Off topic from the current discussion, but from a legal standpoint is there some requirement that for an interaction to be considered rape the victim must be at risk of harm if they don’t comply?

For example, as a thought experiment, a quadriplegic orders a pizza then demands oral sex (with no specific threats) from the delivery person who declines. Quadriplegic continues to demand and driver continues to say no, but eventually performs oral sex. Did the quadraplegic commit a crime?

Yeah, dude. We only have her account to go off of and as such we are going off that. It's a given. Inventing other stuff that neither one is asserting is ridic.

Even if you are saying she was drawing the line at vaginal sex in his mind, he kept saying he was going to **** her after that (invented) understanding. Your propped-up fantasy defense ignores that.

Where the **** is his agency? He claimed he was concerned about the possibility of her not enjoying some of it and still went over the line again and again. Once you know there is a line either back the **** off or clarify. It's basic.

And dude, since you are apparently as clueless as him, or he pretended to be, or maybe both of you are pretending, let me give you a lesson here. If a woman ever says she doesn't want to feel forced moving forward, well she is saying she is currently feeling forced. You are on your way to non-consensual sex there, pal and (hey!) potentially already crossed a line. Red flag, Romeo!

Jesus, if a woman you are trying to have sex with says that to you and you don't know what it means and are too much of a spineless pos to build up the guts to clarify you have no right to put the onus on her to have more gravitas in the communication department. The dude was too shy or obtuse to ask what she meant and had to keep guessing wrong but she is at fault for not being even more blatant?

The thing is, Chris, when you gave your preamble about being worried about being misinterpreted as condoning his behavior I took it at face value. But here you are with a defense written out on his behalf.

Agree generally but it depends on the definition of "try". Trying to change a girl's mind is fine if it's not done coercisively (e.g. watch more Seinfeld, a bit more wine, a bit of massage and see if she wants again).

Part of the trouble with Ansari is it seems his modus operandi with women is pretty rough in general anyway - e.g. the claw move - on that topic, the weirdest thing for me to get over as a man who is always pretty gentle with women generally is that if Ansari is doing it now, he hasn't just been banging his head against a wall with the "claw" for the past decade or so, he's doing it now because it's worked with a good % of women in the past.

Gonna have to tell you to go **** yourself with the lecture on consent. Seriously. **** you. It's disrespectful.

Question. What do you think I was saying here?

Here's a hint: I meant EXACTLY WHAT THOSE WORDS SAY. Then I posted this:

Then you made a post the content of which is basically "come on guys, I read this again and it's REALLY bad", and I replied with a post which was an effort to explain why I posted the above.

And then, you did the same thing you do over and over and over again ITT, which is respond to nothing but the post immediately above yours, devoid of context, because you're like a ****ing goldfish who can't hold context in mind for more than 7 seconds, and make everyone re-litigate the same things over and over again for your own satisfaction. Try spending as much time trying to understand what people are saying as you do writing your idiotic screeds.

depends on the state and (at least in NY) there are different degrees of rape that vary based upon the threat or implied threat

You could argue that Ansari's implicit defense is not in character different from those made by Kobe Bryant or Mike Tyson in their rape cases - all try to present the woman coming to their room as consent for whatever comes after. The problem is that such an interpretation is completely wrong.

(As an aside: it should be part of this discussion the ease with which the behavior of Kobe Bryant or Peyton Manning or Jameis Winston or Ben Roethlisberger or etc. has been assimilated by popular culture and forgotten; the amazing conversion of convicted rapist Mike Tyson into popular talk show clown is an entirely different issue that perhaps more reflects people's morbid fascination with a monster willing to frankly expose his own deranged thinking - but these other sports stars have suffered few if any consequences for actions objectively worse than many of the accusations out there now (these guys were all accused of forcible rape/assault) - their behavior has been normalized into jokes).

What? By her own account Grace came home with Ansari and consented to some sexual activity. This is nothing like any of those other accounts.

I think it was mosdef earlier in the thread that said the takeaways should be that we need to teach our boy and young men how to better communicate their intentions and how to seek consent properly, rather than relying on sloppy, drunk escalation of sexual activity in the heat of the moment as Ansari tried to do.

The weirdest thing about the Ansari takes and countertakes is that people keep on treating this like a BIG DEAL. Nothing happened to him? I mean I guess future dating might be harder for him now that women know he'll stick his fingers(?) in your mouth if you go home with him, but AFAIK nothing happened to his career.

This is appropriate! Being a weirdo and famous gets articles written about you being weird, being a harasser and famous gets you fired from your job.

I agree it's difficult where there is a direct supervisory relationship. Women generally try marry "up" in some/multiple forms though (age, "status", money, confidence, intelligence etc.), so it's pretty common. My first student this morning was a women who married her boss - I'd say your 1% estimate is way under. Bill and Melinda Gates would be another example of boss marrying employees - she agreed to go on a first date with him after he asked the second time on the same day, venue turned out to be his house, so no doubt he'd be thrown under the bus these days (for the record I was more senior than my wife in that she was only a part timer but I wasn't supervising her or anyone else at that time - same goes for my brother and his own wife also of 11 years).

Not meaning to pick on you specifically as the views you express are widespread (and your version is at least somewhat more nuanced), but I don't think it's any more acceptable to express blanket or general negativity to a class of relationships based on their being between colleagues than it is to express blanket negativity towards whole classes of relationships based on their being between different ages, races, social classes, religions or between people of the same sex.

And no, general social benefit, or "these types of relationships rarely work" isn't any more admissible than it would be when talking about the other classes of relationships I mentioned above.

If only there was some middle ground between politely hitting on woman at work and bringing them back for fish hooking and/or jerking off at them.

IMHO There is a big difference but comments like the below show that a lot of people don't see it:

(again not wanting to single out this particular poster when lots of people feel the same)

You're not remembering the details of the Kobe Bryant case very well. But in any case, that's not really the point that was being made. The point was that some of these guys operate in a mentality where any woman who would come home with them has already consented (they don't frame it in their own heads in terms of "consent" and that's also a problem) ... Ansari seems to fall into that world ... and it's not such a big step from there to Kobe Bryant. The standard defenses of both Kobe and Mike Tyson sound a lot like the defenses of Ansari (whatever the facts in any of the cases) - and there are lots of men (almost no women) defending Kobe, and some defending Mike Tyson still (although that's harder, because it requires being a complete moron).

To be clear: I'm not saying that I think the facts in the Ansari case are the same as in the Kobe/Tyson cases. I don't. But the defenses have something in common, and it's telling about the mentality that operates. They aren't asking, they are inferring, and their inferences are self-centered, ignoring completely the other party.

Different things. Courts reach a binary decision. Public opinion (which will dictate his career) is a messy judgement of crowds thing. That divide is important as the idea people can banned from working because of a non-criminal* matter is a very bad idea.

If he loses celeb work because enough people don't wish to pay for him anymore than that's fine. Very good place for the judgement of crowds and progressive social norms.

*I'm assuming for the purpose of making the greater point that it's non-criminal in principle and practice.

Pretty sure in the uk the law is simply about consent.

Sounds like a very very bad idea to make it about proving risk of harm in the way you're suggesting. If they can, then no doubt lawyers would argue there was no risk of harm to try to 'prove' it was consensual.

dude read the rest of your posts.

She says: I don't want to feel forced.
Article says: she used that as a verbal component to say she wanted his to stop.
You say, yeah, well but maybe, just maybe he thought it meant just keep doing what you're doing.


Woman is question: no then, no the next day and no now.
Author: no
You:Anzari--who can tell?
You: maybe?
Me: no!

Take it as a lecture if you want, but I'd rather you take it as **** you too. Going back and finding posts where you say when mixed messages are received you should obtain affirmative consent then writing a point by point interpretation of how this didn't qualify as mixed messages if you squint at it right betrays it. Be angry and offended all you want but you are right, it wasn't mixed messages, they were clear af and the situation ended with her fleeing, which is not disputed, so also **** your grain of salt.

http://www.katykatikate.com/2018/01/...ad_15.html?m=1

This is a really good read

What a dumb mother****ing hot take. We now have:

1. Ally Sheedy posting and erasing an ambiguous text about James Franco;
2. Selma Hyak claiming Weinstein forced her to have a sex scene w Judd for a movie; and,
3. Some pseudonym girl who didn't get a celebrity boyfriend provides revenge porn.

All come our only at the height of popularity and celebration for two of them and notoriety of Weinstein.

And you are in here giving legal opinions like you are Alan Dershowitz based on on line anonymous interviews. Claiming the accused are acquiescing to the events as claimed by the accuser because they dont immediately vehemently defend themselves? Perhaps getting it out of the news cycle and saving the defense of the merits was following legal advice but you take their silence as admissions of guilt.

No right to face your accuser, no right to remain silent, no cross examination, no sworn testimony but it does not stop you judging the situation and determining appropriate punishment (in your mind). You are already at the bottom of the ****ing slope, you ****ing self-righteous witch-hunter.

JFC there's no reason to read and parse her story that closely. If you put an unfamiliar woman's hand on your dick and she pulls it away the fun is over, for the night, no exceptions.

Oh the humanity. Lol.

You have an active imagination. I have no legal obligation or power. Idiot. I didn't say their silence is an admission of guilt. I didn't even posit there is a legal issue here. Hmmm, what did I say?
Oh yeah.

The ****? Nobody has gone to court yet and likely most won't. That is when all those standards are applied, not before.

Lol. So one woman sent a tweet about Franco that has had zero repercussions, one made another in a loooong line of accusations against an exposed pos accused by multiple women of rape and that bothers you because it is...less egregious than the others? And another woman who was pissed that Anzari is out there wearing a cape for women to bolster his image on tv while he tried to treat her like a porn star on their first date--like no charges being brought, no talk of a lawsuit, just a "hey **** you hypocrite" at this point and your world is crumbling.

Good then. I hope it is incredibly distressful for people who see the most victimized group here the way you do.

So in the case is the quadriplegic demanding oral sex, it would automatically be consensual if someone ultimately did it because the quadriplegic would have no way to force the interaction?

Thanks, it is a good read.

I get it you met your wife at work, sorry for the blanket generalization. Doesnt change the fact that of you have a career its a bad idea to try to bang your co workers, results dont change the way you played the hand right? (lol ham handed poker analogies). Also this is a hot take for modern times, i realize this wasnt really taboo 20 years ago or whatevs and thats also fine

Not dipping the pen in company ink goes way back.

Nothing automatic about it. It may well be used as evidence that it was consensual but that's ultimately for the jury to decide and presumably the prosecution is arguing that it wasn't consensual for other reasons.

There's definitely more factors than immediate physical force. Underage, drugged, some other threat etc. They could all make it non-consensual