This is crying out to become the basis of a sculptural installation.
And this is what a lifetime of condom use does to you.
I will not click on Apo links at work... I will not click on Apo links at work... I will not click on Apo links at work...
there are these little tiny fetuses, these little babies, that are embedded into the womb
They're not fetuses until 8 weeks. At 8 weeks, they're about 1.6 cm long, crown to rump. With one of those for every cycle on the BCP, they've got to be taking up a lot of wombspace!
I think you've just cracked the obesity epidemic case, Blume.
We're talking about sluts here, Blume. They have giant wombs.
How does the pill distinguish between sluts and good girls taking it for legitimate medical reasons?
I tried to find more of the interview to figure out what surgery he's talking about but I don't want to listen to it. Hysterectomies?
But there's more that goes along with the previous thread:
Peeples: It starts with men and women fighting and not being happy with the role that God put them in that he laid out in Genesis. So whenever you seek to desire, when women seek to desire the men's role, they lose the part and the idea of what children does, not just for the kingdom and not just does with their family, but does for their gender role.
Silly Heebie, they all know that "legitimate medical reasons" is obviously a myth made up by the baby killing industry!
apostropher, that only happens to men who don't bathe (or shower) afterwards.
Falling asleep in the bathtub is dangerous, marcel.
What's funnier than a dead baby?
The Holocaust. Oh wait, sorry, wrong joke.
God, my cousin's wife posted the worst racist joke the other day, which was just stunning in the degree to which it's a terrible joke by every possible standard.
Q: What does a Mexican use to cut up their pizza?
A: Little Caesar's.
(read it out loud.) My mind was reeling from the sheer compounded not-funniness of it.
Heebie, if that's what you consider the worst racist joke, you may need to get out more.
Not like the most offensive. Stupidly offensive and just so not funny at all. I'll stop standpiping now.
Heebie only likes racist humor that really pushes the edge of both racism and comedy; she feels like that was more of a Chuck Lorre racist joke than a Louis C.K. racist joke.
I've driven by this at least 50 times in my life.
And the first time wasn't just so you could see the sign.
It's like no one but me ever saw that Luis Tiant commercial!
So... these fetuses, they're stored somewhere besides the uterine lining?
I think what was so weird was that it was on Pinterest, which is usually super domesticated SAHM swapping tips on keeping kids busy, and gardening, and slimming fashions, etc. It just stuck out like a sore thumb.
Hm, I think "racist" is actually a stretch there. It's a pun on a dialect pronunciation that contains no negative stereotype. Is that racist? If I can break the ban and see if an analogous joke would offend me, it would be like a joke I'm not sure if I heard or made up just now:
What do gay horses eat?
Haaaaaay!
Um, it sort of relies on intonation, doesn't type so well. Anyway I have failed to offend myself with analogous joke so QED!
And 14 made me laugh.
And I wish I could unread the OP.
Oh, it's not criminally racist! It was just so dumb and unexpected.
And dumb jokes are something that I'm usually good at.
25: You may have independently discovered that joke, but I've definitely heard it told.
Q. How many feminists does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
A. That's not funny.
27: Me too -- I think it's that you really don't hear the caricatured accent much around here. I'm certainly around plenty of Latinos, but the Mexican accent that Speedy Gonzalez is referencing is only a media thing for me, so it didn't pop for a couple of minutes.
25: Isn't that the "Smile when you say that" exemption? While the joke is terrible (actually, both of them are), I could see them being inoffensive in a context where the group being made fun of was in on it. But that doesn't sound like heebie's cousin's wife's Facebook feed.
18: the standpipers flock on Leetle Beach.
Also how did South of the Border come up twice in like three days on unfogged? Our collective unconscious wants to buy fireworks.
I consciously want to buy fireworks. Stupid superego keeps getting in the way.
31: Ahem, except when we were kids and the joke in the aforementioned Luis Tiant commercial was predicated entirely on his accent. ("It's great to be with a winner!" said in an ad for Ballpark Franks.)
I had/probably still have somewhere a South of the Border theme park sweatshirt.
That I, like, wore in public and stuff. For the ironic 90s.
It took me a while to get it.
Yeah, the caricature-Mexican pronunciation of "scissors" and the way I pronounce "Caesar's" are far enough apart that it's not very natural to identify them. For one thing, I would think the middle sound would be an "s" sound in the cartoon-Mexican-"scissors" and a "z" sound in "Caesar's".
neb didn't get it because he always says "Caesar" with a hard c.
Also of course I pronounce the vowel as in "Kaiser".
Mexicans typically employ tiny clones of Kaiser Wilhelm for the task of pizza slicing, and pointing that out does not make me a racist.
41: So *that's* what the Zimmerman Telegram was about!
30 - I thought it was two: one to change the lightbulb, one to suck my cock.
43: When I was working in a doctor's office before law school, the doctor, the nurses and were sitting around talking and he told the "how many feminists" joke. I had only ever heard the "That's not funny" punchline, and I figured I was best qualified in the room to deliver it, so I gave it my best snarl. He blanched and left the conversation -- when I heard the other punchline later, I figured he must have been planning to deliver that one, and he thought I (a) was expecting it and (b) was actually angry about it.
44: You throw tell jokes like a girl.
I think what was so weird was that it was on Pinterest,
For a second I thought this comment referred to the quote in the OP.
44: Whoops. (What is the other punchline by the way?)
||
Funny/puzzling NBA photo. I honestly can't figure out what would have been going on in the game to produce that shot.
|>
I see 48.1 in answered in the thread (whoops).
That is mighty high off the floor.
How does the pill distinguish between sluts and good girls taking it for legitimate medical reasons?
When there are legitimate medical reasons, a woman's body has ways of shutting that kind of thing down.
What's the difference between a joist and a girder?
One's the national writer of Ireland, the other of Germany?
Canonically, one wrote Faust and the other wrote Ulysses. Works better with a stage Irish accent
Speaking of racism, oudemia, did you see that B.S. in the Times today about getting rid of jughandles?
55: WHAT!? That is my beautiful indigenous culture!!!
The first time I had to drive anywhere in Jersey, I was alone in the car, and I needed to turn left, and I didn't understand how at all. Ten miles past where I wanted to be, I turned right figuring I could double back and cross the road. But it was like some kind of nightmare -- does no one on this road ever need to go left? I can see there are streets over there... I don't understand! I was waiting for my eighth grade science teacher to appear in the car and explain that I needed to develop an outline for a slide show explaining the universe before I could turn left.
Fuck those jughandles. They never have good signs indicating if they are before the intersection or after. And they always seem to have hidden entrances.
This other Swanson thing is pretty good too. Feminists come in two kinds: (1) cute sorority girls who insist on having jobs and not submitting to their husbands properly (like Sarah Palin) and (2) ugly whores who go into academia or leadership in government offices because they are lazy ugly selfish whores.
I am almost inclined to think this fellow might be motivated by the weensiest bit of misogyny. The other probably more likely prospect is that he has never met a human woman before.
Hey, so I guess this is probably the best thread to tell about the weird thing that happened to me this morning.
(Which I will do in a series of comments since a single comment with the whole story would be hella long.)
Alaska in February = sex with bears for sure.
So, this morning, just as I stepped out of the shower, I heard a furious banging on my apartment door. It was weird, but I figured it might be something important, so I answered it, clad only in my towel.
When I opened the door, there was a young Native woman standing there in a low-cut negligee-ish top and sweatpants. She was very agitated and asked me several times if I could help her.
It wasn't very clear what the problem was she was asking me to help with, and when I asked she couldn't really give a coherent answer but said something about her friend's (or sister's?) roommate putting pictures of her all over the internet or something like that and kept asking for help. I figured there was something untoward going on, and her demeanor was such that it seemed like someone might actually be actively chasing her, so I let her in and closed the door.
At this point she was presumably out of whatever immediate danger she had been in, so I figured she would calm down and be able to explain what the problem was and what kind of help she wanted from me. Even though I kept asking, though, she still couldn't seem to explain, and was mostly just babbling incoherently.
Around this point she seems to have decided that I was some celebrity and she started going on and on about how she listened to my CD every night and that she had prayed to God for this (or something; she was still basically babbling). She punctuated this with occasional meaningful looks at me, as if she were expecting me to kiss her. Remember, I'm still standing there in my towel.
Contra 64, this is sounding more creepy than sexy. But go on.
74: you never know. Remember the hat.
At this point I was starting to get weirded out, plus I was already like 15 minutes late for work, so even though I was tempted to go for it I didn't and instead explained that I had to go to work and asked what she wanted to do. After some more babbling and crying, she asked if we could go downstairs. I'm thinking "yes, okay, this seems to be coming to some sort of resolution" and said that was fine.
Contra 64, this is sounding more creepy than sexy.
A prescient observation.
So, thinking that we had decided that we would walk downstairs together and she would go home or whatever and I would go to work, I asked if I just get dressed first. She said yes but she wanted to watch.
The first time I had to drive anywhere in Jersey, I was alone in the car, and I needed to turn left, and I didn't understand how at all. Ten miles past where I wanted to be, I turned right figuring I could double back and cross the road. But it was like some kind of nightmare -- does no one on this road ever need to go left? I can see there are streets over there... I don't understand! I was waiting for my eighth grade science teacher to appear in the car and explain that I needed to develop an outline for a slide show explaining the universe before I could turn left.
And just try pulling into a gas station to get some gas. Some weirdo will pop up at your window and there's no telling what he wants.
And instead of having a toll road where you pay to get on, or pay to get off, like a normal place, they have toll roads where you have to stop your car and pay $2 in quarters every two miles. Exact change required.
Shh, Ned. teo might be about to get married.
Or speared like a seal and then mugged.
stop your car and pay $2 in quarters every two miles
Blissfully, technology has solved this problem, and you now pay $2 every two miles via RF with no action at all, at full speed. It's great. More roads should be like that one particular detail.
Despite all the weirdness, I was still kind of turned on because she was very attractive and obviously into me, so getting naked in front of her was potentially embarrassing, but I figured what the hell. I walked into the closet and dropped the towel with my back to her, then started putting on my clothes. While I was still in my underwear she caught a glimpse of my, uh, semi-excited state and asked "Why are you horny in the morning?!" I laughed and was like, "What? Why not?"
I will be surprised if Teo still has both kidneys at the end of this stories.
Anyway, while I was getting dressed she noticed my computer and asked if she could use it. I said yes and she opened up Internet Explorer, making sure to select InPrivate browsing so the history wouldn't be saved, then logged into Facebook. She said something about how "the culprit must be someone on my friends' list" and looked at FB for a while without apparently coming to any conclusions. I didn't feel comfortable looking in detail at what she was doing, but I did glance at the page long enough to see her name (but not to remember it in detail).
At this rate I expect this thread to have been disappeared when I get up in the morning and hit refresh.
Once she was done with FB, apparently having forgotten about looking for the culprits or whatever, she asked if I wanted to log in and seemed put out when I said no. I was dressed by this point and reminded her that we were going downstairs. When I asked what she wanted to do, she asked me to call her a cab. So I asked her what the number was and started trying to dial the number she gave me, which didn't seem to work.
And that young Native woman's name? Pagani Huayra.
At this point she asks if we could lie down on the bed while we wait (for the cab I guess?). I looked a little dubious, so she shook her hips in a suggestive manner as if to make her meaning more explicit.
I was still pretty sketched-out by the whole deal, but on the other hand, eh, what the hell. So we went and lay down on the bed and I continued to try to dial the cab company on my cell phone.
I'm sensing the lesson here might be "teo doesn't recognize when the ladies be totally fucking high."
Dammit, gswift, don't skip ahead like that!
It is becoming very clear to me that teo exercises radically different decision-making heuristics than I do. I guess the moving to Alaska thing should have clued me in before.
The foreshadowing is not so subtle, dude.
So as soon as we lie down on the bed, she immediately unzips my pants and starts sucking my dick. I'm starting to get some suspicions that she's on something or other and feel like maybe I should try to stop her, but I'm so weirded out by the whole deal that I don't really do anything except continue to try to dial the cab number.
I was still pretty sketched-out by the whole deal, but on the other hand, eh, what the hell.
I'm impressed/surprised that you had made it this far in the encounter before deciding that the whole thing was just too weird, and trying decisively to get her out of your house.
I didn't last long, of course, and when I came in her mouth she immediately spat it on the floor. Then she noticed that I was doing something with my phone, decided I had videotaped her, and freaked the fuck out.
I gave her my phone to reassure her that I hadn't (I don't think it can even take video), and she looked at it for a while but remained unconvinced, or maybe had just freaked out enough that she no longer felt comfortable with me. Things were tense from this point on.
Boy, 101 sure was a surprising comment to see with no context.
… having scrolled up about ten comments I'm still surprised.
She sort of yelled at me for a while, and cried for a while, and continued to be pretty incoherent but now in an angry way.
You were doing something with your phone immediately after sex?
Things were tense from this point on.
Well put.
After a while she seemed to have decided to go, but she didn't have her shoes. We looked around my apartment for a bit before realizing that they were probably at whatever apartment she was in before (where whoever actually had been videotaping her sexually and putting it on the internet had presumably been doing that). She still seemed to be afraid of the friend's roommate or whatever and asked me to go with her, which I hesitantly agreed to. But then she freaked out again, ran out into the hallway, then ran back into the apartment, the whole time asking me "Where is she? Where is she?"
Obviously I had no idea what she was talking about or where she thought she was (this had been the case for most of the time, actually), so all I could answer with was "I don't know."
At that point she got even angrier and ran off down the hallway. I looked out and didn't see her, and decided that was that. I quickly got my coat, locked the door, and headed off to work.
Maybe it'll keep happening every day!
Boy I really hope this ends with a horrible pun or a shaggy-dog-esque non-punchline.
If it does, teo, I will worship you as a god.
When I got outside the building, however, and started walking down the street, I looked over my shoulder and saw her standing in the covered parking area beckoning to me. So I went over to her, but as soon as I got there she started yelling "Get the fuck away from me!" and calling me by some female name. Then she ran off down the street, and I continued walking in the other direction toward my office.
So things like this don't usually happen?
Maybe it'll keep happening every day!
Or maybe every few hours for days on end until she finally crashes and sleeps a bit.
There's still time to assemble a horrible pun. Um .... something combining Tlingit and cunnilingus ... no, too sleepy.
118: So, do you guys not have meth in New Zealand?
119: what, if the same girl showed up? That'd be weird. I was thinking it'd be somebody new.
So, that's the story. Once I got to work, an hour late, I talked to my cow-orker who used to work for a social services agency about it and he suggested some agencies that could help with that sort of thing, which he immediately pegged as drug- or alcohol-related. That hadn't really registered for me until that point, I think mostly because she didn't seem drunk or high in a way I had seen before, which suggested that whatever she was on was something I hadn't encountered. Given her demographic characteristics, I'm thinking most likely Spice, but I'd be interested to hear gswift's take.
121 not so much any more, to be honest. Used to have a crazy epidemic on account that you can't get any decent drugs into the country (an unfortunate by product of hyper vigilant biosecurity) but it's died off a far bit by now.
Once I got to work, an hour late, I talked to my cow-orker who used to work for a social services agency about it
In how much detail did you talk about it to your coworker?
Not as much as I've shared here, of course.
121: when I say epidemic, I mean word was for a while that E was fifty-fifty just P.
Could be some cannabinoidy thing? "Synthetic marijuana" is about as meaningless a term as "bath salts" as far as actual composition goes. Although the horniness seems more like the product of something speedier (which maybe the cannabinoidy things are, no idea).
So wait, if you didn't think it was drug or alcohol related, what did you think was up? This does happen to you all the time, doesn't it.
I'm not sure if the horniness was an effect of the drug(s) or not; it seemed to fade in and out. The most obvious effect, which I may not have adequately conveyed here, was how totally incoherent she was but still occasionally just lucid enough to seem like she was just upset rather than totally fucked up.
Although the horniness seems more like the product of something speedier
That's been my experience. I'd put money on that energy, paranoia, rapid talking, etc. with the horniness as bath salts or meth.
So wait, if you didn't think it was drug or alcohol related, what did you think was up?
I hadn't really thought it through that much in the moment, but I guess I sort of assumed she was still upset about whatever had just happened in the other apartment and whatever other previous traumatic experiences it had reminded her of. (I have no doubt she's gone through a lot of horrific shit in her life, based both on bits and pieces of what she said and the general context.)
Not so much with the rapid talking. She actually talked pretty slow, and cried a lot in between words and phrases. Lots of huge mood swings, though.
Where there's meth there's sex toys, as I'm sure I've mentioned before.
how totally incoherent she was but still occasionally just lucid enough to seem like she was just upset rather than totally fucked up.
IME this isn't the initial high but what happens after they've been up for two or three days on crystal. They can totally tell you in detail about the people out to get them but then point out some random passing car or group of pedestrians as the culprits.
And she was never the least bit violent or threatening. I never felt frightened at all for my own safety. Mostly I just felt sorry for her and wanted to help her, but she could never explain what sort of help she wanted.
Did you notice her hands? Was she moving them weirdly, like a lot of opening and closing them, lot of finger movements, etc. It's real noticeable especially after they're cuffed. They just start flexing the fingers open and shut compulsively.
In fact I spent most of the day worrying about her and wondering if I could have done more for her. I didn't get much work done.
138: Now that you mention it, yeah, I do remember noticing some sort of weird movement with her hands, although I don't remember the specifics.
I know realize there probably wasn't much I could have done for her short of calling the cops, which she definitely didn't want me to do.
Or taken her to one of the agencies my co-worker mentioned, where they presumably would have tried to put her in detox or something.
Yeah, something speedy and she's not slept in a while. I wouldn't let her in your place again. Sometimes in that state they suddenly make the jump from "someone's out to get me" to "you're out to get me" and the fight's on. We usually just book them as a public intox and that way they are out of the weather and in a padded cell with regular meals until they're coherent.
Thanks. I think it's pretty unlikely she'll show up again.
Someone else in a similar state might, though. It's that kind of neighborhood.
It's surprisingly hard to come up with a non horrible joke about this story,
By which I mean, that kind of sucks? Anyhow, it's not like everyone else here hasn't gotten a blow job from a strung-out Nosflow, so don't worry about it.
147: Eh, I'm fine with it. My main worry is whether I might have caught something from her, but I have the impression (maybe erroneous?) that catching an STD this way is pretty rare.
This is more the kind of story that would end with the guy on Arrested Development losing his prosthetic arm again.
Between comments 61 and 96, this was shaping up to be a really great thread. Then it stopped being great. I'm glad nothing horrible happened to you, teo, and I hope that woman is okay.
I'm thinking most likely Spice
Were her eyes blue?
Yeah, I hope she's okay too. Some googling reveals that, as I thought, this is pretty low-risk for STDs, so I think I'll be fine.
I love the phone action. I'm imagining some sort of mental self dialog. "Damnit Teo, be cool. Don't look self centered, at least try and reach the cab company while she sucks your dick."
157: That credits me with way more rational thought in the moment than was actually the case.
In retrospect, "What the hell was I thinking?" applies to pretty much all of my decisions in this encounter.
Did you have any meth or synthetic marijuana last night?
It's surprisingly hard to come up with a non horrible joke about this story,
But 147.last and 152 are admirable attempts!
I'm a bit worried about the internet explorer action.
And gosh, that's really quite a story. (And yes, I think we discussed this awhile back--blowjobs are an extremely low-risk activity as far as serious STD transmission goes.)
Actually the answer to 159 was a varying balance between "Nothing she's saying makes sense" and "Damn, she's hot though."
I'm a bit worried about the internet explorer action.
I'm pretty sure she only used it for Facebook. Though of course there's no way for me to tell now.
blowjobs are an extremely low-risk activity as far as serious STD transmission goes
...laydeez.
"What the hell was I thinking?" applies to pretty much all of my decisions in this encounter.
A lot of it is what you mentioned by her being off in a way you hadn't seen before. Don't sweat it too much because really, where would you have gotten exposure to this? Sure college educated people might see a fair amount of drinking and drug use like weed and X but "smokes a lot of meth" and "Ivy League School" doesn't generate much overlap on a Venn diagram.
165: I meant more as a sign of mental state.
A lot of it is what you mentioned by her being off in a way you hadn't seen before. Don't sweat it too much because really, where would you have gotten exposure to this? Sure college educated people might see a fair amount of drinking and drug use like weed and X but "smokes a lot of meth" and "Ivy League School" doesn't generate much overlap on a Venn diagram.
Right, exactly. I've seen plenty of people drunk and on various softer drugs, but this looked nothing like any of that. There's lots of meth in NM, of course, and at various points in my time there I ran in circles where it was at least conceivable that I'd encounter someone on it at some point, but as it turned out I never did.
168: Heh. I have Firefox and Chrome right there on the taskbar, too.
Actually there was one frat at Teo's ivy league school ....
Now Halford's going to regale us with tales of all the cocks he sucked during the meth portion of rush week.
Something's fishy here. Who still uses Internet Explorer?
Anyway, sign me on to the general expression of empathy-for-how-freaked-out-you-must-be-cum-totally-freaked-out-myself.
Actually I'm not particularly freaked out at this point, now that I've figured out what was going on. I feel like my life could use more crazy adventures, and "blowjob from hot Eskimo methhead" fits the bill nicely.
but this looked nothing like any of that.
There's definitely a lot of educating moments when you start this job. "What the flying fuck is wrong with this person..."(pulls pipe out of their pocket)"Oh, that."
It's not really my business, teo, but I think you should go with being freaked out. The cavalier attitude in 176 doesn't really fit the details of the story very well.
Eh, it's not like I'll go seeking out this sort of thing. But I'm not at all surprised it happened, really, and it wasn't actually particularly frightening or anything. Disturbing, yes.
I will definitely be more careful about letting people into my apartment from now on, though.
In other news, unlike teo, I spent yesterday and today putting together an incredibly complicated Keynote presentation. And now I'm finished. On the one hand, I'm kind of amazed at how much I was able to get done in the last forty-eight hours, and how my productivity was almost entirely the result of having a very fast internet connection and some good software at my disposal. How the hell did anything ever get done a couple of decades ago? On the other hand, having spent almost every waking hour since Monday morning in front of a computer, I feel like complete crap.
I did, though, stay up into the wee hours of last night reading The Art of Fielding, which, on a sentence-by-sentence basis, was pretty terrific, but which, overall, didn't amount to much. It was a bit too much in the thrall of Richard Russo for my tastes -- and I like Russo. Still, the writing was good enough that it was worth the price of admission and the time spent.
"Hot Eskimo Methhead Blowjob" is free as a band name, if anyone's interested.
With one of those for every cycle on the BCP, they've got to be taking up a lot of wombspace!
Make Womb! Make Womb!
Also, teo just opened his door and there she was?
http://edition.cnn.com/2003/ALLPOLITICS/11/25/bush.brother.reut/
Has teofilo considered applying for a position as cover for S/E/K when he's sick or over-committed? Because he seems to be eminently well qualified
I woke up and was going to tell you all about this crazy thread I dreamed I read. But, huh, here it is.
I cannot believe I missed this thread in real time.
started going on and on about how she listened to my CD every night [...] when I came in her mouth she immediately spat it on the floor.
"You don't taste anything like Enrique Yglesias! WHO THE FUCK ARE YOU?"
91: And that young Native woman's name? Pagani Huayra Thomas Schelling.
96: It is becoming very clear to me that teo exercises radically different decision-making heuristics than I do.
Yes. And I can't remember the details enough to find it in the archives, but this the teo who once rebuffed some speculation on my part because it would have involved him approaching someone and asking them for directions which he claims he never would have done.
I guess it's all about who approaches who first.
Stormcrow wants first dibs on the lucky apartment.
And the priors that I would be adjusting based on "random apartment door knock hot Eskimo methhead blowjob" would *not* tend to be variations of "probability of more blowjobs in the next x days."
96 155 188
Ditto. (Of course it's not like I know for sure what I would have done in a similar situation given my past lack of such encounters).
And I'm really torn on whether it was funnier than a dead baby or not.
This was indeed an amazing thread.
It was a good thread even before teo got involved and then it got SO MUCH BETTER. And seconded the recommendation of him taking over from SEK where necessary. Calling a cab in flagrante is unmatchable.
I fell asleep and missed everything.
On the other hand, 96 was pretty much what I would have said.
I find that this story has triggered my parental instincts, despite that being somewhat presumptive and inappropriate. Apologies on that front, dude.
On the other hand, one more data point for the spit or swallow database.
206: I would have thought you'd have come to a policy decision about that by your age, Stormcrow.
I was pretty disturbed by this story when I read it with 3am insomnia. By the light of day, yup, still disturbed.
And it's coming up on 5 AM Alaska time, in case this is a raunchy, criminal remake of Groundhog Day set in Anchorage. Call it Breaking Good.
207: I'm not living in the past or sticking to possibly outmoded ways of thinking, my friend. And there are always new data to be gathered even if only by proxy.
I assume you're suggesting we hire another woman to knock on Teo's door this morning.
"This time I'll call the police BEFORE she shows up. No, now they think I'M crazy. Here she comes again."
"This time I'll refuse to answer the door. No! Now she's knocking on the door of the crazy roided-up guy who brags about how he puts women in their place! Must save her"
"This time I'll go buy some drugs and have them ready for her when she comes by. That'll calm her down. No! That didn't work either!"
211: No, going forward, let's have less of the sex with "incoherent," "traumatized" women who think we're someone else.
"This time we go out and build a snowman and have a snowball fight with some kids."
Oh wow, teo. I'm very late to this, but, um, what everyone else said.
I wouldn't feel bad about not picking up on the drug thing. Maybe I'm just naive but I've been picked up a few times by people who seemed REALLY REALLY INTO ME who turned out to be SO HIGH ON COCAINE. I don't do it, so I just think, for a fleeting moment, that I must be irresistibly sexually appealing (which I suppose I *am* if you are SO HIGH ON COCAINE).
173
Something's fishy here. Who still uses Internet Explorer?
It's hard to avoid on computers in federal offices. Tech support is contracted out on a five-year basis, so it's hard to get any new software at all except shortly after a new contract is signed, and even then it has to meet a ridiculous set of standards - not ridiculously high standards, obviously, we're talking about IE, but maybe "broad" would be correct, able to serve highly classified needs networked across several continents and still be troubleshot by a monkey 18 months from retirement, while crashing no more and no less than an old gaming rig. It has to be equally bad for everyone, and IE is good for that.
180
I will definitely be more careful about letting people into my apartment from now on, though.
And we absolutely insist on hearing how you explain it when you turn someone away. "Sorry, you can't come in. I don't want a repeat of what happened last time. You see..."
"I'll let you in if you promise not to blow me."
Or, less restrictively, "I'll let you in if you promise not to blow me and use my computer."
"Of course you can guess what happens next."
"She checks Facebook?"
"Don't be naive, Jeffrey."
I have just started reading teo's story and my impression so far can only be told in poetry:
Then wear the negligée-ish top and sweatpants if that will move him;
And if you can perseverate and present with pressured speech with paranoid content, do that vaguely diagnostic stuff for him, too
Till he cry "Lover, Indigenous, probably schizophrenic lover, I must have you!"
[for neb]
Now I finish story.
It gets sort of dark, smearcase.
Oh. Poem withdrawn with apologies.
I dunno there are good dark poems.
I got all excited about doing a cover of nosflow's favorite poem and jumped straight down to comment.
The fog comes
on little cat feet
It sits looking
over harbor and city
on silent haunches
and then runs screaming.
As of comment 80 this is some David Lynch shit going down. Great, now I am live-blogging my reading of a blog.
some David Lynch shit going down
Ahem.
223: You do owe us your actual reaction. But I see that you understand that.
I'm at the doctor's office, which is why I'm not posting anything in the queue. Apologies. That glucose drink is grody.
What's LB or Stanley's Unf's excuse?
It's coming up 6 AM Anchorage time, queue "I Got You, Babe."
230: Good luck with not having gestational diabetes.
||
https://twitter.com/LeVostreGC/status/298480190831603713
|>
229: I'm a bit stymied. I will leave it at "disturbing."
Mmm. I started out "Immensely ill-advised from an esthetic and safety point of view" and took a moment to get to "Morally questionable in a big way." Having sex with strangers who are incoherent to the point of seeing completely irrational is a lousy thing to do even if it's all their idea.
There are worse things to do than making a bad decision in a freaky and disorienting situation, but I wouldn't think of this as a wacky misadventure.
So, not funnier than a dead baby.
I was wondering who the first person to make the move in 238 would be. Let the games begin.
238.last: Any tendency towards judgementalism on my part is tempered by the freakiness and disorientation. But then again, probably a lot of things which happen in this world and are later judged in the court of public opinion have that characteristic.
re: 217 etc
re: Internet Explorer.
At my work the only officially supported desktop OS is Windows XP [I kid not], with IE 8.
241: You think 238 was the first to make that move?
And I stole that joke from someone on Twitter last night.
238.first: I think moral questionableness has to factor in not realizing that the bursts of incoherence were something other than merely an excitable person getting worked up. Teo's lack of experience with drugged up people has to count in his favor here.
22. Are we assessing this on the understanding that it actually happened as narrated?
230: I hated, hated, hated that screening. By the time I got to the appointment I was visibly shaking after that bottle of demon glucose. I think I passed the screening but if I hadn't I think I would have seriously proposed going on the GD diet over doing the second screening.
Uh, teo. Wow.
FWIW, now that the die is cast, I don't think it's at all a "wacky misadventure" but "morally questionable" seems wrong too, at least inasmuch as it seems to imply a strong moral judgment. More like situationally kind of dark and sad for everyone involved. Sometimes attractive weirdos are into you and it can be hard to know where they are coming from and how weird they really are, especially if you don't have a lot of experience with the heavily drugged, and our Teo was basically trying to be helpful, or at least to combine helpfulness with horniness in a basically understandable way, especially for a single straight guy in his twenties.
I also suspect that there will be a significant male/female intuition gap around this story, for fairly obvious reasons, and also give Teo huge points for honesty.
Right, in the moment I'd take being confused and disoriented as probably counting for most of a free pass morally. But looking back at the incident, I'd think it should go firmly into "Really shouldn't have done that" rather than "crazy adventure". </humorless>
I got all excited about doing a cover of nosflow's favorite poem and jumped straight down to comment.
It's not my favorite poem!
I was wondering who the first person to make the move in 238 would be.
oudemia in 213? I was thinking it last night but decided that since no one else was sounding judgmental I wouldn't either, at least to the extent that 96 didn't sound explicitly judgmental. And it sounds like teo was, at the time, bewildered and not figuring out the "oh, she's really high" thing. So I decided not to write the comment I had in mind.
245: Charles Guiteau plays a long game.
249: This is my general policy for everything I read on the Internet.
There are strange things done in the midnight sun
By the men who frequent our blog
The Arctic hosts occasion posts
that can leave us all agog
Our comment screeds have seen strange deeds
but the oddest account they've related
Was the eskimo tweaker and refuge seeker
at the house of a dude she fellated.
252: Mostly agree, and there are some aspects of how teo chose to describe it that heightens that sense of it for me (for instance, but on the other hand, eh, what the hell). But then again he was describing it to *us*.
I blame apo.
254: Yeah, I figured it was worth being explicitly humorless about it.
256. What an exciting life you must lead.
I can see being bewildered at the time, but it was presented here as a bit of a joke, and with the woman as the butt of it ("Hot Eskimo methhead blowjob"), and that I think ought to be pushed back on.
260: It's how I compensate for the dullness of my real-world life.
256,260: Dear Winner
We are happy inform you that your email address has just won you
$ 800,000.00 United State Dollars and jaguar car in the ongoing Jaguar automobile
anniversary promotion draws held today in Inida. Contact the fiduciary
agent with contact information stated below:
Name in full :
Address :
Occupation :
Country :
State :
Tel/fax :
Marital :
Mr JOHN HAPPY
Contact email: jagura_car2013@[common e-mail hosting service]
264: An actual example I recently received and my new favorite 419-ish email.
Wait, did someone erase my spam example as comment spam?
I've got to say my moral intuitions are somewhat confused here. There's certainly nothing wrong with making out with high strangers who initiate. It's also certainly wrong to manipulate a high stranger into anything sexual, and probably wrong to fuck a high stranger. But letting them give you a blowjob or handjob is squarely in a gray zone to me.
That said, put me on team "don't let your sensitive bits near the teeth of unpredictable high strangers." Cause that's just dumb.
Fuck. Now delete 269. It was questionable to post it once. Insufferable to do so twice.
I balme overtiredness.
Apo's my front-page puppet (or so I guess). I take back blaming him.
I blame society.
Right, in the moment I'd take being confused and disoriented as probably counting for most of a free pass morally. But looking back at the incident, I'd think it should go firmly into "Really shouldn't have done that" rather than "crazy adventure".
Yep.
264: 419 emails are made deliberately ludicrous in order to weed out the 99% of people who are not amazingly gullible, leaving only the 1% who reply (and are basically too daft to be let out alone).
276: Moby should lick a signpost in sub-zero temperature.
Am I the only male commenter here who wouldn't let a total stranger, regardless of mental state, perform such an act on me? I mean, even if I were single, letting someone I don't know at all do that seems like a bad idea, something that happens in books or movies but that actual people don't do. Now if it were someone I knew casually (and maybe I missed that this is someone Teo could at least identify as a neighbor he'd seen before) maybe, but just random person, even given 163?
Probably, but predicting one's responses in unpredictable situations is a dicey game.
Am I the only male commenter here who wouldn't let a total stranger, regardless of mental state, perform such an act on me?
278: In theory, I would not. However, I recognize that what one does in theory is not necessarily the same thing as what one does in the moment when such an opportunity presents itself.
I think this was a very bad decision on Teo's part, especially given the racial/class markedness of the situation. I do not think it is funny. While I don't think it rises to the level of sexual assault, given the exact particulars, I think everyone would be well advised, in similar situations, to err on the side of caution and not hooking up with people who are in some kind of non-typical mental state.
274: My sister recently had the experience of sending out what she said felt like 419 solicitations while she was the executor of a quasi-relative's will. Several far-flung people whom none of the living knew were due funds (certainly not massive, but not totally insignificant either). For one of them they only had "last known address in Paris." There was also some money for the grandkid of the neighbor she used to hang out with where said grandkid would come after school. Once again, not a name anyone recognized, the neighbor was now dead as well, and the kid still a kid. But eventually tracked down.
278: No. See Unfoggetarian-- That said, put me on team "don't let your sensitive bits near the teeth of unpredictable high strangers." Cause that's just dumb.
278.first: No, you are not. I can't imagine going along with something like that unless I was really quite high myself. But I am a bit of a prude.
OT: I got your "comptroller" right here, pal! Cache this!
I can see being bewildered at the time, but it was presented here as a bit of a joke, and with the woman as the butt of it ("Hot Eskimo methhead blowjob"), and that I think ought to be pushed back on.
I can see that in the abstract, but this is teo, who is pretty low on the scale of "general calousness."
I agree that "Hot Eskimo methhead blowjob" is unfortunate, but considering
I looked over my shoulder and saw her standing in the covered parking area beckoning to me. So I went over to her, but as soon as I got there she started yelling "Get the fuck away from me!" and calling me by some female name. Then she ran off down the street, and I continued walking in the other direction toward my office.
and
In fact I spent most of the day worrying about her and wondering if I could have done more for her. I didn't get much work done.
Neither of which sound like making her the but of the joke, I'd be inclined to read that as a combination of gradually ebbing adrenaline, and trying to get past, "how badly did I mess up the situation" and to "the situation was messed up, but I don't think I did much harm." Which seems like a psychologically reasonable thing to try to talk oneself around to.
283. I have been in that situation. Everybody eventually responded, and I mailed them all cheques. I think the difference between this and a genuine 419 is that at no point did I request their bank details, passwords etc. If somebody sends me a personal letter saying that an old friend whom I know to be in his late eighties has died and left me a trivial sum in his will, so can I confirm my address so I can get a cheque, I'll probably presume good faith too because I'm not being asked to provide anything useful to a scammer.
Am I the only male commenter here who wouldn't let a total stranger, regardless of mental state, perform such an act on me?
No. I also would not have let a total stranger who showed up at my door watch me change or use my computer either.
In general, what essear and oudemia and LB said.
Who knows, 92 describes something that could go either way. More open means living through surprises, both good ones and bad ones, and less open means fewer surprises and more control.
Per 278*, I can't wait to see this thread get into trying to identify conditions in which sex with a total stranger would be acceptable.
1. If you're single.
2. If the person coming onto you seems sober, sane, and not under duress.
3. If you're not going to have to use up paid time off for it.
* For the record, I'm tempted to imagine conditions in which it makes sense, but no, I probably and hopefully wouldn't either.
Also for the first few hours of wakefulness for me, my judgement is pretty badly impaired-- either everyone seems sane or more typically nobody does.
I wonder whether the harsh responses are due to the presence of jokes.
286: The headline promises that I'm "probably mispronouncing" "niche", but the entry concludes that both common pronunciations are correct. What gives?
I'm going to go on the record as believing that a broad majority of people vastly overestimate their probity.
I can see that in the abstract, but this is teo, who is pretty low on the scale of "general calousness."
I am unclear as to how that makes that summary phrase any more okay.
I'm going to go on the record as believing that a broad majority of people vastly overestimate their probity.
Probably true as a general rule, possibly less true among the unfoggedetariat -- I think this community selects for both (a) above-average levels of self-knowledge, (b) a general disinclination towards finding excitement appealing.
I wonder whether the harsh responses are due to the presence of jokes.
Absolutely. On my part, at least. (Put me in the 'humorless' category with LB.)
I don't think it's at all a "wacky misadventure" but "morally questionable" seems wrong too, at least inasmuch as it seems to imply a strong moral judgment. More like situationally kind of dark and sad for everyone involved.
This is basically where I stand, too.
296 irks me in the way that all such similar self-regarding statements about us, wonderful us, do.
I'm going to go on the record as believing that a broad majority of people vastly overestimate their probity.
Right. And they're the scariest motherfuckers of all.
294: I don't know if people are overstating their probity so much as correctly reporting their level of caution.
I don't know about you all, but it turns out "probity" doesn't mean what I thought it meant, which was something about proving or proofs.
I am unclear as to how that makes that summary phrase any more okay.
It doesn't make the phrase okay; it makes me less likely to think that teo's reactions are really summarized by that phrase.
296 irks me in the way that all such similar self-regarding statements about us, wonderful us, do.
Fair enough, but I didn't think I was calling us wonderful -- staid, and likely to live in our heads was more what I was going for.
293: maybe a lot of people are pronouncing it "Nietzsche"?
"Kibosh" was stressed on the first syllable as far back as 1914, because there was a popular song called "When Belgium Put The Kibosh On The Kaiser" and the metre doesn't work if it's stressed on the second syllable.
302: Could be! I'll retract the first two words of 280, but stand by the rest.
It's interesting to imagine the reaction here to the same story with the sexes reversed.
I think most people would still conclude that it was a really bad idea, but there would also be concerns about "slut shaming" Teo and a greater willingness to treat the situation as producing at least a dark humor response. Part of what's going on here is that people aren't just thinking that she was high/in an unfortunate life situation, but that she couldn't really have wanted to do anything sexual, even if she indicated that she did. I think the response to hypothetical methhead Eskimo man would be quite different.
Not saying that this proves anything (power differences between the sexes are real and matter, maybe the story just can't be told with the genders reversed) but it's maybe interesting to think over.
307: On the other hand, "When Belgium Put the Kee-bosh on the Caesar*" works.
* The Leetle Caesar, of course.
Am I the only male commenter here who wouldn't let a total stranger, regardless of mental state, perform such an act on me?
Of course I would, and have. "Mental state" is the hangup here.
308: Absolutely. I am reminded of everyone's confidence (not necessarily here, but in the internet + the world in general) as to how they would have reacted in the Penn State shower incident.
What's striking to me about the reverse-the-sexes scenario is that I'd be absolutely zero turned on in such a situation. I mean, it sounds repulsive. And I don't have qualms about making out with strangers qua strangers, in other contexts.
It's interesting difficult to imagine the reaction here to the same story with the sexes reversed.
Seriously, I can't imagine a gender-flipped version (a) actually happening or (b) not getting reactions that were primarily about the lack of caution involved (I might keep my mouth shut if I didn't know the woman, but from a twentysomething female commenter I can't see not saying "What were you thinking?"
I admit that I'd be likelier to get stuck on the stupidity of it and not get to the morals.
I'm sticking with what I said in 178. I've made some incredibly, in some cases almost insanely, bad decisions in my life, (though very rarely about sex, as it happens, because I'm me). I'd like to think that having recognizing the badness of those decisions has some exculpatory value, but maybe not.
I can't imagine a gender-flipped version
Make it two men. Easier?
I can't even get past scary to figure out if it would be repulsive if I weren't scared.
Oh, I could easily make/made plenty of "what on earth were you thinking?" mistakes around sex. Just that I can't imagine finding this situation anything but repulsive and scary. Concern for the intruder would be really low on my priority list, because of the strength disparity. If only I had thirty guns.
317: Still doesn't turn me on.
Note to self: compose the doggerel verse before the thread turns earnest.
Two men in a Manga with thought balloons.
317: This actually came up a couple of months ago, didn't it? I think the response was pretty muted. I do think it is different when we are talking about the heteronormative versus the not. As far as "what we all would have done", I'm sure some people would succumb to temptation and some would not -- that doesn't really change the moral calculus of whether this was the right thing to do or no.
Also, although this is an upsetting thing to read, I don't feel like the responses have been particularly "harsh". Certainly not compared to what they would be on some other blogs.
If only I had thirty guns.
You'll go native yet.
I have, as I said above, totally taken up on propositions from high strangers. And when I've told stories about stuff like that here, I feel like I've gotten the same response Teo is getting--that it sounds like something gross and probably immoral, especially to people in long-term relationships. I've been completely celibate for a year and a half now, so that my default response to propositions is "no," but now I've become aware of how frequently people on the receiving end of offers of sex are expected to reject them. Everyone is happier with me now that I am not a sexually active person. I remain celibate because no one judges me. It's horrible, but it's worth not having everyone tell you that your physical reactions to what seem to be explicit offers of sex are disgusting and immoral.
317: I think I'd judge a gay man about as harshly as I do Teo (which is not very, confusion and all that, but still don't have sex with people who don't seem competent). Community norms might be different enough that the evidence of incompetence was more confusing, but Teo wasn't relying on the fact that she blew him to figure out there was something wrong with her, he got it from how she was talking.
I've been in the room when 317 happened. That was pretty weird! I left because I was uncomfortable.
317: Wasn't this JRoth's story about his friend?
327: See above.
but still don't have sex with people who don't seem competent
Because the sex will probably be bad.
Off to swim. Run away!
I do not, of course, condone sex with "incoherent" people. But being on the receiving end of what seem to be sincere offers of sex with hot strangers can be, for a certain kind of person, including myself, a sexually appealing prospect that is not, in itself, inherently "sad" or "frightening." I would just like to separate out the part of this that is about consent with a distressed/high person and consent with a stranger.
326: Isn't there a huge difference between an offer of sex from a high stranger who's out having a good time on a Friday night, and one who seems to be having a mental breakdown, whether or not drugs are involved? I think a lot of things that get said about how it's impossible to consent to sex if you're at all impaired by alcohol or anything else are silly, buy this seems like a very distinguishable situation. Not rape, or particularly close to it, but a bad decision to have made.
But being on the receiving end of what seem to be sincere offers of sex with hot strangers...
See, that just doesn't happen in my world. I assume that a hot stranger who wanted to have sex with me was either going to murder me or was somehow incoherent.
Hey, teo. I admire your honesty and forthrightness in telling this story, but discretion does have its place in the world.
Also move to a new apartment as soon as practical. Not kidding on that.
And so to work.
I don't think anyone was clapping Teo on the back and saying "congratulations on the beej ol' chap." I'm not sure it's a situation I feel like is mine to judge as a good or bad decision. It's something that happened, and I am interested in how Teo is feeling about it now, more than I am in imagining myself making "better" decisions in his stead.
Also move to a new apartment as soon as practical. Not kidding on that.
I was thinking this, too.
331: I would just like to separate out the part of this that is about consent with a distressed/high person and consent with a stranger.
I did not see anyone responding negatively to the fact that it was a stranger. I don't see what that would have to do with it, other than that, if it was someone you knew, presumably you would have a better idea of how they would feel when they sobered up/got their head together more.
As far as it goes, from my perspective, the problems here are:
1. Inherent power differential based on being sober and sane vs. high and in distress.
2. Inherent power differential based on class/race/gender difference.
331: I'm not talking at all about having sex with strangers generally (Queenstown, NZ, 12/30/1994), but about having sex with a guy who knocked on your door and started raving about his enemies. That'd be scary and ill advised.
335 is basically my reaction as well.
A new apartment sounds like an overreaction. Unless there is a follow-up event, my guess is that nothing will come of it.
that it sounds like something gross and probably immoral, especially to people in long-term relationships
Oh truly, fuck off on this one. Perhaps you don't understand people in relationships either, and attribute things to the relationshipness that are not actually related to that.
340: I was also suggesting that on more general principles (but admittedly lacking other context). See my 198 on priors that one might want to be adjusting on the basis of the incident.
I don't know that 335 was my reaction, but it certainly seems like the best reaction.
342: You don't think that people in relationships think about sex differently? When you have been single for long stretches, didn't you think about sex differently? I guess I think people who are in relationships probably have more care (appropriately) about things like consent and respect. I have not always behaved sexually in ways that my friends in relationships do because sex for me has so rarely been in the context of love or mutual understanding. I'm not saying single people are better or smarter or more moral--quite the opposite--but that of course sex with strangers can often seem like a poor decision when it's one that isn't on the table ever. It isn't on the table for me now, and I can see that it's changed the way I would feel about a similar situation.
Seconding the reaction in 342.
Am I the only male commenter here who wouldn't let a total stranger, regardless of mental state, perform such an act on me?
I do not, of course, condone sex with "incoherent" people.
Then we agree.
Consensual anonymous sex isn't the issue. The issue is that having sex with someone who you note is afraid, traumatized, incoherent, and who thinks you're someone else, isn't the nicest decision one could make.
SP's question in 278, and the chorus of responses about how of course one doesn't engage in sex acts with strangers, suggests to me that the issue of whether casual sex is ever appealing or OK is very much an issue in this conversation.
345: I think the reaction (which I roughly share) to your 326 is that I understood you to be saying "Reacting judgmentally to Teo letting an incoherent methhead blow him is strongly related to judging any single person for having sex with strangers." And really it's not, not at all, and lumping the two together is saying something unpleasant about me and the other commenters who are uncomfortable with Teo's actions.
When you have been single for long stretches, didn't you think about sex differently? I guess I think people who are in relationships probably have more care (appropriately) about things like consent and respect.
I in fact was single for really long stretches before my current relationship, and remember them well. And I do also remember frustration with some coupled friends' reactions to random sexual encounters I had then. (And yeah, things were generally a lot boozier!) But I don't think that's particularly related to most of the negative reactions here, which as many people have pointed out above are not particularly about being casual or anonymous.
Eh, pwned. Still, points for brevity!
Aaand there was just recently a discussion about responses to other people's being wrong.
Although 350 is a fair reading of 278, which just says 'total stranger'. I think people who responded with agreement were largely thinking of the circumstances of teo's story, rather than any more conventional method of acquiring a strange sex partner.
Agreed with 356. Personally, I find AWB's reading of 278 reasonable.
Discussions of sexual encouters always seem to be about weird/bad sex and mostly involve diagnosis and blame sorting, which leaves me feeling bad about sex in general. No one ever volunteers details of good sex (to me anyway), I guess because it is not news and would make people feel uncomfortable. No one pops up and says "Hey, my partner (or person I just met) and I had really great sex last night (or just now, at lunch!)."
I'm not suggesting that people start doing this. But I would like reminding that there is lots of happy fun sex out there to be positive about.
I would also venture to say that (IMO) the crowd here contains a larger-than-average number of sexually conservative introverts. Or, if not larger than average, then larger than that among my meatspace acquaintances.
Although 350 is a fair reading of 278, which just says 'total stranger'.
and "regardless of mental state."
For me, it's the "showing up at the door" thing that is a danger sign, although it is hard to articulate why. I have let strangers use my computer here on campus, because the fact that they are students and I am a teacher seems to automatically entail some trust. Really, though, this is an open campus and an open enrollment institution, so in a way people I meet here are just like someone who just shows up at my door
.
More introverted, probably. More personally sexually conservative, probably. But I think you've got more representatives of "Do whatever you like so long as everyone's freely consenting" here than in most RW social groups.
Test! Although not necessarily in support of AWB
Replace "incoherent needy stranger" with "incoherent needy spouse or partner" and see if your judgement changes.
"Darling, I know I'm a little high, but I look at you and I see George Clooney, and I would really like to blow George Clooney. Actually I see two George Clooneys. Don't say no. Neither of you."
But y'all carry on minutely distinguishing your sex priggishness from your feminist priggishness.
AH, so apo and helpy-chalk are setting us up! We all have to prove our slutty bona fides now!
For me, it's the "showing up at the door" thing that is a danger sign, although it is hard to articulate why.
Me too -- that seems completely distinct from "Guy I met in a bar", even if they're both total strangers. I think that even if you specify "regardless of mental state", I'm not capable of regarding someone violating social norms like don't proposition total strangers outside of the kind of context where people do that sort of thing as not disturbingly unbalanced.
I'm not saying this is right, but it's how I'm reacting.
Actually I see two George Clooneys. Don't say no. Neither of you.
bob messed up and was funny on purpose.
My hangup expressed in 278 was on the "total stranger" part. I mean, we're not even talking about casual sex hookup after meeting someone in a bar and chatting a bit- we're talking completely random person who shows up at your door. (Not that I've ever had the opportunity for the former either.) I'd assume I was being set up to be robbed. At least buy me a drink first.
we're not even talking about casual sex hookup after meeting someone in a bar and chatting a bit
Like what I said in 365. Socially appropriate casual anonymous sex (party, bar, Craigslist, Grindr, however the kids do it these days) feels much less scary than someone extending a proposition out of context.
Come to think, this is that weird study that demonstrates that women don't have sex drives: attractive researchers, male and female, stand on a college campus propositioning members of the opposite sex, men take them up on the offer and women don't.
Nat's class/race/gender objection seems disturbingly close to saying people who are poor, female, or members of a minority group aren't capable of consent.
larger-than-average number proportion of sexually conservative introverts
368: None of you guys are strangers.
I mean, to make it more explicit, this is approaching gloryhole stuff here, and I would not hit that.
Which makes you all off limits for casual, anonymous sex. Sorry, but those are the rules.
374: Even if we go presidential?
So no casual, pseudonymous sex? Prude.
Queenstown, NZ, 12/30/1994
We all helpy-chalk wants to know more.
359: Yes, even compared to the ancients. The over-thinking and guilt-tripping about almost everything is boggling. (And yes, I'm cautious about other organism's teeth around my precious bodily parts, I want a good idea of stability no matter the species.)
I think you've got more representatives of "Do whatever you like so long as everyone's freely consenting" here than in most RW social groups.
This is obviously not true of my RW social groups, which is why I get into trouble so often here.
It led to the lifelong belief that Kiwi men wear silly underwear. Diagonally striped red and white? Come to think, and I can't believe I've literally never thought of this before, I suppose they were seasonal.
I'm not capable of regarding someone violating social norms like don't proposition total strangers outside of the kind of context where people do that sort of thing as not disturbingly unbalanced.
No plumber fantasies for LB, I guess. Unless that's a "right context."
Omigod I can't believe I participated in this thread, which has been leaving me slack-jawed in awe at the banality for hours.
Come to think, this is that weird study that demonstrates that women don't have sex drives: attractive researchers, male and female, stand on a college campus propositioning members of the opposite sex, men take them up on the offer and women don't.
Maybe that's what happened to teo!
("In a recent study, 68% of men were prepared to have sex with an attractive meth-head").
365: I'm not capable of regarding someone violating social norms like don't proposition total strangers outside of the kind of context where people do that sort of thing as not disturbingly unbalanced.
I suppose what's odd about Teo's experience is that it sounds as though he wasn't fully convinced, at least at the time, that the woman was violating social norms outside the context where people do that sort of thing.
Omigod I can't believe I participated in this thread, which has been leaving me slack-jawed in awe at the banality for hours.
If slackness persists for more than four hours, consult your mortician.
Nat's class/race/gender objection seems disturbingly close to saying people who are poor, female, or members of a minority group aren't capable of consent.
No, I don't think it is.
I'm having trouble forming forming strong moral intuitions about so many thingsthis. It's not obvious to me that she was harmed, or that there was a clear inability to consent (that is, consent is not a simple concept).
369.2:Shoulda used attractive pizza deliverers.
leaving me slack-jawed
Helps when blowing strangers.
Nat's class/race/gender objection seems disturbingly close to saying people who are poor, female, or members of a minority group aren't capable of consent.
This, along with Halford's comment above about people not believing the woman could actually want sex, miss the point for me. Saying "there are a lot of factors here that really make the lines of consent murky and troublesome" is not the same as claiming that a person (woman) is unable to consent, or unable to have desires.
which is why I get into trouble so often here.
Do people give you a hard time for being sexually inappropriate here? The conversations I'm remembering are ones where you tell a story where someone sounds as if they're being (by my standards) wildly emotionally inappropriate to you, which does tend to give rise to a chorus (at least from me) of 'get away from them before they get even weirder'. But the only time I remember you talking about casual sex with random strangers was when you hooked up with the ex-girlfriend of an annoying guy you went on a date with, and that got nothing but respect.
Maybe I'm overlooking a bunch of conversations, but I'm really not remembering them.
388: I think consent is the wrong framework here. I don't think this was rape or anything really like it; she initiated it, there was no pressure, and and and. Nonetheless, there's lots of room for sex to be an unkind or unpleasant thing to do even if everyone's consenting, and this seems like a good case for that.
392: I read AWB's use of "here" to mean her RL place of residence/employment, not the blog.
No, I mean the blog. IRL my friends are a lot less likely to inform one another that they would have made different sexual decisions.
394, 397: You've become invertible.
396 could be because of the forum, rather than the people, I suppose. If Teo had told this story in person, I doubt there would immediately be a poll to see how many people would tell him they would never do such a thing, because we would be sitting with him and seeing his face and asking questions about what he thinks was going on, if he feels safe, etc.
The exclamation point in 397 makes it read like chess notation to my eyes.
if he feels safe
I keep hoping he pops back tonight to let us know that he hasn't been somehow incapacitated.
393: Fair enough, but there seem to be a number of comments working implicitly from that framework.
391: That's not how I read him, and I still don't understand how those "inherent power differentials" were factors in this situation.
Gotta say I don't really understand 393, even if I to some extent share the intuition. If we assume the consent was above board and reasonably freely give than what's unkind or unpleasant here? I mean, her life sounds unpleasant but why are we assigning Teo blame?
I take Oudemia and Blume to be explicitly arguing that there wasn't really meaningful consent here (I mean, something more than affirmative lack of consent but less than genuine consent) despite the fact that she initiated it, because she was out of her mind, and that therefore to some extent blame for Teo is in order. I'm not sure I buy that in this situation, but that seems to be a plausible argument.
Might be different ways of saying the same thing. I'd figure that if, at some time in the future, she gets herself straightened out, she is likely to wish she had blown fewer strangers: that the sorts of decisions one arrives at about whether to blow a stranger when one is incoherently raving about one's enemies either due to mental illness or to drug use are likely to be decisions that are regretted in the future.
With someone who appears competent and capable of taking care of themselves, no one's obliged to consider whether they're making a bad decision when they do something. For someone who doesn't appear competent, on the other hand, trying not to facilitate or participate in their bad decision making seems like the sort of thing decent people do.
You could parse that as "While she was consenting, it wasn't real consent", but I think that leads you down a rabbit hole of linedrawing. I find it easier to think of the situation as "Consent or no consent, it still wasn't a great thing to do."
I mean, her life sounds unpleasant
Well, the assumptions people are making about it, anyhow. We know a little bit about maybe an hour of it, tops.
Specifically, I think the consent/no-consent framework invites thinking of any sexual encounter as either rape or not a problem at all: if it wasn't rape, there's no other moral question in play. And I think that's misleading in this sort of situation.
405: I can follow the thinking here, but I guess I wonder if there is a distinction you're making between morality and safety in these concerns. Also, what sexual act would we consider a morally "great thing to do"?
I wasn't there. I have no interest in judging teo, who, in my view, has earned a great many benefits of the doubt. I'm genuinely glad he's okay. I also hope the woman is okay. That said, I found the story upsetting and very out of character for teo. I was surprised that he wasn't more upset and perhaps more remorseful. It all seemed rather off to me. It still does. That's it.
One performed to save the lives of adorable kittens?
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--
I took the one that involved less blowing strangers.
And that has made all the difference.
what sexual act would we consider a morally "great thing to do"?
The Make-A-Wish Foundation is on line 3.
Also, what sexual act would we consider a morally "great thing to do"?
Missionary position while married, woman doesn't come. Obvs.
I only wrote 409, in response to 403-404, because I think I was the first person to express anything like disapproval -- and also because I'm on an all-day conference call and thus very bored.
Ah 407 clarifies some--that you're fairly sure this was immoral, even if not rape. My follow-up question would be what the harmful act of Teo's was.
I've suddenly thought of a pretty similar circumstance I was in, in which there came a point when I realized I no longer felt comfortable with the scenario because it became clear how high the person I was having sex with (female, young) was, and, honestly, the only person I was being nice to by stopping it was me. She was making demands and I no longer wanted to meet them.
We know a little bit about maybe an hour of it, tops.
I'm going to infer that if she is truly hot, as Teo reports, she hasn't been doing meth or bath salts for that long.
You know, backing off a bit, my only objection to/comment on Teo's decision is that the woman could easily have escalated to any number of paranoid behaviors, embroiling him in never-ending confusion; but it's not like that possibility has ever stopped most people.
405: I'd figure that if, at some time in the future, she gets herself straightened out, she is likely to wish she had blown fewer strangers: that the sorts of decisions one arrives at about whether to blow a stranger when one is incoherently raving about one's enemies either due to mental illness or to drug use are likely to be decisions that are regretted in the future.
She'd need to have some particular moral markers in place about whether the blowing of strangers was regrettable. She might have more regret about the mental illness or drug use.
415: I believe that what I think about the morals of it has been explicit since 252:
Right, in the moment I'd take being confused and disoriented as probably counting for most of a free pass morally. But looking back at the incident, I'd think it should go firmly into "Really shouldn't have done that" rather than "crazy adventure".
I read the story as the woman seeking assistance and kind of paying for it with sex. I don't know if that counts as impaired consent, but it's not a transaction I'd want to be on either side of.
But looking back at the incident, I'd think it should go firmly into "Really shouldn't have done that" rather than "crazy adventure".
Those categories are less distinct than you imply.
252 is what confused me though. "Really shouldn't have done that"... to her? As in, I did something bad to that person that I am sorry she experienced due to my carelessness? Or "Really shouldn't have done that"... because it could have been dangerous for me? That was the morality/safety distinction I was trying to plumb.
413: And twins are conceived. Blond ones.
409: Yeah, I don't remember Teo getting a degree in clinical psych nor much practical on-the-street law enforcement experience, nor have I ever gotten the impression of his being any sort of predator waiting to pounce. I, coming from the paranoid side of the universe, can only fault him for not being more cautious.
seeking assistance and kind of paying for it with sex
Maybe. Or it could be just typical meth-fueled promiscuity and paranoia.
370 etc: I'm not a judge, or a cop or a lawyer. I'm not talking about where some hard-and-fast line should be drawn around legal consent. What I am saying is that, this being the real world and all, there's OBVIOUSLY a huge power differential at work here that would not be the case if we were talking about two people who were similar with regard to those major loci of oppression & disenfranchisement. In the same-sex situation that was mentioned awhile ago, there's maybe a little bit of consent vagary, but ultimately we're talking about people who may stand on pretty equal footing if, down the road, there are some negative consequences. I don't think that is the case here. Of course, people who are not straight, cis-gendered white men can actively give consent or seek it. But when we're talking about someone who is not in fit condition to, say, drive a car, then I think it does matter very much where they are coming from w/r/t race/class/gender. In many, many social arenas, this woman would be at a significant disadvantage, whether that's obtaining medical care, or dealing with the courts, or what have you.
The other part of this, and the reason that I am not castigating Teo so strongly, is that this is hardly an isolated incident. The transactions around sex that happen every day, everywhere in the world, are all too often similar to this one on some level. There's a continuum here, not of consent per se, but of equality and wisdom. I think Teo's actions were unwise and unequal, but not so bad as a lot of people would have acted in substantially similar situations.
I'm still on the side of "the whole story is dark and sad, but no one quite did anything wrong."
Despite being in a longterm relationship!
The Art of Fielding, which, on a sentence-by-sentence basis, was pretty terrific, but which, overall, didn't amount to much. It was a bit too much in the thrall of Richard Russo for my tastes -- and I like Russo.
This is a good summary. It was a rare instance of a book that was almost too pleasant to read -- everyone was so sympathetic and likeable that they didn't seem quite real. It was nice to read about them, but they were like dream people, so I didn't care that much when bad shit happened.
I see what you're saying about Russo, but this didn't actually feel much like Russo to me. For one thing it was less funny. And also, there were few women overall in the Harbach novel, and none of the characteristic Russo misogyny -- Russo is all about incorrigible scoundrels and the saintly, long-suffering women who love them -- or bumbling, hapless doofuses and the shrewish harpies who torment them.
I think if we were talking about a (hot, but) high, upset, incoherent man coming into, say, my house, and asking to watch me get dressed, and offering to go down on me, and getting paranoid after I come in his mouth and yelling at me, this would be a conversation about how I should call the police, whether I had an orgasm or not, whether I was sexually attracted to him or not.
Catching up, but 221 and 257 are great. Also I'm vaguely on Team 238, but then I like being super moralistic about sex. I'm sure I'd have done the same thing, and felt really ashamed about it.
430: Just to be clear: you're saying you wouldn't call the police, you would have an orgasm, you would be attracted to him, and we would judge you?
422: Both, I'd think. It seems unsafe, but that's not really any of my business given that he came out of it alright. And it seems like participation in an incompetent person's making decisions she's likely to regret, which while not rape seems like something that's a wrong thing to do, and a wrong thing to treat as a funny story in retrospect. I'm not judging Teo terribly harshly because in the moment he seems to have been confused and uncertain of how incompetent she was*, but I'd think of it as the sort of situation where it would have been wrong to participate if he'd coldbloodedly realized what sort of state she was in.
*And, honestly, if the image presented of how she was acting is reasonably accurate, this story probably isn't close to the worst thing that's likely to happen to her this week, as parsimon suggests, so not all that much of a huge deal.
432: I am not saying I would be into it, but no one has ever busted into my house trying to go down on me before. I think orgasm does not make this not a sexual assault on the intruder's part.
427: Maybe at a 'yet' at the end.
I see what you're saying about Russo, but this didn't actually feel much like Russo to me. For one thing it was less funny. And also, there were few women overall in the Harbach novel, and none of the characteristic Russo misogyny -- Russo is all about incorrigible scoundrels and the saintly, long-suffering women who love them -- or bumbling, hapless doofuses and the shrewish harpies who torment them.
I think this is smart. That said, I was responding to the presence of doofussy drunken men, ostensibly emotionally stunted but actually terribly wise, working out their issues in a small-town context. Also, the lack of any credible female characters struck me as quite similar to Russo's misogyny -- though less funny.
I think orgasm does not make this not a sexual assault on the intruder's part.
Teo didn't freely give consent? I think he did.
She now has a DNA sample from teo (even with the spit part), his address, and a pretty good idea about how to get him off guard. All she needs now is a kidney buyer with a matching genetic profile, a small cooler, and some chloroform.
434: Well, she didn't bust into the house, he let her in. But you're right that if Teo hadn't consented to the blowjob, it would have been sexual assault.
If you were telling the story, I think you're right that there probably would have been more questioning about whether you'd consented or if instead you needed some kind of support to work through having been assaulted, purely due to the gender difference. But I think the way Teo told the story did fairly clearly convey that he actually consented to the sex.
...which while not rape seems like something that's a wrong thing to do, and a wrong thing to treat as a funny story in retrospect. I'm not judging Teo terribly harshly...
I feel a tension between the first part of that and the second. Saying, "which while not rape..." makes it sound like you think it's still comparable to rape in a meaningful way.
I don't think we're in significant disagreement, but that just jumped out at me.
What's bugging me: best case scenario right now is that you're the guy in her "I knew that I hit rock bottom when..." story, and your reaction is "this is an awesome tale to spin out slowly to my blogfriends in breathless detail."
It's a hard fit for a typical consent discussion because she initiated it, but, you know, there's room to say "probably not best to have sex with incoherent strangers who show up at your door seeking help and think you're someone else, even if they're really insistent" without entailing "anyone who has sex with someone they just met is doing something horribly wrong and they deserve to be lonely forever." Christ.
434 is to say that my concern on Teo's behalf is based on the sense that this may not have been OK for him, and that joking about it is one way to get past something fairly disturbing. I've been in situations that seemed sexually exciting but afterwards felt like I had been taken advantage of in some complicated way.
E.g., when I was 19, I was given a happy ending by a massage therapist. At the time, it felt really exciting, but the instant it was over, I felt very confused and awful, and didn't get a massage again for 12 years--I didn't trust people who do that anymore. It wasn't something I was actually going to call the cops about, but even though I had an orgasm, it felt wrong. I guess it seemed to me like Teo was having feelings along these lines, perhaps, but I am--as we all are--projecting ourselves into this scenario.
429: I think maybe the key difference in our reactions to the book may be that I didn't find the characters in AoF especially likable -- except for Owen, who, while impossibly perfect, appealed to me. It's somewhat telling that I've forgotten all of their names already, but I found the shortstop impossibly hard to believe; the university president largely awful, because he was so out of touch with the impact of his actions; the catcher a horrible bully and a dick; and the girl an obnoxious example of the mpdg.
I'm having trouble forming forming strong moral intuitions about this. It's not obvious to me that she was harmed, or that there was a clear inability to consent (that is, consent is not a simple concept).
Pretend the methhead is someone you know personally and care about, like your sister.
best case scenario right now is that you're the guy in her "I knew that I hit rock bottom when..." story
Has anybody ever used "Rock Bottom" as a pseud?
"this is an awesome tale to spin out slowly to my blogfriends in breathless detail."
I say again, this isn't how I read the tone (influenced by having some prior sense of teo). Like many people I found the story (mildly) disturbing and upsetting to read, and I don't think teo was trying to present it as "an awesome tale" -- more like a very weird sequence of events which he was still processing.
440: No, what I meant to be doing with that and with all the comments about how I don't think consent is the right framework is that I can think it's a wrong thing to do without thinking that calling it either rape or like rape is going to be illuminating.
Okay, I, a lurker and former commenter, will jump right in and say that this anecdote really disturbs me, and I am not down with some of the response here either.
It is an accident of history that I have had a bunch of Native friends, several of whom come from backgrounds where people might very well be wandering the streets high, paranoid and confused, possibly even propositioning strangers. My friends are, obviously, doing well enough themselves that I have met them through activism, the arts or school, but they are by no means rich or connected. They are from different parts of the country, not just local people. Some have shared with me some pretty terrible personal and family stories that have provided a lot of context for me about addiction and how it can work in Native communities, and the just horrible, vile, disgusting ways that Native people get treated - things that are really unbelievable to me as a white middle class person because they are so outside my experience. (I will be glad to go into all that if people want more details and/or proof.)
As most folks here know, too, Native women are much more likely than non-Native women to be sexually assaulted or abused as children and much less likely to receive justice.
The course of events that brings a young Native woman to be high, paranoid and propositioning strangers is virtually certain to be this awful mixture of racism and historical tragedy.
I used to know a Native guy whose brother struggled with mental illness and drug addiction and who required a lot of care and help from my work-friend. (We worked together on an organizing project, door-knocking in the "bad" part of town where we both lived and no one else wanted to work.) This guy was great - smart, funny, talented musician - and because of his family history he didn't drink or do drugs. His brother committed suicide and I heard from friends that he was in pretty bad shape. I had some trouble in my life at the time, had left the job and we'd lost touch. The next time I ran into my work-friend, it was late one night maybe a year later, he was biking all wobbly and was too drunk to recognize me or respond coherently to my greeting. I would truly hate to think of him getting into a sexual situation that he would not consent to sober out of some mixture of trauma and substance abuse, or of him feeling he had to "pay for" help with sex while in some kind of desperate state of drunkenness, or of people handwaving away the set of circumstances that brought him to this pass.
I could tell more stories about sexual coercion and substance abuse and how I've seen these intersect with racism and the aftermath of cultural genocide, if anyone wants to hear them. They are not especially uplifting.
The point is, specific people are the products of specific histories. We can't just say "a white middle class guy who has just smoked a joint has exactly the same social position as a [virtually certainly] working class Native woman who is on meth and/or mentally ill and therefore it is an insult to the Native woman to have any doubts about her ability to consent to sex when she is propositioning total strangers by pounding on their doors". Also, I mean, people get turned down for sex all the time. It is not some kind of grievous injury to this Native woman to think "for whatever reason, I am not sure that this woman consents, and since this is unclear to me I am going to choose not to have sex".
My point is that this has nothing to do with "assuming that poor folks or people of color can't give consent" - it's about recognizing that when you run into a random high Native young woman who is in distress and behaving all crazy, there is almost certainly a lot more story there than "that girl likes to party and would probably totally have sex with me even if she was sober". It has nothing to do with how things might go down if you met the same girl in a bar after she'd had a beer and you were flirting and went off and had sex.
I mean, I am of the opinion that if someone is drunk or high enough that I personally think that they may not be making an informed decision, then I am not going to have sex with them. If this is some kind of insult to their "agency", then so be it - but frankly, in the circles I move in it is far more common for people to have drunken sex that they regret, that exposes them to disease, that gets them pregnant or they did not actually want than for people to sincerely want to have sex while drunk and get turned down by a sequence of potential partners because of concerns about consent. If that latter circumstance were the case most of the time, I might have different feelings about consent, sex and agency.
If I turn down the drunk or high person who seems traumatized somehow, it isn't the end of the world for me. If I have sex with the drunk person, there is a fairly decent likelihood that I am going to do them harm, and a fairly small likelihood that they will be all "oh, when I got blackout drunk, it was because I was looking forward to drunken sex with a stranger, so glad it was you!"
Teo, I think this was a bad choice on your part, even though I recognize that it was a weird and confusing set of circumstances and that someone can be charismatic and forceful even when totally high or in the throes of mental illness.
433.last: It's not even clear to me that this was worse for her than what would have happened in the same hour if teo hadn't let her in the door. Nothing dangerous happened to her during that time. It's not clear that she'll regret this, and even if she does, it's not clear that giving a blowjob that you kind of regret in retrospect is such a terrible thing.
443: I think that's a very reasonable reaction: there's nothing incompatible about thinking that Teo's behavior was morally less than ideal and also thinking that that the situation was harmful and upsetting for him (and that to the extent she was capable of controlling her actions, that her actions were wrong insofar as they were hurtful to him.)
446: I considered at one time posting as Rock Hudson's Bottom, but then I thought better of it. And perhaps I shouldn't have mentioned it now!
449: Frowner! And yes, everything you said.
454: Coming to DC on Memorial Day?
449.-3: PIV is dangerous in a way that oral just isn't. Which is why the ethics of PIV would be much different.
449 is right right right.
(Hi Frowner! xo)
Stepping back for a moment, I think part of the "talking past each other" that's going on here is the difference between whether we think of ourselves as talking to teo, or just talking aloud about an interesting story.
I agree that 449 is correct, important, and worth saying.
I've just been pushing back a bit because I feel like, until teo comes back and we have some additional sense of how he's processing the whole thing, and what he's looking for, I'd rather not come to too strong a decision in his absence.
Obviously that's contingent on my sense that he will come back, will read this thread, and will want to talk it over more -- all of which seem very likely to me.
It's not even clear to me that this was worse for her than what would have happened in the same hour if teo hadn't let her in the door. Nothing dangerous happened to her during that time. It's not clear that she'll regret this, and even if she does, it's not clear that giving a blowjob that you kind of regret in retrospect is such a terrible thing.
It seems that one could then reason that any way of treating a high, drunk, crazy or socially vulnerable person is all right as long as it is not as bad as what they might endure if they were not enduring your own loving ministrations. I don't think this is a good line of reasoning.
If you would like some semi-autobiographical writing from a person who did engage in survival sex and prostitution, did a lot of drugs and survived a bunch of abuse both before and during that experience, you might find Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore's blog Nobody Passes of interest. This is the writing of someone who did just about everything right, was fairly intentional and safe, got an education, etc....and large parts of the experience were still really awful, mostly because the world imposed a lot of constraints and violence, ie, people were shitty, coercive and dishonest a lot of the time. I think Mattilda's writing is a really useful corrective to certain ideas many of us have about casual or paid sex, drug use, vulnerable people and how all that is actually lived. Mattilda's agency doesn't let the world off the hook, no matter how cool, smart and tough a person she is.
(Hi everyone! Sadly I will not be joining you out east, but I will send greetings and possibly homemade cookies via Minnie.)
449: I would truly hate to think of him getting into a sexual situation that he would not consent to sober out of some mixture of trauma and substance abuse, or of him feeling he had to "pay for" help with sex while in some kind of desperate state of drunkenness, or of people handwaving away the set of circumstances that brought him to this pass.
Thanks, this actually put a full-on perspective on it. I hadn't thought about the notion that someone might feel as though they have to "pay for" help through sexual favors. (I guess my view had been that the person asking for the favors would make it known; I'd somewhat elided that the givers of favors often jump past that.)
444. But he was such a sweet, well-meaning bully and jerk!
I found everyone, not just the shortstop, impossibly hard to believe. Also, they are all so much at the mercy of outside forces: the shortstop has basically zero agency -- he is in thrall to his miraculous talent, then he does whatever the catcher tells him to, and when the talent leaves him he's just an empty puppet. The president is similar -- he is first captured by Moby Dick, and then by Owen's magnetism, and then by Owen. As for the catcher and purple-haired girl, they are complete ciphers.
I mean, when I think about it at all, the book was kind of a mess. And yet, it was a genuinely pleasaurable way to spend a couple of days.
Why is it that there is so much good fiction written about baseball, and so little about other sports? If anything football is more of a heroic American pasttime than baseball, and basketball lends itself so well to city-kid-with-a-dream narratives. And yet I think there are like five or ten good novels about baseball for every one about football or basketball or soccer.
I am of the opinion that if someone is drunk or high enough that I personally think that they may not be making an informed decision, then I am not going to have sex with them. If this is some kind of insult to their "agency", then so be it - but frankly, in the circles I move in it is far more common for people to have drunken sex that they regret, that exposes them to disease, that gets them pregnant or they did not actually want than for people to sincerely want to have sex while drunk and get turned down by a sequence of potential partners because of concerns about consent. If that latter circumstance were the case most of the time, I might have different feelings about consent, sex and agency.
If I turn down the drunk or high person who seems traumatized somehow, it isn't the end of the world for me. If I have sex with the drunk person, there is a fairly decent likelihood that I am going to do them harm, and a fairly small likelihood that they will be all "oh, when I got blackout drunk, it was because I was looking forward to drunken sex with a stranger, so glad it was you!"
I mean, OK, that all seems reasonable when put that way. But you are ignoring an awful lot (maybe most) of the actually-existing casual sex in this world, much of which people seem to regret only minorly or at all and that doesn't really seem to be a cause for blame of the kind you seem to be advancing here.
"this is an awesome tale to spin out slowly to my blogfriends in breathless detail."
That strikes me as an extremely unfair and uncharitable reading. It certainly is an interesting tale, and I don't think Teo was asking for high fives.
As a non-conclusive data-point on what she thought she was doing, while it's not impossible that she wanted to blow Teo out of pure desire for her own sexual gratification, it's not most women's first choice. While it might have been more dangerous for her, if she'd propositioned him for intercourse, that would have more plausibly been the result of her actually wanting sex. Blowing him does look more like "That's what you do for men who do you favors."
I dunno. I think it's all a whole lot murkier and drug-filled than 464. She just watched him change and commented on his erection.
That strikes me as an extremely unfair and uncharitable reading.
Not me. The sorts of details given, and the "hey crazy adventure" take on the whole thing were a large part of what I found most disturbing.
Teo's not coming out looking very good here, is he?
I'm going to go ahead and assume that Teo did not of course think that he needed to receive a blowjob in order to help the woman.
467: Not terribly bad. I really do think that confusion in a disorienting situation excuses a lot, and that processing a very weird experience explains the grating tone.
460: My opinion would be very different if Teo had paid or offered anything in exchange.
464: It doesn't seem implausible to me at all, that the influence of a drug could make someone want to perform oral sex. Red wine has that effect on me.
joking about it is one way to get past something fairly disturbing
This was my take, too. I think the whole point of posting was processing, not boasting, joking or whatever.
470.2: Oh, not impossible. But for someone who's not expecting any possible reciprocation, it's not the likeliest way of expressing horniness.
449 is a rather different argument than the one I thought I was responding to, being more about judgement and not contributing to the likely disfunction in someone's life, and less about power disparities as they did or did not play out in the situation.
466 - Well, it was kind of a crazy adventure, and Teo admitted to being pretty disturbed and concerned by it. I think telling it as a dark-humor tale is a pretty legitimate means of processing his response.
Oh for cripe's sake. 474 to 471. You'd think I'd know by now to provide comment references.
Sucking cock is pretty much my favorite sex act. I don't think it, in itself, definitely constitutes an act of harm or humiliation. That doesn't mean cocksucking isn't a common form of sexualized exchange with a particular social/gendered history, or that some people don't experience it as demeaning in itself, or that it isn't more likely to occur to people to do it if they're high.
Sucking cock is pretty much my favorite sex act.
... laydeez.
(Wait...)
Well, it was kind of a crazy adventure
Yup. I'm sure that's how the woman would describe it.
I think it's worth keeping some context in mind as to Teo choosing to narrate this story, which is that he's been narrating his sexual misadventures here since before his first kiss. I don't think he was trying to brag or laugh it off.
477: AWB thinks it's important to protect the reputation of cock-sucking. I agree.
That is, of the people involved in this scenario, one of them is my friend, and I am concerned about him. There are ethical complications that are way too byzantine for me to feel I can judge definitively from here on the moon where I live and am reading these words.
That said, I am in the midst of my own little crisis because of a friend telling me about something he did to which I have a completely 100% rigid moral objection and it's driving me crazy. I can't even really bring myself to be compassionate to this person at all, which I should, given the circumstances, but because of the nature of the thing he did, I am just done. I hope I get over it because I am being pretty unreasonable. I mean, I won't get over my ethical objection, but people I know do unethical things all the time and I don't just wipe their name off the list of people I know. Right?
479 -- You know, actually, she might (or might not!). If you'd like to look at Teo's relation of this as uncharitably as possible, go for it.
I mean, OK, that all seems reasonable when put that way. But you are ignoring an awful lot (maybe most) of the actually-existing casual sex in this world, much of which people seem to regret only minorly or at all and that doesn't really seem to be a cause for blame of the kind you seem to be advancing here.
See, what I'm trying to say is that there is a real difference between "Frowner had two beers, is feeling a little giggly and unexpectedly self-confident and propositions that cute girl from the reading group" and "Frowner's buddy is barely coherent and slurring, has nowhere to sleep tonight unless he goes home with someone and it is fucking cold outside". It's true that "slightly inebriated" and "shitfaced" are, with some people, difficult to tell apart. And it's true that there's always going to be a grey area where my "but he seemed giggly and ebullient" is your "he could barely remember his address!", or where both people are a bit sloshed. "Consent" is a weird, arbitrary framing for something as tricky as sexuality, and there are certainly flaws in the consent discourse, mostly about those grey areas.
However, I think it's really important not to use the existence of the grey areas to make it appear that most situations are confusing or that is is useless to bring in what we know of the world and other people to help us make our decisions if we are sober and the other people are not.
The more activism I do, and thus the more I deal with questions of race, power and non-sexual kinds of consent, the more I feel that - particularly for those of us with relative social power - "when in doubt, don't" is a good rule. Or at the very least, "when in doubt, don't until you have acquired more information".
We cannot know whether this poor girl really wanted to have sex with a stranger while high or not. What does "really want" mean in this context? Will things be like "oh, when I was twenty I had a couple of really bad years and did some dumb stuff" or "when I was twenty I was in a bad place and I feel haunted and damaged by those things I did?"
The only thing we can know is that very often socially marginalized people who are wandering around pounding on people's doors high and paranoid are not in a good headspace and are not doing something that they will think happily about when/if they get their lives together, and very rarely are socially marginalized people doing that same thing out of a joyful sense of life's infinite possibilities.
Based on time lurking and commenting here, I don't think this means that Teo is some kind of evil monster; I think Teo was in a bad and very strange situation and did not have the experience or mental preparation to make the best choice. I have never gotten the impression from Teo that he would go right ahead and do something when he knew that the person did not consent.
This seems like an issue about culture and what people learn about sex and the real need for more information and reflection rather than about Something That Teo Did.
Teo admitted to being pretty disturbed and concerned by it.
149 and 176 explicitly suggest otherwise. Again, I have zero interest in judging teo, but my reaction above was largely based on these two comments, in which he initially said that he was concerned largely about whether he might have picked up disease from the woman in question and then, only after he decided that he was probably in the clear health-wise, that he was doing okay with the whole thing. But as others have noted, his feelings might have since changed.
Cocksucking is great, nothing against it, and all that. The only point I was making is that it's not in itself directly physically stimulating for the fellatrix.
it's not in itself directly physically stimulating
It's like you've never seen Deep Throat.
479 -- You know, actually, she might (or might not!).
To that, all I can do is refer you to all of Frowner's comments in this thread.
489: True indeed. Is it on Netflix?
486 -- I read him as being concerned for her well being, while sharing a general sense that "the whole story is dark and sad, but no one quite did anything wrong," which is pretty much still my view as well.
a broad majority of people vastly overestimate their probity.
A broad majority of people vastly overestimate their ability to correctly evaluate a situation like this in real time. Godamnit, if you don't recognize the condition a form of intoxication then in your mind she's just a hot neighbor girl who had a fight with friends or roommates or whatever and is upset but now over at your place relentlessly aggressively hitting on you.
494: I've been explicitly cutting him slack for the disorienting situation throughout, and I agree that it's the right thing to do. But the way he told the story, while it might have been hard to figure out that she was high, she sounded past upset into really messed up:
Around this point she seems to have decided that I was some celebrity and she started going on and on about how she listened to my CD every night and that she had prayed to God for this (or something; she was still basically babbling).
and
So as soon as we lie down on the bed, she immediately unzips my pants and starts sucking my dick. I'm starting to get some suspicions that she's on something or other and feel like maybe I should try to stop her,
It's not really "How could he possibly have suspected that she wasn't in full control of herself?" territory.
492: No, but I can recommend Inside Deep Throat, the 2005 documentary about it, which I enjoyed very much and is probably more informative about why and how the film was important than watching DT itself, which is fine but not even particularly sophisticated for 70's porn. The doc is pretty great, with interesting interviews.
463: I don't think I am (per 149, 176.) But I hope I am.
Let me briefly return (the unfogged former commenter network is vast and shadowy) to say:
1. Dude, that is fucked up. Don't do stuff like that again. What is the likelihood that this young woman looks back on this episode and thinks "wow, that was a really positive event in my life?" Pretty low. You don't want to be on the other side of memories like that.
2. Lizardbreaths' take on the situation strikes me as exactly, 100% right. Which is a transcendental deduction of some sort.
3. Frowner is also 100% right.
4. This sounds like judging. It is judging. But I don't know that when I was young and unattached I would have resisted a no-strings-attached blowjob from a hot but obviously messed up person who I met in a weird, disorienting situation. I hope I would have. But then, we all hope we wouldn't be Lord Jim. So it's judging, but not a "I'm so better than you" judging.
5. There's a more general point to be made here for those who are playing what I'll (perhaps unfairly) describe as the "don't be judgy about sex" card. For the police, the government, some powerful organization with the implicit or explicit ability to coerce, it's generally a decent (although imperfect) heuristic to ask "don't we really need solid proof of harm before they start sticking their nose in." This is emphatically *not* the standard we want to meet in judging our own interactions with other people. Absence of obvious harm isn't the standard. Rather, we want a rational basis for thinking that we're benefiting them.
Baa! Quick, say something enraging. I've missed you.
In reference to the bit quoted in 495, are the people who think Teo behaved badly saying:
1) He had already behaved badly prior to this point.
2) He should have firmly said no, but then if she had continued he would have been morally in the clear.
3) He should have physically restrained her and stopped her.
498: My main reaction was to SP's challenge for everyone to say that they would never accept a blowjob from a stranger in any condition, and the subsequent piling on, which is how the slipperiness between Teo's situation and stranger-sex occurred, as far as I could tell.
just a hot neighbor girl who had a fight with friends or roommates or whatever and is upset but now over at your place relentlessly aggressively hitting on you.
Which happens all the time, there could not possibly be any reason at all to pause and reflect, because after all, we live in a society where women - especially women of color - feel so confident that they can safely express their sexual desires that they knock on the doors of total strangers and proposition them. Why, it happened to me just last week!
I mean, I've had conversations with people who were drunk or high and, in my naivete, did not realize that they were drunk or high. That really does happen, especially to young people who don't themselves partake on a regular basis.
But we are all responsible for looking at the other social cues about people's mental states and, I would argue, responsible for thinking "hey, this situation seems really weird and unlikely, could something possibly be wrong?" If we lived in a society where many, many women had extremely casual sex with what you might call 'extreme strangers' - not people you meet in a bar, at a party, in the cafe, etc but quite literally people you've never seen before and had no conversation with - well, then it might seem reasonable to say "hey, this could totally be that!"
I agree that people have a lot of trouble responding in real time to strange situations, though - I mean, I once accepted a ride from a male stranger after my car skidded off the road, and I once gave a hug to some random homeless guy on the street because he asked for a hug, this at a time in my life when I didn't even hug my close friends.
I would argue that what's needed is for people to do some more thinking about consent, power dynamics and inequality so that they have that mental toolbox when it's needed. Teo's situation is really weird and unexpected, but as everyone who has commented here for more than about a week is well aware, confusing situations that involve sex and or/drugs are extremely common.
485: The only thing we can know is that very often socially marginalized people who are wandering around pounding on people's doors high and paranoid are not in a good headspace and are not doing something that they will think happily about when/if they get their lives together, and very rarely are socially marginalized people doing that same thing out of a joyful sense of life's infinite possibilities.
This is well-said. I'm glad to see you here, Frowner.
493: if you've got specific reasons that you're reading him that way -- reasons specific to this thread, I mean, rather than just because he's teo, and we're all inclined, as I said above, to give him many benefits the doubt -- I'd be curious to know what those reasons are. Otherwise, 149 and 176 seem dispositive.
495: The first bit quoted in 495 is from early in the encounter, and looks like pretty clearly aberrant behavior to me.
Even if you assume that he couldn't have suspected that anything was wrong until they were on the bed together, the jump from 2 to 3 doesn't really work for me, given that it eliminates the obvious middle step of standing up and walking away, possibly with one's hands firmly in front of one's crotch making little 'ixnay' motions.
A broad majority of people vastly overestimate their ability to correctly evaluate a situation like this in real time
I agree with gswift on this point.
Frowner makes an excellent point though about if there is any doubt, walk away. Great standard to try to live up to. I find it difficult to judge people for not making perfect decisions in real time, especially when someone is unzipping their pants. Women have a lifetime of being trained to stop men. Men do not. On that issue, in particular, I appreciate Frowner's comments as the standard to train young men.
I have pointed out the horrific rape cases (Stubenville, etc) to my son, but I really havent spent any time talking with him about how to stop the wasted girl who wants to give him a bj.
AWB, sorry about 483.last. Anything you want to talk about? I mean, if you did I guess you already would be, and this thread is complicated enough, but still, you know.
501: 3, pretty obviously. I mean, he evenmore obviously should not have tied her up or locked her in the closet, if that's what you mean by "physically restrained her and stopped her," but all things considered it seems he could probably have avoided the sex if he had tried. I agree with LB and everyone else that this was confusing and weird and Teo wasn't the aggressor here, but still, something a bit stronger than "No. Well, OK, if you insist," seems like a reasonable expectation.
I would argue that what's needed is for people to do some more thinking about consent, power dynamics and inequality so that they have that mental toolbox when it's needed. Teo's situation is really weird and unexpected, but as everyone who has commented here for more than about a week is well aware, confusing situations that involve sex and or/drugs are extremely common.
Excellent comment. I intend on having some discussions on this topic with my son.
Quick, say something enraging
John Yoo would probably have prevented this from happening.
I'm just saying, yes something was going with her but it wasn't clear to him exactly what it was and he tried to help her in multiple ways. And in the midst of trying to call her a cab he kind of froze up when she started sucking his dick instead of immediately considering the context of his penis with regard to 500 years of Native oppression and then physically throw her off of him.
And now she'll have Teobabies inside her mouth for the rest of her life. At least she spit or they'd be in her stomach too.
I think there's a good argument that wise and good behavior would have stopped things before they got to that point. But I have to say that if I suddenly awoke to find myself getting a bj from a woman who I knew to be on meth, the wisest thing to do is let her finish rather than escalating into a possible fight.
The main issue here w/r/t my knowledge of Teo here is (and I hope this is not embarrassing for him--I don't mean it to be; it's based mostly on stories he has told here) that he is extremely sexually passive. He is unlikely to initiate sex, but is also unlikely to stop someone else from initiating sex with him, perhaps out of a sense of not wanting to embarrass someone else and a desire to be obliging. I think what we know of Teo is that he is not a shrinking violet and does not mind being the object of aggression, but he is very unlikely to be the aggressor.
It can be wrong to let someone be sexually aggressive to you, but as will says, that's not really a lesson anyone learns. (Women learn it as self-preservation, yes, but what about in a case in which the aggressor, male or female, is the person the female object of that aggression wants to protect? I felt really confused and bad about stopping sex with the high girl who aggressively, wordlessly picked me up. I wasn't protecting me; I was into it. I felt like I was protecting her, but she was the one who was begging me to fuck her.)
the wisest thing to do is let her finish rather than escalating into a possible fight.
Safety first!
513: All of this seems perfectly legitimate to me, and I meant to be saying the same sort of thing by talking about what a disorienting situation it was.
My main reaction was to SP's challenge for everyone to say that they would never accept a blowjob from a stranger in any condition
Total stranger! Big difference between new person met at bar/social event and person who unexpectedly knocks on your door.
510.1: Yes, actually, I really, really need to talk this situation out, but it's an issue of such extraordinary potential disaster and awfulness for all concerned that I can't really think of a way to share it without it ruining a lot of people's lives. Right now, as long as no one talks about it, we can pretend everything is fine. If anyone does start talking about it, I would be very concerned that my friend will commit suicide. So I don't even want to start. Plus, I have to go teach. But thank you. It's stressing me the fuck out.
That's a distinction that completely makes sense to me, but 'total stranger' isn't a clear word for it -- really, a guy in a bar is a 'total stranger'.
I would argue that what's needed is for people to do some more thinking about consent, power dynamics and inequality so that they have that mental toolbox when it's needed.
This is exactly correct.
It's also why I'm hoping that teo is inclined to come back and continue the conversation because, for me, talking through strange situations is exactly how I add things to my mental toolbox.
if you've got specific reasons that you're reading him that way
I pulled some quotes in 287 -- both of which I thought demonstrated significant discomfort with the situation. But I would say that "knowing" teo is a bigger factor in my interpretation.
Stranger = someone you are interacting with socially but haven't met previously.
Total Stranger = you only found out her name when she's on FB on your computer after giving you a blowjob.
No, I mean the blog. IRL my friends are a lot less likely to inform one another that they would have made different sexual decisions.
Everyone is happier with me now that I am not a sexually active person. I remain celibate because no one judges me. It's horrible, but it's worth not having everyone tell you that your physical reactions to what seem to be explicit offers of sex are disgusting and immoral.
Are 396, 379, and 326 meant to imply that you're making decisions about your sex life based on what people here say?
520: Good luck with it for everyone involved, however it turns out.
P.S. Posted after reading 396, so I may have jumped the gun. Back to the thread.
493: if you've got specific reasons that you're reading him that way -- reasons specific to this thread, I mean, rather than just because he's teo, and we're all inclined, as I said above, to give him many benefits the doubt --
I'm confused by this. He is teo, so why is this thread the sole thing worth considering? I also don't know why the two comments you refer to are more dispositive than, say, 139, in which he says that he barely got anything done all day because he was worried (sc. not about himself).
523.2 is inaccurate. He was her name on FB before the BJ.
529 is inaccurate. He saw her name. He was not her name.
Ah, true, I was confused by the "getting dressed" taking it to mean after the act as opposed to getting dressed from sleeping.
Stranger = someone you are interacting with socially but haven't met previously.
Total Stranger = you only found out her name when she's on FB on your computer after giving you a blowjob.
How about someone that you meet in DC over say Memorial Day Weekend and you only know them from some blog?
524.last: Kind of? One gets enough negative shit here, from people one respects, and it starts to change the way one sees oneself. I've started to think of myself as someone who is sexually careless, not concerned enough with other people's feelings, and driven by impulses that are not important enough to deserve indulgence. Part of it is that I have been moving around to places where that is more like how the people around me (not at work, but in town) think about sexuality, so I can't just fuck around with townies, and adopting some carefulness about sex seems wise in the circumstances I'm in. But I also actively withhold myself from acting on things that I think might be OK, and that is becoming slightly embittering. Why should I see offering physical affection as doing something horrible to someone? Am I really that gross? Is sex that gross? My friends say no, but I'm a little too deep in the celibacy groove to get out.
525: Thanks. I have a feeling everything is going to end really really badly, and that it's going to be my fault and I'm going to feel terrible about everything I've done and everything I've not done.
534.last set off the Book of Common Prayer:
We have left undone those things which we ought to have done; And we have done those things which we ought not to have done; And there is no health in us.
Come to think, that should be the new mouseover text.
528: I've said over and over again that his being teo does matter (to me), so I'm not sure what you're asking in this regard. As for why the comments I've pointed to matter more (again, to me) than 139, the answer is because l149 and 176 seemed last night (and still do today) to supersede 139. Do you disagree?
I have a feeling everything is going to end really really badly, and that it's going to be my fault and I'm going to feel terrible about everything I've done and everything I've not done
Don't worry, we'll be here to parse your motivations and assign culpability after the fact.
(I kid, I kid! I am glad that this discussion took a turn for the analytical, and generally sign on to the sense that this was morally grey and tactically confusing, dial down the brodaciousness, and don't next time. And no matter what, we'll always have the parsimon-AWB fist bump in 481-487.)
513: he kind of froze up when she started sucking his dick
AWB - Best wishes for a non-terrible resolution to your situation.
538: Those of us who are not in possession of a dick are given to understand that can happen, the freezing up at the advent of a blow-job. Is that not true?
I find 534.1 confusing, but it seems like this isn't the time to go into it. I hope things turn out better than they look right now.
540: I don't really think it's possible for someone to get to the point of fellating someone else without the latter making an affirmative decision to let them, no. Unless they've been tied down or drugged or something.
536 -- I see both 149 and 176 as responding, basically, to people's (understandable) concerns about Teo and his broad reassurance to us that he's fine. Which as his sort of fake something online invisible friendquaintances was probably reasonable. I don't think anything he said precludes concern for the woman or her situation or being worked up about it, which he explicitly and repeatedly said he was, in addition to everything else we know about him.
I do think that Teo probably viewed this as a "life is sad and weird and really fucked up things happen and sometimes you encounter situations where you make weird or bad choices," and didn't (or, at least, didn't until reading this thread) immediately accept the Blume/Oudemia theory that if this is not rape, it is at least clearly somewhere on the rape spectrum, calling for a clear and immediate mea culpa. But I'm not particular sure that theory is right or that a mea culpa is necessary, and in any event his account was clearly not calling for high fives and bro hugs.
BTW, it's hilarious that Von Wafer and jms were carrying on a serious discussion about a book in the middle of all this.
543: ACTUALLY, I'M SUCKING YOUR COCK RIGHT NOW.
543: my understanding is that men can have erections and orgasms without technically "consenting" although it certainly feels counterintuitive.
543: Okay, that certainly makes sense. It's just that Teo said that he was already at half-mast in the closet scene -- a notable fact -- with no provocation whatsoever other than the sight of the woman, so by the time they were on the bed and she unzipped his pants, I had the impression he was (relatively) helpless. To his dick or homones or some such.
Doubtless this is a narrative the male hierarchy would like to impress upon on us -- it's just different being a man! boys will be boys -- but as a female, I have to ask seriously whether there's anything to it.
but as a female, I have to ask seriously whether there's anything to it.
I'm fairly sure that really, you don't.
this seems relevant (though not at all analogous)
They're going to explode, parsimon, and I'll die, and you'll feel terrible.
By "they" I was referring to my testicles, in case there was an antecedent problem that was holding you up there.
It might depend on the age of the gentleman in question.
547: Oh, if someone put one at knifepoint and demanded to fellate one, they could do so with all the autonomic responses that implies. It's just that absent coercion, it's not really possible to "surprise" someone with a beej if they don't choose to cooperate.
548.1: Well, I wouldn't say helpless. It looks to me like teo basically knew where this was heading and decided to roll with it. It surely had to have been unmistakable by the time she's making suggestive hip motions and talking about how they should lie down on the bed. His telling sort of presents it as "and then, who could have guessed, all of a sudden she was totally unexpectedly fellating me" but I don't believe that he believed that. It's just that he knows the decision to go with it was squicky.
544 makes sense.
545: not funny at all! We were trying to have a high-minded conversation about literature, and all these prurient prols kept interrupting us!
551, 552:Help is on the way! parsimon and AWB are racing to come save you!
Ha, 554 makes a great deal of sense.
554.1: SPEAK FOR YOURSELF. I HAD NO IDEA ANYTHING WAS GOING ON DOWN THERE.
it's not really possible to "surprise" someone with a beej
You will be mine, Castock.
559: Many others of your nefarious Fellatio Clan are already on my trail, shadowy one. But the joke's on you: as Conservation of Blowjob Ninjutsu teaches us, the more of you there are, the easier it will be for me to fight you off!
Aww, that sucks.
Hey, look over there!
It would be wrong of me to think the exchange from 559-562 is cute.
His telling sort of presents it as "and then, who could have guessed, all of a sudden she was totally unexpectedly fellating me" but I don't believe that he believed that.
I'm guessing the surprise was because he was expecting more of a transition to that point rather than her pulling it mid phone call. Won't someone give Teo some foreplay?
Why do all these homosexuals ninjas keep sucking my cock?
My name is Robert and I can't stop thinking about Eskimos.
Teo, don't feel you absolutely have to carry this to heavily. In a past life I had probably a dozen or more basically anonymous sexual encounters, often (but not always) aided and abetted by substance use on one or more sides.
Point being, some of those situations were good, most meh, and few objectively sucked. But I don't carry any strong feelings of blame for people involved in the sucky ones. People here are mostly reacting from a point if view of how alien this would be for them. My reaction was more that shit like that happens, and if you aren't around it all the time it could well have thrown you for a loop. Not saying you could'nt have handled it better, but don't beat yourself up too much about it.
AWB, feel free to give me a call if you still have the # and want to talk about it.
OK, let's do this, because you guys are decent at being helpful sometimes:
I work in a small, intimate environment that has an extremely strong dedication to ethical behavior and social equality, etc. One of my closest friends in this environment is going through a devastating personal tragedy that he is desperately trying to hide from everyone through a complicated series of lies and evasions, which he has asked his closest friends not to contradict. (I will not repeat them, but I won't go out of my way to explain that actually his life is imploding.) He is obsessed with looking like he has his shit 100% together at all times, which is complicated when your personal life is in tatters.
So his behavior outside of work has gotten erratic. He drinks too much. He picks fights about strange things. He corners people and tries to force them to agree with him about odd things--even service workers at restaurants, etc. I.e., there are aspects of his behavior that were slightly odd or annoying before that are now cranked up to 11. But the worst part is picking fights about how hard it is to be a white straight man these days, especially in our work environment.
His friends, including myself, have been extremely clear and unified in our response on this issue. We all work on aspects of race, gender, and sexuality, and take these issues dead-fucking-seriously. We have all worked in environments that have been majority non-white, majority queer, or what-have-you. This is a losing argument, we say, and we have heard it all, and maybe have you considered that the stress of your personal tragedies is starting to affect your thinking here?
Now he has come to me asking what I think about something he said in the workplace to someone who then complained. In my personal eyes, the thing he said is unbelievably bad, and obviously the product of latent prejudice mixed with enormous stress, hangover, and resentment. Frankly, if I heard it about a cow-orker I didn't know, I would lead the charge to have that person fired. The only way I think he can respond to this is to apologize immediately and profusely and to plead temporary insanity on account of personal devastation. But instead he is doubling down and insisting that this is a case that shows just how put-upon straight white men are these days, that they can't even have freedom of expression anymore.
When I explained my position, he lashed out at me in a way that I found really scary, and since then I have refused to see him except in a large casual social setting where we were not sitting next to one another. I do not want to have this conversation. I think my advice is the only advice that will save his career, but he seems to have decided to hoist himself on this particular petard. I have vented my concerns to our closest mutual friend, who is also at the point of washing his hands.
What I want to say is that I think this person needs help--not only for the grotesque incivility of the comment that spurred the complaint, but--more relevant to my relationship with him--for the unbelievable stress of his deteriorating personal life and his obsession with hiding information from such an intimate community of people. I'm afraid he's going to kill himself, as I said, but I didn't know he was going to commit work-suicide first.
What should I do?
Oh, man. I can't think of anything other than saying what you just said to us, to him (probably in text rather than face to face), surrounded with a lot of loving support, and hoping that in a moment of clarity it clicks for him.
Interestingly (perhaps), my friend sort of blames me for his personal tragedy, because when his spouse decided to abandon him, she asked me for advice first, and I recommended counseling. She repeated this advice as from me (because she thought my advice would have authority with him), and so when he ruled out all possibility of professional help, which he thinks is for the weak or cowards or something (very unclear, but certainly due to depths he does not want to plumb), she kept saying that she agreed with President Taft that one should be willing to consider counseling rather than divorce. Since professional help is worse than death to him, my advice that he come out about personal difficulties in order to ameliorate the disgusting thing he said will not be helpful. So my hands are tied.
And whether this is appropriate or not depends on the circumstances, but if you're willing to bend your ethical stance on what he sis a little to help him, would approaching it as 'Look, I can't argue with you about whether the white man is oppressed here, I'm not going to convince you, you're not going to convince me. But right or wrong, our employer is going to nail you to the wall for what you said -- can you just apologize lavishly to save yourself?" help get through to him?
I have the same reaction as LB. Once multiple people have said: "This is a losing argument, we say, and we have heard it all, and maybe have you considered that the stress of your personal tragedies is starting to affect your thinking here?"
I don't know what else you do after that. That sounds about as clear, direct, and level-headed as you can be in a confused situation.
My advice would be that you can't really do anything to help, as hard as it is. Except offer friendship and support without trying to give advice or direct decisions. Even if it means career suicide for him, that's not a problem you can solve or are responsible for solving.
To be clear:
1) Yes, I think my friend is exhibiting signs of genuine prejudice. I do not think he is a deeply hateful or evil person, but that he has lived all his life around people like him and is almost uniquely clueless about things like privilege.
2) What he said was extremely disgusting, and a far worse thing than I would have expected, even from someone who is clueless about privilege.
3) Part of his doubling down is a claim that what he said is not about [maligned group] at all, but about a very obscure and distant historical thing that he was thinking of at the time which happened to affect the listener only because she isn't educated enough to understand his very witty and obscure reference.
4) (3) is complete bullshit, and is part of why I'm scared of getting mixed up in this at all. If the shit hits the fan, I will not be comfortable being thought of as someone who has his back on this.
577.4 is wise. People who are trying to self-destruct are usually pretty good at foiling those who try to stop them.
picking fights about how hard it is to be a white straight man these days, especially in our work environment
Eek. My view may be (and probably is) distorted by media sensationalism, but I'd worry as much about this type harming others as harming himself. Beyond that, I'm going to agree with LB in 574. I don't know that there's anything else to be done, and if you're frightened of him, there's probably a good reason for that.
my friend sort of blames me
Counseling is about as anodyne a suggestion as exists.
I'm scared of getting mixed up in this at all
Again, my advice would be: don't. You can be a supportive friend generally without needing to get directly involved, and you can't fix the situation anyway.
Yeah, this is mostly hopeless. Give him what support you can while protecting yourself, and don't feel bad if that nets out to 'not much support at all'.
Whatever you do, don't let him suck your dick.
[In seriousness, I concur with Halford and Tweety, and wish you luck.]
574: Yeah, this is really hard for me. And honestly, if it were any issue other than this one, I would try to have his back. He has chosen his friends poorly, too, if this is something he cares about; both me and his other best friend are especially hostile to poor-white-man arguments. (In fact, I wonder if that is why he was attracted to us as friends, in a perverse way? We both work on the very issue he is fucking with.)
My initial impulse would be to explicitly say something like "I think what you did was really shitty, nothing you can say is going to convince me otherwise, but you're an old dear friend of mine and I still care about you even when you do something terrible."
That might be terrible advice, but I think it would be hard for me not to actually explicitly say something.
Taft, for what little it's worth my only advice is that if someone isn't asking for help but really bent on self immolation (metaphorically, or I suppose not as well) then they will do it whether or not you are in harms way. It is ok to tell someone that you care, and you'll help if you can, but you won't burn with them.
584 is pretty much exactly what my initial reaction was, and even at that he lashed out in a scary way. I thought that *was* the supportive, loving thing to say. What he wants, I guess, is to force me to choose to have his back over my own ethical and professional commitments.
578 is probably what's happening, and I'm a little scared for myself as well as for him. I can help, I think, but only in ways that involve him admitting he is wrong. The only help he wants is for me to tell him he's right.
You don't work for the post office or anything like that, do you?
Our mutual friend has said he has often been tempted to write out something by way of intervention; he's seen certain parts of the personal decline that I haven't seen, and vice versa. We both know that we've been made the keepers of very ugly, sad secrets, and because we talk to each other about them, we're each aware of what each other knows. But neither of us really has the authority to do anything about it, and neither of us really has the desire to risk ourselves on his behalf, either.
One thing that had occurred to me, which might be stupid, is to write to the departed spouse. She loves him madly, and desperately wants to make things work, but has been trapped by his insistence on controlling interpretations and perspectives of their life together. OK, that's a bad idea, I guess. But I do feel that someone outside of our little world should know that he's self-destructing.
It can be reasonbly personally gratifying to say to a close friend "look, I think what you're doing is a bad idea and wrong, and I'm not going to tell you anything other than that, but if you want to continue to hear that from me and argue with me, I'm available whenever." Doesn't work, I don't think, but it can feel good, and can leave room for the friendship to level out if at some point the incorrect-thing-doer snaps out of it.
I think I'd go with 574, but I suspect you'd be fighting the massed ranks of his imaginary friends, whether on Fox News or the right-wing scifi fan and p/ick/up a/rt/ist forums,* who are all presumably abetting him to self-destruct for the cause.
* Speaking tangentially of which, I see that that V/x D/y prick is trying to pick a fight with John Scalzi about some right-wing asshole bullshit. If guys like V/x D/y were all the alpha males that they profess to be, wouldn't they be tussling with one another (intensely homoerotically) for pole position (chuckle), rather than picking on chubby liberal nerds?
590.2: I haven't thought of that dude since like 2004.
Hah -- I'd noticed that there was some Scalzi kerfuffle, but hadn't realized it was VD-related.
chubby liberal nerds
Looking at Scalzi's blog, the approved term appears to be 'gamma rabbit'. I kind of like it.
Me! Me! James Nicoll used to occasionally regale his blog with the V/x D.y trainwrecks.
It's odd to take refuge in bureaucratic process when this is one of your close friends, but it's clear that maintaining a good workplace environment is also very important to you. I think the usual thing in the workplace is to document behavior that negatively affects your work or his work and bring it to the attention of your HR person or a supervisor (assuming either exists). They can talk to him about his performance on the job and its effect on others. If they have half-way decent people skills, they can frame any issues with his job performance in a way that is supportive while pointing out some of the stresses that his behavior is causing. That won't necessarily help your friendship but it might wake him up to some consequences of his behavior and help preserve an environment that you value. Sorry about this, Taft.
"Gamma rabbit" seems a little twee. It'd be cooler if Scalzi were able to shrug things like this off, rather than going self-righteously Larry the Cable Guy/Lady Gaga/Guy Fieri about it. The charity angle is nice, though.
"Gentleman, we can do it. We can build the ultimate Twitter celebrity."
Thanks, guys. This is helpful, even if it reinforces what I suspected, which is that disengagement might be the best way to support him right now.
a little twee
Aggressively so, is the idea I think. "In response to your rightwing asshole manliness, I will flounce about adorably. As you get manlier, I will grow cuter." It's not my style exactly, but in response to VD I think it has its merits.
For what it's worth, I don't think contacting the wife is *necessarily* the world's worst idea, and yet it totally could result in final destruction of the marriage. (But of course if it were to do that, I bet the marriage was going nowhere anyway, AND YET.)
Wow. Usually I don't get much enjoyment out of nutter blogs, but VD is the exception. It's rather like A Journey Into Reason.
(Don't feel like I can meaningfully contribute on either of this thread's big dilemmas; thoughts out to all involved.)
You can't do much to help someone who doesn't want your help. It sounds like you just need to stay out of things for now, even though that's frustrating and scary.
594: "used to"? He was posting stuff about him like last month.
Can flippy tells us anything about Adam Y/0/sh/ida?
Oh god the nukey Canadian. I haven't thought about him in an awfully long time.
604: I stopped following MWDH regularly maybe two years ago? Not through any particular dislike, it just slipped out of my bookmarks and I never put it back again. So "used to" is really about me.
if you're frightened of him, there's probably a good reason for that.
This. Definitely this. Those feelings are usually a wise thing to pay attention to.
Other than that, I think everyone has already covered it. You can't do anything about it except be as much of a friend as you feel comfortable being, don't blame yourself, and stay safe.
That sucks, WHT. I wish your friend a corrective dose of grace & humility.
Is anyone else worried that Teo hasn't weighed in? Come back, Teo! While I may have been judgmental, I really don't think ill of you.
Maybe he's off getting ice cream with the lady.
548
Okay, that certainly makes sense. It's just that Teo said that he was already at half-mast in the closet scene -- a notable fact -- with no provocation whatsoever other than the sight of the woman, ...
Men often wake up with erections. Not sure of the timing here.
586
... and I'm a little scared for myself as well as for him. ...
If there is any chance this guy is going to show up at work with a gun and start shooting people you probably should do something. Although as with teo things are clearer in hindsight.
610: Yes, sort of. But there are a good number of not very dire reasons at all why he probably has not chosen to do so. Not the least of which is probably the shear bulk (and content, of course) of 390 comments specifically aimed at your own personal weird and morally ambiguous situation (I know, caveat scriptor, but still ...).
Post-shower, while wearing a towel, after having answered the door.
Who knows what Teo was doing in the shower!
Maybe he's off getting ice cream with the lady.
605: Sometimes he sits and thinks about thinking, and something he sits and thinks about not thinking.
I believe teo is blocked from unfogged at work and it's only what, 3:30?, where he is.
WHT, that really sucks. I agree with others that there probably isn't anything you can do to help your friend if he is not willing to take your help. It sounds like he has set up a situation where he knows that you cannot be fully on his side (since he is not willing to take your initial reaction as supportive enough -- when of course it was exactly how a true friend should respond in such a situation). I think you need to be very self-protective at this point. Certainly within the bureaucracy of the workplace, where your own position may be somewhat precarious. But also find ways of making yourself safe emotionally. I don't know what that will look like, but it sounds like you and mutual friend are able to discuss what's going on in a supportive way, at least. If your friend really is set on self-destruction, it's going to be painful for you to watch, and you'll have to remind yourself repeatedly that it's not your fault.
Good lord, I'd never read this Ad/am Yos/hida before.
- It is difficult to see how the enduring problem of Mexico will be resolved without some sort of conflict.
Awesome.
Judging by yesterday, we probably have another 2 hours until teo gets home from work. Longer if someone stops him for a bj on his way.
"Spare a hummer*, sir?"
*I've been wondering whether kids these days call it a hummer or if the existence of a massively swollen automobile of the same name displaced the slang term.
It sounds like he has set up a situation where he knows that you cannot be fully on his side
This has the ring of truth to it. It sounds like at some level, he wants it to be him against the world.
623: you know plenty of kids at school, right? Couldn't you ask them?
621: He really is magnificently awful. Up there among the legends with D/en Be/ste.
*I've been wondering whether kids these days call it a hummer or if the existence of a massively swollen automobile of the same name displaced the slang term.
Circa 1991 I was in a band, and we wanted to call ourselves "hummer." Most people had no idea what we were referring to. Some thought it was a reference to a fastball in baseball. No one thought blowjob.
627: I remember that band! (And the name prior to hummer?)
571: 624 seems potentially correct, even if not conscious on his part.
I was recently sent EAP newsletters at my workplace; supervisors appear to get a different version from regular employees. Based only on reading, it looks like many workplaces have very strong incentives for managers to report employees who are self destructing like this, and the supervisor might be able to compel a cool off/get help/go to counseling thing.
If you think that's true in your workplace, particularly since interacting with him feels dangerous, "reporting" him or discussing it with a mutual supervisor might get him onto a more positive path. (Particularly since he instinctively rejects counseling, without trying it.) Sorry for all of the conditionals-- I hope things turn out alright.
No one thought blowjob.
Until... surprise!
I'm home and finally watched 383.
"I guess it would be nice, if I could touch your body..."
Having reread 571, this stuck out as it did to me the first time: He is obsessed with looking like he has his shit 100% together at all times, which is complicated when your personal life is in tatters.
I venture to say that this is a coping mechanism: we all have stable factors in our lives (family, friends, homestead, work), and when one or more of them is picked off, we cling especially firmly to the rest. Losing these types of things are the classic life 'stressors', right? Along with health. I've certainly observed that behavior in myself.
Basically, retracting your friendship at a time like this is the worst possible thing for your friend. Maybe you have to do it, but is there no way to stage an intervention, as it were?
Correct 632 to note that it is not the case that "we all have stable factors in our lives". Lots of people don't (have already lost them if ever they had them).
That bit parsimon quotes, btw, is the stuff that murder suicides are made of.
Pres. Taft, this guy sounds very much like every serious, long-term relationship I've ever had. I think Sifu has it analyzed right in 578, and I'm hoping that the disengagement advice that seems to be rounding out the consensus is also getting it right as that is the course I am (finally)! accepting in re: my most recent failed relationship. The fact that this guy is making extreme "woe is the straight white male" arguments and offensive slurs in the context he is in -- your circle of friends, the workplace -- particularly given the culture of that context, suggests strongly to me that he (however unconsciously) is deliberately blowing his world up. He sounds like someone in a great deal of pain, and I imagine the idea of walking away from him in this state is utterly heartbreaking for you. But it sounds like (and I can't begins to separate out how much of this is just me projecting, so feel free to tell me to fuck off) continuing to engage is just fueling his emotional hurricane. That is, he knows you'll push back against this stuff and when you do that gives him a target to fight with/lash out at rather than dealing with whatever it is he is working so hard to avoid dealing with.
I wouldn't just storm away pissed. I think that also feeds his hurricane. I would let him know you think he's out of control and needs help and that for both of your sakes you need to walk away and let him have space to get his shit together. And by "I would," I mean I did, and I have a very small amount of hope that he'll get things under control and be okay. But I don't know.
I hope the best for you and your friend.
Speaking of weird sexual encounters .
I venture further -- possibly speculating irresponsibly* -- that the friend needs more than anything to feel sure that he has a safety net should he fall.
This makes me wonder whether the suggestion or two to contact the wife might really be a good idea. Obviously she's no longer in full spousal mode; it's not clear whether they're actually divorcing or just separating or he's been simply left. But unless she hates his guts, which it doesn't sound like she does, since she was interested in counseling, it's best to let her know. For the safety net aspect: is she intending to take him for all he's worth (including children, if any)? Might that be frightening him beyond all belief?
Anyway, I'm not sure it's best to let her remain in the dark. Unless she hates his guts.
* I mean, maybe he really is a racist asshole.
634: eh, it's the stuff that fugue states and impulse purchases and beery confessions and crappy memoirs and eventually conquered painkiller addictions and fake internet romances are made of, too. You just don't get called with as much alacrity for those.
638: Sure, but that passage from a male filled with booze, aggression, and resentment? Whose wife's left him and is facing a possible career meltdown and his perception of these things is that he's the victim? If that dude comes striding into work with a bulge under his jacket consider that maybe he's about to unleash something other than a beery confession.
On a separate, wholly frivolous note, this pseudo above:
UNOBTRUSIVE FELLATRIX
couple with a little too much Harry Potter viewing and video game playing as of late, has led to me now thinking of Helena Bonham Carter's character as "Fellatrix LeStrange." It is inevitable I will mix this up in the wrong company at some point...
Fellatrix LeStrange
Pseud available?
637: If there's realistic fears of violence to self or others among his co-workers then the wife needs to know about this, don't you think?
Somewhere along the path to self-destruction she (and the kids?) could be blamed and offing them and then oneself is the trendy media-savvy thing to do these days.
639: Yeah. Exactly what I was wondering about.
Sure, but that passage from a male filled with booze, aggression, and resentment?
Leads to a terrible act of violence a tiny percentage of the time. I get what you're saying, but, you know, very, very low probability event might be twice as likely? Three times as likely?
642: I think the wife needs to be involved, but not because I think this guy is destined to be another mass shooter. As Sifu notes, people freaking out and acting like jerks, driving away their friends and alienating their coworkers, when under duress of various sorts is not exactly uncommon. What Pres. Taft describes is not your garden-variety upset: again, I'd inform the wife.
"Fellatrix LeStrange."
I daren't Google it where I am, but I would almost be willing to bet this is already a pornstar name.
I had a long bit written up about my own experience with trying to maintain a facade of normalcy while my marriage imploded and my career plans disintegrated but it got eaten on refresh. Suffice to say there is nothing to be done but to let the friend bottom out. Letting go of that facade is the single most terrifying thing a person of that kind can face (this is experience talking). Protect yourself, try to protect the people around you, and be there when the friend hits bottom and starts clawing his way back to normalcy. Alternatively, run like hell and let him sort out his own bullshit. Either way, only crashing hard will get him to bust out of that bubble. For me it was getting fired from my dream job right after my wife had left me. At that point I could no longer fool myself, so the facade cracked. Most likely he needs a similar kick in the balls.
640 was my thought on first seeing the word fellatrix. Also I have a horrible crush on Helena Bonham Carter, so it's all terribly something or other.
I'd inform the wife.
I'd be incredibly surprised if the wife is unaware that this guy is out of control.
636: Somewhat similar to the plot of Mrs. Soffel, a not very good movie based on a pretty interesting true escape from the Allegheny County Jail aided by the warden's wife.
648.last: This probably isn't a "be the change you want to see in the world" situation.
Basically, retracting your friendship at a time like this is the worst possible thing for your friend.
Parsi, the way President Taft has described the situation has described the situation, I'm it doesn't sound like the guy has left much wiggle room for "being there" for him. I think part of the point is that it's not even clear what that would mean at this point, short of accepting unacceptable things.
648 surprises me, and I'm taking it seriously.
Um, is there anything to be said for some people being made of sterner stuff, so they can hit bottom (very relatively speaking) and rally, while others can't fare so well? I can't help but recall that the job market for people who don't build lasers (ahem) is tough out there.
I second Di's 635.
Also, in your position I would not talk to a superior about this (far too higha probability of backfire), but I would consider talking to the workplace ombudsperson. I just learned that at my workplace, this person is in HR, and is expected to keep all discussions confidential.
I must be a bleeding heart.
654: I know. The guy has rejected early advances, because he's not thinking straight. The goal is to help him think straight again (even if it comes with some usually-hidden racist sentiments, but you can't fix everything at once).
You know it hard out here for a person who don't make lasers
When he tryin to get this money for the rent
It occurs to me that I'm more worried about this guy losing his job than anything else. I have no idea whether various ombudsmen or HR people might be of help; I tend to think you find them in larger organizations, yet Pres. Taft and his friend work in a small, intimate environment (per 571).
655: ... some people being made of sterner stuff, so they can hit bottom (very relatively speaking) and rally, while others can't fare so well?
There's a whole lot of interest in "resilience", what it is, how to get it, how to increase it, and so on. None of which tells us anything about this particular guy.
My sense of it, based on that everything-must-be-seen-to-be-perfectly-fine attitude is there's going to be a hard crash. Collateral damage and later repairs? I haven't the foggiest.
655: OK, point taken. I was damn lucky to land on my feet and to have people around me (including the guy who fired me) who looked out for my interests.
but you can't fix everything at once
In fact, you can't fix everything. Period. That can be the hardest truth in the world to accept.
I'm a little puzzled, actually, how the friend came to be working in the "small, intimate environment that has an extremely strong dedication to ethical behavior and social equality, etc." in which "We all work on aspects of race, gender, and sexuality, and take these issues dead-fucking-seriously" (571).
Taft, I don't know if you can answer this, but was your friend a former compatriot in this mission? A true believer, yet now it seems he was only seemingly so? There would be some shock for you in that. I don't just mean the change in his behavior, but the notion that you've been harboring a hidden racist all this time.
662: Too damned true. I've tried; didn't.
WHT, sympathies on a difficult situation, and on being able to maintain compassion. Good luck, and count it as a mitzvah or as a banquet of good karma for yourself that you're remaining well-disposed towards a friend with problems.
Professional suicide and physical self harm are pretty different. Beyond writing to him something about the purely tactical benefits of an apology, maybe consider suggesting AA. Do you know if his parents drank? The problem in a place like the one you live in, though, is that there's probably only one group for the dude, and there may be people in it that will pose obstacles. I guess one other relevant variable is whether he's a gun guy, having one handy can sure amplify transient impulses. Hope not, no advice other than stay the fuck away if yes.
663: If the "small, intimate etc." is what I am thinking it is, people can land there for reasons quite different than alignment with that particular set of etcs.
666: you thinking pirate ship, too?
666: What you're thinking it is? Is ... a startup?
(I used to work in a small, intimate workplace that took race and gender issues seriously, but it was a community mental health center.)
WHT, no matter how much you want to help this person, right now priority #1 should be minimizing the number of people in the blast radius, including (especially) yourself. Priority #2, a distant second, should be tough love (since untough love didn't work).
You really, really need to protect yourself here, both emotionally by accepting that this is out of your control, and externally by not letting him bring you down with him.
669.1 is consistent with informing the wife.
667: Are you hiring a crew for one?
668: President Taft works there. The same President Taft who has at times gone into great detail--although sometimes only metaphorically--about aspects of getting the job, the niceness of the job and the possibility or lack thereof of retaining the job.
In short, Tweety is right, a pirate ship.
625 623: you know plenty of kids at school, right? Couldn't you ask them?
I should ask my class! That'd break the ice, right?
So anyway, everyone's right, especially the people who were judging me.
644: Heh. Check the news out of Irvine this evening. This guy has been on simmer since 2009 and just boiled over.
Teo isn't murdered. I was honestly a bit concerned.
Just don't give up on sex totally, okay?
Even if teo gets murdered, I'm not stopping sex.
I pledge to masturbate to teo ONLY if he dies.
My boss at work a few years back kept wanting to put together some kind of contest (that never was going to happen). In his mind the prize would alternate between being a Harley or a Humvee. One day it was apparently the Humvee, as he stopped by half-a-dozen times (cube farm) with variants of "people like Hummers, right?", "How about a Hummer." Finally I pulled him into a conference room and told us what that meant to some of us dirty-minded Americans (he was an Aussie so had his own slang issues, once slipping a "bugger me gently" into a talk in front of a general audience).
*Actually he was one of my best bosses ever, but he had his moments.
I figured it was the time change, but I've spent the last few hours feeling guilty for being even a little bit judgmental. If you're naked, teo, or even wearing a towel, I'll be happy to blow you by way of apology. I'm not even a little coked up. And I haven't taken a Vicodin for...at least fifteen minutes.
672: The same President Taft who has at times gone into great detail
Oh. I didn't realize that.
To elaborate a bit on 677, the various responses in this thread basically echo the various things that have gone through my head in trying to process this. I'm really glad people brought up the consent issue, although I think at this point I'm in agreement with the people who were saying that what I did was wrong but that consent isn't really the best framework through which to look at it. I'm also really glad Natilo and Frowner brought up the racial and class issues; Frowner's 449 is exactly right.
That's no way to take this thread to 1000, teo.
I think it's only fair if everybody blows teo, at least a little.
677: FWIW, I think this is one situation where it's not just cheap cliche to say people here were (mostly) judging your choices, not you. As someone (Von Wafer, I think) pointed out above, it really seemed out of character for you. Don't beat yourself up too badly. We all fuck up sometimes.
686.last: That's what a privileged white guy would say.
To address some of the specific concerns: What I did was definitely wrong and I regret it. I took the concerns voiced by VW and others last night about how I should be more freaked out to be referring to my personal safety, which was never an issue at all, and 149 and 176 were a response to that. The tone of 176 was another mistake, and I regret it too. I actually was trying really hard in narrating the story to not make it too jokey and especially not to make her seem like the butt of a joke. Obviously I slipped up on that in some of my later comments, and I considered posting something right before I went to bed clarifying this but decided against it. That's another mistake that I regret.
I thought I read this whole thread but did the lasers just kind of come out of nowhere or what?
693: well, technically the light has to come from somewhere.
Halford is going to be so pissed. You should have come out guns blazing, teo. We could have taken this thread to 9 million. The internet would have kneeled before us. Oh, wait.
The other thing though, teo, is that everybody makes regrettable decisions about sex from time to time, and while of course you're processing this and you're learning from it, you shouldn't beat yourself up about it.
(Also, reading your story it was hard for someone risk-averse like me not to feel a bit afraid for your personal safety. Glad you weren't physically harmed.)
And really, I'm fine. This experience was disturbing and unpleasant, but not traumatic, for me. Obviously I have no idea what her perception of it was then or is now.
Also, reading your story it was hard for someone risk-averse like me not to feel a bit afraid for your personal safety. Glad you weren't physically harmed.
Seeing everyone respond like this is making me think I didn't really describe her or her behavior very accurately. She seemed completely harmless in every way the whole time. Now, obviously that may or may not have been an accurate perception on my part, and even so my behavior was clearly very risky in retrospect. But seriously, I never felt at risk for myself.
I can't figure out if "My Way" by Sinatra or "Sweat Loaf" by Butthole Surfers is the better regret song to link to. Which is more likely to be about blowjobs?
I did feel very worried about her the whole time, and still do. I really hope things turn out okay for her, but the odds are not good.
I'm registering a lot of handwringing here, when I'm not sure it's warranted. As I see it, Teo is/was a nube, a naif, neophyte
Oh wait. I just remembered that Teo hates me, so I shouldn't comment. Drat.
Lesson learned, regrets voiced, reassuring tone all around. It's like an after-school special up in here.
Maybe our resident Alaskan can give the rest of us some pointers on the impending SNOWPOCALYPSE.
Delurking just to say I'm glad you're ok, Teo.
I don't think the common perception of me as a naïf is really accurate any more, if it ever was, though. I feel like a lot of people here saw my whining about my love life and slotted me into their mental image of The Young Man Unlucky In Love, and then responded to that. I'm certainly as capable as anyone else of making bad decisions that hurt people.
Hi Teo.
I still have a lot of conflicted feelings about all of this.
It does seem to me like the whole experience was so strange, unexpected and above all incremental that it sounds like it made good judgment really difficult - like it was a lot of really strange stuff to take in, and new weird things kept happening. And I do know that it can be really difficult to keep focused when you are in the room with someone who is delusional and pushing you to do something, especially if you are an obliging person. In my own experience, I have gotten into a headspace of "this is weird but is it weird enough to stop? Maybe not, maybe this one thing is actually harmless and things will stop on their own" and then all of the sudden, whoa, things have actually abruptly become disturbing.
I wish you productive self-reflection, I think.
Yeah you got laid yeeeears ago. Who could forget! You don't quite read as a hard partying reprobate, though. You could maybe get a motorcycle.
Hi Frowner.
I agree 100% with everything you've said here, and I'm glad you explained the context in 449 so I didn't have to. That's absolutely the primary frame in which I see this, and saw it at the time, which made the whole thing that much more difficult and confusing.
I've certainly been doing plenty of self-reflection. Whether it's productive or not, I don't know.
into their mental image of The Young Man Unlucky In Love,
Nah. I think you grew into conscientious guy who says thoughtful stuff a long time ago.
Also, is there something you can do not to atone, precisely (since you have no idea how this woman is feeling and she probably can't really process the whole experience in a way where she can say "this is what I want from you") but to...remind yourself that you committed a social wrong? I did something totally different that involved carelessly putting a valued fellow activist in a very unpleasant and emotionally wrenching situation at an event I'd organized last year - truly something I am very ashamed of - and one of the things I did afterward was to set up an automatic monthly donation (that I could afford) to this person's organization. It wasn't so much that I felt that mere money could really fix what I'd done - or that anything could precisely "fix" something that had already happened - but I wanted to do at least a little good to try to counterbalance the harm I'd done. Is there any volunteer action or donation you could engage in or make to help Native women in general, for instance? When I signed up for the monthly donation thing, I felt like I kind of owed it to my social world to do something that showed that I took what had happened seriously. It isn't so much that it would be productive to wear sack cloth and ashes, but it might be good for both the world and you to do something formal as sort of a lived response to your reflection on this. (Or at least, that's how I feel about my situation.)
Thanks guys. Working through the comments. Tonight a bunch of our friends went out for drinks and he texted me to ask me to say hi to everyone for him, but send his regrets. That's the sort of thing I'm totally on-board for. I will say friendly things to our friends and that sort of thing. Other stuff I'm not prepared for, and I really wish his wife or someone would swoop in and do something about him, but I'm fairly sure he's determined to self-destruct.
It does seem to me like the whole experience was so strange, unexpected and above all incremental that it sounds like it made good judgment really difficult - like it was a lot of really strange stuff to take in, and new weird things kept happening.
This especially is definitely true, and it goes a considerable way toward explaining my actions, but of course it still doesn't justify them. I was perfectly able to resist her advances the first few times, sticking to my usual policy of not doing anything if there was any doubt everything was okay, and I could easily have done that the final time too. But I didn't, and that was wrong, and it was entirely my fault.
663: I have asked myself this question many times, and asked him this question many times. It's a puzzler. He could have made a LOT more money in a similar professional environment that is not founded on principles he can't deal with. It's sort of like the fact that his best friends are two people who explicitly teach courses on the main topic of his apparent bigotry...
665: Fundy parents, no drinking in the house. Not sure how that bodes. Not sure about guns, except that I expect not. That means nothing, of course.
717: That's a good idea, and there are definitely many, many things I could do along these lines. I'll give it some thought.
I could even try to track her down and see if she's okay (or, more realistically, gauge the extent of her not-okayness). That would be very difficult and maybe impossible, and probably a bad idea anyway, but it is something I've considered.
720: Huh. So he's become completely inexplicable. Per lw upthread in 665, you have to wonder whether there are drugs/alcohol involved. Also, everyone seems to know who Taft is, while I have not followed so closely. Oh well.
Here is my last thought directed towards teo on the episode*. Putting aside what actually happened, I would argue that no one should ever answer their door while wearing a towel unless they are actually in a movie and pretty damn sure that it is a romcom and not a gangster, horror or David Lynch film. I mean what else could possibly go wrong?
*Well, until I think of something else, or a bad joke.
723: again, I wasn't there, but I can imagine very few good outcomes from trying to track her down, whereas I can imagine a near-endless array of truly horrible outcomes if you do. Please don't do this.
724: Well said, Tweety (see, not directed towards teo at all).
724, 727: Yeah, I figured as much. It would probably be impossible anyway.
Part of me thinks that someone needs to say "Great idea, and live-blog it!" But 724 and 727 do get this right.
Oh, I feel sad, sad, sad. Nothing to do with any of this and nothing to be done, I just felt like saying it out loud, as it were.
726: have I ever told the story of [very famous young scholar] who came to stay with us when we still lived in Oklahoma? Hmm, it's a hard (heh!) story to tell without giving away too many revealing (heh!) details about the scholar in question, but I'll given it a try. This guy had won [giant career-making fellowship] the previous year and had just landed a job at [one of the three super-prestigious Ivy League schools that essear has fellating him on command]. He was also as prim and proper as they come (heh!): a very devout Catholic, happily married, didn't even own a TV. No, seriously, he didn't own a TV; he and his wife read each other poetry every night before bed. Anyway, he stayed with us for a few days. And the first day, he spent most of the time in a towel. Now, on the one hand, whatever. In fact, better than whatever: he was ripped -- like, Calvin-Klein-model ripped -- so the view was kind of amazing. But by day's end, it got a little weird. Finally, he dressed for dinner. The next day, he gave a talk. And then he came back to our house and stripped down to his towel. By that time, I was tired of his act, so I let him give our dogs on an upskirt show. Super weird! I haven't seen him since, but I'm told by one of his colleagues that he's pretty insane.
Sympathies, Millard, unless you're just toying with us.
And that scholar's name was...teo.
734: Why would you jump to that idea? Bugger off.
"Why is Wafer's dog always licking my cock?"
I would let things set for a few days before you decide whether or not to find this woman (assuming she is not in the area and you don't run into her again). She may not remember everything very precisely, or she may be trying to forget the whole thing, or she may be going through a lot of stuff other than the situation with you and may not have the emotional wherewithal to deal with what happened with you as well. Just think about it for a while and use your sense of your interaction and the community to make a decision. Is there anyone you can ask for advice other than the unfoggers?
I would also be curious as to what other folks thought about this. I have had no sexual encounters with strangers myself, so I don't even begin to know how someone in that situation would feel.
I think it's really difficult to talk about foolish actions like this one where there's a confluence of wishful thinking and an overwhelming situation. (In my own Awful Situation, I had the same kind of mixture of wishful thinking about how the event would operate and the overwhelming way in which things just went off the rails.) The hurt person is really hurt, that really does happen, and the person who did the Thing really did make a bad choice, but how to talk about it without trivializing it and while still recognizing that a well-intentioned bad choice in a difficult situation isn't the same thing as a malign choice?
In the wake of my own Awful Situation, I had to do a lot of really difficult reflection on my own capacity for selfishness and carelessness, and the deep ways in which I do not understand the world of people without my privileges, plus the ways my assumptions about the world were rooted in my own privileges and the blindness and selfishness that came with them. It is an ongoing process that has not been especially easy - actually it pushed me into therapy because it was hard to balance my pre-existing anxieties and self-dislike with the real need to reflect critically - like, if you already think you are pretty terrible, how do you deal with it when you've actually done something that is clearly and evidently Not That Great? On the other hand, I think I'm more realistic about my own limits now, which keeps me from making more mistakes.
Anyway! My point is that self-reflection in this situation might be a long-term project that brings up a lot of strong feelings, and it's important to be not gentle so much as fair to yourself and fair to yourself about mitigating factors and degree of harm, not just tip over into beating yourself up, and it's important to bring in whatever social resources you need/have access to, ie therapy, friends, study.
Although now I feel mad instead of sad, so that was sort of helpfully tone deaf and obnoxious.
734: Seriously, what's wrong with you?
Sorry, Millard. We're here.
I still think there should be some pushback to the idea that what teo did was terrible and requires long-term processing and regret. You didn't kill her puppy or break her arm or ruin her marriage.
I had forgotten Adam Y/o/s/h/i/d/a but I am kind of surprised that he's still alive. I thought that at least one of those Internet-famous-for-2003 guys would have killed himself and several others by now.
I would let things set for a few days before you decide whether or not to find this woman (assuming she is not in the area and you don't run into her again). She may not remember everything very precisely, or she may be trying to forget the whole thing, or she may be going through a lot of stuff other than the situation with you and may not have the emotional wherewithal to deal with what happened with you as well. Just think about it for a while and use your sense of your interaction and the community to make a decision. Is there anyone you can ask for advice other than the unfoggers?
Not really. There's no one I know well enough here to share this with, and anyone else I know wouldn't be any more likely to have relevant advice than you guys. And yeah, I doubt at this point she remembers this incident well or maybe even at all; it's clearly just one small part of a long series of bad events in her life, both overall and in the context of that day/night/week/whatever. I think the people above are right that it's a bad idea to try to find her. It's not very likely that I'll encounter her again in everyday life, though it is possible.
All that said, I still really want to know what happened to her and how she's doing. She was so cute and so sweet and so sad and she kept asking me to help her and I so wanted to help her but I couldn't and I didn't. I didn't help her. I don't know if I hurt her, or at least I don't know if the hurt I caused her made a meaningful difference compared to the hurts she's suffered before. But I know that I didn't help her.
742: Right. He got a surprise blow job by someone high on something or the other. This is hardly catastrophic.
I'm going to go to sleep, Teo, as it's late here in the Midwestern Metro Area. I wish you all the best in thinking this through and deciding what to do next.
Millard, all sympathy, and I am hoping against hope that you're a different Millard, with a different reason to be sad, than has posted here before.
Good luck dealing with this, Teo; and yes, Frowner's contributions to this thread have seemed very wise.
And 748 seconded.
749: Thanks. It was a weird situation that I was totally unprepared to deal with, obviously, and I made some mistakes. Fortunately I think most of the mistakes I made were in how I described it here rather than how I acted at the time, but the mistakes I made at the time were potentially more damaging.
What Bio and UPETGI said.
But seriously, I never felt at risk for myself.
Have I mentioned one of my first foot pursuits was chasing a Native American tranny hooker? Stabbed a trick in the back of his head with a cheap kitchen knife. Hit the bone so hard it bent the blade.
748: I've used the Millard pseud to post extensively about reproductive catastrophes, and I am not using it tonight. We're doing fine, knock wood, about six weeks to go but might come sooner. Mama is uncomfortable but Dr. says everything looks good.
Millard of tonight, I hope you feel better.
Jesus Christ Teo. Damn right you made an error, and that error was choosing not to FIGHT here once battle was engaged. What is this, Romper Room? This isn't where you come for therapy, it's where you go to take semi-reasonable arguments and defend them to the fucking death. Your story isnt just your story anymore, it's a weapon that needs to be used with maximum audacity.
What Bio and UPETGI said.
I appreciate what you guys are saying, and I understand where you're coming from, but as noted above I actually agree with Frowner that the context makes this worse than it would otherwise be. Still not the worst thing in the world (though probably the worst thing I've ever done), but worthy of serious regret and serious thought.
I agree with both Frowner's 449 and Biohazard's 745. The idea that teo should be on a program of expiation strikes me as a bit extreme -- but I can also see how if I were in your shoes I might want to settle accounts as part of my process. Go do a mitzvah and then let it rest in your big book of Experience.
Yeah, I'm thinking probably a donation to one of the local organizations that help victims of domestic violence and sexual assault would be the best approach. These two seem to be the main ones locally.
I'm about to go to bed, and there's a new thread if people want to discuss this further, but one thing I want to emphasize is that I realize that the way I told the story and the tone of some of my follow-up comments last night were perceived by many as flippant or boastful, and that bothers me because it really isn't how I wanted this to come across.
I felt like I needed to tell the story, and this is the only forum where I really feel comfortable talking about something like this. The way I told it seemed like the best approach at the time given my feelings about the incident last night, and the follow-up comments started from there and developed in response to the first few responses I was getting. My feelings have continued to shift as I think about and process the incident more, and I now think the approach I took last night wasn't appropriate for the context and I should have told the story a different way. This may be implicit in some of my comments earlier tonight, but I wanted to make it explicit here just to be clear.
Glad you're still around and wanting to talk about things, teo.
So, my 2 year old broke my computer, and I've been off-line for a few days. Did I miss anything?
I think Frowner's 449 is basically insane, and I don't know why everyone is so keen on it. There is no race or class angle here. If Paris Hilton showed up up at teo's door, high, and did the same thing, that would be awesome?
I don't know why everyone is so keen on it
We're all married people who hate sex.
It's because you've never had Paris.
Paris in Your Pants. Best travel guide ever.
762
... There is no race or class angle here. ...
Teo seems to think there is which means there likely is (in the sense that it affected his reactions). Anyway something about this woman appears to have pushed his buttons.
Sorry to raise any alarm. I didn't remember that anyone had posted something serious as MF. There's nothing in particular wrong, just major dissatisfaction with some parts of my life and run-of-the-mill self-loathing. The usual. I appreciate everyone's kindness.
744
All that said, I still really want to know what happened to her and how she's doing. She was so cute and so sweet and so sad and she kept asking me to help her and I so wanted to help her but I couldn't and I didn't. I didn't help her.
Uh, I'd push back against this a bit. Both in the sense that in this particular case, as others have said, trying to track her down or otherwise follow up is very unlikely to make things better, and in the more general sense that trying to fix people rarely works. (I realize "fix people" isn't the best phrase, but I think the basic idea stands.) Next time you see her or anything else like this happens, just try to handle it better. If you feel the need to salve your conscience, donate to or volunteer for the places in 756 or try to pay it forward next time you see someone in need, or just wear a hair shirt for a while. (And maybe that's too flippant, but I'd agree with Bio and UPETGI too.) But trying to help people when they don't want it is rarely a good idea. But maybe I'm talking about myself too much by now.
764: Is this really what you think I meant? No wonder you are so angry at me. I meant that you're married people who actually *have* sex. Not having sex, or access to sex, for long long stretches, can make one have a lower moral bar for sex than LB's "great thing to do." There is just about no way that I could have any kind of sex that anyone outside of myself would consider a "great thing to do."
Married people have sex?
...must try to think ...
775: But see, this is precisely my point. The joke here is that, ha ha, once you get married, you stop sleeping around like those single people who have all the fun and affection and crazy good times. Last calendar year I had sex zero times. The year before I had sex two times. The year before that I had sex one time. If you had that little sex in your marriage, it would be a crisis.
When you write "crisis" in Chinese, the word is composed of the characters for "danger" and "blue balls."
If you had that little sex in your marriage, it would be a crisis.
Indeed...
(In truth, I'd give up sex in favor of a lifetime of genuine, meaningful emotional intimacy with someone in a heartbeat.)
People's sexual experiences from year to year vary vastly more than what you can infer based on their marital status. Which makes it an obnoxious thing to over-rely on.
Is this really what you think I meant?
Oh, no! 764 was just a joke. An attempt at an absurd answer to Walt's absurdity.
While single I once was having a conversation with a partnered friend about sexual frustration, and she said something like, You know, it's not as if you don't still have sexual frustration when you're in a relationship. And while I didn't doubt that she was right, her lack of understanding of some really basic differences in our positions made me want to kill her.
And, furthermore, all of those times I was drunk and nervous and couldn't come or really enjoy it.
Count me in with 742/745. It's a sad story involving a woman with massive problems in her life. There doesn't need to be plot resolution for Teo as a bit player.
I am somewhat confused by what you think the moral bar is that makes sex unavailable to you, AWB.
Despite leading the "it's not really that huge a deal" charge, I must say there's never a bad reason to donate money to a good cause.
I think that people in marriages emotionally worse than being single who are locked in due to kids or finances are pretty common, and they don't advertise. It's like being sick, a personal problem that won't get better or go away. Doesn't lead to physical gratification.
The grass is always greener, I guess.
In reference to 701 ("I never felt at risk for myself"), I wonder if people with more experience with people on drugs think that was an accurate assessment. It seems plausible to me that teo was just wrong in analyzing the risk.
773: By saying "Not a great thing to do" , I seem to have poorly phrased what I meant to the point of misleadingness -- I meant to say the mildest possible version of "an actively wrong thing to do." By the standard I meant to be applying, casual sex with a stranger where everyone was consenting and competent to make decisions would meet it just fine.
The joke here is that, ha ha, once you get married, you stop sleeping around like those single people who have all the fun and affection and crazy good times.
There's an interesting (at least to me) issue here. You're absolutely right about the frequency of getting laid (oh, there's overlap for the coupled people in the worst relationships and the single people getting out there the very most, but not much). I think what married people are actually envying single people for, when there is envy, is the possibility of sexual/romantic drama or narrative -- if you're not looking for new partners, while you may be having sex, there's no story arc in your life that's about your sexual potential.
And I agree that the envy, where it exists, is misplaced; I think if people pinned down what it was they were envying, they'd realize that it wasn't worth the tradeoff.
(In truth, I'd give up sex in favor of a lifetime of genuine, meaningful emotional intimacy with someone in a heartbeat.)
Some of us have.
I think if people pinned down what it was they were envying, they'd realize that it wasn't worth the tradeoff.
This just isn't necessarily true. I think there are a significant number of people whose sex life is worse married than single, and it's just plain unpredictable.
It's "not worth the tradeoff" in the sense that they'd prefer to stay married than divorce, but that doesn't imply the sex life itself is better.
if people with more experience with people on drugs think that was an accurate assessment
People on drugs are still just people. Absent a weapon, I'm very rarely going to feel physically threatened by an average-sized woman, even one behaving erratically. Especially if that erratic behavior includes thinking I'm a rock star and offering sex.
Which is one part of why it's so difficult to imagine the situation with the genders reversed.
I think there are a significant number of people whose sex life is worse married than single
Ya think?
780: What's absurd is that everyone is endorsing Frowner's sentiment, which is well-meaning, but still basically racist. The idea that there should be a higher bar for consent for Native people -- which is literally what it's saying, while disclaiming the sentiment at the same time -- is fucked up. What is the practical impact of her advice? White women who are acting high or crazy might just be fun-loving, while Native women who are acting high or crazy are just high or crazy. No paternalism there.
790: You have no fear of dick-biting-off?
I really wish his wife or someone would swoop in and do something about him
As someone who had a long relationship with a mentally ill person, I'm here to tell you all that his wife can't do a fucking thing about any of this.
795: Or being speared. Those people still hunt whale from kayaks and shit. Watch out.
Does anyone know if the stereotypical decrease of sex frequency in marriage has been confirmed, and if so whether the relevant factor is years of marriage or years living together? I would assume that people have the most sex when they're in a serious relationship but don't live together.
Walt articulates something that struck me about Frowner's comment that I couldn't comfortably put into words, though if I could it would be milder than 794. A lot of this worrying about power imbalances seems to imply diminished agency on the part of the person on the wrong side of the imbalance. Of course this is coming from a cis-gendered heterosexual white UMC male, so I'm pretty much at the top of the heap when it comes to these issues and so may be missing something that's clearer to someone further downslope.
783
I am somewhat confused by what you think the moral bar is that makes sex unavailable to you, AWB.
Presumeably that the sort of casual sex that she feels she could most readily obtain is also morally deprecated in her current social environment.
Teo, I've been deciding whether or not to add this because it's not necessarily pertinent, but one of the most recent times Mara and I visited Mara's mom, it became clear to me eventually but not at first that her mom was on something or out of it for other reasons. And of course the first rule of open adoptions is that you're never supposed to do a visit if one of the parents is impaired, but once we were there and I'd only figured out when she started telling the same story for a third and then fourth time, I figured we would stay and I would only get us out of there if things got weird for Mara. But I was worried about Mara's reaction and what Lee would say when I told her about it, but kept on going because normalcy is easier and can seem kinder. I suppose that means that at one level I was enabling Mara's mom, but it's really tough to know what I should have done.
Anyway, I guess I am also probably on the naive end of the spectrum here, but I just wanted to say that you're hardly the first to misjudge someone like that.
You have no fear of dick-biting-off?
About as much fear as I have of my Middle Eastern cow-orkers beheading me.
Maybe the whole Bobbit thing hit me at the wrong time of my psychological development.
798: It may not be statistically-valid confirmation, but I've got anecdotal evidence out the wazoo.
I think 787 gets it exactly right. I certainly prefer married life to being single, but the aspects of singlehood I'm jealous of are exactly the narrative and drama.
Well, that and being able to let crushes blossom into genuine hope, rather than needing to be controlled. Having a real full-blown crush on someone is an experience that I miss, and it's not the same if you know you're not going to do anything about it.
Of course, Bobbit's bob wasn't from a stranger. Statistically speaking, you're probably more likely to get your penis cut-off from a long term partner than a stranger.
790
People on drugs are still just people. Absent a weapon, I'm very rarely going to feel physically threatened by an average-sized woman, even one behaving erratically. ...
So all the stories about drug induced violent rampages are propaganda? Most women are socially conditioned to be inhibited about being violent. Remove the inhibitions and they can be dangerous. Particularly if they catch a guy (who may himself be strongly inhibited about violence against women) off guard. Which doesn't mean they will necessarily "win" just that they might inflict a lot of painful damage.
worrying about power imbalances seems to imply diminished agency
Well, it's not a *bad* thing to be aware of the social contexts we all are situated in, but that awareness should really be tempered by the fact that we know nothing whatsoever about this woman's life, aside from teo's external perceptions of one hour or so of her in an altered state.
798
Does anyone know if the stereotypical decrease of sex frequency in marriage has been confirmed, and if so whether the relevant factor is years of marriage or years living together? ...
Age has something to do with it at least for guys. Your drive (and capacity) steadily decline.
I feel like the immoral part comes precisely from trying to turn the people I know into potential objects of sexual desire. I don't have some vast landscape teeming with strangers here. There's pretty much my coworkers, who are also my only friends, and who all hang out together, just about every day. Some of them are in couples. The single ones seem to get paired off by temperament and romantic potential, but nothing seems to happen. One woman made a somewhat dramatic series of gestures at the object of her affection, and that rapidly disintegrated into awkward hellos and a sort-of friendship that I don't think has gone further than him walking her to her door sometimes. Every time I think about making a move toward the person everyone seems to think I am with, I feel suddenly like I'm about to make a terrible, irrevocable decision that would probably make him extremely unhappy, but he would go along with it to be polite. Meanwhile, someone who isn't part of our friend group has made his interest in me exceedingly clear--he wants to go out, now, because he's so unbelievably thrilled that I'm going to be sticking around--and yet I'm so visibly bound up with this other person that I am sure feelings would be hurt--including my own--if I took up with the other man. I feel like any decision I make at this point is wrong, and so I will probably continue my pattern of making no decision at all. It all sounds horrible to me. But so does eternal celibacy.
People on drugs are still just people. Absent a weapon, I'm very rarely going to feel physically threatened by an average-sized woman, even one behaving erratically
Yeah, this is kind of crying out for a bloodcurdling anecdote or two from gswift about 95-pound women on meth tearing engine blocks apart or ripping the throats out of elephants.
So all the stories about drug induced violent rampages are propaganda?
No, but you hear about those stories because they're rare (and therefore newsworthy). I've been around a lot of different people on a lot of different drugs. It isn't particularly difficult to tell who's getting dangerous.
And exceedingly rare for women.
What's absurd is that everyone is endorsing Frowner's sentiment, which is well-meaning, but still basically racist. The idea that there should be a higher bar for consent for Native people -- which is literally what it's saying, while disclaiming the sentiment at the same time -- is fucked up.
I don't think it is. I've been thinking about posting a longer comment in the other thread, but, briefly, here's how I would interpret Frowner's position:
Consider the recent discussion about people who say, "after much open discussion and careful consideration we ended up picking a life path that conforms to existing gender stereotypes." Part of what that makes you think is to ask, "is part of why that seemed like a comfortable arrangement the fact that it conformed to narratives you heard and seen hundreds of times."
Similarly, the question that should be made explicit, when thinking about teo's experience is, "given that the entire thing was kind of sketch, in what ways did existing narratives of power shape the way in which the interaction evolved."
Longer comment soon.
I'd disagree partially with Frowner. Or maybe I'm agreeing. The young woman's background matters to the extent that it makes it unlikely that she was really just out looking for fun and adventures and a good time when she stumbled up to the door; but the bit about being high to the point that she's confused a complete stranger with a rockstar would be a sign no matter the race/privilege of the woman that maybe "diminished agency" is a fair description of what's going on.
That of course doesn't mean that all women have diminished agency at all times, in case that needs to be stated.
I was glad to see Teo's return to the thread and glad to see he wasn't filled with regret to have shared the story here.
818.last: But there's still plenty of time and two threads to do it in!
817: I agree that the drugged up state means diminished agency, but that isn't IMO compounding some additional diminution of agency due to being a minority and a woman. If she'd been a white male (and Teo gay) I think the ethics of the situation stay pretty much the same.
789, 792, 798: What I'm thinking is that what looks like very little sex in a marriage or long-term relationship (once a month? every couple of months?) can still easily be more than a single person is getting unless the single person is very adventurous and successful about it. While I haven't been there, I can see that that sort of marriage where you were getting some, but an unsatisfying amount, of sex might actually be more frustrating than being single and not getting any, but it's still pretty likely to be literally more often, if you're just counting encounters.
810: Ah, that makes sense. I wouldn't have intuitively framed that as a moral bar so much as an unfortunate set of interpersonal dynamics, but it makes sense to treat the concern for others' feelings as morally derived. (Good lord, could I phrase that more awkwardly?) Anyway, that sucks and I feel your pain.
822.last: But who does that?
821: I think her ethnicity/gender doesn't actually affect the morality of the situation, but it's information about what the visible facts are likely to mean. A somewhat incoherent white guy knocking on doors and offering blowjobs, I would find it slightly more plausible (not very, and this is far enough out of my experience that I really don't know what I'm talking about) that he was basically okay, even if temporarily impaired, and on some kind of happy fun wild and crazy adventure. A Native woman, on the other hand, while anything's possible, the historical issues affect my sense of the probability that she's really not okay.
I can see that that sort of marriage where you were getting some, but an unsatisfying amount, of sex might actually be more frustrating than being single and not getting any.
This was my experience, certainly. And the happiest I've been in my adult life was during a long (year? year-and-a-half?) stretch of celibacy.
822: Precisely. I think when people here imagine "single," they're imagining the blossom of young love, in which you go over to your new partner's house with a bottle of wine and condoms in your pocket. That's not "single." Single is alternating between trying to discover more interesting ways to masturbate and figuring out if it's possible to get sex from someone you haven't met yet, who might be cruel about it, and who, like everyone else, has personal, deeply-conflicted feelings about it that you will only learn about during or after having sex with them.
545: BTW, it's hilarious that Von Wafer and jms were carrying on a serious discussion about a book in the middle of all this.
And for me that they were invoking Russo. Because Teo's Tale* had already brought to mind a minor bit from Russo's Straight Man where there is an awkward sexual encounter between a philandering professor friend of the narrator's and a confused/mentally ill woman (maybe a student or ex-student).
William Howard Taft (lost track of the comment numbers, sorry)
If you believe your colleague is suicidal, have you addressed it with him? Often people don't want to talk about suicide directly, because we're afraid that putting the words out there may make it more likely, not less, but that's not actually true. It might be worth calling the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255) to get some concrete ideas about how to specifically have that conversation, but also to learn more about the clear warning signs. I know there are cliches that everyone knows (giving possessions away = bad sign) but suicide assessment is actually a lot more formalized and you might get either reassured or not from learning more about it. There's a big difference between a person who might be wanting to die and one who actually has a detailed plan for how they're going to go about it in terms of how high-risk the situation is.
That said, the advice about getting in touch with his wife sucks. IMO. If she's reached the point where she's left him because he wouldn't get help, then having his friends contact her just puts her back into an ugly situation that she's trying to move on from. If she had a way to help him, she would have used it by now. Dumping it on her won't help him and (IMO, again) is actively unkind to her. FYI, I say this from a totally personal perspective -- I don't even remember all of the conversations I had along the way with my ex's friends who just "thought I ought to know" as if there was something I should be able to do that I hadn't already tried. Believe me, it never did any good at all, and I still get angry thinking about some of those conversations.
I don't think I (or other people, though I could be wrong) is imagining that "single" is like that. After all, I said I'd much rather be married than single. I hated being single. But that doesn't stop me from missing aspects of singlehood.
830.last: I'm glad you said this. I was thinking it, but I haven't been in or close enough to the situation to feel comfortable saying it.
Thank you, Sarah! I don't think my colleague has arrived at suicidal ideation yet; he seems to be in a really profound state of denial about what is happening (his wife isn't here because her job transferred her to an office in another city; his behavior at work is seen as suspicious because of a regional cultural difference that people around here fail to understand). I have had my eye out for signs that he is coming to grips with what is actually happening, because that's when I fear something might happen in the direction of self-harm.
No, I think contacting the wife is the wrong thing to do, too. They are still in touch--this is a trial separation--but right now it's a very fragile ecosystem that I fear upsetting.
I'm not really asking for an answer to this question, I realize it would probably be identifying, and I'm just nosy. But I'm driving myself nuts wondering what the wittily obscure reference that just happened to sound bigoted if you were too uneducated to understand it was.
834. You and about twenty other people, not counting the lurkers. But I don't expect we'll find out.
834: also, what does "regional cultural difference that people areound here fail to undersdand" mean?
Believe me, you do not want to know. It is not witty, nor obscure, and is so tangential to the thing said that it sounds like a rationale cooked up while drunk and awake in the middle of the night, and rehearsed to the point that he believes that's what he meant too.
836: My strong guess here is that "Southerners talk like this, and it just sounds racist to you because you don't understand the South and have contempt for us all." Could be wrong, but in context I'm betting that's what 'regional' means.
I was assuming it was "people from those big cities back east are just so strange."
...everyone is endorsing Frowner's sentiment...
Not at all. I can see the encounter being worth some introspection later on but chemically enhanced hookups aren't themselves signifiers of power imbalances. Conflating this with the Great Satan's oppression of Noble Indigenous Cultures is pushing it a bit. This wasn't a sociology classroom discussion with a practical blowjob exam at the end.
840: Wait, that's not what the syllabus meant when it said "oral exam"?
a practical blowjob exam at the end
"Just how many times do you intend to audit this course, Mr. Hazard?"
So some obscure literary reference to Faulkner or Flannery O'Connor?
I think when people here imagine "single," they're imagining the blossom of young love, in which you go over to your new partner's house with a bottle of wine and condoms in your pocket.
I'm getting increasingly humorless about this kind of thing.
828: It's like that at the other end of the age spectrum too, Bear. I have a strong reluctance to even contemplate learning about the baggage someone new is carrying along with them. It's not for lack of opportunity, there's plenty of that around. It's more "Been there, done that very well, thank you, porn requires less effort."
So everybody stop showing up at heebie's house with condoms.
" Single is alternating between trying to discover more interesting ways to masturbate and figuring out if it's possible to get sex from someone you haven't met yet, who might be cruel about it, and who, like everyone else, has personal, deeply-conflicted feelings about it that you will only learn about during or after having sex with them."
I hear you. It occurred to me recently as a thought experiment, that I would be happy to have a casual encounter with someone I know - with several someones, though probably not together- if I somehow knew they were going to have their memory wiped the next day but I was not complicit in that. While unlike some singles here I would love to be in a relationship, I wouldn't be much bothered about a casual encounter with no future if I didn't have a morning-after to deal with. OTOH I don't think i could physically trust a stranger enough to enjoy myself.
848: No, just pick them up and take them away. Condom litter is very annoying and also dangerous to pets, says someone living in WeHo.
All joking aside, ajay won the thread* in 220.
*In the "Commenters Who Aren't 'teofilo'" category, anyway.
There was recently a discussion on some blog about casual sex and orgasm that was really interesting but I'm too lazy to find it. Anyway, the writer was thinking about how she really only has an orgasm with a partner she trusts, and yet felt like she had enjoyed and got something out of casual sex anyway. I think her argument is that it's a different experience, even physically, for her anyway, and it wasn't just that casual sex was all about an ego boost or whatever. It is sexual pleasure, but a different kind from partner-sex.
I've only been in a couple of ongoing relationships--ones in which we had sex more than a few times, and not always after drinking--and it's true that it's a totally different kind of experience. I've gotten to the point, obviously, where casual sex is not better than masturbation, but it had its charms. I often long for the kind of sex that I was able to have with ongoing partners--sober, orgasmic, creative, safe--but I fear that would be difficult to accomplish in my current milieu without a prohibitive amount of gossip and embarrassment, on top of whatever problems I would definitely bring to an attempt at a relationship.
I would be happy to have a casual encounter with someone I know - with several someones, though probably not together- if I somehow knew they were going to have their memory wiped the next day but I was not complicit in that. While unlike some singles here I would love to be in a relationship, I wouldn't be much bothered about a casual encounter with no future if I didn't have a morning-after to deal with. OTOH I don't think i could physically trust a stranger enough to enjoy myself.
Even when you can get your own mind ok, those other people are always messing up sex.
As emir and AWB suggest, there is something to be said for casual sex with someone you trust. Not partnered up, but not a stranger.
854: will's got smooth and subtle moves.
Yup. The best casual encounters I've had have been with people I was thrown together with for a few very intense days where we would shortly be going our separate ways again.
On another occasion I remember thinking in the taxi, in one way I don't know this guy very well (friend of friends of friends) but I absolutely know if I tell him I've changed my mind he will be disappointed but ok with it and able to take as a plus whatever level of lesser fiddling about I am comfortable with. The only downside was the well-intentioned but irritating teasing from his friends the next day, which I put up with because it wasn't really aimed at me and also they all knew he hadn't had sex in about 5 years and he was kind of enjoying all this in a sheepish manner. Ironic to think I've gone past that now in my own drought.
I've often wondered if the campus casual sex experiment thing would have a different gender disparity if the propositioning person could somehow guarantee that no one would get pregnant, no one would get an STD, the sex would at least be decent, and no one would use it later as emotional blackmail. I bet you'd see the number of women agreeing to it go way up. It's not just about physical safety. It's that casual sex isn't worth it for heterosexual women if dudes are going to be babies about condoms, uninterested in her enjoyment, or manipulative and creepy afterward.
Single is alternating between trying to discover more interesting ways to masturbate and figuring out if it's possible to get sex from someone you haven't met yet, who might be cruel about it, and who, like everyone else, has personal, deeply-conflicted feelings about it that you will only learn about during or after having sex with them.
New mouseover! But ugh, yes, indeed.
There really seems like some sort of pan-single-unfogged arrangement that could be worked out.
A lot of this worrying about power imbalances seems to imply diminished agency on the part of the person on the wrong side of the imbalance.
I really think that "agency" is being used in this thread in ways that are not helpful.
It is not helpful, to my mind, to approach the world as "society is a collection of Everypersons, each of whom should be treated identically and whose individual or social history should be kept out of things; thus not only am I under no obligation to consider how those things might impact someone, it is actually wrong and insulting for me to do so, so therefore I should accept my every interaction with people at face value, as anything more complex than that involves making assumptions, insult, etc."
To me the issue is, "how can I assess this person's probable state in order to keep our interaction as equal and harmless as possible? What information do I have about this person? What heuristics can I draw on? What do I know about interactions between people similar to this person and me in general and in specific?"
So I would end up with:
1. I notice that this young woman is acting oddly - is there anything that would lead me to believe that she might be impaired?
2. If she is impaired, is there anything that would lead me to believe that it's fun impairment that she has sought out or tragic impairment?
3. What will happen if I do not exercise care? How bad are the consequences likely to be? What do I know about this person or what can I infer about this person to help me assess that? For example, I often don't give money to crusty punks spanging in our hipster district, but I virtually always give money to homeless women. Why? Because the consequences of not having money for the crusty punks are likely to be mere inconveniences, while I know that homeless woman need food and shelter beds (and they charge you for those now), and even if they also need heroin, if they have enough money for a fix then they are likely to use the rest for food or a safe place. (At least in my experience.)
4. What weaknesses or biases am I likely to have in this interaction? For instance, I know from my own life, from my observations and from reading that white people have a tendency to treat people of color less well. I know too that Native women are often treated with less sexual respect by white people than white people are. Knowing that I am white and have been socialized as white, it seems far safer to assume that I am at risk of, you know, acting like a white person in a given interaction - and that means that I need to be extra aware of my behavior so that I am sure to behave well. It would be stupid to assume that I am a special white person who would never, ever do anything racist or privilege-y. And I know only too well that if you are not alert to your behavior and assumptions, doing something racist or privilege-y can be a total surprise to you too even though you're the one who is doing it.
I feel like the way "agency" is framed here comes from a place of "how bad do things have to be before I have to give up what I want?", ie, "how obviously ill or impaired must this young woman be before I don't get the blowjob?" The question becomes, "what exactly is the young woman's responsibility/"agency" in this situation, and how can I decide whether I get to have the blowjob or not?"
It seems like naming this as agency is a way of saying, "the average agent should be assumed to always be self-protective to this degree; this is their responsibility and what is more it is in their very nature. If they are not self-protective to that degree, that is not my concern and making it my concern is to treat them not as Everyperson but as a specific person, which is unfair and biased. Therefore, any advantage I have is a fair advantage, and the only assumption that I can make is that they are okay with it because when we consider Everypersons, we cannot bring specific knowledge into the situation." It seems fundamentally like it's competitive: two "agents" trying to be maximally self-protective while figuring out what they can get from each other.
Whereas I'm interested in more of a "how are we relating? how do we interact so that we are both content and secure in this situation? what is contouring this situation? what is present but unspoken in this situation? what are some likely outcomes of this situation based on the knowledge that I have? what duty of care do we have for each other? how can we recognize each other as complex individuals?"
Single is alternating between trying to discover more interesting ways to masturbate and figuring out if it's possible to get sex from someone you haven't met yet, who might be cruel about it, and who, like everyone else, has personal, deeply-conflicted feelings about it that you will only learn about during or after having sex with them.
This is definitely not universal. For some folks, single is alternating between being really relieved to have exclusive control over your life and environs and being really depressed at the prospect of being alone for the rest of your life.
There really seems like some sort of pan-single-unfogged arrangement that could be worked out.
Some kind of Moonie-style mass pair-off ceremony at the decacon, obvs.
857: I just read (within the last month or so) of a study that did sort-of that experiment. My memory is dodgy and a quick search does not turn up the link (I found it off Andrew Sullivan's site and he's just moved, causing problems with the archives) so take this with a grain of salt: The researchers posed the question in a way that eliminated pregnancy, STD, and social shaming risks, and the ratio of males to females accepting the proposition came out very close to 1.
I suspect that fear of shaming has as much if not more to do with women's reluctance to take up offers of casual sex as do worries about STDs, pregnancy, and lousy sex.
I feel like there will come a time in my life when I look back at my current celibacy as a period of profound damage to my sense of well-being, but it's been at least several months since it stopped feeling like an alarms-blaring emergency. Now it's just dull awfulness. But the rest of my life is flourishing in the absence of sex. My friendships are easier without sex. No one here thinks of me as an asshole. I have not been suspected of only being nice to people in order to get sex from them. That part is nice.
Great idea for a magazine article, "Can an eclectic web-magazine transform itself into a global sex club?"
I think that's right, if you interpret 'shaming' broadly. In my long-past and sadly unextensive history of casual sex, the sort of 'shaming' that was enough to keep my history of casual sex unextensive was largely sympathy from people being in some sense friendly; people willing to be pissed off at some guy on my behalf when there was no reason for it. Explaining "Honest, no, I jumped him more than the reverse and didn't call him the next day either, no need for any sympathy on my behalf" is surprisingly embarrassing.
I don't see how just removing sex from the equation would stop people from thinking of me as an asshole.
But they wouldn't know for sure.
It's a balance. Possibly fewer people would think of you as an asshole if you had sex with them more?
I'm certainly nice to people only to get things from them, but with most people, I'm after something besides sex.
What's Moby famous for? Bad sex and Swedish Fish, and he only has the bad sex to get to the Swedish Fish.
874: Aargh, you're right. Award withdrawn!
Possibly fewer people would think of you as an asshole if you had sex with them more?
Not if Moby specialized in anal.
I've often wondered if the campus casual sex experiment thing would have a different gender disparity if the propositioning person could somehow guarantee that no one would get pregnant, no one would get an STD, the sex would at least be decent, and no one would use it later as emotional blackmail
I don't think there's much to wonder about there except whether there will be enough rainbow ponies to go around in this beautiful new world.
830.2, 833: I think I was considering it advisable to contact the friend's wife in the situation in which they have children, and perhaps shared custody. (I just tend to think that I'd want to know if my kids' father were becoming suicidal.) I'm not sure the wife would be expected to do something about it.
trying to discover more interesting ways to masturbate
Google, google, masturbate, cry.
Frowner needs to string people along by spreading his comments over several consecutive entries. It's all about the narrative.
Frowner needs to string people along by spreading his comments over several consecutive entries.
If Frowner's had a sex change I'm sure she could go to a thousand comments single handed.
881: not an uninteresting way to masturbate, certainly.
I don't know. I usually start chafing around comment 600 or so.
Apo read too many comment threads as a teenager.
Where can I find the concise directory of former commenters/current lurkers to avoid that mistake?
You can't, don't worry about it, no one with any sense is offended by a wrong pronoun addressed to an ambiguous pseud, but people will correct you so you know going forward.
I mean just pick shorter thread to masturbate too and maybe use lube and you'll be fine. No need for any kind of directory.
Some kind of Moonie-style mass pair-off ceremony at the decacon, obvs.
When writing the words "people I was thrown together with for a few very intense days where we would shortly be going our separate ways again" I did think of Unfoggedydoodahthingy but I'm not very likely to attend.
There's going to be a metaphorical sex grotto.
We haven't yet determined if the grotto is going to be metaphorical, or if the grotto is real and just the sex is metaphorical.
885, 886: There are plenty of sex- and gender-neutral pronouns available, why not just use them whenever you don't know someone's sex or gender?
893: Alternatively, you could pull down the commenter's pants and check.
I assumed everyone was going to be very transgressive by only engaging in activities that are analogus to sex.
If the grotto is metaphorical, is the sex real? Or is the whole thing banned.
893: Because it's not always easy to remember that you don't know someone's gender? I've had people mis-sexed for years around here.
Candidates for intellectual fist-fucking report to grotto 17 aka 'the kitchen.'
Wanking available in all grottoes.
If not actual sex, there should at least be a mass sexing.
What is the sexual analogue of pwning? Pwning but with spelling errors to be precise.
857: Sing it.
I would like to add a Bayesian vs. frequentist fight to the agency argument, but am too tired. Maybe typing this will cause someone to pwn me.
I doubt I can make the unfggedydecahoedown, but if I do, I'm going to bring six elbow joints and a pipe wrench.
So much so that the they've removed the content. (Not really.)
96 posts to go, people. Each one a thesis!
And that whatever a combination of a thesis and antithesis would be.
879
830.2, 833: I think I was considering it advisable to contact the friend's wife in the situation in which they have children, and perhaps shared custody. (I just tend to think that I'd want to know if my kids' father were becoming suicidal.) I'm not sure the wife would be expected to do something about it.
Still no (IMO). The people who contacted me to let me know that they didn't think my son was safe with his dad were particularly enraging to me. What did they expect me to say? "Oh, wow, that comes as a total surprise, thanks so much for letting me know?" The answer was always, "Yes, thank you, I know that much better than you do, but there's this little thing called a legal system and another little thing called custody and fuck all that I can do about it." Not to sound bitter or anything. I do know that they meant well. But I can't think of a single one of those conversations that resulted in anything positive.
Plus, the "I think he's really depressed" conversation always has an implicit "do something" that goes with it, because really, the information alone is just saying, "hey, let me give you something to worry about." Obviously, I could be wrong. Maybe the wife is completely unaware of the scope of her husband's problems. But the fact that she was pushing counseling unsuccessfully makes me think not.
90 90 96 comments to go... I wanna be sedated
What did they expect me to say?
"Thanks. Will you testify to that at a custody hearing?"
Seriously, that sounds like useful information in that circumstance -- is it really not?
908: a couple of photons at about 1000 keV, if I recall correctly.
This is, of course, assuming the low energy case.
||
Hearkening back to the recent music thread, Joey Ramone's personal record collection can be yours. Or you can just read the list and draw whatever conclusions and reach whatever judgments you want.
Also, I learn that Carl Palmer is touring with something called ELP Legacy. And they are appearing on this Yes-centered Cruise to the Edge this March (or is that the one we talked about earlier).
|>
And they are appearing on this Yes-centered Cruise to the Edge this March
Is it a whole month or do they just do the one song?
Thanks. Will you testify to that at a custody hearing?"
Seriously, that sounds like useful information in that circumstance -- is it really not?
My clients constantly tell me about friends who really, really want to testify that the other parent is a bad parent or dangerous to the children. About 8/10, that friend has zero facts, but they just KNOW. Their opinion isnt helpful at all.
915: Both are possibly correct.
I can't tell you what a relief it was to see the comments by oudemia, Blume, rfts, and Cala. Their comments upthread (and other similar ones by other people) were what made me realize I had really fucked up with the way I described this and prompted me to write 757.
And once again, Frowner is 100% right.
(I'd elaborate but I haven't read the other thread yet.)
Gotta watch out for those multidrug resistant blowjob threads nowadays.
Having now read the other thread, it seems this one is still the more relevant.
Right, but the penguin joke is a classic.
Oh I thought he meant the thread where I made poop jokes by myself for like forty-five minutes.
I dunno they all kind of run together for me, too.
I found it by using the process of elimination.
930: It only lasts a couple of days from what I hear.
932: In that case maybe longer unless your tastes change.
It could be something else uh I'll keep a diary uh
veryone was going to be very transgressive by only engaging in activities that are analogus
You misspelled analingus.
Meanwhile I wish this fucking blizzard would hit already. Let's do this!
Anyway, while I will continue to think this incident over and process it, I'm glad that the furor over it at Unfogged seems to have died down and no one seems to be mad at me.
I do still want to elaborate a little bit on why I'm so steadfast in backing Frowner and her interpretations. Basically I think she really understands the context in which this happened in a way that no one else here seems to (except maybe Natilo, but he's been quiet since she showed up) and that people are misunderstanding what she's saying. She discussed this a bit in 449, but the key thing is that the problem here is not the history of Native-white relations (though that is important in providing the background context) but the conditions in which many, many Natives are living now. In general, Native American communities have astronomical rates of domestic violence and sexual assault. Alaska, which has the largest relative Native proportion of any state (~15%), has similarly high rates of these crimes, concentrated largely among Natives. In recent years this has become a major issue in the state and combating it has been a high priority for the current governor.
That's the context in which this incident occurred, and in that light my behavior really was worse than it might have been in some hypothetical other situation sharing some of the same characteristics. It's a virtual certainty that that girl has been sexually assaulted at least once in her life, probably more than once. Given that, and the fact that it's also likely that her life for at least the past few years has basically involved being treated as a sex object in various ways by various people, I really shouldn't have done anything sexual with her at all. Not because my actions were necessarily all that damaging to her directly, but because contributing to that environment of abuse and objectification of extremely vulnerable women is wrong and I should have known better.
And the thing is, I did know better. I knew all this before, and it was the main thing running through my head the whole time, from the moment I first opened the door and saw her there begging for help. It's why I rebuffed her advances the first few times, and I why I knew I should have rebuffed the final one even as I succumbed to temptation and didn't. It wasn't yet clear to me at that point just how out of it she was, but there was certainly enough evidence that something was off about her behavior that it was not 100% clear that she was thinking rationally and that her advances stemmed from actual desire rather than the drugs or whatever. And given the context described above, that really has to be the standard in a situation like this.
The governor's campaign against domestic violence and sexual assault is called Choose Respect, and I think that really encapsulates my failing here. I had a choice of whether to treat her respectfully or to treat her the way she and many other women like her have been treated by too many men before. I tried to stick to the respectful choice but ultimately failed, and even though the immediate effects of that choice on her were and remain unclear they can't have been good. It wasn't the worst thing in the world to have done, but it was a bad thing.
I've been thinking about what to do at this point, and I think the best choice is probably to donate to both of the organizations I mentioned above, AWAIC and STAR. This isn't really a way of making amends for my actions, but it's a good thing to do anyway, and this experience has certainly brought the reality of this social problem home to me in a very personal way. No good came out of this encounter for either me or her, but if I donate to these organizations hopefully I can make things a little better for other people like her.
937: Ah yeah, I meant to make a nod in the direction of acknowledging that I fucked that one up. And I seem to have outsourced some of my personal error identification to Mr. Blandings.
Well, there was no way I was going to be as eloquent about this as Frowner, so it seemed to make sense to step back a bit. I did have one other thought about all of this, but it really wasn't that germane to the direction the conversation went, nor probably all that interesting/significant.
I am glad that you, teo, have taken this opportunity to reflect and hopefully at some point there will be a positive outcome to all of this. Of course, there is trauma here that should not be minimized or elided, but at the same time, losing oneself in a morass of recriminations doesn't really get much done either.
Looking at all this from a more meta perspective, I think the whole business does say some interesting things about the way we conceptualize justice and community here on the blog. I hope that, ultimately, those are concepts that will advance based on what we say here, despite the ephemeral and non-serious nature of most of what goes on.
So yeah. Not super eloquent this late at night with a huge amount of work to do before I go home for the day. Sigh.
teofilo's intelligent self-reflection almost led me not to comment, but that would be silly.
I would be happy to have a casual encounter with someone I know - with several someones, though probably not together- if I somehow knew they were going to have their memory wiped the next day
this is why I've been so much happier since I learned the 'obliviate' charm, I can tell you.
--Fellatrix LaStrange (I can't change my pseud after like 8 years but this is soooo tempting.)
Thanks for commenting again, Frowner; 860 was really well-put, and I've been thinking it over all day.
teofilo's intelligent self-reflection almost led me not to comment,
I know, why does he have to be so preternaturally thoughtful and well-written?
911:
Seriously, that sounds like useful information in that circumstance -- is it really not?
Short answer, no.
Longer answer, that's not really how custody works anymore (in CA, anyway.) Conceivably, I could have asked them to let a mediator interview them, but I didn't need the help. I wound up with sole custody in the end. It just took a long, long time. My divorce lasted a lot longer than my marriage. And the standards for the sort of emergency hearing that would lead to immediate supervised visitation are higher than any of the stuff that motivated vague phone calls to me. Of course if you ever witness a parent actually abusing a child, reporting it is the right thing to do -- but I wouldn't start with reporting it to the other parent.
940: Think of what you're saying. Native women are victims. They're broken. Because of their situation, they have a diminished ability to make decisions, so they need you to make the decisions they can't. You're saying it nicely, but it's still what you're saying.
Given the facts of the situation, you should have known that the woman was high, and therefore making decisions that she would regret later. So the problem was that she was high, not that she was Native.
All of which reminds me to recommend*, as decent light reading for those who like crime fiction, Dana Stabenow's Kate Shugak books (set in Alaska). As well as paperbacks there are some good value ebook omnibuses of the first few and the next few.
*On checking to see if this was where I heard of them in the first place, I can see a mention from Witt but a long time ago.
People have a certain responsibility to move the world in the direction of being more just rather than less. There's not much you can do to say, overthrow the patriarchy, but to the extent that you can do small things you should. So if teo's behavior is something which fits into a larger narrative of oppression of Alaska Natives, then there's a good argument for behaving differently.
I still think that what teo did wasn't that bad, and maybe even wasn't bad at all, but I think it's reasonable to say it also wasn't good or helpful and thereby reinforced a larger societal bad.
947.1: The point isn't that Native American women are incapable of making decisions. The point is that social and cultural factors are relevant in evaluating the potential that you might be taking advantage of someone in a particular situation.
I'm kind of uncomfortable even with the rephrasing in 950. Saying a whole people group can be assumed to be less capable of making good decisions on average and so you should presumptively treat them as less competent is not ok.
This isn't about her being Native, this is about teo being white.
I think there's something fundamentally wrong with the framing that having a heightened level of concern for someone else's wellbeing is an insult to them. Teo wasn't under any obligation to have sex with her if she had been fully competent, and choosing not to have sex with her, even out of concern for her welfare, does not seem to me to be treating her as less competent.
That is, if she'd been trying to leave his apartment, and he'd restrained her on the grounds that she was an Alaska Native and therefore needed someone responsible to care for her, so she couldn't leave until he contacted social services on her behalf, that would have been treating her as less competent. Not accepting a blow job? Seems to me to be in a completely different category.
952, 953 -- I think all people are saying is that there's something a little weird, perhaps, in Teo feeling MORE guilty about this encounter than he would have in an otherwise absolutely identical encounter with a white person.
949/951 seem about right to me.
I found the language about heightened concern based off of prior information much more convincing than when it was framed as problem with agency and power relations.
951: But 950 isn't intended to suggest that a whole people group is less capable of making decisions. I'm just saying knowledge of social, cultural economic conditions is relevant in the process of assessing whether accepting a generous offer from this particular, specific woman -- who showed up crying for help, confused Teo with a rock star, etc., etc. -- might be taking advantage.
I think all people are saying is that there's something a little weird, perhaps, in Teo feeling MORE guilty about this encounter than he would have in an otherwise absolutely identical encounter with a white person.
See, I don't think that's weird at all.
Let me just say this -- for myself, in the very few occasions where I've had social interactions which were distinctly outside of my experience/comfort zone/social milieu when I thought through them afterwards I was conscious of how much my behavior was affected by sub-conscious reactions. The degree to which I did or didn't feel like the person was somebody I was comfortable interacting with (on a sub-conscious level) was a pretty strong reaction.
I would definitely say, of those events, that I don't know how things would have played out if the person had been of a different race/class than they were and, more importantly, that I don't know how the interaction would have proceeded.
The actual events were so contingent on rapid sub-conscious decisions, that I can't predict what would have happened if that had been different.
So, yeah, my intuition is that race and class matter a lot -- particularly in a fundamentally confusing interaction.
Anyway, the writer was thinking about how she really only has an orgasm with a partner she trusts, and yet felt like she had enjoyed and got something out of casual sex anyway.
My wife of over a decade now apparently was multiply orgasmic with previous partners, but never - not once - with me. She insists, of course, that the above distinction roughly applies - that her orgasms with me are fulfilling such that she's not wanting or able to have another - but that's awfully hard to believe.
just use them whenever you don't know someone's sex or gender
Had a recent near-miss on gender in a review. Japanese place [co-?]owned by an Anglo guy, but the sushi chef (at least the night we visited) was an Anglo woman. We noted that in the review (it fit in with the lede, not important on its own of course), but then an online commenter said, that's no woman, that's the owner. Our editor emailed, and I wrote that the sushi chef was like 5-2 with very feminine features, but I didn't actually check for genitalia, so I couldn't be certain. Turned out the commenter was being dumb, but Cripes. I've never had to fact-check gender for a review before (not that it comes up often).
Gender mistakes are socially very weird, because there are a fair number of ambiguous looking people out there (if you count babies and little kids, lots and lots and lots) but the reaction to a mistake is as if it's a serious insult/faux pas. I've told stories about my androgynous youth, and while people getting my sex wrong didn't bother me all that much, it consistently bothered the hell out of them.
Which is to say that in a sane world, if you had been wrong it would have been no big deal. But in this one it clearly is.
Gender pet peeve! I'm getting a lot of comments about how Hokey Pokey will be surrounded by girls, and poor Pokey! and general shaking of their heads because he'll be so outnumbered by the truckloads of estrogen and pink that's a-coming. I'm finding it incredibly obnoxious.
It really is obnoxious. Brace yourself for people looking at a bunch of rowdy kids and blaming all the rowdiness on the one boy in the bunch as well.
961: Are they aware that Jammies is not a girl? Give me a fucking break!
What an odd thing to say. It's as if you think that a man would be involved in interacting with his children.
964: I know, I know. We've had five of six calls about boys 2-5 in the last week or so, so I imagine we'll end up with a boy soon and I'm very curious whether anyone will say anything about it or whether Lee counts as sufficiently masculine that people don't worry about his RDA of sports or whatever. I don't remember people saying much about Alex, but I was so sleep-deprived I'm not sure I'd remember anyway.
her orgasms with me are fulfilling such that she's not wanting or able to have another - but that's awfully hard to believe.
Why is that hard to believe? We guys only ever get one orgasm at a time, and I don't think that leaves us unfulfilled.
I figure the worry is less "One orgasm isn't enough" and more "How come sex with me involves fewer orgasms than with any of her prior partners?" Not worrying about it is probably the right reaction -- they've been married ten years and she's not complaining -- but I could see where the worry comes from.
I'm finding it incredibly obnoxious.
More obnoxious than a dead baby?
"How come sex with me involves fewer orgasms than with any of her prior partners?"
I would assume that with those other dudes, the orgasms were little halfway things that, individually, didn't really get the job done.
Not worrying about it is probably the right reaction . . . but I could see where the worry comes from.
Indeed. And if simply not worrying about it is not an option, then it might be best to begin a discussion with her in terms of "Is there anything you'd like me to do for you that I'm not doing? Or something you'd like me to do differently?" Implicit or explicit comparisons with past partners are best left out of the discussion entirely.
why does he have to be so preternaturally thoughtful and well-written?
It's the post orgasmic clarity of thought.
967 & 969 are of course what I prefer to believe, but preferences don't really affect gnawing insecurity.
OK, maybe not gnawing, but it's been a decade and I haven't forgotten about that irrelevant fact about her history.
970: I believe I asked this when it first came up, but she assured me that I shouldn't worry. And believe me, I don't on any regular basis. But as I say, it's the sort of thing you can't un-know.
it's the sort of thing you can't un-know
Which makes it a not so great thing for her to have mentioned in the first place.
On the other hand, if she felt secure enough in the level of honesty and openness in your relationship to have mentioned that detail, then she was likely being similarly honest when she told you that it's not something you need to worry about.
Way back in 857, AWB was talking about that horrible study where random students proposition people on campus and women (shockingly!) are not into the idea of having sex with a random fellow student who appears on Main Quad and says, "Hey, let's knock boots." Re 865, I think togolosh was thinking of this interesting study, which instead questionnaires, including a thought experiment where the students (male and female) were on vacation in LA and got propositioned at a bar by a celebrity. Among the paper's assertions is that the Clark and Hatfield study (the "knock boots" campus survey) is an incredibly fucking terrible way to get a sense about women's actual feelings about sexuality because, shocko, they are likely to view that sort of proposition as unsafe.
which fits into a larger narrative of oppression of Alaska Natives
Man, now all my blowjobs feel just shallow and trite because I don't think any of them fit into any kind of larger narrative. What if the Mormons are right and all the natives here are just descendants of Jews with an enthusiasm for boating? Is it better or worse if Teo's oppressing a member of his own tribe?
952: If you have a heightened concern for her well-being, then there must be some other person who's well-being you can care about less, right? Who is this mythical person who can show up at your door, high, rambling with paranoia, thinking you are a rock star, that it's _more_ okay to sleep with?
The relevant fact is the "not in her right mind". If she was in her right mind, then saying that by passively accepting a sexual proposition you might be taking advantage of her is straightforwardly treating Native women as less adult than white women.
977: I don't have a strong opinion, but I think that, given teo's then-understanding of her state (a little off, but not out of her mind), it's not hard to compare the situation with being in a dorm room and having a tipsy (but not shit-faced) white college girl (with all the implicit privilege) come to the door, and the odds that accepting the BJ is a shitty thing to do in that woman's life shrink to something very small. Not only is she less likely to be coming from a dark place (both in the short and long terms), but also she's less likely to experience the occasion as more than an embarrassing incident.
There is an element of assumption and presumption, but heuristics are all we have, especially in a situation like that. White college student = 90% likely to be unaffected by the situation; Eskimo girl in sketchy apt building = 10% likely to be unaffected by the situation. Or however you want to assign the numbers, but they're pretty far apart.
I might add that my experience with the young woman in Brasilia was somewhat fraught with this as well; she had some lower SES markers (although she was attending some sort of secretarial school, to the office of which she took me, which was so weird), and that played into my discomfort with the whole dynamic (I'll admit that I also felt some fear - not of being attacked or whatever, but A. of being somehow scammed, and B. of STD, which would have been awfully hard to explain to BOGF).
!918: I don't remember if I said that it struck me as out of character for you, but I remember thinking it, for what it's worth.
961: Ugh. I suspect people get excited about the gender of the baby because really, there's not much else to talk about, but how obnoxious. Baby clothing is the worst. The boys must be stamped with monkeys. (I suspect marketers of trying to kill the market for hand-me-downs)
976: silly gswift, there are no blowjobs in Utah.
976: silly gswift, there are no blowjobs in Utah.
I'm pretty sure gswift is in possession of a letter to the editor of a campus newspaper attesting otherwise.
Posted to this very blog, in fact, though I can't find it in TFA.
If you find it, neb, don't link it - type it into 17 consecutive comments.
978.2: I don't see how that isn't literally an argument about diminished capacity of people with less privilege to make decisions.
Seconding JRoth in 978. When I was studying in Guatemala, I was much more at ease flirting with a French Canadian in my school* than with a local girl -- it felt as if we both knew the same rules of the game, if you'll pardon the expression. I'm sure there is plenty of happy Native-Euro blowjobbery, but I would feel out of my depth in a casual encounter -- chemical impairment aside -- because I feel much more comfortable communicating about desire and implied commitments within my own cultural/SES group, when the effects of privilege are muted.
*after two language-school affairs canadiens I wrote a song about it. "I could name one or two I kissed / once a time when we was both pissed / she was something of a socialist / 'cause she was Canadian"
*two separate summers/language programs. The previous summmer, as I'm sure is not at all evident from the butchery in 985, was a French program in Quebec.
boys must be stamped with monkeys
For realz? Rory was stamped with monkeys enough during her childhood that it's one of her nicknames. I had no idea I was being a gender nonconformist (in that particular instance).
including a thought experiment where the students (male and female) were on vacation in LA and got propositioned at a bar by a celebrity
"The men were Brad Pitt and Carrot Top." I know Carrot Top is supposed to be "the unattractive celebrity," but I remember reading a Carrot Top profile in Campus magazine in the mid 90's that showed him selecting which college girl he would sleep with after a show.
984: Because it's an argument about diminished capacity of people with more privilege to make decisions.
975: That is the very study I was badly remembering.
984: But it's not about capacity to consent (although the tipsiness means that the blower is presumed to be making suboptimal decisions for herself); it's about exploitability.
It's like the Louis CK bit about how you can't insult a white guy (about his race or gender) - the more privilege you have, the more shit can roll off your back. The Blowjob Queen of Harvard might have some issues, but she'll probably be OK. The Blowjob Queen of Nome? Less likely to be OK in general, and therefore less likely to have no negative effects from an ill-considered BJ.
I get the patronizing angle, but I don't think that taking advantage* of someone who's (likely to be) weak is striking a blow for empowerment.
*and isn't that the apt phrase? Teo has every advantage on this woman. There's a chance, of course, that she just loves giving head, or that she loves discomfiting guys with incoherent BJ ambushes, but those are much less likely than less savory assumptions.
987: Girls may be stamped with either monkeys or flowers. I am uncertain as to how ruffles figure into it, but they seem to be required also.
I remember reading a Carrot Top profile in Campus magazine in the mid 90's
I also have a very distinct memory of that article.
984: This isn't an argument in itself. But what you're saying here keeps on sounding like "Looks like the liberals are the real racists here! Ever think of that?"
I'm trying to think of a circumstance where someone applying the sort of heuristics Frowner and others are suggesting in terms of considering the effects someone's ethnicity have probably had on their prior experiences, and how that should play into treating them with respect, would backfire, and I'm not coming up with it. How do you see that sort of concern actually insulting or injuring anyone, ever?
994: Our brain attics have some stupid-ass furniture, Watson.
I'm going to risk a slight analogy here: in an office environment, asking a peer to get you some coffee (because s/he's up, because you're right in the middle of something) is no big deal. Asking the new, low level*, African-American female employee is fraught. Right?
Now, to your point, at some point it would be a sign of acceptance and peerhood to ask her to get coffee, once everybody's bona fides are established and it's clear that you would, in fact, get her coffee sometimes as well. But on the first day? All sorts of problems, even though failing to treat her as a peer is in some ways patronizing.
*it probably doesn't work with a newly hired peer either, but at least there you can pretty quickly establish equity and office culture
987: She's also known as "that girl whose mom can't close tags properly".
the more privilege you have, the more shit can roll off your back.
Some people have just never had to take a joke.
992: I think there's also the issue that the young woman was a complete stranger, and nothing was known about her individual history. In such a case, the fact that she belongs to a group where sexual abuse is more prevalent than in the general population is a factor worth considering, as it means her behavior may be more likely to be based on thoughts of "this is what I do not to get hurt" rather than "this is what I freely choose to do because I like to do it."
she loves discomfiting guys with incoherent BJ ambushes
THAT'S WHAT I'M TALKING ABOUT!
1000: Not to mention, if the incoherent BJ ambush was in a dark corner of a packed nightclub, you could overlook some discomfort that would be more germane in your apartment building before you'd left for work.
995.last: Well, in my rule-breaking analogy of 997, being overly solicitous of the new minority (read token?) hire can seem very white guiltish and off-putting. Being treated as one of the group* is generally preferable.
OTOH, in the actual teo situation, the woman's concern with being accepted as a peer is a reduced consideration, and all that we're really left with is "I'm so deeply flawed that the guy with the awesome hat** and the towel wouldn't even let me suck him off." Which is an awfully self-serving imagining of her inner dialogue.
*with the caveat that, all too often, "the group" is frattish white men
**I know he says he doesn't wear the hat anymore, but the story makes even less sense without it
if the incoherent BJ ambush was in a dark corner of a packed nightclub
This is why I needed more info before I visited SoCal.
The predominant girl theme seems to be cupcakes. I don't know how long this has been around since this is our first girl, but it's all cupcakes from top to bottom.
If nothing else, Walt and Grover did the hard work of pushing the thread to 1000.
995
I'm trying to think of a circumstance where someone applying the sort of heuristics Frowner and others are suggesting in terms of considering the effects someone's ethnicity have probably had on their prior experiences, and how that should play into treating them with respect, would backfire, and I'm not coming up with it. How do you see that sort of concern actually insulting or injuring anyone, ever?
Well if it means that some guys end up never asking anyone of lower status for a date this seems like a sort of injury.
Grover's wife's exes would have been able to do it without help from Walt.
1005: We so thoroughly avoided that crap with Iris that I don't even remember what every other girl was wearing (aside from Princesses, of course). Iris was duly dressed in gender-neutral solids and stripes (OK maybe the striped tights were somewhat gender-marked).
For boys I wouldn't say monkeys nearly so much as camo dinosaur robots. And trucks.
I abhor camo on small boys.
diminished capacity of people with more privilege to make decisions
It sees kind of significant to clarify whether y'all are talking about "diminished capacity to make decisions of people-with-more-privilege" or "diminished capacity of people with more-privilege-to-make-decisions."
1008: Don't take this away from me. This is my only accomplishment in life.
995: Given the facts of the situation, I don't see how the heuristics even come up. It's not "liberals are the real racists," it's "world ending -- women and minorities hurt." The woman was clearly out of her mind. I have trouble believing that your advice to teo would have been different if she'd been the heir to the Walton fortune.
And you don't think there's anything problematic about a heuristic where the Blow Job Queen of Harvard is just having fun, but we need to figure out what pathology drives the Blow Job Queen of Nome to do what she does? Where hedonistic rich people are just having fun, while hedonistic poor people are acting out of trauma?
Well if it means that some guys end up never asking anyone of lower status for a date this seems like a sort of injury.
This makes some assumptions about the value of being asked for a date by such guys.
"world ending -- women and minorities hurt."
Growing up with the Bucks County Courier Times, our local version of this was "BUCKS MAN DIES IN NUCLEAR WAR" (obvs The Onion has figured this out.)
Speaking for myself, I do wonder. I saw somewhere recently that the link between childhood abuse and adult abusers is somewhere between thin and specious - our (liberal) assumptions about how society is to blame may not hold. We may have constructed a whole edifice about how damaged people behave vs. how functional people behave that doesn't stand up to empirical facts.
But, at least wrt sex, I'm still left with the fact that people who grow up in sexually fucked up situations - whether abuse or just crippling guilt/dysfunction - seem to find sex much more fraught and problematic than people who've grown up in basically sex-positive/non-judgmental situations. And if you agree with that premise, then it doesn't seem a big stretch to say that doing hinky* things with someone who (probably) is in the former category is more problematic than doing the same things with someone who (probably) is in the latter.
* not a typo
1012: Well surely no one wants her horizons unfairly limited?
I'm pretty sure gswift is in possession of a letter to the editor of a campus newspaper attesting otherwise.
I laughed the first time I read that letter. I laughed again just now.
Walt's totally right that the immediate mistake I made was not realizing she was high, and whatever the direct consequences of this encounter have been for her, my culpability really hinges on that misjudgment. (I think everyone else agrees with this, too, but Walt said it very clearly.)
He's wrong about the rest, though, and JRoth in particular has given some very good reasons why. The fact that she was Native doesn't make it any more wrong to have not realized she was high, but it made it exceptionally important for me to have made absolutely sure she was in her right mind before accepting her advances. This is because the potential consequences for her if I fucked up and judged wrong (as I did in this case) were exceptionally likely to be bad. Doing something similar to a white girl would have been equally wrong but less likely to have devastating consequences for her, if I were judging purely by her race. (In practice I think a white girl who ended up in this situation would be about equally likely to have come from a difficult background, making the same considerations apply.)
There's also just the fact that her race and likely background was very, very salient for me throughout the whole incident. It's a big part of my perception of what happened even if it wasn't a strictly necessary part of my mistake, and that's why I've focused on it here.
I don't remember if I said that it struck me as out of character for you, but I remember thinking it, for what it's worth.
Thanks, that's reassuring. I'm pretty sure you didn't say it (though I'm sure as hell not going to wade back into that part of the thread to see), because reading your comment in particular made me think "oh shit, if Cala thinks that's what I was doing I must have seriously fucked up in how I described this."
In practice I think a white girl who ended up in this situation would be about equally likely to have come from a difficult background, making the same considerations apply.
This is exactly my point.
And to address another of your points, if this same girl had propositioned me under other circumstances where she was obviously totally sober and not under any other sort of mental duress that would have affected her judgment, I would totally have said yes and had no qualms about it. This isn't about Native women lacking agency or the ability to consent.
I still feel like I haven't really explained what happened very well; most of the subsequent comments seem to be reacting to various plausible interpretations of what I said that are nevertheless different from what I actually remember happening. This is understandable, of course, since the incident was so weird and so different from anything I had experienced before and, I suspect, from anything anyone else commenting here has experienced. Still, it's frustrating.
1020, 1021: I think that a correct identification of meth probably does make other heuristics less relevant; it's a drug that afaik is almost exclusively the purview of people with shitty circumstances, so.... OTOH, if all you have is "maybe she's high?", then I think that a white woman, with no signs of being strung out or wasted or whatever, is perfectly likely just to be a bit of a party girl or whatever, whereas that's less likely to be the case for an Eskimo.
One thing I've thought about in this context is the West Virginia kids on Buckwild (is that even still on the air?). They're in economic straits, and their accents mark them as lower class (whether anyone would admit it or not), but as moderately functional white kids they've got plenty of agency and opportunity. Yet I think it wouldn't be hard to view one of them as being in the same situation as teo's acquaintance. Except I'd be inclined to say that yes, it would be worse with the Eskimo, again for privilege reasons.
Does that make sense to anyone else? White UMC collegian is the starkest contrast in terms of privilege/resources, but I think even white hillbilly* is (likely to be) in a distinct circumstance.
*I don't like the term
I think that a correct identification of meth probably does make other heuristics less relevant; it's a drug that afaik is almost exclusively the purview of people with shitty circumstances, so....
Yeah, I think that's probably true. Of course I was not aware at the time that she was on meth. After poking around on Erowid a bit last night I've come to the conclusion that it most likely was meth or something similar that she was on. Still, if that's how people on meth act then my stereotypes about people on meth are way off (or, more likely, there's a wide range of reactions to meth and this was a very different one from what you usually hear about).
OTOH, if all you have is "maybe she's high?", then I think that a white woman, with no signs of being strung out or wasted or whatever, is perfectly likely just to be a bit of a party girl or whatever, whereas that's less likely to be the case for an Eskimo.
I didn't even have this, though. It didn't even occur to me that it was drugs making her act so weird until the whole thing was over. At the time I could tell something weird was going on with her but I had no idea at all what could be causing it, and I kept expecting her to calm down any minute and waiting for that to happen so I could get her to explain what was going on. Obviously that never happened.
Hi Teo! I like your comments in 940. I think you're approaching this about as decently as somebody could, and I am really happy, honestly, to see a straight dude (especially a white straight dude) admit that he did something Not That Great sexually speaking instead of try to handwave the situation away. This is very, very rare in my experience, sadly. I think donating to those funds is a good idea - as you say, not to "make up" for what you did, but as a way of acknowledging that wrong was done.
I actually talked to one of my friends who has been through a lot of bad stuff - don't want to give a lot of details - and has some background similar to this girl. I didn't give my friend the whole chapter and verse of the situation, but did ask some questions relevant to it. My friend actually said right away that this sounded like meth (which everyone seems to have figured out) and that coming down from meth can make you really horny, and the type of life you lead when you're in a bad situation like that can make you really lonely and those two things together can lead to some sad situations. My friend also connected this to abuse and really sad stuff happening when you're young. Obviously, this is only anecdote and not data, but it's pretty decent anecdote.
My friend did also talk about race and drug use and abuse and racism and vulnerability, and did not seem to think that saying "Native women face more sexual assault than white women and it's worth being extra thoughtful about that" was a way of saying "women of color are uniquely broken, all of them".
I want to reiterate, because maybe I didn't say it well when I was trying the first time, that the issue is always "what do I know about this person that can help me treat them with kindness and justice?" If you don't have any other information, general information about a group is valuable. For instance, if you met me, you might think "hm, many visibly gender-nonconforming people have some concerns about safe bathroom access (due to people misgendering them and flipping out) and feel cared-for when someone asks what pronouns they use rather than risk misgendering them." As it happens, neither of those things are big concerns of mine, so as you gained more information about me, you would treat me as I the individual preferred to be treated - and it would be weird and patronizing to ignore the specific information in favor of the general. However, if you met me and had no information about me, it would actually be both thoughtful and useful to draw on your knowledge of how gender-non-conforming people experience the world. In that situation, you would be using as specific and personal information as you had - information about me as a representative gender non-conforming person - as opposed to the very general information about the average human. Similarly, it would be gross and racist to treat every Native woman as if she were the victim of terrible abuse, and really offensive to ignore a friend's actual lived experience and wishes in favor of some generality, but it would also be pretty gross and racist to romp along in one's daily life ignoring the fact that Native women face more risks of harm. (For example, many Native activists whose work I have read and one I have met socially are actually pretty cautious about stuff that sexualizes Native women as a group - burlesque routines, porn, cheesecake pictures, "sexy Pocahontas" Halloween costumes, that kind of thing. Not because Native women don't have sexual autonomy but because there exists a powerful and dangerous public discourse that Native women can be abused with no moral or social consequences, that their sexuality is already a kind of public property. The point isn't "let's censor stuff"; the point is, "how is it best for someone who does not want to participate in the racist discourse around Native women's sexuality to act?")
What I'm trying to get at is that we should all use the best information we have at our disposal to treat the person in front of us as well as possible (which is what they should be doing right back at us), and that sometimes the best information is going to be general. I think the best relationship is one where you have some personal trust and information, so that you're not flailing around awkwardly deciding whether it is too early to ask the new hire to participate in the ritual of taking turns to grab coffee for everyone, and I think one of the best ways to get there is to share information directly and honestly ("Hey Linda, I'm going to get coffee now - everyone in this work group always takes turns since we are all coffee-drinking fiends. Do you want a mug?")
I wanted to add something too - somewhere in the past couple of days, gswift wrote something about a trans woman, referring to her as a "tranny". I don't have it in me to go find that comment, but I have to tell you, 'foggetariat, that actual trans women very frequently regard that word as a slur, particularly when non-trans women use it. It's diminishing and it's not nice and if you're in queer and trans circles it marks you as someone who does not know where things are at. On a personal level, one of my best friends is a trans woman, and if anyone calls her a tranny in my hearing, I will certainly defer to her wishes in terms of how to handle it, but my first impulse toward the speaker is... not strongly positive. (Also, it makes her feel bad when people use that word, and honestly she has enough on her plate.)
Hi Frowner! Thanks for weighing back in. I'm really glad you approve of how I'm dealing with this, and I'm especially thankful that you talked about it to your friend. Of all the people who have heard about this she sounds like the one with the most insight into what was probably going on.
I don't really disagree with anything in 1026.
1026 is great. Nice to see you again, Frowner.
gswift wrote something about a trans woman, referring to her as a "tranny"...if you're in queer and trans circles it marks you as someone who does not know where things are at.
Of course I don't know where things are at. Obviously it's good to know it's a term to avoid but this is a source of irritation. word as a slur, particularly when non-trans women use it Look godamnit, if you're a member of a group that's a tiny tiny percentage of the population people are by default going to be unfamiliar with the ins and outs of your clique and they're going to take their cues from your language. The word is a shortened version of an accepted terminology and thrown around all the time (at least in my limited experience) by members of that group. To then turn around and be all "hey noob don't you know where things are at" like I'm getting Ru Paul's newsletter is a bit annoying.
and thrown around all the time (at least in my limited experience) by members of that group
This surprises me. Your experience is different from mine.
It seems plausible that the difference in experience might be largely explained by the fact that I'm guessing that gswift's experience as a police officer of trans people is not just primarily with the sex worker community but disproportionately with that portion of the sex worker community that gets arrested frequently. At which point I'll bet there are going to be points of usage that are noticeably distinct from that of trans people generally.
(Or , to be somewhat less pompous about it, it makes perfect sense to me that people who are interacting with the cops might also throwing slurs around to describe themselves and people like them pretty freely. We're talking about people under a lot of stress here.)
It seems plausible, even likely, that the trans women that gswift interacts with in his daily life may not have a whole lot in common with the trans women parsimon interacts with on a regular basis.
A lot of the ones I "know" are transients and/or sex workers. My favorite by far is Roxy the giant Samoan who's always been nice as hell to me. She has an apartment but she's got a soft spot for hard luck cases and we end up over there on a regular basis not because of her but because of the various less mellow sorts she tries to help by letting them crash there.
That sort of pwnage is what I get for trying to comment while playing a game in the other window.
My vague feeling, which is probably wrong, is that one of the reasons that "tranny" is offensive is that it has a prostitution connotation. But if that's the case, it could explain actual sex workers being less bothered by it.
Thanks for the explanation provided by 1033.
like I'm getting Ru Paul's newsletter is a bit annoying
I don't know anything about a newsletter but if you're not watching RuPaul's reality show you really should be, because it's fantastic.
(Not that RuPaul or anybody on the show is trans. It's just a good show.)
The transexuals I have known personally have run the gamut from hilarious narcoleptic Nintendo-addicted trick-bringing-home fetish queen to brilliant but fairly shy and quiet self-taught electrical engineer/musician (and current CS/EE PhD student). The former I can hella imagine going on about tranny this, tranny that. The latter I would be really shocked to hear it from.
Also, the former I can imagine having some professional interaction with gswift, the latter not in a million years.
A million years isn't really that long, you know.
