[starwed]

What the fuck have people in this thread been drinking? It could be harassment if they'd had sex a hundred times, or no times, if they'd been married, or if they'd never met before. The sex isn't the issue here! Pause for a second, and think critically about the issue, rather than spewing crap onto the internet.

If you ask someone to stop such a pattern of behavior and they don't, that's harassment regardless of your personal history.

[temphn]

Reread the suit. She claims he harassed her "over a period of years". But during that period, she slept with him consensually! If you don't see how that detonates Ellen Pao's claim that his advances were unreciprocated (i.e. that they were "harassment"), not sure what to say.

Is "harassment" just "I felt mad at him years later" or is there any precise definition you're working from? Because if you define harassment as "unwanted advances", they objectively weren't unwanted back in 2006.

[jarek]

I'm really sorry I have to explain this, but the fact she slept with him a couple of times doesn't mean his advances weren't unwanted before or after (or, for that matter, those times they were successful).

To really dumb this down, this isn't like a child asking parents for a toy repeatedly and once the toy is given everyone involved is fine and has moved on. This is like an annoying salesperson calling you repeatedly and justifying it with the one time you caved in and bought something from them.

[temphn]

  his advances weren't unwanted before or after (or, for 
  that matter, those times they were successful).

The successful advances were unwanted? Are you kidding? This is a reductio ad absurdum of feminism and may well be the most ludicrous thing ever posted on this site. Now no means no...and yes means no too! Now it's harassment even when she says yes. Retroactively, even if it wasn't at the time.

You sure you want to take that position?

Let's take it a little further. Suppose, as seems highly plausible, Nazre has steamy emails, texts, or pictures sent by Pao during that period.

Does that obviate the charge of harassment? Because I'd bet that will come out in discovery. I suppose the argument at that point will be that she was harassed into sending the pics.

  This is like an annoying salesperson calling you 
  repeatedly and justifying it with the one time you caved 
  in and bought something from them.

Utterly wrong analogy. Falls down on every level. You don't sue Staples after you buy something from them. Staples didn't steal the money from you (rape), you gave it consensually. Buying something isn't sleeping with someone. Sleeping with someone "two or three" times isn't slipping up once. Suing them six years after isn't suing when the event happened.

[starwed]

At this point you are so deliberately ignoring what the conversation is even about that I think you must be a troll.

Well, I hope you're a troll. The alternative is too depressing. :(

[temphn]

What is this conversation about?

Read the complaint. Ellen Pao, an extremely wealthy woman, has issues with virtually every partner at KPCB, one of whom she sleeps with and subsequently charges with sexual harassment years later. By her own admission, over a period of six years she continually complains about other partners and her compensation, title, and responsibilities. On the one hand she demands a transfer; yet on the other hand she wants the "harassers" to include her in meetings and emails and spends a full paragraph on the outrage of not being invited to a dinner party and another on ostensibly being excluded from a get together with junior associates.

She marries a man who made millions off of discrimination lawsuits. To top it off, she then launches her own discrimination lawsuit after seven years at the firm which made her so much money.

These are facts. They come from her filing: http://techcrunch.com/2012/05/22/kleiner-perkins-sexual-hara...

If anyone believes these charges at face value they are simply credulous. She is looking for "monetary restitution", a multimillion dollar payday comparable to what her husband has squeezed out of others in his multiple discrimination lawsuits.

[jarek]

> The successful advances were unwanted? Are you kidding?

No.

I see you have difficulty distinguishing between harassment and advances, unwanted or otherwise. You do, however, appear to know or are ready to presume a lot about this case, including things that are on a man's phone, so there is nothing more I wish to add to our discussion. Thanks for engaging me!

[temphn]

Just want you to know that there will be people who utterly reject your worldview (in a phrase, "yes means no") and all it entails. In your mind consent can be retroactively revoked years after the fact (to wit: "the successful advances were unwanted"). This is Kafkaesque and a frontal assault on the rule of law.

Fortunately, in a digital age, the past is not something Ellen Pao can rewrite at will. Future rule of thumb for anyone so unfortunate as to be caught up in an office romance: get her to put it in electronic form. Just one photographic expression of affection is enough to demonstrate to all and sundry that yeah, at the time, yes did mean yes. Since even admissions of consent no longer seem to preclude bogus charges, it's the only way to avoid being railroaded in a spurious lawsuit with people like you cheering on the travesty of justice.

[jarek]

I'm not saying wantedness can be rewritten. All along I've been saying that wantedness cannot be measured by success of the advances. If I ask you 100 times for a $20, and on the 101st time you give up and give me $20, my requests have been ultimately successful but I doubt at any point they would have been wanted. This lawsuit isn't about the $20, it's about the requests.