She met him on Tinder, of which I’m wholly ignorant. But as a participant in pre-AIDS era of free & easy sex, the working of the situation has always been that both parties want no-strings sex, with the faint possibility or fig leaf that it could lead to more, but the strong option to bail. And bailing happened all the time: the guy seemed creepy to her, she seemed psycho to him, crabs waving their little claws or pus discharge, etc.: you bailed. There never was “entitlement” at the get-go: it always had an escape clause. But nobody went to meat markets (or now use Tinder) just to say hi; any more than do guys stick their dicks through glory holes just for the fresh air.
Technology has changed, issues have come to the forefront of society too. Both for the good. But human nature hasn’t changed much in the last 10,000 years.
Something tells me that if said activist were about to go on a date with a guy who prefaced the outing with “By the way, don’t try anything funny like falsely accusing me of rape. I’ve taken the red pill,” she’d be breaking the date in no time. And if he referred to her as a bitch (I guess the equivalent of a “fuckboy”?), she’d be self-righteously blogging about how he’s just another perpetrator of rape culture.
I’m picturing a couple communicating by using one of those dolls that therapists use with small children to investigate sexual abuse. “Where can I touch you?” She points, “Here and here, but definitely not there.”
The problem here is not affirmative consent, actually. It’s the idea (in a very small number of minds) that all men are potential rapists who can be restrained only by the explicit threat of legal action.
A defining characteristic of Homo Sapiens Sapiens is its ability to change its environment to suit its needs; years ago it came to me that fact is not limited to things like growing food or building shelter, it also includes creating emotional or psychological environments on which to thrive.
Some of those environments are positive and some are negative, as it may be the case with the people you mentioned.
You can’t say both these statements. If you don’t know anything about Tinder, you shouldn’t be telling us how it get used.
I’d be willing to bet (as a Tinder user) that more people use it as a regular dating service then a ‘hookup app’ as so many people seem to think it is.
Go ahead, download it*, scroll through the pictures, look at how many of them (if you’re a guy, looking it girls anyways) say ‘not looking for a hook up’ or ‘no casual sex’ or ‘looking for a relationship not a one night stand’ or something along those lines.
*If you do this, keep in mind that you’ll lose some innocence. Because of how it works, the majority of the people you first see will be people you know, it runs through facebook and isn’t shy about setting you up with friends of friends.
Even ignoring all the sexual issues involved, it’s incredibly douche-y to drop “I know the Chief of Police” into the very beginning of a conversation. What, you want a cookie for knowing somebody important?
I also want to be sure we posters aren’t talking past each other here, as we tend to do on these topics, about “entitlement.” I know of no national poll, but I’d be willing to bet that most guys meet women expecting to get shot down than invited in.
Its fine to be an anti-rape activist. Its not fine to bring this out before a first date like the guy is a rapist. Its the same thing like telling your date you have horrible daddy issues and if you start sobbing at the dinner table, just ignore it. Its too much information too soon. That’s her problem, not the anti-rape thing
The logic behind “All men are potential threats” is that men commit more violent crimes than women. Statistically true.
But if someone were to say, “All Arab Muslims are potential terrorists” (19 out of 19 hijackers in the September 11th attacks were Arab and much terrorism in the world today is committed by Arab Muslims), that would be called racist and Islamophobic. Can someone please explain the incongruity?
I can’t recall any kind of “dating” service, going back to personals ads and indy-paper call-in systems, in which the majority of women’s entries didn’t contain such a phrase.
(Outside of entries in the occasional “Hardcore” category, which I suspect was 90% BS anyway.)
My experience was that the more the lady so protested, the more likely we were to end up horizontal by the second date (which was often the first after a “coffee meeting” date).
(I’m not boasting, here; I think my overall dating record is average at best. But I think these demure disclaimers are more for the subject’s self-image than anything corresponding to reality.)
In this case, I think the woman is 100% wrong, but not for the reason you may think. Its fine for her to be an activist. I even think its fine for her to warn people. In the context of a first date, however, she’s wrong in that its too much info too soon. And also, she is 100% wrong on her reaction. She should acknowledge and accept that there will be a non-zero percentage of men who will refuse to date her because of it. As an activist, she should be used to pushback. Her response should have been something like “I understand that makes you uncomfortable and you don’t want to date me because of that” and move on, not overreacting and name calling
There’s a couple of ways to look at it.
Of violent crimes, men commit a majority of them. If you were already guarding for violent crimes, you’d single out men to watch out for.
Of terrorism, for the sake of argument, we can say that Arab Muslims commit the majority of them (of the specific type of violence we’re talking about, obviously they’re not bombing churches in Ireland). If you were trying to guard for something like a plane hijacking or suicide bombing, you’d single them out to pay attention to.
But if you look at it another way:
Of men, do most of them commit violent crimes? No, most are not criminals.
Of Arab Muslims, do most of them commit acts of terror? No, most are not terrorists.
Neither side is technically wrong, but you have to know when to apply one or the other kind of evaluation to the people at hand. Like I said, you wouldn’t see much Muslim terrorism in somewhere like Norway. But if you’re in Yemen, you’d probably watch out for every Muslim you come across.
With men, if you’re a woman trying to be careful and you’re on a first date, you have the freedom to say to yourself whether you’re looking at violent crime agents (statistically mostly men) or you’re looking at maybe first dates. How many first dates end in violent rape? Probably not a lot. And so you’re probably going to be wrong if you assume violence and watch out for people who may commit them (men) rather than assume a first date situation and whether or not there will be violent (statistically probably not). Problems arise when we incorrectly assume one way of looking is correct and keep on that wavelength permanently, with no way of making an individual evaluation of each situation.
