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Sexual Harassment


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By that logic, in a pre-outing of sex offenders like Cosby, Weinstein, etc... Just because no one ever came forward that would mean it didn't technically happen.

What?

 

What if the female version of abuse is so strong, it would take a hell of a long time for any man to come forward because of the extreme fear of being known as that guy that didn't have sex with his boss, teacher, wtv but instead was a complete god knows what who pressed charges?

1. Accusations of abuse are as old as time. Are you proposing there are mass swaths of men who have been so horrible abused by women that they don't speak out? Okay, I can't prove that isn't a thing-- but you can't prove that it is. Again, women speaking up is not a new thing. People spoke out about Cosby and Weinstein literally decades ago, and they were dismissed. I' m relatively certain that if this female on male abuse existed as you suggest, we'd have heard of something. I don't deny that it happens-- but no where near the number of men abusing women.

 

2. WHAT!?

 

Don't you wanna punch this guy in the face already? and it's just a hypothetical situation I'm bringing up here! That's how powerful female abuse can be as well! Where as a man you are also utterly shamed mostly even by other men for even thinking you're allowed to feel violated.

...I... what!?

 

I'm saying it's equal.

It is categorically not.

 

Maybe these violent attacks ate mostly caused by men, but how would you know?

Because there are no battered-husband shelters. There are no women in power positions that have dozens of men accusing them of harassment or worse. Because in my own private life at least a third of the women I know have suffered some form of harassment or abuse. Because of all the men I know only two have a history of abuse and both of them were abused by a parent when they were a child. Mostly though, because the statistics, the legal proof, every study ever made on the topic, and the fact that we are now in a climate where it is seemingly safe to come out (hence all the news being what it is) and still, the vast majority of these cases are men on woman violence.

 

 

Some pie chart from the last thirty years doesn't paint the whole picture of male/female interaction in all history.

No-- but a pie chart covering the whole picture of male/female interaction would!

 

What if grown women have a tendency to molest young boys, or other girls young and old?

It happens. But again-- at nowhere near the same numbers as does the reverse.

 

And thus get away with it more because the microscope is pointed elsewhere, in the obvious dark alleys and parking garages women dread being accosted by men in?

wut

 

I never said we live in a matriarchal world where women are covering up their abuse.

This is EXACTLY what you are saying. For what you propose to exist, it would have to be this situation.

 

I believe it's an equal world with abusive matriarchs as well as abusive patriarchs.

And I'm sure some MRAs will agree with you. Tex should be along any minute to agree. Maybe even Justus!

 

You probably misunderstood that line.

No. I didn't. I'm a pretty sharp guy even with my wacky liberal leanings.

 

I was hinting that maybe a history of male victims is being covered up by chauvinist males themselves. Now that would be hella ironic and I believe its the truth.

You also believe LA rich people ride around in helicopters to spy on common folks for movie ideas, several conspiracy theories, and some pretty interesting thoughts about how gravity works if I recall correctly.

 

Another thing, how do you know if there weren't more female producers in Hollywood there wouldn't be just as many female sex offenders?

Maybe there would be.

 

You're touching on the exact reason why you're wrong and not realizing it.

 

You're taking this as me attacking men, which is the gut reaction that most MRAs and insecure dudes have. I'm not saying it's man's nature to do these things. It's not about gender, it's about power.

 

The Louis CK case is a good way to illustrate this. People want to shame him for showing his junk and yanking it to women. That's not the problem-- the problem is his audiences didn't really consent. They didn;t outright tell him no either because he was in a position of power.

 

Kevin Spacey has gone after other men, not women. Less to do with his gender, more to do with power because he was a straight up predator on the set of House of Cards, of which he was the star an EP. He could fire anyone who refused his advances.

 

We could go to any work place sexual harassment case, Anita Brown and Clarence Thomas-- go anywhere you want. The common factor in all these cases-- ESPECIALLY the ones where women have abused men, and it's almost always a case of the offender having some sort of power, influence, or control over their victim.

 

Simple as that.

 

You know what Spider-Man says. Power corrupts. Sexual harassment comes from when the offender decides they are above the law/manners/whatever and can act on their base desires.

 

Get it? POWER.

 

Now, why is it mostly men? Because this is a patriarchy. I'm sure Poe, and Tex and Justus will come in and say otherwise, but this is a country founded by powerful white men. That is a fact. No one but politically connected white men signed the Constitution. Everyone else has had to fight for equal rights and voting power.

 

On paper, in law, today in the here and now, we are all equal. But in practice, you only have to go back 50 years to see unequal rights to minorities. Less than a hundred for women. It takes a long time for those power dynamics to even out.

 

This isn't even political. All the Hollywood bigshots being accused are known liberals. Most of then are rich white dudes. Cosby doesn't fit that mark-- but Cosby was literally one of the first cross-over black stars in Hollywood to get the same paydays white actors got. The power corrupted him. (Hopefully Sydney Poitier is clean!)

 

Women may now legally have the same rights as men, but they have a fraction of the power.

 

A dozen spoke out against Cosby over a decade ago and nothing happened. Hannibal Buress tweets a joke, and Cosby's world crumbles.

 

Weinstein has conspiracy-level payouts and legal teams working to keep dozens of women silent for years, Kevin Spacey has ONE male accuser and his world crumbles.

 

Even as victims men still have a louder voice and more power.

 

So THAT's why I don';t buy for one second there are an equal amount of women abuses. It makes zero sense.

 

 

Stats mean ****. Stats taken in the winter will show that the world is generally cold. Stats taken in the summer will show that the world is generally hot.

If science, numbers, and statistics don't count then literally whatever you make up is the truth and there's no convincing you otherwise? That is ridiculous.

 

You never lived in Sumeria, Ancient Greece, etc...you only know their ecstasies.

What the fuck does that even mean?

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Ramon, Tex... you are so not helping any point you're trying to make.

 

Here's a good summation of how he feels about relationships with women.
What am I missing on this? It just seems to be a typical article about someone disagreeing with the practice. Any summation of Pence’s thoughts are filtered through her own upbringing and assumptions.

 

I'm positing that if you live your life this way, it can't not effect the way you legislate. When you look at his voting record, and consider that he puts his faith above his government, how can that not effect his feeling about laws on the matter?
I suspect his voting record would be much the same either way. After all, his worldview wasn’t shaped by the rule, the rule was shaped by the worldview.
Though, I do wonder if you would ever describe a black politician as putting their race above government, or women putting their gender above government? Myself, I think of it as more of that worldview thing and (at least not automatically) not putting it above government.

 

Sorry-- not following. How does that apply to how he interacts with women?
We’re kinda scattered around in topics, but that had to do with why it is a reasonable idea from a standpoint beyond Pence’s own worry slipping in his marriage vows. Even if he’s completely scrupulous, it might look bad to an outsider to have late-night meetings alone with a woman.

 

I can get behind that-- but you're making big cultural generalizations.
I am. It’s just been my experience. I’m sexist like that. Taken as a whole, men suck.

 

It's not just the teaching of future generations though, it's also about dismantling the power structures that have allowed said behavior to prevail this long.
Differences in power in human relationships are always going to be a thing though. The boss and his subordinate will always be on unequal ground. As long as people are in control of something another person wants or needs, the problem will persist no matter how many big fish in Hollywood are caught.
You can work around the edges at work, but in the end, the biggest headway will be from a changing culture among men themselves. If a man thinks of a woman as a subhuman collection of holes to please him and buff his ego with a higher body count, he’ll find a place somewhere no matter how many power structures you dismantle. If he’s allergic to offending a woman with unwanted advances, then the existence or not of those power structures matter even less.

 

But that's life. Getting your heart broken, being confused, being in love-- that's part of growing.
Well, in this case, I was jumping back to why it could be a good policy for yourself. Having guidelines for your own heart to avoid hurting your spouse. And no matter what, when you’re still a youngish man in a powerful position getting close with an attractive, intelligent younger woman that shares your values and we’ll just say harbors a crush on you is playing with fire. It doesn’t have to be harassment, much less rape. It can just be two adults. It happens, it happens a LOT in those circles.
As I mentioned above, it’s a conceit that people are rational about all things and are in complete control of their own emotions. Even addicts will swear up and down that they’re in control. Living your life with a set of guidelines so that you don’t tempt fate might be overly cautious, but it’s not a bad thing.

 

And a fair amount of people are able to navigate that without harassing or raping women. It's not that hard to not rape.
Bouncing back to fostering an environment of gentlemanly behavior, given the current increasing feeling that morality is based on want, I'm not sure it's wise to just leave it up to growing up. Or even people just teaching their own kids. It's really gotta be a cultural shift.

 

We were using Pence as a benchmark. And I think his boundaries are outdated and unrealistic. Again-- not a problem for a dude in his life, but a problem for one of our heads of state.
I’m not sure why you think those boundaries are unrealistic. As far as they go, they seem to be rather simple to follow.
And, as I said, I don’t really think it makes much of a difference in how he’ll conduct himself as a head of state.

 

Here's a rundown on Pence's voting habits when it comes to gays:
Voting against gay marriage, lifting don’t ask/don’t tell, EDNA, and thinking Obama had no business dictating the transgender bathroom stuff (he was totally right about that at least) is a pretty far cry from round gays up.
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(everything you said...)

As usual, I'm seeing that we want similar end results, but our ways of going about them, and who should be toppled to get there are opposed.

 

You are right though, we're multi-topic arguing here. We have the "What is Pence" argument, which spun into the "can men and women be friends" debate, and we have the "would being more conservative sexually help solve this problem" argument.

 

As far as Pence is concerned-- while his own President said he'd love to hang all the gays, the whole "round them up" thing WAS blown out of proportion. That said, the instances you laid out tells me all I need to know about his moral center. And I don't like it.

 

Back to sexual harassment--

 

I sort of hit on this in my response to Ramon, but I think that kink-shaming is a bad thing.

 

You're saying (correct me if I am wrong) that teaching a more conservative approach to courting, or at the very least as a well of self-conduct, might reduce the problem, right?

 

Again, I don't disagree. But the part of that which vexes me a little, is that it also ties into what Justus bought up. While he was compare about 30 types of fruit on a level playing field, I think his point was that since our mainstream culture is so overly-sexualized can we really be surprised that this behavior is on the rise?

 

Yes and no.

 

Like I said to Ramon, this is more of a power problem than a sex or gender problem. I will 100% agree that with ease of access to porn we have a generation of men who don't know how to speak, act, treat, or properly love a woman. But that doesn't make them rapists. It just makes them idiots.

 

Going back to Louis CK-- the fact he likes to masturbate in front of women is not the problem. Even if you think this is a shameful, dirty act-- if he's with a women who likes to watch that sort of thing-- if there's a kink love-connection, then it's not a problem. The problem was that he abused his power over the women he did this to.

 

I couldn't say for certainty that our culture being over-sexualized didn't contribute to that-- but at the end of the day, it still comes back to an abuse of power. You can have the most effed up proclivities ever, but if you conduct yourself in a civil matter you can still make it through the day without raping anyone.

 

Being sexually deviant does not make you morally bad if you express said deviancy in the right situations.

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I'm not trying to help or make any point. My nuance is lost on you guys. (I'm not trying to hurt, neither, though, nor be a troll.)

 

I just want the conversation to evolve. I have a knack for doing that but I don't have it down to a science, and in this forum every time I try it's a hot mess.

 

You want me to play a role? You want me to take a side? Fine. Maybe it'll make the conversation evolve.

 

I just don't see an end in sight for this man-hating culture I was born into. It almost feels like were at the start of an age where human rights don't equalize, they just go from being reserved for one side to being reserved for the other side. And there's nothing I could ever do about it because I'm always conveniently supporting rapists, or what have you.

 

I honest to god consider myself a well-rounded man's man. I'm not a cry-baby about these things. But...ya know? I could be petty too. Every time a Rihanna or Beyoncé song comes on i will no longer ignore my insecurities, and I could chalk it up to not being my own fault. And I could blame the media for psychologically subduing me into submission.

 

Ain't it convenient I'm talking about 'sexual abuse culture' and Tank brings up battered-women's shelters? That automicaticly implies sexual abuse was in the mix? Psychological abuse from Rihanna and Beyoncé doesn't count? Did Louis CK physically assault these women or did he psychologically abuse them. I could be petty too and say man are automatically the bad guys.

 

On a personal level, Tank (the specific topic of this thread irrelevant) you just want me to cave and take a side don't you? You just need me to cubby-hole myself as the right-wing nutjob don't you? It would be hella convenient for you wouldn't it. But you're not gonna win. You're not gonna trick me into fighting for A when I'm actually in here fighting for B.

 

I want the conversation to evolveeeeee. One month, all the right is saying Hollywood is run by women and gays who wanna cut my dick off. The next month, reality becomes that Hollywood is actually a boys club where women who are just looking for jobs to feed their families are living a hell on earth.

 

Evolve. What will it take for society to just point these freaking differences out already. I wanna evolve the conversation like any liberal. Maybe it's not about gender inequality. Maybe it's about celebrity power structures. Maybe it's about what food we're eating that makes us crazy. I'm challenging the current state affairs to transcend us. That doesn't happen by beating a dead horse.

 

 

 

Sumeria. Ancient Greece. You only see their ecstasies. Maybe women weren't always feeling so oppressed. In Greek mythology goddesses sound pretty equal in power to Gods to me. We just have their ecstasies to go by. We take whatever thing from the past relates to us today and we assume we know their worldview.

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On a personal level, Tank (the specific topic of this thread irrelevant) you just want me to cave and take a side don't you? You just need me to cubby-hole myself as the right-wing nutjob don't you? It would be hella convenient for you wouldn't it. But you're not gonna win. You're not gonna trick me into fighting for A when I'm actually in here fighting for B.

Don't accuse me of trying to trick you, when you just admit to trying to trick all of us.

 

I don't want you to cave, I want you to make sense. I'm not trying to trick you or make you say anything.

 

I don't care if we don't agree, that's fine. I gave up trying to convince anyone of anything on the internet a long time ago. I like the debate cause I learn about the other side of the coin, even if it pisses me off sometimes. I refuse to believe that the political spectrum is only fascists and socialists like the government and news media want us to believe.

 

But for quality discourse to happen you can't talk to somebody who's trying to game the conversation. You're not as clever as you think. You're saying things that have no basis in facts or reason so it doesn't evolve the conversation, it sends it off the rails.

 

I have no desire to make you mad or break you down-- this just seems to be what happens when I disagree with you. You're trying to trick me into having some mind blowing revelation, but that doesn't work when I read what you say as nonsense. That's just not how my brain works. If you make these broad sweeping claims, they need to have something to back them up. I'm not interested in pondering fantasy situations. I am talking about there and now. If you want to offer up a parable that incites a different way of thinking, then set it up that way.

 

You're admitting you're trying to manipulate the conversation, that's on you.

 

You can't cry about me being mean if I don't fall for your trick. That's on you, not me.

 

I'm not even opposed to what you want to do-- but be clear about it. Pose a question. Say "what if our genders were reversed? what would that be like" instead of trying to trick us down some road that we're not interested in going on.

 

No offense, but you'll get nowhere trying to outwit anyone here. We're not idiots. Not even Tex.

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I think his point was that since our mainstream culture is so overly-sexualized can we really be surprised that this behavior is on the rise?

 

I will 100% agree that with ease of access to porn we have a generation of men who don't know how to speak, act, treat, or properly love a woman. But that doesn't make them rapists. It just makes them idiots.

 

I couldn't say for certainty that our culture being over-sexualized didn't contribute to...

Over-sexualized, hmm? Compared to what?

 

100 years ago? Before all the easy access to porn when it was commonplace to have ten kids before you were twenty?

 

500 years ago? When all the puritans had to leave for the new world because all the sex orgies and literally every art piece was a nude?

 

1000 years ago, when all the men were chivalrous knights? Oh and bath houses had to be outlawed cause of all the casual prostitution?

 

Or how bout 2000 years ago with all the commonplace pedophilic sex orgies????!!!!

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As far as Pence is concerned-- while his own President said he'd love to hang all the gays

 

What?!? That's a new one.

 

Edit: Oh, Trump was cracking a joke about Pence himself. Okay, that makes more sense.

 

 

 

You're saying (correct me if I am wrong) that teaching a more conservative approach to courting, or at the very least as a well of self-conduct, might reduce the problem, right?

 

More or less, correct. Think of it this way. We HAVE successfully changed the culture in a lot of ways. Quickly AND recently. It's no longer cool in most circles to make racist comments about blacks, Jews, Hispanics, gays, etc. in polite circles. Not saying it doesn't happen, but if every other word that comes out of your mouth is a racial expletive, you're quickly going to find yourself with fewer people who want to sit near you at lunch. And, as a result, the behavior has been largely curtailed as people have adjusted their thoughts to not just avoiding saying it, but internalizing it.

 

But it's still socially acceptable to talk in lewd terms about women and even an unwritten guy code that protects such talk.

 

If the culture shifts and there's a social penalty for speaking that way, at the very least the cultural message isn't that this is acceptable. Men still might harbor such feelings, but if it's reinforced as wrong instead of okay, then it's less likely to manifest.

 

Now, there are two ways of doing it. The usual is the finger-wagging way. Which, is effective in a blunt way, but creates counterarguments such as Tex or Ramon. Or, a more honeyed approach where there's a social reward for acting in the positive manner. Where you want people to see you as a gentleman and it lifts your standing in the community, but still allows a corner for masculine pride.

 

A little self-interest doesn't hurt. Particularly when dealing with those that are only thinking of themselves in the first place.

 

 

 

Like I said to Ramon, this is more of a power problem than a sex or gender problem. I will 100% agree that with ease of access to porn we have a generation of men who don't know how to speak, act, treat, or properly love a woman. But that doesn't make them rapists. It just makes them idiots.

 

Well, it doesn't really have to make everyone a rapist, just some people.

 

But just to lower the bar a bit, for low levels of sexual harassment, it probably does make a big difference. Despite what you say, harassment is not hard to fall into. There's a whole host of guys out there who have been pulled into their boss's office and been blindsided to be told that the girl in the break room they've been flirting with for weeks filed a report on them. Then the folder full of things they said gets dropped in front of them and it's a whole lot more difficult to explain.

 

In that case, a social guideline where it's just unseemly to make sexual comments around a woman would be helpful.

 

 

 

I sort of hit on this in my response to Ramon, but I think that kink-shaming is a bad thing.

 

I'm gonna go along with this, but just to be clear you are breaking in a new sub-topic, right? Because my head was nowhere near here.

 

 

 

Going back to Louis CK-- the fact he likes to masturbate in front of women is not the problem. Even if you think this is a shameful, dirty act-- if he's with a women who likes to watch that sort of thing-- if there's a kink love-connection, then it's not a problem. The problem was that he abused his power over the women he did this to.

 

Well, yeah. Certainly. As far as it goes, I don't imagine in our Skyping world, it's even all that uncommon anymore. It's basically phone sex evolved.

 

Though in Louis CK's case, I can definitely see why it made people extra uncomfortable and extra perverted that form of harassment happens to be his kink. Because I'm thinking that it wasn't just that he was masturbating in front of a woman that was getting him off. He was doing it for the reactions.

 

And I'm rather comfortable with shaming that kink all day long.

 

 

 

Being sexually deviant does not make you morally bad if you express said deviancy in the right situations.

 

Oh, I'm sure we've all got our small kinks that spice things up every now and then, but wouldn't want your neighbors to know about.

 

I would stop short of it always being okay. Even leaving aside the Louis CK example where it likely started with consensual mutual masturbation and evolved from there to something more extreme, indulged sexual deviancy can lead to outright sexual dysfunction, a loss of happiness, and crumpled relationships. It's not a completely safe proposition.

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Being sexually deviant does not make you morally bad if you express said deviancy in the right situations.

How do you know what's the right situation?

How specifically do you teach the new generation to be sexually deviant in the right situation before you've crossed the line and become an over-sexualized culture?

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I'm torn. I've been Louis CK (hmm, sorta. I made the occasional advance that was rejected and I made the occasional advance that was reciprocated) and it's unfair to see him lumped with the likes of Cosby and Weinstein. How do you lose your career over this? Ok, you're probably not facing criminal charges like the real predators, but think of this shaming culture! Losing your career! When you're probably a victim yourself. Rihanna tells you women like it and she gets millions. You were incredibly mistaken, do it, and lose your career?

 

It's a circus, where the serious is being lumped with the pathetic, almost comical. It's the circus I'm really attacking. (If I play ball and argue a side here)

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You're saying (correct me if I am wrong) that teaching a more conservative approach to courting, or at the very least as a well of self-conduct, might reduce the problem, right?

More or less, correct. Think of it this way. We HAVE successfully changed the culture in a lot of ways. Quickly AND recently. It's no longer cool in most circles to make racist comments about blacks, Jews, Hispanics, gays, etc. in polite circles. Not saying it doesn't happen, but if every other word that comes out of your mouth is a racial expletive, you're quickly going to find yourself with fewer people who want to sit near you at lunch. And, as a result, the behavior has been largely curtailed as people have adjusted their thoughts to not just avoiding saying it, but internalizing it.

 

But it's still socially acceptable to talk in lewd terms about women and even an unwritten guy code that protects such talk.

 

If the culture shifts and there's a social penalty for speaking that way, at the very least the cultural message isn't that this is acceptable. Men still might harbor such feelings, but if it's reinforced as wrong instead of okay, then it's less likely to manifest.

 

I don't disagree with any of this.

 

Now, there are two ways of doing it. The usual is the finger-wagging way. Which, is effective in a blunt way, but creates counterarguments such as Tex or Ramon.

I'm split on this. I certainly get your point-- we are a reactionary species. But at the same time, when you're standing around in a group and somebody says off-color, calling them out on it certainly shuts them down and gets their attention. I've done this with racist and sexist and not-liking-gayist comments within groups. Sometimes it works, other times it leads to a confrontation, which I am no fan of.

 

Or, a more honeyed approach where there's a social reward for acting in the positive manner. Where you want people to see you as a gentleman and it lifts your standing in the community, but still allows a corner for masculine pride.

 

A little self-interest doesn't hurt. Particularly when dealing with those that are only thinking of themselves in the first place.

As far as governing oneself sure, you could even work this into teaching future generations-- but how does that tact work against somebody who's been acting that way their entire life?

 

SHAME THEM I SAY! (Especially if it's on the internet)

 

 

Like I said to Ramon, this is more of a power problem than a sex or gender problem. I will 100% agree that with ease of access to porn we have a generation of men who don't know how to speak, act, treat, or properly love a woman. But that doesn't make them rapists. It just makes them idiots.

Well, it doesn't really have to make everyone a rapist, just some people.

 

But just to lower the bar a bit, for low levels of sexual harassment, it probably does make a big difference. Despite what you say, harassment is not hard to fall into. There's a whole host of guys out there who have been pulled into their boss's office and been blindsided to be told that the girl in the break room they've been flirting with for weeks filed a report on them. Then the folder full of things they said gets dropped in front of them and it's a whole lot more difficult to explain.

 

In that case, a social guideline where it's just unseemly to make sexual comments around a woman would be helpful.

 

Sadly, you're not wrong. (Sad that this is a problem, not sad that I have to say you're right).

 

I've looked back at my own behavior and while I've never raped,m pillaged, looted, harassed, or assaulted anyone-- there is certainly things that were simply the way it was done. I don't think I had a sexual encounter in college that wasn't booze induced (for both parties). That was just what everyone did.

 

I remember being 12 and grabbing a girl's boob on the school bus-- because I was a hormonal 12 year old. Despite being raised by lesbians for a big chunk of my life and having decent female role models... I was a hormonal 12 year old. The girl punched me. That was the end of it. If my kid does that in this day and age, he'll get kicked out of school and called a predator. I'm not saying either situation is good or bad-- just that there's been a major shift in what is acceptable.

 

 

Being sexually deviant does not make you morally bad if you express said deviancy in the right situations.

Oh, I'm sure we've all got our small kinks that spice things up every now and then, but wouldn't want your neighbors to know about.

 

omg

Well played... well played.

 

 

I would stop short of it always being okay. Even leaving aside the Louis CK example where it likely started with consensual mutual masturbation and evolved from there to something more extreme, indulged sexual deviancy can lead to outright sexual dysfunction, a loss of happiness, and crumpled relationships. It's not a completely safe proposition.

 

 

Being sexually deviant does not make you morally bad if you express said deviancy in the right situations.

How do you know what's the right situation?

How specifically do you teach the new generation to be sexually deviant in the right situation before you've crossed the line and become an over-sexualized culture?

 

It's super not hard.

 

If the person you're with is cool with it, it's good. If they are not, or if you've made it so them expressing it;s not isn't an option, it's not so good. It's only destructive when you break whatever rules you and the other person have established.

 

I'll agree with you Poe that it can lead to destructive behavior-- but that'

s when the kink borders on addiction. Lots of people can have wine with their dinner, but the alcoholic is going to be the pone that drinks to much and crashes the car.

 

If somebody is pushing their sexual limits and causing damage to themselves and others, that's not the fault of the kink, that's the fault of them having addictive (or worse) issues.

 

 

 

Going back to Louis CK-- the fact he likes to masturbate in front of women is not the problem. Even if you think this is a shameful, dirty act-- if he's with a women who likes to watch that sort of thing-- if there's a kink love-connection, then it's not a problem. The problem was that he abused his power over the women he did this to.

Well, yeah. Certainly. As far as it goes, I don't imagine in our Skyping world, it's even all that uncommon anymore. It's basically phone sex evolved.

 

Though in Louis CK's case, I can definitely see why it made people extra uncomfortable and extra perverted that form of harassment happens to be his kink. Because I'm thinking that it wasn't just that he was masturbating in front of a woman that was getting him off. He was doing it for the reactions.

 

And I'm rather comfortable with shaming that kink all day long.

 

I'm torn. I've been Louis CK (hmm, sorta. I made the occasional advance that was rejected and I made the occasional advance that was reciprocated) and it's unfair to see him lumped with the likes of Cosby and Weinstein. How do you lose your career over this? Ok, you're probably not facing criminal charges like the real predators, but think of this shaming culture! Losing your career! When you're probably a victim yourself. Rihanna tells you women like it and she gets millions. You were incredibly mistaken, do it, and lose your career?

 

It's a circus, where the serious is being lumped with the pathetic, almost comical. It's the circus I'm really attacking. (If I play ball and argue a side here)

Louis CK's statement was almost the right thing to do. He owned it. He acknowledged the power play. He said he didn't see it then, does now, and regrets it.

 

Where he went wrong is that he never actually says the words "I'm sorry" and he tried to shut these women up for several years now. Add an apology to his letter and have him say it right after the first accusation, and he might still have a career.

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have him say it right after the first accusation, and he might still have a career.

Times get slack, the culture gets permissive and corrupt, until there's the retaliation where all the wrong-doers are hauled in.

 

But this is probably not the case for Louis CK. He probably never confessed because he was afraid he'd get ridiculed for being rejected. In those slack times even women are saying men should just take what they want and if they don't they're *******. And they ridicule those men who try but it's all awkward and they get rejected. Then when victim females had enough and the culture shifts, these testosterone-high women that were influencing a chauvinist culture are nowhere to be found. And people like Louis CK are the scapegoats. I'm not saying this is definitely what happened, I'm saying it's possible. So in summation, in that chauvinist era, confessing that he was an awkward pervert that got rejected would have made him lose his career anyway. Not because he harrassed a girl, but because he didn't do it badass enough and was ugly.

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I understood half of that. What is "slack time?"

 

Louis doesn't care about people seeing him as rejected. Have you seen his stand up or show? The majority of his schtick is what a loser and screw up he is. If anything his deeds re-enforces the character he's built for himself.

 

He tried to quiet them first because he didn't think he did anything wrong. They didn't say no to him, but they also didn't say yes. He didn't see the difference that was caused by him being in a power position as a famous comedian, doing this to women who were up and coming.

 

Then, like anyone, when he realized he was in the wrong and they tried to speak up, he wanted to do damage control. He had a lot at stake. He has two daughters. He has huge development deals with FX and Netflix. He didn't want to lose that. So he tried to hush them up.

 

He's not a scapegoat for anything. He admits fully he is in the wrong and contributed to the overall problem.

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1. Accusations of abuse are as old as time. Are you proposing there are mass swaths of men who have been so horrible abused by women that they don't speak out? Okay, I can't prove that isn't a thing-- but you can't prove that it is. Again, women speaking up is not a new thing. People spoke out about Cosby and Weinstein literally decades ago, and they were dismissed. I' m relatively certain that if this female on male abuse existed as you suggest, we'd have heard of something. I don't deny that it happens-- but no where near the number of men abusing women.

 

 

Because there are no battered-husband shelters. There are no women in power positions that have dozens of men accusing them of harassment or worse. Because in my own private life at least a third of the women I know have suffered some form of harassment or abuse. Because of all the men I know only two have a history of abuse and both of them were abused by a parent when they were a child. Mostly though, because the statistics, the legal proof, every study ever made on the topic, and the fact that we are now in a climate where it is seemingly safe to come out (hence all the news being what it is) and still, the vast majority of these cases are men on woman violence.

 

Some who research such matters also assume that the lack of male complaints means sexual harassment/assault against men (at the hands of women) is not happening on a larger scale. This also ignores the long-lived cultural stigma of males never wanting to admit to certain kinds of abuse, as it has been viewed as a sign of weakness (of the male), essentially making them weak, or feeling like they are not male at all. Refusing to admit being sexually victimized leads too many to believe it does not happen to males on any significant level compared to women, and as a result of the absence of real numbers, you certainly will not see as many shelters, hospitals or resources dedicated to male victims.

 

In fact, recent research has argued:

 

 

 

Data hasn’t been calculated under the new FBI definition yet, but Stemple parses several other national surveys in her new paper, The Sexual Victimization of Men in America: New Data Challenge Old Assumptions,” co-written with Ilan Meyer and published in the April 17 edition of the American Journal of Public Health. One of those surveys is the 2010 National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey, for which the Centers for Disease Control invented a category of sexual violence called “being made to penetrate.” This definition includes victims who were forced to penetrate someone else with their own body parts, either by physical force or coercion, or when the victim was drunk or high or otherwise unable to consent. When those cases were taken into account, the rates of nonconsensual sexual contact basically equalized, with 1.270 million women and 1.267 million men claiming to be victims of sexual violence.

 

It happens--far more than anyone will admit, which is disturbing, as it serves as a reminder that the crime of sexual assault can be used--like just abut everything else in the world--to push agendas, when the point should have been (and it know it sounds crazy) acknowledging/fighting against it all.

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Well it's definitely about power. I was groped once in a disgusting way but it had no relevance because she had no power. Some gal who's about 5 feet tall and 5 feet wide slapped my chest and started rubbing it in front of all my coworkers. She even moaned like she was getting off on it. Then we all laughed. There was no sexual harassment because I didn't feel threatened by it.

 

So if it's really about power, then you have to question the motivations of the victims. Are they making a statement about sexual abuse, or are they whining about being unsatisfied with their own lives?

 

I recently read that Ron Jeremy is being accused of sexual assault. By female porn stars. He appropriately laughed it off. These gals clearly made a bad career choice and are upset about it.

 

The point that I was trying (and failed) to make earlier is that women often portray themselves as sexual objects and then get mad when they are treated like sexual objects. They want attention until they get the wrong kind of attention. The fault, for many, is their own and it's built on the frustration they have for not getting what they thought they would get by abandoning their morals and relying solely on their overrated sexuality.

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Also sometimes all the fun things get taken away when you start cracking down on sexual harassment and discrimination. I'm sure people have witnessed it in one form or another but because nothing gets said tacit approval is given to keep on doing it. I mean there's some funny jokes out there or say a gay guy makes a funny comment to a guy at work do you come out saying "Hey! Not cool!" or do you look the other way?

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I disagree with Franken on a lot, and in general dislike him, and there's no excuse for his actions, but there is context. He was being a lousy comedian and going for the horny 16 year-old joke. And rather than trying to blame others or play the victim, he acknowledged it, said it was wrong, and welcomed investigation.

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Yeah that seems to be the stock approach. Just admit it and apologize, much like Louis CK did, and hope for the best.

 

Meanwhile Louis CK is forcing women to watch him masturbate to Weinstein raping women while Kevin Spacey goes after teenage boys and Ben Affleck says to himself "I'm good with all of this. Just keep paying me me millions. The liberal gulit won't kick in till around 2017 or so. No one will find out, right? Right???"

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