[jeff_jefferson]

The only reason that people are talking about explicit consent is that so many people (yes, mostly men) were either not noticing or not caring that there wasn't even any implicit consent for their actions.

#MeToo was born out of people being abused and raped due to a culture that gave power to men who were beyond question. Change that culture and maybe we can go back to just having a bit of fun.

[tone]

Are you saying that "so many" men were accidentally raping as there was no implicit consent? That's ridiculous. As the article alludes, sex is not a scary and horrible minefield, and the idea of consent shouldn't be overused and watered down to apply to every difficult situation.

You're describing power within an industry, not our culture. You are for no reason attributing the action of a few to many. Which is sexist.

[didibus]

Not OP, but I'm pretty sure they meant that too many men were deliberately raping or abusing women against their consent, through force, extortion, manipulation, deceit and incapacitation. And that this is where the MeToo movement came from, to show people just how prevalent this is.

> and the idea of consent shouldn't be overused and watered down to apply to every difficult situation

I got the impression that's what the article was doing. That was my main issue, it seems to take consent and MeToo and frame it in a very juvenile manner, contextualized with teenagers getting to know their sexuality and first experimenting not sure about what they want, like or how to act. Where consent and MeToo is about preventing serious sexual abuse, not dealing with a breakup or an ackward kiss.

[noobermin]

The article explicitly talks about the Warren Ellis case which is not about consent at all but something that sounds like an unscrupulous man.

[_y5hn]

--

[tone]

The masses....? I think you've lost it a bit here.

[_y5hn]

--

[Cthulhu_]

Democracy (at least the US flavor of it) has run its course and is no longer working - since apparently the president can appoint the top brass of the judicial branch, and the house can just make legal action against the president go away. To name a few examples. Also voting is not considered a right or obligation, but a privilege. I can go on.

[roenxi]

Technical point, but US democracy has survived a literal civil war in the past and been fine. The US would continue doing fine if it carried on this way for another 100 years. Although the politicians might want to implement some wealth creation policies imho instead of experiments with literally banning working.

The change is the corruption is visible now that the internet is a thing. The making of the democratic sausage has always been a disgusting process.

[onion2k]

You are for no reason attributing the action of a few to many.

The point is that it isn't a few men. If you listen to women most of them have accounts of how they've been harassed in some way. A recent (2018) survey[1] found that 81% of women had experienced verbal sexual harassment, and 27% reported physical sexual assault. That is not "a few" men giving the rest a bad name. Also it is not sexist to point it out.

[1] https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2018/02/21/587671849...

[NalNezumi]

>A recent (2018) survey[1] found that 81% of women had experienced verbal sexual harassment, and 27% reported physical sexual assault.

Sorry but this stats does not support your claim...? If the stats phrasing was "81% of men had conducted" it would support your claim, but experienced doesn't in any way means that every woman that experienced harassment experienced it from one unique male each time (which is probably the least likely implication of all).

It is sexist to point it out, just at it is racist to point to incarceration rate (weighted by population) of blacks to call a black person more prone to disobedience. (or male incarceration rate, for that matter) It is a classical classroom example case of misrepresentation of statistic to make discriminatory remark, or shift the blame to a group.

[onion2k]

but experienced doesn't in any way means that every woman that experienced harassment experienced it from one unique male each time (which is probably the least likely implication of all)

That's not the claim I was making though. What I said was that we don't know if it's a minority of men who are harassing women. The stats don't tell us that. The assertion that it's very few men doesn't really hold water though, simply because women everywhere report the same experiences. Consequently there are men everywhere who are harassing women.

It is a classical classroom example case of misrepresentation of statistic to make discriminatory remark, or shift the blame to a group.

I'm not misrepresenting the statistics. I'm saying that the statistics tell us there's a massive problem with sexual harassment of women and we don't know if that's from a minority or a majority of men. You're not using the statistics when you say it's a minority of men. You're making an unfounded and unproven assumption.

I would hope that it's not a majority of men, but whether it's 1%, or 5%, or 25% of men isn't something I'd like to even guess at. My partner tells me that it's far closer to 25% than 1% though, and I believe her.

[roenxi]

Pretty much everyone has interacted with the police at some point in their lives and there are only a few police. And I suspect a silly % have experienced assault from a tiny number of criminals. I've been assaulted by a stranger, but the number of potential assaulters I've seen is minute. You're not arguing from actual evidence.

The assumption that we've got no evidence and therefore we'll go with your partner's estimate is unlikely to carry the debate. That is why people are calling your comment sexist. [No argument -> could be 25% of men!] is a sexist position. Plus this is a forum flooded of men so that flaw there will be spotted pretty quickly.

[flexie]

I think it's likely that 81 percent of all people have experienced having something stolen. That doesn't mean 81 percent of us are thieves. Similarly, I guess 99.99 percent of us have experienced receiving spam in our email. That doesn't mean 99.9 percent of us are spammers.

We should not confuse perpetrators and victims.

From the several hundreds of men I know as friends, class mates, colleagues, I have never experienced a single one cat calling, groping, grooming or doing worse kinds of sexual harassment. In hundreds of parties and thousands of work situations, I've never seen it. Not even once.

I've seen both men and women circulating sexually charged jokes or telling such jokes in work environments, and I've seen both men and women comment on each others looks or hitting on each other, both when it was wanted and unwanted. But that's it.

Yes, that's just my anecdotes, but it seems far more likely to me that we are talking about a small percentage of men doing it all the time than most men doing it sometimes.

[onion2k]

Read my post again. I didn't suggest it's 81% of men. I said it's not "a few".

[watwut]

I think it is minority of men doing the same thing again and again and again. Verbal sexual harassment is specifically something that one person can do to many others within short time.

But I remember reading that rapes are similar. One person is doing it multiple times till he get caught.

[didibus]

That's a good point. As a men, I am always like in total shock when I read about some of these stories. I always think? What who does that? I never ever even thought of doing that? And wondered like, am I the outlier? Do everyone else just call their coworkers to their office waiting for them with their member out? How come so many women have had that experience?

But I think it is very possible like you said that a few can impact a lot of women by just repeated behavior. Somehow I hope so at least.

[onion2k]

I hope so. It would be appalling if it was a majority of men. I don't think we can really state that as a fact without more research though.

[didibus]

I feel similarly confused by the article. It seems more focused on criticizing sexual education and suggesting alternative approaches, and breaking down old stereotypes and mentalities. And that part I thought was good and I could agree with. But the parts about #MeToo and consent seem to just brush over real sexual violence and abuse that spurred those movements and ideas in the first place.

Maybe if you hang out in the twitter sphere you get a distorted view, but some of the real implications around consent are things like: It's not consensual if one person is blacked out drunk.

I mean just read one of the brochure like this one: https://mcckc.edu/images/ac/counseling/whatisconsent.jpg

Now go back to the article, and where is the part discussing: "Consent cannot be given through physical violence or threat"

The problem is, how are we even at a place where a brochure on consent needs an entire section to explain this? That's what the MeToo movement at least from my impression was about, it's like, hey reality check, more women then you know experience really ridiculous abuse, and we're not talking about their boyfriend cheating on them.

[watwut]

> The problem is, how are we even at a place where a brochure on consent needs an entire section to explain this?

I think it is because some of men who used implied threat of physical violence pretended they are completely unaware of what was going on. And that was treated as serious argument. See, they were just poor naive beings unaware of the situation (despite being highly charizmatic and fully socially aware in other situations).

So, everyone is getting that brochure now.

[_y5hn]

Much problems arise from hypocritical double standards of the elite, like Trump and his cult, but also for much of leadership in corporate they've gotten away with too much. If people can stop expecting special treatment and double standards, we have a fighting chance to address higher existential issues.

[sleepysysadmin]

While your position seems reasonable, but that's not what is being proposed or implemented.

Sweden for example out of a dozen countries who have passed these laws.

The removal of the 'forced' part of rape means it's entirely consent now. If you didn't have explicit consent in some form of proof. You are now a rapist. You never threatened, coerced or used force of any kind; the other person never resisted at any time.

Innocent until proven guilty is gone. You must prove you got explicit consent. Which lets be realistic, you don't have that. Nobody is signing a contract or equivalent before sex. You are now a rapist.

Which is why Rape has increased something like 400% in Sweden. Why do you think the Swedish men are such rapists?