Though it is very eye opening to me. (Not likely so much to women.)

END OF MESSAGE

END OF MESSAGE

excellent..Great words to live by...and to Teach Our Children.

This is a tiresome rant that attempts to blame men collectively for the actions of an individual man.  Any man knows that rape and related crimes are wrong, we lock up the ones who commit them.  

Do you want to know how insulting the this is?  Insert the word "black" in front of men in the monologue and then tell me this is something you'd say in public.

The 1 in 3 canard of unwanted sexual contact is a product of academia the broadens the definition to the point of being meaningless.  Necking with your boyfriend when he touches your breast?  Unwanted sexual contact!  If the 1 in 3 were accurate, rape would occur more often than all other crimes combined.

 

-- Modified on 12/9/2013 10:46:59 AM

-- Modified on 12/9/2013 10:53:34 AM

Amen UPNG!! More BS supporting and pandering to the great victim culture in America.

unwanted sexual contact? It would be interesting to see the survey that got those statistics.  

1) Have you ever done something you later wished you did not do?
2) Have you ever done something that at the time you thought was questionable, but you were horny and thought what the hell?

I am not trying to down play unwanted sexual contact, but ladies (and guys) you always have to ability to remove yourself from a situtation. Rape is a terrible thing and this should not be forgotten, but never just give into sexual behavior because you think you have no way out or it would just be easier to just give in. There is true forced unwanted sexual contract, and then there is situtational unwanted sexual contact. Please, as a public service anouncement, learn to control the situtation. Learn to control yourselves, because life sucks and you cannot control anybody else.
And people that are committing unwanted sexual contact, learn to listen. You are not two years old anymore and "NO" is not just a test to see how much you can get away with.

on many (most) college campuses seduction is unwanted sexual contact.  College handbooks (!)spell out that at each step of a sexual encounter the male must verbally ask it is okay to proceed and must receive a verbal affirmative.  Thus fondling your girlfriend's breast without obtain specific verbal permission first is an offense that can get you expelled.

Have I ever done anything I later regretted?  Yes, please see [an unmentionable providers name].  It is called waking up with the oh-nos.  

I have ever been horny and said what the hell?   No not ever not even once.  No means no and failure to heed it makes one a rapist

Just curious, does saying no while pulling off your pants, mean no?

-- Modified on 12/9/2013 3:45:21 PM

I saw a story recently, true story documented.  about a 13 year old girl walking home from a library.  Two punks dragged her into a park, raped her beat her and raped her again.  then they left.  she gathered her ripped clothing and stumbled bloody and bruised out to the street where a man found her and took her into the apartment where he worked as a janitor.  He took her to the furnace room and chained her to a pipe and rapped her again and again during the night and then she pulled her foot out of the chain and escaped.  Can you believe the girl complained, what a winner.  She probably did not even say NO wile they were beating her.  Or how about the little girl in India, the gang raped her with her boyfriend watching and then jabbed her with a pipe, a f'ing pipe.  She died from the injuries.  

What is wrong with you people.  

this is absolute responsibility.  once the woman / girl says no the guy is required to stop.  there are absolutely no exceptions,,, ever.  If you think she is a tease or a tramp and she said yes and then NO it does not matter.  DONT SEE HER AGAIN.  

It has gone to far and we do have a culture of people like me who will error on the side of protecting women.  the reason is because of the pigS who think it is OK to rape force and abuse women.  The reason we have a culture of victimization is because of the assholes who think it is OK to beat up women.  If you think you have a rite to hit or rape a woman YOU ARE WRONG ASSHOLE; YOU DON'T

It means no, but it also means your woman is crazy.  Pull up your pants and run.

...I have a lot of sympathy for Uptongood & Co.

The first time that I found myself alone with a receptive woman, I declined because she was drunk. (She wasn't unresponsive. On the contrary, she was horny and soliciting, but I knew that she'd feel badly about it later.)

When you work hard to be considerate of someone, it's hard to ignore when they reciprocate by being rude or making accusatins that you suspect are untrue. (I don't know about the "one in three" claim, but I can think of others that made me scratch my head.)

It's also harder when they don't hold themselves to a very high standard.

I used to keep more close friendships with girls, and I saw a lot of disturbing stuff: a 25 year old woman who sexually abused a vulnerable 16 year old girl while claiming to be her friend. She used alcohol, pot and social pressure to ply her even after the girl had explained that she was straight. Then she flaunted the sexual conquest all over facebook.

Or a hideously unhealthy women with a paranoid and volatile streak that even I found a bit unnerving who kept an autistic girl as her "wife" in a plural marriage. She expressed no tenderness whatsoever for this younger woman, and even said derogatory things about her while complaining that the sex was inadequate. (I wonder why...) All of this was excused by way of the idea that girl-on-girl sex was somehow purer or less exploitative. I've seen the same thing done by two old, unfit women to purportedly autistic boys. One of the woman seemed to want only cunnilingus. One of those boys had been abused by his mother, so it's not much better than your example of a raped girl falling into the hands of another rapist.

You could argue that it's harder to prosecute because they usually don't do as many really blatant things (like pulling a gun). That said, I remember reading about the virtues of criminalizing first-time unprotected sex (only the male half, by the way) in a New York Times Magazine "Year in  Ideas" issue several years ago. In that case, why not say that invoking social pressure is a clear-cut sign of disrecpect for the autonomy of the person who's being asked to do the actual sexual giving, and criminalize any resulting sex?

Sounds fair to me.

END OF MESSAGE

U2NG, your point is well taken that we often collectively paint broad groups unfairly for the actions of a few.  Certainly valid.

But I refuse to throw the whole message out, like throwing the baby out with the bathwater cliche.

We DO have a collective problem and we DO have collective obligations we are not meeting.  I am not talking about anything as simple as liberalism vs. conservatism.  If we want to simply be cave dwellers and remain cave dwellers, well, then all we have to do is set the bar of social responsibility about where it is today.

But if we're going to be serious about promoting the sovereignty of the human being;  If we're going to be serious about holding unalienable rights as a self-evident truth;  If we believe that all humans are born with an innate dignity that flows from nothing more than one's existence as a human being...

Then simply telling people to toughen up and not be victims isn't enough.  We have the bar set so low that what we expect from our neighbors, and by extension, from ourselves, isn't enough to even justify being a society.  Whether we're talking about rape, or bullying, or racism, or even the Catholic Church scandals--Tyranny and the violation of the human spirit manifest themselves in many ways.  And the perpetrators always...  ALWAYS...  have one desire in common.  They want to be left alone.  That is all the murderer wants of the police--to be left alone.  That is all the bully wants of the school faculty--to be left alone.  For decades, the church just wanted to be left alone.  The military has huge sexual harassment problems, and the harassers just want to be left alone.  No one, in the midst of committing some misconduct, wants their friend, or mentor, or parent, or child, to pull them aside and say "are you sure?  Are you sure this is who you really are, and what you really want to stand for?"  No-what we want most in the midst of our misdeeds is to just be left alone. Simply saying "we really all ought to be doing better" at standing up to indignity in all its forms isn't drivel.  The beginning of emancipation, the beginning of suffrage, the beginning of liberty...  These grew to national movements but they sure didn't start that way.  That started as tiny minorities, tiny groups of people quietly asking themselves "shouldn't we be doing better?  Shouldn't *I* be doing better?  Shouldn't I be speaking up?"  I don't know how that can be misconstrued as promoting a victim culture.  The real victim culture is in believing that we should just settle for what we have now and not look in the mirror and expect more from ourselves.

It was about speaking up when you see or hear even the smallest inappropriate comment or gesture towards women ... When you get the feeling that "this isn't right" but you do and say nothing. Yes this same message can be said for racism, bullying, etc but this day its said about sexism.  

Why be annoyed? Maybe you do and say what you feel but its still a good reminder for all of us especially those who do need it. I love men and find most to be good, honorable men ... But there are a few that don't think before they say things, don't stop when they hear that little voice inside their head, and others who honestly think its ok to treat women that way.

IMO its guys that say "its overkill to keep talking about this" are the ones who are blind.

Here is an example of what I am talking about:

I had a colleague who came to work early one morning and was waiting to use the copy machine.  The woman ahead of him had wet hair.  He commented:  "Your hair is a little wet today" and briefly touched it.  It was the first and only time he touched her.  She did not complain at the time, but filed a sexual harassment complaint with the company's human resources department.  The guy nearly lost his job and certainly any chance of promotion.

You want to have a conversation about ending sexual assaults?  Let's focus on the real assaults not this bullshit.

omega,

Very nicely worded and powerful.  I was reading the thread comments over at youtube and was surprised at many of them who were angry and felt lumped in with the rapists or potential rapist, although i thought the presentation or poem was pretty intense, I think the message to me was to say, teach our children right, our young men and woman growing up as well as a personal compass check for ourselves if needed, pretty simple stuff.

Yes in that situation it wasnt handled correctly ... But that doesn't mean that smaller injustices are to be ignored. Man or woman, male or female ... Sexual harassment and sexual assault is an issue. Some laugh at men being the victim yet it happens. The issue isn't just about women being victims or men being the only perpetrators ... Its about all of us being treated like human beings.  

The pendulum swings in extremes before it balances out ... Sexual harassment, assault , rape, molestation, etc were situations that were mostly kept quiet for years ... As it became more talked about then "dealt" with it went to the other extreme. And yes situations like the one you just describe are an injustice to the seriousness of the issue by over compensating thus making people say exactly what you just said. Each situation should be looked at individually ... To simply blow it off (except for rape) because some have been treated wrongly well imo is ignorant and sends back 50 years.

I would love to have a healthy debate with you on this but this is about all I got for the forum.

Not blowing it off at all.  But in the situation I cited, he "touched her inappropriately".  You hear that phrase and you think sexually.  

This is the danger of conflating the debate between someone being socially inappropriate behavior and criminal behavior.  Forcing a woman to do something, anything, against her wished is criminal.  This including harassing behavior in the workplace.

The problem I have with the video is (i) citing false statistics, (ii) conflating behavior which is simply boorish with criminal behavior and (iii) somehow blaming "the culture".    Take the former mayor of San Diego.  There is no way he didn't know what he was doing was wrong, but look at the number women who came forward after the first accusation.  If these complaints had been stated earlier, he probably never would have been mayor and (assuming his behavior can be corrected, color me skeptical) he could have been stopped earlier.

"Cultures" do not act, individuals do.  Should a woman be supported when is she has the fortitude to come forward, absolutely.  But there need a bright line between criminality and mere inappropriateness,

Perfect Bri.

Teach our children..

Sorry, but I cannot agree with much of your reasoning here.  Frankly, there are a couple of things I don't understand.

We do have a collective responsibility to assure the safety of all members of society.  The expression of this responsibility is reflected in our laws, hiring of police, construction of jails, etc.

There has been a very nasty trend our society to conflate disparate concepts and behaviors and then vilify anyone who even tangentially expresses or behaves along their conflated ideas.  Further, there is a tendency to vilify anyone that challenges the conflated concept.  This results in an “extra-legal” regime that has punitive effect on the “transgressor”.

E.g. Rape get conflated with “inappropriate touching” such that “inappropriate touching” (or for that matter anything “inappropriate”) necessarily has a sexual connotation.  Schools, particularly colleges become kangaroo courts that have the power to destroy reputations from mere accusations.  A couple examples of this:

There was a local girls’ swim coach, a male, who was accused of “inappropriately” touching his team members at a meet.  None of the team members complained.  None of the team members’ parents complained.  Some other observer in the stands personally thought the touching was inappropriate and that was enough to cost the coach his job, no chance to confront his accuser, no testimony from the team, no testimony from the parents.

The second is from an article “An Education in College Justice at Auburn University” at wsj.com.

By conflating very different behaviors under one “inappropriate” umbrella “offenders” are professionally destroyed for what might well been a simple misunderstanding.  

This does not enhance freedom, it destroys it.  

I agree with always treating women with respect, but there should be a bright line between legal and illegal behavior to have an orderly society.  Right now, that line is blurred

.... for this guy to touch the woman's hair. Nor any other part of her. It may seem like "bullshit" to you, but I can see how a woman could be very uncomfortable with a coworker touching her hair as you described.

Does that mean that the act of briefly touching a woman's wet hair should be in itself grounds for a sexual harassment complaint? I don't think so.... assuming that's all there was behind the sexual harassment complaint. Do you know for sure that's the case?

Like it or not, sexual harassment in the workplace is taken very seriously these days. Just how seriously it's treated may seem extreme to some people, but IMO I'd rather see that vs. what went on in "the old days"..... which weren't that long ago. I remember what went on in the business world as recently as a few years ago and how some women (and men!) I know suffered greatly because of it.

And sadly far too often it does not.  The wide swinging pendulum means that so much of the time there is no justice whether it be someone who abuses women in any of the various horrible ways possible and gets away with it or it be someone who is judged and and punished as guilty of terrible offenses when that is not so.  And those do not balance out.  If one man gets away with abusing a woman then punishing another man undeservedly does not even the scales.  You should only seek to punish the guilty and using a sledgehammer approach when scalpels are what is needed is not the way to go.  There is a useful message in the video but because it is aimed so widely much of the effectiveness is lost.  I believe the intent of the video was essentially an appeal for help aimed at men who may have turned a blind eye to poor behavior by other men.  A worthy goal but one made harder to achieve when so many of the people whose aid is being asked for are likely to be offended by the way the message is presented.

Well, I guess we have to agree to disagree then.  I respect your position and agree with some of the points you are trying to make.  I am not trying to be pugilistic here, I welcome mature debate.

Where your views and mine diverge is simply this.  You are the only one conflating.  You are kind of hell-bent on the issue of overzealous HR gone mad.  I agree that that's no good, that there has to be balance and objectivity and in the workplace we probably have gone way too far to sterilize the human condition.

But I don't at all get the connection.  Someone posts a video about how as men in a male-dominated society, we ought to lead with character and integrity, and speak out when we see social injustice, even when it takes a sublime, insidious form.

And you jump from that broad, philosophical posit and go immediately to a specific edge-case that doesn't seem to have anything to do with the author's statement.  YOU are joining "my daughter's innate dignity as a human being ought to entitle her to be free to walk down the street and not be raped" and "therefore HR departments should destroy the careers of many who do nothing more than inadvertently touch a woman."

I do "get" he slippery slope argument, I really do.  But I *patently* reject, I most fundamentally oppose, with every fiber of my being, the conflation you make in the name of the slippery slope.  "My local swim coach got shit on by HR" is not a counter argument against "we have become culturally complacent to the subtle ways in which people's innate dignity is violated."

This reminds me of what has happened to social security.  At some point in the 70s, congress decided to start skimming the interest off of the social security account and moving it into the general fund as a way of reducing the visible deficit.  We all know how the story ends, this theft led to trillions of dollars of shortfalls now and a huge, huge problem that has to be solved.  We need to have a very high level, philosophical debate about what we want to do as a country to overcome this.  Not specifics, but rather, a philosophical, "guiding principle" decision about what we want social security to look like 20, 40, 100 years from now.

But here's the problem.  If I go into the lunchroom at work and ask "hey guys, what should we do about funding social security?" what follows is at least five anecdotes about how my neighbor is double-dipping or my brother in law is faking his disability or whatever.  Try it at work tomorrow.  You can never get to "what should we  do philosophically about social security over the next hundred years" because people ONLY want to talk about the specific, anecdotal edge cases.  Even if we sealed up every fraud and abuse loophole, we still have a many-trillions-of-dollars problem.  We're not off by the 500 million that fraud represents.  We're off by tens of thousands that amount.  If you draw a pie chart of how big the problem is, fraud and loopholes are so small a slice as to be invisible compared to the "congress stole our cheese" problem.  And yet we can never talk about the elephant in the room problem because people don't want to talk about strategic solutions until every edge case is addressed, and corrected or apologized for.  We'll never make ANY progress on ANY thing because people filibuster the huge cultural debates until their specific anecdotal example is acknowledged as being a valid counter-argument.

And so it is here.  A guy says that as a human race we ought to be further down the evolutionary path of respecting others than we are--a very broad, philosophical position, and you counter it with now multiple specific anecdotes about how some guy at a copier or some swim coach got the shaft.  I refuse to accept that guy's lives being ruined by HR is the only outcome, the necessary result of standing up for the sovereignty and dignity of women.  It is conflation of the highest order to draw a line from one to the other.  I do get the slippery slope argument, but that is just too long a slope for me to follow.

I believe, with all my heart, that there IS a way, that it IS possible as a society to stand up and be counted, to not allow the subtle erosion of human sovereignty, without it having to become a Salem-like witch hunt where good people are railroaded.

But then again, I could be wrong.

I am not conflating, politically correct society is.

The kangaroo courts I mentioned due much greater damage to professional reputations based upon allegations not proof.

In the court system, you can defend yourself.  These extra legal processes don't permit such defenses.

Educate your children as to the law.

If I had a son who raped a woman, my response would be to first castrate him so he cannot do it again and second to then determine an appropriate punishment for him and restitution for him to make to his victim.

Societies do not give out, the give in.  We allow rapists on the street, we have more rapes.  

Sorry, but singing kumbaya on educating society solves nothing.  Letting men know if they rape women they lose a part of their anatomy, now that's effective.

You don't see the contradiction in your argument at all, do you?

Firing the guy at the copier is an extra-legal process.
Castrating your son is an extra-legal process.

So what you are saying is that extra-legal justice is only appropriate if you alone are the judge and jury, but morally inappropriate if others are?  You don't see castrating your son as a rejection if his innate value as a human being, and a violation of due process that is no less immoral than firing the copier guy?

People need to earn respect for their character through their actions.  But in America, they do not need to earn the recognition of their innate dignity as sovereign human beings.  The foundational sentence upon which the entire American experience hinges is that we hold as a self-evident truth that people are imbued by their very existence with value and dignity.  They need do nothing to earn or prove that value, we hold that value as being self-evident.

First and foremost, my job is to show my children the way.  Not TEACH them.  SHOW them, through my actions.  You don't know my story or know the prices I have paid to combat tyranny and oppression.  But my children know, and I am proud of that.  I don't threaten them with harm if they don't see the value of living life my way, with my values.  No threats of castration or harm in my clan.  All I do is show them that life is richer, fuller, if lived with gratitude and with a willingness to speak out and be a leader in the face of indignity in all its forms.

Hyperbole: hy·per·bo·le (h -pûr b -l ). n. A figure of speech in which exaggeration is used for emphasis or effect, as in I could sleep for a year or This book weighs a ton.