These are the sorts of distinctions that aren't being made by the #MeToo wave. — Bitter Crank

I am glad to read that you know that many of us know the difference, even if all of us don't.

You don't mouth "help me" you say loudly enough for everybody to hear: "I'm done hugging, now let me go." If he continues, you knee him in the groin in self-defence. Fuck grace. If he's not being a gentleman, you can stop being a graceful lady. — Benkei

I appreciate your reminding me that I needn't tolerate unwanted sexual advances, even in the safest of places, which our friends home absolutely is. I appreciate your response Benkei, in that you reminded me that the power lay within me, even if grace be damned. But most of all, I appreciate your having a good understanding of my marriage with NicK and for not suggesting that anyone but I could have done anything that would have a lasting effect on the situation.

Question: How should I have responded to the following scenario that just happened to me.
NicK and I were leaving out best guy friends house at the end of a party and as we were saying goodbye and hugging as we do, our friends' brother opened his arms offering a hug to me (first time I had ever met him) and I stepped into the hug with my arms around his chest and then went to release and as I did he said to me "Oh push your body hard against mine" in a moaning drunk way and I pushed away but he wouldn't let me go. Keep in mind NicK is saying goodbye to others and not watching what is going down but my friends' sister in law saw what was happening and I mouthed to her, help me with BIG eyes and she stepped right in and broke his hug on me and took it onto herself. Why did she do this? Not because she wanted that kind of attention but she felt the need to help me and I am forever grateful. She intervened because she understood how uncomfortable I was and likely because it was her home that we were in but either way that time it ended gracefully.

So when NicK and I got in the car I explained to him what had happened and he dismissed it as the guy just being a "huggy" kind of person. I called bullshit on NicK because I am a "huggy" person and I have never uttered such words to a man while embracing and NicK still, today, believes that I am over-reacting. Am I? I don't even want to be around him because knowing NicK doesn't have my back on this makes me nervous. Not because I don't know how to put an end to it but because of the ripples within our friendships it would cause if he were to do it again and still not hear me and make me call him out on it.

That doesn't mean it's the right thing to do. The point of the #MeToo movement is that this shouldn't be accepted as the norm. Yes, there are times where people might be receptive to it, but given how often people aren't receptive to it and the fact that it's worse to be harassed than to be left waiting for someone else to make the first move, it's proper to err on the side of caution. — Michael

Wise words.

A feature of the #me2 movement is that they are unwilling to distinguish between a pat on a woman's derriere and rape — Bitter Crank

Really? BC, you have known me for over a decade and do you honestly think that I cannot tell the difference between a pat on the ass and rape?
Such an insult to the #MeToo movement.

I don't know what world you live in, but I remember in your country I was at a club, and a fellow collegue came to me, and he said: "Wanna see what I do?" and I said "sure". So he went through the club, and every girl on the dancing floor he started grabbing, and trying to kiss, even when they physically resisted in fact, he did not stop. And what happened to him? Nothing. And he did that not once, but every time he was in the club - which was at least once every week. So good luck convincing your fellow Brits - more like they'll laugh in your face. There is no convincing these brutes. — Agustino

If your "fellow colleague" had done such a thing with my group of friends, he wouldn't have made it past one friend without a verbal confrontation, two friends before he was confronted PHYSICALLY, a firm grab on the forearm along with the same verbal confrontation. We are choosing not to be quiet, not because we can't hold our own but because there are people out here, in the club scene that respect another enough to find out what is going on.

Two thoughts:
@Agustino I can understand your not getting into the middle of customs in another country on the first night but why would YOU condone that behavior by returning to the club with him time after time? Do you remove some cloak of morality when you leave your home country?

The second thought is that if "your colleague" had behaved that way in the states on the first night he might not have been tossed out by the establishments' management but by the second night and women were NOT receptive to his behavior, he would be escorted out. Any establishment worth their salt are not going to facilitate this unwanted behavior for fear that at some point they might be held legally accountable.

How long is my Mother In Law going to stay here?? :s
I better just :-x

@dog
Welcome to The Philosophy Forum!

Unwelcome sexual advances have never been a problem for you? — praxis

Yes unwelcome sexual advances were a problem for me but I learned how to handle them.
I still don't understand why my answer to Agustino was insufficient for you.

Then why all the #MeToo's? — praxis

Well I was answering Agustinos' question: "Which head is nicer to deal with do you think?"
So my answer is whatI think and becauseI prefer to only deal with my partners heads, either one. Not some fool that pushes himself on me after I make it clear that I am in no way interested.
Make sense?

So far I'm up 60%. — Michael

Woot Woot!

You are quite welcome! Enjoy your stay!

Our youngest Indian got a 3D printer for Christmas and though I would share these creations
Starts and fits learning structure

Printed track support- blue and white are plastic and brown is printed in wood

Infinite Triangles

Fibonacci sequences

Working Nut and Bolt

Escher's Geese

The Character he plays

@Fumani
Welcome to The Philosophy Forum!

@RepThatMerch22@ChrisH
Welcome to The Philosophy Forum!
We are glad you are here~

@Marty
Welcome to The Philosophy Forum!
Enjoy your stay~

I have had cancer and am over it, for the time being.
Thanks for your kind thoughts but I was talking HYPOTHETICALLY, but from some experience. — charleton

I am thrilled to hear you are beating Cancer as your experience is something that others don't always make it back from. I rejoice in knowing that you are here to speak for those who are unable to. I wish for you a Cancer free future and a long healthy life~

Fuck that LOL.
Here I am dying of bowl cancer in great pain with defecting all over my death bed, but before I am allowed to die with some dignity I have to wait for "all people" to live with dignity. How long do I have to wait?? — charleton

charleton, my heart aches for you and what you are enduring. Thank you for sharing your private thoughts for without them, many would not be heard but please know, we are listening.

My serious New Year's resolution is to approach life less seriously. Really.

Andrew, in my opinion, Annie G absolutely has the ability to speak about assisted suicide and her reasons are as compelling as I have ever read. Just like Stella, I hope Annie's wishes are respected. Stella made a difference in the way people think about living with a disability, rather than what others considered a fair option of assisted suicide.
Stella wrote a letter to 80 yr old Stella which explains why having the dignity of living with a disability is so important, more important than dying with dignity. Maybe this will explain my perspective better.

"Dear eighty-year-old me,

Eighty, hey? Eighty.

Eighty is a long way from where I write to you now. Fifty years, in fact.

To be honest, I've never thought a great deal about you, eighty-year-old Stell. I tend not to think about living to some grand old age. Then again, I don't think about dying either. I suppose you do; you're eighty. You've done a lot of things. Seen a lot of things. You almost certainly have a hover-chair by now. When I was seven and watched an episode of Beyond 2000 that featured a floating armchair, I thought we'd definitely have one of those by fifteen, at the latest. As we both now know, the twenty-first century has been nothing if not a tremendous lie.

I suppose I can't really write this letter to you without talking about the assumption, the expectation, that people like us die young.

One of my most beloved crip heroes, Harriet McBryde Johnson, wrote in her memoir about her realization at four years old, while watching a Muscular Dystrophy Telethon, that she was a little girl who was going to die young. The telethon was famous for its host, Jerry Lewis, trotting out adorable disabled children and telling us all that they were going to die. Most disability charity hinges on that notion – that you need to send your money in quick before all these poor, pitiful people die. Peddling pity brings in the bucks, yo.

When it comes time for Harriet to start kindergarten and she isn't dead yet, she says to herself, 'Well, I might as well die a kindergartener.' When she starts high school and she isn't dead yet, she thinks, 'Well, I might as well die educated.' When she graduates from law school and she still isn't dead yet, at twenty-seven, she decides, 'Well, I might as well die a lawyer.' Harriet is thirty before she realises that it is, in fact, too late to die young. And so she spends the rest of her life protesting against that awful Muscular Dystrophy Telethon. Not just because it handed her a false death sentence, but because pity gets in the way of our rights. There's been much talk of Lewis bringing his telethon to Australia, but don't worry, eighty-year-old Stell, you totally kicked that one in the dick.

I fall into this trap of talking about Harriet as though she was a friend. She was, in a way. Hers was one of your 'coming out' books. Remember those days back before you came out as a disabled woman? You used to spend a lot of energy on 'passing'. Pretending you were just like everyone else, that you didn't need any 'special treatment', that your life experience didn't mean anything in particular. It certainly didn't make you different from other people. Difference, as you knew it then, was a terrible thing. I used to think of myself in terms of who I'd be if I didn't have this pesky old disability.

Then, at seventeen, something shifted. To borrow from Janis Ian, I learned the truth at seventeen.

That I was not wrong for the world I live in. The world I live in was not yet right for me.

I started learning about the social model of disability. Reading all the disability studies resources I could lay my hands on. I devoured the memoirs of other disabled people. And I completely changed the way I thought about myself.

I stopped unconsciously apologizing for taking up space. I'm sure you can scarcely imagine that now; a world where disabled people, women in particular, are made to feel like we're not really entitled to inhabit public spaces.

I started changing my language. To jog your memory, back when you're still thirty there are all kinds of fights about whether we are allowed to say 'disabled people' at all. It's 'people with disabilities' that's all the rage. 'Cause we're, like, people first, you know? And if we don't say that we're people, folks might get confused. But I've never had to say that I'm a person who's a woman, or a person who is Australian, or a person who knits. Somehow, we're supposed to buy this notion that if we use the term disabled too much, it might strip us of our personhood. But that shame that has become attached to the notion of disability, it's not your shame. It took a while to learn that, so I hope that you've never forgotten.

I started calling myself a disabled woman, and a crip. A good thirteen years after seventeen-year-old me started saying crip, it still horrifies people. I do it because it's a word that makes me feel strong and powerful. It's a word other activists have used before me, and I use it to honor them.

Unlike Harriet, I've never thought I was going to die young. But I'm aware, sometimes painfully so, that there are people who do. At thirty, there are already people quick to tell me I've had a good innings. Most recently, an anesthetic nurse who was about to knock me out before a very minor procedure on my right elbow asked me how old I was. I told her, and she looked down at me in my funny little hairnet in a bed you could have laid three of me end-to-end on, and she said, 'Oh, well, you're doing very well then, aren't you.'

'Am I? AM I?' I wanted to ask, but I was already drifting off to sleep. Some people are such c---s.

Still, what she'd said did alarm me a little, so I asked a doctor. Two, in fact. Apparently, people with this dicky bone thing usually have small lungs and so we're a wee bit more prone to nasty colds turning really nasty. But that's about the extent of it. At this point, there aren't a lot of old people with this thing around, but it's hardly surprising. From where I sit, it wasn't so long ago we stopped institutionalizing disabled people, locking them away in places that killed their souls and then their bodies. To think of how far we've come in my first thirty years makes me pretty bloody excited about the next fifty.

So you know what you're going to do? You're going to rug up in winter, eat your vegies, slap on some Vicks VapoRub and get the f--- on with it.

I will do everything I can to meet you, eighty-year-old Stell.

By the time I get to you, I will have loved with every tiny little bit of my heart and soul. Right now at thirty, there's a significant love in your life. He's lovely. He makes his old Lego into jewellery for you. He makes you a coffee every single morning, and he doesn't expect you to be civil before you've consumed it. If he accidentally buys the biggest carton of milk that's too heavy for you to lift, he pours it into smaller bottles so you can manage. Whether there's one great love or many, you will have loved and been loved, obscenely well.

By the time I get to you, you won't be a grandmother. Kids are cute, but f--- they're hard work. You decided many years ago, despite every man and his dog sending you those articles from New Idea and Woman's Day about 'The World's Smallest Mother' or 'My Miracle Pregnancy' that, in fact, you don't want your own kids. Even though we both know how much you like to do the opposite of what people expect of you, and the personal is political and all that, kids are too important for that. You're not very committed to the parenting bit, and you hear that's a pretty big part of the deal.

By the time I get to you, I will have lost people I love. At thirty, you've never lost someone dear to you to death. There was great-nana Stella, but she was very old and you were still so little. There was Ruby, the dog you didn't even know you actually loved until she was gone. You've come very close to losing your best friend, but she stayed and you get to keep loving her and texting during TV shows that wouldn't be the same without her. Losing someone is the thing that terrifies you more than anything. You will have been through that terror, and survived.

By the time I get to you, I'll probably have lost Mum and Dad. Dear Mum and Dad, who never wanted me to be anything other than what I am. Who never expressed a scrap of disappointment that I wasn't quite what they were told to expect. Who, despite being told not to have any more children because of the risk they'd have my condition, went on to have my two beautiful sisters. I think that's the thing I love them for the most; that they didn't see disaster, when those around them could speak of little else.

By the time I get to you, I'll have written things that change the way people think about disability. I'll have been part of a strong, beautiful, proud movement of disabled people in Australia. I'll have said and written things that pissed people off, disabled and non-disabled people. You will never, ever stop challenging the things you think are unfair.

You will write some fiction, in which the central character is a disabled teenage girl. Because f--- knows that wasn't around when you were growing up and desperately searching for characters you could truly relate to. Somebody might, at some point, call you the crip incarnation of Judy Blume. Who knows?

By the time I get to you, I'll be so proud. The late Laura Hershey once wrote about disability pride, and how hard it is to achieve in a world that teaches us shame. She said, 'You get proud by practicing'. Thanks to my family, my friends, my crip comrades and my community, I'm already really proud. But I promise to keep practicing, every day.

Listen, Stell. I can't tell you for certain that you and I will ever meet. Perhaps that thing I always say flippantly, usually with a third glass of wine in my hand – that I'm here for a good time not a long time – perhaps that's true.

But on my path to reach you, I promise to grab every opportunity with both hands, to say yes as often as I can, to take risks, to scare myself stupid, and to have a shitload of fun.

See you in our hover-chair, lady.

Love, Stell x

I've reread everything I posted in this thread and am at a complete loss as to how you could leap to such an uncharitable interpretation. — ChrisH

To which I ask: How you could leap to such an uncharitable interpretation of Stella's writing?

I'm finding your arguments confusing.

I say again, who has suggested that Stella Young should not be listened to? — ChrisH

You suggested that no one can speak for another on this issue and I ask you, if not Stella than who?

Bittersweet Symphony - The Verve

In my view no one is qualified to speak on behalf of anyone else on this particular subject. — ChrisH

Are you familiar with the poem written by German Lutheran pastor Martin Niemöller (1892–1984). It is about the cowardice of German intellectuals following the Nazis' rise to power and subsequent purging of their chosen targets, group after group. There are many versions of this poem but best I can tell this is the original and will answer the question

"Who is making the argument that anyone (or any group of people) should not be listened to?"

First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Socialist.

Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.

It isn't about being listened to or not but rather the collective voice we could all have if we had the wisdom of going through something we might never have to. In other words, let us listen to the perspective of someone in Stella's position and make life with dignity something to strive for, regardless of it's direct impact on us as individuals.

Like Banno I am an advocate for Euthanasia.

Who here has argued that those people's beliefs/wishes should ever be ignored? — ChrisH

I did give consideration to the opinions presented in the article, I just found those opinions utterly unpersuasive. — ChrisH

Just to be clear I didn't use the word "ignore" you did. I simply asked you to provide me with one name, of someone more qualified to speak about the perspective of the importance of living life with dignity than Stella and you failed to provide one.

The greatest indignity most of us will ever encounter in our lives is found in those days/months/years approaching our death. — ChrisH

Yes but some people believe that their lives, regardless of your sense of dignity, are worth living regardless of your standards that you defined. Not all people are fortunate enough to only deal with the topic of living with dignity, in the 11th hour of their lives, for some it is something they live with their entire lives.

She is undoubtedly the foremost expert on what it means to live with adversity for Stella Young. This gives her absolutely no authority to speak for others. — ChrisH

Give me one name that has more authority to speak for others with disabilities

Strange. I had completely the opposite reaction to the Stella Young article. — ChrisH

What was your "opposite reaction" to my being compelled by reading the article?
Were you bored? Was it a perspective not worth considering?
Who would know better about living with a disability, what the mind and body go through when someone like you, says something like that, than Stella?
She didn't just write about some abstract idea that has never been encountered by loved ones before her. Stella wrote from her perspective and it was likely something that had often been whispered behind her back and others who might not look like you or ,I or anyone that has been blessed with good health and genes. It is hard to phantom a 'thinker', who by simple omission of another persons 'free will' to live, has the audacity to look down upon or patronize someone who has overcome more than most of us will in our lifetime.

Compelling article Banno.

Make friends with people who are not afraid to tell you that you are wrong, not people who will agree with you tooth and nail. Do not project your own faults and problems onto these people when they expose to you that you are wrong and claim that it is them doing what you are actually doing. — TimeLine

Excellent advice

Yes, Philosophy is something special to me, for it has taught me how to approach an idea, one I am comfortable with and those I am not. Postmodern Beatnik taught me a lesson about Philosophy that made all the difference in my life. His lesson was that any piece of information has neither a "good" or "bad" connotation assigned to it when you first see/read it. It is you that assigns the emotion to it. That was HUGE as I was able to put in a 'stop gap' of thought for me to pause and remember what he said and THEN assign a judgement if I still felt the need to do so. Very few people can show you the power within yourself but a good Philosopher can tease it out. (L)

Aristotle would have been banned, — Wosret

Never in a million years do I want to read the words I just read from you Wosret, never, ever. But I cannot unread it so I will offer up my genuine, absolute desire for you to remain here within our family of 'thinkers'.

What I can gather is that you are much like me in that you let the little things go and never even bring them up, firstly because it may not be worth it or secondly you know it would have a direct effect on one or two people on the moderation team. For example: When the word 'cunt' was considered lame but okay to use on the threads, I just watched to see what would happen, instead of flagging it. The word was not immediately censored but I have noticed that a few time since it has been censored. Is it a word that others toss around casually? Maybe in other countries but not mine and that is the rub. We all have to collectively come to an agreement as to what standards we want to meet and for others to see when they approach our forum. You know as well as I do that our family of 'thinkers' is a group of misfits sure but we are loving and we don't always know how something we say or do will affect another.

Leaving this site doesn't just flip the bird to the management but it hurts some of us others on a deeper level, like me. The last time I talked about souls was on the old forum and the poll I attached to it was the HIGHEST attended poll in PF and that was if they existed or not. The only real believer was Mars Man and we had some really in depth conversations about it. Now? He is the only one who really knows and I don't have the luxury of asking him about it one more time. You? I hope to have around to ask questions of until you know if souls exist as well.

One thought before I close and that is something that our dear friend 'sheps' always noted me for saying and that is to accept and satisfy Aristotle's Challenge on Anger; Aristotle said that to become angry is easy~ But to be angry at the right person, at the right time, to the right degree for the right reason, that is not so easy.

So I ask for your forgiveness for any words that might have hurt your heart and soul~ (L)
Tiffers

So, if I were caught with this stereo and the police took it away from me, you wouldn't support that? Assume that the person I had taken it from has died and it can't be returned to its original owner. — czahar

The police would take it away from you, if you took it from someone else but how would they know if you stole it from someone if that person is dead?

I moved around the world. I was born in Tehran and am living in Tehran right now. — bahman

It is interesting to take in views from around the world here in the forum, it takes a degree of vulnerability but the pay off is invaluable. (L)

I am from Iran. How about you? — bahman

Chicago born and raised. Living in the Desert Southwest now. Where are you living now?

Modest proposal:

Limit the amount of inheritance outside of spouse to a maximum, say $1 million dollars for entire estate. — Cavacava

Ack! I almost lost my coffee reading your post Cavacava!
If MY choice is to work my entire life, to leave my family set on finances, who the f*#& are you to decide that outside of my spouse, my children will only be entitled to $1 million dollars of my PERSONAL estate, that might be worth well over $20 million? Who is the recipient of the remaining money?

What motivation would there be for me to work that hard in life, pay taxes on that work in life, pay property taxes for the land I own and run my ranch on, which the government will be happy to tax me on while I am living, only to have it taken from me upon my death?
Talk to me about the motivation to work hard enough to employ others, only to have the government take away their very jobs, when I as their employer dies and my estate is decimated.
I am listening....

I am dealing with Devils and Angles too. :D — bahman

I can usually get mine to play nicely but I have my moments. Where are you from?

For example, if someone acquires his possessions by immoral means, it is not wrong to take them from him using immoral means. If I knowingly bought a stolen stereo or bought a stereo with money that I knew was stolen, it would not be immoral for someone to steal that stereo from me. I think most of us can agree with that. — czahar

I cannot agree with that at all. Regardless of how YOU obtain a stereo, it does not in any way give permission to another person to steal anything from anyone, including YOU and your stereo. If I were looking to buy a stereo and you were selling one, the onus is on you as to any kind of 'Karmic' settlement for good or evil, not me, the unknowing obtainer of your stereo.

Nope. I am all female 8-) Most folks know me as super nice but I'll let you in on a secret, just between you and me, okay? When I get up in the morning the Devil himself asks: Is that bitch awake already?
It is a pleasure to meet you~ :D

lololol Love it!