Hacker News Reader

Comment by WA | Hacker News Reader

Ask 100 women if they find it romantic to be kissed without being asked or if they want to be asked first. I'm pretty sure the answer is: being kissed, don't ask.

The author writes on reddit:

IMPORTANT NOTE ON RESISTANCE: If at any point a girl wants you to stop, she will let you know. If she says "STOP," or "GET AWAY FROM ME," or shoves you away, you know she is not interested. It happens. Stop escalating immediately and say this line: "No problem. I don't want you to do anything you aren't comfortable with." Memorize that line. It is your go-to when faced with resistance. Say it genuinely, without presumption. All master seducers are also masters at making women feel comfortable. You'll be no different. If a woman isn't comfortable, take a break and try again later.

So I really don't see where this is assault by not asking first.

Thing is, if you try to kiss her and she doesn't want it, she'll turn away and that's it.

View on HN

This is such a load of shit. There are so many circumstances in which someone may feel powerless to say something or engage in a resistive act, or may be physically incapable of doing so that the time. Rapists use the justification of lack of "acceptable" resistive force all the time, there is no place for this kind of comment.

There's a big difference between "resistive force" and saying no. Anyone can say no, at least in situations in which both partners are of equal power. In situations where one partner has greater power than the other, it's usually illegal for them to be intimate anyways (teacher/student, employer/employee). Also, if you, say, kiss someone without their explicit consent, I think it's pretty obvious when they are not kissing you back/want to stop (actually, I hope - never been in that situation, really, but at least I have lots of passionate kisses as a benchmark).

1) Power imbalance exists in general between men and women, in favor of men

2) Rapists and society at large often blame rape victims for not resisting enough. Rapists do not have a problem with a lack of consent and relying on victims to stop their own assault is completely unacceptable. The kickstarter project in question advocated for physically violating actions to be undertaken by would-be assaulters and put the burden of stopping assault on victims and should this kind of thing should never be supported period.

2) Rapists don't care about Kickstarter banning a seduction manual; they aren't seducing.

1) I don't think so; strength imbalance maybe, but not power imbalance. In fact, when it comes to sex and intimate relationships, women are usually more trained in socializing and have the upper hand in choosing a mate, and are strongly favoured by the courts [1] and the police [2].

[1]: http://voices.yahoo.com/presumed-fathers-act-man-pay-child-s... [2]: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LlFAd4YdQks

> 1) I don't think so; strength imbalance maybe, but not power imbalance. In fact, when it comes to sex and intimate relationships, women are usually more trained in socializing and have the upper hand in choosing a mate, and are strongly favoured by the courts [1] and the police [2].

This is completely not accurate. Women are more likely to be murdered by their partners, men have better outcomes in family court when they pursue parental rights, men overwhelmingly commit sexual assaults (against all genders), and men do not experience sexual violence at the hands of police as often as women.

Bot of your citations are totally irrelevant to the issue of power imbalance in private settings.

Yes, they're only relevant in situations when other parties are called upon to resolve a conflict that started in a private setting.

There is at least a thousand ways to say no, and only a few of them requires the use of a word.

And there may be times where women feel powerless, but unless they actually are powerless (that is the man wouldn't respect it if they said no) feeling has little and less to do with real world.

Also please remove your last sentence. HN is a place that values discussions with a high intellectual content and it cheapens your argument.

You're trying to shift the burden here. Consent is not opt-out it's opt-in.

I don't think you can split it like that. To me opt-in would mean you have to go and ask, whereas opt-in would be being asked, but you seem to me to prefer being asked in a verbal manner, whereas I would also accept a non-verbal manner.

Obviously just jamming your dick into her isn't acceptable.

> Ask 100 women if they find it romantic to be kissed without being asked or if they want to be asked first. I'm pretty sure the answer is: being kissed, don't ask.

I am pretty sure the answer is more complicated.

> Thing is, if you try to kiss her and she doesn't want it, she'll turn away and that's it.

Well, the problem is sometimes if you are too quick, your greasy lips might end up on her lips, making her smell your foul breath. And even if she turns away, it will not make the first seconds of assault unhappen.

> Ask 100 women if they find it romantic to be kissed without being asked or if they want to be asked first. I'm pretty sure the answer is: being kissed, don't ask.

That depends on the man. I don't want someone I don't want to kiss me without asking. I don't want them to kiss me at all, but I'd prefer that they ask than just try it.

Do you think that women just want men to randomly walk up to them in the street and kiss them? If you don't, then there's obviously some communication that's meant to be going on.

The guide puts the onus for that on the woman. If she doesn't want it, then she has to MAKE you stop:

'Don't ask for permission. Be dominant. Force her to rebuff your advances.'

Which is just a really disgusting mindset. Do you think anyone wants to have to make you leave them alone? And you have to acknowledge that some people are going to be too shy to make you stop.

It's an oversimplification to ask whether women would like someone to ask before kissing them. Not all communication is so blatantly verbal.

These sorts of guides don't help the fact that a lot of the boys reading them are poorly socialised to begin with, and are essentially being set up to rape some shy girl who may not feel confident enough to stop you doing something she's not really interested in. And that does a disservice to him and her - because I don't feel like, unless he's a total psycho, he wants to rape someone.

The book's attitude essentially seems to be that the author feels it acceptable to make people very uncomfortable, and risk raping someone, just because he doesn't want to take the chance that he'll turn off a potential date.

>Do you think that women just want men to randomly walk up to them in the street and kiss them?

This is the absolute most obtuse reading of the situation you could have mustered. And this is the problem with this entire debate: those who are arguing against these "seduction" techniques must resort to strawmen and imagined scenarios to show how awful this is. Unfortunately, this is the stuff that social interaction is made of. You're not going to change it by suddenly defining normal interaction as assault.

> This is the absolute most obtuse reading of the situation you could have mustered. And this is the problem with this entire debate: those who are arguing against these "seduction" techniques must resort to strawmen and imagined scenarios to show how awful this is.

I didn't even attempt to portray that as his argument. I said that if you don't then there must, of necessity, be some communication going on. -le sigh-

> Unfortunately, this is the stuff that social interaction is made of. You're not going to change it by suddenly defining normal interaction as assault.

Uck, for a block user function.

>If you don't, then there's obviously some communication that's meant to be going on.

Yes, nonverbal communication.

>The guide puts the onus for that on the woman. If she doesn't want it, then she has to MAKE you stop:

There are plenty of ways to do this. When a guy first opens the conversation, you can simply blow him off. If you seem receptive and he tries to flirt, again you can create space to nonverbally let him know you're not interested. Etc, etc.

All of these things are standard in social interactions. You guys are the ones that are twisting this into somehow being assault. This IS IN FACT the stuff that social interactions are made of. You can prefer that it weren't the case, but it is sad that you would block me for simply stating a fact.

Aside from king_jester's good point, he doesn't even follow that CYA in the guide. The other (more offensive, IMO) passage that people are in an uproar about is when he talks about how even when she rejects your touching or rubbing her when you first meet, she's actually secretly getting turned on, and that you should continue.

> when he talks about how even when she rejects your touching or rubbing her when you first meet

He suggests no such thing. He writes about having been on several dates and now you’re alone with her and you’re expected to escalate. His gives some suggestions how to do so, to make it more physical:

“Be playful. Spin her around. Pick her up. Push her away as a tease and then pull her back in. Decide that you're going to sit in a position where you can rub her leg and back. Physically pick her up and sit her on your lap.”

Only then does he write: “Don't ask for permission. Be dominant. Force her to rebuff your advances.”

In other words: try something, see what she will allow. She’s definitely going to tell you what she doesn’t want when you try it, but it’s very unlikely that she’s going to tell you what she wants before you try it.

Really? Please. Read the damn quote:

Every woman you flirt with. Touch them immediately. Be shameless in your physicality. When a girl rejects your advances, she knows that you desire her, and it arouses her physically and psychologically.

Stop trying to evade what the quote says and trying to find some legalistic way of misreading its plain meaning.

I hate to break it to you, but humans (and animals!) value touch very, very much. Flirting without touching is not as effective at creating a bond. Generally, I'd say this advice is fairly sound, if your goal is to make another human being feel more connected to you. But of course, touching someone when they aren't interested does not create a bond, because they weren't interested in the first place.

So yeah, if your goal is play it safe for fear of lawsuits, offense, or rejections, then by all means, do not initiate any physical contact. Expect to be forgettable and for people to tell you "they just didn't feel that spark."

The project doesn't say touch is good, it associates that any time you touch a woman and she rejects that advance or tries to distance herself, she is actually just really aroused and should totally keep going. That is: IGNORE WOMEN'S OBJECTIONS TO YOUR VIOLATING OF THEIR SPACE, CONTINUE TO VIOLATE THEIR SPACE. This is literally the mindset of rapists.

Nothing of the sort was written. The text in question:

“Even when a girl rejects your advances, she KNOWS that you desire her. That's hot. It arouses her physically and psychologically.”

Which may or may not be true, but nowhere did the author suggest to the reader that he should carry on after the girl objects. He strongly advises against it.

That kind of statement serves as a justification for action even if someone objects to what you did. This is literally the kind of thing rapists say about the sexual assaults they committed.

A thief will say he stole a Rolex because he wanted it. That’s the same motivation as someone who buys the watch in a store, and yet, the two are not the same.

The difference between a rapist and a date is that one stops after you told him/her to stop, and the other doesn’t.

I don’t know what you think ‘touching’ entails, but I think you’re reading too much into it. He didn’t write “Every woman you meet, grab her crotch!’. If you touch someone’s shoulder, that hardly qualifies as sexual harassment.

And where is the suggestion that you should keep touching her when she rejects your advances?

> Ask 100 women if they find it romantic to be kissed without being asked or if they want to be asked first. I'm pretty sure the answer is: being kissed, don't ask.

Your answer seems to assume the consent of these women. Do you still think it's more romantic, even if they don't want to be kissed at all?

Thank you for bringing a voice of reason to an otherwise frantic and hysterical thread.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com