# RO: Rebecca Watson of Skepchick, You are a \[very bad word\] **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [December 4, 2013, 12:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ro-rebecca-watson-of-skepchick-you-are-a-very-bad-word/675468 "2013-12-04T12:55:14Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![Banquet\_Bear](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/banquet_bear/32/373_2.png) [@Banquet\_Bear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Banquet_Bear)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2013, 10:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ro-rebecca-watson-of-skepchick-you-are-a-very-bad-word/675468/101 "2013-12-06T10:17:39Z")
> [@Frylock](#): > > Know this now. You did not know it before, but now you do. If you ever ask a woman to come to your hotel room, for any reason, it _will_ be interpreted as an invitation to have sex. It doesn’t matter what you really mean, it doesn’t matter what you literally said. It’s just a fact about how the request is interpreted. And knowing that the request will be interpreted that way, it would be irresponsible for you to ever suggest a woman come to your hotel room unless you _do_ intend it as a “coded” invitation to have sex. …please do not lecture me. This is absolutest nonsense. ---
**Author:** ![Frylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ce7236/32.png) [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2013, 10:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ro-rebecca-watson-of-skepchick-you-are-a-very-bad-word/675468/102 "2013-12-06T10:21:31Z")
> [@Banquet\_Bear](#): > > …please do not lecture me. This is absolutest nonsense. Despite your request, the lectures will keep coming, from me and others, so long as you continue to discuss the topic. There are facts you’re not acknowledging here, and any attempt to emphatically point them out to you will necessarily constitute a lecture. ---
**Author:** ![Banquet\_Bear](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/banquet_bear/32/373_2.png) [@Banquet\_Bear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Banquet_Bear)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2013, 10:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ro-rebecca-watson-of-skepchick-you-are-a-very-bad-word/675468/103 "2013-12-06T10:25:34Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > C’mon… asking for someone to come back to their _hotel room_, at 4 AM, can very reasonably be assumed to be a proposition for sex. Coffee was not just coffee… or if it was, in this case it’s very reasonable for the woman to assume it was not. I can’t believe this is tough for some people. …you can think whatever you like. There is nothing wrong with “the woman” assuming it was more than coffee. There is nothing wrong with the woman or the man asking for clarification, asking for a different venue, saying yes or saying no. If someone says: "“Don’t take this the wrong way, but I find you very interesting, and I would like to talk more; would you like to come to my hotel room for coffee?” It is obvious the person saying it is well aware it could be misconstrued, which is why they said “Don’t take this the wrong way.” Add in the fact that it was four in the morning, Watson was tired and may have mis-remembered what she heard, and Watson has proven to be an unreliable narrator anyway, and what we are left with is not really a lot. It may well have been a request for coffee and it may have been a request for sex. But on the basis of the scant amount of information we have and the lack of the testimony of the other party, I’m not sure why you are so sure what happened this night. ---
**Author:** ![Banquet\_Bear](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/banquet_bear/32/373_2.png) [@Banquet\_Bear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Banquet_Bear)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2013, 10:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ro-rebecca-watson-of-skepchick-you-are-a-very-bad-word/675468/104 "2013-12-06T10:26:39Z")
> [@Frylock](#): > > Despite your request, the lectures will keep coming, from me and others, so long as you continue to discuss the topic. There are facts you’re not acknowledging here, and any attempt to emphatically point them out to you will necessarily constitute a lecture. …what facts am I not acknowledging? ---
**Author:** ![Frylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ce7236/32.png) [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2013, 10:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ro-rebecca-watson-of-skepchick-you-are-a-very-bad-word/675468/105 "2013-12-06T10:38:57Z")
> [@Banquet\_Bear](#): > > …you can think whatever you like. There is nothing wrong with “the woman” assuming it was more than coffee. There is nothing wrong with the woman or the man asking for clarification, asking for a different venue, saying yes or saying no. If someone says: > > "“Don’t take this the wrong way, but I find you very interesting, and I would like to talk more; would you like to come to my hotel room for coffee?” > > It is obvious the person saying it is well aware it could be misconstrued, which is why they said “Don’t take this the wrong way.” Add in the fact that it was four in the morning, Watson was tired and may have mis-remembered what she heard, and Watson has proven to be an unreliable narrator anyway, and what we are left with is not really a lot. It may well have been a request for coffee and it may have been a request for sex. But on the basis of the scant amount of information we have and the lack of the testimony of the other party, I’m not sure why you are so sure what happened this night. “Don’t take this the wrong way” doesn’t cut it in this context. In high school my wife was on a date. They were driving, just the two of them, on a road at night in a sparsely populated area. The guy pulls over to the side of the road and turns off the car. Then says “Don’t worry, I’m not going to rape you.” She was, of course, terrified, in part _because_ of his request that she not take his actions the wrong way. “Don’t take this the wrong way” in the conversation as described could just as easily mean “don’t be freaked out by my request for sex” or “don’t interpret my request for sex as disrespectful” as “don’t take this as a request for sex.” The trope of pretense when it comes to invitations into someone’s room is too strong for any “don’t take this the wrong way” language to obviate its force. For example, if on a date one person says at the end “you want to come inside for a minute, don’t worry it’s just for coffee!” you can bet this is expressing a hope that something other than coffee will happen. No it’s not the literal content of the words. But there are plenty of cases where conventions trump literal meaning. I’m not concerned with whether the conversation actually took place as described. What’s interesting is the question of what it all would mean if it _did_ take place as described. I think in such a case it’s reasonable to assume the guy is asking for sex. ---
**Author:** ![Frylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ce7236/32.png) [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2013, 10:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ro-rebecca-watson-of-skepchick-you-are-a-very-bad-word/675468/106 "2013-12-06T10:42:18Z")
> [@Banquet\_Bear](#): > > …you can think whatever you like. There is nothing wrong with “the woman” assuming it was more than coffee. I’m a little confused about your position now. I thought you were saying there _is_ something wrong with her assuming the request is for more than coffee. I thought you were arguing that since the literal meaning of his words doesn’t include a request for sex, it would be wrong to assume that’s where he hoped things would lead. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2013, 10:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ro-rebecca-watson-of-skepchick-you-are-a-very-bad-word/675468/107 "2013-12-06T10:45:27Z")
> [@Banquet\_Bear](#): > > …you can think whatever you like. There is nothing wrong with “the woman” assuming it was more than coffee. There is nothing wrong with the woman or the man asking for clarification, asking for a different venue, saying yes or saying no. I’m not assuming anything, other than it was very reasonable (and even the default assumption, I’d say) to assume that the request was for sex. And I believe Rebecca’s point, that men should realize that asking women in elevators to go back to their hotel rooms late at night is very likely to make them feel very uncomfortable, and therefore should not be done, is a good point. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2013, 10:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ro-rebecca-watson-of-skepchick-you-are-a-very-bad-word/675468/108 "2013-12-06T10:46:42Z")
> [@Banquet\_Bear](#): > > …please do not lecture me. This is absolutest nonsense. No, this is a reasonable understanding of how nearly every woman would interpret any request to go to your hotel room. ---
**Author:** ![Banquet\_Bear](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/banquet_bear/32/373_2.png) [@Banquet\_Bear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Banquet_Bear)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2013, 10:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ro-rebecca-watson-of-skepchick-you-are-a-very-bad-word/675468/109 "2013-12-06T10:57:40Z")
> [@Frylock](#): > > “Don’t take this the wrong way” doesn’t cut it in this context. In high school my wife was on a date. They were driving, just the two of them, on a road at night in a sparsely populated area. The guy pulls over to the side of the road and turns off the car. Then says “Don’t worry, I’m not going to rape you.” She was, of course, terrified, in part _because_ of his request that she not take his actions the wrong way. …we once had someone on this messageboard who PM’d another one to say [“I’ve just started a pit thread on you. I figure it’s only fair you should know about it. I hope that, in doing so, I haven’t inadvertently raped you.”](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=353800&highlight=brightpenny+bitch&page=4) Oddly enough while I spent a great deal of time lambasting the guy who sent that message, the general feeling of the board and even some of the moderators here was that brightpenny didn’t belong here and that she got what she deserved. She didn’t. What happened to your wife was comparable to what happened to Brightpenny. But it is not comparable to what Watson described. > [@](#): > > “Don’t take this the wrong way” in the conversation as described could just as easily mean “don’t be freaked out by my request for sex” or “don’t interpret my request for sex as disrespectful” as “don’t take this as a request for sex.” Or it simply meant “Don’t take this the wrong way.” > [@](#): > > The trope of pretense when it comes to invitations into someone’s room is too strong for any “don’t take this the wrong way” language to obviate its force. For example, if on a date one person says at the end “you want to come inside for a minute, don’t worry it’s just for coffee!” you can bet this is expressing a hope that something other than coffee will happen. No it’s not the literal content of the words. But there are plenty of cases where conventions trump literal meaning. You are aware that thousands of people are invited into peoples rooms (hotel and/or otherwise) every day? > [@](#): > > I’m not concerned with whether the conversation actually took place as described. It wouldn’t have mattered to you if everything Watson said was a lie? > [@](#): > > What’s interesting is the question of what it all would mean if it _did_ take place as described. I think in such a case it’s reasonable to assume the guy is asking for sex. If it had been an invitation to sex, then I’m interested in what your opinion is of McGraw’s position. She is a feminist, and a female, and she says “My concern is that she takes issue with a man showing interest in her. What’s wrong with that? How on Earth does that justify him as ‘creepy’? Are we not sexual beings?” Do you think she is right or wrong? ---
**Author:** ![Banquet\_Bear](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/banquet_bear/32/373_2.png) [@Banquet\_Bear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Banquet_Bear)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2013, 11:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ro-rebecca-watson-of-skepchick-you-are-a-very-bad-word/675468/110 "2013-12-06T11:00:16Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > No, this is a reasonable understanding of how nearly every woman would interpret any request to go to your hotel room. …but it isn’t. There were plenty of woman who came out after elevatorgate who said that this was not a reasonable understanding of how they would interpret a request to go to a hotel room. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2013, 11:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ro-rebecca-watson-of-skepchick-you-are-a-very-bad-word/675468/111 "2013-12-06T11:07:45Z")
> [@Banquet\_Bear](#): > > …but it isn’t. There were plenty of woman who came out after elevatorgate who said that this was not a reasonable understanding of how they would interpret a request to go to a hotel room. OK, I’ll modify it- this is a reasonable understanding of how many woman (millions!) would interpret any request to go to your hotel room. Men who don’t want to risk (and based on the previous statement, it’s a very significant risk) making a woman feel very uncomfortable should not ask women to come back to their hotel rooms in elevators, alone, very late at night. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2013, 11:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ro-rebecca-watson-of-skepchick-you-are-a-very-bad-word/675468/112 "2013-12-06T11:10:02Z")
> [@Banquet\_Bear](#): > > If it had been an invitation to sex, then I’m interested in what your opinion is of McGraw’s position. She is a feminist, and a female, and she says “My concern is that she takes issue with a man showing interest in her. What’s wrong with that? How on Earth does that justify him as ‘creepy’? Are we not sexual beings?” > > Do you think she is right or wrong? Wrong- because it’s not that he showed interest, it’s that he made a request that could reasonably assumed to be a proposition for sex, in an elevator, alone, late at night. That is an action that a man should realize has a very high risk of making a woman feel “creeped out”, justifiably so. ---
**Author:** ![blindboyard](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/blindboyard/32/2833_2.png) [@blindboyard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/blindboyard)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2013, 11:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ro-rebecca-watson-of-skepchick-you-are-a-very-bad-word/675468/113 "2013-12-06T11:22:18Z")
> [@Helen\_s\_Eidolon](#): > > Okay, maybe I’m totally wrong about you. I’ve been wrong before and I will be again. > > Are you male? > > In my experience, which is not universal, it’s usually men (and definitely not all, maybe not even a majority) who interpret come-ons as literal and not suggestive. For better or for worse (and certainly based on real concerns and real experiences), women are mostly socialized to believe that’s a come on, and to act accordingly. I’d say even fewer men (but practically no women I’ve ever talked to about this sort of thing) would dismiss a woman’s interpretation of a situation in which she was made to feel sexualized and unsafe. She wasn’t made to feel sexualised and unsafe. She may have felt unsafe due to her own psychological problems, but she was not made to feel that way. But he MIGHT have been a rapist, so I suppose the only reasonable response is to assume she is about to be raped at all times. Men and women may see come-ons differently. If so, men are usually the ones making the come-ons and therefore should be expected to have the correct interpretation. Women generally expect to be given the come-on, but also get het up when it’s by a man they don’t fancy in return. Now, this man in the lift might have been propositioning her, he might not. You could say that asking someone out always boils down to a veiled proposal for sex, but lift-man adhered to the deceptive standards of society with his claim that he found her interesting (there’s no accounting for taste, I suppose), rather than just asking her to get her tits out. ---
**Author:** ![Nancarrow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/c37758/32.png) [@Nancarrow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nancarrow)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2013, 11:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ro-rebecca-watson-of-skepchick-you-are-a-very-bad-word/675468/114 "2013-12-06T11:47:53Z")
_If_ Rebecca Watson is a troll or attention seeker, you’ve gotta admit she’s a world class professional! Jesus, the JREF forum, Pharyngula and now the SDMB which she’s probably never even heard of. Give this another year or so and my morning coffee bookmarks list might just as well become the Rebecca Watson newsfeed. That said, as a priviledged white male who is basically completely asocial and mostly asexual, allow me to weigh in to agree that ‘want coffee in my room?’ at 4am, in an elevator, with just the two peeps in it, has one and only one meaning, and it ain’t beverage consumption. Even I understand that, so it must be pretty effing obvious. ---
**Author:** ![Frylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ce7236/32.png) [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2013, 11:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ro-rebecca-watson-of-skepchick-you-are-a-very-bad-word/675468/115 "2013-12-06T11:49:21Z")
> [@Banquet\_Bear](#): > > …we once had someone on this messageboard who PM’d another one to say [“I’ve just started a pit thread on you. I figure it’s only fair you should know about it. I hope that, in doing so, I haven’t inadvertently raped you.”](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=353800&highlight=brightpenny+bitch&page=4) > > Oddly enough while I spent a great deal of time lambasting the guy who sent that message, the general feeling of the board and even some of the moderators here was that brightpenny didn’t belong here and that she got what she deserved. She didn’t. What happened to your wife was comparable to what happened to Brightpenny. But it is not comparable to what Watson described. I’d say the two situations that involved physical closeness and isolation in a space from which there’s no immediate escape, with sexual connotations suggested by one of the conversants, are the two situations which are most comparable. > [@](#): > > Or it simply meant “Don’t take this the wrong way.” This is absolutist nonsense. > [@](#): > > You are aware that thousands of people are invited into peoples rooms (hotel and/or otherwise) every day? I’m not sure about this. A single person of one gender asking a single person of another gender into their hotel room, late at night? Without sexual connotations on both people’s mind? I admit I doubt this is common at all. (Granted I didn’t specify “late at night” in my prior post.) > [@](#): > > It wouldn’t have mattered to you if everything Watson said was a lie? The amount I have read about Watson outside text in this thread is zero, a number identical to the number of shits I give about the actual incident. The hypothetical and its implications are interesting enough. > [@](#): > > If it had been an invitation to sex, then I’m interested in what your opinion is of McGraw’s position. She is a feminist, and a female, and she says “My concern is that she takes issue with a man showing interest in her. What’s wrong with that? How on Earth does that justify him as ‘creepy’? Are we not sexual beings?” > > Do you think she is right or wrong? From what is described in this thread, Watson didn’t “take issue with a man showing interest in her.” What she took issue with was the manner and context of the showing of interest. ---
**Author:** ![naita](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/naita/32/5862_2.png) [@naita](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/naita)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2013, 1:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ro-rebecca-watson-of-skepchick-you-are-a-very-bad-word/675468/116 "2013-12-06T13:03:19Z")
> [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](#): > > [Because apparently, if I don’t call you this on a regular basis, my balls will shrivel up, rise into my body, and form a mangina](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-XWjkqh85pw). Well, given your behavior, and the fact that you are prefacing a _video about a cancer research fundraiser_ with this, well, I’m all too happy to comply. > > What the fuck. What even the fuck. Rebecca, you are (of your own volition) one of the open, public faces of the skeptical movement. You are one of the figureheads of “Atheism+”. And you are, for what it’s worth, a public figure in modern feminism. Pulling a stunt like this makes all three look bad (and given the reputation of the latter, that’s pretty hard to do). I don’t know what the hell you were thinking. I _still_ don’t know what’s going through your head to keep this video up! I honestly don’t understand why you wouldn’t take this down by now! Instead, you’re just letting it sit there. > > And then people wonder why Richard Dawkins [doesn’t want you speaking at the Reason Rally](http://freethoughtblogs.com/greta/2013/09/05/richard-dawkins-blackballed-rebecca-watson%EF%BB%BF-from-speaking-at-the-reason-rally/). I’ll give you a hint: it has approximately _jack shit_ to do with him wanting to keep the “white male patriachal power structure” in place (what the fuck is even wrong with you people?). It has a lot more to do with you being a hyperbolic professional victim whose goals and message are not in line with anything many skeptics are willing to support; with you being divisive in a movement already tough enough to get a hold of; and with you being an immature _cunt_ when faced with basic internet trolling. For what it’s worth I’d consider any skeptics conference that _would_ invite you disappointingly bad at background research. At the risk of sounding patriarchal, grow a pair and come back when you’ve stopped acting like a little girl that the big boys called names. Disclosure: I know Rebecca Watson on a non-internet basis. What a load of pot-calling-the-kettle-black, strawman, hissyfit, weak nonsense. It was a joke. If you didn’t find it funny, move on, or at least argue why it’s so dangerous a joke to skepticism and atheism it deserves RO. Or maybe you don’t have any proper arguments, maybe your preconceived notions about RW, as evidenced by the rest of your OP, has made you … overly sensitive to perceived messages in her communications. She’s, to quote you, “one of the open, public faces of the skeptical movement, […] one of the figureheads of “Atheism+”, […] a public figure in modern feminism.” because those of us who follow her videos because we generally like the content, and can behave like adults if we disagree, for the most part understand the context of the joke and find it funny. Or maybe I’m wrong, maybe out there there’s a wealth of disillusioned RW-followers to whom this was the last straw. I haven’t seen any evidence of that though. The first negative response I’ve seen anywhere was this sore toed drivel. ---
**Author:** ![Helen\_s\_Eidolon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/8edcca/32.png) [@Helen\_s\_Eidolon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Helen_s_Eidolon)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2013, 1:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ro-rebecca-watson-of-skepchick-you-are-a-very-bad-word/675468/117 "2013-12-06T13:12:06Z")
> [@Banquet\_Bear](#): > > …I’m male, but why does that matter? It matters because what I’m talking about is the experience of being a woman, which is different than the experience of being a man - not because gender is such an important essential determinant of personality or any bullshit like that, but because people who present as men and women are treated differently and have different fears and experiences. I’m not going to address the ‘allowed to speak’ thing because that’s just absurd. > [@](#): > > Since I assume you are female, what assumptions should I be making about how you think and act? You can absolutely assume stuff about me because I’m female! Starting with: assume I will feel uncomfortable if you hit on me late at night, when I’m alone and unable to leave an enclosed space. Also, assume I will interpret your request for me to come to your hotel room at 4 am as a request for sex. Assume I worry about being attacked by someone stronger than me. I mean, you don’t have to believe me that many/most women worry about this stuff, but I’m really not sure where your insistence that women don’t/shouldn’t comes from. ---
**Author:** ![Helen\_s\_Eidolon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/8edcca/32.png) [@Helen\_s\_Eidolon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Helen_s_Eidolon)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2013, 1:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ro-rebecca-watson-of-skepchick-you-are-a-very-bad-word/675468/118 "2013-12-06T13:15:45Z")
> [@blindboyard](#): > > Now, this man in the lift might have been propositioning her, he might not. You could say that asking someone out always boils down to a veiled proposal for sex, but lift-man adhered to the deceptive standards of society with his claim that he found her interesting (there’s no accounting for taste, I suppose), rather than just asking her to get her tits out. Boy, I have no idea why you might be hostile to women’s responses to getting hit on if that’s what you really mean when you ask a woman out. ---
**Author:** ![Raygun99](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/6f9a4e/32.png) [@Raygun99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Raygun99)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2013, 2:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ro-rebecca-watson-of-skepchick-you-are-a-very-bad-word/675468/119 "2013-12-06T14:01:13Z")
Question for those that feel she was unreasonable in thinking it was about a request for sex: Would you say “I find you quite interesting and don’t take the wrong way, but I’d like to ask you up to my room for coffee” at 4am in an empty elevator to a man? ---
**Author:** ![Strassia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e8c25b/32.png) [@Strassia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Strassia)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2013, 2:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ro-rebecca-watson-of-skepchick-you-are-a-very-bad-word/675468/120 "2013-12-06T14:13:24Z")
This thread really shows the catch 22 that women are in. If RW had accepted the proposal and gotten raped, or the man had assaulted her after she turned him down, many of the same people(or who knows, maybe a whole different set of people) complaining about how she shouldn’t have been creeped out would have pointed out how she should have avoided that elevator, or not stayed in a bar till 4am, or had a sober friend with her at all times. It seems the requirement is that women not only must contort their lives to keep themselves from all risk, but they must be sure to do it in a way that never suggests that any specific man might have bad intentions. For as we all know, in the words of [Dan Cardamon](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLIzF2hSBEThJSqMfExQtP-_bUJmoGwVb4), treating a man like a potential rapist is ten times worse than actual raping a woman. You know, because, it happens to men. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ro-rebecca-watson-of-skepchick-you-are-a-very-bad-word/675468.md?page=5) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ro-rebecca-watson-of-skepchick-you-are-a-very-bad-word/675468.md?page=7)