8circles
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Posts posted by 8circles
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Still a less creepy holiday sentiment than that Elf on a Shelf thing.
Do people today really lack the emotional range to distinguish between flirty banter and true harassment? Has nobody ever experienced the long goodbye when you “should†be heading home but you keep talking? Are we really going to micromanage grown women to the point of telling them that what they FEEL is wrong if they’re not saying it in a way that is worded to be exactly, socially palatable today? “Sorry you think enjoying yourself, hon, but you’re not using the right script. Patriarchy 2.0 is here to tell you how to feel and act and what to say so you never have to rely on your own instincts.†If an adult woman wants to play hard-to-get why would anyone presume to save her from herself?
RE: Patriarchy 2.0
I don't think that's it at all. I think it's more along the lines of people who pretend to have emotional support animals just because they want to bring their pet everywhere. It hurts the people who have real guide dogs.
When this is what women are portrayed as doing, then many people assume she is being coy when she's not. This is a real life thing and is an actual real life problem because men use this excuse and get away with hurting women.
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I think you are really missing my point. It doesn't even seem like you are thinking through what I've said.
My guidelines for sexual behaviour are probably stricter than those of a lot of posters who are really getting upset about this.
I am saying that the culture on this is being seriously contradictory, and seriously unclear. In the situation you are describing, all travelling together, I have no problem seeing someone making an accusation about a similar situation in the media, and it would be taken as another example of oppressive patriarchy - it would absolutely be seen by many as the workplace. Some actor is on a tour with a theatre troupe and she's propositioned, she feels pressured and uncomfortable. What if someone is working at home? In my work, we often lived together at the workplace, and socialized together. Does that mean the sexual encounters were ok, or not prone to exploitation?
I am saying women in workplace environments where there is a lot of sexual innuendo and activity are, in my experience, as likely to be involved with that as men. Not so much assault.
And I am saying that the culture that says its empowering to have a sexy encounter in your office, or its ok to go to the grocery store with your partner on a leash, is entirely working against the idea that the workplace is somehow sacred in that way, that relationships there are on a fundamentally different basis than elsewhere.
Essentially I'm saying that if you create sexuality as a kind of marketplace, it's going to be very difficult not to see outcomes like this all around.
You understand that there are many people neither believe nor practice this? You are shouting it like its something everyone knows and agrees with except a few perverts.
I mean, asking for something kinking in a rather lewd was is pretty unusual, but just for sex? Office parties are famous for it, and its hardly just abusive men.
If you want to change that culture because you think it might be linked to exploitation - which I think is likely - you are not going to be able to do it just by focusing on abusive situations.
How am I not thinking about what you've said?
We weren't travelling together, but all working on the same project, staying in the same hotel and travelling from all over the country.
There could very well be similar scenarios that would be harassment - but mine wasn't. But if you're going to change details about my story and say that's bad, acknowledge that you're giving a different scenario.
If there is a lot of sexual innuendo in the workplace, that's already a problem. That's not an example of different opinions on what's appropriate, that's an example of an environment that is hostile to women. Even if women are participating in the sexual innuendo, even if some of the women like it.
I agree with you that the culture that says it's empowering to have a sexy encounter in the workplace or put your partner on a leash in public are working against the idea that sexual proposition does not belong in a professional workplace environment. I'm saying those people aren't ignorant about that, but they don't have a problem with these environments being hostile to women.
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I don't really see it as much different as asking if they can masturbate in front of you, TBH. I mean, if you go to their room for sex, they will almost certainly whip their penis out at some point. And if they said at that point "gee, I really would like it if you'd watch me whack off" that would not seem that odd either.
Whether or not a hotel is a professional setting or not, in that situation, does seem to be somewhat fuzzy - presumably you are meant to still be acting professionally, and as colleagues. I've met people who have strong feelings both ways on that question.
?? I have a hard time believing that you are for real here.
Going out for drinks or dinner with coworkers (which I have spent several drinks & dinners with already) who then asks me if I'd like to go back to their room is in no way similar to someone AT WORK asking me if I'd like to watch them masturbate. I don't care how casually you consider sex, that's insane to equate the two.
In *my* situation where we were all travelling every week for months at a time, no - going back to the hotel was not professional time.
Acting as if this is confusing is an indicator that you are a creep. Saying that you think asking someone AT WORK to watch you masturbate is OK because you believe in casual sex is either being ignorant of (yeah, not likely) or complicit in the oppression of women in the workplace.
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I think that's a cop-out argument. "It's so obvious, why doesn't everyone get it".
We have examples in this last rash of accusations of women complaining that men made off-colour jokes that made for a hostile work environment. That is not something that is a male thing. There are women who have said that an environment where comedy was off-colour and even included things like groping by men and women, was exploitative to women. We have people saying that a power differential makes a sexual relationship exploitative.
We also have an element the culture that claims that women have as much sexual power and agency as men, that they should be as free to express it as men. There are a lot of women who are not going to want to give up their sexual agency in many of these situations.
This kind of stuff is not about a Harvey Weinstein intimidating, blackmailing, and bamboozling women into sex, or even necessarily people being exploited in less aggressive ways. That is not what I'm talking about.
It's about telling men and women that they cannot make lewd jokes in the workplace. Maybe that seems easy enough in some kind of office job - if you are working on a movie set, the military, in comedy theatre - yeah, good luck. It's about telling people that they can't date their boss or supervisor. It's about saying that you have to date your co-worker before you ask them to have sex with you, even if you are at a conference and it would be a lot easier to say what you want in the first place.
All of these things people are saying are unacceptable in a particular instance actually need to be translated into actual usable guidelines, or rules of conduct, or laws, and that is not simple or obvious, however much people want to claim that it is.
I have actually had men proposition me in hotels on business (not on-the-job) like at happy hour or at dinner. I turned them down. They accepted it. We continued working together, in hotels, for weeks/months afterward. That's not harassment. That doesn't making it fuzzy saying that men shouldn't whip out their penis or ask to whip out their penis in a professional environment.
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Seriously, have no women here actually made lewd comments in a work environment, or known other women who did?
I have never made lewd comments in a work environment. I've heard them from both men and women and have laughed, but I'm not going to say that was the right thing to do. I'm not going to pretend that these rules are so confusing because admitting my wrongdoing is uncomfortable.
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I think that's a cop-out argument. "It's so obvious, why doesn't everyone get it".
We have examples in this last rash of accusations of women complaining that men made off-colour jokes that made for a hostile work environment. That is not something that is a male thing. There are women who have said that an environment where comedy was off-colour and even included things like groping by men and women, was exploitative to women. We have people saying that a power differential makes a sexual relationship exploitative.
We also have an element the culture that claims that women have as much sexual power and agency as men, that they should be as free to express it as men. There are a lot of women who are not going to want to give up their sexual agency in many of these situations.
This kind of stuff is not about a Harvey Weinstein intimidating, blackmailing, and bamboozling women into sex, or even necessarily people being exploited in less aggressive ways. That is not what I'm talking about.
It's about telling men and women that they cannot make lewd jokes in the workplace. Maybe that seems easy enough in some kind of office job - if you are working on a movie set, the military, in comedy theatre - yeah, good luck. It's about telling people that they can't date their boss or supervisor. It's about saying that you have to date your co-worker before you ask them to have sex with you, even if you are at a conference and it would be a lot easier to say what you want in the first place.
All of these things people are saying are unacceptable in a particular instance actually need to be translated into actual usable guidelines, or rules of conduct, or laws, and that is not simple or obvious, however much people want to claim that it is.
No, I'm using the example you gave that you said people didn't agree on.
You think that there's a large group of people who think it's acceptable for a man to ask a woman at (non-sexwork) work/in a professional setting - regardless of her position or his position - if he can show her his penis just out of the blue. If you think that's not obvious, you are being obtuse. The only people who would think this is OK are people who want to do it & then play the bumbling idiot, because making people feel icky is part of the appeal.
This is not saying anything about having an office romance. This is not saying anything about whether or not people can/do/it's OK to casually masturbate in front of someone else. It's not the same thing, no matter how hard you try to conflate them.
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So, you are taking the most obvious examples of what everyone would likely agree on here, and saying they aren't the same. Though some people would also say, you can only politely ask someone out if you have no kind of power over them. And what if someone is politely asked out, but feel that is pressuring them, or making them uncomfortable?
Your likely to find a lot of disagreement over other questions - Are you allowed to ask someone to have sex, without asking them out first? Can you say - I'd really like to have sex with you, or indicate that you find them attractive? What about work environments where everyone is making lewd comments or jokes - some complaints in the comedy/theatre world have been about that kind of thing - is that on the men too? How about in all female workplaces? These are the kinds of things you will see people disagree about.
"Co-worker" might be too undefined. Some people socialize a lot with such people.
I think that's a reasonable rule for the workplace, but no, I don't think there is 100% agreement or even that close to it. Probably on message boards talking about this, you'd get close to that. That's not what I'd call representative though.
But you know there is a school of thought that says that adults can choose to have sexual relationships, including things like masturbating in front of each other, with pretty much anyone, casually, so long as they agree, and that there is no reason to be particularly coy about this. It's just a negotiation.
I'm not confusing anything. I am saying that people have consensual sexual relationships, even when there is a power differential, that don't have some romantic or date scenario to get started. I've not often seen two people somehow start even a romantic relationship without one initiating, or in many cases one initiating when the other hasn't yet shown or felt any interest, so I'm not sure how realistic that is as a standard.
I kind of feel like people here are awfully sheltered if they think this sort of thing is only something men do to women and it's always distasteful to the women.
This kind of push for social change has to have some kind of fairly widespread agreement. Some things might be easy to manage, others trickier. Some, like dating bosses, I think might not be accepted at all - were are a heck of a lot of people who end up married to bosses or supervisors, I don't think people would accept it, or follow the rule if it was somehow created.
I don't think scenarios where a rule is generally ignored, except when it's not, are positive - they tend to be a minefield of abuses and errors, and people never no where they stand.
I think you're being obtuse and this illustrates the female version of the bumbling idiot man who acts like this is so confusing.
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Yes, I'm sure people know that showing your penis to someone at work, without asking first, is inappropriate.
But there does not seem to be agreement that it is a problem to ask. It may be that you haven't ever seen that, but it certainly does not mean it is false.
If there is no relationship beyond coworker, then "May I please whip out my penis to show you?" is not appropriate.
Is there not agreement on this?
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Millennials have absolutely zero resilience.
Because I think they don't adapt or recover well in the face of adversity, trauma, tragedy, threats, or significant sources of stress, I'm going to be merciless in my critique of them. Bunch of entitled losers.
I, on the other hand, am awesome. My parents were awesome.
Suck it up, cupcakes.
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Szekely goulash
bobalky
oplatky w/ honey
vanocka w/ raisins
pickled herring (although I don't eat it, it needs to be there)
roast duck w/ red cabbage
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1) I think it could be reasonably said that I and my family are participants in one facet of gun culture, although we wouldn't chose that designation to describe ourselves, nor do we have much, if anything, in common with some other individuals to which people apply that name. Further, the moniker does not define us, nor does it encompass my life. I don't see that balance in a lot of the very. loud. voices.
You have an interesting definition of "balance".
It might help to consider that, just as an example, the number of white supremacists is estimated at only about 6,000. That is quite a few less than mainstream media give the impression; I know it's in media's economic best interest to stir up strife. I'm hopeful that the facet of gun culture that is despicable is similarly small. Criminals, on the other hand, cause me numerical concern.
No, it doesn't help.
2) Heartbroken is the word I would use for how I feel about what gun violence and criminal activity does to families. Sad just doesn't describe the anguish in families due to unjust, undeserved, unexpected loss of loved ones. I have had such a loss from criminal activity.
You are clearly much more emotive than I am. +1 for HH.
3) I am a firm gun rights advocate. Because I speak out for gun rights and give people here small glimpses of my family's life, some think they can broad-brush me and others, so yeah, I'm right there with you on feeling belittled. It is simplistic, very polarizing, and ultimately does the nation a disservice to say that "gun culture" doesn't care. The NRA instructor in Sutherland Springs demonstrated that he cared by running toward danger, at the risk of his own life. My family would do the same. You are right though, some people don't care: criminals don't care. A few mentally ill are incapable of caring. You care. I care. We have that in common.
Oh, I'm so sorry that you feel broad-brushed. Thoughts and prayers.
4) We are pretty tired of having those want to "do something about it" maligning us, saying--at best--that we don't care or that we are selfish. The problem with most of the proposals is that they've been proven to be ineffective, they are flat out un-Constitutional, they penalize entire large groups of law-abiding citizens, and worst of all, they will make us more vulnerable to those who won't give a rip about a law-abiding life.
Again, thoughts and prayers.
I do think there is much that can be done; I'm working a couple of things that I consider promising. There were quite a few promising proposals or thoughts in the other thread.
Peace.
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My state has the strictest gun laws in the U.S. but we've still had mass shootings (such as that domestic abuser yesterday and that terrorist in San Bernadino a couple years back) and LOTS of run-of-the-mill gang-related shootings (not all of those on the linked map are gang-related but the overwhelming majority are).
Plus the existing gun laws aren't even being enforced, as demonstrated by the TX church massacre.
Right. Guess there's nothing we can do.
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I doubt you could find even one person who doesn't care that so many people die from gun violence.
If one's caring doesn't prompt one to do what one can to change it, one's caring is worthless to the point of not really caring.
There is a lot of that going on around here and it seems to be an accurate reflection of the wider populace. Seeing as how nothing ever changes.
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oh
Um
Unless I am miss reading or you have left some things out.....I am going to change my answer.
I say email another apology.
You seem to be reading it differently than me. Can you explain what she should apologize for again?
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You've been more than kind. You've apologized more than necessary. Stand firm in knowing that you are a good friend, your feelings were/are valid, you were right to express them to her. What she does with your feelings is not up to you & it's only yours to wait... or not wait & move on, assuming the friendship is over. If it isn't, and it can be healthy, then bonus!
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Pam, that made me cry. That's beautiful.
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No. I continue to not have any interest in contributing to the gun culture by participating in it.
Generally, it has made me incredibly sad that so many people die from gun violence, that so many don't care, that so many belittle those of us who want to do something about it. It seems quite hopeless, really.
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I just spent some time trying to find studies on this product with no luck. There are plenty of testimonials and promotion from the company, but do you have any idea if there have been non-biased studies? I put more faith in those than testimonials.
I don't and I agree, I feel the same. If I have any luck with more info, I'll let you know.
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I don't have any personal experience.
Just letting you know that Plexus has a product that is supposed to help with nerve pain. It's called Plexus Nerve.
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No, I do not "know it."
The conversation devolved to someone arguing that children are tangibly worse than dogs.
Really? You think she was saying that humans train their kids to sit on command and then give them a cookie? If you think you're conversing with morons, why do you bother?
And no, the parallels were drawn between training dogs & training children and how people feel about misbehaving dogs & misbehaving children in public. They are not the same but there are similarities.
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Nm.
This conversation is bananas
Yes, it is bananas. Because this:
You literally make kids do tricks or default to a certain bodily posture (sit) and then give them treats until they do what you tell them to do by ingrained "instinct?"
And you're always upbeat?
is ridiculous and you know it.
There is a whole lot of space between
Train it or crate it or leave it at home.
and dogs = humans. And pretty much everyone here objecting to the former, with maybe one or two exceptions, is in that space. This cannot be your first introduction to someone who believes in this kind of biocentrism.
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I'm generally a rule follower and it bothers me when others aren't. Fake service dogs do harm to those who need real ones. However, I would like less hysteria, in general, about dogs in public.
I live in suburbia. I rarely see dog poo that hasn't been picked-up by the owner - and frankly I wouldn't necessarily know if it were dog poo or another species. I have never, ever, ever seen a non-service dog in a non-pet store. Never.
I would love to be able to take my small dog lots of places and have taken him in a bag to a crowded event. We are training him well and he has a lovely disposition, even being a chihuahua. But yes, he could hurt someone given the right circumstances. We aren't delusional.
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The Sexual Harassment Christmas Song
in The Chat Board
Posted
Well, that's an interesting take on it.