[makesthingspos]

> discouraged drunkenness, discouraged a woman crashing at a male colleague's house instead of being put up in a hotel

Doesn't it seem ridiculous that companies need to have these kind policies or risk lawsuits and being smeared as cultivating a culture of rape? It seems to me that employers shouldn't have to babysit their adult employees or be their parents. Maybe instead of having employers be parents, society could reinforce the idea that parents/family/individuals be responsible. For example, not getting hammered, calling a cab if one can't drive, not going out alone (or as the only female in a group), not staying the night at the home of someone of the opposite sex, not having sex before marriage, courtship is chaperoned, etc. Oh no, how patriarchal! Instead, it's seen as reasonable for one's employer/university/etc to decide if one's sex life is consensual and make sure one has a safe bed to sleep in when one goes out partying!

> discouraged drunkenness

I'm sure this isn't what you meant, but imagine if Microsoft had a policy that punished an employee if they were found to have gotten exceptionally drunk outside work like in this scenario. First, it could only be applied to the accused, never the accuser. Imagine if this purported rape victim were punished because she admits she got very drunk before the rape happened. People would go crazy at that. They'd blame Microsoft for punishing the victim. They'd demand all rape accusers be given immunity from any punishment for misdeeds they did before the purported rape took place, lest the punishment for what they did discourage them from reporting the rape.

Btw, very much enjoyed your thoughtful well-reasoned comments in this thread!

[DoreenMichele]

The company should have policies because without them it is entirely on individuals to resist group social pressure in an elegant way that both protects themselves and protects their job by not offending other employees. If you have the diplomatic skills of an ambassador on top of the job skills they hired you for, you might pull it off. Otherwise, you wind up a victim because you went along with group norms that seemed reasonable on the face of it, but really just set you up for a terrible crime.

Thank you for proving my point that even trying to broach the topic of prevention is rife with difficulty and gets insane pushback. I can't really fathom why. Simply not having the rape happen to begin with seems like the optimal solution, but it can't be discussed in good faith at all. It essentially gets nothing but over the top inflammatory remarks.

Edit: Though TBF I will add that it would probably be more accurate to say policies designed to discourage such things. Elegantly promoting safe social practices is a hard subject to write about.

[vfulco]

Unfortunately there is no outlawing stupidity. If you have self-respect, you don't put yourself in certain situations. Full stop. Great comments by the way.