Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

No. She didn't say she felt threatened. She said she didn't want to feel forced.

But that can mean, "If you're patient and not so pushy, it will happen." It can also mean, "Back off already."

The whole thing is written in such a way that it's very hard to tell how clear she was being. And I'm not saying she didn't feel the way she said she felt. Something may have been going on in her mind she felt was obvious to her, but wasn't to him. And after she said she didn't want to feel forced she stayed and fooled around some more. He put her hand on his dick a number of times. She doesn't say how long she kept it there before removing it. And she gave him a blowjob after being asked for one.

Everything about this story screams that it was a situation, in which alcohol was involved, in which each person had a very different understanding of what was going on.

How would you categorize a blowjob? That seems pretty enthusiastic to me.

"Hear the no?" Dude, I can count dozens of times when there was a "No" for this, but not for that. Always respected, but a "No" for sex doesn't mean a "No" for a blowjob or heavy petting or whatever else. Similarly, a "Yes" for sex doesn't mean a "Yes" for anal.* Hell, I've been told, "We're not going to have sex tonight" a few times in which the woman then completely initiates sex. Maybe it's about needing to feel comfortable or about control or just changing one's mind. But, her telling him she doesn't want to feel forced and then him not forcing her to do anything shouldn't result in a public shaming.

TM

*I'm looking at you, Kobe Bryant.

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

I think blanket statements like this are dangerous. Why any instance? Because you're assuming all men are stronger than all women, or is it just something inherent in masculinity that is more powerful that anything a woman has to offer?

Re: Deneuve
 

That was the joke. That patentpara was my sock. I wouldn't forget the sushi - it was outstanding.

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

Internal Affairs has been around for a long time in police departments, and the problems you cite still persist. I don't see how adding a prosecutor to the IA dept will make much difference.

I see the problem more broadly as an adversarial system in which winning is paramount to finding the actual truth of a matter. Once you put people on "teams" or "sides," they start wearing blinders.

Our adversarial system has some good elements to it, but it's also a relic, developed in a time when there were no alternatives. We should start considering alternatives or modifications to it to remove the incentives toward "win at all costs" behaviors.

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

I didn't say her belief was not reasonable. She doesn't seem to have done a very good job of communicating her beliefs, at least until she found a co-writer and Babe.

If it's not assault, it's because she consented.

It's pretty clear from even her account that he did come around to understanding her POV before she published it. Other than getting all judgy to show that you are a better person that Aziz Ansari, which personally I would have stipulated to if it would have saved me from reading that Babe article, I'm not sure what your point is. Sometimes people have bad dates and don't enjoy themselves.

As Tom Lehrer said, there are people out there who can't communicate. And I think people like that should just shut up.

Re: Deneuve
 

Given your current hair situation, I'm not sure how you pulled off that glorious pate of hair at that patentpara meeting, then. But well done. Well done.

TM

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

Are you being intentionally obtuse? IA charges go nowhere because prosecutors must bring them. Prosecutors have no incentive to bring them because they must work with cops.

I do not disagree.

TM

Re: Deneuve
 

That was before I went full Urlacher:

http://restorehair.com/wp-content/up...-hero-sm-1.jpg

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

I guess I don't understand what either of you might mean when you talk about looking for alternatives to the adversarial system. Sometimes the government wants to incarcerate people. People don't want to be incarcerated. So that's a pretty adversarial situation. I'm not sure what the alternative is to have people who try to incarcerate other people who don't want to be incarcerated.

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

One other thing that's been bugging me about the Ansari thing, which I haven't been able to put my finger on until now: As far as I can tell, the fact that he is a celebrity had nothing to do with their interactions, and certainly not on his part. So writing about him in a way which will get him bad press seems uncalled for, especially when "Grace" chooses to remain anonymous herself.

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

You're responding to a general statement as though it was about this specific instance. It wasn't.

In either instance, you back off and let her decide what/if anything further happens.

I have no doubt that she was not being particularly clear and it wasn't obvious to him. I think you can tell that from how she says he responded, which was to apologize and say he misread the situation.

I actually think that's the value of this story. See also.

Maybe it's just thanks to all the trouble the athletes at my fine alma mater keep getting into, but I keep hearing stories from women who felt forced into giving blowjobs, so I would not read enthusiasm into it but I certainly understand why he didn't think it was non-consensual.

There is conduct that short of illegal that is nonetheless not what you should do, which is where I think this falls.

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

Because men use violence against women all the time, including to extract "sex," many/most women have experienced some version of it, and it's not unreasonable to believe that the one in front of you may as well.

You are still free to kick the crap out of any man whose behavior displeases you.

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

This seems inarguable, but not clear what follows from it.

Re: AZIZ HAS A FUTURE IN HORROR FILMS: THE RETURN OF THE CLAW!
 

On the plus side, I had no idea who he was before the Golden Globes, and I would have soon forgotten his brief appearance there.

Now his existence is forever etched in my mind. He's the weaselly looking guy with the "claw".

Re: AZIZ HAS A FUTURE IN HORROR FILMS: THE RETURN OF THE CLAW!
 

I don't think there was a scenario where this story had a particularly negative impact on his career, but as it's working out - where nearly everyone thinks that "Grace" has probably overreacted a little and there are tons of people coming to his defense - it may actually have some small benefit.

That doesn't stop most of the "defense" articles from asserting career doom, because that's the playbook for dismissing allegations of misconduct.

Re: AZIZ HAS A FUTURE IN HORROR FILMS: THE RETURN OF THE CLAW!
 

"The claw" is the worst part for me. And I was literally halfway through the first episode of the second season of Master of None when I read the article.

I wasn't there. But I read it as a bad date that she didn't know how to get out of. I've given blowjobs in the hopes of getting everything over and done with sooner, so I'd never assume all were enthusiastic. But I don't think her agency was taken away in this instance. I don't know why she stuck around after hiding in the bathroom for five minutes, because it was pretty clear that he could have given a shit about whether or not she was having a good time. But maybe she wanted him to like her still afterwards. Or maybe she thought he was her entree into a world she wanted to be in. Or maybe she was too drunk on wine she didn't want to drink (I still don't get why that particular point was salient).

I don't know. It's definitely a new page that has been turned, and I think we all knew that the #metoo movement was going to head into really uncomfortable territory and that if we looked too closely, pretty much every dude was going to have some untoward history uncovered. In part because we were raised under different norms. In part because people aren't perfect and sex is really messy under the best of circumstances.

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

I think what we both mean (although, I sure as hell don't speak for Sebby) is that the current system judges success in a perverted way. If you're a prosecutor, the goal doesn't seem to be to achieve justice, but to win. You can see it in the article I posted. Prosecutors refuse to admit when they're wrong. They hide evidence so that they can improve their record of wins and losses. They take full advantage of a system in which the poor are steamrolled. There seems to be no reward for coming to the actual correct decision.

If politicians didn't care so much about being re-elected by a virtually illiterate and wholly uninformed electorate, they might put protections into place which would make our current adversarial system much fairer and more prone to just outcomes. Independent prosecutors for police misconduct and perjury, a fully funded public defender's office, actual penalties for prosecutorial misconduct, etc.

TM

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

We really need far fewer criminal prosecutions and far more other types of interventions intended to improve people lives. But that would require ending the war on drugs, so we can't do that.

Re: AZIZ HAS A FUTURE IN HORROR FILMS: THE RETURN OF THE CLAW!
 

Sure there is. Until now he's been considered a woke, feminist dude. That's a niche he's cultivated well, and Master of None tackles some of those related issues really well. (I've seen the first season and the first half episode of the second season.) I especially loved his take on cohabitation, which involves a lot of sex, ("Mornings") and validating women's experiences ("Women and Men"). That's called into question now.

I sort of questioned the Golden Globe, because I don't think he's a particularly good actor, but his perspective and his stories are I think good. It's hard to reconcile his awareness of these things with his purported actions.

I really don't generally believe in dessert, because it's luck as much as anyone that lands someone their own tv show or a senatorship or whatever and so when those things are impacted because of something like this, it's also, in my opinion, luck. And no matter what happens, from now until the end of his career, he'll have "sex scandal" attached to his name, if only in the wiki.

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

You're doing quite the dance. The reason why we're talking about this specific instance is because she didn't feel threatened.

No. That's the whole point. If you read her as saying, "I don't want to feel forced into having sex," then it seems perfectly normal to proceed with the understanding that you won't be having sex. But that doesn't mean sitting down and waiting for her to engage. It may mean dialing it back to kissing and fooling around and maybe even a blowjob.

I think you have convinced yourself that whatever this woman says should be believed and her feelings, no matter how poorly communicated need to be respected above everything else. I think a tendency toward believing the victim typically serves you well. But the value of this story is in understanding how very differently these two people saw this encounter. I think if Aziz Ansari told you about this night in his own words first, you would have a very different understanding of what happened.

Don't do that. First, feeling like you need to blow multiple football players is very fucking different. That's a situation that is inherently dangerous and scary. Your attempt to draw similarities between that event and this one to make your point is ridiculous. The woman in this case did not say she felt physically intimidated at any point and that she chose to give him a blowjob.

I think he could have been more perceptive. But this one-sided account is not something I'm going to sit back and judge him on other than to say that I think he handled it well from the very first instant when he found out she didn't enjoy herself to when she wrote an article about it.

TM

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

This is where we disagree, obviously. I'm not asking for anything after a woman tells me that she's feeling forced, which is what Grace was saying to him, albeit in the indirect way women often use to tell men things they don't want to hear about sex.

Agreed.

That's interesting to think about. I certainly think that's true if Aziz told you without having heard how she felt about it. To his credit, and the way he's reacted, I don't think he'd tell it that way having later learned how she felt about it.

Lots of victim's stories involve choosing to give a blow job as a means of ending an otherwise unpleasant encounter. Heck, RT just told us how she's done it. RT feels okay about it. This woman does not and she has that option.

Regardless of whether she felt intimidated or just tired/aggravated/annoyed/cajoled, that is not how any of us should aspire to behave.

I think those things and I think to the extent that any of us are ever trying to get laid by a stranger in the future it's worth having heard about and tried to learn from this scenario.

I also think there's a big generational divide on this issue and the kids have much more strongly absorbed a world of affirmative consent that's foreign to us old people.

Re: AZIZ HAS A FUTURE IN HORROR FILMS: THE RETURN OF THE CLAW!
 

I don't discount that possibility that both of them had been drinking and were not perceiving things as well and clearly as her reconstruction suggests.

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

I was a prosecutor, more or less, and my unit did not see success that way. But I think there are a lot of career prosecutors out there who see things the way you describe even though they do not have to worry about getting elected. As much as I like to focus on incentives, I suspect a big part of the problem is the culture within those offices.

Re: AZIZ HAS A FUTURE IN HORROR FILMS: THE RETURN OF THE CLAW!
 

You should watch his show, Master of None. It is absolutely beautiful (season 2 more than season 1--although I enjoyed both). And he, in fact, deals with how he's supposed to address sexual assault in the workplace by a superior against a friend as a storyline in season 2. After watching, I'd be interested in your opinion on who he is and his work.

His show addresses all sorts of topics, including race, homosexuality, first and second generation immigrant experiences, and other shit you would find very interesting. He has given opportunities to people who don't generally get them to write, direct, and act on episodes of his show.

In short, it doesn't make sense for you to dismiss him so easily. He is exactly what Hollywood needs.

TM

Re: AZIZ HAS A FUTURE IN HORROR FILMS: THE RETURN OF THE CLAW!
 

2. And GGG, I bet you'd love it.

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

How does affirmative consent solve anything? If there is an inherent power imbalance in every male-female encounter, the female might have just affirmatively consented because she was afraid he would get violent if she did not, and that if had read her body language, he should have figured out that her affirmative verbal assent was negated by the clear signals she was giving off that her words did not comport with her actual desires.

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

I think you have put this statement into a category that is completely encapsulated by "No means no."

I've tried my best to explain to you that what she said may not have meant that she was done fooling around at all. If you don't want to entertain that possibility, I guess we're done with this part of the conversation.

Yes. Of course. And maybe she would have had a different understanding about who he is if she had spoken to him about how he felt about it too.

First of all, you tried to conflate this to a situation in which a woman blew a football team. That is completely different. And trying to draw that comparison is irresponsible.

If RT feels okay about blowing someone to end an unpleasant encounter, I do not put her in the victim category. If she corrects me by saying she felt like she was in danger or felt compelled somehow such that she wasn't in control of the situation it would be a different story. But until RT tells me otherwise, I'm not putting her or the woman in the Aziz story in the "victim" category. You shouldn't either.

Sure. We can agree on that. There's lots of shit that people have done that others shouldn't aspire to. That does not mean that behavior rates an article about it.

Speak for yourself.

TM

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

Do you think Ansari consented to having her write about their time together? She surely understands that she is harming him by publishing the piece, since she has chosen to remain anonymous. Could she not have written the same piece without having named him? If she feels that she was assaulted by what he did, shouldn't he feel violated by what she wrote? If she felt wronged by how he acted, is she justified in whatever she does back to him?

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

She could have meant any number of things, all of which are things that I'd let her define because she just told me I was pressuring her to do things she didn't want to do.

I was not referring to one incident. That you are aware of only one incident involving Gopher athletes does not mean that I am. Nor was I remarking exclusively on victims of Gopher athletes as indicated by the "maybe" part of what I wrote.

Nor do I.

"Grace" told you that she felt not in control of the situation and compelled. You responded by saying that she was not physically intimidated.

This is gray area stuff and it doesn't help that we're relying on the journalism of babe.net that was not particularly good, but according to you he was aggressive and according to her she felt violated. That's enough for me to think he should have acted differently, she was victimized on some level even if not actionable, and there's actually a story there.

I'll refrain from returning the personal shot, but I think I'm okay on the affirmative consent front, thanks.

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

Why would she need his consent?

While I think she likely understands that she is harming him - I assume she is a functioning adult and thus would have to - I don't see the connection you're drawing from her being anonymous. Again, assuming she's sentient, I'd assume she's anonymous because she doesn't particularly want to get death threats from Ansari fans* and all of the other forms of abuse that happens to women who speak up.

*Note, this is about people in general, not Ansari fans, whom I don't believe are any more prone to making death threats to alleged victims of sexual abuse than the general population.

I suspect not even babe.net is interested in stories of unknown people been creeps.

Again, I don't follow your logic. She can't talk publicly about how she felt violated by him unless, what? Surely most perpetrators feel violated that their wrongdoing is exposed.

She's certainly justified in telling people what he did.

Re: AZIZ HAS A FUTURE IN HORROR FILMS: THE RETURN OF THE CLAW!
 

I'll keep an eye out. Usually, I just watch what others are watching, but I'll suggest giving it a try sometime.

My statement wasn't so much a dismissal of him as a data point on my awareness of him.

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

Damn, man. I would have loved sitting behind you in Deconstruction 101. I bet you rocked.

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

I think we both agree that he did not violate any law in what he did with her, even if he was jerk, and she did not violate any law in what she did to him with her story. (You call him a "perpetrator," a term usually used to describe a criminal, but I'm going off what you said earlier.) As you say, she absolutely could have written the story without naming him, though fewer people would have read it. If you pretend that she wasn't trying to hurt him by writing the article, you can also pretend that naming him was justified in order to get a bigger audience for her message, but that kind of end-justifieds-the-means view seems hard to stomach when the message of her piece ostensibly is advocating a sexual politics based on more mutual respect.

I think they both have done things now that they should regret, and he at least has said that (privately and publicly), while she is hiding behind the anonymity she has chosen (and note that he hasn't outed her).

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

I worry about that whenever someone here says they agree with a Thurgreed post.

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

I don't think she's done anything she should regret - aside perhaps from not finding an outlet that would write about it better - and that she has every right to out him for being a jerk, if that's all it was.

It is very hard for me to believe in 2018 that you see something nefarious in a woman speaking publicly choosing anonymity. And yes, Ansari is definitely doing the right thing in not outing her, which he what he would have done if he was running the typical defense playbook.

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

JFC. Nevermind.

You are so full of shit and are looking for loopholes in the most Sebby way possible. If you're trying to argue that you didn't bring up a woman blowing a football player (or players) in connection with this Aziz Ansari account for the very specific reason of trying to link feelings of physical coercion, intimidation, etc. to this, you are absolutely lying about your intentions.

Uh, no. What happened here was Aziz thought he was getting a hook-up. She thought she was at the beginning of a meaningful relationship. He acted like a dick. She didn't like it. I do not believe she was victimized. And I do not think this is a fair story for an article. If this were a different time, I think he may have responded with a piece that would actually give way more clarity to what happened. (And no, I don't mean in a "I'm a star and I will shut you down" way.) But I sure as hell wouldn't advise him, in the current climate, to do so.

?

What personal shot is that? I have been exposed to discussions and training on affirmative consent on a number of occasions from 1989 through last year. Even if that wasn't my point, how is "speak for yourself" a personal shot when we're talking about whether or not we've been trained/exposed to the concept of affirmative consent?

TM

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

I wasn't trying to say that there was something nefarious in her choosing anonymity. I was trying to point to the asymmetry in how she published her account -- his privacy was shredded, while she kept hers. Notice how you use the language of legal rights to defend her choices ("she has every right to out him") and to describe him ("perpetrator") even though you don't think he assaulted her. I agree that she has the "right" to write what she did, but I don't think she should have done it, just as I agree that he did not "assault" her, but don't think he acted as he should have. He surely has the "right" to out her, but you say he is "definitely doing the right thing" in choosing not to, a question you pointedly duck as to what she did to him. Still not clear why you think her decision to out him is justified except that the page hits make it all worth it.

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

Idk what happened that night. But I know he’s funny and entertaining as all fuck, and nothing written in that piece provides any reason to stop watching him.

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

I don't mind the anonymous aspect of the article. What I do mind is that they were in contact the next day and he apologized and made it clear there was a disconnect between what he was feeling and what she was feeling about the encounter. After knowing this is how he felt, I'm not sure writing a very detailed piece about just her feelings makes a lot of sense (especially after reading that account). To write that article like he's just another in a line of scumbag celebrities who force women to do what they don't want to do seems a bit much.

I say this with the understanding that in the grand scheme of things given how much bullshit women have had to endure in every field since the beginning of time, the relative danger to Ansari's career shouldn't really be the primary focus of anyone's critique. And given who he is and how he has been very thoughtful about the very issues at play in the article, (i) I think he will recover and (ii) to a certain extent, he is fair game to be called out when his behavior doesn't live up to his art.

But, damn. He texted her first and clearly thought the whole night went differently. He said it was fun meeting her and after hearing how she felt, said, “I’m so sad to hear this. Clearly, I misread things in the moment and I’m truly sorry.”

She came to the conclusion that she was sexually assaulted.

TM

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

It's just an unhappy story all around. I guess I am reacting poorly to the implicit notion that because he was a jerk, the way she handled it shouldn't be questioned. They clearly were not on the same page, and it seems to have really hurt her. Again: an unhappy story all around. I don't think I know his stuff, but nothing he did that night makes me feel better about him. And reading her account doesn't make me want to hear more from her.