From: ecsd@tfs.com (Eric C. S. Dynamic)
Subject: Re: This thread is disturbing to me (Re: whatever )
Organization: TFS
Date: Mon, 14 Sep 1992 17:06:09 GMT

h431@midway.uchicago.edu writes:
>ecsd@tfs.com (Eric C. S. Dynamic) writes:
>
>I'm finding this thread very disturbing.  The tone of the messages from
>ecsd seems to be "no woman has a right to reject the sexual overtures of
>a man".  I say "tone" because the arguments are hard for me to dig out
>of the prose, so I will restrict myself to commenting on the "subtext"
>rather than the "text".
>

I'm saying no woman or man has the right to make another person
wrong about their native desires.

>>
>>It's my big theme now (due to events in my local e-mail) to pull women
>>up and say, if you don't like how men have treated you, it's more than a
>>bit cynical to use "their" tactics on them, then deny you are other than
>>holy.
>>
>>All I see men doing is trying to reconcile. Their largest "crime" seems
>>to be waving their cocks out the window saying "wanna share??" - it may
>>be crude, but it hasn't the intention to hurt. 
>

>If I take this statement at face-value, it's extremely disturbing.  You're
>describing rather nasty sexual harassment.  Literally this happened to
>a friend of mine.  A man masturbated at her while she was driving down the
>highway, everywhere she turned to get away, he followed her in his car.
>Nope, no license plate.
>

It's a metaphor.

>>Women say "crude assholes
>>suck off!" and that DOES have the intention to hurt - 
>
>What would you say to a sexually threatening person?  You have to be
>ferocious or you could end up raped.

I know what I read and hear versus what I experience locally "on the
ground". Locally, I don't know any men who threaten women sexually,
so I'm operating in that context with the above.

>
>>and the reply is
>>the response is "justified", further there seems to be no notion that
>>the women making this response have any responsibility to see the irony
>>of it.
>
>Do you mean that it's "ironic" that we have to use violence to repell
>violence?  I don't think so; the "tone" again seems to be that women
>must always be nice, even when they believe themselves to be in danger.
>And the above kind of gesture is certainly threatening enough that if it
>happened to me, I'd consider myself in danger, and gear up for flight or
>fight.

We are no longer in the context of what I was writing.

>
>>
>>I have yet to see (not that that proves anything) men abusing women in
>>this or similar ways in the net, but be assured I would attack them just
>>as viciously as I already had done here. I'm attacking the ATTACKER.
>
>Now this statement makes me wonder how the "waving the cock out the
>window" example was meant to be taken in some special metaphorical sense.
>But what that sense is, is totally obscure.  "I'm attacking the ATTACKER"
>again sounds like "women must always be nice, never turn down requests for
>sex, and if they do, I'll verbally blast them."

The metaphor is "men as big shaggy lovable dogs". They may be crude in
expression but their heart is in the right place.

I don't understand how I am suggesting that women are not supposed to
refuse sexual requests. If it's a cumulative misunderstanding starting
from an unclear statement I make in the opening, I will have to more
careful to be precise to avoid misunderstandings.

>>
>>-ec "mr. high-minded moral virtue" sd
>
>What's extra disturbing is I have sometimes felt almost as angry about
>being rejected by women.  The cure is to step back and tell myself
>that there will be people who like me in that way, and people who don't.
>
>It is ALWAYS ok to say no to somebody.  And you don't have to have a 
>reason.

To refer this to the theme I was working, rejecting someone is fine.
Pursuing and hounding the person for asking in the first place is not.
"No" is fine, "No, and you haven't any right to consider me sexually,
and I'm going to make you miserable for asking" is not, when the approach
is not crude or threatening. The general idea is that it needs to be made
safe for nice people to express sexual interest in each other.
That's about all I was driving at.