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Comment by wand3r | Hacker News Reader

This world is getting so fucked up. We can't crucify people for "hitting on" or other somewhat tame behavior because we have nothing left to throw at the real offenders.

Conversely, people benefit on both sides of the equation; using sex to their advantage or weaponizing allegations like this.

Sexual assualt is REAL and should be punished. We need to focus on a balance between being human and being a predator. People are fucked up. You have rapists, liars, sociopaths and ladder climbers and guys and girls who get overwhelmed by greed, desperation or just stupidity and break their otherwise decent character. The media makes it fucking impossible to tell people apart.

Great example was the 500 startups thing. I am prepared to believe that there was some dodgy ass shit going on and he was being a scumbag; but it leaves a bad taste in my mouth not knowing the full extent of what happened and watching the accuser ride the publicity to raise a round.

This is so messy. Is this just how the game is played? Leverage on both sides used as a weapon instead of just treating humans like humans.

Sad to see false accusations. Sad to see real ones. Sad to see people capitalizing on this climate, and the most sad:

People who really really hurt (either reputation or physically) just getting killed in the crossfire on top of the horrible events.

This is sick.

View on HN

Compare the definition of harassment:

   Persistent attacks and criticism causing worry and distress or deliberate pestering or annoying.

With the definition of sexual harassment:

   The making of unwanted and offensive sexual advances or of sexually offensive remarks or acts, especially by one in a superior or supervisory position or when acquiescence to such behavior is a condition of continued employment, promotion, or satisfactory evaluation.

There are really two separate definitions of sexual harassment. One is quid pro quo harassment, which is essentially just abuse of power of a sexual nature; I think everyone can agree that this should not be tolerated. The other definition is unwanted and offensive sexual advances or remarks. The problem is that this definition doesn't rise to the actual level of harassment: it doesn't need to be deliberate or persistent. If it is deliberate and persistent than it is simply harassment; the sexual nature is completely irrelevant and most people will agree it shouldn't be tolerated.

I can talk about the many bizarre and fascinating parasites that exist in the world that many people will find far more unwanted and offensive than any casual sexual joke. Surgeries, the making of some foods, the history and ongoing saga of torture, and other topics all fall in the same category. However, you will not be accused of harassment for constantly talking about how people contract Noro virus although people will generally ask you not to talk about it during a meal.

It always seemed to me, as outsider, that sex in the US culture is a single topic that is especially uncomfortable to people, far more than in Europe. Just look at the TV/movies or social media rules: you can show blood, violence, guns, all kinds of criminal or deviant behavior, but any kind of nudity will set off alarms, to the point that we need to defend mothers' rights to breastfeed in public because nipples are somehow offensive? And if someone can be upset by mother breastfeeding a baby, then why be surprised that someone else is easily upset by unwanted sexual context of a joke or a conversation? That's simply what happens when society suppresses sexuality as something completely inappropriate outside of bedroom or academical discussions. And also alienation of people doesn't really help, our private space is getting bigger and bigger everyday, and we're more and more intimidated by any casual human contact. Being a hard-core introvert I sort of like it better that way, but that has a consequences that you need to respect other people's right to not give a damn about you, too.

Much of the laws that shaped the country are from Protestant view point. Over the years violence and profanity have been accepted. Did you ever see what happened in the late 90/00s with profane music? It was supposedly corrupting our youth and congress had hearing discussing Eminem lyrics. How hilarious.

Nudity is still rare but not really like it was 20 years ago. Religious nuts will protest "think of the children" and no politician will want to seem like they dislike children so they play along to get votes.

Not going to touch breastfeeding, media fuled firestorm. Who cares?

> Did you ever see what happened in the late 90/00s with profane music? It was supposedly corrupting our youth and congress had hearing discussing Eminem lyrics. How hilarious.

How many of those kids are now adults who voted for Donald Trump?

> Did you ever see what happened in the late 90/00s with profane music?

Goes back further than that; I'm pretty sure in 80s it was likely Madonna or something - I also know there was a frenzy around 2 Live Crew in the late 1980s/early 90s.

But I'd be willing to bet that there was also talk about Elvis in congress back in the day...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lxB-ZePpS7E

Nudity and sexuality are different. This feels like a false trope, the whole "Europe is so much more evolved," thing.

Pop culture from the states often looks like a role model for sexuality across the rest of the world. Don't those K-pop music videos with gyrating women kind of remind you of Britney Spears? I don't think they got the idea from Europe.

I will admit we have a confusing relationship toward sex here, where a non-sexual image of a nipple is unacceptable, but suggestive gyrating and sexual symbolism (commercials where beer is spraying out of a can like an orgasm, I don't know) are normal to the point that we don't even notice. We can see this as suppression in a way, where we can only talk about sex in metaphors, and only "the media" (Hollywood, advertisers) is allowed to do it for the rest of us.

I have been watching this issue for many years online. I have done my best not to comment on it.

But what you've said rings true: there's something really wrong here, and it has to do with the internet.

I've come to the conclusion -- and I may certainly be wrong -- that good policy and good laws depend on a logical and unemotional view of things. As a human being, you can and should acknowledge and feel for people in pain. You should not, however, make decisions based on how you feel about things. And I mean that in the extreme: whether something makes you personally happy or disgusted shouldn't play any role at all in which polices you support or advocate.

The problem is, that's not how the internet or public discourse happens. The internet is all about the feels - the mob, the pain, the sadness, the outrage. Everybody is a publisher and emotion sells eyeballs. There's simply too much attention to be gained by having some outrage-of-the-week. Now that we're all instantly connected, this means that any public discourse that has the potential to manipulate people emotionally will manipulate people emotionally. That's great for publishers, but not so much for trying to have a just society.

The only solution I've come up with is to simply disengage from public conversations about things people get really upset about, which is kinda the default stance on HN. Or at least it used to be. But even that approach is problematic, because the larger your audience, the more topics and subtopics become off-limits.

In this area, how to have a fair, just, and decent society, the internet is not helping things. Just the opposite, in fact.

I think the problem is not only with the Internet but mainly with people having no idea of just how large and varied the world is, how other people see things and how bizarre shit lurks just behind the horizon of their own life experience. The Internet only connected different strains of people together and now they are surprised, disgusted, scared or angered by what they see. And such phenomenon isn't even limited to the Internet.

For example, in case of this "sexual harassment in tech", I really think it's a matter of significant lack of understanding between the parties involved. Apparently it's not the case that most women would agree to have sex with just any random dude, but nevertheless some men seem to expect exactly that. OTOH, I very much doubt that they would be willing to take them by force, but nevertheless women end up worrying about all the possible things that may have happened.

> good policy and good laws depend on a logical and unemotional view of things

That's plausible. Good policy probably benefits from understanding, which seems to be improved by familiarity, which reduces emotional reactions, particularly the negative ones.

> You should not, however, make decisions based on how you feel about things.

But OTOH, if for whatever reason you can't obtain familiarity and understanding, it probably may be safer to follow your gut feeling. I think that's what guides many people and they probably don't think about it much.

> The internet is all about the feels - the mob, the pain, the sadness, the outrage.

THB, you could equally well describe Bolsheviks or Nazis that way. And they have this curious property of predating the Internet by several decades ;)

You should read 'Against Empathy' by Paul Bloom. It talks all about this issue.

> watching the accuser ride the publicity to raise a round.

Can you elaborate on this? Did I miss part of the story—did one of the accuser actually do that?

It sure reads like this guy didn't read the story and is running with the (admittedly misleading) headline. This story doesn't have any grey area or confusing situation - anonymous slander on the internet has nothing to do with sexual politics.

I'm under impression that the part about "riding the publicity to raise a round" referred to some other case involving 500 startups, not this one here.

500 startups have several accusers come forward against at least 2 of its leaders[1][2][3][4]. Nobody can necessarily know the full extent of what happened without having been there when each incident occurred but there has been enough information released to see patterns and the accused aren’t exactly denying the events. Given how hard it is historically for female founders to get funding even under the best of circumstances, it’s much harder during this particular period, with the negative attention and some men even considering avoiding hiring/investing/being alone in a room with a woman[5]. I definitely can’t see any “accuser ride the publicity to raise a round”. Also, in the case cited by the parent post is of a man anonymously pretending to be a woman and posting false accusations against an investor, which has nothing to do with recent accusations by non-anonymous sources.

[1] https://www.axios.com/500-startups-partner-elizabeth-yin-res...

[2] https://cherylyeoh.com/2017/07/03/shedding-light-on-the-blac...

[3] https://techcrunch.com/2017/07/20/the-long-term-cost-of-sexu...

[4] https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/30/technology/women-entrepre...

[5] https://techcrunch.com/2017/07/23/dear-tech-dudes-stop-being...

Ah, don't get to twisted about it. The world is much less "sick" than it ever has been. We are dealing with the world of business, and that world is won by people who will do anything to win.

I think an even more important point this illustrates is that there is a reason we have courts and a presumption of innocence. Abondoning this principle is dangerous.

clearly sexual harassment is continued advances, one rejected advance shouldn't be considered harassment, but it would make a working relationship awkward. so it's best to not do it anyway.

but also if merely (awkwardly trying) being nice is considered harassment bosses will be less willing to hire (attractive) women.

Well it depends on the advance itself, no? It's quite a way from "You look really nice today" to groping.

It is a long way; but, groping is not sexual harassment, groping is sexual assault.

> Conversely, people benefit on both sides of the equation; using sex to their advantage or weaponizing allegations like this.

Did you notice that the false accuser is also a man?

Because it appears that there are simply no women anywhere in your "equation".

> This world is getting so fucked up.

The world is bigger than US. And for the rest of us, we don't really seem to have this problem.

Tell that to Horst Arnold.

It sure reads like you (and nearly all of the subcomment authors) didn't read the article. This has absolutely nothing to do with the accused guy's behavior or about any woman whatsoever. It's a case of anonymous internet slander by a male against another male. What does a guy pretending to be a random woman have to do with "using sex to their advantage"?

I repeat: you didn't read the article.

OK, this is not that hard, people need to understand the rules.

First, the heuristics. If it would be extraordinarily awkward and/or conceivably career impacting for someone to decline a romantic advance then that advance should not be made, period, because it represents exploiting a power imbalance (even if unknowingly!) and throwing sex and romance into the situation. The only time in any scenario related to the workplace that romance or sex should see the light of day is if every party is fully empowered to decline with not even the slightest hint of impact to the workplace, career, employment, etc.

A good rule of thumb: unless a coworker is inarguably already a personal friend outside of work then introducing even the hint of romance into an otherwise entirely professional relationship could be not just awkward but potentially compromising. In every situation, the balance of doubt should always fall on the side of not engaging in romantic behavior with coworkers. Another good rule of thumb: if there is a level or authority imbalance (enormously more so if there is a direct superior/inferior relationship between two coworkers) then everyone should tread ten times or a hundred times more carefully than they would with any other relationship.

Whoever is making a move should be hyper conscious of any signs of discomfort on the part of the recipient and should go the extra mile (or ten miles) to provide many more easily available "outs" than normal. In normal dating situations if an advance is not welcomed that's fine, two peers had an interaction, someone made a minor mistake, and probably no one will get hurt. In a dating situation with all the complexities, minefields, and pitfalls of a work environment if an overture is made that is unwanted that almost certainly means that the person making it fucked up royally. They failed to read the other person, and they made them uncomfortable, and they complicated their professional relationship.

The 500 startups thing is a near perfect case of the sort of sexual harassment that many get away with because it has just the thinnest thread of deniability[1]. People should not be inviting themselves into the room or home of a coworker, period. People should not be trying to get cozy, let alone try to date, people they have only casually met, especially if there is a power imbalance between them or if there is absolutely anything at stake in the professional relationship.

If this sounds like a lot of restrictions, it is, but it's the only way to make sure that people feel safe and comfortable in their workplace and in their career. The workplace is not a dating service. If you happen to make a friendship at work that turns into a romance, congratulations, but that's not what it's for.

If the first, or only, thought you jump to when thinking about a workplace where romantic overtures are a lot more difficult is "that sucks, how are dudes even gonna get with any ladies ever?" instead of "it would be nice if we could get to a workplace that wasn't so toxic it kept hemorrhaging female talent by the day" then you are part of the problem.

[1] https://cherylyeoh.com/2017/07/03/shedding-light-on-the-blac...

> People should not be inviting themselves into the room or home of a coworker, period. People should not be trying to get cozy, let alone try to date, people they have only casually met, especially if there is a power imbalance between them or if there is absolutely anything at stake in the professional relationship.

Yet the majority of marriages after college are formed exactly that way - a guy asks an acquaintance (not generally a friend) from work on a date.

If women want to fix the fact that men do all the legwork in starting relationships, and don't like that men do so in a way that offends them personally (even though most women seem OK with the system) then they're free to demand other women take up a bit of the slack.

> Yet the majority of marriages after college are formed exactly that way - a guy asks an acquaintance (not generally a friend) from work on a date.

Do you have any evidence of that at all? Because to me it sounds simply made up. A quick google, and the first link I got back also seems to disagree.

https://mic.com/articles/112062/the-way-most-people-meet-the...

It amazes me how much people push for responsibility for their actions - but for some reason when it comes to this topic its: I can't help myself, this isn't fair. I must impose a sexual relationship on my co-workers when the feeling strikes me.

And this alternative false excuse of pretending like these are "just misunderstandings". The absolute vast majority (even going by whats been in the news) are completely blatant, repeated, inappropriate approaches.

This is not an excuse. Stop. Just stop. An acquaintance is not a coworker, period. It's not even a question.

Most of the time an acquaintance is fully empowered to tell you to fuck all the way off if you make an unwanted advance. And their life goes on as normal afterward. The equation is vastly different if people are coworkers, especially if there is any sort of difference in authority, seniority, connectedness, or anything whatsoever on the line (deals, employment, career advancement, mentoring, opportunities, etc.)

Even something seemingly as banal as interactions between coworkers who are perfect peers with the same level of seniority and authority in a company and work under widely separated management structures is potentially problematic. Because of the pressure to "not cause a scene" or "not hurt anyone's feelings". As I said, it's not about not doing it, it's about being absolutely, positively ensuring that everyone is 100% fully empowered to respond to an advance with absolutely zero fear of any negative repercussions no matter how minor.

Sure, many marriages are made between people who met through work, but many people already follow these rules, it's the people who don't that are the problem. Ask all of your female friends, if you have any, how many of them have been sexually harassed in some way at work. I don't have a single female friend who has not experienced it, because it's absolutely ubiquitous. That doesn't mean every guy in the workplace is doing it, it means that it continues to be tolerated and ignored enough in the workplace to make the few who do it be able to harass a huge number of people. It has to stop, and the way it stops is with changing the norms of what is expected behavior.

I read a recent account on the net in a NSFW forum written by a woman who wanted to have casual sex with a co-worker on a business trip. She gave several very obvious hints to the guy she was interested in with no response.

She finally had to resort to flashing her boobs at the guy to get him to acknowledge and fulfill her desires.

Me personally, it would take that level of chutzpah from a female co-worker before I'd even consider and I still might be worried about the whole thing ending badly. Kind of funny where we're at with male/female relationship dynamics these days.

If the genders were reversed then that would be sexual harassment...

This is actually an interesting legal problem. How would two * willing * co-workers initiate casual sex on a business trip? Certainly this situation has cropped up before! Neither would want to risk their careers on making an unwanted advance toward the other!

Presenting a coworker with a long legal document giving consent to be propositioned, signed with a notary present of course, wouldn't work. It would be sexual harassment to even present the contract for consideration!

They would have to use something like Tinder where they could be both unaware of the others interest until both parties had signed the legal agreement consenting to be propositioned by the other. They would then be directed to do some sort of custom secret society hand sign in the others presence to verify that they had actually consented. The hand sign would be innocuous when seen by someone who hadn't actually signed the contract via the app and seen the secret hand sign the other would display to acknowledge they had signed the contract.

The next billion dollar startup idea?! A cross between Linkedin, LegalZoom and Tinder. The idea would at least make for a hilarious episode of "The IT Crowd" or "Silicon Valley".

> The next billion dollar startup idea?! A cross between Linkedin, LegalZoom and Tinder.

Well, there has been this Slack app[0].

[0] https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2017/05/slack...

How is that not sexual harassment? (Full stop).

Wow, I'm normally pretty sensitive to "this would look bad if the genders were reversed", but I missed this one even though it is absolutely ridiculous and should be obvious.

"He gave several very obvious hints to the woman he was interested in with no response. He finally had to resort to flashing his muscled chest at the woman to get her to acknowledge and fulfill his desires."

I consider it sexual harassment as it is written. The victim's gender matters in the sense that harassment is more likely against women due to the patriarchal character of our culture, but men can still be victims of sexual harassment. They just very rarely ever are.

> They just very rarely ever are.

Or they rarely report it (partly because they afraid they won't be believed)?

Indeed. I think the likelihood is high that if I were given obvious hints by a female coworker, I would probably not pick up on them, because to me, coworkers are off limits[1]. If a coworker were interested in me, she would probably have to actually say it to me outright or I'd brush it off as a joke/over friendliness/me misinterpreting the situation or something like that.

[1] I don't like the idea of coworkers dating because if they break up, it can be messy and cause all sorts of problems for them and for their other coworkers. Having said that, if I really liked a coworker and she was interested in me, I probably wouldn't let that stand in my way either, but it is something I'm conscious about. If she were on my team, I would at least ask to move to another team.

Exactly. In the liberal circles(HN included, even though people here don't always take the side of the accuser), females are assumed to be exactly equal to male, but it is sad that they just demand equality where males are at benefit.

Do you have a source for the claim that the majority of post college relationships are between colleagues?

It seems to be a substantial number at least. http://www.siop.org/Media/News/office_romance.aspx

Mm, that doesn't look terribly convincing compared to a real study like this one from Stanford which shows a much lower figure: (link in the article to the full study if you can access it) https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/03/08/how-m...

Thanks, I was doing a quick search but you found a better looking one, I agree.

Nevertheless, even this shows that the work place is a significant factor to meet a partner - even if it has lost relevancy. Which leads to the question why. Is it because the other places somehow got more effective for that purpose, or is it fear of being perceived as crossing boundaries which makes people hesitant to try. Both (or other) explanations seem imaginable to me.

"Whoever is making a move should be hyper conscious of any signs of discomfort on the part of the recipient and should go the extra mile (or ten miles) to provide many more easily available "outs" than normal. In normal dating situations if an advance is not welcomed that's fine, two peers had an interaction, someone made a minor mistake, and probably no one will get hurt. In a dating situation with all the complexities, minefields, and pitfalls of a work environment if an overture is made that is unwanted that almost certainly means that the person making it fucked up royally. They failed to read the other person, and they made them uncomfortable, and they complicated their professional relationship."

So easily said than done. You make it seem that "making a move" is so clear, but it isn't. Many times people are not even "making a move" and someone will think they are "making a move" and then get uncomfortable. It is very hard to realize that you are making someone uncomfortable when you aren't even thinking in that direction and the recipients (for a lack of a better word) aren't being vocally clear. In such a case, I'm siding against the one that wasn't vocally clear.

Still wrong. The onus is on the person with more authority, power, or privilege. There is a responsibility to educate yourself if you are in such a position (and most men are, in some way or another, in the tech industry). It's 2017, there's no excuse for being ignorant any more. If you're a "flirty" person, for example, that's fine, but you need to go the extra mile to make people feel safe. Be on the lookout for non-verbal forms of discomfort. Reign in your behavior if you are making missteps. Be vocal yourself in providing some outs or opening up a free communication channel for people to raise their concerns. If people are feeling uncomfortable but not speaking up it's not because they are bad at life, it's not because they want to feel uncomfortable, it's because they feel pressured to not speak up. You should think on that, there's a lot of depth worth exploring there.

The fact is we live in a society that is still in an extended hangover from a multi-centuries long binge of incomparable misogyny. There is a burden on those who still hold positions of privilege from that legacy to make everyone in society feel safe, wanted, and free. Do the work or it's not going to get done.

You know, the tech industry has a lot of people on the autism spectrum, and not everyone has hardware-accelerated mind modules to identify non-verbal forms of discomfort in realtime. Nor do I think that should be a hard job requirement for writing computer programs.

If people are feeling uncomfortable but not speaking up, they are going to have to come to terms with the fact that a large segment of the programmer community is going to be incapable of identifying their discomfort when interacting with them. Getting them to speak up might be a more tractable problem than trying to teach everyone to identify non-verbal subtext.

(I agree with your comment insofar as it applies to people who are capable of doing it, and I aspire to being able to interact with people so fluently.)

First, people have come to terms with this reality; in fact, only a small percentage of discomfort ever get reported regardless of reasons for the man's behavior. Normally, something rather extreme has to happen for there to be any complaint.

Second, those who find it harder to read social cues may just need to follow the rules more carefully. For example, don't try to make romantic or sexual advances towards someone who is in some way (directly or indirectly) subordinate to you.

I don't agree with the sentiment that a privileged person has to do more and not equally. Yes, a privileged person has a easier job making changes, but I don't think that means a privileged person "has" to be doing more than others. It's a good deed, but not a theoretical necessity.

> It's 2017, there's no excuse for being ignorant any more.

Implicit in this statement is that your view on this issue is the truth, and anyone who disagrees with you is ignorant. If you want to have a genuine discussion with people, that attitude does not invite dialogue. You're not going to change anyone's mind.

It took me a second read not to disagree with you. Yes, one should do all those things to the best of their ability; if you like, lump it under the "a leader is responsible for team morale".

I (and I think everyone else) is strongly disagreeing with you that your unvoiced emotions are my responsibility.

But, you're right, in that it's a chicken-and-the-egg style scenario; how do you voice the emotion that you're not comfortable voicing your emotions? And, how does anyone (including yourself) tell if that discomfort is all in your head, or real?

These rules are perfectly fine, but you don't cover wrong or premeditated accusations which is the key problem here. Most people here know what sexual harassment is, but don't know if the accusation was true or not by seeing some anonymous blog post.

It's not the key problem here. The key problem is still the omnipresence of real sexual harassment and assault in the workplace. Yes, false accusations absolutely do happen, but they are the exception not the rule. Ask yourself, what's the remedy for false accusations for any crime or any wrongdoing? They do exist, ranging from social: the presence of exculpatory evidence or the lack of corroborating stories establishing a pattern of behavior to legal: lawsuits for defamation of character or libel/slander.

Three arguments that it's a negative are 1. A power imbalance(market inefficiency?) 2. It makes people uncomfortable(happiness/utility?) and 3. Accepting such an advance could be a form of prostitution.

I wonder if people who believe that prostitution should be legalized consider sexual harassment in the workplace to be a lesser problem, since one of the arguments is struck from the table. #2 doesn't seem to be a major concern, since you claim it's already in the existing system and isn't important(or is that just a matter of degree? That would imply it's more wrong to hit on someone shy than someone outspoken)

If exploiting a power imbalance is wrong, I wonder if employing a homeless person is wrong because you profit off of the labor of the helpless.

> I wonder if people who believe that prostitution should be legalized consider sexual harassment in the workplace to be a lesser problem, since one of the arguments is struck from the table.

I don't think so, and I don't believe the 3rd argument is struck at all. There's a gaping difference between accepting an advance fully willingly (whether the motivations behind acceptance are romantic, sexual or economic) and feeling pressured into accepting the advance (regardless of whether such pressure is intended or accidental). A happily employed prostitute in a perfect well-regulated industry will still never feel that they can't turn down a prospective client, no matter how well they're paying. In any workplace, if accepting an advance is necessary to succeed professionally, that's a systemic problem.

> If exploiting a power imbalance is wrong, I wonder if employing a homeless person is wrong because you profit off of the labor of the helpless.

Again, this comes down to pressure. A homeless person might be under disproportionate economic pressure to take a job they would otherwise decline, so I'd say that from a purely moral standpoint this needs to be taken into account and if you're not ensuring the job is taken willingly, then yes, it is wrong to profit from that labour.

> people need to understand the rules.

1. Be attractive.

2. Don't be unattractive.

Two simple rules to not commit sexual harassment.

While the construction of this old joke is admittedly good, using it as an argument advertises the fact that you view women as prizes rather than as people. It is complaining that they have a say in who they enter into relationships with. Or it's complaining about the fact that humans are more attracted to attractive people, which is how we define the word "attractive" in the first place.

I'd avoid it generally, as you just failed both your stated rules by repeating it.

It is complaining about double standards, that's it.

"...using it as an argument advertises the fact that you view women as prizes rather than as people."

That's an interesting and incendiary interpretation. Do you know for a fact that this person views women as prizes to be won or are you perhaps ascribing more meaning to the comment than can reasonably be inferred?

On top of that, the poster might be a straight woman, or a gay man, or whatever and just not into women at all.

As I explained in another thread, this comment makes no sense if you view the interaction as being about two different behaviours: a welcome advance and an unwelcome advance.

It is an impossible argument to make it you assume that the other party has a right to make a choice about who continues to pursue them for whatever damn reason they please.

> using it as an argument advertises the fact that you view women as prizes rather than as people

How? There's no connection between what was said and the conclusion you drew from it.

arkh's post observes that women often apply different standards to men's behaviour based on whether they find them attractive or not. That's not really in dispute, it's the origin of the "hot women being attracted to asshole boyfriends" cultural cliche.

It isn't in dispute? In what sense?

I'd dispute it in this sense: women, like humans of any gender, are more likely to apply different standards based on pre-existing status (e.g. whether they're friends already or not) but not to the degree that as a rule they'd welcome a sexual advance from one co-worker and not an identical one from another based simply on attractiveness, or that they'd consider the unwanted one harassment.

This isn't hard: women are humans and capable of rational thought, just like men. Your comment diminishes them.

If you define sexual assault/harassment including term "undesirable/unwanted sexual advances" and accept attractiveness to be one of factors influencing evaluation of another person as potential mate, it becomes not that hard to see lower limits for actions to be labelled "unwanted" as varying based on attractiveness of advancing person regardless of gender or social setting.

This would directly translate to welcome a sexual advance from one co-worker but not an identical one from another based simply on attractiveness. Social setting (e.g. workplace) may drive the lower limit below skirting board for some individuals, but that does not make certain social settings universally irrationality free grounds where evaluation as potential mate has no effect on social (and even professional) interactions.

While both men and women are capable of rational thought, likewise both are not individuality, emotion and desires free.

You don't think it's likely that women can view a man as being attractive and still not want sexual advances from him? How about possible? That humans aren't purely rational does not imply irrational behavior is the rule.

Your comment reads to me as asserting that women are basically incapable of moderating their behavior based on sexual desire.

It complains that women apply "different standards" to men's behaviour based on if they find them attractive or not.

Viewing social interaction as a series of rules/steps to follow in order to "succeed" or "win" is how you view being attractive as a form of "cheating" or unfairness. This doesn't account for the other party having agency, since the only perspective taken is that of one side of a two sided issue.

Even in your post you say "women often apply different standards to men's behaviour based on whether they find them attractive or not".

Let's be damn clear: there are no different standards at play, there are two completely different behaviours at play - welcome romantic advances and unwelcome romantic advances.

Women as prizes?

Where did you read the word women in my post? I wrote about sexual harassment which can come from a person of any gender unto a person from any other gender.

The attractiveness also mean a lot of things to different persons.

A man who does not like tattoos may react differently to the same behavior coming from someone with a face tattoo or someone without.

But I hope you can reflect on how many things you unconsciously assumed from one comment and where it was posted and how it can relate to its content (double-standard due to bias).

If you accidentally posted a red-pill talking point with internal logic that requires the loss of agency from one party then I do apologize for making assumptions.

We can move on, and now you know that this is a rather famous thing to say among people who are angry that women are allowed to choose who they wish to pursue them romantically.

No, they aren't. Sexual harassment includes unwanted advances, and attractiveness to the specific target has some role in whether an advances is unwanted or not, but sexual harassment includes lots of behaviors that are not unwanted (by the person to whom they are directed) sexual advances (an advance desired by the person to whom it is directed may easily be, or be part of, sexual harassment of third parties when conducted within a workplace context) or even sexual advances at all, and merely being attractive itself doesn't make all sexual advances wanted, in any case.

> OK, this is not that hard

Actually. It really is. It really is. You can't brush the enormous complexities of life, human perception, self-image, misunderstanding, varying life experiences and social norms under the carpet with a wave of the hand.

It really, really is hard for normal decent human beings to get this right even if you don't throw bad actors and out-and-out sociopaths into the mix.

The problem is that sexual harassment does exist. But so does horrific misunderstand or outright false accusation. The latter two are probably an order of magnitude less common than the former but they are potentially life-destroying and shouldn't be brushed aside.

Also - it fuels the crazy men's rights types and lends credence to their sense of persecution. If you vacate the center of the debate then the other side will claim it.

False accusations should be punished with the same penalty as the accuser tried to put upon the innocent. Until that happens, people will see no reason to stop false accusations that they think will help them.

That's a terrible idea. It would mean that people would fear to report genuine crimes because they are then harshly punished if the accused is acquitted.

The fact is that the justice system is not perfect. Occasionally a guilty person will be acquitted, and it would really be best not to also punish an innocent as a result of that.

A false accusation is different from an accusation that wasn't provable. There have been many cases of false accusations in which it was proven that the accuser was intentionally lying in order to get revenge or reap some reward. There have even been cases in which the accuser later admits to having lied, but with zero legal consequences.

> There have even been cases in which the accuser later admits

"admits" can be a loaded word. The accuser claims. Hopefully, their accusation was not the only evidence in the first place.

In France the state's prosecutor is the accusation, and cites the victim as a witness. That allows pursuing the trial if the victim is pressured to remove the complaint.

The same is true in the USA, the district attorney can and often does prosecute crimes on behalf of the state without any victim "pressing charges".

i'm sure you can acquit someone based on insufficient evidence and not lock up the accuser.

but in some cases when evidence was manufactured the defence can come up with something that implicates the accuser.

> then harshly punished if the accused is acquitted

That's not how criminal justice works. That's not even how torts work.

> Occasionally a guilty person will be acquitted, and it would really be best not to also punish an innocent as a result of that.

That's not how it works, is it? it is not a battle where someone has to be guilty - either the accused or the accuser. Someone can be acquitted without anyone lying, or making false statements, or anything else. Just a few examples: insufficient evidence to prosecute, contradictory timelines.

It is bizarre that anyone thinks that this could be the system - get a conviction or suffer a conviction yourself.

There is a spectrum between provable accusations and demonstrably false claims that includes uncertainty, doubt and poor evidence. It isn't like going all-in in poker!

Ok, that's fair, I was being a bit over dramatic.

However, I still think that the kind of 'eye for an eye' approach proposed by the comment I was relying to would have a non-trivial, negative impact on the reporting of crimes. Just as guilty people can be acquitted, innocent people can be found guilty (even if it's not automatic), and this means that the accuser is exposing themselves to risk.

Fundamentally, no one should ever have to worry about the consequences of reporting a crime.

>no one should ever have to worry about the consequences of reporting a crime

The rub is, they should have to worry about the consequences, if they're making a bad-faith false report. They should have to worry a lot, because they themselves are committing a wrong by reporting a false crime in such a way.

It's an incredibly hard problem, though.

> because they themselves are committing a wrong

I think you mean crime, not wrong.

Trying to deprive someone of their liberty is a crime. If the report is proven false then the only crime is the false report.

It can be structured so that an accuser does not automatically become guilty of false accusations because the accused was found 'not guilty'. In other words, sexual harassment cases can have 3 verdicts : 'guilty', 'not guilty' and 'other'( technicalities, not enough evidence etc). Then, you will still need to prove that the perpetrator knowingly accused someone of sexual harassment for some gain. Looks fairer to me

No that would mean that it would have to be proven that the claim was false with intent.

The idea seems directly connected with an other idea that is sadly fairly common: assumed guilt. If we assumes that the accused is guilty until proven innocent, then the power imbalance is so great that we need to increase the counter weight by increasing the cost of false accusations.

Personally I prefer the old system of innocent until proven guilty. You loose the mob justice, and you can't demand a lower standard of evidence, but in return people can report crimes without fear of repercussions. It is a fair trade, with the only drawback that a guilty person will have their punishment delayed until the justice system concludes with a guilty verdict.

In Sweden we had a minister of justice a couple of years ago who thought it would be a good idea that persons suspected of buying sexual services (which is illegal in Sweden) got their court order sent in a special large purple envelope. The purpose was that they would then be both publicly shamed (by the mailman, neighbors and what not) as well as would be less able to conceal it from their spouse.

Kind of like your voting system?

I hear it has effectively no privacy.

See for example https://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=2054&ar...

Hehe, yeah, voting is a joke. First take the ballot of your preferred choice in clear view of everybody (unless you care enough about your voting privacy to take one ballot of each choice) then go behind a screen to put that one ballot everyone has already seen and put in a fully opaque (as in black inside) envelope.

> unless you care enough about your voting privacy to take one ballot of each choice

And then you have just singled yourself out as someone with something to hide and in small towns that is usually a problem.

How much is postage in Sweden? If that was implemented and postage is cheap, I can think of some very cost effective practical jokes.

I was just thinking minister of justice receiving a lot of purple envelopes :)

If you apply the "innocent until proven guilty" principle, it's not a bad idea. It should be proven that the accuser lied to get condemned. I would expect this to happen not that often - basically never when it's just "my word against your word" - but it would create a big risk for those who are rationally plotting to launch a false accuse - in the unlikely but possible case that evidence is found that they willfully lied, eg if there was a witness they didn't know about, if there was a recording of what happened, etc.

This has the side-effect that real victims are put off from filing charges, which is generally thought to be not a good thing.

False accusations are the ones proven to be false; and not every single one that couldn't be confirmed by court or by a jury.

Which suggests an obvious course of action:

- true accusation - punish the perpetrator

- false accusation - punish the accuser

- unable to confirm either way - nothing happens

I still don't understand why some people have so much trouble with this concept and want to bias towards "guilty until proven innocent" thinking.

And yes, I know that in civil cases in the US, it's "preponderance of the evidence" and not "presumption of innocence". It still means you should get punished only if your deed is proven (in Bayesian sense) more likely to be true than false.

> I still don't understand why some people have so much trouble with this concept and want to bias towards "guilty until proven innocent" thinking.

Witch hunts are exciting. It's also empowering to believe that you're one of the "good guys", going after those dastardly "bad guys".

TBH, it's the same thinking behind any pogrom. "Those people" are rich, so breaking in and stealing everything is on the side of justice. "Those people" have secret cabals which rule the world, so it's OK to abuse and attack any individual you see.

The people with that attitude aren't aware of history. That attitude has been tried before in many countries. The end result is genocide.

It doesn't start out that way. But the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

    > suggests an obvious
    > course of action

Do you not think people already get jailed for claims that are probably false?

Almost never.

It does happen, but it's so rare that it generally makes headlines when it does.

The false conviction rate is estimated to be >4%.

http://phenomena.nationalgeographic.com/2014/04/28/how-many-...

That's 4% for people who are sentenced to death.

The rate for those sentenced for lesser crimes is likely much higher, due to plea bargaining ("plead guilty to petty theft or we'll charge you with grand theft").

That's not really what we're talking about here, though. We're talking about the rate of conviction of those who are proven conclusively to have lied resulting in someone else being convicted of a crime.

Generally such people receive no consequences at all.

For instance, as far as I know the woman in this case:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Rape_on_Campus

has not been charged with anything, despite falsely accusing an entire fraternity house of rape.

  I still don't understand why some people have so
  much trouble with this concept

Having sex with independent third-party witnesses or video recording remains a minority activity. So any attacker with half a brain can ensure it's the victim's word against theirs.

From there it's a simple question of our willingness to let the guilty go free vs. our willingness to see the innocent wrongly punished. This is known as Blackstone's Ratio [1] and it dates to the 1760s.

Needless to say, there's a certain political equilibrium here; if you'll let off 1000 guilty people to avoid 1 wrongful conviction, you'll have a thousand victims and their families campaigning for tougher punishments for every 1 wrongfully convicted person campaigning in the opposite direction.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackstone%27s_formulation

It cuts both ways. Bias toward cracking down on false accusations, and real victims might be afraid to file charges. Bias toward assuming accusations are always accurate, and you enable weaponizing them - which is the whole point of this story. There needs to be a balance here.

Also, note - you mention filing charges. But the problem with sexual harassment cases is, they don't even get to that level. It's usually enough to "file charges" on a blog and post it to Twitter to do 90% of damage.

   > It cuts both ways

Yes, so the onus is on the person suggesting changes to the current balance is proving that another balance would be better.

Exactly. Note that it's the social media outrage about (alleged) sexual harassment cases that is trying to change the current balance.

So we shouldn't prosecute insurance fraud, because it will put off people who file real claims?

Nonsense.

Corrupting the justice system should be punished to the fullest extent of the law. How can you have justice when the justice system goes along willingly with abuse?

There are cases where claimants are proven beyond any doubt to have lied. Lied knowingly, egregiously, and with malice aforethought. The idea that those people should be let off with a polite smile of "we don't want to put off the real victims" is horrific.

You lost me at equating bringing an insurance claim with bringing sexual assault charges. I don't believe that axiom holds.

Explain why. Be specific.

I think the misunderstanding is that you think I'm saying insurance claims are equal in scope to sexual assault. That is (TBH) ridiculous. To the extent of deliberate blindness.

What I'm actually doing is making a statement about the fraudsters. Not the victims.

FALSE sexual assault charges do not involve sexual assault. False sexual assault charges do not have real victims. So false sexual assault charges are, in fact, entirely equivalent to false insurance claims. Both are false. Both do not involve real victims.

Your reaction comes across as an un-thinking knee-jerk "OMFG sexual assault is bad"... to the point where we can't have a rational discussion about anything related to the subject.

Look, there are fraudsters. See "Jackie" at the University of Virginia. Or the Duke Lacrosse case. In both situations, "wishful thinking" people came damned close to lynching the accused, facts be damned. And in both cases, every single aspect of the claimants story turned out to be provably false.

You have an implicit claim that sexual assault is somehow magical, and deserving of different standards than insurance fraud. All possible evidence shows that this attitude is not just wrong, it is actively dangerous. It denies reality. It denies justice. It hurts innocent people.

The issue that you're missing is that "sexual assault fraud" can be claimed in cases where there is actual sexual assault, but it is a he-said/she-said situation. That is where the "chilling-effect" comes in. Sexual assault cases are many times he-said/she-said situations, so any victim reporting runs the risk of getting accused of (and needing to defend themselves from) "sexual assault fraud" in addition to trying to pursue actual charges (where the defence will spend a lot of time trying to assault the victim's character, basically calling them a "slut" in open court).

For the crime of sexual assault to be proven, you need more than a he said/she said.

For the crime of perjury to be proven, you also need more. Substantive proof of lying, not just 'the guy did not get convicted'.

I don't think there is a chilling effect when you use a standard of proof to admit a claim of fraud.

Doesn't perjury already apply?

Perjury is a crime against the court. Making a fraudulent claim against a person is a crime against that person.

Appreciate the clarification.

Perjury would apply to testimony given under oath, which happens at a trial. But most cases don't go to trial, of course. You could also get nailed on "filing a false police report", which is earlier in the process.

But for matters adjudicated by universities, it's possible that neither of these apply, since official police reports are not necessarily filed, and testimony is not given in a courtroom, under oath.

More generally, you could claim defamation. This is not a crime though — it is a civil matter. If the defamer has no assets, it would be an expensive way to make a point ("I didn't do it!") and could lead to the Streisand Effect.

Thanks for breaking that down. Do you think the safeguards (filing a false police report or perjury if in court) are enough? And, if not, do you see any way to implement a law that would not harm sexual abuse victims as a byproduct?

I think it's probably easiest to ignore the inchoate name calling and focus on where we can agree, specifically:

    > You have an implicit claim
    > that sexual assault is 
    > somehow magical, and 
    > deserving of different 
    > standards than insurance
    > fraud

Yes I do.

Specifically I believe sexual assaults are under-reported, and that more assaults happen because they're under-reported.

Taking those back-to-front, an insurance claim that's unreported doesn't endanger wider society, where a serial rapist abusing his position of power does.

As to under-reporting of sexual crimes, evidence is easily Googleable. But even if it wasn't, one looks at cases like Jimmy Saville where alleged victims didn't come out until others did; largely due to their feeling they wouldn't be believed.

> I think it's probably easiest to ignore the inchoate name calling

Because it didn't happen. But you're free to feel superior to me based on lies about what I said.

> Specifically I believe sexual assaults are under-reported,

Yes... look at the numbers from Statistics Canada for one. In interviews, people claim sexual assault rates that are about 10x the rate of police reports.

Why are those crimes not reported? Statistics Canada asked... the #1 answer is "because the assault was too minor to bother with".

i.e. grabbing an ass in a bar is legally sexual assault. But few people are going to file a police report about it.

> and that more assaults happen because they're under-reported.

No such evidence exists.

There is evidence that there are massive programs to encourage people to report sexual assault. All such programs have not increased the reporting rate to police.

Which makes it look like the rate of police reports of serious crimes is pretty close to the real rate of serious crimes.

The claim was a descriptive one: "This policy has this bad side effect."

You seem to have taken it as a prescriptive one: "We should do the exact opposite of this policy, as hard as we can."

> The claim was a descriptive one: "This policy has this bad side effect."

That claim is provably false. I explained why, using examples.

> You seem to have taken it as a prescriptive one: "We should do the exact opposite of this policy, as hard as we can."

That cannot possibly be concluded from what I said.

My claim is that when it's proven that people lie (i.e. fraudster, as I said), ignoring those lies is corrupting the justice system.

The thing is, perjury is a criminal offence. I don't think you'd disagree.

The mistake you're making is assuming that because I say some people are proven to lie, you think I'm claiming that all people lie. That's a logical fallacy, and basically assumes I'm an asshole or an idiot.

Your claim seems to be that we should never prosecute liars, because it will dissuade real victims from coming forward. I think that claim is horrific, for reasons I explained.

To counter your next comment.. no, I don't think claimants should be charged when their claims cannot be proven to be true. Again, making an unsubstantiated claim is not legally perjury, and is not a criminal offence.

My claim is that provably false claims should be punished.

Is that really so difficult to understand?

I'm not interested in talking about your claim. I'm talking about how you replied to someone else's claim.

> That claim is provably false. I explained why, using examples.

No you didn't. You gave some examples where the proposed policy would not have the side effect. You didn't show that it would never have the side effect.

> That cannot possibly be concluded from what I said.

"The exact opposite of this policy", in context, would be letting people off for false accusations. Why were you talking about "the idea that those people should be let off" if you agree that peteretep never suggested letting people off?

> You didn't show that it would never have the side effect.

I used the example of insurance fraud. Please pay attention.

Do we prosecute insurance fraud? Yes. Do such prosecutions dissuade victims from making real claims? No.

Or maybe you think that sexual assault is somehow magic. That prosecuting proven fraudsters in that case will somehow dissuade real victims from making claims. If so, you have to prove your position.

I've already proven that no such correlation exists in other situations.

> Why were you talking about "the idea that those people should be let off" if you agree that peteretep never suggested letting people off?

He did implicitly. If he's against charging fraudsters (for whatever reason), he's for letting them off.

Dropping the "proven" thread because it's not what I want to focus on.

> Or maybe you think

I'm deliberately avoiding taking an object-level position.

> If he's against charging fraudsters

You're still turning a descriptive statement into a prescriptive one. peteretep did not advocate any policy in the comment you replied to. Among the policies he did not advocate is "we should never charge any fraudster". Another policy he did not advocate is "we should be extremely careful which fraudsters we prosecute, to avoid of chilling effects".

He did not advocate a policy, but you took his comment as advocating an extreme policy.

> He did not advocate a policy, but you took his comment as advocating an extreme policy.

That's pedantically true, and more honestly false.

Are you honestly going to claim that his description of "putting off victims" advocates for no position? That's ridiculous. He explicitly said ... which is generally thought to be not a good thing.

Are you next going to claim that he thinks putting off victims is not a good thing... but he isn't really advocating against punishing fraudsters even if it "puts off" victims?

And this is all ignoring the point that his claim was false.

Honestly, I find this nit-picking to be utterly ludicrous, to the point of irrational.

> Are you honestly going to claim that his description of "putting off victims" advocates for no position?

No specific policy, certainly. There are many policies consistent with what he said. I gave one already; another would be we should punish false accusations of sexual assault, but not as severely as sexual assault itself.

But you leapt to the most indefensible one. And you didn't even seem to notice that you were making this leap. I don't think it's nitpicking of me to point this out.

> But you leapt to the most indefensible one.

Nonsense.

His position was that any punishment of false claims was "putting off" victims from making real claims.

Which is what I reacted to.

Given the upvotes for my position and the downvotes for yours, I suspect the majority of people came to the same conclusion I did.

Please stop grasping at straws. Your insistence on taking me at an extreme position while accusing me of the same is unsupported by facts.

> His position was that any punishment of false claims was "putting off" victims from making real claims.

Not true. He was replying to a post that said "False accusations should be punished with the same penalty as the accuser tried to put upon the innocent." He said "This has the side-effect..." The referent of "this" is clearly not "any punishment of false claims".

And even if true, that is still not a policy proposal. I've given two alternative interpretations of the original comment. Here's a third: I have no particular policy proposal myself, but I wonder whether you've thought through the implications of yours?

> downvotes

Not that it matters, but right now my comments are all upvoted/neutral.

> Your insistence on taking me at an extreme position

I don't think we disagree on what your position is? We just disagree about whether or not you're correct.

That is, I'm accusing you of accusing peteretep of making a specific policy proposal. You insist that your accusation is correct. So I don't think I'm taking you at a position that you'd call extreme; I think I'm taking you at a position that you actually openly hold. If you disagree then we're wildly talking past each other.

> I don't think we disagree on what your position is?

Yes, we do. Go back and read the history. I started off with a particular position, that you then misconstrued, and mis-characterized.

> I think I'm taking you at a position that you actually openly hold

No, you're not. You've managed to twist what I say, and my defense of my position, to an extreme position.

My position is that people should be punished for breaking the law. And, that saying such punishment (whatever the form) somehow "puts off" innocent people from making claims is wrong.

> My position is that people should be punished for breaking the law. And, that saying such punishment (whatever the form) somehow "puts off" innocent people from making claims is wrong.

So long as enforcement does not perfectly avoid false positives even in beginning prosecution (even if no false convictions occur) it increases the expected cost of a true report, and is a rational disincentive.

It may be that the particular punishment regime minimizes this cost and/or has benefits that offset the cost, but it's implausible that any real punishment scheme could avoid it altogether.

So I think I've been pretty clear that I've been taking about what peteretep originally said versus what you think he originally said. E.g. "I'm accusing you of accusing peteretep of..."

And I think you've been pretty explicitly talking about what he originally said. E.g. "His position was that..."

But now you seem to be denying that you said anything about what he originally said, or you seem to think that what you said about what he said isn't relevant, or... I don't know. Your comment does not make sense to me. All I can think is that you seem to be mixing meta-levels.

Anyway, I'm not exactly proud of how easily I get sucked into crap like this, so I'm going to try to tap out after this comment.

The man accused of sexual harassment is a real victim, if his accusation is correct.

Why do people not see men as victims? His reputation could be ruined for the rest of his life, even if he is innocent. People take the law into their own hands and could physically hurt him as a result of a false accusation amid a system that disregards due process.

This community -- Hacker News -- is considering creating a list to name people accused of harassment without due process -- in other words, a vigilante system that could lead to innocent people, generally men, being victimized like this man, a real victim.

    > Why do people not see
    > men as victims?

Why do you think they don't?

Because they're apparently sexist idiots like you who don't think men and women should be treated equally? They somehow got the notion stuck in their heads that men just can't be in the victim role when in reality it's not that rare for men to be in that position (Hint: It doesn't get reported because of the exact stigma mentioned above).

Down-voted for "idiots like you". Name calling does not add anything to the discussion.

You wrote elsewhere on this thread:

> This has the side-effect that real victims are put off from filing charges, which is generally thought to be not a good thing.

Well, this man appears to be a victim who is filing charges. You seem not to consider him a real victim. Don't we want victims such as him to defend themselves? As I understand your quote, you can answer your question better than I can: why didn't you consider him a victim?

You may have other reasons not to consider him a victim than that he is male, but I'm just using your quote to illustrate. A quick search returned this page at the top -- http://www.clarkprosecutor.org/html/domviol/men.htm. I don't know its credibility, only that it suggests a trend, cites many sources, took less than 1 minute to find, and there seemed plenty more such pages.

    > You seem not to consider
    > him a real victim

I'm struggling to follow your reasoning there

He was comparing "real victims" to the "false accusations" in mcappleton's post... not the victim in the original article.

> The man accused of sexual harassment is a real victim

... so he needs protection in case his lawsuit fails for lack of evidence and the defamer maliciously counter-sues him for defamation.

That's exactly parent's point. "Real" victims refers to victims of crime that actually happened and wasn't just made up, not some classification of crimes as serious or not.

Basically, the OP forgot to mention that harsh punishment should be reserved for cases where it can be solidly proven that allegations were made up and people started to nitpick on it.

The standard of evidence should be the same as that of any other crime - I.e. Innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.

If you locked a person in a cage for 10 years, you would be considered a horrible person. It's no different if you get other people to do it for you. A truly false accusation is a terrible crime that must be punished like any other. But it must be proven false beyond reasonable doubt just like any other crime.

In order to be punished for a false accusation, prosecutors would have to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that you lied. If the prosecutor can prove that, you should have the book thrown at you. Making a false accusation is a very serious thing; it's an attack on someone else's life.

Do you believe that the harm of being raped is about equal to the harm of a false conviction for rape?

I'd actually tend to "yes", but it's probably impossible to answer. People react very different, and the prevalence of suicide is actually higher among rape victims than for people sentenced to long prison sentences.

But the real problem is: The penalty in your comparison would be for rape, whereas the accusation was just a failed attempt. Yes, that is usually harmful as well, but it's no longer comparable.

I'd rather be raped than spend years in prison. Time is more precious than momentary pain/shame. Plus I hear rapists (real or falsely accused) are treated extra badly in prisons.

It shouldn’t take a great deal of imagination or empathy to realise that the pain, shame and the psychological consequences of rape can last a very long time. Self-worth, esteem, confidence, and trust in others can be destroyed resulting in depression, anxiety disorders and other debilitating conditions such as social withdrawal. Depending on the trauma of the experience and the resilience of the individual, it can take years to rebuild their life.

I agree. But I think all of the issues you listed would be much worse by being in prison for a few years, especially as a rapist (real or falsely accused).

Without belittling the severity of rape, yes I believe it can actually be quite more harmful/destructive. Falsely accused rarely get rehabilitated even when it turns out they had been innocent, their career, their reputation, their social circles, it will be all ruined and with that comes distress of the mind.

People are quick to throw around guilt, once that's in the room your reputation will be sullied forever as everybody still has this nagging "Well, he could still have done it" thought.

Case in point: The German teacher Horst Arnold. In 2001 a female coworker accused him of having raped her during a break at school. He denied the charges and in 2002 he was sentenced to 5 years in jail.

He served his time and, due to a series of random events, in 2008 it came to light that the female coworker, who got him into jail, has a rather long history of lying and misrepresenting facts.

In 2011 he was declared innocent, but he was denied rehabilitation into his job as a teacher and any monetary compensation for the time spent in jail. He fought for this until 2012, when he was found dead on the street due to cardiac arrest.

This is horror. We need to stop it. I still don't get why rapes generate the kind of immediate and massive solidarity from society that men's life doesn't.

The common explanation I've heard is sperm is cheap, eggs are expensive. This leads to the ramifications of men being considered disposable compared to the lives of women where hard labor isn't needed as much.

Men get drafted and get their arms and legs blown off, women can stay home. Spare the women and children in war.

I don't think it's cultural. Most men have an innate desire to protect women, and treat them with special favor. This was the historical way women were protected before they had voting rights. Now, they have both political power, and men still tend to give them the special favor they had before. So it leads to an imbalance in society

There is a cultural side to it like "Women and children first" in emergency situations. I wonder if that is still expected or considered part of the "not correct" behavior? After all, it goes absolutely contrary to the whole "equality" idea.

> the prevalence of suicide is actually higher among rape victims than for people sentenced to long prison sentences.

I would guess this is confounded by the difficulty of committing suicide in prison? (Attempts might be less confounded, but still somewhat.)

If someone is already in jail because of a false rape allegation, is their situation improved if the only person who can get them released would be jailed for doing so?

If they are removed from prison, then yes, their situation improves.

Perhaps I was too succinct in the point I was trying to make.

The reason we don't punish people for retracting wrongful allegations is because we want people to retract wrongful allegations.

If you're in jail on a false rape claim, you'd rather the accuser went free and you were released; than that you stayed in jail because the accuser didn't want to take your place.

Of course this needs to be done with care because retraction shouldn't be a reliable get-out-of-jail card if you use false accusations as a normal way of conducting business ;)

This has been a feature of several legal systems, at least since Hammurabi.

Another interesting concept during the inquisition was that the accused, before he knew who accused him, had the opportunity to list all his mortal enemies, and if the accuser was among them he was set free.

>This world is getting so fucked up

it already is. Just visit parts of Mexico

Sorry, I live too far. Care to elaborate?

Oh stop spewing bs about sexual harassment as "hitting on" people. The accusations against the VCs McClure and Pollock involved groping or worse.

What about using lipstick to emulate sexual arousal? Why did they use make up doing business?

Perhaps these lipstick-wearing women were raised in a social environment where a previously supernormal stimulus (heightened lip pigmentation/smoothed glossy lip surface) is now expected as a normal aspect of professional presentation in many contexts, and they do not wish to be asked "are you feeling well?" on a regular basis.

"are you feeling well?"

I've witnessed this:

  (concerned) Is x OK?
  Huh?
  Is she upset? She looks like she's been crying.
  (realising) No, she's just not wearing any makeup. You normally see her with makeup on.

that's where not giving a shit comes into play. you don't accidentally sexism.

Sure you do. If you behave to the detriment of one gender but not another, that's sexism. You then say "sorry, didn't mean that", and change your behaviour now that you know.

sure, assuming someone has been crying is dumb. noticing a change of appearance is something women want you to do when it's a positive thing ie. new haircut. but if it's negative it's probably best to reword what you're saying in a more positive way.

but you can talk to men how you want, they won't care.

so yes you have to behave differently to both genders.

I said "to the detriment of", not "differently", for a start.

so treating both genders equally doesn't always end in equality.

Indeed it doesn't!

However, the reasoning for that is interesting - the primary reasons women get more upset when you speak about their appearance negatively when compared to men is that women constantly have it drilled into them that their appearance is one of the most important things about them, from a relatively early age. We have a combination of media and other people who do that - often even other women.

It's something to be solved, but as the situation stands right now, yeah, criticising women on their dress/makeup/haircut only serves to further that - because women have generally already had significantly different experiences than men by the time you meet them.

"Detriment" varies and apparently has a strong gender correlation though.

I don't think makeup is a good example, because it's often a damned if you do, damned if you don't type of situation. Wear makeup and you will be accused of boldness or manipulative tendencies, don't wear it and your appearance will be criticized and commented on. Based on my experience the former is the preferable choice.

Mostly because women often get pulled into meetings with their bosses/HR and told to wear makeup if they don't. Seriously. Even if they don't, they get accused by work colleagues of not looking good enough, and clients comment on it. This isn't something women do to be manipulative - it's something that's enforced as part of a woman's dress code by the company.

Or, in other words, if you think makeup is intended to replicate visual signs of arousal... then this is the culture you work in forcing women to appear sexually aroused in workplace environments. Which is, of course, also something that feminists have talked about for decades.

From what I have read, tools to improve ones appearance (makeup, manicures, trendy clothes) is primarily about social status and inter-sex pecking order. Men do the same thing, but instead of makeup it is different signal of having wealth (clocks, gadgets, cars).

I recall reading that if a woman has no other female coworkers, the trend is a decrease use of such signals. With no one to compete with then there is no need to spend energy on it.

Then campaign against it. Until then, "corporate expectation" is a convenient excuse, despite the fact that many corporations will fold in the face of any social pressure.

Like how "men" are claimed to be responsible for pressuring women into unrealistic body images, despite the fashion industry being run, and chosen by women.

We have been for decades? Like, this was a part of second-wave feminism half a decade ago. It's hardly a new idea.

There are lots of ideas in the world, I'm talking about actual action.

Various celebs will back a "ban bossy" campaign, but millions of women are forced to feign sexual availability against their wishes, and barely any motivation to protests it?

There was, again, actual action. There is still actual action. It didn't, and still doesn't, get anywhere. In fact, it developed quite directly into the idea of the "ugly feminist", a stereotype that exists to this day. Funny that.

Fact of the matter is, if you employ women who don't wear makeup, your clients and customers will think less of your business. You'll lose money and some positivity associated with your brand. Your managers will think less of your female workers - so will their coworkers, no matter the official policy. This isn't the sort of thing that gets changed by a line in a policy document - this is the sort of thing that needs widespread social change.

"actual action" is not a binary thing. You can gauge motivation by how much action there is, relative to the notional "seriousness" of the subject.

On that basis, the idea "women are socially pressured into wearing make-up" falls short. Women, themselves, are rejecting the idea.

> your clients and customers will think less of your business

This isn't all jobs, though.

A doctor, or back-end dev shouldn't feel any pressure to wear lipstick.

If you want to direct criticism at those roles/instances where there is a problem, and maybe suggest solutions, I'm fine with that, but broad strokes don't do much help.

Incidentally, I see fewer women in my own country wear as much make-up as those in America appears to do. I mentioned "doctor" specifically because I am surprised how much american doctor wear. As a further anecdote, whenever an american version of a European series is remade, the american actors are usually more attractive..

Or maybe they do it because it looks good? Like how some people wear clothes that look good on them.

> Conversely, people benefit on both sides of the equation; using sex to their advantage or weaponizing allegations like this.

Yes, but the two sides aren't equal. If you have a knife and we have a nuclear weapon, that we can both hurt each other does not mean that there is a balance, or that both sides need equal protection. Women get sexually harassed or assaulted much more than they fabricate allegations for personal gain (and note that this is not what happened in this case), as a woman rarely gains from making allegations, either true or false. So there may be two problems, both sad, but one is orders of magnitude bigger than the other.

> Women get sexually harassed or assaulted much more than they fabricate allegations for personal gain (and note that this is not what happened in this case), as a woman rarely gains from making allegations, either true or false.

I don't understand the logic here, are you saying that men gain more from sexually harassing women than women gain from falsely accusing men? I think you would have a hard time finding a man who would be in a better position if he just started sexually harassing women.

Edit: Note that I believe that honest accusations are far more common than false ones, I am just criticizing this explanation.

I think GP is simply implying that, since "a woman rarely gains from making allegations, either true or false", she doesn't have a strong incentive to make false accusations. Which is IMO a fair explanation, though personally I disagree with the assumption here. The way sexual harassment is treated these days, even a vague false accusation is a very powerful weapon. Hell, even a threat of an accusation is a powerful weapon.

Sorry to interrupt your little men-only discussion "women: willing victim or scheming accuser?".

But did any of you notice that the alleged false accuser in this case is actually a man?

I'm pretty sure everyone here did, but this particular subthread diverged to a tangential topic, which is normal.

> If you have a knife and we have a nuclear weapon

Given the evidence, I think you're confused about who actually has a nuclear weapon. Like in real world, "knife attacks" are much more frequent, but a "nuclear weapon" tends to be much more devastating :).

Interesting how you enjoy being clever about millions of women being humiliated and hurt.

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