wtf is wrong with people.

Sure, we all agree jerking off in front of someone even with consent is incredibly wrong.

STILL, I was told earlier by DrModern consent was the very important, very critical thing. NOW I've come to find out that in fact consent can be plied out of someone and that actually we all agree a question can be a predicament, a problem, and you might actually say yes to something you have no interest in. Consent isn't everything it seems.

Now, gentlemen, it's worth reiterating we all agree asking near-strangers, co-workers, friends, whoever to beat off in front of them is bad but we disagree compliments on appearance, requests for dates, etc. might be the sort of thing where implicit lack-of-objection and/or consent may in fact ALSO constitute a predicament for a woman.

THEREFORE: I posit that in fact "well she didn't throw a fit" is NOT the standard we use to determine if our behavior is appropriate. See Louis CK coming to this realization with obviously far more heinous behavior than asking for a date. I also recommend the "go actually ask a wide array of women about their personal experiences" and see what you find out. You guys seem nice enough but two dudes assuring me women "probably know how to handle it" is both true but also sort of deeply unfortunate and I think misses the point. Yeah, women "probably know how to handle" unwanted sexual attention of varying degrees. Should they have to?

As an introvert there are times when such a question would be more appropriate but it's not the ice breaker...

FFS, start your own damn business and ban dating among your coworkers so you don't have to keep bringing it up here.

OK. Good talk, I guess.

so whoa, hold on, I'm not supposed to masturbate in front of my co-workers? GAME CHANGE

Well, Louis CK said that the women he did this in front of said it was OK, which kerowo assures me doesn't count, but that extends not at all to anything beyond jerking off, says man on internet. Women just know how to handle all the stuff that's not that, and if you have thoughts about that, STFU AND START YOUR OWN BUSINESS OK!?

Jesus, so much for reading your short posts.

There's a big difference between what CK did and, like, asking a co-worker out for a drink or coffee like a normal human. The latter seems fine, while asking women if it's ok if you masturbate in front of them tens of seconds after meeting them seems like, uh, a different thing entirely.

Of course it's different. And still, the sentiment: when you have power over another person, asking them stuff like out on dates isn’t a question. It’s a predicament for them. What if the power is informal? Are workplaces still patriarchal? Can a male co-worker of superficially equal status place a female co-worker in a predicament even if they get implicit or explicit consent? Or like do I need to go buy a business before this gets asked?

To be honest I know lots of people who don't ask their coworkers out for a drink. Just throwing that out there for two reasons:

- I really don't actually see it that commonly
- note sexual harassment seems pretty common so what "normal" people do may need some reexamination, probably shouldn't just let those "it's just normal deal with it OK?" assumptions stand unchallenged anymore

I'll note for maybe the dozenth time ITT the strong, visceral, almost gleefully content free responses "STFU ITS ALL JUST NORMAL OKAY?" in light of the simply staggering amount of sexual harassment reported everywhere is shocking from a population of mostly men who seem prepared to tackle this problem head on by changing absolutely nothing and telling everyone to **** off.

hahahaha my god

POLITICAL CORRECTNESS HAS GONE MAD

I agree with all of this but I still think the answer is more: tough, the world is not perfect, sometimes you're going to be put in awkward situations.

I still think don't try to **** your coworkers is a good informal heuristic though.

It's like a goddman Onion article: In Light of Staggering Almost Ritualized Sexual Harassment Reports in Workplaces, Nations Men Declare Actually We're Solid, Everything's Fine Here, Thanks For Checking

Responding to Reports of Truly Despicable Notable Idiots Literally Jerking Off In Front of Strangers, Nations Men Respond to Thousands of #MeToo Stories with Assurances They're Not Into That, What's The Problem Again?

What's the over/under on the number of years until Kevin Spacey and Louis C.K. get to pull a Mel Gibson and start working again and eventually get accepted back into polite society?

3 years? 5 years?

I assume this is obvious, but real talk about that "My dick would only go halfway in before she started screaming in pain" bit: that's not because she's SUPER TIGHT BRO, it's because she doesn't actually want to have sex with you, because you're a creep who just spit on your hand and jacked off in her car like a chimpanzee.

Any time someone is asked on an unwanted date they are being placed in a predicament. But the person asking for the date does not know that this is the state of affairs beforehand.

uh, yeah man, I know lots of people who don't ask their coworkers out for a drink too. Me, Todd, all my coworkers. But **** man if Todd asks Martha in another department if she wants to have a drink I think it's gonna be OK.

This is an edited transcript of a chat between a couple of friends of mine. While it might not look like it, I assure you these are not deplorables, they are generally intelligent people of generally left wing beliefs.

This conversation blew my ****ing mind (and if you're wondering, I did have a go at them about it). I guess all I can think about this is that men have direct experience of women using sex as a bartering tool and of changing their minds about an encounter after having it. I've personally encountered both. Meanwhile, most men do not have direct experience of women being harrassed or assaulted.

I think there's a bit of a Ray Rice situation here, where after the elevator video came out people were like "oh, THAT kind of punched in the face". I feel like if there was video of these incidents people would be like "oh, THAT's what we're discussing here".

The best I can assume is that dudes ITT are assuming a nice pleasant request for coffee and perhaps courtship later should the damsel find herself twitterpated by the encounter with the nice gentlemen from work instead of the way 90% of these encounters seemingly play out (guys, go ask women) which is lecherous idiots stare at their coworkers tits for a half hour before mumbling if they'd like to go to a bar with them sometime, wink wink.

I would just encourage everyone to talk to women and hopefully the "Oh, THAT" moment ala the Ray Rice videos becomes apparent why I think professional standards around dating and the like are way too lax. Way too many idiots, way too few clear lines, way too many aggrieved women, way too many men with less than zero self awareness saying this is all just normal and there's a few hypothetical bad apples somewhere out there, maybe, check Hollywood.

so you're saying that dudes shouldn't sexually harass their coworkers? Uh, yeah, agreed. Bigly agree.

But people meet and get married all the time at work. I know two dudes at my work who married ladies they worked with. Meeting at work is one of the main ways folks get together.

I don't deny it. But there's also alot of sexual harassment at work and when these stories come to light, the men have the same excuses/rationales:

- was seeking a relationship
- thought she was fine with it
- just kidding
- misunderstood flirtation

etc.

Draw the lines so that stuff isn't acceptable and the problem is deterred because anyone who engages in it is wrong regardless of self-reported estimations of mental states. Right now far too many of our standards are wrapped up in adjudicating what women want. The number of sexual harassment reports suggests a huge chasm between men's estimation and women's true feelings on that.

I agree one burden is less workplace fun, less workplace romance, a bit of a dampening effect on the human spirit. But the number of sexually harassed women suggests to me we could perhaps be less horny at work as a matter of course, that we are giving into too much of our ids at work. Go to work to work, stop trying to **** people there and then some of this goes away and is redirected to environments that are more acceptable for women to protect themselves.

Oh well redrawing lines in workplace norms seems fine but you seem to be pushing for some sort of orwellian nightmare where any workplace romance is forbidden and all interactions between genders must be chaperoned and/or studiously documented.

I honestly have no idea what sort of workplace you are pushing for, why don't you describe the sort of rules you think any reasonable and good workplace would establish.

HR types should have polices like this:

- don't ask your coworkers on dates
- assume all flirtation are unwanted
- don't comment on someone's appearance
- sexual jokes are discouraged

The result is that when a women complains to a coworker or HR that stuff happened and she didn't like it, there's not much policing for HR to do. The dude is guilty by doing the thing regardless of how he thought the woman would react (obviously I don't categorically rule out women can be guilty too). Men can't complain the woman was frigid and bitchy; hey dumbass, we say: read the employee handbook, check the wall in the breakroom next to the OSHA posters, we know not to do this.

Draconian? Stifling? Maybe? Seems like there's alot of poorly behaved, badly socialized men out there.