But there’s a difference between having a personal code of conduct (I don’t think anyone, even Ann, is disputing your right to have such) and insisting that anyone and everyone who deviates from your code is ipso facto a predator who should be arrested, prosecuted, and imprisoned (or kicked out of school, or fired from their job for that matter).
Exactly. I personally have never hooked up with a woman in a bar. I’ve never had an interest in one night stands. And I’ve been in situations where drunk women came on to me at parties, and I’ve always been a ‘gentleman’. I tend to be the person women come and talk to as a ‘friend’ after making a mistake with someone else. And some of them made choices like that over and over again, with alcohol being involved each time.
And believe it or not, some women do NOT regret one night stands and seek them out for the same reason some men do. Again, the assumption that a tipsy woman will absolutely regret a booty call seems to be an almost Victorian attitude. Why can’t women enjoy having a few drinks or smoking a joint then getting their ashes hauled by a guy they picked up? Am I supposed to psychoanalyze the woman and make a decision for her as to whether this encounter will be something she’s going to later regret? Am I supposed to be her protector?
Whether you engage in this kind of behavior is your choice, whether you are a woman or a man. I’m not going to make it for you. And I’m not going to judge you. I don’t do this kind of thing, but if you want to, and the woman consents, I don’t see anything wrong with it outside of what I see as the general wrongness of the hook up lifestyle in the first place. But again, that’s my choice and not something I would dream of imposing on other people or using against them in any way.
Which there’s nothing wrong with in and of itself, but which does not excuse anyone, straight or male or otherwise, in knowingly taking advantage of another person’s impaired judgement to encourage them into actions that you honestly believe they are likely to regret. That’s just common human decency, no matter how straight and male you are.
Sure, and there’s nothing intrinsically wrong with voluntarily being tipsy and gregarious in and of itself, or with seeking out one-night stands, or with accepting invitations to one-night stands from someone who’s a little tipsy and gregarious.
But SlackerInc’s hypothetical included the information that “the guy strongly suspects she would regret the hookup the next day”. If you strongly suspect, for whatever reason, that a person whose judgement is impaired will regret doing whatever it is that they’re currently trying to do in their impaired state, then basic human decency requires that you not encourage them in doing it.
That doesn’t change just because it was the other person’s own choice to drink enough to impair their judgement. Callously saying “it’s on her” that you deliberately ignored your conscientious scruples and encouraged her in behavior that you honestly believed she would probably regret once she sobered up is the act of an exploitative creep.
Take it up with SlackerInc: he’s the one who specified that the guy in this particular scenario “strongly suspects she would regret the hookup the next day”. I agree that plenty of women, even tipsy women, don’t regret having casual sex. But that doesn’t absolve anybody from the ethical responsibility to steer clear of a would-be sex partner that they strongly suspect would regret having the sex that they’re now drunkenly asking for.
This ethical rule you are laying out strikes me as having so many implications for non-sexual issues that I wonder how you could ever drink with friends or acquaintances. If someone is drinking too much, should you just frown and tut-tut them instead of joking around with them and showing your amusement? Or what if your friend isn’t ready to go home, but you know he has to get up for work early and is going to regret drinking so late when his alarm goes off? (I drive people for Uber all the time who report having to go to work ridiculously early given that they are in my car at 2 a.m.) Should you refuse to buy a round when its your turn, on the theory that the others will regret this night of debauchery? To me, as long as it isn’t enabling drunk driving, that’s taking this responsbility for other people’s future regret too far.
And when I assume that woman at the bar would regret hooking up with me the next day, it’s mainly because I’m not a 6’3" thirty year old with washboard abs and a high paying job. But again, if she had her own place and invited me in, I don’t know how I could have resisted in the moment.
Then I think you must not be understanding the rule correctly. The rule is simply that you shouldn’t be actively encouraging other people to do things that you strongly suspect they’re going to regret later. Not that you should be trying to control their behavior, except as it involves yourself.
No. But if you seriously think they’re going to regret drinking so much, then when they ask you to go halves on another bottle of wine with them, you shouldn’t take them up on their offer.
It’s not up to you to decide when he goes home, but if you seriously think he’s going to regret being out so late, you shouldn’t urge him to put off going home.
This is a simple ethical principle and it really isn’t that difficult to implement.
Your own private morality about the acceptability of having casual sex or cheating on your wife is your own business and none of mine. I’m just saying that if you honestly believe that another person who’s asking you to supply them with casual sex (or icecream, or more wine, or whatever) will regret what they’re doing, then ethically speaking, you shouldn’t comply with their request. Whether or not you’d be too weak-willed “in the moment” to be able to “resist” complying with their request is a separate issue.
In my younger days I’ve had tipsy women hit on me and I turned them down because I felt I’d be taking advantage of them. Not because I thought doing so made me a predator, or rapist, or criminal. I just thought doing so made me an asshole.
On a very related note, I also find inebriated women to be unattractive, even if they’re very attractive sober. I’m sure that factored in it as well.
This. Sexual encounters are not an adversarial game like a chess match, where the fundamental goal is for you to derive as much personal advantage as you can from the other person’s choices. In that adversarial mindset, if the other person makes a choice that you strongly suspect they’re going to regret, too bad, sweet to be you, sucks to be them. The goal is to get as much out of the encounter for yourself as you possibly can, irrespective of whether you think the other person’s going to be happy with it, as long as you’re not actually breaking official rules.
Sex, on the contrary, is supposed to be a cooperative endeavor shared by people who care about each other’s happiness (at least for that one night). If you “strongly suspect” that they’re not in fact going to be happy about having this sex, you don’t just charge ahead with it anyway for the sake of your own pleasure.
Fucking right I would.
And on the repeated subject of your telling insights. “out of his league”? So if she was ugly, then you’d be ok faulting the guy, but if she’s smoking then it’s just human nature, amirite?
Yes, Gary, you are right–even if you don’t think you are.
You know, I’m always happy to put some time and effort into an insult but honestly it’s hard for me to think of something more insulting than the beliefs you’ll admit to. You are happy to state that you’d fuck someone knowing they’re only doing it because they’re drunk, and that tomorrow they’ll regret it. Words fail me. You are damaged.
My “problem” was the opposite: I was so shy that when I was “dating,” the woman would almost have to start undressing me before I would take Yes for an answer!
But when I read the victim’s account in the Aziz matter
Thirty minutes? Shouldn’t she have said “Our expectations for this date are much too different” 29 minutes ago, and left already?
I am NOT suggesting that a woman doesn’t have the right to say No whenever she wants. But the label “worst night of my life” seemed incongruous with the fact that she remained in his apartment for another 30 minutes after it went bad.
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What you quoted was a response to Aziz’s complaint that just anyone can criticize you on social media, so I don’t know what that has to do with your comment.
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Okay. So what?
And this means what? Do you think everyone always responds to unexpected situations in the absolutely most ideal and assertive manner?
We could certainly start offering all kinds of reasons to explain her decision timeline, but what’s the point of that exercise? What do you prove? The whole point is that she shouldn’t have had to go through that decision tree in the first place.
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I have the bad habit of quoting snips and then segueing off in a different direction. (I should avoid this.) If my response was directed at you or your comment I might have made that clearer.
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Most Dopers are INTJ. I am INTP. I was describing my Perception, not making a Judgment.
I wrote “I am NOT suggesting that a woman doesn’t have the right to say No whenever she wants.” and applied both the [ B ] and [ I ] tags. Do you think I was insincere? Next time should I also underline it and use a larger font?
Even if you don’t “know” but only “strongly suspect” that tomorrow they’ll regret it, as I said, the ethical thing to do is not to take them up on the offer. (Which, to be fair, is what SlackerInc by his own account appears to have done in the actual real-life situation.)
The other ethically dubious issue here is what appears to be SlackerInc’s position that the morality of the situation depends on the “smokingness” of the drunken potential sex partner.
I understand that people are naturally more strongly tempted to bang people they find attractive than people they find ugly, but that doesn’t mean that attractiveness makes it ethically acceptable to bang someone who you believe will later regret it. Moral courage involves being able to resist strong temptation for the sake of doing what’s right, not merely being able to turn down something that doesn’t really tempt you at all.
Gary, you do realize I didn’t touch this woman, and conveyed her safely home? (Well, to be precise, I touched her on the elbow once or twice to steady her as she walked across the ice.) What a monster I am! :rolleyes:
Kimstu, many people have a strong belief in the immorality of adultery. I’m not one of them, but most people are at least moderately opposed to it in principle.
The question that always comes to my mind about this belief: Is a married rock star or leading-man actor just as morally culpable if he gives in to the entreaties of the numerous “tens” who throw themselves at him day after day, as is an average schmoe who has to work at it to “step out”, and even then probably would only find a potential mate of very mediocre attractiveness in ev-psych terms? Really?
Expressing the support of reprehensible behavior or excusing it is still shameful even if you don’t personally engage in the behavior.
I consider adultery to always be immoral, but I only consider it adultery if it is done without the knowledge and acceptance of the other partner. For example, there’s no adultery if you’re in an open marriage and sleep with someone else. Adultery involves betraying the trust of someone that should be closer to you than anyone in the world, to satisfy personal desires. How can anyone but a true sociopath see no problem with that?
Yes they are both equally culpable. And I’m not sure if you’re aware that there is no true objective measure of sexual attractiveness. The “tens” you’re talking about don’t really exist. What’s a ten to you might seem too skinny or fake or annoying or self-absorbed to me. But regardless, having opportunity does not excuse guilt. It seems extremely immature to think it might.
:dubious: Well, is a banker or investment broker to wealthy clients just as morally culpable if he succumbs to the temptation to filch some of the readily available massive riches right there at his fingertips day after day, as is an average schmoe who has to go to the trouble of holding up a convenience store or mugging a passerby, and even then probably would only obtain a very mediocre amount of loot? Really?
Of course he is. In both cases, a betrayal of trust is a betrayal of trust. You don’t get a pass, ethically speaking, on betraying somebody’s trust just because you were soooo tempted and the payoff was soooo irresistibly huge. :o
Mind you, I’ve got absolutely nothing against rock stars or actors (or anyone else) happily schtupping their way through mile-long queues of enthusiastically consenting sex partners if they’re not betraying anybody’s trust in so doing. Last time I checked, no rock star or actor was obligated to remain in an exclusively monogamous marriage against his will. If he decides that a monogamous commitment is not worth the sacrifice of all the one-night stands with hot babes that he could be having, then he needs to sack up and terminate or renegotiate said commitment so that he can start banging all the sexy strange without being a cowardly dishonest cheat.
You’ve not really got the hang of ethics, have you?
You’ve stated that you think it’s perfectly acceptable to fuck a drunk woman, knowing that the next day she would regret it, if she’s hot.
I’m grateful that on that one occasion you didn’t go ahead with it, sure. But that doesn’t change what your beliefs are.
What you term “immature” I would characterize as simply being clear-eyed and realistic.