#MeToo

Why does Bill Clinton not get held accountable by feminists? I have never understood this.

Quoting fishfry

Why does Bill Clinton not get held accountable by feminists? I have never understood this.

What makes you think that Slick Willey gets a pass for what he did in the Oval Office?
Or are you saying that Bills' interaction with Monica Lewinsky made her a #MeToo ?
Both are relevant and what Bill did to Monica is a perfect example of a person of power using that for/or against a woman he has a sexual interest in. Thankfully, it was not rape but it was sexual harassment and/ or abuse in the work place, which Monica should not have to have endured. I wonder what would have happened if she would have filed a complaint of sexual harassment and/ or abuse by a sitting President.

Quoting ArguingWAristotleTiff

Both are relevant and what Bill did to Monica is a perfect example of a person of power using that for/or against a woman he has a sexual interest in.

Both are relevant and what did Monica to Bill is a perfect example of a person of power using that for/or against a man she has a sexual interest in.

They were both to blame. Buttheads

All workers can expect to be harassed on the job, sooner or later, whatever form the harassment takes. The reason for this is that most jobs are exploitation to start with. Sexual harassment is but a specialty.

I'm not making light of sexual harassment. Nobody should be pressured to fuck the boss or supervisor or co-worker--except where the rewards are going to be very attractive. On the other hand, pursuing relationships on the job seems like a normal activity to me -- and just as raping one's date is a bad way to start a great relationship, mauling one's co-workers isn't an auspicious beginning either.

I suspect that Monica Lewinsky thought the rewards were going to be pretty attractive. I don't know what Bill got out of it -- blow job? Hand job?

But back to my first point -- workers get jerked around on the job rather often. Sure, there are some jobs, some work sites, where there is more bullying, or less arbitrary and capricious docking of wages, and there are even a few places that workers land in that are quite pleasant, at least for a while. But workers are at the mercy of their employers (thanks to corporate interests killing off unions). Workers have no job security (employment at will means you can be fired for any reason), no freedom of speech while on the job, and no real protection from unreasonable demands -- of any kind.

Harvey Weinstein may be a creep, but Hollywood has been run by energetic, creative, ingenious egotistical, manipulative, jerks since the place started making movies. Why are we so surprised when one of these guys is called out for being a jerk??

Quoting Sir2u

Both are relevant and what did Monica to Bill is a perfect example of a person of power using that for/or against a man she has a sexual interest in.

So what you are saying is that Monica (22yrs old) and Slick Willey (49yrs old) were both of adult consensual age and both were of equal power between one another, using each persons political power to their own advantage? Monica's to advance her career and Willey to continue on his pattern of taking advantage of women who fall at his feet, without getting caught?

Quoting ArguingWAristotleTiff

Thankfully, it was not rape but it was sexual harassment and/ or abuse in the work place, which Monica should not have to have endured. I wonder what would have happened if she would have filed a complaint of sexual harassment and/ or abuse by a sitting President.

Monica Lewinsky Writes About Her Affair With President Clinton:

Maintaining that her affair with Clinton was one between two consenting adults, Lewinsky writes that it was the public humiliation she suffered in the wake of the scandal that permanently altered the direction of her life: “Sure, my boss took advantage of me, but I will always remain firm on this point: it was a consensual relationship. Any ‘abuse’ came in the aftermath, when I was made a scapegoat in order to protect his powerful position. . . . The Clinton administration, the special prosecutor’s minions, the political operatives on both sides of the aisle, and the media were able to brand me. And that brand stuck, in part because it was imbued with power.”

It's presumptuous to assume that a relationship is abusive or harassment just because one person has more power than another.

Quoting Bitter Crank

I'm not making light of sexual harassment. Nobody should be pressured to fuck the boss or supervisor or co-worker--except where the rewards are going to be very attractive.

I am glad you are not making light of sexual harassment as it is not a light topic but one that is being brought out into the light of day.
Correct me if I am wrong but what I am reading is that you might believe that if the rewards are good enough, a boss or supervisor should be able to come onto an employee?

Quoting Bitter Crank

. But workers are at the mercy of their employers (thanks to corporate interests killing off unions). Workers have no job security (employment at will means you can be fired for any reason), no freedom of speech while on the job, and no real protection from unreasonable demands -- of any kind.

To start with I should let you know that AZ is a right to work state which also means the right to fire without reason given state. I believe Unions represent 4% of workers in AZ which seems very low in comparison to say, Minnesota or Illinois.

Having said that the idea that "workers are at the mercy of their employers" is true to a degree and that is what is shifting. Being groped by the manager on the job, as a matter of your shift interaction, is now something that can be confronted and that is what really needs to happen, on the spot confrontation.
Women and men who thought they had to 'put up' with this kind of lewd behavior because no one would believe them, are now understanding that there are many more in the shadows, that have tolerated such behavior in silence then they ever knew.

It is much more difficult to prove in a "he said, she said" report of harassment/and or molestation than it is to call the bastard/bitch out RIGHT when it happens. So maybe this movement will empower those being harassed/and or molested to call the aggressor out and not wait for someone in HR to make that decision for them. That is a possibility. Another possibility is for society to update their attitude that the days of the'good ole boys club' has come to an end. The days of offering up the justification that in submitting to the bosses advances will get you ahead in your workplace is no longer available. Men who believe that they can wield their power of making you a star employee from the end of their penis should understand that "unreasonable demands -- of any kind" are no longer acceptable but what is acceptable is them being called out for it.

Quoting Bitter Crank

Harvey Weinstein may be a creep, but Hollywood has been run by energetic, creative, ingenious egotistical, manipulative, jerks since the place started making movies. Why are we so surprised when one of these guys is called out for being a jerk??

With all the allegations against Harvey, undercover FBI recordings, his wife leaving him and his expulsion from the only professional community he has ever known, I feel safe in saying that Harvey was more than a "jerk" but he is a sexual predator. He used his power and status to advance his own sexual demands, in a behavior pattern that lasted decades. What is surprising even to Harvey is that people are speaking up about him like never before. Even he is stunned and is saying "People make mistakes" and "deserve a second chance" well my friend, not one of these reports sound like a "mistake" but rather massive manipulation. And as far as deserving a "second chance"? A chance to do what and to whom?

Quoting Michael

It's presumptuous to assume that a relationship is abusing or harassment just because one person has more power than another.

[quote=Monica]Any ‘abuse’ came in the aftermath, when I was made a scapegoat in order to protect his powerful position.[/quote]

But the aftermath is part of the relationship, so in this case it is not presumptuous. But one ought to be presumptuous in any case. One ought to presume that power imbalances will lead to manufactured consent, as is the case in prostitution. That is why many professional bodies prohibit such relationships absolutely, such as doctors with patients, teachers with children. which is to say that if Monica and Bill want to have a consensual sexual relationship, they can do so in my book as soon as they are no longer in a professional power relationship. It is a matter of protecting the vulnerable in general from exploitation and abuse, even if some of them quite like being abused in particular situations.

We might even find it plausible that Harvey Weinstein's 'weakness' was on occasion exploited by ambitious women, or that Monica herself exploited Bill's inability to pass up a chance to play the lover-boy to further her career; one never knows. But however it works, and whoever is being exploited, there are other parties to consider: the PAs or actresses who do not compromise their virtue, and the audiences and electors who are potentially deprived of the best person to be doing the job.

Reply to unenlightened That there was abuse because of the relationship is not that the relationship was abusive.

A bad divorce wouldn’t mean a bad marriage.

Quoting Michael

A bad divorce wouldn’t mean a bad marriage.

Yes it would.

Strange thing, nobody - absolutely nobody - voted in this poll. I guess TPF members aren't very open with regards to this sort of thing.

Quoting unenlightened

But the aftermath is part of the relationship, so in this case it is not presumptuous. But one ought to be presumptuous in any case. One ought to presume that power imbalances will lead to manufactured consent, as is the case in prostitution. That is why many professional bodies prohibit such relationships absolutely, such as doctors with patients, teachers with children. which is to say that if Monica and Bill want to have a consensual sexual relationship, they can do so in my book as soon as they are no longer in a professional power relationship. It is a matter of protecting the vulnerable in general from exploitation and abuse, even if some of them quite like being abused in particular situations.

We might even find it plausible that Harvey Weinstein's 'weakness' was on occasion exploited by ambitious women, or that Monica herself exploited Bill's inability to pass up a chance to play the lover-boy to further her career; one never knows. But however it works, and whoever is being exploited, there are other parties to consider: the PAs or actresses who do not compromise their virtue, and the audiences and electors who are potentially deprived of the best person to be doing the job.

I agree with you. I find Mitch's comment degrading:

Quoting Michael

It's presumptuous to assume that a relationship is abusive or harassment just because one person has more power than another.

The further issue is that there is no way to really avoid such situations in the end, except to say that if you really want to avoid such situations, don't accept such jobs, which put you in contact with people who are significantly more powerful than you are. That's why for example I've avoided working in larger multinational corporations where the bosses snort cocaine and make you do stupid stuff for fun (although I know people who have accepted such). So it's quite simple in a way - there's sacrifices you have to make if you don't want to be in such an environment. The environment cannot really be reformed. Either you grow powerful by yourself, so that you can create the environment and then enforce your own rules, or you avoid environments that force you to interact with those more powerful than you. Then you don't need to compromise.

And obviously I'm a man, I think it's much worse if you're a woman in such an environment. But again, the strategy recommended would be the same. You cannot have one foot in hell and another in heaven - you have to make a choice. Some women (and men) exploit those environments very well by humiliating themselves before they can rise to the top and ultimately grow bigger than those whom they humiliated themselves before in the first place. The Chinese military proverb says that even the great general Han Xin crawled between the legs of a bunch of hooligans.

I said there's no way to avoid such situations, because power ultimately dictates the terms, whether you like it or not. You cannot stand up to power except if you yourself are powerful. Bureaucracies, division of powers - this is all ultimately nonsense. Whoever holds power, and knows how to use it, can abuse, if that's what they decide to do.

Quoting Agustino

I agree with you. I find Mitch's comment degrading

My name isn't Mitch. And how is my comment degrading? The subsequent paragraphs don't seem to explain it.

Quoting ArguingWAristotleTiff

Thankfully, it was not rape

You never heard of any other credible rape allegations against Bill Clinton? They've got their own Wiki page. Before one of the 2016 presidential debates, Trump brought a group of Bubba's accusers to a press conference. You don't remember that?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Clinton_sexual_misconduct_allegations

Quoting ArguingWAristotleTiff

Monica's to advance her career and Willey to continue on his pattern of taking advantage of women who fall at his feet, without getting caught?

Personally I think it was probably her idea that they got caught so that she could become famous. But I, like everyone else in the public don't and probably will never know the whole story.

I really don't like the idea of anyone with authority using it like that, as a man it is not the correct way to behave no matter what position you hold. But shit happens.

They were consenting adults and she could have walked away. If she was as good a worker to have a position that put next to a president she could have found work anywhere. But she wanted and accepted the deal that was offered so that makes her just as responsible as the idiot with his fly open.

How would the people have seen things if Hilary had been the president and she was caught getting some nooky? Would the people have cried fowl as well?

The nitty gritty of individual incidents is not so important in my view as the general discourse that surrounds these incidents. That's where the issue is for me, the discourse seems to get skewed in direct proportion to the degree of power and wealth of the abusers and the power disparity between them and the abused. There's talk of dinosaurs, rehab and second chances, the focus being more on the abusers' psychological and behavioural failings rather than the individual crimes and victims. Whereas for the not-so-privileged that conversation becomes less and less relevant and the focus tends to be more clearly on punishment. It seems then that Weinstein and his ilk are in a way insulated by the level of scandal that surrounds them and the debates it generates and that the fact that the scandal is an outpouring of what we already suspect makes it more of a catharsis than a serious disruption in terms of the social fabric. Here we are confirming our suspicions again and so our outrage becomes dissipated and defocused. So, let's not distract ourselves from the fact that Weinstein has all but admitted the abuse excepting the rapes and the likelihood he committed those increases with every new report. The focus then should first be on justice for the particular women who were abused and the talk in the media should be of courts, prison sentences etc (in so far as those measures are possible given statutes of limitations and so on). After that's out of the way, let's focus more about general prevention and awareness. But there has to be justice.

(I agree about Clinton incidentally and the same thing applies. It's quite possible he's a rapist but people just shrug as if that's what the rich and powerful do and now we've got it out in the open everything's OK as if he's been punished enough. No, these people need to be behind bars not podiums.)

Reply to ArguingWAristotleTiff Getting fired because someone lied about you, or because somebody just didn't like you and had made trouble for you, or because the boss just didn't like your long hair, or short hair, or whatever hair -- all sorts of reasons -- can be devastating. One suddenly finds one's self without an income, insurance, cut off from the social circle of work, etc. Also very common is injury on the job or sickness because of the job because it was cheaper to have an unsafe, unhealthy workplace. This is considered normal by many people who howl about sexual harassment.

Quoting ArguingWAristotleTiff

Correct me if I am wrong but what I am reading is that you might believe that if the rewards are good enough, a boss or supervisor should be able to come onto an employee?

I wasn't clear. I meant to apply the rewards to the employee who accepts sexual exploitation as a way of getting ahead. In other words, an employee might find it advantageous to tolerate being exploited. It does happen that people screw their way upwards in an organization. The exploiter has generally already obtained a superior position.

Monica Lewinsky probably calculated greater advantage from sex with Bill than calling a press conference announcing that Bill had come on to her (literally).

Sexual exploitation is a specialty within the general practice of exploiting employees (aka, workers). "All workers can expect to be harassed on the job, sooner or later, whatever form the harassment takes. The reason for this is that most jobs are exploitation to start with. Sexual harassment is but a specialty."

If we are going to be against harassment and exploitation, then we should be against harassment and exploitation across the board.

Quoting ArguingWAristotleTiff

To start with I should let you know that AZ is a right to work state which also means the right to fire without reason given state. I believe Unions represent 4% of workers in AZ which seems very low in comparison to say, Minnesota or Illinois.

Minnesota has about 15% of its employees represented, Arizona has about 5%.

"Right to work" are rules disadvantageous to workers who seek protection from unionization. "Employment at will" (meaning one can be fired any time for any reason) is separate from "right to work", and operates where no contract (union or professional) is in force.

Quoting Agustino

Strange thing, nobody - absolutely nobody - voted in this poll. I guess TPF members aren't very open with regards to this sort of thing.

Probably because

A. most of the participants are male
B. probably haven't been sexually exploited on the job
C. probably haven't even been offered sexual exploitation
C. are philosophers who would disarm their exploiters with incisive invective.

I just voted. I haven't been exploited nor have I exploited others. I have had a few female friends who disclosed to me they have been sexually harassed, threatened and/or hit. It's shockingly pervasive even in a relatively progressive society as the Netherlands. 45% of women in the Netherlands have been sexually assaulted, compared to 33% average in Europe. That difference is explained by a high participation of Dutch women in labour (more risk at work) and Dutch women being more vocal about it.

The good development I see is that women reporting this seem to be taken seriously more often than not as opposed to being suspected of having ulterior motives or having asked for it. Other than that it's often embarrassing to be associated with men.

Reply to ArguingWAristotleTiff Won't let me vote without voting for all sections, even though the middle section isn't relevant to me. You should really add an N/A option.

I recall being assaulted at a nightclub once. Some girl walked past me, grabbed me by the balls, and then walked away.

I just thought it a really weird thing to do.

Quoting Baden

I agree about Clinton incidentally and the same thing applies. It's quite possible he's a rapist but people just shrug as if that's what the rich and powerful do and now we've got it out in the open everything's OK as if he's been punished enough. No, these people need to be behind bars not podiums.

Are you referring to Lewinsky or some other allegation(s)?

Reply to Michael

Others. Inconvenient to search for refs right now, but those are easily found online.

Quoting Bitter Crank

I meant to apply the rewards to the employee who accepts sexual exploitation as a way of getting ahead. In other words, an employee might find it advantageous to tolerate being exploited. It does happen that people screw their way upwards in an organization. The exploiter has generally already obtained a superior position.

Monica Lewinsky probably calculated greater advantage from sex with Bill than calling a press conference announcing that Bill had come on to her (literally).

Maybe she was just attracted to him and it had nothing to do with "exploiting" him to get ahead. Seems to be what she's saying here:

So I think was the eye contact. And the way he looks at women he’s attracted to. He undresses you with his eyes. And it is slow, from the bottom of your toes to the top of your head back down to your toes again. And it’s an intense look. He loses his smile. His sexual energy kind of comes over his eyes, and it’s very animalistic. And if you’re someone who is comfortable with your sensuality, you’re in touch with that, you’re receptive to it if you find that person attractive.

Quoting Michael

It's presumptuous to assume that a relationship is abusive or harassment just because one person has more power than another.

Just to be clear, I am not talking about people who are involved in a romantic relationship.
What I am suggesting is that the 'playing field' is not equal when one person holds professional power over another. The superior should be expected to rise to a stricter set of rules when interacting with those he manages.

Quoting ArguingWAristotleTiff

What I am suggesting is that the 'playing field' is not equal when one person holds professional power over another. The superior should be expected to rise to a stricter set of rules when interacting with those he manages.

Perhaps, but that's not the same as abuse or harassment.

Quoting fishfry

You never heard of any other credible rape allegations against Bill Clinton? They've got their own Wiki page. Before one of the 2016 presidential debates, Trump brought a group of Bubba's accusers to a press conference. You don't remember that?

I do remember the rape allegations against Bill Clinton and I also know what his wife Hillary said about those rape allegations, discounting each and every accuser until proven otherwise. What is your point? That sexual predators have people around them that know what the predator is doing and either looks the other way or enables the behavior to continue?

Quoting Sir2u

Personally I think it was probably her idea that they got caught so that she could become famous. But I, like everyone else in the public don't and probably will never know the whole story.

You are right that we will never know the whole story but Monica had enough "proof" to show that he cheated on his wife and that is about it. I never heard her cry fowl about being forced to do something against her will. Bill got in trouble for lying not for getting a bj though many thought it was lacking all class to treat the Oval office that way.

Quoting Sir2u

I really don't like the idea of anyone with authority using it like that, as a man it is not the correct way to behave no matter what position you hold. But shit happens.

I agree that no one of authority should use it that way, either gender. But shit happens

We were doing so well until that last part about shit happens. Shit never 'just happens'. It is always a conscious decision to sexually dominate someone when in a position of power.

Quoting Sir2u

They were consenting adults and she could have walked away. If she was as good a worker to have a position that put next to a president she could have found work anywhere. But she wanted and accepted the deal that was offered so that makes her just as responsible as the idiot with his fly open.

Yes they were both adults and consenting but I doubt if he was a news paper salesman she would have pursued him for any reason. It was because of his position of power that she fell for him which is why she never called rape or sexual molestation.

Quoting Sir2u

How would the people have seen things if Hilary had been the president and she was caught getting some nooky? Would the people have cried fowl as well?

Assuming that it was consensual sex, like Bill and Monica, we would probably shame her for infidelity like we did Bill.

Quoting ArguingWAristotleTiff

Yes they were both adults and consenting but I doubt if he was a news paper salesman she would have pursued him for any reason. It was because of his position of power that she fell for him which is why she never called rape or sexual molestation.

I've never understood this. What's the difference between being attracted to someone because of their power and being attracted to someone because of their looks, talent, or sense of humour?

Obviously there's a difference if there isn't actually any attraction and the interest is just in exploiting the power the other person has, but that doesn't seem to be what happened in this case (unless she's lying).

Quoting Bitter Crank

Getting fired because someone lied about you, or because somebody just didn't like you and had made trouble for you, or because the boss just didn't like your long hair, or short hair, or whatever hair -- all sorts of reasons -- can be devastating. One suddenly finds one's self without an income, insurance, cut off from the social circle of work, etc.

This I understand but what you have explained can happen to anyone. I fail to see how it is specific to sexual harassment/and or abuse by people in the position of power.

Quoting Bitter Crank

Also very common is injury on the job or sickness because of the job because it was cheaper to have an unsafe, unhealthy workplace.

Again, I don't understand the relevance. Am I missing something? Can you correlate the two for me so I can see what you see?

Quoting Bitter Crank

This is considered normal by many people who howl about sexual harassment.

Grrrr....why does it feel like you're using the words "howl about sexual harassment" in an effort to convey a less than supportive attitude towards those that confront their abuser.

Quoting Bitter Crank

I wasn't clear. I meant to apply the rewards to the employee who accepts sexual exploitation as a way of getting ahead. In other words, an employee might find it advantageous to tolerate being exploited. It does happen that people screw their way upwards in an organization. The exploiter has generally already obtained a superior position.

Thank you for taking the time to clarify your thoughts to me. I do agree with you that there are people, men and women, who find screwing their way up in an organization is the way to go and tolerating exploitation is part of the deal. And you are right in that the exploiter usually has obtained a superior position.

Quoting Bitter Crank

Sexual exploitation is a specialty within the general practice of exploiting employees (aka, workers). "All workers can expect to be harassed on the job, sooner or later, whatever form the harassment takes. The reason for this is that most jobs are exploitation to start with. Sexual harassment is but a specialty."

No. All workers should not "expect" to be harassed on the job. It is not acceptable and it is okay to speak up about it and take your stand even if that means leaving your job.


Quoting Bitter Crank

If we are going to be against harassment and exploitation, then we should be against harassment and exploitation across the board.

I agree. This thread is about non consensual sexual harassment/ and or abuse by those in the position of power.

Quoting Michael

I recall being assaulted at a nightclub once. Some girl walked past me, grabbed me by the balls, and then walked away.

I just thought it a really weird thing to do.

I think it is a really weird thing to do as well. Were you working for the nightclub? Was she a customer or a fellow employee?

Reply to ArguingWAristotleTiff Both just customers.

Quoting Michael

Perhaps, but that's not the same as abuse or harassment.

? If the person of power, makes unwanted sexual advances on a subordinate, that is the very definition of sexual harassment/ and or abuse. What am I missing in what you are saying?

Quoting Michael

Both just customers.

That is an equal playing field and you were able to freely chose how to react without fear of losing your job.

Quoting ArguingWAristotleTiff

If the person of power, makes unwanted sexual advances on a subordinate, that is the very definition of sexual harassment/ and or abuse. What am I missing in what you are saying?

We were talking about Clinton's relationship with Lewinsky. From what she's said, it wasn't unwanted. So unless there's something else I'm missing, it was neither harassment nor abuse (although certainly inappropriate, and infidelity on Clinton's part).

Quoting ArguingWAristotleTiff

That is an equal playing field and you were able to freely chose how to react without fear of losing your job.

Huh? I was just referring to being sexually harassed. I'm not sure what "being on an equal playing field" has to do with it.

Quoting Michael

I've never understood this. What's the difference between being attracted to someone because of their power and being attracted to someone because of their looks, talent, or sense of humour?

Some women want to be part of the power of the man she is pursuing. Monica was looking for more than just a job at the White House and was submissive to Bill to get ahead in the West Wing. I don't know why she kept the blue dress. Maybe a memento? Maybe proof if her true story was questioned?

If someone is looking for love, they will see it in the eyes of the paper boy when he laughs at your little jokes and makes you blush as he wishes you a good day. You will see that paper boy daily, a habit that both will enjoy and that is where true attraction happens. Monica was looking for a power play not love. I am pretty sure she would have knelt for anyone that was President if given the chance.

Quoting Michael

Obviously there's a difference if there isn't actually any attraction and the interest is just in exploiting the power the other person has, but that doesn't seem to be what happened in this case (unless she's lying).

I haven't read Monica's' book but I do believe she was attracted but as I said, the attraction was to the power, not necessarily limited to who was in power.

Quoting Michael

We were talking about Clinton's relationship with Lewinsky. From what she's said, it wasn't unwanted. So unless there's something else I'm missing, it was neither harassment nor abuse (although certainly inappropriate, and infidelity on Clinton's part).

You are correct and I stand corrected in stating Monica endured sexual harassment because it was consenting by two adults.

Bill wielded his position of President to take advantage of what Monica was offering. Bill as President and in a position of power is and should be held to a higher standard which means no fraternizing with employees, let alone fornicating.

"That is an equal playing field and you were able to freely chose how to react without fear of losing your job." — ArguingWAristotleTiff

Quoting Michael

Huh? I was just referring to being sexually harassed. I'm not sure what "being on an equal playing field" has to do with it.

I am thankful you shared what happened to you as it was being sexually assaulted but my aim of this thread is for when an experience such as yours, happens by a future or current employer or person who holds professional power over you.
I hope that makes sense.

Reply to Michael Actually something like that happened to me once as well, although I'm not certain whether it was a girl or a guy as I was grabbed in the balls from behind.

Also had a gay guy come on to me rather strongly that made me feel uncomfortable by touching me and trying to hold my hand. When I said: "I'm sorry but I'm a heterosexual." His reply was: "That's what they all say the first time." Bloody annoying.

#MeToo
At age 18 I was working in a private home as a nanny, for the VP of University of Phoenix caring for her infant when I was sexually assaulted. Her Father, foreigner to the USA, who was in his 60's was visiting at her home for the holidays. The first time it happened I wondered if he realized what he was doing as I was stunned and he groped me while I was taking the baby from his arms, so I let it go. The next day, same situation only this time the child was in my arms and I turned to go away from him to which he groped both my breasts and then looked me in the eyes. I was creeped out and felt violated and began to get ill. I called my employer and said I needed to go as I was sick. She came home and I left. Do I say anything to her? This is her Dad for the love of God. Who is she going to believe? I was definitely going to lose my job before she would part ways with her Dad. Maybe they have different ways in his country? I was too physically ill to not say anything. So the next day when I arrived at work, I explained to her, in front of her Dad, what had happened, that it was intentional and I was not comfortable with his behavior. She spoke in Russian and he kind of shrugged at what she said and she told me he understood it was wrong and SHE said it wouldn't happen again and left for work.
She had me lined up to do a weekend of overnights to which I told her I would not stay overnight without my boyfriend staying with me as long as her Father was staying too. She said that was fine but the more I thought about it, the sicker I felt and gave her notice the following day. When she asked why I was quitting, I told her why and she accepted it. I wonder if presented as VP of a university, if she would act in the same way towards someone who speaks out about being molested by one of the professors.

Well since we're sharing, I was groped while working as a childminder by the neighbour's prematurely sexualised seven-year-old girl. A highly inappropriate, unwelcome piece of sexual harassment that was mildly traumatic for me, but I imagine was an expression of a much more traumatic upbringing from her side. But since I was the person of power in the relationship, I was able to deal with it. If I had had an ounce of respect for the local child social services, I might have talked to them, but as it was, I was confident they would only make things worse for everyone.

We are talking of the abuse of power to coerce: 'give me a massage and I'll make you a star'. It's an indecent proposal, and it doesn't become decent if it is accepted. Nor does it become decent if it is proposed by the other side: 'make me a star and I'll give you a massage'.

Now it might be in a particular case, that there is simply a mutual attraction across the power imbalance - totally innocent - but in such cases, true love will wait until circumstances permit; change your doctor before you have sex with her, change your boss before you have sex with him. Shimples.

Quoting unenlightened

Now it might be in a particular case, that there is simply a mutual attraction across the power imbalance - totally innocent - but in such cases, true love will wait until circumstances permit; change your doctor before you have sex with her, change your boss before you have sex with him. Shimples.

! Exactly! How many times have I not said this...

Quoting unenlightened

We are talking of the abuse of power to coerce: 'give me a massage and I'll make you a star'. It's an indecent proposal, and it doesn't become decent if it is accepted. Nor does it become decent if it is proposed by the other side: 'make me a star and I'll give you a massage'.

Sure, but how can it be stopped? The problem is that I think this kind of social interaction cannot be stopped. When I was in school in 12th grade I had a female teacher who slapped my butt playfully on the hallway when she passed by me and then smiled. What can you do when such a thing happens? Clearly nothing, because the other person has authority - all you can do is try to avoid them, and extricate yourself from situations where they can use that power in ways that you can control even less.

I've been in many situations where there were imbalances of power, and there really can't be done anything to stop them.

Quoting unenlightened

Now it might be in a particular case, that there is simply a mutual attraction across the power imbalance - totally innocent - but in such cases, true love will wait until circumstances permit; change your doctor before you have sex with her, change your boss before you have sex with him. Shimples.

What if one is a hairdresser and the other is a princess (or one a student and the other a prince)?

Reply to Michael I don't know - what if?

There needs to be an N/A option for the questions after the first one, otherwise one can't truthfully complete the poll and see the results. I screwed up in this regard when making polls, too, so you're not the first.

Reply to unenlightened You tell me. You're the one arguing that there's something improper about power imbalances in relationships. So what of Prince William and Princess Mako having relationships with commoners? Are they in some sense abusive? Ought their would-be partners wait until their royal love interests renounce their royalty?

Quoting Agustino

Sure, but how can it be stopped? The problem is that I think this kind of social interaction cannot be stopped. When I was in school in 12th grade I had a female teacher who slapped my butt playfully on the hallway when she passed by me and then smiled. What can you do when such a thing happens? Clearly nothing, because the other person has authority - all you can do is try to avoid them, and extricate yourself from situations where they can use that power in ways that you can control even less.

I've been in many situations where there were imbalances of power, and there really can't be done anything to stop them.

It cannot be stopped entirely, but it can be helped to stop by having conduits for reporting and recording such incidents. One probably wouldn't want one such report as yours to lead to much action, but if you could safely report it, it might be put together with other such reports, and become a cause for action. One cannot remove power imbalances, but one can provide some protection, particularly against habitual abusers.

Quoting Michael

What if one is a hairdresser and the other is a princess (or one a student and the other a prince)?

Steve Jobs wife (Laurene Powell Jobs) was a student when she met him doing her MBA and Steve Jobs was a big time CEO giving a speech. Here's the story. Steve Jobs asked her to dinner, and she said yes.

I don't necessarily see anything wrong with that so long as the use of power isn't involved. Though it's hard to see how the use of power wouldn't be involved. If you're Steve Jobs you're clearly going to play your wealth and status to your advantage, or at least be tempted to do so - someone will find it hard to reject you. I mean if you're a 20 something-year-old girl, and one of the most famous men in the world asks you out on a date, chances are you won't refuse. But not because you really like them, but you'll think - being naive - ah, such a famous man, I may not get another chance, I should try this. That's manufactured consent.

Like look at this story of a date with Shkreli. Clearly the girl didn't like him, but still didn't refuse him, because "who would give up such an opportunity?". Most people would do almost anything for power - so that manufactures consent.

Quoting Agustino

I don't necessarily see anything wrong with that so long as the use of power isn't involved.

But it is as you've recognized. It's kind of paradoxical though. These sorts of situations tend to be retroactively justified. So, a professor who ends up in a happy loving marriage with a student he asked out has his approach somehow justified by the result. "He did nothing wrong. Look how happy they are together!" Whereas the one who horrifies the student with the inappropriate come on doesn't and may lose his job. "The creep!"

Quoting Michael

You tell me. You're the one arguing that there's something improper about power imbalances in relationships.

No I'm not. Stop being so uncharitable in your reading. Princesses should not have relationships with their servants, because they have immediate power over their lives. They don't have that power over the lives of commoners in general or other royals' servants. Clear now?

Quoting ArguingWAristotleTiff

What is your point?

I simply asked a question. Bill Cosby was called to account. Harvey Weinstein was called to account. But Bill Clinton gets a pass from liberals. I asked why that is. I'm genuinely curious about this.

Reply to fishfry

Same reason Trump gets a pass from conservatives. I don't see how it's difficult to understand.

Quoting Baden

But it is as you've recognized. It's kind of paradoxical though. These sorts of situations tend to be retroactively justified. So, a professor who ends up in a happy loving marriage with a student he asked out has his approach somehow justified by the result. "He did nothing wrong. Look how happy they are together!" Whereas the one who horrifies the student with the inappropriate come on doesn't and may lose his job. "The creep!"

Yes, but I see this as hypocritical many times, precisely because the result is allowed to retroactively justify the activity that got it there. It would be like raping a girl and then marrying her and having a great happy marriage because whatever culture you live in forces you to marry once you have sex. I can imagine such a situation where even the girl ends up feeling happy with how things worked out :s - but I don't think that would make the rape justified. I think it's still just as wrong.

(Note that we've gone several pages of posts with no-one mentioning the fact that the President is an admitted sexual harasser of women, a disgusting predator who sees them as pussies to be grabbed. Clinton is in the same ball park in my view but not much in play right now. Trump is and so should be front and center. Wonder why he isn't? )

Quoting Baden

(Note that we've gone several pages of posts with no-one mentioning the fact that the President is an admitted sexual harasser of women, a disgusting predator who sees them as pussies to be grabbed. Clinton is in the same ball park in my view but not much in play right now. Trump is and so should be front and center. Wonder why he isn't? )

Well there's a difference here. I view Trump as a positive element in the overall political picture, precisely because he unmasks the pretensions that the President is some sort of saint, or that we, as a society, are moral. Because we're not. I like to think of Trump as a little puppet - he's doing what the media, etc. have shown him is the cool thing to do. And that's exactly what he said - "it's locker room talk, all men do it". Clinton didn't - he pretended it wasn't a frequent occurrence, that there was no social problem behind it, that it was an isolated case.

We see it in the media all the time, that the cool guy, the "alpha male", grabs women for himself as he wishes. Indeed, being able to get women to submit sexually is viewed as a great power in the man. How can such a society fail to produce a Trump? Trump is doing what most other people - as they are indoctrinated by our culture - would like to do but can't. What do you think young American teenagers think when they see Ivanka? Ooooh so hot, etc. - When the whole society is like that, it's no surprise that people vote for Trump - he's just like them afterall.

So when sex becomes a matter of self-esteem, it's clear that abuse of that kind isn't far away.

Reply to Agustino

I don't accept it's a fair analogy Rape in never consensual by definition. It's not impossible though that a student would fall in love with her professor and he with her and the relationship be consensual. The relationship may be corrupted by the power differential of course, and there is hypocrisy. That's what I was pointing to.

Quoting Baden

I don't accept it's a fair analogy Rape in never consensual by definition. It's not impossible though that a student would fall in love with her professor and he with her and the relationship be consensual. The relationship may be corrupted by the power differential of course, and there is hypocrisy. That's what I was pointing to.

Okay sure, but the rape could be interpreted as retroactively justified, even though it's harmful, the same way the power differential which compels one to act as the other desires can be interpreted retroactively to be beneficial and normal, instead of harmful and a form of bullying.

Reply to Agustino

There you go answering @fishfry's question for him. The reason liberals ignore the scumbaggery of Clinton and conservatives make excuses for the scumbaggery of Trump is political partisanship.

Quoting Agustino

Okay sure, but the rape could be interpreted as retroactively justified

Nope, rape can never be justified, retroactively or not. Asking a student out and raping someone are two entirely different categories of moral transgression.

Reply to Baden It's not political partisanship.

I clearly said that the two cases play a different political role. Bill's case suggested there's something wrong with the President, but not with us the people. Trump's case, quite to the contrary, suggests that not only is there something wrong with the President, there's also something wrong with us. That plays an entirely different role.

Now you could accuse Trump of playing his role too well - he learned it from the media and Hollywood - the only difference is that he does it in the open and does not pretend to be ashamed of it, while Hollywood does it behind closed doors and pretends that it's wrong to do it. Now that hypocrisy is a greater problem than Trump. In fact, that hypocrisy gave birth to Trump - Trump is just a student in this regard. We should go first of all after the Professor, and the student later.

Quoting Baden

Nope, rape can never be justified retroactively or not. Asking a student out and raping someone are two entirely different categories of moral transgression.

No it can't, that's precisely the point. But people may try to justify it in that manner, the same way they try to justify abuses of power. Neither of them can be justified retroactively.

Reply to Baden So it's not even so much that Trump gets a free pass - it's that his actions reveal something important about society, they perform an unmasking. Trump should be condemned, but first, condemn his teachers, and only then the student, who just followed the teachers' advice.

Quoting Agustino

I clearly said that the two cases play a different political role. Bill's case suggested there's something wrong with the President, but not with us the people. Trump's case, quite to the contrary, suggests that not only is there something wrong with the President, there's also something wrong with us. That plays an entirely different role.

Now you could accuse Trump of playing his role too well - he learned it from the media and Hollywood - the only difference is that he does it in the open and does not pretend to be ashamed of it, while Hollywood does it behind closed doors and pretends that it's wrong to do it. Now that hypocrisy is a greater problem than Trump.

Maybe but I don't think a long story is necessary here as it comes across like a politically motivated attempt at mitigation. They are both scumbags and Hollywood collectively is a scumbag (in terms of how it works).

Quoting Agustino

No it can't, that's precisely the point. But people may try to justify it in that manner, the same way they try to justify abuses of power. Neither of them can be justified retroactively.

OK, I was going to say that maybe you were trying a reductio. I'm not quite sure that works. I'm open to the point and I can see the hypocrisy but I'm not completely convinced that in every case of the student / professor relationship there is moral wrongdoing.

There are many factors to consider. Firstly, it is inappropriate for subordinates and superiors not because of coercive incentives, but because positions in government or military or good grades at university are supposed to be out of qualification, not nepotism, because they're good buddies, or because they made some exchange for it. This isn't as obvious in business in general, or Hollywood. As there generally isn't anything wrong with giving positions based on relationships, or sexual exchanges, and everyone knows it. It isn't a big secret, it's a cliche, the opposite of a secret.

It isn't as if buddy drugged or raped them, they willingly prostituted themselves

Quoting Baden

They are both scumbags and Hollywood collectively is a scumbag (in terms of how it works).

Yes. But Hollywood should be attacked first, because that's the source of the problem. Otherwise, if we focus on Trump, etc., this source is masked, and it will continue to produce little Trumps.

Reply to Agustino

Again, I don't hear you making these excuses for Clinton. Who taught him? Who cares? They did it. They're responsible.

Quoting Baden

Again, I don't hear you making these excuses for Clinton. Who taught him? Who cares? They did it. They're responsible.

It's not an excuse though. Both Clinton and Trump are fully responsible. My point is that the focus should be on the source of the problem, which isn't them in this case.

I stopped really at the "firstly", as I didn't feel like going to equality dynamics, and incentives in general, both of which are more complex.

Reply to Agustino

Hollywood is a correlate not a cause in my view. The cause is deeper. With or without Hollywood, power will have its way.

Quoting Wosret

It isn't as if buddy drugged or raped them, they willingly prostituted themselves

Okay, but that doesn't make it moral or right.

Quoting Wosret

As there generally isn't anything wrong with giving positions based on relationships, or sexual exchanges, and everyone knows it. It isn't a big secret, it's a cliche, the opposite of a secret.

Well, just because it happens and everyone knows it (which I agree with you) doesn't mean it's right. it means people have a very twisted sense of morality.

Quoting Baden

Hollywood is a correlate not a cause in my view. The cause is deeper. With or without Hollywood, power will have its way.

What's the cause then?

Reply to Agustino

Desire and the power to satisfy it.

Quoting Baden

Desire and the power to satisfy it.

And desire just arises all by itself, it isn't mediated through your culture? We're not told that we should desire women and lust after them, especially when scantily dressed, in red high heels, with long finger nails, etc. etc.? Precisely by being shown these things on TV, we're taught to imitate them, and hence start having those desires.

You don't think there were Trumps and Clintons before Hollywood? There are Trumps and Clintons in chimp tribes, Agu, not to mention throughout human history.

Reply to Agustino

Did Attila the Hun need high heels to turn him on. Give me a break.

Reply to Baden Hollywood manufactures desire. Yes, there is a biological component to sexuality, but all research that I've read shows that this is highly mediated through society and culture. Meaning that human sexuality is 99% not biological.

Quoting Baden

You don't think there were Trump's and Clintons before Hollywood? There are Trumps and Clintons in chimp tribes, Agu, not to mention throughout human history.

Yes, in part also because those societies had something wrong with their culture. But in our society, culture is dictated by Hollywood - manufacturing culture is what they do.

Quoting Agustino

Meaning that human sexuality is 99% not biological.

Non-sequitur. Time to get out your references.

Quoting Baden

Did Attila the Hun need high heels to turn him on. Give me a break.

No, but you can bet that his society taught him that a real man forces himself on as many women as he can. Even the Greeks and the likes of Alexander the Great were taught that the more women you have, the greater you are as a man.

Reply to Baden

If I was like in an important producer position, and totally could just give roles to anyone, without breaking any laws, and like some of the hottest women in the world were rubbing elbows, and other things, then it would be difficult to resist that. I don't imagine a caricature of some snarling goblin being all...



I'm not made of stone. Clearly forcing someone, or being cruel or sadistic is always wrong, but suggesting that people can't use their riches and influence to get laid at all is silly.

Reply to Baden In fact, your retort is laughable precisely because there's nothing about high heels that is supposed to turn you on - this is manufactured by your society.

Quoting Agustino

. But in our society, culture is dictated by Hollywood - manufacturing culture is what they do.

Yes, but in my view you tend to overestimate their influence and underestimate our natural tendency towards "evil" or "sin", or whatever you want to call it, in the sexual arena.

Reply to Agustino

Non-sequitur.

A lot of things people freak out about reduces to them never having been in a position to do it, rather than just not doing it out of their virtue.

I know that I definitely never use my riches and influence to get laid. Never.

Reply to Wosret

I don't know what you think I said to be honest, Wos. You need to quote me. If you think HW was some kind of victim of his position though, no, I disagree. But go ahead and clarify.

Reply to Wosret

Yes, and some of us have actual experience of being in that situation as I have.

Quoting Baden

Hollywood is a correlate not a cause in my view. The cause is deeper. With or without Hollywood, power will have its way.

I was talking about this, and I clarified some with my subsequent post. I simply don't believe people when they say that they're immune to such things unless they've already been able to do it, and then didn't.

Reply to Baden

I excluded teacher and student positions.

Reply to Wosret

OK, I was able to do it and didn't.

Reply to Wosret

Damn you. That's gerrymandering.

Reply to Baden

I also mentioned like hollywood star level hot, man.

Quoting Baden

Yes, but in my view you tend to overestimate their influence and underestimate our natural tendency towards "evil" or "sin", or whatever you want to call it, in the sexual arena.

I'm not so sure that the natural tendency is clearly towards "sin" and "evil". I think we are corrupted by society to large extents - when society decides on what we should expect, and then creates hope and fear in us, it makes us irrational and immoral. For example, if I expect not to marry my high school girlfriend, then obviously I won't take my relationship with her too seriously - nor would I want to get too close for fear that it will be more painful to separate later on. Then because of that, I will actually make it into a self-fulfilling prophecy by changing the way I behave, motivated by hope and fear, based on expectations and desires that aren't even mine in the first place, that are actually imported from my society.

Quoting Baden

Non-sequitur.

How is it a non-sequitur if your desire being turned on by high heels is shown to be a product of your society? Then no wonder that Atilla the Hun didn't need high heels to turn him on - he had other objects/features that turned him on, as his society taught him. Clearly this shows that even in the example that you gave, you don't refute me, but merely prove my point.

Reply to Wosret

Haha. You know if I didn't have sisters I think I really would be a worse person.

Reply to Agustino

You refute yourself. Hollywood becomes irrelevant. The behaviour remains regardless. If it's not one cultural stimulus, it's another. So what then?

Reply to Baden

I have two sisters... I think you're just imagining what kind of monster would do that. I of course am not saying force, or rape or anything. You'd basically saying that every relationship that is at all based in incentives of status or wealth, or just non-monogamous ones are evil or something... Just for love and life, or straight to hell?

Quoting Baden

You refute yourself. Hollywood becomes irrelevant. The behaviour remains regardless. If it's not one cultural stimuli, it's another. So what then?

*facepalm* :-}

Right, if it's not Hollywood, then something else will control our culture, whether it's Plato's poets, or whatever. That isn't of much importance. What matters is that we have to grab control of this element of society that manufactures culture, just as Plato suggested in the Republic, and make sure that elements don't appear in the "myths" (or stories we're told by our society) that show that immorality is a cool thing to do. For example, that's why Plato complained about the Greek poets - they showed the gods as being immoral, so it passed through society and men became immoral as well, because why not, the gods did it first!

Reply to Wosret

Not at all. I think @unenlightened was more taking that position, but of course he can speak for himself. I came to the conversation this time to raise the example of Trump in order to answer fishfry's question.

Quoting Baden

I came to the conversation this time to raise the example of Trump in order to answer fishfry's question.

I fail to understand that. The left is of course eager to attack Trump. The question is why the left gives Bill Clinton a pass.

A famous illustration is this quote from liberal writer Nina Burleigh regarding the Monica Lewinsky affair:

I would be happy to give him a blowjob just to thank him for keeping abortion legal. I think American women should be lining up with their Presidential kneepads on to show their gratitude for keeping the theocracy off our backs

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nina_Burleigh

You see my point?

Reply to Agustino

But this seems laughable. As if those in power won't still be sexually corrupt.

Reply to fishfry

The same reason the right gives Trump a pass. Political partisanship. I already explained that.

Quoting Baden

But this seems laughable. As if those in power won't still be sexually corrupt.

First of all, they won't be sexually corrupt if their culture wouldn't have taught them that being sexually corrupt confers high status and is really something to be desired so long as you're not caught. That's what their culture teaches them, they're just emulating. Second of all, yes, presumably the first who get in power and implement those changes would have escaped from the conditioning of their society. You could say that that's wishful thinking, but that's the idea.

Quoting fishfry

I fail to understand that. The left is of course eager to attack Trump. The question is why the left gives Bill Clinton a pass.

And Baden's answer is that the left gives Bill a pass because the right gives Trump a pass - retroactive justification >:)

Reply to Agustino

I'm not against you in principle by the way, Agu. In fact, I'm on your side but you are not demonstrating how power and desire won't work to achieve their goals in sexual beings such as we are.

EDIT: Cross posted. I'll read your latest then.

Quoting Agustino

And Baden's answer is that the left gives Bill a pass because the right gives Trump a pass - retroactive justification

Stop confusing causation and correlation. Even as a joke.

Quoting Baden

I'm not against you in principle by the way, Agu. In fact, I'm on your side but you are not demonstrating how power and desire won't work to achieve their goals in sexual beings such as we are.

So if I have power do I just spontaneously start having desires to rape women and such? :s Presumably I must have already had those desires, and the presence of power merely allowed them to manifest no? That's why we have to attack the root cause, which isn't power and desire, but rather that which puts those desires in our mind in the first place.

Quoting Baden

Stop confusing causation and correlation. Even as a joke.

>:O

Quoting Agustino

And Baden's answer is that the left gives Bill a pass because the right gives Trump a pass

That doesn't make sense, even as a joke. The Clinton allegations are over 20 years old and go back to his time as governor of Arkansas.

Why did the liberals abandon Cosby and Weinstein, but not hold Bill Clinton accountable? That is the question. I find it curious.

Quoting Agustino

So if I have power do I just spontaneously start having desires to rape women and such? :s

Do I become, as Nietzsche said, a "blonde beast" going around and pillaging things?

Quoting Agustino

but rather that which puts those desires in our mind in the first place.

The root cause is biology. Chinese emperors knew that. Hence Eunuchs.

Quoting fishfry

Why did the liberals abandon Cosby and Weinstein, but not hold Bill Clinton accountable? That is the question. I find it curious.

Political partisanship. That's the third time I've answered. Why is it difficult for you?

I doubt anyone else is confused but if you want to go around scratching your head about stuff everyone else understands, feel free.

Well, I think that since something like this is becoming such a big deal, it is probably a sign of its decline anyway. If everyone was doing it, and it was the norm, no one would be saying anything, unless they planned to bring down all of hollywood, never work again, or were writing about it in their autobiographies after they were already has beens like people have already been doing for decades. Since people can be singled out, it implies that they are becoming rarer, or something of a bygone age.

Quoting Baden

The root cause is biology. Chinese emperors knew that. Hence Eunuchs.

No, the Chinese emperors needed Eunuchs because they themselves had 100 concubines. When you have that, you naturally cause other human beings who have a sexual biological function to become envious of you and try to imitate you because you show them that you are Emperor and what distinguishes you from them is the presence of the women. So that plays on the natural sexual desire and twists it in unnatural ways. So obviously you want eunuchs around, who have no natural sexual desire, so there's nothing to twist and create rivalry.

Yes, biology does play a role, but it is only aided by culture that it can produce such desires. Why do you attribute a sufficient role to biology alone to produce such effects of conflict and rivalry, and hence sin and immorality?

Quoting Baden

I doubt anyone else is confused

You are factually incorrect. Many people are confused about the same point.

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2015/07/30/why_do_bill_and_hillary_clinton_still_get_a_pass_127590.html

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/politics-government/election/article108304112.html

http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/05/yes-hillary-was-an-enabler-213919

https://www.vanityfair.com/magazine/1998/05/williams199805

http://thefederalist.com/2016/10/11/trumps-sexual-depravity-bad-bill-clintons-okay/

https://acculturated.com/bill-clinton-effect/

There are many other such article on Google. You are simply wrong when you think that nobody else is questioning why liberals give Bill Clinton a pass on credible allegations of rape. On the contrary, many thoughtful people have noted this point. Some partisan, some not.

If partisan politics explained it, Cosby would not have been attacked by the left the way he was. The contrast between Cosby and Clinton is striking. Partisan politics really doesn't explain it at all.

Like, think about yourself. The first memories I have of my sexual desire aren't of some biological kind but rather I remember hearing around, in music, etc. that real grown up men have sex with women, so then I started to desire it. That's how I actually got to having that desire. Then over time I started to see that men who had sex with more women were admired more than those who didn't, so then I started to desire that too, because I thought that's what it takes to be a real man. I didn't learn all that myself now, that's what society taught me. I suppose that if I was left alone with no such messages, I would have had to wait until I actually fell in love or was biologically attracted to a woman and figure things out for myself from there on. But that's not how it happened. I was taught that these women are hot, these women are not hot, etc.

Reply to fishfry

OK, fair enough, but I would have thought it obvious that seeing as many liberals (at least those old enough) voted for Clinton or at least supported him they would find it very difficult to admit they voted for or supported a (possible) rapist. Nobody voted for Weinstein or Cosby and their political affiliations are both much less well known (was Cosby even a liberal?) and much less important.

+ Some of your references relate to Trump vs Clinton, which is even more obvious. I feel sorry for anyone who feels the need to write an article on why conservatives and liberals cover for their own teams. Americans are tribal? Really? How curious...

Quoting ArguingWAristotleTiff

This I understand but what you have explained can happen to anyone. I fail to see how it is specific to sexual harassment/and or abuse by people in the position of power.

Power differentials are ubiquitous, even if the differentials are not always as great as between the king and the serving wench. One can get fired for arbitrary and capricious reasons because the boss has more power than the employee. Sexual harassments occur for the same reason.

Not only are power differentials ubiquitous, but they are essential operating protocols in this world. The organization of power is not the topic, but it can't be separated from the topic of sexual harassment. Sexual behavior will always occur -- no matter what the behavior is -- in the context of power differentials.

Even if we develop responsive court systems that deal with sexual advances that persist after clear rejection to deal with the bold marauders in the corporate suites, power differentials will continue to exist in simple and exaggerated forms.

IF you want to be safe from the undesired advance, then something more than responsive court systems will be needed: What is needed are very strong employee class conscious unions that can collectively resist arbitrary and capricious actions of management. I don't know how much you will have to pitch overboard to take on strong class conscious unions, but if you want social change...

BTW, the reason strong class conscious unions are needed is that unionism is the best vehicle for the change in consciousness among all workers. If Hollywood actors and other workers in the crafts of illusion had a class conscious union, everyone in Tinsel Town would have a much clearer understanding of why Harvey Weinstein's behavior was unacceptable.

The same methods (strong class conscious unions) that prevent arbitrary and capricious firings also prevent sexually improper behavior.

Capeesh?

Cosby though, I thought was actually drugging and raping women though... I thought that other guy was just making use of the casting couch, not literally a serial rapist, just trading roles and stuff for sex, I wouldn't consider those things remotely similar.

Quoting Bitter Crank

IF you want to be safe from the undesired advance, then something more than responsive court systems will be needed: What is needed are very strong employee class conscious unions that can collectively resist arbitrary and capricious actions of management

:-O Oh dear, class consciousness....

Quoting unenlightened

It cannot be stopped entirely, but it can be helped to stop by having conduits for reporting and recording such incidents.

Right, but when you're say the President, you can't really expect that your employee is going to report you - you pretty much control the power structure she could report you to, or at least you have greater leverage over it than she does. Even in the student-teacher case, a student can't really report the teacher to the Principal, because the teacher has greater leverage and authority with the Principal than the student - things could potentially turn out badly for the student that way.

Quoting Wosret

Cosby though, I thought was actually drugging and raping women though... I thought that other guy was just making use of the casting couch, not literally a serial rapist, just trading roles and stuff for sex, I wouldn't consider those things remotely similar.

I don't consider them the same either.

Quoting Agustino

Oh dear, class consciousness....

Yes, dear, class consciousness. Capitalists have it -- why shouldn't workers benefit from it as well?

Quoting Bitter Crank

Yes, dear, class consciousness. Capitalists have it -- why shouldn't workers benefit from it as well?

Oh my... this is a typical case of projection, where one side dreams that the other side has what they lack. I think neither of them have "class consciousness". Why would you say that some have class consciousness and others don't? Working class person isn't aware that they are working class and therefore are under different conditions than the capitalists?

And how can "class consciousness" help prevent abuses?

Quoting unenlightened

No I'm not. Stop being so uncharitable in your reading. Princesses should not have relationships with their servants, because they have immediate power over their lives. They don't have that power over the lives of commoners in general or other royals' servants. Clear now?

I wasn't being uncharitable. It just wasn't clear to me. You just talked in general about "power imbalance" and gave the examples of an employer and a doctor. My apologies if my example of royalty was clearly excluded by your comment.

Reply to Baden Can I call @Michael by a nickname of my choice even though he says it's not his name? >:)

Reply to Agustino

That's up to him not me! Anyway, I'll pick up this convo again tomorrow.

Quoting Agustino

Right, but when you're say the President, you can't really expect that your employee is going to report you - you pretty much control the power structure she could report you to, or at least you have greater leverage over it than she does. Even in the student-teacher case, a student can't really report the teacher to the Principal, because the teacher has greater leverage and authority with the Principal than the student - things could potentially turn out badly for the student that way.

Yes. There is a difficult balance to strike anyway, because given the chance, a student might use the power of threatened accusation - such things happen too. So a president needs protection from malicious accusations. One does not want to undermine the power relation. So not the principal, but a sort of official gossip monger, who probably won't help you, but might help the next kid, or the one after that. As long as we can avoid 25 years of repeated abuse, we are making things a bit better, no?

Quoting unenlightened

There is a difficult balance to strike anyway, because given the chance, a student might use the power of threatened accusation - such things happen too.

Yes, but not around non-Western Eastern European countries lol. Here it's harder for the student to accuse the teacher, even with good reason. I suppose in some Western countries it's easier since it seems to be easier there for a woman to accuse falsely a man of rape, or for a student to accuse a teacher falsely, etc. - the pendulum has swung too far the other way.

Quoting unenlightened

As long as we can avoid 25 years of repeated abuse, we are making things a bit better, no?

I suppose so, but then this is more of a way of limiting the damage that a bad person can cause instead of preventing it.

Quoting Agustino

I suppose so, but then this is more of a way of limiting the damage that a bad person can cause instead of preventing it.

If that's your aim, you need to petition God, who will turn you down.

Quoting unenlightened

If that's your aim, you need to petition God, who will turn you down.

How do you know, have you already spoken to Him? :D

Reply to Agustino Me and God are pretty close, but I know better than to try and tell Him how to run His bailiwick.

Quoting unenlightened

bailiwick

:-O I never heard of this word.

Quoting Baden

Americans are tribal

I should note there are some honourable exceptions. A few writers on redstate.com (no bastion of liberalism!), for example, have been very critical of Trump's sexual misbehaviour and I presume there are liberal writers that properly hold Clinton to account. It does seem to be more the exception than the rule though, sadly.

Quoting Agustino

Oh my... this is a typical case of projection, where one side dreams that the other side has what they lack. I think neither of them have "class consciousness". Why would you say that some have class consciousness and others don't? Working class person isn't aware that they are working class and therefore are under different conditions than the capitalists?

And how can "class consciousness" help prevent abuses?

First, I am not projecting -- I am working class. I know of what I speak. Second, some people have class consciousness and other people don't. Not that difficult a concept, is it? Third, absolutely -- a lot of working class people (especially in the United States) have "false class consciousness". A couple of examples:

"In America, anybody can be whatever they want." False. Most people in the real world exceed the accomplishments of their parents only to limited degree. Children may get more education than their parents; they may enter a skilled trade like medical technology, oil drilling, teaching k-12, accounting, and so on; they may make twice as much as their parents earned, but none of that lifts them far above the accomplishments of their parents. Most people's parents were working class, and most of those children will remain working class.

"I own my home, I went to college, I have a professional job, I have season tickets to the symphony. I'm not working class." Some people own their own home. Most people share ownership with a mortgage company. Lots of people go to college and lot's of people have "professional jobs". Lots of workers have refined tastes. There are only a few professions which enable occupants to act like bourgeois people: physician, law partner, small business owner (having...100 to 200 employees, producing a high value product or service), tenured professor, senior pastor of a wealthy church, and the like.

Sure you are working class IF your wage or salary is tied to a job which you must perform in order to get paid... Doctors who own their own clinics have become bourgeoisie. Partners in a law firm have become bourgeoisie. Tenured professors are sort of bourgeoisie. Fat cat pastors of wealthy churches are merely parasites.

Thinking you are not working class when you have to go to work to get paid is FALSE CONSCIOUSNESS.

Workers who have class consciousness understand that individually they are powerless, and that in union they become strong. Uniting in labor solidarity won't make them rich, but it will protect them from egregious practices by employers. Class consciousness means understanding the difference between having to work for one's wages and living on accumulated riches.

Quoting Bitter Crank

IF you want to be safe from the undesired advance, then something more than responsive court systems will be needed: What is needed are very strong employee class conscious unions that can collectively resist arbitrary and capricious actions of management. I don't know how much you will have to pitch overboard to take on strong class conscious unions, but if you want social change...

BC as you may have noticed over the years I am a very sensitive woman with a strong moral compass, an ethical dial that can be moved over time with the right persuasion, a loving individual who cares deeply for both family and friends and am very stingy issuing anyone implied respect because in my eyes, we are all on the same level of respect just specializing in different aspects of life.

Knowing this about me, would you ever expect me to on depend on a "responsive court system" to make myself "safe from undesired advances"? Do you think I would attempt to organize or join a "union" to keep myself safe and have the Union fight my battle?

To begin with I am not talking about someone persistently asking me for my phone number which might be an undesired advance. I am talking about the moment you as my boss, lay your hands on my body in a sexual way, that is an not an undesired advance, that is sexual assault. It doesn't need to have the power component to be called sexual assault but in this scenario it does.

Quoting Bitter Crank

Capeesh?

As can be expected: inferno non (N)

Quoting unenlightened

As long as we can avoid 25 years of repeated abuse, we are making things a bit better, no?

We would be making things more than a "bit better", we would be making HUGE progress towards the ideal goal of a sexual predator free workplace. Especially to the 25 years of students that followed the first assault.

Reply to ArguingWAristotleTiff
Another positive change would be to get people to stop voting for sexual predators for President. It sends a horrible message when the punishment for sexual harassment, disrespect and degradation is promotion to the highest office in the land. I'd like to think Trump would be the last one but with the levels of polarization in American politics, I wouldn't rule out the mistake being repeated.

Quoting Agustino

That's why we have to attack the root cause, which isn't power and desire, but rather that which puts those desires in our mind in the first place

That would be biology. Dominance hierarchies are natural in primates like us (and many other species) and the main reason to be on the top is access to mates (for males at least). If you look at Franz de Waal's work on chimpanzees, for example, you'll see how closely chimp politics resembles our own. You seem to think you can reprogram human behaviour from the top down and somehow distill out desires that have a natural basis. You can't. You can only repress them.

Quoting Agustino

Yes, biology does play a role, but it is only aided by culture that it can produce such desires. Why do you attribute a sufficient role to biology alone to produce such effects of conflict and rivalry, and hence sin and immorality?

Because we are primates, and that's the way primates act. Culture can only mould the clay its given. Anyway, I don't know if you've laid out your version of Plato's Republic in another discussion in which case I'll take a look at it (or you could do so in a new discussion) but this discussion probably calls for more practical solutions.

Quoting Agustino

Like, think about yourself. The first memories I have of my sexual desire aren't of some biological kind but rather I remember hearing around, in music, etc. that real grown up men have sex with women, so then I started to desire it. That's how I actually got to having that desire. Then over time I started to see that men who had sex with more women were admired more than those who didn't, so then I started to desire that too, because I thought that's what it takes to be a real man. I didn't learn all that myself now, that's what society taught me. I suppose that if I was left alone with no such messages, I would have had to wait until I actually fell in love or was biologically attracted to a woman and figure things out for myself from there on. But that's not how it happened. I was taught that these women are hot, these women are not hot, etc.

I hit puberty and then I wanted to get as much sex as possible. And I don't think its much more complicated for most teenage boys than that (Hollywood or no).

Quoting Baden

If you look at Franz de Waal's work on chimpanzees, for example, you'll see how closely chimp politics resembles our own. You seem to think you can reprogram human behaviour from the top down and somehow distill out desires that have a natural basis. You can't. You can only repress them.

Except that with chimpanzees it's acceptable to do what Harry Weinstein did and for humans it isn't. And women, all other things being unknown, do prefer strong winners. Humans are a bit more complex though. In a relationship a caring personality is far more valued. I've never seen a female chimp complain about sexual harrassment either. So Frans de Waal's work comes a way but then it doesn't.

Reply to Benkei

Sure, I don't disagree with that or with all of Agu's cultural criticisms. I just see biology as playing a bigger role than he does and am skeptical of the weight he gives to the Hollywood etc influence on sexual misbehavior.

Quoting Baden

Because we are primates, and that's the way primates act.

'We' don't have to behave that way, and many of us don't, which is why no judge will accept this as even mitigation. Primates are quite variable, and human societies and individuals also. This is a pseudo science excuse for immorality. Bears shit in the woods, but the pope is Catholic.

Quoting ArguingWAristotleTiff

Knowing this about me, would you ever expect me to on depend on a "responsive court system" to make myself "safe from undesired advances"? Do you think I would attempt to organize or join a "union" to keep myself safe and have the Union fight my battle?

There is nothing wrong, weak, or deficient about having help when you fight your personal battles.

#MeToo is presumably about more than one creep -- Harvey Weinstein. It's about a pattern of bad behavior which some privileged men engage in when the local culture (in this case, Hollywood) tolerates/enables it.

Responsive court systems will generally help people one by one, after the damage is done.

IF we want to change social systems, and sex abuse is something we all want to change, it takes something different than a one-by-one post-assault approach. That's where on-the-job protections provided by strong unions and conscious-raised workers come in. Good unions aren't just about collecting dues and calling strikes. They are also about educating workers about the respect to which workers are entitled.

You have a strong moral compass, but lots of people's moral compasses are not so strong. A young woman with hopes of fame and fortune, working in a highly competitive industry where individual favor by a director or producer is critical, might not have the wherewithal to accuse the big wig of sexual assault or rape, on her own.

Where strong unions exist, people are treated better. Why? Because the union is capable of making life very difficult for management. Weinstein's ego would have been considerably more restrained if his productions could be halted over rape-on-the-job complaints by union sisters. Everyone looked the other way for both personal and corporate reasons. Individuals kept their mouths shut because they didn't want to hear the phrase "You'll never work in this town again" and Weinstein's peers were watching gate receipts, profits, and award lists.

Reply to unenlightened

It's not a mitigating factor at all or an excuse. Who says it was? Have I not been obvious enough from the start that I have no sympathy for HW and his ilk? But dominance hierarchies are a fundamental underlying organizing principle for human behavior. Hollywood, not so much.

Loius C.K. apparently forces female comics to watch him masturbate, the creator of Buffy the Vampire Slayer guy's ex-wife wrote that he wasn't behaving professionally with all them hot girls either. It is literally a cliche, I don't want to say that they're all doing it, but even all of my favorite rock stars are probably way way worse than them.

Even plenty of big philanthropists were weirdos, Ghandi used to give out tons of enemas, and propositioned women to sleep naked him with so as he could "test his restraint".

Jesus took Mary into the woods, pulled a woman out of his side, proceeded to have sex with her and then cum in his own mouth (if you believe some of the apocryphal gospels)... realize that all of the people that have power over others always abuse it, without exception. No one is good.

Not that I think therefore we should look the other way, but I think that there is a difference between propositions, and influencing people's greed and star filled eyes, and actually forcing them, or drugging them or something.

Not making ridiculous, unfair, dominating, or unreasonable requests of others usually just means that you're too busy fulfilling them.

@unenlightened
Put it another way, I want harsher punishments and more awareness within the context of a liberal society while recognizing the problem is not going to just go away. Agustino seems to think that a liberal society itself is the problem.

Reply to Baden The problem is not liberal society and it is not primate behaviour, instinct genes, testosterone, or what women are attracted to. The problem is men behaving badly. Let's stop saying it's 'natural' and also stop saying it's acceptable or that women like it really.

Quoting unenlightened

and also stop saying it's acceptable or that women like it really.

Who said that?

OK, maybe some people did. Yes, let's not go there.

They aren't children, they're complicit to the extent that they do not protest, or tell them not to. Kristnamurti was doing his best bud's wife, whom also claims that he routinely humiliated, and emasculated, and kind of thought she was his reincarnated mother too.

Biology obviously does have something to do with it, unless there is some other difference between men and women that makes one act badly, and the other to be always entirely without personal responsibility.

Quoting Baden

That would be biology.

Well, obviously the origin of all sexual desire is in biology. No one would deny that. But you seem to deny that these primary desires can be inflamed, increased and redirected by many factors, the most important being society and culture for human beings (other animals too). So the sexual desire you encounter in society is by no means the biological desire for sex - that biological desire has been so manipulated and twisted that it is not even recognizable anymore. That's why I say that 99% of human sexual desire is not biological. That is for example why what excites us and sexually stimulates our desires changes - in one epoch one standard of dressing is perceived as hot and provocative and in another a different standard. So clearly when you see that "hot girl" it's not just a biological desire that is at play, but overwhelmingly it is a desire that is socially mediated and created - you've been taught that that type of girl is hot, that her way of dressing is hot and attractive, and that you should pursue her because you'll have higher status if you have her than if you don't, that she'd make a good mate - not in the English sense of mate :D . You'll also imagine how other men would find her hot and attractive and would want to be with her, which further fuels your desire for her.

Quoting Baden

Dominance hierarchies are natural in primates like us (and many other species) and the main reason to be on the top is access to mates (for males at least)

Dominance hierarchies tend to arise in all animal species where imitation is at the basis of their society. Human beings are a lot more imitative than chimps, so that's also why we have bigger and more complex dominance hierarchies than chimps do. Without a dominance hierarchy - which really is nothing but prohibition - an imitative society would erupt in violence, which would propagate itself and bring that society and all its members to an end. So dominance hierarchies aren't primary - they are secondary to the imitative nature of desire in animals like chimps, or humans. Without the stabilization of dominance hierarchies which act as a means of stopping the spread of imitative violence and conflict, such societies would not survive. The problem though is that dominance hirearchies no longer work in human societies, and nothing can be done about that - we need a new way to prevent violence, or we will go extinct.

Quoting Baden

You seem to think you can reprogram human behaviour from the top down and somehow distill out desires that have a natural basis. You can't.

Oh? Then what are we doing in advertising and marketing if not inflaming already existent and basic human desires, re-directing them, and so on so forth? :s What are we doing in psychotherapy, psychoanalysis, moral philosophy, etc. if not trying to change our structure of desire?

Quoting Baden

If you look at Franz de Waal's work on chimpanzees, for example, you'll see how closely chimp politics resembles our own.

Just like chimps have developed their basic dominance hierarchies and structures to prevent the outbreak of violence given their limited mimetic abilities, man has done the same. Just as in chimp communities there exist forms of behaviour, prohibitions and ritual which prevent the outbreak of imitative violence, so also there exist even more complex mechanisms in human societies to mediate this. If anything, chimps form an in-between the more imitative human and the other less imitative animals. For example, when a dominance hierarchy is established in certain species of monkeys, the male who has been "beaten" by his rival puts himself in a position of homosexual availability towards the alpha monkey. Why? Because the alpha monkey isn't only a rival, it is also a model - the inferior monkey wants to be like the alpha, it is fascinated by the alpha. And this ritual of submissions prevents the outbreak of violence by re-directing the desire of the loser from the sexual object (the female) to his model (the rival). One reason why all sexual rivalry is homosexual in its structure.

Quoting Baden

Because we are primates, and that's the way primates act. Culture can only mould the clay its given.

That is true, but to suppose that human beings are primates in the same sense that chimps are is folly. Our capacity for imitation is a lot greater, which means the potential for greater conflict, and the need for more complex social and cultural structures to mediate that. Sexual desire isn't entirely biological in primates either by the way - just that dominance hierarchies and other cultural and social elements that they have play a lesser role in determining their sexual behaviour.

Quoting Baden

I hit puberty and then I wanted to get as much sex as possible. And I don't think its much more complicated for most teenage boys than that (Hollywood or no).

I didn't ask for your 14-year-old self-understanding of your desires here. We already know that the process of desire formation happens largely unconsciously, behind the scenes. It requires analysis to be disentangled and understood. I asked you to reflect back on your experience and think if there weren't other factors that you could identify that were responsible for your sexual desire and the way it was directed. For example, why were you attracted to particular girls, and not to others? When you wanted to have sex with a girl and you saw one other guy or more guys wanting the same thing, how did you react? What did you feel and why? When you saw a girl that many guys liked, did you find yourself also liking her?

I'm not interested in the naïve self-understanding your 14-year-old self had, or the naïve self-understanding most people have. We have to look deeper than that. For example, the girl I would desire most - ideally - would be the girl that is wanted by all men, but only I have her. Desire always tends to focus on the impossible object. Yes, others are perceived as rivals, that is true. But without their desire, then the object of desire would feel worthless to desire in the first place. That is the paradox of desire, and it is why desire is a blind alley. But all this illustrates that our desire itself is imitative and ultimately violent - the more others desire one object, the more we desire it as well. I want sex because others want it. If others didn't want it, I might want it only when it was actually relevant, but would definitely have little desire to pursue it. Understanding the blind alleys of desire can get one to stop pursuing desire - be free from desire as the Buddhists would say - but it wouldn't necessarily stop one from feeling them once they have been placed there by the structure of society and the culture that they grew up in. Reason can indeed only work with what it is given, but what is given isn't biological in large majority, but culturally mediated. All religions, but especially Christianity and some forms of Buddhism encourage the abandonment of imitative desire as the solution to the ills of the world.

Quoting Baden

Agustino seems to think that a liberal society itself is the problem.

Your liberal society is not liberal at all, but illiberal. When rivalry is allowed to run amok, nobody can enjoy the object of desire - everyone is busy killing each other off, outplaying each other, competing, etc. - we all become fascinated with the rival, and the rival is more punishing than any law would be. At least the law is impersonal and applies equally to all - it doesn't torment us, it doesn't outrage us. Just because there is choice does not mean that there is freedom. The two shouldn't be confused.

In one sense, I do understand why society is becoming "liberal" - sacrificial mechanisms no longer work to keep the peace. But this becoming more "liberal" is identical with becoming more violent - violence becomes harder to control. Hence your "harsher punishments".

Quoting Agustino

bailiwick
— unenlightened
:-O I never heard of this word.

It's an interesting word. "Bailie" is Old French for 'bailiff'--an officer of a court who handles ordinary matters, like looking after prisoners, serving writs on people, etc. 1066 brought a large batch of French legal terminology into English. "Wick" is Old English, meaning 'village'. So, the bailiff's village--bailiwick--the area that a bailiff was responsible for.

"Wick" on its own is interesting too. You are probably familiar with the "wick" of a candle or oil lamp, coming from the primitive eastern provinces of Europe as you do where people lived in dark hovels until just recently when they switched from lard lamps to LED lighting. "before 1000; Middle English wicke, weke, Old English wice, w?oc(e); cognate with Middle Dutch wiecke, Middle Low German wêke, Old High German wiohha lint, wick ( German Wieke lint); akin to Sanskrit v?gura noose"

Now you know.

The world I live in, men do the propositioning, and make the initial moves, that's just how it's done, and consent is never explicitly given. Trump said that he goes into the beauty contestant changing rooms, and feels them up because they let him do it.

You can say that they should just know better, and know when it is acceptable, and know when it isn't... but without consent or refusal ever really forthcoming, how are they supposed to?

We want a culture without sexual predators for sure, but there needs to be acknowledged some of their responsibility as well, otherwise it isn't even clear what is and isn't assaulting them. Other than some personal confidence that it isn't you, you're a good person, or getting expressed consent at every stage.

Quoting ArguingWAristotleTiff

Sharing that you were sexually harassed or assaulted in the workplace is part of the solution but the other half is to try to make sure that no one else is put into that situation again, with this same harasser.
Thoughts?

I was never assaulted in a workplace and I was never sexually harassed by a superior in a workplace.

I'm not sure whether I've been sexually harassed by a colleague because I'm not sure where the line is between harassment and flirtation. Does it count as harassment if I enjoyed it or if I didn't mind?

I don't mean to be flippant: I'm asking seriously, how do we distinguish cases of harassment from cases of flirtation? Is the distinction drawn one way in the workplace and another way out of the workplace, or is it drawn the same everywhere?

If any unwanted sexual attention counts as harassment, I suppose I've been harassed on at least a few occasions in a workplace. In one such instance, a young female administrative assistant employed by a temp agency I used to get work from persisted in flirting with me and asking me on dates. She would follow me into the stairwell when I went on smoke breaks to engage me where no one else was around. I tried to make it clear I wasn't interested without being mean about it, but she wouldn't take the hint.

If an unwanted kiss in a bar counts as an assault, then on at least one occasion I was assaulted in a bar. I was standing between a young woman I was interested in and a rough older man who told tales of an adventurous life. He turned out to have a thing for younger men and started hitting on me. He wouldn't stop despite my repeated and increasingly firm indications that I wasn't interested. His advances became increasingly aggressive, till at last he grabbed me by the neck and planted a hard wet kiss on my face. I stood there, kind of stunned, kind of grossed out, and pretty well drunk by that point. I'm not sure what would have happened if the girl to my right hadn't told him to f*** off before taking me home in a cab.

Quoting Wosret

Loius C.K. apparently forces female comics to watch him masturbate

I wasn't invited, and I would have enjoyed it (assuming he does it well).

Quoting Wosret

Kristnamurti was doing his best bud's wife, whom also claims that he routinely humiliated, and emasculated, and kind of thought she was his reincarnated mother too.

Yeah, it's possible he was, but the extent to which that went on for is unknown. And there was quite a lot of conflict it seems between Krishnamurti and Rajagopal, not to mention that Rajagopal's wife wasn't having sexual relations with him anymore. It may be that far from being Krishnamurti's initiative, it could just as well have been Rosalind's in her (and her husband's) attempt to control K. No doubt that K was also guilty, but it's hard to place the blame squarely on him since we don't know the situation very well. Obviously though, it does tarnish his reputation and makes his statements and philosophy suspicious.

I've had my arms felt, like checking out my muscles, ass slapped a few times, been kissed when I wasn't interested, and had a co-worker try to get me drunk at her place, and really didn't want me to leave, and I'm pretty sure she had terrible plans, she had previously asked me to dinner, and I accepted thinking that she was talking about like our whole group of friends. When I found out that she hadn't asked anyone else, I declined, and she was married too, though it was during a separation, though she got back with him not long afterwords.

I voted, "not sure" on the poll, because what counts, and what is just normal circumstances almost everyone finds themselves in isn't clear to me.

Reply to Agustino

I don't know if it's true, and I don't know if that even makes him full of shit about anything he said, or stood for, but just wanted to point out that saints are either lame, cowardly and simply incapable, or abuse their power, position, and influence, if they can get away with it. People need to take some personal responsibility for not letting them get away with it, or have a good defense, like overwhelming force, or drugs or something for why they were able to do it at all, otherwise things get absurd. Particularly if it's basically stuff everyone experiences, and isn't a fringe behavior, otherwise we're operating on some fantasy about the way the would ought to be, rather than dealing with the way it actually is.

Reply to Bitter Crank

I'm sure that they were all horrifically, unrecoverably traumatized.

Quoting Wosret

saints are either lame, cowardly and simply incapable, or abuse their power, position, and influence, if they can get away with it.

No doubt that some people who claim to be saints are as you describe here, but I very much doubt that you can make this claim about all saints.

Reply to Agustino

I did, and do. People are only super humans in stories, I've never met one.

Quoting Agustino

But you seem to deny that these primary desires can be inflamed, increased and redirected by many factors

No.

Quoting Baden

Yes, but in my view you tend to overestimate their influence and underestimate our natural tendency towards "evil" or "sin", or whatever you want to call it, in the sexual arena.

Quoting Baden

Sure, I don't disagree with that or with all of Agu's cultural criticisms. I just see biology as playing a bigger role than he does and am skeptical of the weight he gives to the Hollywood etc influence on sexual misbehavior.

Which makes much of the rest of your post irrelevant. It's easy to argue against a caricature of someone's position. There are some relevant points of disagreement in there though which I'll dig out anon.

Actually, more than a few...

Quoting Baden

No.

Right, you take the naive view that they are already inflamed, increased and redirected - naturally. Just look at chimps! ;) :D

Quoting Wosret

I did, and do. People are only super humans in stories, I've never met one.

Well would you expect to have met a super human? Presumably, super humans are rare right? If they were common occurrence, they wouldn't be super humans in the first place.

Reply to Agustino

Same reason I've never met a leprechaun, I suppose.

Quoting Wosret

Same reason I've never met a leprechaun, I suppose.

No Wos, it's actually quite a rational and mathematical reason. What's a superhuman? 1 in how many human beings? 1/10,000? 1/100,000? 1/1,000,000? If it's either of those 3, then the expected value of you having met such a person and known them rounds off to 0. You probably have met and known in your life less than 5,000 people. So you wouldn't exactly expect to have met and known a superhuman.

Quoting unenlightened

Well since we're sharing, I was groped while working as a childminder by the neighbour's prematurely sexualised seven-year-old girl. A highly inappropriate, unwelcome piece of sexual harassment that was mildly traumatic for me, but I imagine was an expression of a much more traumatic upbringing from her side. But since I was the person of power in the relationship, I was able to deal with it. If I had had an ounce of respect for the local child social services, I might have talked to them, but as it was, I was confident they would only make things worse for everyone.

un, I have been thinking about what you said here. To begin with, I am incredibly grateful that I knew making a pass at my Science teacher would be inappropriate but I sure hope he knows how many girls in my class that were totally in lust with him. He was such a catch that a group of us girls took Summer school Science just to see him.

I think that what I was feeling normal and was glad that if he did know, that he didn't act upon it because there is a chance that because of what was happening at home, I would have fallen for him and his advances that never came. Kudos to Mr. Oberland!

And Kudos to you for thinking through the "why" she did what she did and how you handled it would have ramifications that might just feed the dysfunction at home, that leaves her searching deeply for validation of feelings of love outside of her family.

Quoting unenlightened

The problem is not liberal society and it is not primate behaviour, instinct genes, testosterone, or what women are attracted to. The problem is men behaving badly. Let's stop saying it's 'natural' and also stop saying it's acceptable or that women like it really.

(Y) Well, this is it, really. Even further still, there is a constant assumption that I lack intelligence, undermining my capacity, disrespecting me and attempting to reinforce an assertive power over my quiet nature. I am attractive, so I must be stupid. Just shut the fuck up and take your clothes off. When I was studying my PhD, my supervisor went on the attack because I refused to adopt a Marxist angle in my research - your methodology is too feminine - and the IR department itself had appalling stats in relation to female academics. When I was at work, I had a younger man bully me with indirect threats in his vicious attempt to try and gain authority over me, despite the fact that he lacked the skills and character appropriate for such a role; power is imagined.

And, do you know what I did? I tried helping him secure that very role. Why? To save myself from the hurt he was inflicting on me emotionally. Then you look at all those girls wearing tonnes of make-up, avoiding an education or a career, and taking selfies or trying to be "beautiful" and that is what they are trying to do too, save themselves. It is almost ideological. Women who return to their violent husbands are experiencing psychological and emotional trauma and violence - whether gender-based or not - need not only be physical.

Quoting ArguingWAristotleTiff

And Kudos to you for thinking through the "why" she did what she did and how you handled it would have ramifications that might just feed the dysfunction at home, that leaves her searching deeply for validation of feelings of love outside of her family.

It is the ethical responsibility towards those who are at a disadvantage; children, persons with a disability, most human rights abuses exemplify this lack thereof and it is why here in my state in Australia, we legislatively have enforced the Charter of Human Rights and Responsibilities that confirms human rights and freedoms vis-a-vis responsibilities as not being mutually exclusive.

Quoting Agustino

Oh? Then what are we doing in advertising and marketing if not inflaming already existent and basic human desires, re-directing them, and so on so forth? :s What are we doing in psychotherapy, psychoanalysis, moral philosophy, etc. if not trying to change our structure of desire?

You've answered your own criticism, to change the structure of something is not to distill it out. How can one change the structure of something that is no longer there. :s

Quoting Agustino

That is true, but to suppose that human beings are primates in the same sense that chimps are is folly

I don't. Note the difference between being "like" (in some respects) and being the "same".

Quoting Agustino

Reason can indeed only work with what it is given, but what is given isn't biological in large majority, but culturally mediated.

Sure, biology is culturally mediated as is reason itself, and we are disputing extent.

Quoting Agustino

All religions, but especially Christianity and some forms of Buddhism encourage the abandonment of imitative desire as the solution to the ills of the world.

Again, sure. And how does that work out in practice and why?

Quoting Agustino

Your liberal society is not liberal at all, but illiberal. When rivalry is allowed to run amok, nobody can enjoy the object of desire - everyone is busy killing each other off, outplaying each other, competing, etc. - we all become fascinated with the rival, and the rival is more punishing than any law would be.

Kind of sounds like we're a bunch of chimps or something. :)

Quoting Agustino

Just because there is choice does not mean that there is freedom. The two shouldn't be confused.

Amen.

Quoting Agustino

In one sense, I do understand why society is becoming "liberal" - sacrificial mechanisms no longer work to keep the peace. But this becoming more "liberal" is identical with becoming more violent - violence becomes harder to control.

And yet the most liberal societies (e.g.western Europe, particularly Scandinavia) are among the most peaceful that have ever existed. :s

Quoting Agustino

Right, you take the naive view that they are already inflamed, increased and redirected - naturally. Just look at chimps

Hmm, but... Nevermind.

Actually, society does need radical reform. I'm with you there. I'm probably not with you in terms of the type of reform or the extent of its effects.

Quoting TimeLine

Well, this is it, really.

I grant it may not be useful to have gone off on this tangent with Agu. I didn't intend to distract from the practical side of this issue.

Quoting Baden

I grant it may not be useful to have gone off on this tangent with Agu. I didn't intend to distract from the practical side of this issue.

He has that effect.

This thread exposed something that is wrong within me. I just finished an application for an international post in human rights working with children in a developing country. I think I am reaching a point - I'm not there yet - but I am reaching it, of a radical reformation within myself. I feel like I have been on a tangent for long enough. It is time to focus on the practical.

Reply to TimeLine

I know that feeling. (Y)

Quoting Baden

You've answered your own criticism, to change the structure of something is not to distill it out. How can one change the structure of something that is no longer there. :s

Well, evidently those means I mentioned aim to change the structure that has already been placed there by our culture & society through the way we were raised up. If you were raised up differently, in a different society and under a different culture and different circumstances, you would get a different structure in place by the time you grow up. We only need to change it, because our culture and society doesn't get it right from the first place.

Quoting Baden

Again, sure. And how does that work out in practice and why?

Depends on the epoch and how influential those practices/beliefs are in culture and society.

Quoting Baden

Kind of sounds like we're a bunch of chimps or something. :)

Hominization does happen precisely through cultural institutions, ritual, sacrifice, and prohibitions. If we eliminate those, it's not at all surprising that we start to return to chimp levels of behaviour.

Quoting Baden

And yet the most liberal societies (e.g.western Europe, particularly Scandinavia) are among the most peaceful that have ever existed. :s

Oh yeah the GREAT Scandinavia :-} - Scandinavia is not peaceful at all. Anders Brevik was from there for example. There are also many Neo-Nazi groups in those Nordic countries too.

And to judge the "peacefulness" of Western society based on less than 100 years from what were the 2 most brutal and bloody conflicts in human history is childish.

Quoting Agustino

Oh yeah the GREAT Scandinavia :-} - Scandinavia is not peaceful at all. Anders Brevik was from there for example. There are also many Neo-Nazi groups in those Nordic countries too.

And to judge the "peacefulness" of Western society based on less than 100 years from what were the 2 most brutal and bloody conflicts in human history is childish.

There you go again...Reality = Iceland and Denmark are in the top five most peaceful countries in the world and the top 20 is dominated by western liberal democracies.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/273159/most-peaceful-countries-in-the-global-peace-index/

You can have the last word on the rest.

Quoting Baden

There you go again...Reality = Iceland and Denmark are in the top five most peaceful countries in the world and the top 20 is dominated by western liberal democracies.

Quoting Agustino

And to judge the "peacefulness" of Western society based on less than 100 years from what were the 2 most brutal and bloody conflicts in human history is childish.

*facepalm*

Reply to Agustino

*Returns serve* (You don't get to gerrymander the terms of the debate to immunize yourself against evidence). Tangent over. Hopefully.

(Today's WAPO. Full article behind paywall)

My answer again, political partisanship. Must be incredibly frustrating for them.

Quoting Baden

Today's WAPO. Full article behind paywall

If you time it right and press ESC before the paywall shows (but not too early else the page won't fully load) you can read the full article.

Reply to Michael

Yes, I always do that. (Y)

Quoting Agustino

Strange thing, nobody - absolutely nobody - voted in this poll.

I misclicked an option in the 2nd poll and can't unselect it, thus I can't vote.
Edit: managed to unselect it but can't vote.

Quoting Agustino

Okay, but that doesn't make it moral or right.

And that doesn't make it immoral or wrong. That just means our culture's view on sexuality is very much twisted by christianity's sick view on sexuality.

Quoting BlueBanana

That just means our culture's view on sexuality is very much twisted by christianity's sick view on sexuality.

:-d Care to provide some substance for this assertion?

Reply to Agustino Well, I think we can agree that the situation in question is very much related to the reasons of sexuality being such a taboo in our culture, which is due at least partially due to christianity's effect on it.

Quoting Bitter Crank

I wasn't invited, and I would have enjoyed it (assuming he does it well).

But you're neither funny nor female. Zing... >:)

There was some speculation as to whether or not this will result in a movement and I came across a woman who put this revolution into perspective:

"As the day, and the show, went on, her other cohosts weighed in with Al Roker saying he was "still processing" while the newest addition to Today, Megyn Kelly, said that this one hit close to home, "But when this happens what we don’t see is the pain on the faces of those who found the courage to come forward, and it’s a terrifying thing to do. We are in the middle of a sea change in this country. An empowerment revolution. As painful as this moment is for so many here at NBC today, at CBS earlier this month, at Fox News over the last year, in Hollywood this fall, it is a sign of progress. Of women finding their voices, their courage and of the erosion of a shameful power imbalance that has been in place for far too long."

Call it what you will but the "sea change" or an "empowerment revolution" for women to come out of the shadows in regards to sexual harassment they have experienced on the job, is not something that is going to go away, there is no turning back to the way it was.

Quoting BlueBanana

And that doesn't make it immoral or wrong. That just means our culture's view on sexuality is very much twisted by christianity's sick view on sexuality.

Christianity has plenty to answer for, no doubt. But let's be fair: religion isn't the only player in determining the shape of our contradictions. Social practices, economics, politics, jurisprudence, and so on all apply torque. Over the last two millennia Christianity has changed, changed again, and changed once more, as have the societies which preceded the present ones. One thing that is a constant, is that sex always finds a way. Everything from the most boring heterosexually normative sex within the bonds of marriage to exotic polymorphous perversity have all happened over, and over, and over, during every generation to have lived within the Christian sphere of influence (and outside that sphere).

Quoting Bitter Crank

Christianity has plenty to answer for, no doubt. But let's be fair: religion isn't the only player in determining the shape of our contradictions. Social practices, economics, politics, jurisprudence, and so on all apply torque.

I completely agree with all this. I do think christianity as a centralized religion is the biggest individual force behind it, but that might just be ebcause it's the easiest one to identify.

Quoting Bitter Crank

One thing that is a constant, is that sex always finds a way. Everything from the most boring heterosexually normative sex within the bonds of marriage to exotic polymorphous perversity have all happened over, and over, and over, during every generation to have lived within the Christian sphere of influence (and outside that sphere).

Well, christianity didn't manage to completely eradicate sex, but I don't think that's because it wasn't against it. Rather, the reason might be more that sexuality is a strong instinct hard wired into our DNA. I think on global scale people on average have had healthier relationships with their sexuality outside that sphere than inside it (which is a claim I can't promise any sources for and that I make based on my intuition).