@Bitter Crank

I agree with everything on false allegations (and most of everything else). And unquestionably there are some confusing aspects of #me2. For example, as far as I can tell, many (most?) relationships (especially for younger people) begin with a #me2 moment that in that instance both people are OK with...that may be changing in the era of me2, but slowly.

But there is one other aspect to this (which may have nothing to do with what you were talking about?). I will use a personal example to illustrate:

About 20 years ago, I dressed up as the General Lee (the car from Dukes of Hazzard) for Halloween. Now at the time, I did not even consider that there was anything wrong with that. However, I now know that the car is named after a hero of the confederacy. The car also has the symbol of the confederacy on it (the confederate flag). Now while the confederacy was about more than slavery and racism, those were certainly two defining aspects. Now if I was to be fired (or not hired) someday because a photo surfaced showing me dressed in orange with a confederate flag; I would think it fair to terminate me based on the implication that I might not work well with other races.

My example clearly does nothing to address false accusations, but I think it does show that even a minor incident (if known to be true), can be enough to just try the next person - Well I guess it "shows" to me, hopefully it makes sense to others?

Welcome. I'm glad you took a step past reading and wrote something.

Is there anything that Tom, Dick, or Harry could have done 10 years ago that would matter? — ZhouBoTong

Indeed there are things that could, would, and should matter 10 years later.

Let's say that Tom was being considered for a job in a bank, and had been convicted of embezzlement 10 years earlier. That would be a fatal problem for his application.

Let's say that Dick was being considered for a job in a bank as a security guard, and had an arrest for assault and battery. He paid a fine, no jail time. Security guard? Minor assault? Might be an advantage. Hire him.

Let's say that Harry was being considered for a job as loan officer. 10 years ago in college a woman accused him of attempting to force her to have sex with him. There was no police investigation, the college took no action after a cursory investigation, They were both 18 years old at the time. The bank has no idea what happened, except the record on social media revived by @me2. Apparently it wasn't very serious; the college or the police would probably have acted if a claim of rape had been made, especially if an exam showed that he had raped her. However, none of that happened.

I say it should be ignored because they were both juveniles at the time, both capable of misinterpreting the other's signals. No rape occurred. The woman didn't accuse him of attempted rape, but attempted sex (somewhat different). He has no criminal record; he has an excellent employment record since graduation (3.9 gpa). This ghost from his past is too tenuous to worry about. Hire him.

In the context of #me2, women (or men) can make an accusation of merely inappropriate behavior that is usually unsubstantiated or unwitnessed, and expect that everyone should believe the veracity of their accusation. No, sorry. Unsupported accusations are not good enough. Coming forward and accusing someone of unpleasant or criminal behavior that happened 10 or 20 years ago when the claim can not now be investigated by more than hearsay evidence is not fair. Now, some events that happened in the past can be investigated. If a rape investigation was made, the evidence (tissue sample) probably still exists. If someone murdered someone 10 or 20 years ago and was not previously accused but now has been, police can usually make some kind of investigation and either find evidence or no evidence.

The standards that are being applied in all sorts of situations in response to statements or actions which may be in fact innocuous often border on hysteria. Institutions are SO concerned about negative publicity that they sometimes go to quite unjust extremes to distance themselves from someone who said the wrong thing, or the right thing in the wrong way... etc.

As one of my old psych profs said (back in the antediluvian 1960s, "Want to is more important than IQ." This prof had been a professor for decades on the basis of a faked PhD. Unfortunately, his novel approach to scholarship was revealed later on and he died in some sort of disgrace. I thought he was a good teacher.

Intelligence is a good thing, of course, but so is stick-to-it-ivness, ambition, imagination, and planning. People tend to get smarter as they get older, in some cases, at least. Some people start getting dumber at about 30, give or take a few years, and by the time they are 50 or 60 they idiots. But if you work at it consistently (have curiosity, read widely, remember useful information and think about it), don't fry your brain with too many drugs or too much alcohol, don't hit your head on concrete too hard or too often, don't consume too much cultural crap, you tend to "get smarter".

Intelligence has never meant the certainty of being a huge success--making millions of dollars, becoming world famous, chased by crowds of screaming women (like screaming with excitement and lust, not #me2 screaming for blood), or getting elected president (we now know one can be a complete imbecile and be president).

#me2 and various other manifestations of liberation or outrage emerge when they can emerge. Meaning, #me2 is possible because women have enough security that they can afford to go on the offense. That they have gone overboard in many cases is nothing against the #m32 movement: whenever people build up some momentum they tend to go overboard.

Women's liberation, gay liberation, Unionism, abolition, temperance, women's suffrage, etc. are all examples of movements emerging when economic and political circumstances allowed for these movements to develop. (Note: Sometimes economic and political factors caused these movements, other times they just opened the door.

"to turn people into objects to be possessed as one would possesses any other inanimate object"...

I wonder how common the "pleasure in power over" actually is.

I would not deny that power plays a role in life, but it seems to me that there is an obsessive concern with power. Most people (like... 90% at least) men and women both are pretty much without power over others, however much they would like some power. Harvey Weinstein had some actual power over women who wanted to make it in the movies; he had little power, it would seem, over women who were not interested in making it in Hollywood.

The wave of denunciations directed toward men who behaved inappropriately is a case of mass hysteria. It is a crazy attempt by the powerless (which most of us are) to get even with someone who has power. Sex is as good a tool as anything else to exact revenge. #me2 has ended up poisoning the well--not for the small minority who have real power--but for all the other nobodies who perceive the normal efforts of the opposite sex to achieve intimacy as some sort of creepy deviance, or are unable to respond normally to a good-will invitation to spend time together and which might lead to sex.

Whatever the original intentions were, #me2 has gone astray--deeply into the weeds.

due process — prothero

proportionality — prothero

I doubt if there was ever a wish for due process by the #me2 phenomena. Due process is slow and might be quite public. The court doesn't reliably find all of the accused guilty. Cases may be thrown out. I doubt also that there was any wish for proportional claims. If there is proportionality, where does one draw the line among rude and/or tasteless behavior, sexual misconduct, and sexual assault? What happens to solidarity if women who have been raped outrank, in an aristocracy of suffering, those who have been subjected only to repeated requests to have sex?

Besides, if offending men get fired on the basis of reports alone, why bother with due process? Who cares about proportionality if one can get results by making accusations which are likely to result in a firing or costly resignation? It's an all women for every woman free for all.

More generally, I don't accept that studies have established women fall for bastards — Benkei

Of course some women fall for bastards. I don't know why they do, but some women gravitate towards abusive men, and when they find an abuser, it is difficult to pry them loose. Sometimes. Childhood abuse sometimes accounts for this tendency, but not always.

I have no problem with women calling out the bastards, the crude abusers, the beaters, and so forth. It is proper that these men should be identified as assaulters. This is not the kind of behavior that is difficult to understand

I'm as gay as June 21st is long, so I have no expertise in relating sexually to women, or even romantically. But...

Is it not the case that men are usually expected by women to be the initiator of romantic activity, of sexual activity, and so on? Women can and do also initiate amorous, romantic sexual activity, but it seems like men are expected to prosecute the case, so to speak. Clearly, the beginning of an assault could be similar to the beginning of an exceedingly pleasant interlude.

If sex is about power (it is only to some extent, frequently not very much) then there are power games women can play as well. There also seems to be a long tradition of women taking the task of controlling male sexuality to suit the needs and wants of women and child rearing.

[Straight men don't behave (sexually) like gay men because straight women don't let them, I have heard. Gay men amongst themselves tend to put up few barriers to sex with each other.]

I can see women (or men) in a relationship (or marriage) fending off advances from an interloper in order to avoid conflict. But the same fending off of advances seems to occur just as often when there is no relationship to defend. It appears to be a power game, I hear references to women repelling advances from someone in an ordinary social situation, but it seems like there is a certain amount of 'gate keeping' about it. "I'm free of any commitments, but male approaches have to be metered so I stay in control."

So that hand on the knee is ok, moving 2 inches up the thigh is ok, but 3 inches exceeds the allowable loss of control.

It isn't assault and battery that is disruptive about #me2, it's the power game playing that is confusing and annoying, and the power game is one women do and can play along with men. Women aren't defenseless, powerless, ineffectual agents; they never have been, and they aren't now.

The #me2 movement includes many people who acknowledge what the difference is between a wolf whistle and rape, It also includes "lumpers" who don't. Hence the accusations against Senator Franken and Garrison Keillor that they touched a woman inappropriately (on one woman's rump, on one woman's back). Keillor was disowned by his longtime employer, Minnesota Public Radio, and also the Washington Post for something not even remotely resembling an assault. Ditto for Franken.

Harvey Weinstein represents one end of the spectrum, Keillor the other end. They are a very long ways apart, but in many people's minds, since they were deemed to be on the same continuum, they are both guilty.

They contend that the #MeToo movement has led to a campaign of public accusations that have placed undeserving people in the same category as sex offenders without giving them a chance to defend themselves. “This expedited justice already has its victims, men prevented from practicing their profession as punishment, forced to resign, etc., while the only thing they did wrong was touching a knee, trying to steal a kiss, or speaking about ‘intimate’ things at a work dinner, or sending messages with sexual connotations to a woman whose feelings were not mutual,” they write. The letter, written in French was translated here by The New York Times.

#me2, and #Balancetonporc aren't the same as the anti-free-speech practitioners of political correctness, but they have something in common:

The all want a society where individuals will not be confronted by unwanted interest or opinions with which they disagree. A desire for a safe world appropriately means not being subjected to rape or being mauled in a locked room from which they can't escape. Opposing rape is right and proper. What's not so appropriate is to confuse the stolen kiss, the proposal in the form of a hand on the knee, or a wolf whistle with rape and sexual assault. It seems akin to demanding protection from the virgin-ear piercing utterance of a disapproved political opinion, or a slur of some sort, for which "safe spaces" need to be erected.

There is a quid pro quo here: we will not have a free and open society if ordinary sexual expressions, as well as disapproved political expressions, are verboten.

And what is it about women that they should never be whistled at or touched on the knee? What is it about the female personality that requires their person to be so inviolate? Women spend a considerable amount of time and money on making themselves sexually attractive in public (so do men), but then object when their carefully constructed attractiveness is not ignored. It's crazy, ladies. Neurotic.

A feature of the #me2 movement is that they are unwilling to distinguish between a pat on a woman's derriere and rape — Bitter Crank

Really? BC, you have known me for over a decade and do you honestly think that I cannot tell the difference between a pat on the ass and rape?
Such an insult to the #MeToo movement.

A feature of the #me2 movement is that they are unwilling to distinguish between a pat on a woman's derriere and rape. The former can not be worse than annoying, — Bitter Crank

Jesus fucking Christ what the hell is wrong with you that you think this is an acceptable statement to ever make? Of course it could be worse than annoying.

For fuck's sake what the hell is wrong with this fucking planet that this is even in question?

A feature of the #me2 movement is that they are unwilling to distinguish between a pat on a woman's derriere and rape. The former can not be worse than annoying, and has nothing in common with the latter. — Bitter Crank

I doubt these me2-people are unable to tell the difference between rape and unwanted sexual advances. So I suspect you misunderstand the movement. One possible view is that both stem from the fact that society has for too long relegated women to second class citizens. Almost no one would think to slap a guy's ass (ok, ok, I'm telling the wrong guy now, but on average!)

It's not the slap that's the problem but the society that considers this acceptable. It shouldn't be. So it's all commentary on those social norms and the acts being an expression of that aren't really the issue here.

A feature of the #me2 movement is that they are unwilling to distinguish between a pat on a woman's derriere and rape. — Bitter Crank

Well this seems like a strawman. Saying that both are wrong isn't to be unwilling to draw a distinction.

"It's not rape, therefore it's OK" is obviously a non sequitur.

But sexual advances, wanted and unwanted, are an ordinary part of life and not in themselves bad, regrettable or traumatic. — jamalrob

They are a part of life, and people with normal cognitive processing are able to distinguish between "a sexual advance", wanted or unwanted, and rape.



A feature of the #me2 movement is that they are unwilling to distinguish between a pat on a woman's derriere and rape. The former can not be worse than annoying, and has nothing in common with the latter. Similarly, verbal requests for sex are not the same as rape. By collapsing all undesired sexual suggestion, touching, innuendo, humor, and so on into "assault" along with forced sodomy and rape, and then "catastrophizing" a joke of which a woman might disapprove, #metoo has created a movement which will burn out on flimsy grievances.