I read a post on “My friend group has a case of the Creepy Dude. How do we clear that up?” over on Captain Awkward with growing horror and recognition. It combines two letters asking for advice about dudes in social groups who act inappropriately to the point where sexual assaults have occurred or are very likely to occur, yet the SOs and male friends of the letter writers refuse to step up, back up their partners, and team up to cut these dudes out of the social groups.
There’s so much good stuff about solving these problems in that post that I don’t even want to quote because you really do need to read it all.
The post is particularly apropos right now since the issue of sexual harassment at conventions and conferences is getting much attention due to recent happenings at ReaderCon (a literary science fiction/fantasy focused convention) which led to some other cons (both genre and not) reiterating, bolstering or creating anti-harassment policies. This is good news and an unexpectedly good outcome for the whole ReaderCon thing.
Not everyone is happy about the outcome, as this post and subsequent comments show. When I read the Captain Awkward post it struck me how the situation those two women find themselves in where a creeper guy is excused by members of the group who haven’t ever been the targets of his harassment and thus don’t see what the big deal is (plus, he’s fun to hang out with and has the best table for gaming, GOD WHY CAN’T YOU STOP BEING A BITCH?) tracks so closely to the shit coming from the convention crowd who defend the ReaderCon harasser and any number of other dudes who harass.
Though the people you deal with at conventions may not be your regular social group, it’s just as important to deal with the creeper guys there (and in a similar fashion) as it is to deal with them where you live. Beyond having good anti-harassment policies at the executive level of the convention, you and your friends or peer group should have an anti-harassment policy amongst yourselves. No matter how much that creeper guy is cool or fun to hang out with, no matter if he’s an editor or an agent or a SMOF or someone else you feel you should know and be nice to for career purposes, that person should not be allowed to creep on, touch, and harass your friends (or anyone else).
When you go to conventions, have each other’s backs. Keep track of the dudes who are too often noted for being creepy and close ranks to shut them out. Guys, don’t let your female friends be the only ones looking out for each other like this (because we often are, even if you don’t know it).
And if that creeper does something out of line and you know about it, give the harassed person your unconditional support and make sure they know that if they choose to report it, you will back them up. Some people aren’t comfortable coming forward, but if there’s a way you can do so on their behalf (with their permission), please do so. It helps, it really does.
Any time you have someone’s back in cases like this you’re fighting back against rape culture, which allows these kinds of creeper guys to get away with their behavior.
Why It’s Important To Cut That Creeper Guy From Your Social Group -- Originally posted at The Angry Black Woman
I find this post to be (maybe unintentionally) sexist.
Lots of “shoulds” in there. You want men to solve a problem for you, and you rely on shaming language and appeals to chivalry to get them to work for you.
If someone in the group is behaving in an illegal fashion, report him to the police. If you simply don’t like his personality, you have to be a grownup and confront the problem yourself, and not expect that men will help the damsel in distress.
I think the basic point of this post is a good one, but the failure to define specifically what behaviors make a person a “creeper guy” hurts this. I’ve heard “creeper” and “creepy” used to describe guys who were socially awkward more than I’ve heard those terms used to describe inappropriate sexually forward behavior, but I suspect the latter is what you were talking about?
Edited to add: Actually, the linked article is very specific about the types of behavior in question.
@Raya
This is literally nothing to do with being a Damsel in Distress. If you read the link in question, both letter writers have already taken mature and logical steps to phase these creeper guys out of their lives, including appealing to male partners and friends who continue to invite said creeper places where there will be female friends for him to creep on. Which is not an unreasonable step, and certainly not asking to be “saved”. The problem then arose when they encountered a wall of YOUR CONCERNS ARE NOT LEGIT BECAUSE HE’S A FUN GUY from male partners and friends. Creeper here being defined as anyone engaging in consistent sexual harassment.
The problem, as the Captain points out, is that a man who thinks it okay to randomly fondle women after a couple of drinks generally doesn’t put much stock on the opinion of women, because he doesn’t really view women as people, they’re just places to stick his dick. So, without real consequences, i.e. “disapproval & pushback from dudes and dude society”, creepy guy is just going to keep on creeping. He doesn’t care how many women he alienates, because women are just interchangeable pairs of tits to him, and there’ll always be some around!
So yes, basically, it would super-awesome if men (male partners and friends specifically) would stop dismissing “Hey, your friend keeps trying to pull my top down at parties and I really don’t feel comfortable around him” with “Stop making drama! He’s a super-nice guy, he just gets handsy when he’s drunk!”
Seconding tinyorc. If your response to a worried person saying “I’m being harassed by a mutual friend of ours and I’m not sure how to handle it” is now, or has ever been “shut up, you’re being oversensitive, think of his feelings, he’s not that bad, etc.” you did a bad thing and you should feel bad about it. More specifically, you told the worried person that hir sense of personal safety and hir ability to, say, go to your tabletop game without anybody making creepy comments about hir sexuality mattered less to you than mutual friend’s ability to do whatever ze wants to worried person. That’s gross. Don’t do it again.
This situation is very, very gendered, but it happens in gender-neutral ways too. Defending harassers is super shitty and the people who do it are bigoted, cowardly, pro-harassment, or more than one of the above. See the thread in the linked post for an imperial fuckton of examples of women being harassed by men, going to other men for help, and having those theoretically-supportive lovers or friends or wev be super garbage about it.
Do you reserve the same level of scorn, quill, for women who don’t call other women on their anti-male bigotry (to flip the genders around)? Do you also think they are doing a really shitty thing if they don’t step in and ostracize any woman who makes anti-male remarks – whether it is real or imagined? Do you think that a man would have the right to insert himself into a group of women and then tell them how to behave in his presence?
I’m not keen on making others responsible for my discomfort and assuming that they, not I, have an obligation to fix it. Why not speak up for yourself, directly to the person who’s bothering you?
Never fails to
impressamazemake me roll my damn eyes when people don’t read the linked stuff for context, especially when I specifically say: read the original post because it’s important.Raya, CopyLeft: You do realize that people, most often women, who are harassed don’t feel comfortable coming forward about it for many reasons, but a big one being attitudes like yours? You’re both being gross right now.
Also, point me where I said that only men should white knight themselves in these situations? I’m saying everyone should work to eliminate harassers from a social group, but I called out guys in particular because usually women are ALREADY doing this stuff. It’s usually guys who need to be prodded to join in with the rest of us. Not always, but often.
Well, “angry black woman”, I would respond with a substantive post to your allegations if you allow my statements to the board. You are blocking my reply above, and if these messages are just to you, I’m not going to waste my words.
Also, you’ll be fixing the problem of “why don’t more women get involved in comics/whatever fun thing you’re talking about”.
Copyleft @5: But what’s the point of speaking up if it’s all your own fault that you’re uncomfortable, and not their fault for making you uncomfortable? I mean, aren’t you just blaming them for your own feelings?
tinyorc @4: The supercreeper was not just fondling women after a couple of drinks; he was fondling a woman who was sleeping off the drinks and therefore completely oblivious to, much less able to express an opinion about, his advances.
Not everyone’s discomfort IS legitimate and justified; why should anyone assume that the offended person is automatically and always in the right?
If you can’t support your case for feeling uncomfortable, then you’ll have to either get over it or remove yourself from the group. If the behavior is as blatant as you describe, you should have no trouble making your case–for yourself, rather than expecting others to do it for you.
Copyleft – can you give a specific example, please, of a case where someone’s discomfort at someone else’s actions *towards them* is neither legitimate nor justified?
Raya, I’ve searched for any comments by you either in the trash or in the spam. There are none. Neither ABW nor anyone else here deleted a comment by you.
That said, I really don’t like your contempt-quotes around ABW’s penname. And I’m sorry to say, your other contributions here haven’t impressed me either; you seem to be someone who genuinely can’t stand the idea of ever discussing a bad thing happening to women without immediately switching the topic to those ever-so-much-more-important bad things that happen to men.
In short, your presence here is moving the conversation here away from, rather than nearer to, the conversation I’d prefer to read. For that reason, I’m afraid that you will not be allowed to post any further comments here. Thank you very much for your interest in our blog, and I wish you the best of luck in all your future activities.
Looking at the cases described in the article ABW linked to, they are cases where the women in question did indeed make their cases for themselves, and then were bothered that others (especially their boyfriends) did not take their cases seriously.
As you should be able to see, the choice you present is a false choice. It is obviously possible BOTH for me to make my case for myself, and for others to take up my case as well.
If someone is bullying me, I can make the case — “that person is bullying me!” — to my friends who are also part of the group. And I think it’s reasonable of me to expect my friends to either take my side in the dispute (i.e., make my case for me) if they want to continue being thought of by me as a friend, or to give me an extremely compelling reason why they’re not doing so.
I can’t think of instances where one’s personal discomfort is not legit and justified. Saying otherwise is saying that people aren’t allowed to have autonomy over their feelings. That’s gross. Again.
If you can’t support your case for feeling uncomfortable, then you’ll have to either get over it or remove yourself from the group.
Why? And who are you lecturing here, really?
“can you give a specific example, please, of a case where someone’s discomfort at someone else’s actions *towards them* is neither legitimate nor justified?”
Sure. Consider, for example, a discussion forum.
Person A: “I believe the moon is where unicorns live.”
Person B: “Sorry, I disagree. there’s no evidence for that.”
Person A (traumatized): “How DARE you attack me like that! Who are you to tell me my beliefs are wrong? I’m feeling very uncomfortable with such hostility, and I think the moderator should do something about it.”
Happens every day. A completely unjustified reaction that can and should be dismissed. Not all hurt feelings are valid.
First: I’m responding to a specific issue here. But I’ll first register that I agree with the overall thread, namely that (1) there are creepy people; and (2) they suck; and (3) we should all work to make them go away.
Misinterpretation. Happens all the time.
I’ve smiled and waved at female “friends” who turned out (when I got closer) to be total strangers. For all I know, some of them thought I was trying to hit on them, and might therefore found it unpleasant. But I wasn’t: any unpleasantness that they felt which stemmed from that false belief was unjustified. The reality doesn’t give any fault to me; nor does the reality give any justification for their upset.**
If you prefer another example: I know a woman who generally distrusts dark skinned POC and finds herself to be nervous around them. For the purposes of this example, let’s assume that she doesn’t have any particular reason for feeling that way. If a POC followed her to return a wallet that she dropped on the ground, she might find it unpleasant or threatening merely due to her false race-based beliefs: she would be unjustified. Reality doesn’t assign fault to the friendly wallet-returning POC; nor does reality justify the woman’s upset.**
**Of course, there can be situations where you can be upset at a non-aggressive act WITHOUT a false belief. Perhaps the first woman suffers PTSD, and has a horrible reaction from any man who waves at her. In that case her reaction has nothing to do with a misread of the “He’s hitting on me” situation, and just results from having PTSD and being smiled at.
That’s why I used the qualifiers “which stemmed from that false belief” in the first example, and “merely due to her false race-based beliefs” in the second example. However, even if both the hypothetical women have “true, valid” reasons for their upset, which aren’t based on misinterpretation… their upset is STILL not the fault of the other party.
Both of those examples involve something that is “true” aggression from the perspective of the person who experiences it. But both of those examples involve something that is “false” aggression: false both from the perspective of the putative aggressor (who isn’t actually aggressive) and from an objective view (neither situation involves behavior which is in any way unacceptable.)
OF COURSE, every person has the right to feel what they want. OF COURSE, every person has the right to desire a set of reactions from others.
But that’s not all we have on the table. We’re ALSO talking about whether other people should “unconditionally” support those feelings, and whether we should support (or enable) those reactions. And while everyone can feel whatever they want it doesn’t mean that we should give up our right to judge the accuracy of their responses, or to accept or decline to act based on our judgment.
Others have the agency to say “I’m scared because someone hit on me and then a scary POC followed me.” We have the agency to say “that’s not really what happened here; we will not buy into that story.”
Copyleft, when you have to go wildly off-topic to make your point and avoid any questions, you’re putting yourself in the position of being A, there, not B.
How is it going off-topic and avoiding the question to give an example when I’m asked to give an example?
ETA: Well said, Gin-and-whiskey.
But I wasn’t: any unpleasantness that they felt which stemmed from that false belief was unjustified.
No. Their belief was based, quite reasonably, on your actions. They were not unreasonable because, deep in your heart of hearts, you were making a mistake; your behavior was exactly that of a stranger hitting on them. You are saying that they were wrong to assume you were hitting on them because, even though you behaved like someone hitting on them, subjectively you weren’t, and your subjective belief trumps outward action.
Your example also fails to take something else into account: these women have to weigh the consequences of drawing inferences from your behavior. If a strange guy smiles and waves at me, and I mistakenly assume he’s not hitting on me, well, guess what, now I have a guy who is hitting on me and who is going to be pissy about my ‘encouraging’ him and god, why am I such a bitch when he was being a little friendly.
(We’ve had these conversations about a million fucking times on Alas. I get the feeling you’re just in a devil’s advocate mood today.)
Your second example is deliberately problematic, because the woman in question is, by your description, racist. The ‘false belief’ is not her understandable misinterpretation of a stranger’s actions; it’s her incorrect assumptions about people of color.
@Copyleft, I’m asking why someone who is uncomfortable must always, in your opinion, justify why they are uncomfortable or remove themselves from the group.
“I’m upset that Bob walked up to me and grabbed my ass.”
“Well, I’m sorry, but you need to explain to Bob why you were bothered by that. Otherwise, GTFO.”
Seriously: bwuh?
Mythago – I believe copyleft was referring to my question in @12. Unfortunately, copyleft, I don’t think your answer in @17 does address what I was asking – it’s an example of someone with an inapporpriate *reaction*, not an inappropriate *discomfort*.
Yes. Her beliefs based on racism seem incorrect to us, and incorrect to an objective observer.
But those beliefs (and their classification as “racist”) don’t seem incorrect to her. From her perspective, “black people are scary because they’re black” is just as real as someone else who feels “smiling men are scare because they’re all hitting on me.”
You’re trying to make a distinction between an “understandable” misinterpretation and what I’ll call a “not understandable” misinterpretation. And your distinction is in direct contract to the lived experience of someone else.
I respect your right to make that distinction. But why don’t others get to do the same thing? Someone who is terrified because I smile at her as I enter a coffee shop is–in my opinion–making a “not understandable” misinterpretation.
Yup, there are many many many possible examples of people having an unreasonable reaction to a perfectly normal situation.
I was about to list them all. Than i was going to come up with a universal rule for defining a bright line boundary between reasonable responses and unreasonable responses that would work for all possible times, societies and subcultures. I was going to make this perfect rule so universal that it would encompass behavior by your best friend since infancy as well as the behavior of large groups of armed strangers late at night in dark places far from witnesses. This way when women said “that’s creepy please stop.” We wouldn’t need to listen or think we could just compare it to the rule.
Then I realized that all of the responses in the freaking OP were so perfectly reasonable that even a 15 year old basement dwelling atavist with a crippling world of warcracft addiction should be able to see that.
From this realization I’m forced to conclude that some of the commenters find the original topic of how to deal with creepy people in your circle of friends far less interesting hypothetical social rules or defining the bright line between OK/NOK behavior.
When my circle had this problem we ended up ostracizing the creepy people. It was one guy and another girl. The guy was like discussed above. The girl was a little different. She didn’t make anyone feel unsafe. But not every conversation is about sex. And not every circumstance is correct for heavy petting. She didn’t seem to get hat. A couple of us just started avoiding them. But I’m not sure that would work for the LW
To bring up some stuff I learned many years ago: everyone is different, and people are allowed to have different responses to things.
Suppose I made a friend uncomfortable by wearing a latex cosplay outfit, or attempting to shake their hand with a latex glove on – and ze edged away on account of an allergy to latex. Is ze irrationally uncomfortable? Is ze claiming handshakes are intrinsically unethical? Is costuming with this material always wrong according to this friend? No, no, and no, and those are strawman arguments. If I make a huge fuss about my friend doing stuff ze perceives as important to hir safety, I’m being the self-centered jerk here. (Full disclosure: I have this allergy, and have refused handshakes from rubber-gloved people before for this exact reason.)
Likewise, there’s contexts where physical contact and flirtatious statements are okay to do, and contexts where they’re not. People are allowed to have boundaries you don’t have because their needs, their fears, and their responses learned from trauma are different from yours. If you give your friends shit for not being as willing as you want to accept a hug, ride a roller-coaster, or move closer to that substance that sickens them then you’re a shit friend.
If you let some asshole make somebody’s life difficult because that somebody’s boundaries aren’t the same as the asshole’s, you’re acting as enabler and bystander to bad things and you should feel bad about it.
I kind of hate how the discussion is getting sucked into fine line drawing.
Yes the exact exact exact boundary between borderline creepy and borderline overreaction might be hard to draw. And yes, actual cases of real overreaction exist. But the instances recounted in the original post are well beyond that. The second one is so far beyond it that if he craned his neck and turned around he wouldn’t even see the border. The question there (where the woman is passed out and hadn’t consented to anything) is much closer to “was that or was that not actual rape” (probably not legally, but he sure was getting close to it). There is no question at all that his behavior was *at the very least* grossly out of line and well beyond merely creepy seeming.
Borderline cases may be tough, but these ain’t those. The reason why it is a rape culture is because *even in these clear cases* the friends of the creepy person have trouble condemning the actions and shunning the creepy person while protecting his victims.
How can that be unexpected? It’s just common sense.
You cannot simultaneously argue for greater consequences stemming from a violation, and complain when people then seek a more specific definition of the violation. That’s just what folks DO.
As an argument travels down the Road of Consequences (starting at “we should agree that ___ behavior is a problem” on to “…and ban them from ___” on to the end point of “…and imprison them,”) then you’ll get more and more disagreement.
E.g.: Having your actions referred to as “aggressive” or “obnoxious” doesn’t carry major consequences, so people have little incentive to bother defining the boundaries of those adjectives.
Having your actions referred to as “sexual harassment” or “rape” can carry immense consequences, so people have a huge incentive to strictly define the boundaries of those adjectives.
Having your actions referred to as “sexual harassment” or “rape” can carry immense consequences, so people have a huge incentive to strictly define the boundaries of those adjectives.
Pretty much the only consequence we’re talking about here is “please stop inviting that guy into the space that we share.” When “that guy” is a guy who has been repeatedly told that his actions are not okay – just not by anyone whose opinion actually matters (that is, by a man). But yes, let’s continue to travel further and further into the minutia. It’s fascinating.
@Sebastian H: It’s a derailing tactic. When everyone is specifically talking about a woman that was sexually assaulted while she was unconscious, you change the subject. “We’re talking about racists now! You don’t want to side with the racist do you?!”
The difference between the thought experiments posted by gin-and-whiskey and Copyleft and the situation in the OP is that in the thought experiments, the offence is a result of perception whereas in the situations described above the offence originates from behavior. Compare the following:
With
It’s pretty easy to see the difference. In Copyleft’s example, Person A holds an opinion and is traumatized by a disagreement. Said opinion does not victimize or harass anyone, it’s just an opinion. Asking the person to stop holding the opinion does not affect anyone other than Person A. Asking Ben in the example above to stop sexually abusive behavior makes a whole lot of people besides Ben safer and, as the OP pointed out, may prevent rape further down the line.
With regards to this example:
Compare it with this:
The thought experiment is essentially about a misinterpretation due to problematic attitudes. The situation with Creeper could practically not be more explicit about Creeper’s intention and problematic behavior. So why is the discussion headed into “what if a girl misinterprets me smiling at her and takes me for a creepy rapist” instead of “why are men frequently complacent and enabling in the face of sexual harassment and sexism in social circles” again?
So why is the discussion headed into “what if a girl misinterprets me smiling at her and takes me for a creepy rapist” instead of “why are men frequently complacent and enabling in the face of sexual harassment and sexism in social circles” again?
I’ll take “because I could never imagine myself as on the receiving end of harassment or rape, but I could totally imagine some uptight bitch falsely accusing me of it” for $500, Alex.
Can’t we grant that some of the time, some women will misinterpret things, and then get back to the cases at hand, where they clearly aren’t misinterpreting things?
The cases at hand involve two men, in social groups, where they are engaged in completely unacceptable sexual behavior which in the second case borders rape. We don’t need to get deeply involved in the question of criminal charges of rape. We are talking about why the other men in the social group are having trouble with the idea that women don’t want to be at social gatherings where these ‘creeper’ men are present. We are talking about why other men in the social group are having trouble excluding these ‘creeper’ men from the social group, at least when women are going to be present.
That is the ‘consequence’ we are talking about. We aren’t talking about putting the guy in prison. This doesn’t involve a he said/she said problem. The ‘creeper’ guys are acting wildly inappropriate, and can’t even be called on it and held accountable in the group.
These cases are much purer examples of the rape culture than those we often discuss. This isn’t a case where high degrees of possible confusion can set in. This isn’t a case where super high burdens of proof have to be crossed because we’re putting the guy in prison for twenty years.
Feeling up a friend’s girlfriend while she is passed out should be worth a response in one’s social group *even if we decide it isn’t ‘rape’*. Giving someone a ride home from a party and then demanding sex from her, and following her out of the car afterward should be worth a serious negative response in one’s social group *even if we decide it isn’t ‘rape’*.
“Rape culture” describes a social structure where men can get away with a grossly inappropriate sense of sexual entitlement, up to and including rape, while receiving social protection from their peer group. These cases are excellent examples of the fact that this social protection exists. The question is “what do we do about it?”
is just as real as someone else who feels “smiling men are scare because they’re all hitting on me.”
Do you genuinely believe that the women you smiled and waved at were thinking “all men who smile at me are hitting on me”, as opposed to “when a man I don’t know smiles and waves at me like that, there is a very good chance is he going to approach me and hit on me”?
Because, seriously, the vibe I am getting off you is that work has been slow and you have a lot of unexpressed argue-about-everything energy to blow off. You’re not stupid. You’re capable of listening other people’s arguments, and so far I have not gotten the sense that you are one of those guys whose attitude is “fuck those bitches and their need to be vigilant about personal safety, they could be a little nicer.” And I don’t particularly care to waste energy carefully dissecting a problem with someone who is focused on playing devil’s advocate.
I’ve been working both sides this week: I’ve been working to get relief for my sex harassment victim, against the wishes of the employer. I’m also working to resolve a dispute between two folks who jointly agree on a set of facts but have wildly disparate interpretations of the result of those facts, ranging from “this is assault” to “I didn’t even do anything worth complaining about.” It’s been unusually demanding insofar as I am currently VERY aware of the tendency of people on both sides to frankly say whatever the fuck they want so long as it will support their own personal position, reasonableness and accuracy be damned.
Of course, accused people lie. But hell, even my victims lie (almost all people lie at some point, being human.) The victims can say things which, when pressed for details, turn out to be exaggerations. Because they assume (correctly) that the other side will lie to make it sound like nothing happened, and because they assume (incorrectly) that I won’t believe them unless they “balance” it out with a few lies of their own. And of course, sometimes the accused guy KNOWS that he did something wrong, and sometimes he honestly doesn’t see any problem at all, or says that the victim is lying to try to screw him…. which I have also seen happen, as a victim’s rep, as of late.
The concept that either side–accuser or accused–deserves ANY sort of unconditional, unchallenged, acceptance of their story as true, or even largely true…. well, it simply doesn’t seem to match the reality of what I deal with these days. So I’m more than a little skeptical of it in any context.
But that’s not what anyone here is saying. The OP was about what to do when the facts are not in dispute. In the readercon situation, the accused confessed to the harassment, and accepted that it was harassment. In the Captain Awkward blog posting, both letters describe people who have a pattern of harassing women in public with witnesses.
In both cases, the problem was not that the fact of whether or not harassment occured was in question, but that the harasser’s friends, who acknowledged the harassment, were willing to overlook it in their relationship with him, and treated it merely as an annoying social quirk.
So Raya, how many of the men you want justice for have been raped by women?
Sure; and the specific question of “should we take unofficial social action to punish a particular person whose inappropriate acts are entirely undisputed, and to protect a particular victim whose status and claims are entirely undisputed?” is a pretty obvious one: yes, of course.
The ancillary questions are more complex, “how and when should people take action against people IN GENERAL when they’re accused of inappropriate acts; and how/when should we protect people IN GENERAL when they complain of being harassed; and what action/protection is appropriate?” are harder. And it’s a lot more interesting to talk about, once the initial “do we agree about the particular example of this situation?” thing is quickly answered.
After all, the “what conclusions do we draw from this? how should people in general handle these things in the future?” question is a universal. There’s nothing we can do or not do about the issue at the con, since it’s over and done. That particular situation; those particular people… they’re just examples. They aren’t necessarily even particularly good examples, when it comes to trying to make a general rule.
Maybe you’re focusing on this particular issue and are not trying to make any general conclusions or rules, so “stop generalizing outside the boundaries for chrissake,” in which case my bad, I’m misreading and therefore being annoying.
… and the specific question of “should we take unofficial social action to punish a particular person whose inappropriate acts are entirely undisputed, and to protect a particular victim whose status and claims are entirely undisputed?” is a pretty obvious one: yes, of course.
Thing is, this answer that you claim is “pretty obvious” is not obvious at all in many people’s lives. Hence, the problems experienced by the LWs. We are not even at a point where undisputed, public inappropriate acts draw any kind of social approbation. That’s why it’s really annoying to see a “but people lie” response.
So I’ve thought about it some more and I think the the ‘buddy’ system is a good way to go. If you just refuse to be where the creep is what you’ve really done is exile yourself from the group. If you take your partner with you than you’re stressing your relationship and making them choose.
What if you look for another person in the group and make alternative plans with them. You can than pull your sig other to that activity in a less stressful way. If questions come up about how you always have to do your own thing you can just be up front and tell people “So and so creeps me out because of XYZ.”
Joe, I can see that working as a last ditch resort, but if you have a significant other for whom “do I stop hanging out with the guy who sexually assaulted or harassed my girlfriend?” is a tough choice, that’s its own problem. It really shouldn’t be a harassed or assaulted person’s job to keep everybody feeling warm and fuzzy about the situation and avoid any hint of conflict.
KellyK
I agree, in that case it’s very open and shut. However, based on context it seemed to me that the LW really didn’t want to have to draw bright lines in public. So I was suggesting somethign as another way of getting by.
“So and So sexually assaulted me and I will not be near them anymore” would be more direct and might be better.
gin-and-whiskey @37: The entire point of the post is that “yes, of course” isn’t the default response to clear cases of misbehavior and that these aren’t simply a couple of one-shot, outlying examples. You appear to be trying to handwave all that off because you, personally, find it much more interesting to talk about what we do when there’s an accusation but not everybody agrees what happened, cf. a case you’re currently working on. I mean, you’re certainly free to talk about whatever you’d like to talk about, but it’s a little dishonest to start in with “but people lie!” simply because you’re bored with the topic.
The point of Readercon is not that it was over (it happens every year, actually) but that even when the facts were not in question people were reluctant to impose a punishment already set out in the rules for that event; people after the fact made excuses for the harassment and pretended the known facts were other than they were; people insisted the harasser must have had some kind of neurological or social disorder; people complained that if this harasser were punished for his actions, this meant anyone who ever did anything well-meant but awkward would have their lives destroyed.
And the point of the CA column (which you read, right?) is that even people who acknowledge that a friend of theirs is not merely creepy but physically assaulting people, they will put the blame for rocking the boat not on the creep, but on his victims. Victims, especially if they’re women, are supposed to just avoid the dude and keep their mouths shut and pay the price for everyone remaining “friends”.
So, you know, as the courts say, I don’t think we’ve even reached the issue of “now, what if it’s a situation where it’s not clear that the behavior was inappropriate?”
Joe, was your suggestion for the *first* LW? I was thinking primarily of the second:
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