jesus christ asking a girl out at work isn't putting her in a "severe predicament".

What kind of consequences would you think appropriate for putting someone in such a severe predicament?

What? Are you and your wife seriously concerned that you will be unable to gauge her consent if you split a bottle of wine on a Saturday night? Maybe you were joking.

By paying to go to college, you are not opting into harassment. That can't be the answer.

Just something that was instilled in me from my high school coaches, and just decided go with it. I don't ever want to be in a situation where the person might not remember the night before.

What about two grad students on assistantships?

It's a silly distinction in any event. Colleges impose all sorts of rules on student behavior, even though the students pay to attend.

Man, I think they renamed them CarmelDelites about ten years ago, your pony is slow. I assume this was some PC gone amok situation.

Some creepy dude in your English class can only do so much to screw up your life, whereas a creepy/jilted co-worker can thoroughly dick over your career.

See, I know you (and trolly) are smart. But this is not the point. Here is a demonstration of what a fun discussion we can have when tryna be right matters more that the actual subject to a person. "Well let's sterilize the workplace for the good of the company, and women can fend for themselves off the clock. No need to address the behavior at the root, just quell it to lubricate capitalist activity."
See how stupid that is? You could just, you know, converse instead of defend.

This one is a loser too. My point is pretty clear. Why are you saying that the issues at work are unique? Why are you saying they should be the focus? Why do you think that it would make a sizable dent in the actual issues women face?

Yeah anyone can make a straw man too. It's really your least impressive tactic though in an otherwise impressive arsenal.

Ok. To clarify I wasn't asking permission. I was saying that your confidence that you are speaking on behalf of women if we only ask is flawed because, guess what bro, they are everywhere. And also, you are so far wrong based on every woman I have spoken too. There is a chance I am not representing your pov correctly but when asked to clarify you will only respond with straw men and disingenuous snark.

It is basically summed up as follows: women would prefer to be left alone by men at work to the point that a rule banning social interaction between coworkers, making friendship off limits between coworkers, and outside of work interactions eliminated so that there is no misunderstanding is the only solution.

I guess in your mind I know only women who are willing victims, brainwashed or just as sex crazed for Girl Scout cookies as vulgar men?

My wife was stalked at school. Also by a customer. She was harassed at work but only scared on campus. I can't believe any rational person thinks harrasment and assault are more prevalent at work than school.

Since you seem to really keep coming back to the value of careers over the value of women not being preyed on, it also interferes with a woman's career when her college is interrupted by harassment or assault. Banning student dating and socializing would sure make school easier to focus on and lead to better scholastic outcomes. But it's ****ing absurd.

I'm sure that the views of women (and men) on policies about dating co-workers will vary immensely based on their anecdotal experiences.

This is a difference. What is the problem that is being solved at this point? If women pay to be there they are less entitled to protection? Less regulation of behavior is possible? Employers are losing money based on distraction of sexual harassment?

What the hell are we trying to fix again?

Why it's almost as if there are norms at her workplace that limit that kind of behavior.

Johnny, do you have a problem with a policy that bars the boss from dating the intern?

All the wrongness put so succinctly.

Do you think that the views will vary as widely on banning activities such as coffee shops, after work drinks, weekend socializing etc? Because that is what is being proposed. If a company has a no dating policy that is not crazy. If a company has a no friendship policy to ensure nobody has to be concerned going to Starbucks is a pua trick, I'm guessing it's not just the horny dudes who want to **** at work who will think it's ridic.

Right, and it seems good to strengthen those norms and rules in a way that makes bad behavior less common. But Dvault wants to ban all workplace romance. A rule which, if followed, sure, would eliminate all sexual harassment in the workplace. Just like abstinence only sex education totally eliminates teen pregnancy.

Dvault admits that this ban on office romance is unworkable and will be violated. Which is apparently fine as long as the parties involve precog that the relationship will work out? Uh, OK. Fine. So the policy will be violated, coworkers will still date each other. But how do you train your workers what's an OK way to ask out a coworker and what's harassment if you straight up ban all such interactions? You cannot!

Yes. Wait. But.
No.
Really? Everyone knows this. It is already the most regulated place. I mean, as long as Louis pulled out his dick off the job site and it wasn't a coworker our work is done?

You guys can't really be pretending that my point is "like hey, it's everywhere, why not work too?" It isn't my position. My question is why dvaut thinks that addressing it there to a point of sterilization and reduction of social norms within those relationships is an answer to this problem. I guess we see the problem differently. I want to attack the way men treat women, not reduce the hours they can act that way to outside of work and the pool of those protected by the people who are paid from the same coffer. It's not a ****ing solution. It doesn't hold up to minor scrutiny.

But by all means, let's pretend everyone on earth doesn't already know that work is different than other situations and that is the point to prove.

Just to be safe we'd better ban romantic relationships everywhere. What if a woman gets asked out by a classmate she is not interested in? It might make her feel bad. I know it will make college less fun but the tradeoff is worth it.

Yeah, aside from the rule being authoritarian, it likely would accomplish little and perhaps even cause harm. Mostly it's authoritarian though. It's painfully dismissive of individuals' ability and right to interact as they please. I'm not quite able to describe this properly, but the sentiment is radically anti-natural in the way that both totalitarian capitalism and totalitarian communism are.

If the phrase "work is different" is true, it's that people have less freedom at work. Let's not embrace that too deeply.

So, seems like the critics here have this solved: here's an example of something that clearly is uncomfortable and causes harms and on the one hand, we think notions of consent are meaningless because of the egregiousness of it but on the other hand, consent can actually be freely given and therefore Louis CK is good to go (DrModern squares this by simply saying he's lying; fair enough I guess).

I realize you are of course two different people but I feel like you guys should talk among yourselves. Both of your responses are really for each other, neither for me.

My take is that the notions of consent are pretty murky, women may say all sorts of things to get out of an awkward situation, or be taken aback, or men so clueless and delusional that it's predictable how often the accusations break down into a bunch of competing narratives.

So the simple solution: HR, co-workers, management, etc. simply defer to the heuristic of determining who is wrong by whoever provoked the encounter. Don't ask people on dates, don't try to flirt, don't try to be funny in a sexual way, and if someone comes out of those situations feeling harm, we know who's guilty, full stop.

"Are some behaviors too egregious to consent to" versus "no, you can consent to a colleague beat off in front of you" is for you guys. For me, if the woman complains, the man gets the reprimand/firing/liability whatever for any behavior where a woman is made uncomfortable at work regardless of impressions of consent.

I agree. Rococo made a sage point about college campuses. We should absolutely be reconsidering our sexual mores in light of the huge amounts of victimized women. It's frankly abhorrent if we wouldn't.

Just a bunch of inane strawmen.

I'd reiterate I'm not making a legal argument so I don't even see what legal argument there is to critique. That's just your slapdash claim to say current sexual harassment prohibitions in law are sufficient or to increase liabilities (which is basically hardly any different than what I'm describing; you just didn't bother to calculate the next step of how businesses would react to a bunch of incredibly severe punitive judgements in favor of the harassed). So a red herring here.

If the only standard of workplace freedom we cape for is the ability to drop sick dick jokes and compliment a coworker on her rack and try to get her out to the bar, then maybe these sorts of Won't Someone Please Think of the Freedoms are just barely masked patriarchal apologetics.

This isn't for you, necessarily, because I think you are genuinely and sincerely extremely anti-capitalist and your concerns are consistent but 95% of the people nodding along with you or that would nod along with this are standard deplorable Republicans who seek to crush labor rights in ever other way but this. Although come to think of it they probably want racist jokes and Nazi pamphleteering too.

I acknowledge my policies are authoritarian and kowtow to capitalist interests but it seems hugely unsympathetic to carve out this one freedom that we know places tons of burdens on women (see how 48% of women have experienced sexually harassment at work). In all other ways we bend and contort ourselves to capital and production, EXCEPT this one, gotta remember the special place sex holds for the human spirit? Why not art? Why not quite reflection time? The right to mess around on my phone playing games? Freedom of movement? Can I work wherever I want? "But DVAULT this freedom holds a special place in society's heart" is not compelling.

Workers have very, very few rights. That's deeply unfortunate but special pleading for sexual freedoms only reeks of just apologizing for the status quo: yeah all those sexually harassed womens but man my balls, they ache, I need sex, blah blah, consider my predicament here. Not you, but it seems right out of the Weed and Porn Libertarian playbook where libertarian appeals are tailored very specifically to suit precisely the interests of the protectors of the status quo.

Literally no one here is suggesting anything like that.

That's not the solution you propose, but, if you're serious about this I am tempted to support your plan to have rules that are not intended to be strictly followed. That works against a culture of rule following and respect for law, a good thing.

So what do you actually propose specifically? You mentioned cultural norms, not laws right? It's hard to get a grip on what action that implies. And even if you're just giving advice to the men here, you've subverted it with the stuff about everything being ok if no one complains and it's happily ever after.

All the signs of a good argument! In addition to "consider my plight," "well the victims just have to deal with it we guess" and "no one can control themselves," I forgot another good one: completely bat**** slippery slope strawmen like if you have a professional standard not to do X at work then the police will crack down on X literally everywhere. BUT DVAULT1 if we ban racial discrimination at the workplace, it's a one way ticket to a balding fat guy winning the Miss America pageant!!!! HAVE U CONSIDERED THAT the peanut gallery chortles.

It's like all bad arguments gravitate to the same dip**** places, over and over.