sexual misconduct

Intended for constructive conversations. Exhibits of polarizing tribalism will be deleted.
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7Wannabe5
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Re: sexual misconduct

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

Riggerjack wrote:If we net off a section of the beach to make a safe zone, relatively free of sharks, swimmers will congregate in the center, and along the nets, according to their risk tolerance/appeal. This current scandal is about "where to draw the line". Which translates to where to put the nets in my analogy. Where the nets are hardly matters. Wherever they are, there will be a congregation of swimmers in the center, and then there will be the ones who can only find their thrills just inside, just outside, or literally on top of the net, opening up an avenue for sharks. This is just human nature.
Yes, but we are talking about humans and humans, not humans and sharks. There are species in which some of the females will transform into a male when there is a shortage of males in the population. According to systems theory, as evidenced by the likely eventual collapse of anything the conservative mass in the middle regards as likely to be safe harbor or investment, human beings are highly adaptable omnivores that will feed on anything that has grown fat and lazy under sheltered skies, as well as the naive,weak and the reckless. If you don't believe me, just go ask any of the 30 million* dead buffalo.

OTOH, I think what is becoming obvious from what you wrote, and the course of this discussion in general, is that we need to have (at least) Rape1 and Rape2 flows on our systems diagram. For instance, the way J.Bozo (I can't even type his real name because he is so powerful he might strike me dead from his realm far, far above the cloud storage of the internet) recently "raped" me by not honoring contract to pay proceeds from liquidation of my rare book inventory within time frame clearly designated would be in category of "Rape2" along with all the other powerful celebrity and politician and other people who think they are beyond touch or reproach "rapes." The "Rape1" flow would be all the stupid bandit rapes and "rapes" committed by individuals who don't have enough to lose to worry about risk. Obviously, actual violent rape would rarely be committed by category 2 "rapists" because they are not so besotted with the oxygen-high of their own power structure to think they can get away with that sort of thing without severe penalty.

@jacob:

No need to fret or apologize. Quite obvious this is a forum conducted in the quadrant of adult "masculine" energy. Goes along with the topic. According to old school wisdom, "conservation of resources" is the provenance of the adult masculine. Freedom is the provenance of the juvenile masculine. That's why in old-fashioned setting romantic novels females have to bind their breasts and disguise themselves in male clothing if they want to go off on an adventure. I hope nobody takes this in the wrong way, I mean it as compliment, but prior to reading some of the posts in this thread where some of the INTJ female forum members somewhat described what they really look like, I was picturing them all looking like some variation on Miss Fisher from the Miss Fisher mysteries or Amelia Earhart.



*True number. Saddening.

CS
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Re: sexual misconduct

Post by CS »

@7wannabe5

The thing with the buffalo, yes, makes me want to banish people from existence.

I agree with you on the social costs. There are benefits to living in a society, verses living alone in the woods. One of the benefits is that women may talk to you, or even more. The flip side of benefits is responsibilities. One responsibility is to stand up to bullies, and unfairnesses. I personally would banish any person (but especially males) from my life who would see a woman (edit: anybody. Women just tend to be the socially accepted target) being abused and do nothing about it. Someone on this thread mentioned 'no one talks about rape'. They actually implied there were no rapes, which may or may not be true... what is true is that no one talks about it, probably on the off chance some other person will have the courage to say something/do something about it.

You clearly have more patience than I. At some point, dealing with this thread was a black hole, especially when the social conditioning is so strong that you are doing an uphill battle not only against the male perspective, but the women too (especially older women). I read somewhere that Millennial women are fronting this new battle. I believe it.

rref
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Re: sexual misconduct

Post by rref »

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Last edited by rref on Sat Nov 25, 2017 2:20 pm, edited 1 time in total.

ZAFCorrection
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Re: sexual misconduct

Post by ZAFCorrection »

@rref:

Fortunately, I think talking is a large component of the solution.

Also, I am confused about the implied negativity surrounding moralizing. Using an only slightly loose definition, it is one of the primary activities of this community. The fact that it is so successfully done is why I come here.

7Wannabe5
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Re: sexual misconduct

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

@CS:

My very own baby doll DD26 (Millennial) is an XNTJ (tough angel), and since I spent one of my previous lives adjudicating battles between her and my DS29 INTP (my own dear little wired-monkey boy, but bit of stoic-style shithead at times), this is not entirely new territory for me.

So, I am going to say to you what I would say to her which is that if you set your personal barriers so high, forward and rigid that they don't allow for the reality of the imperfection of other humans, you will find yourself continuously disappointed and ultimately alone. OTOH, I would definitely caution her not to err on the side of mimicking her mother either :lol: The ideal is construction of strong, yet flexible boundaries, as close as possible to the fine line of self-aware self-care. IOW, don't expect anybody else to be able to help/take care of you until/unless you are doing everything you possibly can to take the very best possible care of yourself. And/or with a different MBTI daughter, I might repeat what my own Rosie-The-Riveter-Hot-Little-Number of an ESTP grandmother said to me when she found me leafing through a copy of Playgirl at 14, "Baby, those boys, they are alright (laughing), but you take care of you."

Campitor
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Re: sexual misconduct

Post by Campitor »

I've been following this thread closely. Women being abused is somewhat personal for me. I grew up in an extended family where my female relatives outnumbered my male relatives almost 3 to 1. I frequently witnessed the cat calling, the attempted groping, the intimidation that my female relatives endured. Harassment hits especially hard when it's your mother or sister. As I grew older and became stronger, I took on the mantle of Mr Woodshed. I had no problem taking guys for a visit and educating them on the fine art of polite interaction. The problem is that no perp goes willingly to the woodshed so the means of coercion have to be very hostile, and in my experience, roughly 10% require physical incentives. It's never pretty and if my recollection doesn't fail me, letting Mr. Woodshed loose seemed to frighten women more than the harassment I was addressing. And sadly a few of my cousins became more risk tolerant when I accompanied them. They engaged in behavior they would have avoided otherwise if I wasn't around.

There is a high toll to being Mr. Woodshed. Once you start getting physical and aggressive consistently, it becomes easier to do . And as you get older, stronger, and better at fighting, the negative repercussions of putting fist to face rises exponentially. I was never under the illusion that I was Jason Bourne or James Bond which infused me with fear while fighting. Fighting enveloped in fear, coupled with righteous indignation, is a corrosive brew that brings out a very dark shadow that inhabits every person; it's a void that is easy to get lost in. Once the fighting and the screaming and pushing were over, I was left feeling drained and recriminated myself a lot for taking things too far. After one particular incident which I don't care to discuss, I vowed to bury Mr. Woodshed and focused instead on conflict avoidance/resolution. I'm a lot happier for it. So when you ask someone to be Mr. Woodshed, please be aware that you may be opening a door where everyone loses.

@7 and the other women of this thread. I feel for you all - I truly do. It makes me sad and angry when I hear about the evil you endured or the harassment you endured with no means of remediation or any recompense. Most men are good men but don't know what to do when things turn ugly - most men don't know how to be efficient or effective with their violence or how to deescalate a confrontation. So the cost of white-knighting, a.k.a becoming Mr. Woodshed, can come with a very high cost to themselves, the person they are protecting, or the guy lying on the ground who can now sue you or press charges - especially if you issued a call to action: "he groped me - kick his ass!"

I agree that we are humans and not sharks. But make no mistake, we all come with an internal program that houses that shark subroutine. Humans have been killing each other since the beginning of time. Most of humanity has equipped better subroutines and don't engage in that behavior. But there will always be some men, and women, who prefer being a shark to being human.

I hope women continue to put the spotlight on people like Weinstein and make them pay in court for what they did and most likely continue to do. And in my opinion, any company that requires a contract that stipulates an escalating cost to sexual abuse should lose their operating licence. Miramax was complicit in creating an atmosphere that allowed Weinstein to rape women - they should pay too. Companies will stop tolerating this behavior when it hits them in the pocketbook directly and consistently.

Riggerjack
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Re: sexual misconduct

Post by Riggerjack »

. And in my opinion, any company that requires a contract that stipulates an escalating cost to sexual abuse should lose their operating licence.
Wait. What?

Campitor
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Re: sexual misconduct

Post by Campitor »

Riggerjack wrote:
Sat Nov 18, 2017 7:05 pm
. And in my opinion, any company that requires a contract that stipulates an escalating cost to sexual abuse should lose their operating licence.
Wait. What?
https://www.theatlantic.com/business/ar ... es/542838/

The Weinstein Company’s board has said that the allegations of sexual assault and harassment came as “an utter surprise” to its directors. “Any suggestion that the Board had knowledge of this conduct is false,” the board said in a statement late Tuesday. That statement was attributed to the board’s four remaining directors: Bob Weinstein, Lance Maerov, Richard Koenigsberg, and Tarak Ben Ammar. Four other directors have stepped down already: the film executive Tim Sarnoff, the publishing heir Dirk Ziff, and the hedge-fund managers Paul Tudor Jones and Marc Lasry.

Just hours after the board professed ignorance, however, The New York Times reported that according to Weinstein’s onetime lawyer, the directors were informed of at least three confidential settlements with women. One of the remaining board members, Maerov, told the Times that he knew about multiple settlements but had thought they were being used to conceal consensual affairs. The Times also reported that an outside attorney reviewed Weinstein’s personnel file in 2015, and that the board renewed Weinstein’s contract after the attorney assured the directors that there were no pending claims against him.

Neither Weinstein nor the company has disclosed the terms of his contract, but the website TMZ reported on Thursday that the contract explicitly addressed the possibility of future misconduct claims against the producer. According to TMZ, Weinstein promised to reimburse the company for any settlements or judgments arising out of his misconduct and to make an additional payment to the company for each instance. The contract also added that the company would not fire Weinstein for misconduct as long as he made the requisite payments, according to the TMZ report.

These revelations—if true—suggest that former and current members of the Weinstein Company’s board could find themselves in legal jeopardy—either for failing to respond to warning signs of Weinstein’s misconduct or for consciously allowing his behavior to continue.

BRUTE
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Re: sexual misconduct

Post by BRUTE »

wow

saving-10-years
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Re: sexual misconduct

Post by saving-10-years »

@Campitor, Its great to shine a bright light on these practices and make life more difficult for those that knowingly shield predators. The light shone on non-disclosure's is also good thing (part of the fall out from this) e.g. http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-enter ... 16716.html. 19 years ago (when this happened) the climate was very different for making these allegations stick, so I understand from this woman's account why an NDA was the best option for her. Maybe she could have acted as a 'white knight'/whistleblower? But would this have had any impact at that time? Realistically I think not. The consequences to the whistle blower would have been more extreme than they are today - which is why people who did not speak then are now. Interesting that 1998 was also the year that the Monica Lewinsky scandal broke.

@riggerjack I have found your posts here really interesting. Helping me understand things about myself -particularly in terms of seeking a quiet life nowadays. Thanks.

@cs not sure whether you have any older women friends?
social conditioning is so strong that you are doing an uphill battle not only against the male perspective, but the women too (especially older women).


You might find you learn a lot about their perspective if you talk to them. Not here but IRL. My female friendship group ranges from 30s to 80s. The experiences of these older women and their perspectives are quite eye-opening.

@7w5 re, your Amelia Earhart comment. I would have loved to look like that. It would have matched the inner tom boy. I was more The Sun Page 3 girl* but with specs, unisex clothing and no makeup.

* In my day in my working class environment this was a compliment. As was the assumption you would have no problems finding a guy to marry and support you. The Benny Hill years ... (so glad these are gone).

7Wannabe5
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Re: sexual misconduct

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

@Campitor:

I hear you on the downside of taking on that role to the umpteenth degree. My "ex" was very big for an Iranian male of his generation, and he was also a very good student, so he was assigned the duty of hall bouncer in the very crowded, rowdy (stuff worse than "swishies" happened) affluent prep school for boys he attended in Tehran. So, he was "good cop" with assignment to bust heads as necessary at a very young age with full backing of those in authority, and this definitely had a downside for him as he went through life afterwards.

I think human behavior is generally a combination of innate personality temperament/structure (MBTI), structural/hormonal difference due to gender, culture, and personal experience, roughly in that order with personal experience trumping culture at some point in course of life. So, my DD26, who has roughly the same personality type as my "ex", at the age of 6 always checked to make sure that all the other girls in her ballet class had their feet in the right position, was on the conflict-resolution team of every school she attended, and I personally witnessed her verbally shredding some male members of her Competitive Choral Ensemble for goofing off when they should have been chanting something in Latin. Her boyfriend is a very easy-going amiable fellow, so I was a bit worried about whether they were a good match until I heard him growl on the occasion my sister gifted my daughter with a hand-me-down leather bustier.

Also, every personality type breaks down and starts to dysfunction in its own unique way in stressful situations.

@saving-10-years:

Had to look up your reference, but "Oh dear, my dear, you certainly must have had difficulties with ooglers" is what I am now thinking-lol. I am tall and quite curvy myself, but somewhat more bottom heavy, so the first cat-call I remember hearing was the classic "Hey baby, you got any fries to go with that shake?" which I modified in the alternate universe bit I wrote on this thread. One of the problems with being curvy is that there is also a cultural stereotype that makes it difficult to look "classy" or "elegant" if you have "too many" muffins in your bags. I have to constantly remind myself that spending money on more expensive clothing made of rigid materials loosely cut is a worthwhile investment. There are very few public venues where I would choose to wear something like a tight stretchy red t-shirt, but sometimes I might neglect to notice that the 10 lbs I recently put on has rendered my somewhat stretchy denim capris equally likely to attract ooglers, or the thrift store blouse I threw on with some sweat pants for a quick trip to the grocery store is about to pop a critical button. The need for constant vigilance is annoying.

TimeTravel
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Re: sexual misconduct

Post by TimeTravel »

Add news icon Charlie Rose to the mix of those accused.

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C40
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Re: sexual misconduct

Post by C40 »

Did we already talk about George Bush senior?

Now 3 out of our last 4 presidents have (at least alleged) bad sexual behavior. Whoa. Plus we've got Joe Biden looking like a total creep in countless pictures.

Who would've thought George Bush Junior would be best example of ethical behavior out of that group? (at least through this lens)

BRUTE
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Re: sexual misconduct

Post by BRUTE »

Obama was accused too?

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C40
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Re: sexual misconduct

Post by C40 »

errr, I totally forgot about him. *Smacks forehead*. So, 3/5. And scratch my last sentence in the post above.

CS
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Re: sexual misconduct

Post by CS »

@7w5
Ironically, in the past 18 months, I have spoken out more and found a great group of like minded women who tolerate no shit. It is amazing. I feel like I can breath freely for the first time in my life. It took a lot of getting piled on for my vocalness before someone reached out and pulled me into that group. If I had *not* been willing to fight the fight, then I would not have discovered (been discovered by) this whole other world. So as far as being alone, no, I am not. I have shed a lot of truly unworthy people and found pure gold instead.

If I was going to give advice (and generally I don't in order to avoid being offensive), it would be - Have some courage and amazing things will happen. There are a lot worse things that could happen than being alone, such as tolerating abuse under the guise of 'imperfections.' The female peer pressure to knuckle under 'to get along' is just as toxic as any male abuse. I don't put up with it - and life is much better for it.


@Campitor
I hear you about the sharks! I appreciate your thinking like that. Even in topics I am personally involved in, I still cannot help sometimes thinking impassively about the big picture - something that can be mistaken by others for uncaring. I do care personally. I also wonder how it all fits into 'how things work' and the future of humanity (or not) in the timeline of the Universe. The Neanderthals are dead and humans are alive. I read somewhere (I really need to start keeping detailed reading notes) that the Neanderthals were gentle and humans are, well, human, which means generally aggressive and play to win. I mean, we have whole civilizations that hid in caves so other civilizations wouldn't be able to get to them and eat them (yes, they can tell through proteins who eats other people). Will only the brutal survive, and the gentle be slaughtered? Is the effectiveness of the current push against these predator men lie in the fact that it *is* being so brutal? Ratner is pretty much done in Hollywood, along with Weinstein, and people are making it clear these fools need to be gone. No more 'go along to get along'. Is it just that power structure has shifted? Now people like Gal Godot are flexing their economic might and smashing the offenders, i.e. they are speaking the language of aggression. Does this resonate with others and now it is safe to be on the winning side? I cynically say yes, humans like to be safe and on the winning side. It only takes a few outspoken people to change the whole course of history due how many are not willing to be those outspoken people (see my comment in the paragraphs above!).

On a similar note, but more back towards the personal, I thinking shunning is an effective tool to reduce socially undesirable behavior. Social disapproval is effective, and comes without the downsides of Mr. Woodshed. A few well spoken words and a turned back can be more hurtful than any punch.

@C40
I don't know where people get the idea that Biden is some nice old Grandpa. Every time I hear people fronting him as a candidate, I speak up, and pronto, to shut that down. The short hand version that works with the women most like me is "Anita Hill". Slightly more words are needed for others.

Tyler9000
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Re: sexual misconduct

Post by Tyler9000 »

I'll just leave this here:

https://www.buzzfeed.com/paulmcleod/she ... .vcRojokm7

This is wrong on so many levels. Beyond the behavior of Conyers, the system that Congress has established to silence victims and protect abusive politicians is truly mind boggling.

Riggerjack
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Re: sexual misconduct

Post by Riggerjack »

This is wrong on so many levels. Beyond the behavior of Conyers, the system that Congress has established to silence victims and protect abusive politicians is truly mind boggling.
It is. But, unlike the simplistic moral tale you linked to, this isn't as simple as it seems. The repeated lament in the article was that the confidenciality of the process fails to raise flags to warn others.

True. But this process was worked out by lawyers specifically for the purpose of ending employment, without attaching blame or fault to either party. This was to speed up the process, and to protect the accuser. If she ended her term of employment with a NDA, there's no stigma attached to her record.

Yes, this is handy to the abusive people attracted to the power of political power, but it is also handy for those trying to get out. No need to throw the baby out with the bathwater because a reporter finds the whole arrangement difficult for his purposes.

To be clear, I am not defending anyone, and think this sort of thing is typical of Washington DC. like Hollywood, this is a place known for this kind of abuse.

I'm just pointing out that NDAs and confidentiality work both ways, they aren't simply shields for the powerful, as the article implies.

7Wannabe5
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Re: sexual misconduct

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

Parents should also shift the ways they teach girls to protect themselves. When we’re young, many of us were told to tell Mom and Dad if anyone ever touched us in a way that felt icky; as we grow up, we are armed with pepper spray and rape whistles, with instructions to always carry cab fare, not leave our drinks unattended at a bar, that no should mean no.

This is an understandable impulse, and some of the advice is good. But what girls don’t learn is how to be the solo aviators of their own perfect, powerful bodies — to happily inhabit their own skin instead of seeing their physical selves as objects to be assessed and hopefully affirmed by others; to feel entitled to sex they actively desire themselves, instead of positioned to either accept or reject men’s advances. Nor are we allowed full expressions of rage or other unfeminine emotions when we are mistreated. No wonder we try to politely excuse ourselves from predatory men instead of responding with the ire that predation merits.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/24/opin ... ender.html

@CS:

I apologize for coming off more than a bit too Mumsy in previous post. What I have been trying to emphasize is what I made bold in the excerpt above. I think what you have been trying to emphasize, correct me if I am wrong, is what I put in italics in the excerpt above. I agree with the italicized, except to the extent that it is de facto inclusive of an authority figure due to the choice of the word "allowed." I would rewrite it as "Nor do we always allow ourselves.." It's not being a vigilante if you personally verbally tear a man a new poop-exit if/when he is being an overt jackass in your direction. When I was second girl to enter puberty in the 5th grade, one of the jokers in my class started a campaign to harass me and amuse his peers with a commentary on the likely shade of my pubic hair based on the wisps under my arms. I suffered under his torment for a few days, and then I wrote a mean-spirited limerick about him and shouted it in front of everyone on the playground.

Anyways, I've never been particularly good at being "good", except to the extent that I caution myself not to behave like my own bi-polar rage-tending mother who self-describes as Polish Warrior Woman. On the rare occasion I lose my temper with another individual in the company of my mother, she congratulates me for being a chip off the old block. My father who was a very involved, very supportive parent was much more the kind, reliable, rule-of-law type. As a child, I witness a fight between my parents in which my mother shouted something like "Ha, ha, ha...I know you will never hit me because I am a woman." and my father drily replied "No. I would never hit you, because I know you would stab me to death while I was sleeping if I did." So, that is why I tend towards hesitating before allowing myself full expression of rage. I don't see it as masculine/feminine dichotomy, but more crazy-savage/sane-civilized dichotomy.

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jennypenny
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Re: sexual misconduct

Post by jennypenny »

@7&CS--A family member's PhD research was tangentially related to this. She found that girls who played sports during adolescence were much more likely to avoid alcohol, drugs, unwanted pregnancies, abuse, eating disorders, etc. They saw their bodies as useful beyond attracting a mate and were much more focused on health and performance than appearance and social acceptance (including submitting as is so often the case). Funny, the same affect isn't as profound if girls pursue academic interests. Academic achievement helps, but not nearly as much as playing sports. I've always wondered if the effect is from the rough and tumble nature of sports, the feeling of strength that comes from many sports, the boost to testosterone levels, or simply the desire to care for your body when you rely on its athletic performance regularly.

I read that there were a record number of gun background checks on Friday. I'm curious if there was a spike in the number of women buying guns. If I can't find the answer by tomorrow, I'll contact the FBI NPO to see if they'll tell me.

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