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What do we do with men and sexual misconduct, socially

Captain Adverse said:
I believe that I am looking at it more honestly than you have...as clearly indicated in the bolded part of this response.

You blame men more. So I am right on the money with my responses. :shrug:
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I said men are the more frequent perpetrators of this kind of violation. Because they factually are. Sorry, but that's the truth.

I said nothing about men being beasts. In fact, I'm pretty sure I actively said the opposite several times. And I believe I also said at least twice that the main reason women display this less often is because they are trained to be non-assertive, not because they don't have the exact same fundamental misunderstanding of consent.

This is all about you and your ego.
 
SmokeAndMirrors said:
Yes.

All of those things.

I mean, it's really complex. Where do we start? We can start at the obvious sutff, like "no is a yes in disguise" -- a thing some men say in total seriousness. They just need "convincing" that this is what they want. Consent is thought of as lack of persistant resistance, not desire.

But then we get into the deep stuff. For example, it is socially unacceptable for adult men to have any emotional or physical intimacy with anyone except a woman they are sexually or romantically involved with. Think about it for a second. It's true. It's barely acceptable for men to even hug their children. As someone raised by a single father, I saw his completely reasonable fear, given that everyone basically assumes single dads are creeps.

What affect does it have on men to be so universally denied intimacy?

It's not just the obvious stuff, like overt statements that degrade the meaning of consent. It's also the strain we put men under with things like stoicism and touch avesion. Both of those need addressing.

Who enforces it? To some degree, everyone. Mostly it is other men. It is other men who accept it as no big deal when talking about "no means yes." But it's something all of us participate in to some degree. Mothers leave their infant boys to cry for longer than their infant girls, for example.

It's about the ideal we have for men -- to be unemotional, both in the context of their relationship to themselves, and to others.
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You’ve really got me thinking here. Do you think we may be genetically hardwired as women to say no demurely when we mean yes? And guys hardwired to be persistent? I’m reminded of the animal kingdom in general. Many mating rituals in the animal kingdom happen without wining and dining. ;) Brute force! And, of course, we are animals. Knowing that the desire to copulate, at least in males, is most CERTAINLY hardwired... meant to take over even in extreme famine and drought, whatever. Isnt it possible it’s all natural instinct?
 
apdst said:
I think the problem lies with females working in a male environment wanting to be treated like "one of the guys". Sooner, or later someone is going to cross a line (a very undefined line) and she isn't going to be treated like one of the guys anymore and file a complaint. When that happens, the male won't be able to use the dedense that he was treating her just like one of the guys, because he'll be reminded by management that is not one of the guys.
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I don’t mean to be flip, but do guys pinch each others’ butts and invade another’s personal space? ;)
 
SmokeAndMirrors said:
I said men are the more frequent perpetrators of this kind of violation. Because they factually are. Sorry, but that's the truth.

I said nothing about men being beasts. In fact, I'm pretty sure I actively said the opposite several times. And I believe I also said at least twice that the main reason women display this less often is because they are trained to be non-assertive, not because they don't have the exact same fundamental misunderstanding of consent.

This is all about you and your ego.
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Again with the personal attacks? :doh

Who's ego is being asserted here so far? (Pot calling kettle black much?)

The evidence for your allegation that men are more likely perpetrators is based on standard statistics...except that men seldom report female abuse.

It is considered "unmanly" by both sexes, whereas females reporting is encouraged by women and accepted as a given by men trained from childhood to believe they are sexual cavemen.

IMO if men felt as socially empowered as women to report female abuses, I venture to suggest the numbers would be much more equal. :coffeepap:
 
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MaggieD said:
You’ve really got me thinking here. Do you think we may be genetically hardwired as women to say no demurely when we mean yes? And guys hardwired to be persistent? I’m reminded of the animal kingdom in general. Many mating rituals in the animal kingdom happen without wining and dining. ;) Brute force! And, of course, we are animals. Knowing that the desire to copulate, at least in males, is most CERTAINLY hardwired... meant to take over even in extreme famine and drought, whatever. Isnt it possible it’s all natural instinct?
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I really don't believe that, when I look at the whole of human anthropology. We have societies where women are sexual aggressors, for example.

Brute force is not really a logical conclusion for humans. Women are less likely to ovulate, or even want sex, when frightened or stressed. Men have a long history of courting through means of display rather than force (and not always displaying in violent ways -- in some societies, women hunt, and men gather honey as a display, because the honey requires climbing a big thin tree and braving the bees!)

It also makes no sense under environmental stress. Humans tend to prefer females under survival stress. They have more body fat, and lower resource requirments, and are therefore more likely to survive.

All species are different. This meme of forceful nature, male aggressing female, doesn't stand up either to scrutiny of humans, or other animals. I mean, in some species, the female beheads the male as soon as she's done mating with him. In some species, males care for young, and partner for life.

Nature is complex, and all species are different.

But humans, more than any other species on earth, are programmable. And we have to be, because our mechanism of survival is cooperation and adaptability to many different situations. We HAVE to be programmed to learn, rather than programmed to simply act, because that is how we survive. That's why our childhoods are so long -- so we have time to learn everything we need. And what we need is different as a tribe in Alaska, versus a city dweller in New York.
 
Captain Adverse said:
Again with the personal attacks? :doh

Who's ego is being asserted here so far? (Pot calling kettle black much?)

The evidence for your allegation that men are more likely perpetrators is based on standard statistics...except that men seldom report female abuse.

It is considered "unmanly" by both sexes, whereas females reporting is encouraged by women and accepted as a given by men trained from childhood to believe they are beasts.

IMO if men felt as socially empowered as women to report female abuses, I venture to suggest the numbers would be much more equal. :coffeepap:
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True. We are just beginning to get some reasonably good studies about the abuse by women, coming from survey results (since as you say, men are unlikely to officially report).

Even in these instances, however, women are much, much less likely to be sexual violators.

When women abuse, it is usually psychologically, socially, and outright violence. Sexual predation is uniquely uncommon.

The reason it is uniquely uncommon is in what I said in my OP: women are trained, specifically regarding sex, to be non-assertive.

They don't receive as much of that training regarding other forms of interaction. Women are often given absolutely no tools at all to deal with anger and rage, which is why their statistics for commiting emotional and physical violence are higher. I have talked about this extensively in the past, and that I personally believe overall rates of all forms of abuse in total are probably equal between men and women.

But that is not the case with the particular issue of sexual violence. With regards to sexual violence specifically, most male victims are still victimized by other men.
 
SmokeAndMirrors said:
I really don't believe that, when I look at the whole of human anthropology. We have societies where women are sexual aggressors, for example.

Brute force is not really a logical conclusion for humans. Women are less likely to ovulate, or even want sex, when frightened or stressed. Men have a long history of courting through means of display rather than force (and not always displaying in violent ways -- in some societies, women hunt, and men gather honey as a display, because the honey requires climbing a big thin tree and braving the bees!)

It also makes no sense under environmental stress. Humans tend to prefer females under survival stress. They have more body fat, and lower resource requirments, and are therefore more likely to survive.

All species are different. This meme of forceful nature, male aggressing female, doesn't stand up either to scrutiny of humans, or other animals. I mean, in some species, the female beheads the male as soon as she's done mating with him. In some species, males care for young, and partner for life.

Nature is complex, and all species are different.

But humans, more than any other species on earth, are programmable. And we have to be, because our mechanism of survival is cooperation and adaptability to many different situations. We HAVE to be programmed to learn, rather than programmed to simply act, because that is how we survive. That's why our childhoods are so long -- so we have time to learn everything we need. And what we need is different as a tribe in Alaska, versus a city dweller in New York.
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Perhaps it’s as simple as training our children, especially our girls. Dr. dean Edelman was an MD radio host. I will always remember this terribly paraphrased quote of his..,

“If women required men to walk around the block three times in a handstand before having sex, you have NO idea how many upside-down men you’d see in the neighborhood.”

Perhaps women are more repressed in our society than we believe. I’d evidence that by pointing out the absolutely TERRIBLE choice of men far too many women make to father their children.
 
KevinKohler said:
Really? Never seen the coach slap one of his players butts?
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I’ve never seen it at Baxter Labs...

The locker room and during sports play. It is NOT sexual contact and only done to close friends or team mates on the field or in locker room.
 
SmokeAndMirrors said:
True. We are just beginning to get some reasonably good studies about the abuse by women, coming from survey results (since as you say, men are unlikely to officially report).

Even in these instances, however, women are much, much less likely to be sexual violators.

When women abuse, it is usually psychologically, socially, and outright violence. Sexual predation is uniquely uncommon.
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IMO that's also because of the difference between how men and women view sex in general.

Males are more easily aroused, and their arousal is self-evident.

Many older women find young men "appealing," and based on current examples of what constitutes sexual assault, I can recall at least three instances in my pre-teen years where older females "examined me" in ways we would now qualify as such assualt...and that's just off the top of my head. That's not even discussing how many times I've been groped, kissed, butt-pinched/grabbed, etc. at clubs, parties, etc. by females as an adult.

Better examples would be those few we see of female teacher's engaging in sex with their school students. The boys don't consider it "assault" or "abuse," and seldom report it. Usually it arises from bragging to peers...or if the teacher gets pregnant or too public about the relationship.

I personally had one female teacher who did some "inappropriate touching" when I was in middle school. I was happy to be there at the time. :shrug:

Soooo, I wouldn't count on that idea that women are truly "uniquely uncommon" in such practices, as just with men, boy's are less likely to report. :coffeepap:
 
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There is a difference between harasment and making a pass, the lines seem to be getting very blurry. Though at work, you should not be making passes to fellow emoloyees.
 
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MaggieD said:
Perhaps it’s as simple as training our children, especially our girls. Dr. dean Edelman was an MD radio host. I will always remember this terribly paraphrased quote of his..,

“If women required men to walk around the block three times in a handstand before having sex, you have NO idea how many upside-down men you’d see in the neighborhood.”

Perhaps women are more repressed in our society than we believe. I’d evidence that by pointing out the absolutely TERRIBLE choice of men far too many women make to father their children.
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I think we need to train both differently. Both need to be trained that consent means desire and agreement, not just permissiveness or lack of resistance. That idea hurts both sexes in different ways. Like I said in my OP, once you remove a woman's socially trained meakness, you find that she has exactly the same problem understanding consent that a man does. The meakness is merely disguising it, and making her not understand her OWN right to consent. Once it's gone, she doesn't understand OTHER people's right to consent any more than most men do.

We do need to train girls to be more assertive, yes. We also need to train boys that human connection is ok. We need to stop punishing girls for speaking up, and punishing boys for crying.
 
Captain Adverse said:
IMO that's also because of the difference between how men and women view sex in general.

Males are more easily aroused, and their arousal is self-evident.

many older women find young men "appealing," and based on current examples of what constitutes sexual assault, I can recall at least three instances in my pre-teen years where older females "examined me" in ways we would now qualify as such assualt...and that's just off the top of my head.

Better examples would be those few we see of female teacher's engaging in sex with their school students. The boys don't consider it "assault" or "abuse," and seldom report it. Usually it arises from bragging to peers...or if the teacher gets pregnant or too public about the relationship.

I personally had one female teacher who did some "inappropriate touching" when I was in middle school. I was happy to be there at the time. :shrug:

Soooo, I wouldn't count on that idea that women are truly "uniquely uncommon" in such practices, as just with men, boy's are less likely to report. :coffeepap:
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*sigh* Wrong. This cultural meme just won't die, but women experience intense arousal routinely as well.

Anyway, you cut off the rest of my post explaining how and why these statistics are different, so I'm not going to let you waste my time by re-writing it. If all you want to do is sling crap around, bye Felicia.
 
SmokeAndMirrors said:
The statistics I name apply to all accusations filed, and would include cases like what you mention. False reporting is still extremely rare
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If I'm wrong, then I'd like to see that, but IIRC, the way you are using the stat takes both claims that were demonstrated to be true, and claims that were contested and neither side could demonstrate who was correct, and lumping that all under "true claims".

Also, in reality, there is seldom if ever any real "revenge."
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:shrug: money, embarrassment, the kids in a divorce, shame and trouble for the guy... revenge isn't limited to "he does jail time", nor is it always terribly well thought out.

Nor does it have to be revenge. People have lied about sexual assault to protect their reputations, or garner attention for themselves. :shrug: it happens.

people who report still face massive social backlask for doing so, which I have witnessed repeatedly in my own life of watching and supporting more ordinary people. False reporting is simply NOT an issue.
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I don't non-concur at all that backlash is a serious issue, but I think you are underselling a small issue by arguing it is not an issue.

Upon some (agreeably brief) research, I also think your 1% number is incorrect. The range for Sexual Assault seems to be 2-8%. If you look at rape cases that the police later find to be Unfounded, the number is about 8-10% of reported cases. However...

“unfounded” statistics do not capture all false allegations—only cases rejected at the earliest stage (correctly or not) because of what investigators believe to be strong proof that no crime was committed. This does not include cases in which charges are filed but rejected for prosecution (between a quarter and nearly half of all cases), or the relatively small number of prosecutions that end in dismissal or acquittal. Of course not all such cases involve innocent defendants—probably not even most; but surely some do.

A similar pattern can be found in a recent study often cited as evidence of the rarity of false accusations: a 2010 paper by psychologist David Lisak, which examined all 136 sexual assault reports made on a northeastern university campus over a 10-year period. For 19 of these cases, the files did not contain enough information to evaluate the outcome. Of the 117 cases that could be classified, eight—or 6.8 percent—were determined to be false complaints; that conclusion was reached when there was substantial evidence refuting the complainant’s account. But does it mean that 93 percent of the reports that could be evaluated were shown to be truthful? More than 40 percent of the reports evaluated in Lisak’s study (excluding the ones for which there was not enough information to classify them) did result in disciplinary or criminal charges. However, 52 percent were investigated and closed. Lisak told me that the vast majority of these complaints did not proceed due to insufficient evidence, often because the complainant had stopped cooperating with investigators. His paper also mentions another type of complaint that did not proceed: cases in which “the incident did not meet the legal elements of the crime of sexual assault.” Lisak was unable to provide any specifics on these incidents. But, in other known cases, such allegations stem from conflicting definitions of what constitutes rape and consent—particularly in sexual encounters that involve alcohol....

“believe the victim” dogma, and the resistance to seeing false accusations as a real problem, can also create a dangerous environment. It is a climate in which a law mandating an impossibly vague “affirmative consent” standard in campus sexual assault cases can be defended on the grounds that false complaints are a nonissue.​

What I'm talking about is cases that have happened, that these men have even ADMITTED happened, and what we do about the culture where this keeps happening.
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My response would go somewhere along the lines of: "So long as people are not mind readers and come into contact with each other, the fact that different people wish to interact differently will guarantee screwups, and the proper response is for all of us to show respect and grace in equal portions."
 
SmokeAndMirrors said:
*sigh* Wrong. This cultural meme just won't die, but women experience intense arousal routinely as well.

Anyway, you cut off the rest of my post explaining how and why these statistics are different, so I'm not going to let you waste my time by re-writing it. If all you want to do is sling crap around, bye Felicia.
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I ignored your "statistics" because they ignore the fact that the vast majority of female on male sexual assaults go unreported.

I gave you both valid reasons and anecdotal examples. I am certain most of my male peers in this Forum (were they willing) could present similar examples from their own lives.

I've never reported a single act of female "sexual misconduct" in my entire life. The vast majority of men won't, because most of us never considered it "misconduct" worthy of the jeering we would get.

IMO women report it more because of all sorts of social conditioning...especially the conflict between desire and slut-shaming they face on a continuous basis from their female peers.

How many times, I wonder, have simple regrets after discovery and encouragement from female peers turned into reports of rape/assault?

That almost never happens with males (unless it is a male who assaulted them).
 
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cpwill said:
If I'm wrong, then I'd like to see that, but IIRC, the way you are using the stat takes both claims that were demonstrated to be true, and claims that were contested and neither side could demonstrate who was correct, and lumping that all under "true claims".



:shrug: money, embarrassment, the kids in a divorce, shame and trouble for the guy... revenge isn't limited to "he does jail time", nor is it always terribly well thought out.

Nor does it have to be revenge. People have lied about sexual assault to protect their reputations, or garner attention for themselves. :shrug: it happens.



I don't non-concur at all that backlash is a serious issue, but I think you are underselling a small issue by arguing it is not an issue.

Upon some (agreeably brief) research, I also think your 1% number is incorrect. The range for Sexual Assault seems to be 2-8%. If you look at rape cases that the police later find to be Unfounded, the number is about 8-10% of reported cases. However...


My response would go somewhere along the lines of: "So long as people are not mind readers and come into contact with each other, the fact that different people wish to interact differently will guarantee screwups, and the proper response is for all of us to show respect and grace in equal portions."
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Like I said earlier, yes, there are about 10% that lack evidence. Usually this is due to delay. When I give false report statistics, I am giving statistics for those with evidence they are false. In the same way, 90% is the number that have evidence they are true. Somewhere in that gray area are things where we just don't know for sure.

Even if we take the lowest ball estimate, the odds are still massively in favor of an allegation being true.

And like I've said in the past, yes, in a country of 320 million people, it does happen. It even happens routinely. That does not mean it's not rare. It means there's a lot of people in this country.

That is not, nor should it be, what we go on in a court of law. But when I have someone in front of me who said they were abused? Yes, I treat that as true when dealing with THEM. Because delay in offering support increases the odds of long-term psychological damage. Swift support is vital.

It also increases the odds they will REPORT the incident, while there is still evidence it happened or not, so that the courts can make a FAIR ruling.

Where it goes once it's in court is for an impartial jury to decide. But as a person working with victims in triage, I have every good reason to always, always, always offer swift support. It is not only better for them, but also better for the accused, if they are truly innocent.

Screw-ups are guaranteed, yes, but my point is they happen a lot more than they have to due to a weak understanding of what consent IS.

Consent is not lack of resistance. It is either enthusiastic participation, or real communicated agreement (either-or, or both, depending on the circumstance).

I mean, here's something I like to ask people.

Is there not something inherently sexy about someone asking to kiss you for the first time?

Not feminist, not progressive, just, is that not in and of itself, sexy?

I've had that happen a few times. It IS.

And I'm not saying it's always necessary, or that it's "wrong" not to ask. Obviously you can often tell when someone wants to be in contact with you, without words.

But when you're in doubt, if making sure is ****ing hot anyway, and could totally be passed off as just doing something hot... why wouldn't you?
 
SmokeAndMirrors said:
Buckle up, this is gonna be one of my really long double-posts that I occasionally do. Sorry-not-sorry. :mrgreen:



If someone like me, who has spent the entirety of my sentient life staring at this issue, can still have only a semi-decent sense of where my body ends and another's begins, then it's hardly surprising that men who have spent little to no time on this issue would be, on average, even worse. And even worse still when you give them power, or if they grew up in a time where consent mattered even less than it does now.

Bush Sr. and Franken represent the usual "average person" middle road for older men: they didn't see it until it was pointed out to them.

Should that have been necessary? No. But it was. And after decades of being raised around people who think it's ok, it's hardly surprising that they did too.

Here's the thing. K?
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All I can say this problem has been around for centuries and it is built into our culture, movies, books, Stories and all aspect of our culture. On the other side we as a nation are very sexually repressed, they don't teach children how to deal and socialize with the opposite sex....

there also exist this pervasive vagina phobia that if women are giving this power they will and are exploiting it. But you also have to accept some of the blame goes to women not for being victims but for being silent for so long. There are million justified reason why, but if the first women and second women slap the frac of Harvey, would he be so callous to continue to the third or fourth?

But that is entirely different discussion...meanwhile I think we should open the flood gates and let the sleeze be washed away!

Diving Mullah
 
Diving Mullah said:
All I can say this problem has been around for centuries and it is built into our culture, movies, books, Stories and all aspect of our culture. On the other side we as a nation are very sexually repressed, they don't teach children how to deal and socialize with the opposite sex....

there also exist this pervasive vagina phobia that if women are giving this power they will and are exploiting it. But you also have to accept some of the blame goes to women not for being victims but for being silent for so long. There are million justified reason why, but if the first women and second women slap the frac of Harvey, would he be so callous to continue to the third or fourth?

But that is entirely different discussion...meanwhile I think we should open the flood gates and let the sleeze be washed away!

Diving Mullah
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In my opinion, these sleaze balls pick their victims very carefully. Perhaps they are very young... and 20 is young today, IMO. Sometimes they are subordinates. Sometimes shy and retiring. Sometimes troubled. Sexual perverts pick and groom their victims just as surely as does the child molester. Make no mistake.
 
SmokeAndMirrors said:
There are a LOT of men like that. We all know tons of them. They may not be quite as bad because they lack the power that means other people tend to just stay silent, but the underlying structure that could make them that way is there. The underlying structure that means they don't realize they should be stopping when they say stuff like, "When I have sex with her, she just lays there and tunes me out" is there. I bet a lot of you just stopped right now and re-read that sentence. Yeah, that's a consent violation. Don't get defensive on me -- I'm not out to hunt DP's witches, I'm just saying, because it's true. Just sit with it.

And most of these men are not bad men. They are humans who were trained to behave this way. They were trained that consent means permission or lack of resistance, not desire or actual agreement. We were all trained that way. Women too -- for those of us who are assertive enough to ever notice it.

So what do we do with these men?

It's not feasible to foist them all out. They make up a huge chunk of the population.

And frankly, I don't think it's right either. Anyone who's read that old electric shock study knows that even good people can be trained to do bad things. And I think that's what most of these men are. It's not right to train them this way, and then act surprised when that's how they behave.

I've seen these sorts of men have a sudden realization of a consent violation with me, an assertive woman who's not afraid to push. The abject shock and horror that washes over their face as it finally clicks in their brain is sad to watch.

They still did the thing. I don't let that go.

But I do understand why they are that way. And if they'll do the work, I'll be the teacher.

What do we do with decent ment whom we've trained to act indecently? Not politically, not for points, not for glory... for society.
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This is why I firmly believe that it's a horrible idea for any male, this day in age, to make the slightest sexual overture to a woman. At some point that overture, no matter how well intentioned, can be taken as an affront and used as a bludgeon against the guy for any reason that strikes the woman's fancy. If the overture is made at work it can be a career ender. If your self employed it can destroy your business. If your a student it can get you kicked out of school and destroy your prospects for the future.

Something as simple as "I see you got your hair cut. It looks nice" can be turned into a sexual advance by a woman with an agenda or even just a woman in a bad mood. Maybe some guy creeped her out in the elevator but your the one that decided to comment on her hair so all that tension gets taken out on you.

The really scary part is that there's no defense for it. If a woman feels like she's the victim of harassment the guy is toast. The reason the guy is toast is because so many women view guys as predators. Like the OP says, there's "tons of them" and "it's not practical to foist them all out", which, of course, implies that if it were feasible that's exactly what should be done.
 
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