On knowing the rules 17 Oct 201317 Oct 2013 The reader may have become aware of some examples of sexual harassment on the interwubs lately. I do not propose to get involved or to make detailed comment as I do not know much about the cases apart from what has been mentioned online. I take it as read these are echt cases of sexual harassment. What I do want to do here is to discuss the reason why otherwise sensible men might harass a woman. A few years back, I was approached by a woman at a conference and invited back to her room. She knew I was married, but there was flirting and a clear indication that we could sleep together as we were both in countries other than our own. This was not harassment, for several reasons, the most obvious being that I am male, but also that we were effectively equals socially and professionally and neither had any power over the other. I did not accede, but I do not think that had I done so I would be a bad person, other than having “cheated” on my wife. Therein lies the complexity: morals have changed in most western nations. Liaisons between unmarried (to each other) adults are no longer looked upon as immoral or illicit, so long as nobody is injured (in the legal sense of having some violation of their rights). As the Wiccans say, an it harm none, do as thou wilt. But much of the framing of harassment is based around ideas of propriety that, to be frank, are a little out of date. Not all: so long as the point of anti-harassment rules are that a person (male or female) is treated with respect because they are a person, the framing is fine. But often it is because someone is the partner of another that the harassment is considered wrong. That is, if I am married, I should not approach somebody else for sexual engagement because I am in a sense the property of my spouse. If somebody is raised in the less Christian or traditional value system of secular society, they might think it wrong only to not tell and gain agreement from their spouse, not to ask for sex. And if the relationship is not an obviously clear one of power or authority or influence, one might think, what harm? Yet, there is harm even when the relationship is only informally one of power or influence (let’s face it, most relationships involve an inequality of power in one way or another). So here’s my question: given that some sexual contact is inevitable among adults, and even somewhat desirable for all, what are the rules? When does it not involve harassment, and when does it? Some forty years ago, as I was shifting from callow youth to callow young adult, the agreed rules of behaviour (as portrayed in most 1950s and 1960s American movies) were in great flux. One might be attacked for opening a door for a woman, or for not, occasionally in the same encounter. It was hard to know when to ask a woman for sex, when some women were calling any such attempt a kind of rape, and asserting that only women had the right to ask, while at the same time the counterculture was treating women as mere sexual playthings. I’m not saying only men had trouble with this (women did and still do, being called sluts if they had sex and frigid bitches if they didn’t), but men did have trouble. The rules were inconstant and unclear as society became post-Christian, and to an extent, post-bourgeois. So it is not hard to imagine some man attempting to get a woman to respond by discussing sex, and inadvertently harassing her. Note: I am not saying that she is not harassed or that the harassment is minor. I am saying that the male may not even understand there is an issue. We often don’t. The rules are unclear, variable and sometimes contradictory. It is all very well to say: treat the woman with respect. Of course one should. One should treat all people with respect. To treat women with respect is to at the very least not make her feel unsafe, demoralised, afraid or demeaned. But what does that exactly mean, and how can we “court” to use the old term, if even attempting to establish an interest is occasionally taken to be harassment? I’d be very interested in your comments, since I really do not know. Of course, most of the time there is no problem, especially when the space in which these advances are made is equal and safe (which precludes many professional contexts), but since some people only ever really get to know people in professional contexts, some clear rules would be helpful. So please, write them down below, and discuss them. Ethics and Moral Philosophy Social evolution
Evolution The ontology of biology 1 – What an ontology really is 8 Nov 2008 It has become common in recent years for people to use terms of philosophy in distinct contexts, as it has terms of biology. Thus, ontology has gone the way of taxonomy, being dragooned into service of database techniques, to mean something quite the opposite of what it originally meant. I… Read More
History A philosophical apology from 1919 for not being pro-war 21 Jan 201221 Jan 2012 Leiter posted the PDF of this on his site. I can’t help but reproduce some of the choicer quotes: “DEAR FRIEND: Your letter gently but un-mistakably intimates that I am a slacker, a slacker in peace as well as in war; that when the World war was raging bitterly I… Read More
Epistemology A quote on the ethics of belief 31 Aug 2010 Sometimes philosophers nail it. This from James McGrath: And no one man’s belief is in any case a private matter which concerns himself alone. Our lives are guided by that general conception of the course of things which has been created by society for social purposes. Our words, our phrases,… Read More
one of the issues i’m confused about are the underlying norms which people share. some seem to be presuming that they’re universal and transparent. are they? i have a pretty bourgeois personal moral sense, but many do not. that’s OK, but whose rules are the default that we’re supposed to follow?
Since most of WEIRDs – Western Educated Industrialized Rich and Democratic countries inhabitants – has a smartphone, it is just a matter of download and install a flirt app: anyone in a place is listed, privately each person mark those who he/she are interested in. If there are any match, both are privately alerted. A more elaborated app could indicate what kind of approach is permitted. []s, Roberto Takata
Then what is the point of meeting anyone in a social setting? Learning boundaries doesn’t happen when one tells you. Learning boundaries happens when you cross a line.
I’m not striding through this minefield… apart from one aspect. Some of this debate is about ‘power’ and is often used in the sense of (stereotypically) a man imposing his authority on a less ‘powerful’ (stereotypically) woman. I am not sure that ‘power’ captures fully the dynamic from an evolutionary point of view. Humans are social animals we believe. It appears that ‘status’ within the troop/tribe is a vital part of social life. Recast the dynamic as one human (in sexual matters stereotypically a man) of a higher status expecting appropriate status recognition behaviour from a lower status person (in sexual matters stereotypically a woman). While this may be ‘natural’ it is not necessarily appropriate in our super-sized social environment – yet it might explain the unconscious assumptions on both sides of the dynamic. Why many men feel unfairly castigated, and many women feel unfairly pressured. Why people are categorised as ‘cads’ or ‘sluts’ when they exceed socially acceptable limits. Why men aim status displays primarily at other men, why women aim status displays primarily at other women. The boss/subordinate dynamic. No rules as such. Only a social dynamic that flexes as social conditions change. Different societies following different dynamics.
The problem is that some people appear to lack any sense of proportion, and see themselves as perfect and therefore equipped to act as arbiters for the morals of everyone else.
They say that most men would be interested in sexual relationships with most of the women they know, and assume that the interest is reciprocal. They also say that most women think that their men friends are just friends and assume that the lack of sexual interest is reciprocal. (The old phrasing of this dynamic was “men are dogs.”) As adults we need to learn professional behaviour, which protects us all and comes in handy even in private situations. We need to learn to deal with the fact that some of the people we know are sexually interested in us, possibly unbenownst to us, to draw our own boundaries firmly and to own them. We also need to learn to deal with the fact that we can experience unreciprocated sexual attraction, that it’s fine, that being attracted to someone does not mean they’ve been flirting with you. A large part of the problem is that the people most likely to be the targets of unreciprocated sexual attraction are young, less experienced and perhaps less able to draw their own boundaries. I’m forty-nine. If someone approaches me sexually today and I’m not interested I’ll say, “I don’t want to have sex with you and I am not going to have sex with you. If you can’t focus on the topic at hand, please go away.” When I was sixteen and men were following me around in cars and trying to lure me into them I was much less confrontational. I am much less likely to experience sexual approaches as harassment today partly because I have the confidence to deflect harassers before it gets to be a problem and partly because I am not targeted as someone who will be ineffectual at defending themselves. Ashley Paramore, for instance, is so invested in being deferent, polite and nice that she responds in the most horrifyingly ineffectual way to a predator — someone who sought her out for that reason. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BK3g86Hp93I The rules: old people should not approach young people. Yes, young people are beautiful and other old people just aren’t your type, but you had your chance when you were their age and that’s just the way life is. If you have reason to believe that you are dealing with a young person who is open to the possibility of a relationship with an old person, and you aren’t just thinking with your dick/pussy, then be clear and direct and take no for an answer if that’s what you get. Don’t try to engage them in games they may or may not have the confidence to play well yet.
Also: most people aren’t rapists or predatory. The guy who was pursuing Ashley Paramore was not simply unclear about what constitutes harassment and making an honest mistake. No list of rules would make an impression on him. I don’t remember being harassed by young people when I was young in any way that was not very clearly harassment. For instance, being catcalled, strangers on the street draping an arm over me. I don’t even know what *inadvertent* harassment would look like between teenagers or folks in their early twenties. Stalking? Ok then, don’t stalk.
As far as I was ever able to work it out, it was only acceptable to initiate flirting if you were the better-looking of the two people involved. Which is why I always kept my trap shut. It’s a minefield, basically. Take up golf, or read a book instead.
it really bothers me that so many people cannot appreciate someone else, their company, their abilities, their physicality, without deciding that they must have sex. it’s just so selfish and one-dimensional.
“Liaisons between unmarried (to each other) adults are no longer looked upon as immoral or illicit, so long as nobody is injured (in the legal sense of having some violation of their rights).” Really? I guess it depends who you ask. Why do politicians who cheat on their wives find themselves in disgrace? One advantage of believing in evolution is that it enables you to ignore God’s opposition to sexual immorality. According to Richard Dawkins (evolutionist and therefore atheist), it’s OK to not only cheat on your wife but to lie about it as well. All very logical from his point of view. http://www.uncommondescent.com/culture/richard-dawkins-defends-the-idea-of-having-a-mistress-and-lying-about-it/
The reason why “cheating” is a political no-no is largely because of the aforementioned religious and bourgeois conventions, shared by a prurient media. And as for “God’s opposition to sexual immorality”, this would be the same God who allowed David to have a thousand concubines? Or the one that insisted Onan sleep with his dead brother’s wife?
“The reason why ‘cheating’ is a political no-no is largely because of the aforementioned religious and bourgeois conventions, shared by a prurient media.” OK, sure, but aren’t you now contradicting your own opening statement? — “Liaisons between unmarried (to each other) adults are no longer looked upon as immoral or illicit, so long as nobody is injured (in the legal sense of having some violation of their rights).” By the way it was actually Solomon (not David) who had 300 concubines, plus 700 wives. Many of these women were from non-Israelite nations, and they eventually led Solomon into idolatry — which angered the Lord (1 Kings 11). All of this had been forbidden centuries earlier: “[The king] must not take many wives, or his heart will be led astray” (Deuteronomy 17:17). No sign of God’s approval here. The practice of levirate marriage (marrying your brother-in-law after your husband died) was a standard way of making sure that a widow was looked after (Deuteronomy 25:5-10). The description of the Onan incident seems intended to leave the reader with a feeling of distaste for both Onan and his father Judah (Genesis 38). Again, there is no indication of God’s approval in this episode. See also the broader discussion in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Levirate_marriage
The one that always sticks in my mind is the early Irish Saint who’s piety is expressed at one point as he spurns the sexual advances of a female and then basks in the warm glow of her godly retribution. She is gang raped by outlaws. Our local saints lives also suggest that the risk associated with being gay in this period was an untimely supernatural death generally of a violent and spectacular nature. They seem to fall victim to things like large trees dropping on top of them after encountering an indignant saint. That such incidents seem to reinforce the social standing and status of the faithful and pious male individual involved is I am sure just entirely coincidental and in no way contrived. Clearly large trees despise gay people as much as the pious.
p.s Richard the rules to this old games often involved what you described rather nicely if I recall correctly in another post as a marvelous foretelling. Saints often predict the downfall of the sinner in advance. often with what looks like deliberate ambiguity, it looks as if they were leaving it as an open question was to wither the saint had the power to curse or was engaging in an act of godly inspired prophecy. The targets are wearily familiar formulaic and highly predictable in keeping with medieval prophecy. i.e. pick a site that has a proven track record associated with battle due to terrain, predict a victory over the ungodly at said location at some vague point in the future then claim it as proof of gods great divine plan for his favored and sin free people over the evil doers who always belong to a different cultural group etc etc.
I understand “cheating” is not always a political no-no in France. Depending on who’s doing it, the public don’t always mind. I gather it’s sometimes even seen as a vote-winner.
Liaisons between unmarried (to each other) adults are immoral or illicit if they involve lying. Monogamy is important to some people. So important that they refuse to participate in nonmonogamous relationships. Lying to them about the nature of their relationship denies them agency and is immoral. (So John, yes, accepting your colleague’s offer would have made you a bad person if you had not run the possibility by your wife first and gotten some level of approval, assuming that you were still living with her. Cheating is not a minor detail.) Richard Peachey, there are so many non-sequiturs in your comment I wouldn’t know where to begin.
“Liaisons between unmarried (to each other) adults are immoral or illicit if they involve lying.” Where do you get your rules from? John apparently has different rules. So does Richard Dawkins. “Richard Peachey, there are so many non-sequiturs in your comment I wouldn’t know where to begin.” Begin with the first one. Then go to the second one. Otherwise people will think you’re bluffing (which is something like lying, isn’t it?).
“Monogamy is important to some people.” Me although while I have been in a relationship for years I am unmarried. Its an institution I strongly disapprove of. A reaction to seeing a series of crazed right wing politicians extolling the mystic virtue of said institution and making informed suggestions like the solution to social and economic issues could be solved by reintroducing the stigma of bastardy. Seriously enlightened folk just brimming over with Gods love for the rest of humanity. When I was at university one of my tutors who was a member of a highly conservative Scottish church was giving me some feed back on an essay after the birth of my son. The first thing she said was you are not married are you Jeb, I have a real issue with that. I suspect it was the real reason for the meeting as no one else had one. When she saw me a few days later with my child she suggested that as it had blonde hair I was perhaps not the father. She and the little gang of religious bigots she was with found the suggestion highly amusing. Personally I don’t take well to receiving ethical lectures from bigoted hate filled authoritarian control freaks who spend Sunday harassing children for playing football on the Sabbath or consider it ungodly to receive medical attention for illness on said day. You hear these claims all the way through life but you just sit back, get over the what fucking planet do these people dwell on thought,and observe what they do. then understand the whole thing is a very human activity. Getting subjected daily to the trails and triumphs of these people in a class room setting is interesting as the are very unguarded when they have the illusion of command authority and control. Which in my experience is what the most extreme crave and seem to have from childhood based on the stories they tell, often noting their own superior piety from their parents and siblings. For one of my tutors what made her superior to the rest of humanity was the fact she refused to eat hot food on Sunday unlike her less godly family members. She mourned the loss of this sign of piety and viewed the moral degradation she perceived around her based on these feelings of childhood superiority. Filled to the brim with sadness fear and bitterness in a world in which they are lost. They are to be pitied for their pain if not their hate.
@Alison Cummings, is old a particular category of age or do you mean the the number of years between individuals?
The rules that allow us to navigate a world in which we can’t assume that any given person shares our expectations. Be aware of the main currents of thought. Monogamy is very important to most people, less so to others and not at all to yet others. Take into consideration that most people you meet will tend to the monogamous. If you specifically want to meet nonmonogamous people, seek them out. OKCupid is good. Be aware of types of relationship that may advantage one person over another. For instance, the stereotypical single-woman-married-man triangle is typically much more advangageous for the married man, who has a home and family to go home to, than for the single woman who doesn’t — and who can’t even call her lover on weekends. Exacerbating this imbalance is the fact that sexual bonding — where you fall in love with a sexual partner whether you want to or not — tends to be more common among women. This leads to a situation where the single woman may lose interest in pursuing other partners and remain faithful to her lover whether or not she theoretically endorses this as a requirement of the relationship. Given that this often doesn’t work out well for women, as a married man you should be cautious about approaching single women sexually. They may be offended at the idea that you think they would simply offer you all the advantages of a convenient sexual relationship while receiving little in return *and* paying an opportunity cost. Bad offers are insulting, no matter what the context. (This is not *necessarily* a bad offer but it probably is, so … be cautious.) Women commonly appreciate positive attention. You can offer compliments, let them know that you think they are hot, then wait for an invitation. That’s usually safe as long as you don’t stalk or crowd her, as long as she is a peer, and as long as you offer your compliments outside of a work context. Careful not to overinterpret “invitations.” You may have received an invitation to offer more compliments, not an invitation to have quickie sex. Alternatively, you may have received an invitation to discuss work. Don’t change the subject to her hotness if she wants to talk about her writing for your publication. I think there’s a universal rule against lying, which is different from discretion. Learn the difference. Not everyone follows this rule but most people appreciate when their partner does as it speaks to their reliability and integrity. If you are partnered and monogamous, or single and seeking a mutually monogamous relationship, or single and wish to remain that way, be aware that there are perfectly good people with different values and goals. Decline respectful offers respectfully, accept the compliment and don’t burden yourself with unnecessary shame. If you’re offering flirtation but nothing more, be clear about your limits. If you realize that the other person doesn’t understand or doesn’t accept your limits, withdraw the flirtation. Learn to distinguish between respectful offers by people with different goals and bad (disrespectful) offers by scummy people who assume you are ok with lying. While there are good people who are not monogamous there are also bad people. You don’t need to be shy or nonjudgemental about the bad people and it’s perfectly fine to be distressed when presented with a disrespectful offer by a co-worker or someone in your social circle. If that’s what they think of you, how are you supposed to collaborate with them? It’s perfectly fine to be distressed when presented with any type of offer by someone with more power than you. You may feel unsafe in a general way if those with power don’t take responsibility for behaving ethically. Not all offers or invitations are sexual. Some are for friendship or companionship. If you aren’t sure, ask for clarification. Specify what you can offer and what you can’t. Does this help?
(The above was in reply to Razib Khan.) Susan Silberstein, purposely left vague. A bit of both. If you are more sexually confident than the person of interest and you are of an age that the person of interest may be reasonably expected to feel is not in their dating pool, you are at high risk of inadvertently harassing them. If you are seventy and your person of interest is fifty, they should have enough confidence and experience to politely and firmly decline your offer if they aren’t interested. If you are thirty-five and your person of interest is fifteen, back the fuck off. If they are at the beginning of their career in a field in which you are established, wait for a very strongly worded invitation. If they seek you out it’s probably for your professional support and not because they want to bang you, and assuming otherwise will make it unnecessarily difficult for them to develop professionally.
Sensible not to be prescriptive. Age is an important factor, but obviously there are a number of others. However, I once read that in Victorian England the ‘perfect age’ for a bride was said to be ‘half the age of the groom, + five years’. Updating and adapting to cover a proposer and target for no-commitment-sex, I would suggest (being conservative) : ‘the proposer should be especially circumspect if the target is younger than half the proposer’s age, + 10 years’. Works reasonably well across a wide range of ages and for all permutations of sexes!
As I use a narrative that was adapted and used by a much older groom to the target of his affections, from the late 17th century I think I would be hesitant considering some of the factors at play. Creepy is not the word, when it comes to the metaphorical use of language surrounding how to shape the perfect female form. Its also tempered by a much deeper past emanating from one particular institution. Looking at Richards suggestion on ‘advantage’ and evolution with regard to contemporary narratives surrounding sexuality I would suggests he looks at some of the narratives in the late 17th century. I think regardless of a liberal or conservative take on sexuality most people would not be very comfortable with the perspectives.
We still do not have full histories of the development of these emotions and significant areas have received little or no investigation. They should be vital in shaping contemporary debate regardless of which side of the spectrum of belief you sit on but debate is often highly emotive here entrenched, and suspicious. But we are probable all trapped in ‘fairy tales’ (I don’t use the poverty stricken popular usage of this term in science) to some degree on this one.
I notice that for the last couple of months this subject has become a matter of intense discussion and concern amongst my 18 year old daughter and her friends. Consensual sex whilst under the influence of alcohol has been a particular matter of discussion, they view it as utterly inappropriate. I note they are all very careful with alcohol consumption. I think the reason it has become a matter of debate is they are moving into a more adult worlds and coming into contact with older folk more regularly. They seem confident in dealing with male peers of a similar age but in her first week of university she ran into an issue with an older male student in the library and did not know what to do our how to react. They have not developed the social skills to deal with the issues yet, although I am sure that will happen fast. Not so much a case of knowing the rules but developing strategies based on experience, observation and intense peer discussion with people in a similar situation. Being part of a wider social network dealing with the same issues seem to be particularly helpful in walking through the minefield. When dating is part of the peer group and conducted where people know each other, it is also subject to intense monitoring. A feature I note amongst my older single friends as well. Issues are flagged fast and attempts are made to resolve situations fast. Thinking about it I have sometimes slightly condescending wondered why my older single friends have different social networks to my own with features not unlike that of my 18 year old daughter.
Certainly a possible thesis as to why I spent a very uncomfortable evening recently with a group of single 30 to 40 year old friends wondering what the hell was going on and why they bore such an uncanny similarity to my kids (I want to escape those features when I relax socially, was like spending a night at home dealing with the kids).
I suspect that only part of the problem of sexual harassment can be analyzed as a failure to exhibit rule-governed behavior. I would reconsider the query, “why would otherwise sensible men sexually harass a woman.” I suspect that the men we see as sensible are those who have persuaded us to see them as sensible, and that to persuade anyone of anything is the result of a successful application of strategy. Moreover, sexual harassment, like other forms of bullying, is targeted precisely at a person’s ability to seem sensible. Complain about bullying, seek redress for bullying, and you may sound less than sensible. I give an example, famous in the USA over 20 years ago, of a woman who testified that a federal judge had interrupted her at lunch to quote movie lines about pubic hair. Before long national publications were running pieces calling her “a little bit nutty and a little bit slutty.” That was a high-profile case, but on a smaller scale similar things happen to victims of sexual harassment all the time. Some strategies for establishing oneself as a sensible person hinge on making other people seem not-so-sensible. So my suspicion is that the more important question is, not “why otherwise sensible men might harass a woman,” but, how do some men secure their reputations for sensible-ness by harassing women? (I just posted these remarks on my own site, it occurs to me that it wouldn’t be sporting not to put them here as well.)