From: guido@island.COM (Guido Marx)
Subject: Re: Are they not men?
Organization: Island Graphics Corp.  San Rafael, Ca.
Distribution: usa
Date: Tue, 22 Dec 1992 17:55:14 GMT

In article <1992Dec21.220158.4146@netcom.com> phil@netcom.com (Phil Ronzone) writes:
>In article <1992Dec21.174121.2890@island.COM> guido@island.COM (Guido Marx) writes:
>    >I have to disagree - the issue IS about assaults. In the
>    >story you quoted, the man in question didn't feel threatened
>    >until someone made an unwelcome physical advance toward him
>    >in the middle of the night. The fact that men and women don't
>    >shower together is simply a matter of societal convention. I
>    >have lived in dorms where men and women DID share bathrooms
>    >and showers. Despite what you claim, it wasn't a "sexual
>    >context".
>    >
>    >The fear that these men underwent clearly was a fear of being
>    >assaulted, not of being placed in an unwanted "sexual
>    >context".
>
>Oh? I see. tell me, the dorms that men and women shared bathrooms and showers,
>was it voluntary? Or was it a forced assignment? I would be very surprised
>if the "shared" showers were shared in the military sense -- one large
>room with many showerheads. No cubicles, no privacy.

Of course the arrangement was voluntary.  In the same way I would argue
that if the military did it, it would be voluntary.  Since we do have
an all-volunteer military.  This arrangement was needed since it was
in a dorm originally designed for one sex - so they only had one
bathroom per floor.  In this particular dorm the showers were in
stalls, so there was slightly more privacy than you might expect in
a typical military situation.

>And, by the way, that was NOT an assault by legal definition. To sexually
>grope someone is not an assualt unless there is an intent to bodily harm
>or it persists after a "no". (Otherwise you have the absurd situation
>where the very first initiation of petting between two people is an
>assault).

My Websters gives a definition of "subject to indecent attack", I think
that that qualifies.  The legal definition of assault is a bit different
but, in this situation since it involved "unwanted touching" it would
constitute battery, my mistake.  The situation of petting between consenting 
people doesn't qualify as either "unwanted touching" or "indecent attack".  
Grabbing a non-consenting womans breast DOES constitute an assault.

>You are wrong. After all, if the author has responded "climb on in sailor",
>it would not have been an assault.

No, it wouldn't have been because then it wouldn't have been un-wanted.
However, the perpatrator had no reason to believe that his advance was
desired.  Are you arguing that I should be able to grab women's breasts
because they MIGHT like it ?

>Of course, you persist in thinking that only the way you think can be the
>one "real" way.

Not at all, you are free to think whatever you want, just leave me
out of it.

>1. Some football jock that came out of the closet writes how after he
>   came out, the other jocks (basically) avoided him in the locker rooms.
>   "Somehow" he ended up with a locker assigment that was mostly out of
>   view from the other players lockers. Nobody was actually directly
>   nasty to him, but he did complain of feeling a pariah in the locker
>   room.

>   Now, consider the size and physical shape of a footbal player, I don't
>   think those men were worried that they would be raped/assualted. But they
>   clearly didn't feel "comfortable" around this guy -- their sexual context
>   was being violated.

So you say.  I would argue that their bigotry was being coddled and
encouraged.  You know, some people in locker rooms don't feel "comfortable"
dressing with people who have prostheses (artificial legs).  IMHO that
is just tough luck, and they are going to have to learn to live with it.

Some people don't feel "comfortable" dressing with members of other
races.  Again, IMHO tough.


Guido