Serious sexual assault

smogon, for the most part, a community of men. that means we are a part of the gender that disproportionately sexually assaults.

its been two months since the weinstein scandal. if u dont know weinstein (I didnt know) he was a respected hollywood mogul until the nytimes posted an article detailing how he has sexual assaulted women for decades. since then it seems like some new celebrity we admire or elected has also sexually assaulted women cause it keeps showing up on our news feeds.

how do we feel about all of this? what are we going to do ensure a better world for the women in our lives?
 

Nix_Hex

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There are a number of things that this sort of event brings to light. We idolize celebrities for their (sometimes) legitimate talent without giving a second thought about their private lives. Why would we? A majority of us don't know any/many notable people so we have no idea what they truly feel or what dirty, terrible secrets they can be hiding. The way my gf put it is that rich, influential people can get deluded into thinking they are untouchable - and if you are powerful enough, you might be able to keep yourself from getting caught until someone blows the whistle. Coming forward about being assaulted by a powerful person is tough because you won't be readily believed by the general public, who tends to think the best of who is being accused especially if they are respected. All these women coming forward is a good thing, as it encourages other women to blow the whistle if something like that happens to them.

As for making a better world for women, start simple. Don't oggle/stare. The second is tough for me because my epilepsy meds cause me to get pretty spaced out so I drift off and just... stare at nothing. But if "nothing" is in the line of sight of a woman and she notices me staring at her, she has every right to assume the worst, no matter how unintentional it might be. And as corny as this might sound, all this stuff coming to light has really made me think about this stuff a lot more than ever before.
 

Soul Fly

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not just women. everyone. speaking as someone who was sexually assaulted as a kid.

and not just celebrities. like all other matters they get disproportionate attention (not that I disapprove of the hollywood touchy no-no gate), but imagine the shit people get away with without the constant media attention that comes with celebrity.

not trying to minimise anything... just broadening out this conversation.

patriarchy is a little bitch. its victims lie on a broad spectrum.
 
hollywood is a fucked up place, this news should surprise noone
thats true but im hoping to talk about how pervasive it is everywhere. the statistics for women is fucked up. 1 in 6 women have been sexually assaulted. and men are overwhelming the ones perpetuating that violence.

as soul fly pointed out men and boys are also assaulted. for men and boys the statistic is smaller, 3%, but 1 in 10 rape victims are men apparently, which i didnt know. shocked the # is that high
 

Chou Toshio

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Well, since this thread is about sexual assault... the first thing is probably to clearly distinguish between sexual assault and the wider range of sexual behaviors, both socially acceptable and non-acceptable. (staring at a woman is not sexual assault for instance-- and it would surprise me very much if "socially enforcing a norm of not staring" had a meaningful impact on reducing rape) The issues need be teased at, and the sexual assault part addressed for what it is.

When we're talking about assault, we're specifically speaking about the violent crime-- this is important both in order to not conflate non-violent crimes with violent ones, and to ensure that the gravity of the term and its severity is maintained. In order to address the problem of assault specifically, I think one would want to narrow down to actual incidents of assault as a basis of research to understand motifs/underlying factors, and understand how the factors that lead to assault can be addressed by the levers society has-- the punitive system, educational system, social system.

I'll state an obvious point, but I would hope that any type of policy, punitive or otherwise, would have some form of firm scientific research as the basis for enacting that policy-- some basis that we can expect the policy to give positive results. For liberals, we understand the importance of this instinctively when it comes to drug usage, but here I see confusion.

As a non-expert, a cursory glance over the top google results does not give the impression that the motifs/factors behind rape are settled science. Otherwise, there's an impression that the motifs are too diverse, and the profiles of rapists too diverse that confounds the process of making meaningful generalizations or consolidate around key, addressable factors. Probably a lot of good research of this does exist though, or if it doesn't, the subject doesn't seem like one immune to analyses that could provide a better understanding.


What I don't think would be productive is creating a culture of shame and blame against men for their sexual behaviors in general, driven by programming handed to them by millions of years of evolution. The OP is correct that males are almost universally the perpetrators of sexual assault-- but the reasons for this are not a mystery impervious to understanding through research and examination. Being male and being female are real and definable designations, and the two sexes are distinct in anatomy and biological programming. We are products of our evolution and shaped by it-- but we are also able, through science, to look at what the results of that evolution is and how it affects us.


While it's a different (but related) conversation than the main topic of this thread--as I noted in my first paragraph-- the topic of how we engage with human sexuality in general in society is an important one. In my view though, the road forward would be to try to foster a better understanding of sex and human biology in our society-- human sexuality, human courtship, is incredibly complicated; how much of our music, literature, TV programming, blogging, activities is centered around the frustrations of it?

Can you imagine though-- how a young man in his formative years would be affected by receiving education from an older man versed in evolutionary psychology, where they had honest discussions of the differences between men and women? How those differences evolved? What are the sexual and evolutionary pressures that created those differences? What are the sexual instincts he will grapple with as a developing male, and how/why do those instincts exist? What is it those instincts are pressuring males to desire? How do those desires differ from those of females? What are the observable behaviors of females, what are the theories of female desire? What are women looking for-- or-- how can I become a more desirable male? How can I become a BETTER MAN from the view of women?

For me, I’d have imagined such a course would have been transformative, and even better if wholly embraced by society.

Navigating courtship with women is partly a set of complex but learnable skills-- ones that more mature males are better at, and in teaching, could potentially alleviate a great deal of frustration in understanding, sexual frustration through greater success, and even the maturation into a more civilized individual with greater control over his desires through understanding of them.

And this doesn't just go for men-- especially for humans unique from other mammals, females are put through as much if not even greater sexual selection pressure from the opposite sex; which is why women will keep going on talking about turning 30 no matter how much feminism progresses. As much frustration as men go through to try and get more sex from women, women go through as much if not greater frustration (and urgency) in mate selection and trying to get more devotion and loyalty out of men. I would personally imagine young women as also being able to benefit from more detailed, insightful, and objective education on human sexuality.

It might even better her life and comfort if she could understand both why/how males are so powerfully visually oriented in their sexuality, how it makes them stare-- as well as how her own instincts have meaningfully evolved to give her apprehension about those stares, and help her avoid dangerous situations.

Could such education affect rates of sexual violence? I wouldn’t be surprised if it did.


Of course, I'm speaking of ideals. The current cultural climate around the topic makes it virtually impossible-- at least in the US. On the right, conservatives are conservatives... (and oh god evangelical conservatives)... and on the left, well the left seems to have forgotten that the sexes are even different. Or that humans have behavioral biology that can be studied and verified.

In other words, religiosity and PC culture are both too queesy to actually talk about sex honestly, ESPECIALLY with our youth.

And we haven't even gotten to how a poor broader understanding of human sexuality causes us to try to instill social norms that are incompatible, and therefore disastrous, with human behavior-- and then bitch when people incessantly break our stated norms for masturbation, abstinence, porn viewing, cat-calling, kissing, looking, or consent.

And even beyond our unwillingness to understand sex, the media as of late puts on full display this culture that seems completely unwilling to respect the basic tenants of reason or our liberal democratic values-- distinguishing between what is, and what isn't sexual assault-- believing innocent until proven guilty. It seems like we're going more backwards than forwards.


I'm for a humanist society, that society should work for humans. On economics, that means that the ideal system needs to provide for humans. On sexuality, that means that the ideal system needs to recognize what humans actually are sexually, actually desire sexually, and put in norms/policies/rules that make sense for that biology. The research on this is only going to progress and teach us more about Homo Sapiens, about US-- so let's let it teach us.
 
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TheValkyries

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It ain’t instinct that made matt lauer put a remote lock on his office so he could keep girls in the room while he whipped out his dick to beat it.

I think you fundamentally misunderstand what these sexual assault allegations are because you have it in your head that society is too harsh on guys for doing normal reasonable things (in your mind) and that’s whats causing these allegations to come out. To be clear there could be a whole discussion on why your thoughts about society being too harsh on boys who don’t understand consent is a bad take in and of itself, but to stay on topic you need to remove your biases and actually grapple with the fact that these sexual assault allegations aren’t just friendly inappropriate “courtship rituals” and are literally assaults. Fighting for the honor of guys who think it’s okay to whip their dick out at women whenever they feel or who think it’s fine to grab and grope women whenever they want to is an immensely dumb thing to do.

And as a side note: “pc” people love talking about sex. Like a whole lot. Sex is pretty fucking great. But doing stuff without consent sexual or not is never okay my dude.
 

Chou Toshio

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It ain’t instinct that made matt lauer put a remote lock on his office so he could keep girls in the room while he whipped out his dick to beat it.

I think you fundamentally misunderstand what these sexual assault allegations are because you have it in your head that society is too harsh on guys for doing normal reasonable things (in your mind) and that’s whats causing these allegations to come out. To be clear there could be a whole discussion on why your thoughts about society being too harsh on boys who don’t understand consent is a bad take in and of itself, but to stay on topic you need to remove your biases and actually grapple with the fact that these sexual assault allegations aren’t just friendly inappropriate “courtship rituals” and are literally assaults. Fighting for the honor of guys who think it’s okay to whip their dick out at women whenever they feel or who think it’s fine to grab and grope women whenever they want to is an immensely dumb thing to do.
And you obviously didn’t read my post, or if you did are intentionally misrepresenting it.

I spent the first four paragraphs about sexual assault where I outlined my opinion that:

1) Sexual assault is different non-assault and should not be conflated (and you both agree with this and make conflations in the same post extremely ironically)

2) I would want any policy to have a basis in research that gives us expectation that it would help.

3) More objective research on the subject can only be a good thing

And that’s basically all I said about assault.

You complain about my views about assault, but only attack my general attitude about sexuality in society in general, and don’t give objective reason for criticism saying nothing about the above 3 points.

And as a side note: “pc” people love talking about sex. Like a whole lot. Sex is pretty fucking great. But doing stuff without consent sexual or not is never okay my dude.
So that means you would approve of young men and women receiving extensive sex Ed where they were taught about the biological differences between men and women and the evolutionary psychology that drives their sexual behavior?

Also I would want more sex Ed to talk about consent— and I would appreciate it if you didn’t assume my views on consent when I didn’t give any concrete stated views on it.
 
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Chou Toshio

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Also— I’ll be frank in saying I posted having zero expectation of reasonable discussion on this topic in this forum; and I actually don’t have the time for it either. (My apologies for making points and not staying to defend them— but I think anyone who pays attention to my posting frequency will see that yes it’s reduced dramatically— this is pure time constraint)

I mostly posted to stimulate thought in those posters here who are interested in my views, and don’t only agree with authoritarian leftist talking points.

Not so much on sexual assault but sexuality in society in general, I recommend content where Gad Saad, Steve Pinker, or Bret Weinstein speak— or learn about evolutionary psychology in general.
 
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Boris Hardrada

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So that means you would approve of young men and women receiving extensive sex Ed where they were taught about the biological differences between men and women and the evolutionary psychology that drives their sexual behavior?
Interesting thought. Why not just read them Leviticus? If it's an unempirical, untestable, unrigorous and incomplete account of human behavior we're after, Christianity fits the bill, and is less pessimistic. Obviously I joke - I mean no offense to Christians, whose powerful ethical injunctions are anyway respectable principles to live by, in comparing them with evolutionary psychologists.

A complete argument against the epistemic hubris that leads one to evopsych is more than I'm willing to take up here, so I will just say that, the behavior of groups aside, the behavior of even individuals - that's regular psychology - is a severely impoverished field, unable to provide explanations for real human behavior in i.e accounts of behavior in situations more complex than being projected a slideshow of faces and writing down their snap impressions. That's not to say that psychology is valueless as a science - advertisers use it all the time - it's just far too limited and molecular to be of more than incidental use in explaining something as nuanced as sexuality. Psychoanalysis comes closer, after the tradition of Freud, but modern psychology has, unfortunately, done away with most of his ideas and "thrown the baby out with the bathwater" in a sense. Still, evolutionary psychologists pay even less heed to Freud, even if they unknowingly absorb some of his ideas and come to some of the same conclusions, though always expressed in cruder terms.

Take this short-sighted, ethnocentric (though it would claim to be universal), unsystematic field, that for all its advancements cannot adequately address the mental health crisis of the day, and historicize it: you have evolutionary psychology. YouTube "philosophers" like Jordan P. and Stephen M. rally around it because it provides them with an easy, seemingly "scientific" way to justify right-wing beliefs. Consider: It's normal for us to turn away refugees, because rejecting the outgroup and forming tribes is in our nature. Or that a woman's place is at home, raising the children, because her psychology mandates it. No regard is given to the fact that human nature is incredibly difficult to pinpoint, subject to cultural, social and ideological factors perhaps far more than genetic ones, and that maybe human nature isn't so static as they'd like to think - if the body can evolve, why shouldn't the mind?
 

termi

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So that means you would approve of young men and women receiving extensive sex Ed where they were taught about the biological differences between men and women and the evolutionary psychology that drives their sexual behavior?

Also I would want more sex Ed to talk about consent— and I would appreciate it if you didn’t assume my views on consent when I didn’t give any concrete stated views on it.
Sex ed is cool and nice and there should be way more of that stuff, especially regarding consent and on a broader scale the role power dynamics play in sexuality, but I don't really see the merit in teaching 13 year olds (or whenever you wanna give em sex ed, I'd say rather sooner than later but w/e) the evolutionary psychology behind the teenage male's perpetual horniness or whatever. The first problem with teaching them the ins and outs of the differences in sexual behavior between males and females is that sexuality is a very personal thing and it differs from person to person, so while it may be true that men and women at large may experience sexuality in a very different way (it is up for debate how much this is nature vs nurture though, you seem to think it's largely nature, I'd love to see studies that back your claims up), this might not be true for specific individuals who are being taught these differences in their sex ed class. Pedagogically, it's hard to justify teaching gullible young individuals about how male and female sexuality function on a psychological level when certain individuals may struggle to identify themselves with that idea of sexuality - think of an asexual boy being taught it's only natural for boys to be sexually dominant. My second problem, and this is what truly worries me, is that the "is" and the "ought" of things tend to get mixed up - Boris Hardrada just posted something that relates to this. Telling young guys that their desire for sexual dominance is perfectly normal ultimately gives them a justification of sorts for poor sexual behavior. Furthermore, it reinforces hegemonic masculinity and teaches people that it's in men's nature to be dominant and in women's nature to be subservient, which calls back to my first point that a lot of people may not find themselves relating to their gender role for one reason or another, leading them to either pursue an ideal that they don't really want to achieve or to remain true to themselves and getting ostracized by their peers who are better at conforming to their role.

You may say that it's simply a matter of teaching people that the generalized idea of their respective gender's sexual behavior should not have to apply to them or their peers specifically, but in practice this distinction is a lot more blurry to a lot of people than one might hope. The above post already refers to the way supposedly "factual" statements can be mobilized by the politically savvy and turned into value statements, but even on a more personal level, it happens all too often that people get defensive after indisputably committing an error because "they couldn't help themselves" (or a variation thereof), in other words, they deny themselves their own freedom of will with regard to their ability to act consciously because they are under the assumption that they are ultimately slaves to their passions. Also, you can take a look at some of the more noxious "boys only" clubs on the internet - think incel boards, MGTOW forums, etc - to see just how many dudes desperately hold on to the idea that men are shaped to be "alpha" (whatever the fuck that means) and that they all ought to strive to one day be alpha, not realizing that maybe it's better to reject that norm and live a happy life as a SJW beta cuck special snowflake.

i hope i made myself clear if not it aint my fault it's 2am buhh
 

Chou Toshio

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Sex ed is cool and nice and there should be way more of that stuff, especially regarding consent and on a broader scale the role power dynamics play in sexuality, but I don't really see the merit in teaching 13 year olds (or whenever you wanna give em sex ed, I'd say rather sooner than later but w/e) the evolutionary psychology behind the teenage male's perpetual horniness or whatever. The first problem with teaching them the ins and outs of the differences in sexual behavior between males and females is that sexuality is a very personal thing and it differs from person to person, so while it may be true that men and women at large may experience sexuality in a very different way (it is up for debate how much this is nature vs nurture though, you seem to think it's largely nature, I'd love to see studies that back your claims up), this might not be true for specific individuals who are being taught these differences in their sex ed class. Pedagogically, it's hard to justify teaching gullible young individuals about how male and female sexuality function on a psychological level when certain individuals may struggle to identify themselves with that idea of sexuality - think of an asexual boy being taught it's only natural for boys to be sexually dominant. My second problem, and this is what truly worries me, is that the "is" and the "ought" of things tend to get mixed up - Boris Hardrada just posted something that relates to this. Telling young guys that their desire for sexual dominance is perfectly normal ultimately gives them a justification of sorts for poor sexual behavior. Furthermore, it reinforces hegemonic masculinity and teaches people that it's in men's nature to be dominant and in women's nature to be subservient, which calls back to my first point that a lot of people may not find themselves relating to their gender role for one reason or another, leading them to either pursue an ideal that they don't really want to achieve or to remain true to themselves and getting ostracized by their peers who are better at conforming to their role.


A few points--

-Teaching youth to have greater incite into the dynamics of power in situations and relationships-- this strikes me as an incredibly important information that is not immediately obvious; not just in sex ed but in life in general. As long as it isn't politicized but kept objective, information about how dynamics of power, pursuassion, both spoken and physical, in communication both direct and implied-- for me, awareness on these topics would help and sit well along with the other subjects I outlined. This type of education would probably benefit society even as wide-spread "heavily recommended" as opposed to required.

-My problem with people who want to attack nature vs. nurture is that in many ways these two things cannot be teased apart. It is an extreme view point to assume one over the other (as opposed to a combination of both having affect on people), but even if you were to assume nature has no role at all-- the behavioral effects of "nurture" are almost as innate/unchangeable as those of "nature". Even the most well-meaning feminist parents cannot escape bias on treating their offspring differently (also documented phenomena) and neither can the wider society-- even though this is "nurture", it's something you have to accept and something you can't affect with policy-- so there in terms of action, the distinction is close to meaningless. Academically believing in some theoretical distinction also doesn't really have any obviously quantifiable good.

-My point is that "is" and "ought" really should only be distanced by a reasonable degree. Communism is a terrific model of production for eusocial insects... not too great for humans. Human nature matters, and holding people to standards that don't fit human need will only cause worse outcomes. I believe that "The Arc of the Moral Universe Is Long, But It Bends Toward Justice"; you can make radical changes to society over time-- and in fact, humans/the world are getting to be better and better overall no matter what online outrage tells you-- but it's bend is long, and if you try to bend it too much, you're going to get blow back that will cause far more human suffering than good.


Also I absolutely disagree with the general notion that--assuming we approach the topic with good academic faith-- we cannot teach our youth (at least highschool+) nuanced and sensitive topics for fear of it justifying some form of bigotry or aggression. Studying observable behaviors in groups is not discrimination against non-conforming individuals, and understanding our base instincts is a means of empowering us to control them better, not to justify them. If you are failing in education in this way, then that indicates to me a need for better teaching in statistical thinking and ethics-- two topics that are critically important, and desperately requiring more focus in education anyway.





Also, again, while related in a really, really, really broad sense-- this discussion is really swinging away from the specific topic of sexual assault.
 
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Soul Fly

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not really, seems more like an epistemological investigation regarding what we think "sexuality" and (therefore) "sexual assault" are, and what assumptions augur it.

imo that is a pretty relevant direction for the thread unless you envision this as a gossip hub for who touched who, and reinforce tired circlejerks around responsibility and systemic failure. Few exceptions aside I think this forum is well versed in that regard.
 

Chou Toshio

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not really, seems more like an epistemological investigation regarding what we think "sexuality" and (therefore) "sexual assault" are, and what assumptions augur it.

imo that is a pretty relevant direction for the thread unless you envision this as a gossip hub for who touched who, and reinforce tired circlejerks around responsibility and systemic failure. Few exceptions aside I think this forum is well versed in that regard.
Is there evidence that our general understanding/attitudes towards sex in the broader context have a high relevancy to the issue of reducing sexual violence?

My intention was simply not to unnecessarily derail the discussion.
 

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