> What's your insinuation about being alone with a woman being unsafe? That you don't trust yourself not to do something inappropriate or that you don't trust the woman not to make up a false accusation?
> Now, bad, vindictive, extortionists, etc., will not need you to take them out for drinks or have a 1:1 to get their way.
This is the key. It is so foreign to me the idea that I would be afraid to be alone in a room with a woman. In the rare case that someone is actually that crazy and malicious, they will fabricate a private meeting entirely if need be, and as was said before, the accusation can be enough to damage a career. How is it even possible to avoid brief periods of private communication with the opposite sex all day every day?
>Many women grow up with a sense of physical vulnerability that's hard for men to appreciate. Our culture's relentless treatment of women as objects teaches them that they are defined by the one thing that men around them want from them
Daaaaaamn are people ever good at misinterpreting this line. It doesn't matter whether women are at actual risk; it's about the perception of risk. They're your customers, not your students or children or friggin' royal subjects.
Answering the question of actual risk has basically turned into a playground of competitive sophistry. On the other hand, perceived risk is goddamn obvious, and it's what matters. You don't start a social network by alienating people, regardless of whether they're 'right' or 'wrong' to feel the way they do.
It is much less common for women to approach men than for men to approach women. Thus it is true (in current society, making allowances for hyperbole) that "Men have to approach women, or they don't get laid".
> This whole paragraph reeks of you not thinking women's consent/feelings on who touches them matter.
He was speaking descriptively, not normatively. "This is why it happened" does not imply "it is okay that it happened"; I admit that the tone might give that impression, but I'm fairly confident it was unintentional.
In this day and age, outright threats to our survival are rare unless we choose to seek them out. Food, shelter, and other basic necessities are easily within the grasp of nearly the entire population. Desirable sexual partners are not. Due to our nature, the majority of men and women cannot get the partner they want most of the time.
The pain of being betrayed or discarded by that one you thought you had found is considerable. Not only that, but it's visceral. It's hard-wired into our physiology that that will hurt in a way few other things can.
> Do you expect women to wear wires whenever they're sexually harassed? Trust women.
I was kidnapped by alien Elvis and he threw ping-pong balls at me for an hour. Do you expect humans to wear wires whenever they're kidnapped by aliens? Trust humans.
Most men are great people. But, the amount of damage that the minority can cause is what astounded me.
Also noticed that some perfectly normal people, have a couple of very weird ideas about romance, sex and women that cause them to act in a way that to a 3rd person and the woman herself to rightly consider it harassment.
Personally, I feel the rules around acceptable behavior when drunk/high need to be taught in school and a few solid lines need to drawn to let in most cases men and in a few cases women, know what constitutes consent.
> For example, when walking at night in my urban neighborhood, I go well out of my way to give women a lot of space, to not walk too close to them for too long. I'll slow down, pass them, cross the street, get on a different train car, or take an alternate route altogether. Why?
I do the same on long stretches of walk at night etc., but generally? Whenever I pass a woman in broad daylight I have to get away to make sure she doesn't feel threatened? Ever heard of body language, ever heard of not BEING a threat and so lively a person that the situations where you have to worry about this become rather rare?
> And giving women a different sort of room is what I was arguing for above.
How about this: ask them if they want to be treated like a wounded animal. Don't just presume. Or even better, read their body language, too. It's not rocket science, and compared to that your "useful correlations" are like trying to build a CPU with a bucket of sand and a spoon. It's not that I don't know all you say, it's that I know more. Allow for that possibility.
It's more that women constantly negotiate environments to keep the number of friendly men greater than the number of sketchy men, so they don't get raped and murdered.
In the woods, you get what you get. Even worse, both you and the man you run into know that if he rapes and murders you, he'll get away clean. She's got to rely on the stranger not wanting to rape and murder her, even if there are no consequences. I'd say you're safe with about 80% of men with that, but the other 20% would leave you in a shallow grave. With the kind of men or groups of men that wander around in isolated wilderness, I'd bet that you're moving into a 60%/40% expectation.
> You do not need to resort to pulling out your dick and forcibly placing the woman's hand on it in order to "make a move." There's literally hundreds of other things that aren't sexual assault that you could do before resorting to that.
Context: this is part of the penultimate chapter, which is about what to do when you’ve gone on several dates with a woman and now you’re alone with her. Many women expect men to take the first step, the chapter explains how to interpret the signs and act on them. One of the first sentences of the chapter is:
“IMPORTANT NOTE ON RESISTANCE: If at any point a girl wants you to stop, she will let you know. If she says "STOP," or "GET AWAY FROM ME," or shoves you away, you know she is not interested. It happens. Stop escalating immediately”
The part about taking out your dick is after the sections about kissing, fondling and fingering. NOT taking out your dick at this point would be more curious.
Now, I don‘t particularly like the tone of this guide and I don’t think it‘s very insightful or well-written, but it’s definitely not anything new or out of line. In the genre, I personally prefer the writings of David DeAngelo.
> Or you know, just don't be a creep and treat women like human beings and you'll be fine?
You don't understand.
When I interact with people, I don't see race/color/age/sex. I'm just focused on the problem at hand. I also have a deep compassion for people in general.
What I'm worried about is saying or doing the wrong thing due to a lapse in judgement in the moment.
I'll give you an example. I love fashion. At a previous company it was all guys. When a guy came to work and was wearing new shoes, I'd notice, and compliment the shoes. Or if they were wearing a new shirt I might say that it "brings out your X". I'm straight so there's nothing sexual here. I just think fashion is cool. It's a hobby of mine.
Making any comments about female coworker fashion terrifies me. What if I say something that's perceived as a sexual advance? Don't forget that men often disguise sexual advances as seemingly innocent compliments. It's a big gray area.
> If you're giving negative feedback because they did something wrong/substandard work, you document it and move on. If there are questions later, you refer back. I've literally never had this be a problem.
Maybe I wasn't clear in my post, but my point is that I have an irrational fear.
I'd much rather sacrifice a little bit of professional perception of skill to not mess around in an area I'm very paranoid about.
> I'm not sure why talking about your personal life would be grounds for issues unless you decided to talk about your bedroom, politics, or religion. "I went hiking on X trail this weekend, it was pretty cool" isn't going to get you called into HR.
Irrationally, I worry that I'll get to comfortable and mention something that, to me, is obviously not "-ist" but comes off that way.
it's not an insinuation, it's risk mitigation.
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