I am shocked!

[lowend1]

Semi related issue...
Some of you may have seen this commercial. I am by no means offended by it, but it seems to me that were the roles in the spot reversed and a male hotel employee had snapped and shared an image of a female celebrity locked out of her room in her underwear (and made light of it to boot), there would be holy hell to pay. The commercial would have been instantly banned and tongue lashings would abound. Never mind the legal implications of an employee doing that to a guest. I'm just sayin'...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XzW6lvPXZVU&ab_channel=Optimum

[uwe]

Strictly personally speaking of course, THAT particular "hotel employee" could have done anything to AND with me. 

I believe I have never used my position in our law firm to obtain "female favors", I'm either too vain or too insecure to be comfortable with the thought that my position in the food chain might induce someone to sleep with me. I'm also old-fashioned and abide with the "don't shit where you eat"-golden rule [that doesn't mean that I have issues with people falling in love at the work place or enjoying sex with another if nobody gets hurt (without his/her consent!)], in 30 years at the same work place I've never had an affair or a sexual encounter with someone. I guess I'm unattractive. 

But - probably unsurprisingly to you all here - I'm incredibly loose-mouthed. So it's not unusual for me to stand at a coffee machine and observe a well-fitting skirt with the intentionally audible sigh: "Why does the Good Lord always test me thus?!" or "And if your right eye causes you to stumble, gouge it out and throw it away!" , alternatively "Being Catholic, the point is not to abolish sin, but to withstand it ... or at least make an earnest attempt doing so ...". Up to now, no one has declared that sexually abusive or sexist, but you never know. I've heard though from women: "The thing with you, Uwe, is, that you can be jaw-droppingly explicit and locker-room-talky, you don't adjust your humor to women at all, yet it's never menacing or too close for comfort, but rather Woody Allen'ish."

I told you I'm sexually unattractive. 


PS: Thinking about it, not one of my numerous invitations to female colleagues "Would you mind dusting off the world's greatest Gibson bass Kölleckshün here with this ostrich feather duster (I actually have one) in a French maid outfit (I actually don't)?" has ever been - sigh! - taken as the serious proposition that it is. People laugh at me! 

[Psycho Bass Guy]

If you'll indulge my cynicism, I find all of this to be an intentionally engineered distraction to remove the US (the world follows our televised lead) populace from observing what its government is doing to it. That the first few "victims" of these allegations were notably at odds with prevailing current politics should not be ignored. That in no way justifies any actual wrongdoing they may have committed, but it's too convenient and the US news cycle is far too centralized for this simply to have been a legitimate news topic that found legs on its own. There are many stories of far more import that have been purposefully swept aside by this latest round of hysteria (pun fully intended). Women should be free to live without fear of being sexually assaulted, but many of these allegations are far from genuinely being that.

[uwe]

That's a bit too conspiracy for me, I see it more as a chess game, pawns falling on both sides, "if you knock over one of ours, we'll knock over one of yours", for every liberal Hollywood producer there is a bigotted Alabama "judge" on horseback. Thinking with only your dick is neither a liberal nor a conservative privilege, it's a male thing.

The allegations against Dustin Hoffman probably left the sourest taste in my mouth - and I don't care if he were a card-carrying Republican either. A 17-year-old on a set of famous actors ..., don't go there if you can't stand the heat and innuendo, dammit.

And the guys (straight or gay) that felt intimidated by Kevin Spacey's sex-raptor advances give new meaning to the term douche bag IMHO. Besides, his security guy in HoC never complained, so there!  (I have zero empathy for Harvey Weinstein btw, that guy was a habitual bully and had it coming.)

In its unquestionable wisdom, nature has seen it fit to make us reproductive once we are in the middle of adolescence; all prohibitions we have placed on sex of and with adolescents are not based on biology, but culturally determined. Describing sex of adults with adolescents as sexually abusing minors is horseshit that closes its eyes on biology in my book. That doesn't mean that I personally would want to spend a night with even the most gorgeous and inquisitive 16-year-old, it would feel weird and inappropriate to me and I wouldn't want to have someone as a close friend who thinks and acts otherwise. But not everything that is inappropriate needs legal consequences, much less should be qualified a crime.

Now does that make me a permissive lefty, a rightist macho or just an unempathetic male? Or all three? I'm fine with the description "raging biologist".

[Dave W]

Right you are. Adolescence is a modern invention. The word teenage didn't even exist until the 1940s and didn't come into use until the 50s. From the dawn of time until then, you were either a child or an adult. Now we keep infantilizing young adults and it keeps getting worse as time goes by.

[uwe]

"Right you are."



But I prefer to be on the left, it's my red quadrant comfort zone!

[Granny Gremlin]

Exactly. This isn't rape or attempted rape, it's not a case where a subordinate is afraid of losing her job, etc. If it really happened, slap in the face or a NO or STOP is appropriate. Instead, she files a Jane Doe suit seeking damages. Screw her. I won't be surprised if her identity is discovered, and then she'll find out what real harassment is.

At least she's not bringing up something that allegedly happened 20 years ago. I'm sick and tired of careers being destroyed over minor infractions from ages ago. No doubt some of these men did what they're accused of, but some of the accusations are really suspect. It's just like false rape accusations, they make some people doubt all rape allegations. That hurts real victims.

And then Gene would sue her for assault (and win cuz better lawyers and I bet people would see the slap, but his grab was on the down low, no pun intended)? Not to mention he's a big intimidating dude who might hit back.  So yeah, brilliant.  He's an asshat who IS taking advantage of his (in)fame(y); you done know it ain't the first or last time.  No it's not raping a baby, but that is getting close to Goodwin's Law Territory with that ridiculous comparison.  Until you've been systematically sexually assaulted, or develop enough empathy to notice it happening to the people around you all the time, maybe don't think your opinion about this topic you know litterally nothing about, and  which you don't have to endure personally, is all that valid.

Also, I have news for you, if someone was a predator 20 years ago and didn't get caught, 90% they still doing it now (barring physical inability to do so; which does not apply in the case you speak of ... though he kinda did get caught but not really punished; that one can go either way).  It also demonstrates a lack of moral compass (ironic considering the person's demographic and platform), sense of privilege /entitlement; inability to empathize with other human beings, and a general inability to remember that other people (in this case girls) are human beings too and it's not always about you all the dang time.

The chess game thing is pathetic defense  - 'there must be some other reason for this besides the fact that it's wrong, always has been and people just don't want to deal with it anymore!"  Read the writing on the wall: sexual assault is the canary for all the abuse (varying from the horrible to merely condescending or annoying) that people have to endure at the hands of their 'betters.' It is the start of a revolution against the consolidation of power and the inevitable corruption that results.  Yes, maybe in the past, this has been a necessary compromise for civilization to exist, but it no longer is; it is just a legacy that those in power are doing their darnest to protect (because it is in their interests to do so).  See the counter-offensive happenning (to avoid the risk of being accused of making this thread political, I will not give examples or elaborate)?

Adolescence being a modern invention is another strawman argument (and also adolescence DID exist as a concept; the idea of young adult or not fully mature goes back to tribal right of passage rituals; reducing older thought on age to child/adult binary is not accurate at all).  Just be careful you're not coming across as glorifying those 'good olde days' that actually weren't.

Now the one area where I will give a little is that some cases do seem like over reach - I thought the first accusation against Al Franken (the picture with the sleeping lady in a flac jacket) was a bit of such a reach because it did not look like he was actually touching her; worst case it was a mean, tasteless and insensitive joke... but then what I said above about 20 year old incidents applies - more stuff came to light and you can't just say it's nothing anymore.  If the worst thing that happens, is that they get fired from their current job and become a social pariah (i.e. the very thing that used to happen to victims survivors if they dared speak up or out), I say they got off easy.  This is a correction, and yes, maybe a tad  of an over-correction, but as we know from other systems (e.g. the stock market) that's the way it needs to go so as to be able to find the new equilibrium.  What sense does it make to defend these people?  ... unless we want to keep doing these things and refuse to change.  I have no sympathy for Spacey or even that state rep guy who killed himself, not after he raped his daughters friend at a slumber party, not after he had to look her parents (who had entrusted him with her care for said sleepover) in the eye every Sunday at church for the next few years, not after the survivor FB messaged him about the hurt he'd caused, but only when some story about it was going to come out and it might actually affect him personally for once, and his wife/daughter would find out.  Part of the need for empathy and understanding the opposite point of view is illustrated here - for the assaulter it is impersonal; an instant gratification easily forgotten and meaningless (see many of these guys saying they don't even remember these people or that they would never cuz look how non-attractive they are - the badness of what they  have done never hits home, even if the person comes to them and tells them what it caused the write-off is always that this person is just weak and needs to 'man up' or whatever) - but for the survivor this has lasting impact, and sure, in the case of an ass grab that's not so bad, except it was probably not a single ass grab, but a lifetime of ass grabs.  And I know the macho counter-argument here: ' well when we were kids we got teased and mocked and beat up [and whatever else].'  Let me just pre-empt that by rhetorically asking if you think that really had no affect on you whatsoever?  I used to think so; thought it was nothing, but I was so wrong.   And trust me, I've had it quite worse than the vast majority of you.  The system has always been stacked against the survivor, if, at this time there is a bit of overcompensation that is , on a big picture level, better than letting the satus quo continue.  You have nothing to fear if you're not a perv (and I mean that in the original creepy sense vs the cute kinky one).

[OldManC]

I don't think the guy did anything criminally inappropriate (and told my daughter at the time: "Welcome to the real world, unless you are butt-ugly as a woman, this will happen to you again and again, you will have to learn how to handle it gracefully."), but I was actually proud of her reaction. She became neither a victim nor did she go on a vendetta character-assassinating him.

This is perfectly reasonable and a sign of good parenting as well as a smart young woman (to have consulted with her parents about how to handle it). Kudos to all of you.

And I'm with Dave 100% on his views here.

[uwe]

Ah Jake, ever the campaigner, it's good to have another opinion here! Keeps it from getting boring ... and in any case the general agreement here was unsettling my contrarian instincts. 

I have a long taking of evidence coming up in a couple of hours, but will revert.

Uwe

PS: I don't think Gene Simmons hits women - ever (role play aside!). He didn't even hit Ace Frehley when he showed up drunk at his hotel door on a Japan tour adorned in period-correct SS officer regalia mouthing something about "world jewry" - a slight punch in the face wouldn't have gone amiss in that situation, especially for the child of a Auschwitz survivoress. Instead he saved Ace's life some time later. Life isn't always black & white.

[Dave W]

Semi related issue...
Some of you may have seen this commercial. I am by no means offended by it, but it seems to me that were the roles in the spot reversed and a male hotel employee had snapped and shared an image of a female celebrity locked out of her room in her underwear (and made light of it to boot), there would be holy hell to pay. The commercial would have been instantly banned and tongue lashings would abound. Never mind the legal implications of an employee doing that to a guest. I'm just sayin'...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XzW6lvPXZVU&ab_channel=Optimum

Tell me about it!

A long-married neighbor of mine tried to force herself into my life. She either couldn't or wouldn't control her feelings for me even though I made it abundantly clear that I wasn't interested. Even after cutting off contact I was afraid I'd have to get a restraining order. I'll spare you the details, but if the sexes were reversed -- if she were a married man and I were a single woman -- I'd have attorneys lining up to file a sexual harassment suit.

One of the accusations against Matt Lauer was that he sexually harassed a staffer at the Sochi Olympics. Apparently he's not denying it. But when the accusations became public, a clip was shown of Kathie Lee Gifford and Hoda Kotb at Sochi feeling up a shirtless athlete. I guess that was okay.

Adolescence being a modern invention is another strawman argument (and also adolescence DID exist as a concept; the idea of young adult or not fully mature goes back to tribal right of passage rituals; reducing older thought on age to child/adult binary is not accurate at all).  Just be careful you're not coming across as glorifying those 'good olde days' that actually weren't.

Nope. These were rites of passage from childhood to adulthood. No question about it. No "adolescence" in between.

None of this excuses sexual assault. I have no idea whether or not Roy Moore is guilty of any kind of sexual misconduct, but unless a pre-pubescent child was involved, he's not a pedophile.

When Great-great Grandpa and Grandma W. were married, he was 21 or 22 and she was 13. They had the approval of church, state and parents. Their marriage lasted 52 years, until his death. Today, he would be in prison and on a sex offender registry for life. Germany in 1858 may not have been the good old days but the current infantilization of young adults is sick, sick, sick.

[OldManC]

He didn't even hit Ace Frehley when he showed up drunk at his hotel door on a Japan tour adorned in period-correct SS officer regalia mouthing something about "world jewry" - a slight punch in the face wouldn't have gone amiss in that situation, especially for the child of a Auschwitz survivoress. Instead he saved Ace's life some time later. Life isn't always black & white.

It's sad that Ace only ever gets the credit... (the original shots of Paul also sport the "correct" arm band).