Aziz Ansari, Sexual assault allegations

Cafe Society
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Rationality Matrix.

What would a reasonable Ansari do? Interpret ambiguous communication as a sign to back off and clarify. What would an unreasonable Ansari do? Interpret ambiguous communication as something else, and keep pushing, and only interpret unambiguous communication as a sign to back off.

What would a reasonable Grace do? Communicate unambiguously. What would an unreasonable Grace do? Communicate ambiguously.

With a reasonable Grace and a reasonable Ansari, when she wants to stop, she says, “Hey, stop that, I don’t want to do that.” She moves away, and a reasonable Ansari stops and talks.
With a reasonable Grace and an unreasonable Ansari, it works almost exactly the same way, except he may follow her once she moves away, and she says, “Seriously, stop, I need space now!” and then it’s the same.
With an unreasonable Grace and a reasonable Ansari, she says, “You men are all the same,” and he stops and backs off and asks for clarification.
With an unreasonable Grace and an unreasonable Ansari, it goes down the way it went down.

The thing about how I described the reasonable folks above is that it makes allowances for the other person being unreasonable. Reasonable Ansari backs off at ambiguous communication because he recognizes that Unreasonable Grace might want him to stop, even though she didn’t say that. Reasonable Grace communicates unambiguously because she recognizes that Unreasonable Ansari won’t understand ambiguous communication.

This shitstorm resulted because both of them were behaving unreasonably. So when we talk about whether Ansari behaved in an unreasonable fashion by not responding to ambiguous communication–absolutely he did. But it required both of their unreasonable behavior to get that result.

Which is why turning this story into a predator and victim narrative is wrong. The conversation here needs to be about how everyone in an intimate situation should behave–specifically how they should make allowances for having an unreasonable partner.

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Chapter 1: Electioneering

Chapter 2: Protest This Mutherfucker

Chapter 3: Honey, There’s a Bunny in the Pot

Chapter 4:

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Not sure we can, accepting Grace’s recollection months later as absolutely factual, be certain that Ansari was unreasonable. It’s possible but not certain. Assuming that Ansari’s recollection of what was said and done is exactly the same we are still missing his internal dialogue and perceptions.

So, she has claimed no force used by him, all agreed. And that after she said something along the lines of “you men are all the same” he kissed her in a manner she experienced as “aggressive.”

What was the internal narrative he had at that moment? I’d actually guess that he was trying to prove he was not the same and that what she experienced as “aggressively” he meant as “tenderly” as a request to be forgiven for however he had acted like “other guys” … in any case I am trying to picture someone attempting to kiss someone “aggressively” or otherwise who does not want to be kissed and without using force. Maybe if taken completely by surprise a brief lip touch would be possible before pushed off? But if her reaction had been that he would not have been surprised by her saying the next day that she had not had fun. So what did he experience her doing (given the assumption that her recollection is 100% accurate)? Allowing him to kiss her but likely her not responding much which he then, correctly, interpreted as disinterest in continuing, no forgiveness to be had, and, properly, calling her an Uber.

That may have been the first time he received a message that what she wanted was not doing something if only he could figure out how to do it in the way she wanted, but to not do. And given how she described her communication to him and the nature of the interaction (her pursuit of him and the willingness for everything short of intercourse) such an interpretation may in fact have been reasonable even though incorrect.

But of course publishing virtual revenge porn, calling it “sexual assault”, and attempting to harm his career with that unilateral action that leaves the one accused no response that does not look bad, because she sucks at communication … all okay.

I wonder, now that she is not only identified but is tweeting about it under own name, thus embracing becoming a public figure, how those defending her would be if former dates of hers come out with detailed examples of how horrible she was at communicating in sexual encounters? Really if every guy seems to treat you like you want something you don’t want, maybe, just maybe, the problem is not primarily the guys.

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It may surprise people here to know that I’m kind of suspicious, if that’s the word, about the James Franco thing. I just saw an interview with his three accusers that aren’t Ally Sheedy and–it appears the “power” he held over one of them, by her own phrasing, was that she “wanted him to like” her. I didn’t hear much different than that from the other two women.

Another note: Looks like Ansari skipped out on, and was given the silent treatment when his name was called at the SAG awards. That’s worse than I thought it would be for him–but I still think he’s going to be fine. Dude better say something more substantive than his perfunctory press response though.

Finally, most substantively, I just read this and I think it’s interesting and important: I Thought I Was One Of the Good Guys, Then I Read the Aziz Ansari Story

In thinking about that story and the Ansari one, this thought occured to me. People here are saying (and I agree) that we should focus also on helping women understand they can and should be more clear and assertive, as well as helping men understand they should and can be more sensitive to unclear communications and their implications. Someone above said, along those lines, that he’s confident he’s taught his sixteen year old daughter well and that she would say “hell no” and leave in an Ansari-like situation.

Well and good! But isn’t that an idealization? Here’s what I mean. I can imagine people reading the link above and saying the woman should have not just frozen up and gone passive and allowed things to happen while registering indirect objections with her words–she should have directly said “no, we’re not going to be having sex tonight.” Maybe that would have been great. But it relies on so many idealized assumptions, both assumptions we’re telling her she should make about the dude (that he will listen and care) and assumptions we’re saying the guy should make about the woman (that she will communicate very clearly, to his satisfaction, if she doesn’t really want to).

Doing the “my daughter” thing, I want to both teach my daughter to approach that ideal, and teach my sons that women in their lives, just… generally… won’t. Because we’ve been a crappy society so far when it comes to that kind of thing.

And if I found out my daughter failed to be assertive in a situation like that, and I also found out one of my sons failed to be sensitive in a situation like that, I’d feel sad for my daughter and would offer support and no criticism, and I’d feel mad at my sons and, while offering “support” of a kind, it would be in the form of criticism at the very least.

I feel like it’s utopian to insist we should equally focus both on helping our daughters be more assertive and helping our sons be more sensitive. To deal with the reality our children are actually likely to enounter, and to deal with the actual stakes involved, it seems clear to me the focus of public criticism when discussing stories like this should be on the pushy men, while the other very important discussion about women being more assertive… I mean people will discuss what they will discuss. But going immediately to a focus on that (or even a “both sides” focus) is a move I will always criticize as misguided.

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In this thread I’ve called Ansari a “bad dude,” and in another thread you’ve mentioned we don’t have a basis for judging his intentions well enough to decide whether he’s a “bad guy” or not, and here you’re also discussing his intentions.

I want to clarify there was a reason I told my story about my friend and my assault of her. My intentions were perfectly justifiable. I had misread the situation, indeed, I’ll even add the fact that we had in the past kind of talked around having crushes on each other. While she had in fact given no positive indication that she wanted me to touch her, I genuinely believed she wanted me to touch her–and she was my best friend in all the world (and still is a good friend) and it is absolutely the case that I would never have intentionally hurt her or her feelings for all the world. I believed it was okay, she never said no, she voluntarily put herself in a slightly suggestive physical position with me, we had discussed having crushes on each other, she kept not saying no, I cared deeply for her. My intentions were just great.

And yet I call myself a “bad dude” in that situation because my intentions aren’t what matters. What matters is what I did.

When I call Ansari a “bad dude” I am making the charitable assumption that his internal dialog was something like my own was in the story I told–and I’m insisting that we do everyone a disservice when we excuse their actions based on such good intentions. What should be focused on is what people do.

Their intentions help us understand what we can expect later on, and how to talk to them about it. But their intentions do not excuse the ethical character of their actual behavior. Indeed–we should insist that they understand that no matter how good of a person they feel like they are on the inside, what came out was bad.

Probably you all have heard the phrase “Intentions aren’t magic.” I think it’s also important to add “but they can be important information” for various reasons, but that’s not as catchy, and anyway, does not negate the fact expressed by the catchphrase: Intentions aren’t magic.

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I 50% disagree. Your intentions aren’t what matters for determining what to do going forward. They’re not what matters for determining whether your actions were harmful. They’re not what matters for other folks deciding whether to act similarly.

But for determining whether to judge you harshly, or whether to punish you? They’re 100% what matters.

To say otherwise is to go against every ethical principle I understand.

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One way to look at it is that Ansari is partially to blame because his public persona regarding sex and dating differs greatly from how he behaved here. If he’s in public saying he understands the difficulties that women go through, then he shouldn’t be naked and aroused chasing his reluctant date around his apartment. That’s not what a guy who understands the dating difficulties of women would do. If he truly understood, he’d be more observant and responsive to her desires.

So while I think Grace should have been clearer about her reservations, Ansari is not innocent in all this. Grace may have been totally taken aback because this so called ‘nice guy’ is acting like a typical un-woke aggressive man.

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It sounds you have a plan, dude. Good luck with all that–I guarantee no woman in the world is gonna object.

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You don’t like women very much, do you?

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I thought you were being fair until the end. Yes, she probably thought he was actually interested in her. Yes, she was angry that he was treating her as just a groupie. I don’t think that’s why she told her story. She told her story because it was a miserable night for her, he was pretty persistently dickish, and she never got up the gumption to tell him what she wanted, or didn’t want.

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The one thing I think we can all agree on is that hopefully this incident will be to the “me too” bandwagon what the Rolling Stone / Jackie Coakley rape hoax was to the “campus sexual assault epidemic”.

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Have you ever asked your good friend, as an adult, how she remembers or feels about the incident?

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I haven’t.

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Why not?

You believe you are guilty of sexual assault. Don’t you think you minimally owe your victim an apology?

Don’t you think that you also deserve some public humiliation with your family, friends, coworkers, and complete strangers becoming aware of your shameful behavior, allowing them to point and laugh at you? You probably wouldn’t become suicidal over it. Don’t you think that other women should be warned about your past behavior? Especially in the context that you do seem to otherwise try to present yourself as a “woke” individual?
Also why does intent matter to you in regards to public shaming (shaming in order to warn others is okay, but not okay if it is motivated out of desire to humiliate for revenge) but intent is immaterial to the actions of a male in what they believe is a consensual sexual encounter?

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That’s a little harsh. I just thought Frylock would be interested to actually know the victim’s perspective. It could help him deal with this “I sexually assaulted someone” weight he’s obviously carrying.

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I doubt that it is something that has traumatized her, I’m 95% sure if I brought it up it would be easily forgiven, possibly even outright dismissed. On the off chance that it would instead lead to some kind of re-traumatization, I don’t really see the value. I already know how she felt at the time–uncomfortable, and while as a friend I’d be interested to know her thoughts, feelings and memories of it now, I don’t see inquiring about it as an appropriate action. It would only serve to assuage my curiosity and lingering guilt.

But about that “lingering guilt.”

Here’s the thing. I feel some guilt, but it’s pointless to dwell on that, and moreover, realistically speaking, in the scheme of things, what happened is not important enough for dwelling-upon. Kids do stupid kid things, kids get over it as they become forty-year-olds… My point hasn’t been to express a great deal of guilt, my point has been to explain my viewpoint that much of the difference between a serious sexual assault that should be punished and a more mundane, everyday sexual assault that gets forgiven and moved on from is pure dumb luck. It’s not an easily forgiven action because I’m actually an okay person inside, or because my intentions were understandable, or anything like that. That’s precisely the way in which “intentions don’t matter.” Rather, it’s an easily forgiven action because of the luck of circumstance–our friendship, her ability to handle the incident well, etc etc.

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See my post to CarnalK just now.

Had my friend chosen to go to the newspaper over it, she would have been within her rights, no matter how I felt about her doing so.

(Of course had she done so, she would probably have been the one to be pilloried rather than me, because of how screwed up our assumptions are–especially were, back then, decades ago–concerning this kind of thing.)

That she didn’t do so is a matter of (in a sense) luck for me. Rather than feeling like I did nothing wrong, it’s appropriate for me to feel relief that for her it was, in the end, (I believe), a minor thing, and that nothing more came of it for either of us. It’s not appropriate for me to decide that since I suffered no consequences, I’m morally in the clear.

An analogy: If I have a near miss with a train, nearly being hit by it but dodging at the right time, getting lucky as a result, my appropriate takeaway shouldn’t be “I should get that close to trains all the time because apparently it’s no big deal!” My takeaway should be “I am damn lucky, and I need to do a better job of avoiding trains.” And if I see somebody else get hit by a train in a relevantly similar situation, my reaction shouldn’t be “Yeah, I did that too and I’m fine, so doing that is no big deal. He just got really unlucky.” Instead my reaction should be, “I did that too and got lucky, it was foolish when I did it and it was foolish when he did it.”

BTW we can also at other times have the discussion about whether there’s a way to make trains better at dodging foolish people–but we should do so carefully, in a way that doesn’t make it seem like getting too close to trains is just a natural thing that should be no big deal and that should be expected as a matter of course.

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I think the risk of “re-traumatization” is so minimal, it sounds a little cowardly to not offer an apology and try to gain understanding.

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To what end?

I have heard from too many women that hearing from an assaulter about an apology is the last thing they want. The general gist seems to be, “I’ll come to you, you don’t come to me.”

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Yeah, I would leave well enough alone. I don’t think you did anything terribly wrong. (One of my relationships pretty much started in the same way, with some gentle touching on the knee/thigh, except that I happened to read the signals correctly.) But, obviously, you’re not looking for my opinion or my forgiveness. I think you’re being a little hard on yourself if you’re holding on to guilt over this, but I do understand the importance of having a frank discussion about these sorts of issues.