Woman blogs about sexual assault at tech conference

[bengangmo]

@you_with_the_face

Assuming her sitting on their laps was fully consensual and she wasn’t invading their space and making them feel uncomfortable, then at worse, this behavior can be called unprofessionally flirty. I’d assume she was sitting on the laps of guy’s she knew and considered buddies.

So you’re willing to make all those assumptions, accommodations and allowances for her, but you’re not willing willing to even consider that perhaps the guy made a dumb, boneheaded mistake that had no real intent of anything behind it?

Pretty nice double standard you have going on there.

And before you start screaming. I am NOT saying this makes the guy innocent. Or that her bone headed mistake makes his bone headed mistake ok. What I am saying is that, at least with this statement, you are measuring her by a different yardstick than you are using for him.

[bengangmo]

@you_with_the_face

And…? I’m waiting for you to tell us what your conclusion is. Because I’d hate to think that you think a shameless flirt is equally culpable as a flaming asshole when it comes to an assault taking place against the former by the latter.

The thing is, many of us HAVEN’T drawn a conclusion.

We are throwing out there two thoughts for consideration.

1. It’s not really very fair or very appropriate to throw such a damaging, possibly life destroying accusation onto a blog as the FIRST resort*
2. Before we make up our (at least) my mind about this guy, we (I) would like more information than simply what was posted on the blog of a very partisan individual.

• It’s very easy for me to imagine a scenario where even the accusation, whether true or not can ruin his life.

Let’s say he moonlights as a taxi driver to pay his mortgage. Boss sees the blog. Sorry guy, whether true or not true you are lawsuit waiting to happen. No more shifts for you. Income gone. House foreclosed.

Or maybe he teaches some kind of music classes…sorry, no more kids can attend.

Or even if as a part of his day job, he is routinely alone with female clients. Whoops, sorry, we can’t risk it, reassigned.

These sorts of things can and do happen very regularly for even an accusation. That’s what is so scary about such things

[Rilchiam]

And if it was the other way around, if the guy blogged about the drunken flirt at his conference, named her, and bragged that he’d gotten a feel? If it was her reputation that suffered as a result? I bet a lot of people would be saying “Well, she did it, so she should think before doing stuff like that.”

To me, it comes down to, his actions may have been no worse than crude and forceful, but he chose to be crude and forceful. Whatever the law says about his actions, he was still no gentleman. So he should also think before he acts.

[bengangmo]

@Rilchiam

And if it was the other way around, if the guy blogged about the drunken flirt at his conference, named her, and bragged that he’d gotten a feel? If it was her reputation that suffered as a result? I bet a lot of people would be saying “Well, she did it, so she should think before doing stuff like that.”

To me, it comes down to, his actions may have been no worse than crude and forceful, but he chose to be crude and forceful. Whatever the law says about his actions, he was still no gentleman. So he should also think before he acts.

Sexual assault = illegal
Flirting?

Yeah, that’s a fair comparison you’re drawing

[Snowboarder_Bo]

BTW, the fight analogy sucks. You know why? Same reason the car theft analogy sucks.

There is evidence: bruised face. Missing car.

The sitch in the OP has NO evidence. So, bad analogy.

[bengangmo]

@Snowboarder_Bo

BTW, the fight analogy sucks. You know why? Same reason the car theft analogy sucks.

There is evidence: bruised face. Missing car.

The sitch in the OP has NO evidence. So, bad analogy.

Bo, no evidence doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.

It also doesn’t mean that we can’t shouldn’t take her seriously or at face value.

All it means is that we need to look a little harder at both sides of the story, and any other independent corroboration that may come about.

[BigT]

The thing is that the most of the women in this thread are perfectly fine with assuming the woman’s story is true, and taking her side. But when bengamo and others take the position that they don’t have all the evidence, you automatically accuse them of siding against the victim.

Which side is it that is arguing dishonestly, again?

Face it: you heard the word rape (which isn’t even what happened in this thread, since it is sexual assault) and made up your mind right then that things happened a certain way. And if somebody has the nerve to skeptical, you know, the supposed default of the non-ignorant, they must be a bigot, and you must prove it. It can’t be that your opinion is based more on the emotion that you’ve been sexually assaulted before, or have acted like the girl has before. No, you are objective, and he is a pig.

[Bam_Boo_Gut]

@bengangmo

And finally, if you take his unwillingness to take her on in the courts as proof of his guilt, isn’t the other side of the coin, something that you may not want to consider, that HER failure to report him to the police is proof of his innocence?

She thanks the police for their help at the end of her blog.

[you_with_the_face]

@Redpill

A married, drunk, shameless flirt got groped by the flaming asshole, drunk guy whose lap she was sitting in.

Perhaps you should actually understand the details of her story before you start talking about facts.

[Shirley_Ujest]

@Redpill

Is it also OK to talk about the guy in question having a dry spell and enjoying female attention, and just acting like a teenager?

We know nothing about the guy in question because he didn’t blog about it microseconds after anything supposedly happened. I was trying to give a mental frame of mind for this woman.

[Crafter_Man]

@Der_Trihs

Has it occurred to you that the reason is because most posters don’t want to be accused of being “pro-rapist” by admitting that women ever lie about it? Women lying about rape is an elephant in the living room for our society; we aren’t supposed to admit it happens no matter how blatant.

I have quite a few friends who are in LE. They tell me that, in reality, roughly 50% of rape claims turn out to be false.

[even_sven]

I didn’t come here to defend the idea that every woman is telling the truth all the time. I came to defend my right to go to a party without “expecting” to be sexually assaulted. The whole “she made it up” thing came later.

Nor am I blindly defending her. I read the story critically, and then decided it seemed credible. I presented my reasoning, which I think is pretty well thought out. If you want to present some reasoning for why that particular story (not your friend in college, or some guy you saw on TV, or whatever else) does not seem credible, present your reasoning and we can have a discussion about it. We all know false accusations happen. Just because they happen sometimes does not mean that is what happened in this story.

People fake their own deaths sometimes. Does that mean we should treat every reported death as most likely being faked? Does that mean when I hear someone I know died, I should insist on seeing the body to make absolutely sure it’s not a faked death? Of course not. But if the circumstances were fishy- a big insurance payout, the body not found, etc.- I might consider the possibility.

You are the only one saying “women should always be believed.” You are the only one saying “men are all scum.” The rest of use are having a debate about a specific incident, a specific woman and a specific man.

@bengangmo

And here we are back to “guys don’t give a shit about ladies, and will just take what they want, when they want it”

No. That guy didn’t give a shit about that lady.

You aren’t impressing me with the whole “man hating feminazi” thing. I like men. Men are great! I live with a male friend. I have a boyfriend. I count a lot of men among my friends. I hope to get married to a man one day. I’ve got nothing at all against men- they are my friends, and I have lots of male friends who do some really good work in fighting sexual assault. Honestly, I don’t think men and women are really all that fundamentally different. We’re all just people. Why would a dick make you evil?

[even_sven]

@bengangmo

It’s not really very fair or very appropriate to throw such a damaging, possibly life destroying accusation onto a blog as the FIRST resort

This isn’t Schrödinger’s cat here. It’s not like the events that passed are in some kind of flux. What happened happened. It’s over. It’s cemented. Just because we do not have perfect information about the event doesn’t mean the event itself is questionable. Something happened.

Either she is lying or she is not. If she is lying, of course she should face consequences for the damage she has caused.

But if she is accurately describing what happened, I don’t see how it’s somehow not fair for her to describe what happened. If some guy assaults me, I feel like I don’t owe him shit. I don’t owe him some touchy feely “let’s give your side of the story” bullshit. He assaulted me! Screw him! (again…this attitude is only if he actually did do the action.) While posting on a blog might not be the wisest move from a publicity point of view, it’s her life. It’s her blog. It’s her experience. She has every right in the world to describe her experiences. If she’s telling the truth, then she doesn’t owe him a single thing. If you don’t want your actions spread to the world, don’t do them in front of someone who you do not have either a reasonable degree of trust or a non-disclosure agreement.

That taxi driver actually did pull his dick out in front of me. This happened. Do I owe him any kind of respect at all? Do I owe him a say in how I deal with what happened? No! He freaking pulled his dick out in a taxi. He can get his “fair say” in a court of law, but from me personally he’s not getting anything more than “You are the ass who showed me your dick.” He should have thought about the possibility of that destroying his life before he did it.

Of course it’s up to the reader to decide if my story is credible.

[Larry_Mudd]

@Shirley_Ujest

We know nothing about the guy in question because he didn’t blog about it microseconds after anything supposedly happened.

If he had, and if he had written something along the lines of:

This is not the first time something like this has happened to me, at all. It’s not the first time it’s happened to me at a tech conference. But it is the first time I’ve spoken out about it in this way, because I’m tired of the sense that some bint can ruin my day and never have to answer for it. I’m tired of the fear. I’m tired of people who think I should avoid having a beer in case my vigilance lapses for a moment. I’m tired of people who say that I can’t read women right and that I should take more care to confirm that my attentions are actually wanted…

…then I would be considerably less inclined to extend the benefit of the doubt. I might reasonably think, “Jeez, buddy, this seems to happen to you on a regular basis, and people around you suggest that you might consider modifying your behaviour frequently enough for you to grow weary of it. Maybe there’s something there.”

[Redpill]

@you_with_the_face

Perhaps you should actually understand the details of her story before you start talking about facts.

Fail. They are your interpretation of the details from the blog. They are your words. My interpretation is very different from this but I’ll bend over backwards to make you happy. Let me know what you want changed.

I’ll repeat: A married, drunk, shameless flirt got groped by the flaming asshole, drunk guy whose lap she was sitting in.

@Shirley_Ujest

We know nothing about the guy in question because he didn’t blog about it microseconds after anything supposedly happened. I was trying to give a mental frame of mind for this woman.

You trying to escape my question. Is it also OK to talk about the guy in question maybe having a dry spell and enjoying female attention, and just acting like a teenager, just like you did for the woman? Yes or No?

@even_sven

People fake their own deaths sometimes. Does that mean we should treat every reported death as most likely being faked? Does that mean when I hear someone I know died, I should insist on seeing the body to make absolutely sure it’s not a faked death?

If enough people started faking their own deaths, you naturally would.

[Hawkeyeop]

@even_sven

Either she is lying or she is not.

This isn’t a binary situation. It is entirely possible that she is recounting the events exactly how she remembered them, but either her memory is not flawless or the guy had a completely different interpretation of them.

[DiosaBellissima]

Well, I guess there’s always this: has the guy come forward with an account of what happened?

[Larry_Mudd]

@DiosaBellissima

Well, I guess there’s always this: has the guy come forward with an account of what happened?

If the police really were involved, then I expect that he would have been compelled to.

Litigation of some form seems extremely likely under these circumstances - it would be unwise of him to speak publicly without everything being settled, and you can bet he has been counseled to that effect.

[DiosaBellissima]

@Larry_Mudd

If the police really were involved, then I expect that he would have been compelled to.

Litigation of some form seems extremely likely under these circumstances - it would be unwise of him to speak publicly without everything being settled, and you can bet he has been counseled to that effect.

Surely his counsel could release some sort of generic statement asserting his innocence, no? I mean, isn’t this what happens in high profile cases? Not that this is necessarily high profile, but it’s. . . medium profile at this point.

[even_sven]

@Hawkeyeop

This isn’t a binary situation. It is entirely possible that she is recounting the events exactly how she remembered them, but either her memory is not flawless or the guy had a completely different interpretation of them.

But it is pretty darn binary. Let’s look at the key events that caused the problem:

1. She makes it clear she is not interested, and pushes him away.
2. He shoves his hand down her pants.

So either this happened as described, or it did not. If she is misremembering the events of course, then it did not happen and she should face some consequences. So misremembering is accounted for. This leaves us with what possibilities for misunderstanding. What are those?

1. Maybe she did not use clear language with the guy. Using my own judgment, I feel comfortable that if she tried to be clear (and thus the events happened as passed) then she probably was clear. I’m almost certain she told him to “Fuck off” or something very, very close. I base this assumption on her writing style. She seems to be a bit of a spitfire, not a blushing daisy. If she wasn’t interested, I think she would be very likely to say so directly. I really find it unlikely that she was sitting there blushing and giggling and saying “Oh, baby, don’t do that, tee hee, you bad boy.” while mistakenly thinking she was being perfectly clear.

Now, if the guy somehow misinterpreted “fuck off” and a push (perhaps based on her dress or flirtations with other men) this is now the guy’s problem. “Fuck off” should be unambiguous in all situations (except of course, a dom/sub relationship where a safe word serves that purpose.) If you somehow misinterpret “fuck off”, then you have serious sexual boundary issues and yes, it’s absolutely fair to call you out on them. And no, I don’t care if some previous girlfriend liked to be touched after telling you to “fuck off.” It should be obvious and clear to every single man that “fuck off” means you stop and at least ask for clarification before continuing.

The surrounding events are not important. Short of someone saying “Hey, I’m going to say ‘fuck off’ and push you away, and then I want you to shove your hands down my pants, okay?” or perhaps certain established S&M relationships, there is no situation where his actions were appropriate. I’m feel absolutely comfortable dismissing the idea that she gave him permission beforehand to touch her even if she says no, and I am going to discount the idea that they are in some sort of established dom-sub relationship.

Okay, so does point 2 have any opportunity for misunderstanding? Why would he put his hands down her pants after being told that she was not interested unless he meant to assault her or had deeply problematic sexual boundary issues? Looking for a lost contact? He mistook the bar for a petting zoo? Not buying it.

After examining the key points of the incidents for places where the man might have the same story but a different interpretation, I find that possibility to be vanishing unlikely

Although I’ve accounted for misremembering (that would be "the incident did not pass as stated) I happen to think it’s unlikely that she is misremembering. Alcohol can make you not remember what happened, or can make what happened a bit hazy, but it doesn’t usually plant false memories. And when a memory is clouded by alcohol, you tend to know that it is clouded. You’ll be like “I’m not really sure what happened next, but then…” It’s not like you walk around having perfectly clear memories that happen to be wrong. And given the clarity and force of her writing style, I think it’s pretty likely that her memory of this event is pretty clear in her mind.