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Comment by puredemo | Hacker News Reader

I'll probably get downvoted for asking, but I'm curious, would everyone be as upset over this had it been a drunken female guest inappropriately grabbing a guy's package? And if the male blogger had then written a similar blog about being sexually assaulted at a party, naming the female who grabbed him?

I'm not endorsing this sort of behavior obviously, but the public shaming element here seems fairly twisted. If a sexual assault occurred she should go to the police about it and press charges. Not start an internet witch hunt.

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So, I'm going to venture beyond the issue of consent (which legally, and ethically is the only issue), into a grey area of perception.

Often when men think about this situation, they think of some non-repulsive (to them) woman who doesn't have any power over them grabbing their package. Often they conclude "Well that wasn't so bad. I generally want to have sex with females. A female just pawed my package. Cool, maybe she'll sleep with me."

Now let's assume that's a hypothetical guy's default reaction. What are some nuances that might change that reaction?

1) What if the woman is repulsive to the man? What if his friends will mock or shame him?

2) What if rather than pawing at his package, she tried to stick her finger in his ass? There's a psychological (and physical!) difference in vulnerability to having stuff put in you, rather than probing with your appendages.

3) What if the aggressor has power over the victim (I'm not saying that's the case in the article)? I.e. She can paw you, and you're going to always wonder whether your next review depends on your reaction.

Now, you may think I'm distorting the situation, but I'm just trying to illustrate that even for a guy who thinks his reaction would be "Cool, gropage.", the real situation may well just feel like an attack.

I.e. it's fun to theorize about men's reactions versus women's, but unless you're actually a man who has been the victim of unwanted attention, you're unlikely to really know how you'd feel about it.

My reaction on reading the article was "Holy shit, people actually do that?" I guess I live in a sheltered world, oh and I'm a large male.

Another hypothetical:

4. The guy is gay and doesn't want to be inappropriately touched by a woman because he's attracted only to men.

I think that, in general, men getting sexually assaulted by women is something we take less seriously because, yes, as you say, men want sex, they aren't so bothered and because in general men have power (physical and otherwise) over women. But in most cases there are good reasons to challenge those assumptions, which we should do.

"I'll probably get downvoted for asking, but I'm curious, would everyone be as upset over this had it been a drunken female guest inappropriately grabbing a guy's package?"

Your analogy is flawed. It ignores a fundamental biological difference twixt men and women; that in general, men are bigger and significantly stronger (I won't look up the exact numbers, but a much larger proportion of a man's body is muscle).

Here's a more accurate analogy that carries with it the psychological overtones your analogy missed.

Imagine you are a man, at some party, and some big guy approaches. He's way bigger than you, maybe as much as a foot taller, and he's clearly much stronger. Even if he's not sporting his muscles visibly, it's clear. He's bigger than you, stronger than you, and ultimately if he wanted to force you to do something, the advantage would definitely be with him. He looks an you in such a way that it's clear he wants to have sex with you, and then forces a kiss upon you, and then rams his hands into your underwear.

You can struggle, but he's bigger and stronger and really your only option is to push free and go somewhere with other people who will protect you if he tries it again.

You'll be thinking about this for days, wondering what would have happened if there was nobody there to protect you. You'll probably feel weak and vulnerable and violated. You'll think of this every time you go to a party for the next year. Every party you go to that you should be able to enjoy, you'll be thinking about this; afraid that someone bigger and stronger might decide to sexually assault you. It's a fucking horrible way to live.

> If a sexual assault occurred she should go to the police about it and press charges. Not start an internet witch hunt.

This is true, but ...

There's a real benefit to knowing that this kind of thing happens, and how often it happens.

As guys, we're just not exposed to this as often.

For example, my wife used to regularly get heckled in our old neighbourhood. It never happened when she was with me. She just mentioned it one day, and it blew my mind. I was like "heckled, wtf, people still do that?"

Another example: at one job in the 'burbs, it was about a 10 min walk to the coffee shop. I was walking about 20 m behind two women for about 5 min. One of them was very attractive. I admit that I discreetly checked her out and then let my eyes wander around the rest of the scene, so I wouldn't be a creep.

Here's the interesting part: every single guy in an oncoming car turned his head to look at her. They didn't heckle her, but the head-turn was extremely obvious.

So, I'm not saying that guys shouldn't look at women, but it offers an interesting change of perspective.

What does it feel like when every single guy you see turns his head to check you out? You might say "flattering", but now imagine the relentlessness of it. Mind-blowing.

She is not obligated to go to the police. She can, in fact, just tell the Internet what she believes happened, and tell him to go fuck himself if he has a problem with it. If she's lying, he can sue for libel.

Well, considering that he is innocent until proven guilty, he can sue for libel until her charges have been proven.

This is not correct. In the United States you must prove an intent to defame. Sure he can sue for liable, but he wont win unless he can prove intent. Even if the charges against him are not proven. This may seem harsh to you, but read about liable in the UK to see what a train wreck the other alternative is.

Accusing someone of sexual assault is defamatory. This would be a clear cut case.

You're not following. The intent must be malicious. That the impact is defamatory is, at least to some extent, besides the point. What's he's saying is that she could even be mistaken and still not be liable.

I'd find it pretty objectionable in that case as well. I guess the main difference is that I'd find it objectionable and very surprising/unusual, which sadly isn't really the case with this story. As a guy, I don't feel at all apprehensive about attending tech-conference afterparties for fear that someone's going to grope me, because I estimate the chances of that happening as very small.

I guess for me the interesting part of this post is discussing what we can do about the tech community's culture / conference arrangements / whatever to make these incidents very uncommon for all genders, as opposed to how to handle this particular incident. I suppose that could've been done without naming the person, and the post would've still been interesting to me.

If I had a guy friend who, say, had his ass grabbed by a woman at a bar, and he went home and wrote a public blog about it, whining, and described it as "assault" I'd think less of him as a person. Puh-lease. I'd think, "Grow up. Get some perspective. You'll live. Somehow, you'll live."

If you had a guy friend who, say, had his ass grabbed by a really big biker guy in a bar who put his hand inside your guy friend's jockey shorts, and he went home and wrote a public blog about it, whining, and described it as "assault", would you still think less of him as a person?

Or in that case would you actually admit it was assault and your guy friend had every right to feel intimidated?

A good point you make with such comment is that getting him fired from his job and the possibility of completely screwing his life in check with what he actually did do?

This has happened to me, though it was not a fun experience. A very attractive acquaintance of mine came up to me (it was at her and her boyfriends house), and started grabbing my junk, and i was already backed up against the wall. At nearly the same time her boyfriend got in my face, while she was holding my crotch through my jeans, and started hollering at me that he was going to beat my ass.

Long story short, it was a twisted joke and I was NOT amused. I was 18 or so, and they were 20 or 21.

I didn't think about this until your comment but I've had this happen to me (a man) by females at parties. The thought of publicly shaming the girl for what she did never occurred to me; a double standard I'm happy to live with.

Would I be upset? Nope.

Guys and girls are, in general, different. Guys' misunderstanding of this simple fact leads to events like the one described in the article.

And if the male blogger had then written a similar blog about being sexually assaulted at a party, naming the female who grabbed him?

This I would take just as seriously. Why should people that blog about their lives and their interactions with other people omit being pseudo-raped? Because it's a "wild accusation"? Well, fuck that.

I've had it happen to me - I guess on two occasions.

I was shocked, It felt repulsive (because a drunk woman 30 years older than you grabbing for your balls trying to stick her tongue into you mouth is hardly attractive). It didn't feel good, but I didn't feel "damaged" because of it either. I left the place and went home.

No blogging, no police, no drama. It's not like there was some sort of conspiracy to destroy my person. It was an unfortunate sexual misconduct that a person needs not to dwell upon.

There is a big difference between unwanted approaches, even being creepy - and actual rape or "sexual assault".

Brings back a mostly forgotten incident from several years ago. I'm a tall white guy living as an expat in Seoul, speak Korean on the job, am pretty deep into the local community and sort of forget from time to time that I look different.

Riding the subway one day during rush hour I couldn't help but notice the guy next to me, a total stranger, was pressing hard against my privates with his hand through his own coat pocket. Thinking it might just be an accident and immersed in my reading I turned away 90 degrees. Sure enough five minutes later they guy had changed position was once again attempting to stroke me, quite hard. Mind officially blown, I moved to the other end of the car, mused on the creepiness of the situation, then promptly forgot about it.

Uncomfortable? Mildly disgusting? Yes. But not "sexual assault."

This is my general take on it as well.

Most guys would not be upset over that, and I'd venture a guess that while there are many reasons for this, a big one is power. I know for me personally, 99% of the women in this world could do that to me, and I'd still feel like I was in control.

Why is that? Once again, various reasons, but always remember guys have a huge physical leg up. I dated an ex-cross country runner once, and while she'd never fess up to it, even though I was only 140lbs I could wrestle her to the ground. Why? I am 8" taller than her, with limbs to match. (She liked to wrestle. She never won.)

a sexual assault occurred she should go to the police about it and press charges

I disagree. I think she's chosen a pragmatic middle ground here. There's behaviour which everyone (I think) agrees is inappropriate. She says it's happened before, and she wants to stop it from occurring again. She comes up with a legal way to respond, and isn't required to press any charges.

It probably could be prosecuted as a crime, but she has judged (I'll trust correctly) that this does not merit legally wrecking his life and taking up months of her time as a witness. He was drunk and stupid, but she'll recover. She runs the risk of being socially shunned, but she's unlikely to have this happen to her again at a similar conference.

Yes, one could argue that this would have been as effective by leaving the perpetrator anonymous, and I'd agree. But like the choice of whether to prosecute, I've got to trust her with this decision. So long as her statements are true, she (in my opinion) has the right to use them however she chooses. It's certainly fair to ask her if anonymous might have been better, though.

For male versus female: no, this is still asymmetric, at least in modern American society. On the bright side, at least we've moved to having it be a matter of gender and role rather than solely sex. You might see such a blog post if the woman was in a position of power over the male: an employer, a law enforcer, a politician.

It would be pretty remarkable. But no, I wouldn't be as upset. Men don't have a history of being sexually assaulted by women, and then experiencing skepticism and anger when they tell the community about it.

Hell, let's be honest: a non-trivial percentage of men would love if it a woman hit on them by sticking her hand in his pants. Not all of them, surely. I won't even say most. But plenty.

> Men don't have a history of being sexually assaulted by women, and then experiencing skepticism and anger when they tell the community about it.

Actually, I'm pretty sure they do. Skepticism, questioning of their sexual preferences etc. People of all genders who report experiences of sexual assault can suffer for it.

To anywhere near the extent that women do? Be serious. I mean, of course it happens. Sure. There are billions of people on this planet. But you're gesturing a dripping faucet while others are pointing at a gaping hole in the roof.

> To anywhere near the extent that women do? Be serious.

I wasn't claiming that it happened anywhere near the extent that it does to women. I was questioning the previous commenter's claim that there was no history of men being assaulted by women and experiencing skepticism etc when they tell the community about it. Because sexual assault isn't about gender it's about power.

> But you're gesturing a dripping faucet while others are pointing at a gaping hole in the roof.

I was disputing the claim that the dripping faucet did not exist and stating that both dripping faucets and gaping holes in the roof are bad.

It wasn't my intention to minimize the issue of sexual assault by men against women--how would you suggest re-wording my response in future?

What about if your boss, an ugly 250 pound butch twice your size, pulls you into the stalls, pulls down her skirt whispers in your ear "You do want to keep this job right?" and proceeds to grab your head and pull it between her legs?

Would that do it for you?

Isn't that a scene from a John Waters movie?

Name and shame is a perfectly reasonable response to such behavior, in addition to contacting a DA at her discretion.

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