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zoogs

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zoogs last won the day on July 29 2017

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  1. Where on earth are we going with this? Moiraine said I should consider the source. I agree. I do respond differently based on where I think someone's likely to be coming from. The next thing I said is that I try to keep that to a limited extent, because no matter who is saying the thing, let's focus on the thing being said. Recognize imbalanced power dynamics. This is the argument against Bill Clinton, for example. The point is (a) be more mindful and (b) understand the times you might be unconsciously throwing your weight around, creating a situation that is hard to get out of nicely.
  2. You're not going to actually dig into, let's strip the names and the question of fact out of this, <Hypothetical Man Doing The Things In That Story> as totally fine, right? Because it's also clearly not that much of a hypothetical. It's an experience that is familiar to a lot of people -- women who, I mean, just read their responses to the story -- and men for whom it's dawned, "was that me? I don't want that to be me." And then there's "this is fine". Why pick that one, why?!
  3. Should I consider whether it's a woman or a man saying the line before deciding whether it's reasonable or not? I mean, yeah, I do agree with that. But I also think arguments should be dissected on the merits of their content. I am surprised that it was you who said this, and it did not make me think, gosh, Moiraine is secretly sexist. If it had been another source, then I would have probably felt differently. Nonetheless, I thought that we were running with "she made up these ridiculous stories" as incontrovertible fact way, way, way too quickly. The other thing was I felt like she was being treated as a juvenile-level writer. You tell me this was in my head, in your case, and I'm sorry for that -- but yours was also not the only perspective I was responding to. In other cases, "just a blog" especially, I felt it applied. And Guy, to his credit, has moderated his characterization of the writing substantially. I appreciate this. Anyway, the idea is maybe exactly to put a suit of armor, except it's not really like that. It's like the default is that everyone has this armor; we give a lot of benefit of the doubt, except it's missing in some cases. We're familiar with what those cases are. So point it out and set a higher bar to clear for making those types of arguments.
  4. OK, this falls under the classic category of "why didn't she just leave" and I think a million people have gone through this better than I will be able to. This isn't about pretending women have no agency. It's about recognizing that they are in a coercive situation that is difficult to get out of in a socially acceptable way. A variety of responses, from a quick Google. https://www.designmom.com/bad-date-or-coercion-aziz-ansari/ https://www.refinery29.com/2018/01/188734/sexual-assault-consent-physical-intimidation https://story.californiasunday.com/orenstein-consent https://twitter.com/theblowout/status/952692536254124036?lang=en https://www.elephantjournal.com/2018/01/why-didnt-she-just-say-no/ http://www.themalaymailonline.com/opinion/erna-mahyuni/article/women-cant-say-no-because-many-dont-know-how-to http://www.chicagonow.com/listing-beyond-forty/2018/01/21-reasons-women-have-sex-they-dont-want-instead-of-saying-no/ https://mashable.com/2018/01/15/aziz-ansari-consent-saying-no/#8NnsrnJ4Psq2 Also, let's be clear here. The timeline is she told him to back off; he'd forget shortly and come right back to it. And eventually, she left. It didn't need to come to that. If you feel this was a low blow to Aziz personally, fine. He's not the protagonist of the story, though, not to me. You can feel simultaneously that it's wrong to slime your partners publicly like this, and that there are lessons to take from his mistakes.
  5. I see. I don't know. I have a different view. I can understand why Aziz didn't realize, but the why is he wasn't all that concerned about where she was with all this. I'd like to think that going forward, it'll be something that's on his mind. And that'll be good for everybody.
  6. -- So this is almost the opposite scenario. Enthusiastic just means enthusiastically willing -- which you are, whether or not you're tired or thinking of cake instead of being in the moment, because you've made this choice to accommodate a partner you love, for example. The other scenario means having no idea if your partner for the evening has made that choice for you, or assuming *wildly* that they have (we can agree this is an extraordinary assumption to make on a first date with a stranger, right?), or just not even having the consideration cross your mind. That is what, allegedly, happened here, and that is something I hope we can all agree is a thing that both happens a lot, and could stand to happen a lot less if people were more conscious of it.
  7. It's maybe also the account of someone who was really not comfortable with things moving so fast, and the latter is not the proposed alternative. I think the case being made here is that she didn't want it, she wasn't just playing hard to get (these are dangerous lines to blur, aren't they?), and that a possible and much better outcome would be if the pursuit had stopped in its tracks much earlier on. Like, especially when it's early on and it's someone you don't know, maybe be a lot more clear on comfort areas and boundaries, this is something we can at least consider the ideal.
  8. Ugh. You are of course the last person I actually would think is sexist. I hope you do know that. "I don't believe her" is not an insult, but it -- the concept of not believing something claimed to be true -- is a way of dismissing what someone says that is, factually, more often and more easily used on women than on men. This is all I mean by gendered putdowns. You, again, think that nonetheless it applies. I do not. You are allowed to critique, but I am suggesting that the "not real" claim needs a lot more support. I mean, I still feel this way. You think the story sounds far-fetched and I can understand that, but there's nothing that indicates this wasn't drawn from her own personal experiences. So I think we need to be a lot more careful before leaping to all the criticisms that follow from "author made up stories to embellish her essay"....but, fine, you do not.
  9. Yes, the question does come down to whether or not we believe her recount of the events. It's inaccurate that Aziz has disputed her timeline. What he said was that it -- the events of the undisputed timeline -- had seemed OK to him, and he was surprised to learn that she had another perspective. He also said that he took her concerns to heart.
  10. Guys, it is just not that hard. Start with worrying less about having to prove to some third party whether or not your partner was enthusiastic. If there's actually doubt in your mind, maybe it's not the time. If you really want to and are happy to do this, then it's fine. I imagine you would agree that a hypothetical relationship where the woman is really demanding about it and takes what she wants all the time with no regard for her partner's wishes, then it would be a hell for that poor guy. (Why doesn't he leave? He should leave, right?) I mean, if you really love your wife and your wife really loves you, then you're both being extremely considerate of each other's wishes, which is the opposite of the scenario outlined here. Aziz messed up. Not in a he should go to jail kind of way, but for a guy who passed himself off as this super sweet, super sensitive, extremely woke feminist writing cute books on modern love, it's ... a good reminder that everyone can revisit some of their assumptions.
  11. The suggestion that Aziz needed to do a lot better than repeatedly badger her into first date sex she was clearly not comfortable with is not trampling on his rights, it is not an affront to gender equality. You dropped "enthusiastic" in your response, which was a necessary call. And you should probably drop "sustained" as well, if the events of the timeline are to be accepted.
  12. I'm just going to heavily, heavily disagree with: - "It's like she's asking him to read her mind" - "Why didn't she say no and leave" - "Newsflash, this is normal, this is natural, get used to it" and leave it at this. We are going to agree to disagree; I've gone over them in the past and I don't think I'm going to be making the case to anyone here, but maybe / hopefully these themes will come up in later discussions, eventually. Enthusiastic, sustained consent is not a difficult requirement to make sure you have met even if it is not one we are used to thinking of as a requirement.
  13. Yeah, maybe. It's not an episode of the Simpsons, though, and our disagreements aren't "hey I liked the big CGI things, you didn't like them, OK." It'd be like if there were a movie that I thought added some really important stuff to our cultural conversation on feminism, and my good friend thinks it was trash that embarrassed and set back the feminist movement. So, the stakes feel more real here -- on both sides. In a way that most movies, or most essays or most articles, aren't. We can agree to disagree, nonetheless. That is fine.
  14. I strongly feel the important takeaway here is that having sex you are not into, because the man is singularly focused on his own pleasure perhaps without being conscious of this habit of theirs, is extremely routine and this is a problem. In fact, this was a common takeaway from a community of people who responded very differently to the story, and feels, as I do, that making this a question of how much an unhappy woman deserves to be castigated for having an inexperienced reporter at a third-rate site publish her story is a misplacement of our attention.
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