Good post. And I agree on that the policy is almost certainly for the sake of the institution, in order to have something they can wave around as proof that they are doing something about the problem.
(bolding added) Darn, there it is: even while making sure we all play it safe all the way, it’s still expected to come across assertive, confident and smooth.:smack: We’ll need to legislate to put this in the Life Skills curriculum :D.
True, but your metaphor was still inapt because you may be hungry but IRL there are many cakes within your reach. You are not compelled to take the crazy/stupid cake or starve.
What do you want me to do, make a note of how it seems to you? I didn’t say what he attributed to me. I said it makes certain conduct a violation of a university misconduct policy. He said it “condemns as a rapist.” If those two things are the same then somebody should make a whole long post about how it seems to them like there’s some kind of language barrier.
That’s why I wrote “pretty much”. ISTM that his point is largely unaffected by a bit of hyperbole - the difference between “sexual assualt” and “rape” is not a huge deal in context.
Well, first of all, you’re fudging the difference even now, because we aren’t talking about the difference between sexual assault and rape. Either way, the position that there’s no substantive difference between “you have violated university policy” and “you are a rapist” is completely unreasonable.
University policy, as per the link in the OP, defines as “sexual assault” any sex without affirmative consent. See 2.3(f)
There’s university policies and there’s university policies. You prefer the term “university policy” because it sounds like it might be something like playing music too loud in the dorm, but a university policy which defines something as sexual assault is something else entirely.
If you rewrite Der Trihs’ line as “Something that by your own admission condemns pretty much everyone alive as [committing sexual assault] is hardly much of a compromise”, I don’t think his point is substantively changed.
If society is in such a sorry state that the idea (and techniques) of respect for the autonomy of someone whose genitals you’d like to rub yours against must be taught in schools, it wpuld seem to qualify as life skills
No, I don’t prefer. This isn’t a conversation about my preferences. It’s a university policy. I call it that because that’s what it is. It doesn’t condemn anyone as a rapist, which is why I didn’t say it did.
“Condemn as a rapist” has obvious connotations to anyone who is even one percent invested in having a good faith conversation about this. An incident of sexual assault as defined under this university policy has none of those connotations. What are the consequences of a finding that an incident of sexual assault has occurred under the university policy? Are they the same as condemnation as a rapist? Those are rhetorical questions, because you don’t know the answers, because this is a waste of time over semantics. If you or Der Trihs was interested at all in what my actual point was, or in the actual subject at hand, this isn’t what we’d be talking about, whether or not “condemned as a rapist” sneaks in at the absurd extreme boundary of what constitutes a fair way to describe what happens when the university investigates a hypothetical superficial violation of the letter of its misconduct policy.
That depends on how good your game is: your age, your status, how much money you have.
Yeah, if you’re confident, assertive, fearless, you can walk up to a woman and say, “I want you NOW,” and maybe she’ll drop her panties. And if not, there’s always another one. The world is full of cakes.
But not everybody falls into that category.
Some men think being assertive is the next thing to being a rapist. They never get laid. Or at least, very rarely.
[I don’t recall if you were one of the posters active in the lengthy Paterno pit thread, but one constant feature of that thread was the anti-Paternos heavily emphasizing the “RAPE!!!” angle to heighten the monstrocity, and then, when challenged as to the evidence of actual rape, coming back with “hey, what’s the difference if it was really rape or not? So inapropriate contact with a kid is perfectly fine with you, huh?”]
But the underlying point was a still a valid one. Sexual assault does not have the same connotation as rape but it’s still a pretty serious matter.
Seems pretty clear to me that the hyperbole was the point, but OK.
If the underlying point was “still pretty serious,” that doesn’t sound like a very good argument against the notion that there’s a compromise going on. Of course it’s still pretty serious. It has to be. That’s what I was talking about - they’re trying to address a pretty serious problem.
It’s being declared to be “pretty serious” by calling it sexual assault" under the university policy. Whether it really is pretty serious/sexual assault is a matter of considerable dispute.
Der Trihs’ point is that branding something which is almost universally practiced to be sexual assault is not much of a compromise.
And how does the fact you aren’t as handsome, rich, young, or charismatic as other men have any relevance to ANY individual cake? In other words, why should I, the cake, care about your ability or inability to “get some?” Why do I care about the frequency. This is sounding a hell of a lot like entitlement to me.
You are not entitled to the cake, no matter how hungry you are. If your only option is to have sex with women who will not say yes unless you push, and after trying many times that is the only successful experience you’ve ever had, maybe have been sexually assaulting women.
Please inform Der Trihs that another way to say “branding something to be sexual assault” is to say that the university is trying to prevent it from being universally practiced. The university is redefining “sexual assault” in the sense that it’s redefining what its standards for consent will be, yes. That means “sexual assault” for the university’s purposes now includes things not contemplated by the legal definition of sexual assault in Iowa, yes. That’s just restating the point of the policy in the first place.
This is all rhetorical sleight of hand. You can’t take the phrase “sexual assault” and say, well, hey, a synonym for that is rape, which is ULTRA SERIOUS, so clearly what’s happening here is the university is making EVERYONE A RAPIST. What’s happening is a redefinition. Your hangups about the connotations of the new definitions aren’t a problem with the policy. Sexual assault is what we define it to be, including if we redefine it, and the ramifications of that definition are what we say they’re going to be, not what the old definition has led you to believe they must be. The university is redefining it as has been described. What are the ramifications of that, and why are those ramifications not a reasonable compromise? Do you know the answer to the first part, and do you have a position on the second?
Well, first of all, thanks for accusing me of being a rapist. My feelings would be hurt, if you weren’t an anonymous internet poster who can’t be bothered to read carefully, or respond to what I actually say.
Anyway, I’m fully aware that men aren’t entitled to sex. We have to work for it. That’s sort of the point of what I’m saying. And the way you get it is by being confident, successful, and assertive. Not by being the doormat-man that some feminists seem to think men are supposed to be.
If a woman says “no” you walk away. You’re right: there’s a lot of cakes in the sea.
No, you do not have to “work for” sex. You just have to find a partner who wants to have sex with you. It’s something two or more people general do together, not some kind of video game level you have to beat.
Who is having sex with silent non-reciprocating partners? I don’t think I ever had. Not do I think I am missing out by not having such an experience. Seriously, dudes, think about what you are defending here. Have any of you actually had such an experience?
But AFAIK any “feminists” that want “doormat-man” would be those themselves infected by The Crazy or The Stupid, so under the parameters of the discussion going on in the thread we’d still be seeking to avoid them anyway. Most feminists I know still want someone who’s confident and assertive… AND respectful and communicative. A timid pushover with no sense of self is mostly useless.
(And Hershele: what would have to get taught in the curriculum is how to be confident, assertive and smooth about it.)
OK, so we all agreed on that.
Well they need their ignorance fought; “confident and assertive” need not mean full of yourself, threatening, or manipulative.
Many would say “then they’re fools, too bad for them” … now that’s not always fair – some of us do have issues of anxiety disorders, for instance, that are a handicap at developing the needed skills (that everyone else seems to think you just absorb from the very air). Means we need to learn we have the problem and then make adjustments to adapt (at the same time as deal with the underlying issue). Not just give up. even sven: Would you accept, though, that unfortunately there still are too many women (and men – make it people on the receptive end of a hookup/courting attempt) around who DO play the work-for-it/earn-me game?
Alas, I just thought about it and realized, were I in the receiving end of that approach, unless from someone with whom some sort of close rapport already existed, it would be difficult for me to stop my mind from starting to flail and wave and shout and run up semaphore flags about how there’s got to be a prank being pulled on me, and/or there must be a catch I won’t like finding out about. Conditioning’s hard to shake off.
