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Comment by shaddi | Hacker News Reader

She said no, he groped her. What do you propose she should have done to be a "steward of her personal safety"? Live as though every male could attempt to sexually assault her? Is that how you want your wife/girlfriend/daughter going through life? Do you think that's how they want to go through life? Is that how we want female members of the tech community feeling at these types of gatherings?

Look, I appreciate the fact you're trying to make a reasoned, pragmatic argument on an emotional issue. But the fact of the matter is this is a situation that we can change and do something about. Anyone should feel comfortable participating in our community without fearing for their personal safety; we have the ability to support victims and make clear to those who would commit these crimes that it's not something they can get away with, which is not the current status quo.

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>"But the fact of the matter is this is a situation that we can change and do something about."

What can we do something about? Aren't loud, drunken, dark, crowded venues the kind of places that sexual assault happens? Is the hypothesis that if we shame people more that we can eliminate sexual assault?

I am not sure that insufficient shame is the problem. I doubt the males that do this think it is a fine thing to do when sober.

Our society thinks frat parties, dance clubs, and drunken after parties are a swell way to have fun and a huge percentage of our women are sexually assaulted at some point in their lives. These two facts are related. It's dumb to think we can pack people together and dull their inhibitions with alcohol and nothing bad will happen. It's not harmless fun.

Maybe the Mormons have the right idea about alcoholic partying. We're playing with fire and we're lying to ourselves if we think we'll ever make it safe.

Actually, if someone wouldn't commit a sexual crime, they're not going to do it drunk. Only 30% of reported rapes and sexual assaults involve alcohol use on the part of the offender. (Keep in mind that this is reported rapes and sexual assaults; sexual crimes are extremely unreported.) The Center for Sex Offender Management quotes a 1998 Greenfield study when it says that "[a]lcohol use, therefore, may increase the likelihood that someone already predisposed to commit a sexual assault will act upon those impulses. However, excessive alcohol use is not a primary precipitant to sexual assaults." Note: These numbers are from 2000, unfortunately. However, there has not been a dramatic change in the last decade.

How often is someone drunk? 30% is absolutely huge conditionally.

Really? There is going to be some correlation between the times that people are most likely to commit sexual assaults and the times that people are likely to be drinking.

I'm sure people spend a lot of time doing things like commuting to work or sleeping at night, but it's highly unlikely that they will commit sexual assaults during those times. People are just more likely to be drinking at times when they are looking for sex (e.g. at a party, at a bar, etc).

You should probably be following something like the following line of reasoning:

1. How many sexual assaults happen on dates?

2. How prevalent is drinking while on a date? (Maybe you'll have to divide the data up regionally or something for it to make sense)

3. How many sexual assaults happen when there was drinking on a date?

Then you can start to look at how likely it is that alcohol is really the cause of sexual assault (at least for the dataset that you're looking at).

The underreporting is not uniform, though. I wouldn't be surprised if intoxicated victims are less likely to report than sober victims; and the sobriety of victims and assailants is highly correlated.

  >  I doubt the males that do this think it is a fine thing to do when sober.

I resent the idea that once people are 'under the influence' they lose all grasp of reason. I've been drunk on a number of occasions and I never once thought that sexual assault sounded like a keen idea. And even if I had ever mis-read a woman and kissed her when she didn't want it, I sure as hell wouldn't have thought it was a good idea to then move on to grabbing at her genitals. Don't blame the alcohol here.

That part of your post is almost as bad as the film, 'Reefer Madness.'

  > Our society thinks frat parties, dance clubs, and drunken after parties are a swell
  > way to have fun and a huge percentage of our women are sexually assaulted at
  > some point in their lives. These two facts are related.

You're ignoring a huge number of factors and focusing in on just the idea that you want to be true.

I'm not necessarily saying she did anything incorrectly.

I made comments towards the general attitude she espoused at the end of the post. I quoted exactly what I was responding to. Anything else is stuff that I wasn't responding to.

>> Anyone should feel comfortable participating in our community without fearing for their personal safety; we have the ability to support victims and make clear to those who would commit these crimes that it's not something they can get away with, which is not the current status quo.

I agree with all of this. Everyone should be able to participate without feeling unsafe, victims deserve support, perpetrators deserve to be called out, would-be perpetrators should be put on notice. All of that is very much consistent with what I said.

I should have made more clear I think we're generally in agreement as well. My point was the respond to the implication that sexual assault is just a fact of life for women: it doesn't have to be. It's something we can change, and in that sense it's the job of all of us to make sure it doesn't happen to other members of our community.

In all seriousness, thanks for your articulate and reasoned comment.

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