The Founding Fathers were very solicitous of the rights of accused persons. That is why things like jury trials and the 5th Amendment exist. I agree with their concern.
Whereas the concept of consent didn’t enter their mind at all - that’s why so many of them raped their slaves.
Anyways, no one is talking about convicting people of rape without proving their guilt to a nury beyond all reasonable doubt. We’re discussing how women reporting rapes should be treated by the people they are reporting rapes to. But it’s interesting that in the face of documented and horrendous abuse faced by these women your reaction is to yell, “but what about the men?!”
That’s really a hijack at this point, I think there is actually an open thread about that issue.
This thread is about is it possible to have unwanted phone sex. Yes it’s possible to have unwanted phone sex. I’m sure there are statutes covering ye old obscene phone call. I don’t think claimants are obligated to hang up before any such thing takes place.
The Tucker case, he’s a musclehead who has cost himself many millions by shitting where he eats, close enough anyway. Regardless of the intent of the woman. Quasi-work is a third rail. He does the same thing with some random townie, nothing comes of it given the same circumstances.
And it is interesting that you have no NO concern whatsoever for the possibility of a false accusation. Hopefully you won’t have to learn the hard way, by being falsely accused yourself, how devastating such a thing can be.
Now, that’s not true at all, is it? From the very post you selectively quoted:
As a straight white man who has always lived, learned, and worked in a mixed gender environment, that’s never once been something I’ve felt concerned about. Like, literally, never once. I’ve dated, had messy breakups, I’ve done group projects with women I barely knew in college, I’ve worked with lots of women and managed women as well, I’ve carpooled to work with a coworker who is a woman, I’ve grabbed lunch at work with female coworkers… in short, I’ve had no shortage of interactions, in groups or one on one, with people of all genders. I’ve never treated friends, coworkers, or classmates differently based on their gender. And never, not once, have I ever been in a situation where the idea that someone might falsely accuse me of any kind of sexual assault even entered my mind.
That doesn’t mean it never happens. I’m sure it occassionally does. But do you know what happens all the fucking time? Women getting sexually assaulted. In all that time when the threat of a false accusation had never even entered my mind, I had come to learn that sexual assault happened to people I care about, multiple times. These stories are not mine to tell, but those statistics that say that 1 in 4 women have been victims of rape aren’t surprising in the least.
The thread is not about false accucations of sexual misconduct. At least, not if the title and initial content were sincerely intended, instead of some kind of incel dogwhistle.
I don’t know about that. If I say “X happened” and you turn to the crowd to ask, “is X even possible?”, I think you are implicitly stating that the alternative is that I am making a false statement.
When people question the level of conditioning women are subjected to throughout our lives, I always think of leaving the house as a child. Any time I walked out the door, from the time that I could first turn the knob on my own, my Mother would call out “Be sweet!”. She did this the last time I saw her when I was in my late forties. And that was the first time I realized, that when my brother left the house, she always called out “Have fun!”.
And I think I’m not going to credit that bit of indirection in the OP. I’m going to treat the question literally, rather than stooping to dignify the misogynistic victim-blaming by treating it as a serious question, even by implication.
They need to own up to it, rather that nudging and winking.
For those commenting on the Mel Tucker case I urge you to read the USA article cited in the second post:
Over eight months, they developed a professional relationship centered on her advocacy work. Tucker invited Tracy to campus three times – twice to speak to his players and staff and once to be recognized as an honorary captain at the team’s spring football game… Michigan State paid her a $10,000 speaking fee…
During that time, the two also talked on the phone at least 27 times, Tracy’s phone bills show – an average of once every two weeks for a half hour. They often spoke at night to accommodate their work schedules, they said. They chatted about their jobs and eventually more personal matters, such as their families, mental health and daily lives.
So the relationship moved from something which might be covered by Title IX to a personal one. And it was only after it had become a personal relationship that the unwanted phone sex happened. So I don’t think a Title IX investigation, firing the coach… are warranted. So while some of you are saying she could have been paralyzed or whatever in not hanging up immediately, she could have acted quite differently in previous conversations to discourage unwanted intrusions into her personal life…and likewise not made those type comments in his.
In what world does this follow? Lots of people have personal relationships with colleagues; that doesn’t mean they should get a free pass to do something like this?
Wow. Just… wow. Talk about victim blaming.
You know what he could have done? Kept his fucking dick in his fucking pants, that’s what. Why the fuck is that so hard?
Fuck him, and fuck any entitled prick that acts like him.
Moderating:
This is over the line. This thread is in MPSIMS. You know where the pit is if you want to insult other posters like that.
Hell yes.
I have regular lunch dates with several coworkers and ex-coworkers. Most of them are male. I’ve stayed in the living of an ex-coworker when visiting New York, and took him out to a nice dinner. I spend a lot of time at work, of course i make friends there.
That kind of talk is absolutely over the line among coworkers.
I guess to me, this doesn’t seem like a very complicated case at all. Maybe those of you who think there’s nuance here can explain to me what I am missing.
The way I see it, I can only think of two situations where it would be acceptable to start engaging in phone sex without talking about it first:
- You are in a long term relationship where spontaneous phone sex is an understood and desired property of the relationship by both parties. But this doesn’t really count because you DID talk it through with them, presumably, which is how you arrived at this arrangement.
- You called a phone sex line? I assume even here you gotta answer some billing questions first, actually, so maybe not.
So scratch that, I can think of no situation where you would immediately jump into the phone sex without talking it through first.
Note that despite what comedies that deprecate the concept of consent might have you believe, this doesn’t need to take the form of robotically stating, “I am about to engage in phone sex, do I have your consent?” - believe it or not, it is very possible to establish consent in a way that’s both flirtatious and clear.
I guess I just can’t imagine a situation where someone could start engaging in phone sex without being a total skeevy creep unless they first had a very clearly flirtatious conversation that included him telling her that he’s turned on by the conversation and her telling him to go ahead and take care of that. If that didn’t happen - obviously she is saying that nothing like that happened and he has not claimed that it did - then yeah, he was a fucking creep and I completely understand why his employer doesn’t want to be associated with him in any way.
She was an independent contractor with relationships with 100 or so colleges and other institutions. So in no sense did he have any significant amount of power over her, the type of power a boss have over an employee or a teacher has over his student. So it is simply a case of one person making an unwanted sexual advance to another–and there are millions of these happening every day.
Uh, I’m sure I’d be fired if i made unwanted sexual advances to my employer’s clients, employees that i have no authority over, contractors, etc. What employer wants to be involved in that? That absolutely hurts the employer.
Agree.
That’s just not how anyone begins a relationship. Sure, an employee might attempt some very light flirting with a contractor and see how it’s received. Some employers forbid that, but many don’t. And if you don’t cross any lines, and back off if your flirting was unwelcome, the odds of getting into trouble are low, even if the employer doesn’t allow it.
But phone sex? Hell no.
So what? He shat where he eats and now his employer has a big stinky PR mess to clean up. Sounds like grounds for firing.
No. No, it is not. This is a HUGE, KEY POINT. It’s sexual assault. He didn’t offer phone sex or drive the conversation that way, he just started having phone sex.
Let’s be as generous as possible to him and pretend some light flirting occurred. I don’t think we have any reason to believe this, but for a moment, let’s pretend that there was some actual back and forth flirting happening first (I’m sure you’d agree that jumping right to “let’s have phone sex” without establishing interest first would be inappropriate, yes?).
The way a normal, non-rapist-creepazoid handles the situation where he wants to have phone sex would be him communicating to her, “I am very turned on right now and would like to do something about it” and her communicating back to him “I like that you are turned on and want to help you resolve that situation”. They can communicate this to each other through flirting and innuendo, but it better be real fucking clear to both parties.
If he told her I am very turned on right now and she told him That’s gross, I don’t want to hear about that - that would be an unwanted sexual advance, and assuming there was actually a level of flirting that would justify this prior (again asking something like that out of the blue would be creepy) and he handled the situation with some grace, I don’t think there’s much of a problem.
Clearly, that’s not happened in this case. Flirting or not, he just whipped out his dick and started masturbating. That is not making an unwanted sexual advance - that is engaging in sexual intercourse without permission. It is FAR more severe.
It’s like the difference between sending someone a “You up?” text versus barging into their bedroom naked.
Oh, good grief. Because somebody talks about their family and daily lives, or even about their mental health, does not mean that they’re inviting sex. The first two are ordinary chitchat that greases the wheels of conversation. The third is a gesture of trust, which the coach apparently then massively violated.
And just about any workplace involves occasional conversation about family and daily lives. That doesn’t make it not a workplace; and such conversation as part of work phone calls doesn’t make the relationship not a work relationship.
A single unwanted sexual advance, not repeated if it’s turned down, in the form of asking somebody out, asking them whether they’re interested in a relationship of that sort, or asking them straight out whether they want to have sex (phone or otherwise, additional relationship or otherwise) is one thing. Even that may be inappropriate done in the wrong context; but there are ways to do it right.
Jumping straight into having the sex without asking is another thing entirely. There may indeed be millions of such things happening every day; but there sure as hell shouldn’t be.
And the sexual harassment course I had to take due to being officially a town employee (volunteer planning board) made it entirely clear that contractors, whether committing the harassment or being harassed, are legally included; at least, in the USA. And that it’s the responsibility of the employer to do something about it.
This is the part that floors me. How is there any confusion over this?
He didn’t make advances, he didn’t make offers, he didn’t express interest. He just whipped it out and went to town. In what world is that ever OK?