregnant – and it’s generally a lot easier for you guys to have orgasms – so your criteria are vastly different when evaluating cold propositions.
This really isn’t that difficult to understand.
Gregory,
I think there was a very large serving of projection going on, he seems to be basically blind to how a)people can feel during sex based on how they are being treated, and b)how little other people can care about that effect. I don’t see how anyone not blind to those two things could possibly have come up with that conclusion.
@Gregory @Dvorvath,
I’ve noticed this tendency in two main groups of people. The first are people who are genuinely good people and who also have a rather rose-tinted view of the world. They’d never do [bad thing] and don’t understand why anyone would! It’s bad! Obviously, the problem is misinterpretation. If I had to guess, the Vapid Stoat falls into this group. The other group – which seems to be larger – is comprised of people who are protesting too much at statements that this shit happens. See loki for an example.
But everyone cares about more than sex, it’s just the more that changes. So when someone approaches out of the blue, they aren’t just looking for a handy body to rub against, they want a body they can treat as a stage for their performance, but they want the sets to fit their narrative. The people who just want to rub, do it alone.
I read VS as saying essentially the same as MM: that any intimation of personhood, such as communication, by the woman-slash-sex-recipient doesn’t count unless said personhood would result in the man-slash-sex-provider being a rapist. It’s a completely consequence-based standard, with the caveat that only the consequences for the man/provider come into consideration. Hence, MM can’t (or won’t) distinguish between feedback during sex and accusations of rape. And, VS can’t (or won’t) distinguish between treating a person as a sex partner or a sex object unless that person complains.
I think I might end up regretting this but … you’ve interpreted my position completely wrongly.
First, you are translating “cannot” as strict impossibility — ie no one can possibly do that — which is not what I meant (I admit it can be implied from my process of getting there). My actual argument though is that you OUGHT not in the interaction cases because those are, in fact, social and/or moral contexts where the context makes no sense if you aren’t doing it with actual people. It is conceptually absurd to think that you can socialize with someone or have a moral obligation to someone who is not thought of or treated as a person; those context presume personhood.
This also deals with the notion of conferring personhood while/by having sex with them. I can’t see where I said that at all.
So, onto Gregory’s analysis:
“So, a misogynist who views women as nothing more than particularly desireable living sex toys – as sub-human bags of meat that exist solely for his own gratification – is not objectifying a woman he is having sex with because it is supposedly impossible to treat a person you are having sex with as less than a ‘complete person’?”
That misogynist, I argue, is clearly, completely and objectively WRONG to do that, because that would be ignoring the actual context of the interaction and ignoring, particularly, the moral obligation entering into sex has for them. Not recognizing that then really does seem to make that attitude one that creates a risk of them raping someone, since it’s the moral obligation that would stop someone from doing that (and I fail to see how anyone can deny THAT).
“That sex is the end goal, the prize, and that women simply ‘play hard to get’ in order to measure how determined the man is to ‘win’? Would this qualify as non-objectifying rape to Verbose?”
That would be a factual error that would lead them to make an error as to their moral obligation, and so they’d be morally wrong in that case.
“Another example is the fact that Verbose cites financial transactions as cases where it is sometimes possible to consider another person as an ‘object’ whose value to you is soley represented by the economic function they carry out as part of their employment. Does that mean that sex workers are a special class of employee? ”
Do you have a moral or social obligation to sex workers? I say that you have at least a strong moral one (issues of consent are still valid). There’s not much morally or socially obligated in the actual transaction with a store clerk (beyond normal, constant obligations to, say, not kill them).
Dhorvath,
“I think there was a very large serving of projection going on, he seems to be basically blind to how a)people can feel during sex based on how they are being treated, and b)how little other people can care about that effect. I don’t see how anyone not blind to those two things could possibly have come up with that conclusion.”
What conclusion? That you ought not treat people you’re having sex with as less than people because you have moral and social obligations that mean that treating them as objects is totally wrong? Isn’t that the conclusion that I was supposed to draw?
Esteleth,
“The first are people who are genuinely good people and who also have a rather rose-tinted view of the world. They’d never do [bad thing] and don’t understand why anyone would! It’s bad! Obviously, the problem is misinterpretation. If I had to guess, the Vapid Stoat falls into this group. ”
Interesting that you use an insult on the name for someone that you are guessing is “genuinely good”. Also, that’s not my point at all in my blog post. My point was not about misinterpretation at all in my post; it was, in fact, saying that it is always objectively wrong.
“Shorter vapid stoat:
Hmpth! *puffs chest* I’m right! Even when I grudgingly concede that they may have had a point, I’M STILL RIGHT!”
Actually, I was tempted to end the post with a comment about how I was indeed wrong. Recall that my initial point was that in cases of casual sex objectification might not be wrong. The conclusion at the end of the post is precisely that people who were saying that once you interact with people you ought not objectify them were absolutely right, and that included — and especially included — casual sexual relations.
Pteryxx,
“And, VS can’t (or won’t) distinguish between treating a person as a sex partner or a sex object unless that person complains.”
Considering that my whole point was that you have a standing moral obligation to the person with regards to consent thoughout the whole interaction, and I specifically stated this:
“It doesn’t work against the “moral obligation” point, since that moral obligation, it seems, is present throughout the entire event: from the first approach to the final climax, that moral obligation persists even if it is not exercised and is never required.”
I fail to see how you got to that conclusion. My point is, in fact, the precise opposite of that.
Verbose Stoic,
But ought, or should which might have fit the phrasing better, is not the word you used in your concluding paragraph so I hope you can understand my objection.
Verbose Stoic,
To dig deeper:
Impossible for who? Just you or people in general, this is unclear and lead me to read you as making a broader point about all people.
Not all people who socialize do so in the context of relating to the person they are engaging. They may be having a conversation with one person so as to make a point to another, surely you have seen people do this at the least during class discussions? Speaking to another student so that the instructor makes note of what they say is a common trait of some students. How is that not objectifying? Using someone as a foil, unconcerned about them as an individual, just for what they offer in another social context.
This too could have been worded better, say ending it so: “without treading on those obligations.” Or lose the cannot and go with a ought not, although even then I think the caveat at the end makes for a much stronger point.
Dhorvath,
I’ve updated it to make it a bit clearer, and took your suggestion about the conclusion.
As for your specific example, we’d have to ask if a) that’s really a social context (you don’t seem to be actually socializing with anyone) and b) if it wouldn’t actually be wrong but because it causes little to no actual harm it isn’t something we’re worried about.
Verbose Stoic @ 453;
If you meant ‘ought not treat a person as an object in a social context such as sex’, why not say so? Why use a term like ‘cannot’ when you meant ‘ought not’? Surely you can see how that would be confusing?
Talk of social context being required for there to be a presumption of personhood is unnecessary. Whenever you deal with another human being – in whatever social environs – the presumption of personhood should be automatic. This is another sentient human being we are discussing here, after all. There is never any circumstance where it is necessary or acceptable to deny or ignore the personhood of another. If this was your point all along, then why couch it in such ambiguous language?
No one is trying to justify the actions of such a misogynist or deny that their actions are wrong. I would suggest that the action of such an individual can be decribed as wrong without reference to social or moral obligations contingent upon a specific circumstance – to treat a woman thusly is wrong inherently because a woman is a human being*. Full stop, end of story. Her status as a human being can never be suspended or removed, and treating her as less than human is, in all circumstances, a moral affront.
Again, why not simply state the case without complication? They would be wrong because women are people, not pieces on some gaming board where sex is the ‘prize’.
You have a moral obligation to your fellow humans. You have a moral obligation to women. It makes no difference whether they are sex workers, nurses or nuns, you have a moral obligation to respect the personhood of other people, and women, being people, are entitled to such respect.
Just because your principal interaction with a store clerk happens to be in the form of a transaction doesn’t mean that it is OK to view them simply as ‘objects’ in any sense. Their personhood cannot be reduced or temporarily suspended. Just because they happen to work in retail or serve drinks for a living does not mean that their personhood can be ignored. No one is asking you to enter into any kind of in depth discussion about such a person’s life and aspirations. You may indeed never communicate with them at all except in their professional capacity, but at the very least you should always conceptualise them as being a person who happens to have a job working as ‘X’. Getting into the habit of thinking of people as being things, in any context and for any reason, is a bad idea. The person behind the till may be no more meaningful to you than a cashpoint, but the person is still a person, the cashpoint will only ever be a machine. In the event of an accident, no one would entertain the notion of rushing to the aid of a cashpoint, but a store clerk would (or at least should) be a different matter
* Obviously, comparable treatment of men is similarly wrong because of the fact that men are human too, to pre-empt any cries of ‘what about teh menz’ from any MRAs that might be lurking about.
Verbose Stoic,
To your a), I would reply that if someone is interacting with another person, they are socializing with them. One person’s intentions don’t have the ability to erase another’s feelings and reactions. So while the moral component of your formulation can easily be ignored, it is not so easy to eliminate it. I should also note that the specific example was not chosen as one that I am inclined to spend time fighting against so much as because it has some analogue with the points I was making about how some people view sex.
To Verbose Stoic, I generally think you’re wrong (especially with regard to store clerks: having been one, I think it’s really common and also really horrible to treat them as less than people (but you need to understand that during my job, that didn’t always take the form of just not talking to me, but outright rudeness, dismissiveness, and unreasonable demands, not to mention sexual objectification)) but my main reason for posting here is a suggestion: “must.” I think you were trying to use “cannot” as a strong “should not.” “Must” is a really good word for those situations.
Classical Cypher,
Well, the problem is that I actually do want to say something more than just that; I want to argue that it’s factually/conceptually wrong to do that, and that you are just in error if you do, not merely that you shouldn’t do it, or stated with must for more oomph. What I DIDN’T mean is that it’s not physically or psychologically possible to do that, which is how it was taken. I meant that it was impossible in pretty much the same sense that adding 2 + 2 and getting 5 is impossible; you can do it, but you’re just plain wrong.
With clerks, I agree that you should treat people as people even in that case, and I generally do. What I’m more referring to there is that if I’m not feeling very social at all and I simply say nothing and hand in the money and take the change without really acknowledging that, I don’t think that you can say that that’s WRONG, either factually or normatively. It’d be better if I DID, but in terms of that interaction that isn’t allowed. And the difference to me did seem to be that when I do things like say “Hello” and “Thank you” and maybe make a little joke, I was SOCIALIZING there, and when it’s done by rote I’m not.
Some of the things you list, though, I might be able to analyze and say that, in fact, they ARE treating you as a person; treating someone as a person in my sense doesn’t mean treating them nicely, unfortunately.
Dhorvath,
“To your a), I would reply that if someone is interacting with another person, they are socializing with them. ”
I think we’d disagree on this strongly, related to my other examples. But it’s not that important, I think …
“So while the moral component of your formulation can easily be ignored, it is not so easy to eliminate it.”
Just to make it clear, for me the social and moral are at least in principle separable; it just happens to be the case that in at least the case of sex you have both. But you might have social obligations without moral ones, and vice versa.
Gregory,
I explained the use of cannot and impossible above; I am saying something a bit stronger than ought not but it’s closer to that than it is to “physically or psychologically impossible”.
“Their personhood cannot be reduced or temporarily suspended. Just because they happen to work in retail or serve drinks for a living does not mean that their personhood can be ignored. No one is asking you to enter into any kind of in depth discussion about such a person’s life and aspirations. You may indeed never communicate with them at all except in their professional capacity, but at the very least you should always conceptualise them as being a person who happens to have a job working as ‘X’. Getting into the habit of thinking of people as being things, in any context and for any reason, is a bad idea. The person behind the till may be no more meaningful to you than a cashpoint, but the person is still a person, the cashpoint will only ever be a machine. ”
I think this is the main point of contention, and we’d need to do a lot to hammer that out. I agree that ideally that’s what one should do and I tend to do that a lot, but I recognize cases where I don’t but don’t think it wrong of me that I fail in those instances, and my aim was to establish wrongness or failure. And we don’t seem to intuitively think that there’s an issue of wrongness if you treat or think of the clerk in the same manner as the cashpoint. Now, you can take my reply to Dhorvath and use it against me here, arguing that it is indeed still wrong but that it doesn’t cause harm so no one cares about it, which is a fair point. Your point would be based, I presume, on the argument that someone BEING a person creates an inherent obligation to treat them as a person (perhaps morally, though I don’t want to box you in on that one). Then it would indeed always be wrong, but then we’d have to say that being grumpy and ignoring them might be wrong depending on your actual psychological state — ie your intentions and how you’re treating them — or that even when you ignore them you are still treating them as persons, which opens up an analogical argument that the sex case could be the same, unless one distinguishes between that case and the others on the basis of, say, severity. And if that’s what we do, then I’m content with that; as long as we accept that in the cases where we intuitively think it isn’t serious it usually isn’t, then I think we can preserve the severity of the sex case while not forcing the clerk case to be anywhere near as serious.
(It might still be a problem for me since Stoics don’t recognize degrees of wrongness, at least morally. But if this isn’t in and of itself a moral obligation but is more a factual one, then even that could be sidestepped.)
Just for reference’s sake, here’s a great example of sexist bullshit in the US and a spectacular nonpology for it.
New Jersey Senate candidate Phil Mitsch is sorry for saying that women should be “a lady in the living room and a whore in the bedroom” — but he’s still not backing out of the race.
“I would like to sincerely apologize for any offense I may have caused anyone, particularly women, as a result of a Twitter post that has recently been reported,” Mitsch said.
http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/10/goper_apologizes_for_saying_a_woman_should_be_a_wh.php
Love the “apologize for any offense I may have caused anyone, particularly women”. Because that’s taking responsibility, right? It’s exactly like saying “I apologize for my offensive remarks” or “I apologize for giving ‘advice’ that shows a narrow and highly sexist view of men and women” or “I apologize for telling women it’s their own damn fault if their men are unfaithful”.
Stud and whore are not equivalent terms. At all. And we are on the receiving end of this abusive language on a daily basis.
Words matter. Treating people like human beings matters.
Overly Verbose Stoic, it seems you are conflating “treating X as a person rather than an object” with “always being unfailingly nice to X.”
Before, all you had to do to explain yourself was say, “Whoops! Is-ought fallacy. My bad, it’s fixed now.”
It will be fascinating to see how many words you require to figure this one out.
*hands out free libations and popcornz to those showing Verbose Shallowthinker the error of its ways, which isn’t hard to do*
I just reading through the threads in response to this “no means no” comic (I love this comic by the way! Danielle Corsetto is truly awesome.) I find myself wishing I’d been around when the conversation was really going. Though I’m usually more of a lurker on this blog this all seriously touched a nerve.
I have had people ignore “no” in regards to sex/dating too many times to take hearing it’s a silly little problem lightly. Speaking as someone who likes sex and genuinely looks for interesting people who treat me like an equal for dating:
I broke up with a boyfriend largely because he had become scary and controlling and he threatened my life and punched me.
I brought a coworker/friend home sober in the daytime with the unspoken intent of having sex but didn’t think to get condoms myself and he didn’t have any. But because he’d entered my home and we’d made out some… in his mind “no” (even for five minutes to walk to the store) was no longer an option he would give me.
I ran into a next door neighbor while out and he suggested walking home together when we both happened to be leaving at the same time. On the walk home I genuinely enjoyed talking to him and found him quite datable but by then it was late and I was exhausted and I lived alone. When he tried to invite himself in I explained this and said I’d love to see him another time maybe take him out for coffee… he got angry that he’d invested time in me and deserved to come in… and proceeded to shove me down a flight of concrete stairs. (I was relatively fine, bruised and shaken, & a passerby intervened.)
I have had a stranger grab me by the wrist in a club (I don’t go out to clubs often then or now for interactions like this) and refuse to let go until I gave contact information to him. Others have just yelled at me and invaded my space when I politely say no.
I’ve had a coworker shove his hand down my pants and grab me despite my insistence that it wasn’t okay, I was in a relationship, and he was my superior.
And in the last week I had a reasonably nice but very drunk guy approach me when I was out to watch a football game with my female friend. He immediately asked me to dinner telling me that I’d grabbed his attention across the room. I said, “No but thank you.” He asked why. I said that I didn’t know him and am moving cities shortly. He said it would be nice to get to know me while I was here. I said, “Thank you but no,” again. This went on for forty-five minutes. I was being clear but polite and missing the game and time with my friend but he wouldn’t leave even when I asked him to and expressed to him that I was uncomfortable.
This wasn’t a tragic incident. Mostly annoying. But every time I had to say no to this drunk stranger considering I’d faced such violence and anger from people I knew sober or drunk was a no I feared might make him blow up. He has no way of knowing this but each time he ignored me the odds of me changing my mind decreased drastically and my anxiety increaed. It would have saved so much time and energy for us both if he would have gracefully accepted no instead of continuing to try. Honestly, if he would have lead with “How are you?”, “What do you do?”, “I’m an artist.” (which he said during the forty minutes but only in the context of asking me to come over so he could draw me which can be a little creepy), “I’m from the area you?” and so forth… then I might have said yes to joining him for coffee and then asked to have space to enjoy the game with my friend.
For me it’s not that every man might rape me. Even though I’ve been raped. It’s not that every man might react with biting anger or even violence to a simple quiet/shy/polite no even though I’ve had some serious reactions. I like to believe that most people are good. I have had plenty of fantastic dating and friendship interactions with guys. I take basic safety precautions & I try not to aim them at individuals profiling… But I have not had good experiences with people taking my “No.” at face value. I am constantly vigilant to look for people that I treat me with respect and with whom I can build trust. Still, I’m an example of someone who wouldn’t love being asked back to someone’s room for coffee early in the morning in an elevator. Now, just aside from the group for coffee the next day might because it respects what are for me and a lot of people practical boundaries.
Why fight so hard to use the less successful potentially more upsetting route? This is okay to talk about. It is a real issue. While I’m just one person and anecdotal of course I’m not alone.
I just don’t understand why there’s such a violent backlash to broaching these topics. I want equal rights which means positive change for men too. I agree that gender roles and problems like these have negative impacts on both sexes. But if just posting about it is going to bring all this out of the woodwork… It’s exhausting.
Realee,
Your story points to so much of what is wrong with the way we deal with meeting people right now. It’s a disaster for too many people and can’t be left as is by anyone with a conscience. We will continue to fight this, although specific people may take time off, there are many of us who see that things must change and so someone can hold the line while others take a break.
Realee,
although your comment “missed the boat” when the thread was really active, may I thank you for sharing and providing one of the most thoughtful and useful posts in the entire 1250+ comments?
Anecdotes often seem to be sneered it since they usually reflect the experiences of only one person or a small group, but I think anyone rejecting the truth of your comment would have to have an vast empathy gap in their mind. So much of the elevatorgate discussion was about denial that having to utter “No.” is usually not a single isolated incident but part of a pattern of day-to-day pervasive disregard for other people’s feelings and boundaries.
Realee, awesome post. Thank you.
Realee, great post.
Sometimes you just have to rip that scab off and deal with the pus as it oozes out. Unpleasant, yes, but IMO it’s better than letting it fester under the skin. All these MRA pus-blobs might be disgusting and smelly in the open, but at least there they can be wiped away and disinfected, instead of leeching their filth from within.
Follow my metaphor?
@ Realee:
I’m sorry you went through all that, and thank you for sharing those experiences with us.
I think this quote best sums it up:
Same here. I don’t understand why it’s so difficult to accept that ‘no’ means no.
Thank you all for the warm responses. I really appreciated so many of the posts in this thread. Loved a lot of the links you posted Ys.
@ Laughing Coyote I do follow your metaphor. Dealing with the mess, confusion, hatred, anger, fear of change or being labeled or not being heard needs to be done whether it’s exhausting or not. While it’s sad how much energy has to be put out by both sides to make any progress it seems. Doesn’t mean it isn’t completely worth doing.
Hi Realee, thanks so much for your eloquent post. I hope to see you around here some more, if you have the time and energy.
It isn’t. They just refuse to believe they might in some way be contributing and excusing the kinds of things that happened to you and Realee.
Sorry for what you went through and great comment, Realee
Realee’s post should be required reading for every single creep here that blunders in when the fucking elevator thing comes up. I’ve largely signed off of those threads because every time it seems like there’s a new crop of losers* who we have to exhaustively teach how to be a human being in a civilized society. It used to make me feel better about myself, but LORDIE it’s tiring.
* I mostly excised this word from my vocabulary a long time ago because of what I consider its fallacious premises, but it seems perfect for the empathy-deprived earnest-to-faux-earnest “can I ever talk to a lady at all?” types.
Realee, great post; please consider de-lurking more often!
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