Right, but when you're say the President, you can't really expect that your employee is going to report you - you pretty much control the power structure she could report you to, or at least you have greater leverage over it than she does. Even in the student-teacher case, a student can't really report the teacher to the Principal, because the teacher has greater leverage and authority with the Principal than the student - things could potentially turn out badly for the student that way. — Agustino

Yes. There is a difficult balance to strike anyway, because given the chance, a student might use the power of threatened accusation - such things happen too. So a president needs protection from malicious accusations. One does not want to undermine the power relation. So not the principal, but a sort of official gossip monger, who probably won't help you, but might help the next kid, or the one after that. As long as we can avoid 25 years of repeated abuse, we are making things a bit better, no?

There is a difficult balance to strike anyway, because given the chance, a student might use the power of threatened accusation - such things happen too. — unenlightened

Yes, but not around non-Western Eastern European countries lol. Here it's harder for the student to accuse the teacher, even with good reason. I suppose in some Western countries it's easier since it seems to be easier there for a woman to accuse falsely a man of rape, or for a student to accuse a teacher falsely, etc. - the pendulum has swung too far the other way.

As long as we can avoid 25 years of repeated abuse, we are making things a bit better, no? — unenlightened

I suppose so, but then this is more of a way of limiting the damage that a bad person can cause instead of preventing it.

I suppose so, but then this is more of a way of limiting the damage that a bad person can cause instead of preventing it. — Agustino

If that's your aim, you need to petition God, who will turn you down.

If that's your aim, you need to petition God, who will turn you down. — unenlightened

How do you know, have you already spoken to Him? :D

Me and God are pretty close, but I know better than to try and tell Him how to run His bailiwick.

bailiwick — unenlightened

:-O I never heard of this word.

Americans are tribal — Baden

I should note there are some honourable exceptions. A few writers on redstate.com (no bastion of liberalism!), for example, have been very critical of Trump's sexual misbehaviour and I presume there are liberal writers that properly hold Clinton to account. It does seem to be more the exception than the rule though, sadly.

Oh my... this is a typical case of projection, where one side dreams that the other side has what they lack. I think neither of them have "class consciousness". Why would you say that some have class consciousness and others don't? Working class person isn't aware that they are working class and therefore are under different conditions than the capitalists?

And how can "class consciousness" help prevent abuses? — Agustino

First, I am not projecting -- I am working class. I know of what I speak. Second, some people have class consciousness and other people don't. Not that difficult a concept, is it? Third, absolutely -- a lot of working class people (especially in the United States) have "false class consciousness". A couple of examples:

"In America, anybody can be whatever they want." False. Most people in the real world exceed the accomplishments of their parents only to limited degree. Children may get more education than their parents; they may enter a skilled trade like medical technology, oil drilling, teaching k-12, accounting, and so on; they may make twice as much as their parents earned, but none of that lifts them far above the accomplishments of their parents. Most people's parents were working class, and most of those children will remain working class.

"I own my home, I went to college, I have a professional job, I have season tickets to the symphony. I'm not working class." Some people own their own home. Most people share ownership with a mortgage company. Lots of people go to college and lot's of people have "professional jobs". Lots of workers have refined tastes. There are only a few professions which enable occupants to act like bourgeois people: physician, law partner, small business owner (having...100 to 200 employees, producing a high value product or service), tenured professor, senior pastor of a wealthy church, and the like.

Sure you are working class IF your wage or salary is tied to a job which you must perform in order to get paid... Doctors who own their own clinics have become bourgeoisie. Partners in a law firm have become bourgeoisie. Tenured professors are sort of bourgeoisie. Fat cat pastors of wealthy churches are merely parasites.

Thinking you are not working class when you have to go to work to get paid is FALSE CONSCIOUSNESS.

Workers who have class consciousness understand that individually they are powerless, and that in union they become strong. Uniting in labor solidarity won't make them rich, but it will protect them from egregious practices by employers. Class consciousness means understanding the difference between having to work for one's wages and living on accumulated riches.

IF you want to be safe from the undesired advance, then something more than responsive court systems will be needed: What is needed are very strong employee class conscious unions that can collectively resist arbitrary and capricious actions of management. I don't know how much you will have to pitch overboard to take on strong class conscious unions, but if you want social change... — Bitter Crank

BC as you may have noticed over the years I am a very sensitive woman with a strong moral compass, an ethical dial that can be moved over time with the right persuasion, a loving individual who cares deeply for both family and friends and am very stingy issuing anyone implied respect because in my eyes, we are all on the same level of respect just specializing in different aspects of life.

Knowing this about me, would you ever expect me to on depend on a "responsive court system" to make myself "safe from undesired advances"? Do you think I would attempt to organize or join a "union" to keep myself safe and have the Union fight my battle?

To begin with I am not talking about someone persistently asking me for my phone number which might be an undesired advance. I am talking about the moment you as my boss, lay your hands on my body in a sexual way, that is an not an undesired advance, that is sexual assault. It doesn't need to have the power component to be called sexual assault but in this scenario it does.

Capeesh? — Bitter Crank

As can be expected: inferno non (N)

As long as we can avoid 25 years of repeated abuse, we are making things a bit better, no? — unenlightened

We would be making things more than a "bit better", we would be making HUGE progress towards the ideal goal of a sexual predator free workplace. Especially to the 25 years of students that followed the first assault.

Another positive change would be to get people to stop voting for sexual predators for President. It sends a horrible message when the punishment for sexual harassment, disrespect and degradation is promotion to the highest office in the land. I'd like to think Trump would be the last one but with the levels of polarization in American politics, I wouldn't rule out the mistake being repeated.

That's why we have to attack the root cause, which isn't power and desire, but rather that which puts those desires in our mind in the first place — Agustino

That would be biology. Dominance hierarchies are natural in primates like us (and many other species) and the main reason to be on the top is access to mates (for males at least). If you look at Franz de Waal's work on chimpanzees, for example, you'll see how closely chimp politics resembles our own. You seem to think you can reprogram human behaviour from the top down and somehow distill out desires that have a natural basis. You can't. You can only repress them.

Yes, biology does play a role, but it is only aided by culture that it can produce such desires. Why do you attribute a sufficient role to biology alone to produce such effects of conflict and rivalry, and hence sin and immorality? — Agustino

Because we are primates, and that's the way primates act. Culture can only mould the clay its given. Anyway, I don't know if you've laid out your version of Plato's Republic in another discussion in which case I'll take a look at it (or you could do so in a new discussion) but this discussion probably calls for more practical solutions.

Like, think about yourself. The first memories I have of my sexual desire aren't of some biological kind but rather I remember hearing around, in music, etc. that real grown up men have sex with women, so then I started to desire it. That's how I actually got to having that desire. Then over time I started to see that men who had sex with more women were admired more than those who didn't, so then I started to desire that too, because I thought that's what it takes to be a real man. I didn't learn all that myself now, that's what society taught me. I suppose that if I was left alone with no such messages, I would have had to wait until I actually fell in love or was biologically attracted to a woman and figure things out for myself from there on. But that's not how it happened. I was taught that these women are hot, these women are not hot, etc. — Agustino

I hit puberty and then I wanted to get as much sex as possible. And I don't think its much more complicated for most teenage boys than that (Hollywood or no).

If you look at Franz de Waal's work on chimpanzees, for example, you'll see how closely chimp politics resembles our own. You seem to think you can reprogram human behaviour from the top down and somehow distill out desires that have a natural basis. You can't. You can only repress them. — Baden

Except that with chimpanzees it's acceptable to do what Harry Weinstein did and for humans it isn't. And women, all other things being unknown, do prefer strong winners. Humans are a bit more complex though. In a relationship a caring personality is far more valued. I've never seen a female chimp complain about sexual harrassment either. So Frans de Waal's work comes a way but then it doesn't.

Sure, I don't disagree with that or with all of Agu's cultural criticisms. I just see biology as playing a bigger role than he does and am skeptical of the weight he gives to the Hollywood etc influence on sexual misbehavior.

Because we are primates, and that's the way primates act. — Baden

'We' don't have to behave that way, and many of us don't, which is why no judge will accept this as even mitigation. Primates are quite variable, and human societies and individuals also. This is a pseudo science excuse for immorality. Bears shit in the woods, but the pope is Catholic.

Knowing this about me, would you ever expect me to on depend on a "responsive court system" to make myself "safe from undesired advances"? Do you think I would attempt to organize or join a "union" to keep myself safe and have the Union fight my battle? — ArguingWAristotleTiff

There is nothing wrong, weak, or deficient about having help when you fight your personal battles.

#MeToo is presumably about more than one creep -- Harvey Weinstein. It's about a pattern of bad behavior which some privileged men engage in when the local culture (in this case, Hollywood) tolerates/enables it.

Responsive court systems will generally help people one by one, after the damage is done.

IF we want to change social systems, and sex abuse is something we all want to change, it takes something different than a one-by-one post-assault approach. That's where on-the-job protections provided by strong unions and conscious-raised workers come in. Good unions aren't just about collecting dues and calling strikes. They are also about educating workers about the respect to which workers are entitled.

You have a strong moral compass, but lots of people's moral compasses are not so strong. A young woman with hopes of fame and fortune, working in a highly competitive industry where individual favor by a director or producer is critical, might not have the wherewithal to accuse the big wig of sexual assault or rape, on her own.

Where strong unions exist, people are treated better. Why? Because the union is capable of making life very difficult for management. Weinstein's ego would have been considerably more restrained if his productions could be halted over rape-on-the-job complaints by union sisters. Everyone looked the other way for both personal and corporate reasons. Individuals kept their mouths shut because they didn't want to hear the phrase "You'll never work in this town again" and Weinstein's peers were watching gate receipts, profits, and award lists.

It's not a mitigating factor at all or an excuse. Who says it was? Have I not been obvious enough from the start that I have no sympathy for HW and his ilk? But dominance hierarchies are a fundamental underlying organizing principle for human behavior. Hollywood, not so much.

Loius C.K. apparently forces female comics to watch him masturbate, the creator of Buffy the Vampire Slayer guy's ex-wife wrote that he wasn't behaving professionally with all them hot girls either. It is literally a cliche, I don't want to say that they're all doing it, but even all of my favorite rock stars are probably way way worse than them.

Even plenty of big philanthropists were weirdos, Ghandi used to give out tons of enemas, and propositioned women to sleep naked him with so as he could "test his restraint".

Jesus took Mary into the woods, pulled a woman out of his side, proceeded to have sex with her and then cum in his own mouth (if you believe some of the apocryphal gospels)... realize that all of the people that have power over others always abuse it, without exception. No one is good.

Not that I think therefore we should look the other way, but I think that there is a difference between propositions, and influencing people's greed and star filled eyes, and actually forcing them, or drugging them or something.

Not making ridiculous, unfair, dominating, or unreasonable requests of others usually just means that you're too busy fulfilling them.

@unenlightened
Put it another way, I want harsher punishments and more awareness within the context of a liberal society while recognizing the problem is not going to just go away. Agustino seems to think that a liberal society itself is the problem.

The problem is not liberal society and it is not primate behaviour, instinct genes, testosterone, or what women are attracted to. The problem is men behaving badly. Let's stop saying it's 'natural' and also stop saying it's acceptable or that women like it really.

and also stop saying it's acceptable or that women like it really. — unenlightened

Who said that?

OK, maybe some people did. Yes, let's not go there.

They aren't children, they're complicit to the extent that they do not protest, or tell them not to. Kristnamurti was doing his best bud's wife, whom also claims that he routinely humiliated, and emasculated, and kind of thought she was his reincarnated mother too.

Biology obviously does have something to do with it, unless there is some other difference between men and women that makes one act badly, and the other to be always entirely without personal responsibility.

That would be biology. — Baden

Well, obviously the origin of all sexual desire is in biology. No one would deny that. But you seem to deny that these primary desires can be inflamed, increased and redirected by many factors, the most important being society and culture for human beings (other animals too). So the sexual desire you encounter in society is by no means the biological desire for sex - that biological desire has been so manipulated and twisted that it is not even recognizable anymore. That's why I say that 99% of human sexual desire is not biological. That is for example why what excites us and sexually stimulates our desires changes - in one epoch one standard of dressing is perceived as hot and provocative and in another a different standard. So clearly when you see that "hot girl" it's not just a biological desire that is at play, but overwhelmingly it is a desire that is socially mediated and created - you've been taught that that type of girl is hot, that her way of dressing is hot and attractive, and that you should pursue her because you'll have higher status if you have her than if you don't, that she'd make a good mate - not in the English sense of mate :D . You'll also imagine how other men would find her hot and attractive and would want to be with her, which further fuels your desire for her.

Dominance hierarchies are natural in primates like us (and many other species) and the main reason to be on the top is access to mates (for males at least) — Baden

Dominance hierarchies tend to arise in all animal species where imitation is at the basis of their society. Human beings are a lot more imitative than chimps, so that's also why we have bigger and more complex dominance hierarchies than chimps do. Without a dominance hierarchy - which really is nothing but prohibition - an imitative society would erupt in violence, which would propagate itself and bring that society and all its members to an end. So dominance hierarchies aren't primary - they are secondary to the imitative nature of desire in animals like chimps, or humans. Without the stabilization of dominance hierarchies which act as a means of stopping the spread of imitative violence and conflict, such societies would not survive. The problem though is that dominance hirearchies no longer work in human societies, and nothing can be done about that - we need a new way to prevent violence, or we will go extinct.

You seem to think you can reprogram human behaviour from the top down and somehow distill out desires that have a natural basis. You can't. — Baden

Oh? Then what are we doing in advertising and marketing if not inflaming already existent and basic human desires, re-directing them, and so on so forth? :s What are we doing in psychotherapy, psychoanalysis, moral philosophy, etc. if not trying to change our structure of desire?

If you look at Franz de Waal's work on chimpanzees, for example, you'll see how closely chimp politics resembles our own. — Baden

Just like chimps have developed their basic dominance hierarchies and structures to prevent the outbreak of violence given their limited mimetic abilities, man has done the same. Just as in chimp communities there exist forms of behaviour, prohibitions and ritual which prevent the outbreak of imitative violence, so also there exist even more complex mechanisms in human societies to mediate this. If anything, chimps form an in-between the more imitative human and the other less imitative animals. For example, when a dominance hierarchy is established in certain species of monkeys, the male who has been "beaten" by his rival puts himself in a position of homosexual availability towards the alpha monkey. Why? Because the alpha monkey isn't only a rival, it is also a model - the inferior monkey wants to be like the alpha, it is fascinated by the alpha. And this ritual of submissions prevents the outbreak of violence by re-directing the desire of the loser from the sexual object (the female) to his model (the rival). One reason why all sexual rivalry is homosexual in its structure.

Because we are primates, and that's the way primates act. Culture can only mould the clay its given. — Baden

That is true, but to suppose that human beings are primates in the same sense that chimps are is folly. Our capacity for imitation is a lot greater, which means the potential for greater conflict, and the need for more complex social and cultural structures to mediate that. Sexual desire isn't entirely biological in primates either by the way - just that dominance hierarchies and other cultural and social elements that they have play a lesser role in determining their sexual behaviour.

I hit puberty and then I wanted to get as much sex as possible. And I don't think its much more complicated for most teenage boys than that (Hollywood or no). — Baden

I didn't ask for your 14-year-old self-understanding of your desires here. We already know that the process of desire formation happens largely unconsciously, behind the scenes. It requires analysis to be disentangled and understood. I asked you to reflect back on your experience and think if there weren't other factors that you could identify that were responsible for your sexual desire and the way it was directed. For example, why were you attracted to particular girls, and not to others? When you wanted to have sex with a girl and you saw one other guy or more guys wanting the same thing, how did you react? What did you feel and why? When you saw a girl that many guys liked, did you find yourself also liking her?

I'm not interested in the naïve self-understanding your 14-year-old self had, or the naïve self-understanding most people have. We have to look deeper than that. For example, the girl I would desire most - ideally - would be the girl that is wanted by all men, but only I have her. Desire always tends to focus on the impossible object. Yes, others are perceived as rivals, that is true. But without their desire, then the object of desire would feel worthless to desire in the first place. That is the paradox of desire, and it is why desire is a blind alley. But all this illustrates that our desire itself is imitative and ultimately violent - the more others desire one object, the more we desire it as well. I want sex because others want it. If others didn't want it, I might want it only when it was actually relevant, but would definitely have little desire to pursue it. Understanding the blind alleys of desire can get one to stop pursuing desire - be free from desire as the Buddhists would say - but it wouldn't necessarily stop one from feeling them once they have been placed there by the structure of society and the culture that they grew up in. Reason can indeed only work with what it is given, but what is given isn't biological in large majority, but culturally mediated. All religions, but especially Christianity and some forms of Buddhism encourage the abandonment of imitative desire as the solution to the ills of the world.

Agustino seems to think that a liberal society itself is the problem. — Baden

Your liberal society is not liberal at all, but illiberal. When rivalry is allowed to run amok, nobody can enjoy the object of desire - everyone is busy killing each other off, outplaying each other, competing, etc. - we all become fascinated with the rival, and the rival is more punishing than any law would be. At least the law is impersonal and applies equally to all - it doesn't torment us, it doesn't outrage us. Just because there is choice does not mean that there is freedom. The two shouldn't be confused.

In one sense, I do understand why society is becoming "liberal" - sacrificial mechanisms no longer work to keep the peace. But this becoming more "liberal" is identical with becoming more violent - violence becomes harder to control. Hence your "harsher punishments".

bailiwick
— unenlightened
:-O I never heard of this word. — Agustino

It's an interesting word. "Bailie" is Old French for 'bailiff'--an officer of a court who handles ordinary matters, like looking after prisoners, serving writs on people, etc. 1066 brought a large batch of French legal terminology into English. "Wick" is Old English, meaning 'village'. So, the bailiff's village--bailiwick--the area that a bailiff was responsible for.

"Wick" on its own is interesting too. You are probably familiar with the "wick" of a candle or oil lamp, coming from the primitive eastern provinces of Europe as you do where people lived in dark hovels until just recently when they switched from lard lamps to LED lighting. "before 1000; Middle English wicke, weke, Old English wice, wēoc(e); cognate with Middle Dutch wiecke, Middle Low German wêke, Old High German wiohha lint, wick ( German Wieke lint); akin to Sanskrit vāgura noose"

Now you know.

The world I live in, men do the propositioning, and make the initial moves, that's just how it's done, and consent is never explicitly given. Trump said that he goes into the beauty contestant changing rooms, and feels them up because they let him do it.

You can say that they should just know better, and know when it is acceptable, and know when it isn't... but without consent or refusal ever really forthcoming, how are they supposed to?

We want a culture without sexual predators for sure, but there needs to be acknowledged some of their responsibility as well, otherwise it isn't even clear what is and isn't assaulting them. Other than some personal confidence that it isn't you, you're a good person, or getting expressed consent at every stage.

Sharing that you were sexually harassed or assaulted in the workplace is part of the solution but the other half is to try to make sure that no one else is put into that situation again, with this same harasser.
Thoughts? — ArguingWAristotleTiff

I was never assaulted in a workplace and I was never sexually harassed by a superior in a workplace.

I'm not sure whether I've been sexually harassed by a colleague because I'm not sure where the line is between harassment and flirtation. Does it count as harassment if I enjoyed it or if I didn't mind?

I don't mean to be flippant: I'm asking seriously, how do we distinguish cases of harassment from cases of flirtation? Is the distinction drawn one way in the workplace and another way out of the workplace, or is it drawn the same everywhere?

If any unwanted sexual attention counts as harassment, I suppose I've been harassed on at least a few occasions in a workplace. In one such instance, a young female administrative assistant employed by a temp agency I used to get work from persisted in flirting with me and asking me on dates. She would follow me into the stairwell when I went on smoke breaks to engage me where no one else was around. I tried to make it clear I wasn't interested without being mean about it, but she wouldn't take the hint.

If an unwanted kiss in a bar counts as an assault, then on at least one occasion I was assaulted in a bar. I was standing between a young woman I was interested in and a rough older man who told tales of an adventurous life. He turned out to have a thing for younger men and started hitting on me. He wouldn't stop despite my repeated and increasingly firm indications that I wasn't interested. His advances became increasingly aggressive, till at last he grabbed me by the neck and planted a hard wet kiss on my face. I stood there, kind of stunned, kind of grossed out, and pretty well drunk by that point. I'm not sure what would have happened if the girl to my right hadn't told him to f*** off before taking me home in a cab.

Loius C.K. apparently forces female comics to watch him masturbate — Wosret

I wasn't invited, and I would have enjoyed it (assuming he does it well).

Kristnamurti was doing his best bud's wife, whom also claims that he routinely humiliated, and emasculated, and kind of thought she was his reincarnated mother too. — Wosret

Yeah, it's possible he was, but the extent to which that went on for is unknown. And there was quite a lot of conflict it seems between Krishnamurti and Rajagopal, not to mention that Rajagopal's wife wasn't having sexual relations with him anymore. It may be that far from being Krishnamurti's initiative, it could just as well have been Rosalind's in her (and her husband's) attempt to control K. No doubt that K was also guilty, but it's hard to place the blame squarely on him since we don't know the situation very well. Obviously though, it does tarnish his reputation and makes his statements and philosophy suspicious.

I've had my arms felt, like checking out my muscles, ass slapped a few times, been kissed when I wasn't interested, and had a co-worker try to get me drunk at her place, and really didn't want me to leave, and I'm pretty sure she had terrible plans, she had previously asked me to dinner, and I accepted thinking that she was talking about like our whole group of friends. When I found out that she hadn't asked anyone else, I declined, and she was married too, though it was during a separation, though she got back with him not long afterwords.

I voted, "not sure" on the poll, because what counts, and what is just normal circumstances almost everyone finds themselves in isn't clear to me.