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"assaulted" uh....not sure i can say much more without the PC crowd hammering me to death. While none of us were there -- which is a big caveat -- from the des

"assaulted" uh....not sure i can say much more without the PC crowd hammering me to death. While none of us were there -- which is a big caveat -- from the description I read I'd hesitate to call what happened "assault". I'm picturing the assault on the Normandy defenses in 1944, in it's best usage. Or someone walking up to you and slamming a baseball bat into your face. Ouch. That's assault. But being kissed or having someone come on to you in a sexual/romantic manner -- even if you did not want it or reciprocate -- I think really stretches and abuses the language. Here's one mental tool to help tease out the important distinction involved. Let's say the exact same thing happened as described in the story, except that the woman was sexually attracted to the man in question -- it would not be described as assault, just a man being aggressive and the woman liking it and being glad he did. It's pretty well known that a lot of woman like men to come on strong to them and be dominant -- of course the catch is they like this if they were attracted to them in the first place, but if they weren't, then it can have the opposite effect. Well, even if there were German soldiers stationed along the beaches of Normandy in 1944 who "kinda wanted" for the Allies to invade, it would regardless still be a military assault when they did. Now add alcohol drinking, a bar, late night, partying, lots of rowdy behavior, touching, intentional flirting, geeks with poor social skills and body language cue reading, etc. and things become even more, shall we say, less clear cut.

cowpewter 16y ago
(According to her) he put his hand INSIDE her underwear. AFTER she said she wasn't interested. If it had only been the unwanted kiss, and she said no, don't touch me, and he said, oh I'm sorry, and left it at that, then yes...it was probably just a drunken misunderstanding. Shoving your hand INSIDE another person's (of any gender) underpants after being expressly told that said person was not interested in you sexually is absolutely sexual assault.
- mkramlich 16y ago
  If that's sexual assault because it's defined to be sexual assault, then it is. Can't argue with that. Words can mean whatever we want. I think the point I was making is that, at least in my case, I had a definition of "assault" long before I ever heard of the term "sexual assault" and I believe the latter is more of a legal term than a common sense, everyday term. Assault involves violence and planning. If there was no violence, and also possibly no planning/premeditation, I personally find it hard to swallow calling this "assault" of any kind. I mean, to put it in perspective, we're talking about, at worst, one adult male putting his hand inside the underwear of another adult female, at a bar, late at night, very likely while one or both parties are drunk, and one or both parties have been flirting or otherwise being touchy-feely with lots of folks all night preceding it. Add to this people who don't read body language and attraction cues perfectly well. And add to this some men wanted to be sexually aggressive and dominant toward a woman they find attractive -- and add to that many women wanting and liking men to do that -- and this adds up to a recipe where I could see something like this happening, and honestly, it should not be such a big deal. Slap on wrist? Sure. Crime? Not so sure. And again: what about the concept of no harm, no foul. It's life. Move on.
  - callahad 16y ago
    Just for corroboration, the term "sexual assault" is generally understood to include situations exactly like this one. My alma mater's policy on sexual misconduct has a reasonably nice definition: "Sexual assault is intentional sexual contact with another person without that person’s consent. Consent exists when a person freely and knowingly agrees at the time to participate in a particular sexual act with a particular person. Consent is not effective, for example, when force, threat, or coercion is used. Consent is not effective when sexual contact is with a person who is unable to say no or otherwise resist because of the use of alcohol or drugs or because he or she is asleep or unconscious." The same policy defines sexual contact as including but not being limited to: "sexual intercourse, penetration of an orifice (anal, oral or vaginal) with the penis, finger, or other object in a sexual manner, intentional touching of the genitals, buttocks, or breasts, or coercion to force someone else to touch one’s genitals, buttocks, or breasts. Sexual contact can occur over clothing." Most people in this thread will be viewing the term similarly to the definition above. That said, I'll let other folks deal with the rest of your post; I won't be able to do so dispassionately.
  - daxelrod 16y ago
    Let's assume, for the purpose of argument, that you've correctly identified this list of factors that may have contributed to this event. How does that make it any less big of a deal?
  - follower 16y ago
    > If there was no violence "Violence is...compelling action against one's will on pain of being hurt." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Violence http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Violence) "I tried to push him off, and told him I wasn’t interested ... He responded by jamming his hand into my underwear and fumbling." (from the article) To me that sounds like "against one's will" and ergo an act of violence.
    - mkramlich 16y ago
      Interesting! I've never heard violence defined like that. When I was a kid and first learning words like that, "violence" meant physical harm and attack. A punch. A gunshot. A bomb explosion. That was violence. I think this other definition you cited is a rather newer and more "lawyer-y" definition. That said. Even if that's the definition we're going to use, then, by that definition, this case still did not involve violence. The alleged evildoer in this case did not do anything against another's will "on pain of being hurt." Sounded like he was waaaaaaay too forward, I'd agree. :) But by her admission there was no threat, no pain and no use of "old-fashioned" violence (no attack or physical harm). I'm going to go read up on the latest arbitrary definition du jour of "rape" and "sexual assault" tonight. What I expect to see is that especially the latter will be defined so loosely that if a guy merely touches a women's arm after she has drunk a glass of alcohol, then he could possibly be charged with the crime of sexual assault. That's how ridiculously overreaching this area of our laws seem to be.
sp332 16y ago
I think really stretches and abuses the language. Yeah, but the damage is long done. These definitions are already codified into law.
- mkramlich 16y ago
  Laws can be changed. Just words on paper. We could have all such laws changed throughout the country by the end of the month -- at the latest -- if we collectively wanted to. (Obvious adjustment in time window for whatever arbitrary rules/laws/processes are in place that would slow this down further, etc., etc.)
daxelrod 16y ago
I hardly think correct use of a technical term (in this case, in the field of law) is an "abuse of the language"; see http://dictionary.findlaw.com/definition/assault.html http://dictionary.findlaw.com/definition/assault.html The rest of your argument seems to boil down to the same behavior would have been fine if it were consensual, and that kind of situation makes it easy for the guy to misinterpret consent. This reasoning is absolutely ludicrous. First, he kissed her, then "I tried to push him off, and told him I wasn’t interested (I may have been less eloquent, but I don’t think I was less clear)", then he jammed his hand down her underwear. How would that be misread?
Anechoic 16y ago
Let's say the exact same thing happened as described in the story, except that the woman was sexually attracted to the man in question -- it would not be described as assault, just a man being aggressive and the woman liking it and being glad he did. I can't believe this comment is getting upvoted - by this logic, a random guy who comes up and punches me in the fact shouldn't be convicted of a crime because I let random guys in our dojo try to punch me during Aikido class(and some of them succeed when I screw up my blocking/avoidance technique). BTW, the legal definition of assault doesn't require direct violence, merely the threat of violence: http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/assault http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/assault
kprobst 16y ago
It's really simple my friend. Imagine this happens to your daughter/wife/girlfriend/mom. Then come back here and help us rationalize whether or not it was an assault.
- steveklabnik 16y ago
  Generally, getting emotions involved is not the way to decide upon proper punishment for a crime. This is textbook assault, though.
  - kprobst 16y ago
    Agreed, but the OP was in fact arguing that this does not constitute assault.
shaddi 16y ago
You seem to not understand why people would call this violence, nor why serious harm could come from it. It might behoove you to take time to learn about why others might hold a different position. Not to sound sarcastic, but given that a sixth of women have experienced sexual assault in their lifetimes, it shouldn't be difficult to find someone who has been a victim of this who is willing to share their thoughts with you, especially if you approach them with a sincere desire to understand another viewpoint. Edit: incorrect statistic.
- mkramlich 16y ago
  Here's a thought experiment. Say we define "sexual assault" as being any case where a person is touched on their skin by another person, without that other person first getting explicit permission from the "victim" person to do that. By that definition, I'd wager that 99%+ of all women alive today have been sexually assaulted -- or if they haven't already, 99% will be. Now, in this thought experiment, let's start narrowing the requisite conditions. Say, that the area touched has to be near genitals or buttocks or breasts. Bet the percentage drops some, but still high. Let's say we widen it so it can be outside of clothing -- not necessarily on bare skin. Guess what, the percentage goes back up. Now let's specify that the touchee is not sexually attracted to the toucher. Percentage drops. Now we could narrow it further, or widen it, whatever, and we're going to end up with whatever percentage we want -- even one we want to call "high" or "prevalent" or an "epidemic", if we wanted. Let's add in some error margins and uncertainty because (1) people don't always tell the truth, and (2) people don't always remember things perfectly. Now the importance and validity of your percentage becomes, well, let's say arguable and ambiguous, at best. Have some women been "raped" (in the clearest, most old fashioned sense of the word) -- hell yes. And that's horrible. And should not happen. But to say that a third of all women are "sexually assaulted" in their lifetimes and/or to say that that is (always and necessarily) an evil thing -- that part I'm not so sure of. Rape? Bad. Sexual assault? Depends on particulars of the specific case -- not what words/laws say.
  - shaddi 16y ago
    First, I made a mistake: 1 in 6 women will be victims of sexual assault in their lifetime. [1] My apologies; despite the mistaken figure it's still a large number. This figure represents the number of women who will claim they have been a victim of sexual violence. You are claiming that some (likely significant) portion of these claims do not meet your definition of harm or violence. I'm not looking to get into a pedantic argument here about what kind of touching counts as sexual assault, or how far an assailant needs to go before the victim is "really" hurt. All I'm suggesting you do is talk to someone you know who considers themselves a victim and try to understand why they do; I really think you might learn something new. All you've said so far is that sexual assault isn't really a big deal because you don't think it's a big deal -- something of a circular argument. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_assault#cite_note-1 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_assault#cite_note-1
tptacek 16y ago
You're right, Mike. This wasn't sexual "assult". It was sexual battery. Let me help you parse this out: Official Code of Georgia, Title 16: 16-6-22.1. Sexual battery. (a) For the purposes of this Code section, the term "intimate parts" means the primary genital area, anus, groin, inner thighs, or buttocks of a male or female and the breasts of a female. (b) A person commits the offense of sexual battery when he intentionally makes physical contact with the intimate parts of the body of another person without the consent of that person. (c) A person convicted of the offense of sexual battery shall be punished as for a misdemeanor of a high and aggravated nature. He's lucky he "fumbled". It otherwise would have been aggravated sexual battery; a felony, in Georgia. Hope that helps.
- mkramlich 16y ago
  Thanks for quoting that tptacek, but that's just a law. :P But seriously: it's arbitrary words on paper. And just one possible jurisdiction. I guess my take is that every legal jurisdiction can have a different definition. And even assuming that jurisdiction is the pertinent one from purely a legal standpoint, it is tangential to whether, in a more substantive sense whether an "assault" occurred, or rape, or whether violence occurred, or whether anyone was actually harmed in RL -- not in theory, not in some textbook. All I've personally heard for sure, in this case, is that one guy made some moves in a bar which were waaay too forward relative to what the woman liked. Because she did not like it, she publicly names him and accuses him of "assault". I would bet you money that if she liked what he did then she would not have did that and nobody here would be talking about it. I think this element of it is what makes it so tricky, and so controversial for some folks.
  - tptacek 16y ago
    It's the jurisdiction, Mike. (It's "criminal sexual abuse" in my jurisdiction, and in the circumstances described it's already a class 4 felony. That makes me happy.)
    - mkramlich 16y ago
      Again, these are arbitrary words on paper. :) They could be changed or deleted or rearranged tomorrow if we wanted. How I'm approaching it -- and this is really really important in order to understand why I'm saying what i'm saying so I'm going to draw it out a bit to emphasize it further -- is that we should listen to this story, and consider the details of this incident in terms of the physical activities that occurred, and the context in which it occurred, and come to our own independent judgement as to whether what happened was (1) evil, and (2) what was the magnitude of it (if it was), and (3) was their actual harm done (not imagined harm, not theorized harm, not genericized extrapolated harm, etc.) but real harm, and (4) if whether the very same incident were to occur except that the woman liked it, would we still consider it to be a big deal, and would we still consider it a crime or think it should be a crime. I clearly am coming down on the side that says that what happened should not have happened, but, oh darn, it's really not that big of a deal and she'll be fine. The guy misread how forward he could be, and/or was drunk and/or she was also drunk, and/or one or both were flirtatious and things went too far. It can happen. It's going to happen. It will keep happening just as long as humans are sexual and have to play the mating dance with incomplete and imperfect knowledge of the other's intentions and desires, and heck, even of their own. And look, by her own admission, it's not like a case where he dragged her into an alley at knifepoint and violently raped her, leaving her bruised, bleeding, in pain, etc. That is stereotypical rape, and is evil, and I think there's a very large social consensus that that is bad and should be a crime and be punished. We are not talking about that kind of event in this particular case. But some people seem to have the same emotional baggage in mind when they evaluate it. And I think that's a misleading and weak position to be arguing from. I think I would care much less about this particular case if (1) the guy was not named, and (2) it was not blogged about publicly, and (3) here on HN. I mean at most, this is a situation for her, that other guy, and the legal system (and that, arguably) to deal with. The fact that it's been laundered here makes me want to play Devil's Advocate with the hopes of illustrating what I think are extremely important distinctions that should be considered, but often are not.

cowpewter 16y ago

(According to her) he put his hand INSIDE her underwear. AFTER she said she wasn't interested. If it had only been the unwanted kiss, and she said no, don't touch me, and he said, oh I'm sorry, and left it at that, then yes...it was probably just a drunken misunderstanding. Shoving your hand INSIDE another person's (of any gender) underpants after being expressly told that said person was not interested in you sexually is absolutely sexual assault.

mkramlich 16y ago
If that's sexual assault because it's defined to be sexual assault, then it is. Can't argue with that. Words can mean whatever we want. I think the point I was making is that, at least in my case, I had a definition of "assault" long before I ever heard of the term "sexual assault" and I believe the latter is more of a legal term than a common sense, everyday term. Assault involves violence and planning. If there was no violence, and also possibly no planning/premeditation, I personally find it hard to swallow calling this "assault" of any kind. I mean, to put it in perspective, we're talking about, at worst, one adult male putting his hand inside the underwear of another adult female, at a bar, late at night, very likely while one or both parties are drunk, and one or both parties have been flirting or otherwise being touchy-feely with lots of folks all night preceding it. Add to this people who don't read body language and attraction cues perfectly well. And add to this some men wanted to be sexually aggressive and dominant toward a woman they find attractive -- and add to that many women wanting and liking men to do that -- and this adds up to a recipe where I could see something like this happening, and honestly, it should not be such a big deal. Slap on wrist? Sure. Crime? Not so sure. And again: what about the concept of no harm, no foul. It's life. Move on.
- callahad 16y ago
  Just for corroboration, the term "sexual assault" is generally understood to include situations exactly like this one. My alma mater's policy on sexual misconduct has a reasonably nice definition: "Sexual assault is intentional sexual contact with another person without that person’s consent. Consent exists when a person freely and knowingly agrees at the time to participate in a particular sexual act with a particular person. Consent is not effective, for example, when force, threat, or coercion is used. Consent is not effective when sexual contact is with a person who is unable to say no or otherwise resist because of the use of alcohol or drugs or because he or she is asleep or unconscious." The same policy defines sexual contact as including but not being limited to: "sexual intercourse, penetration of an orifice (anal, oral or vaginal) with the penis, finger, or other object in a sexual manner, intentional touching of the genitals, buttocks, or breasts, or coercion to force someone else to touch one’s genitals, buttocks, or breasts. Sexual contact can occur over clothing." Most people in this thread will be viewing the term similarly to the definition above. That said, I'll let other folks deal with the rest of your post; I won't be able to do so dispassionately.
- daxelrod 16y ago
  Let's assume, for the purpose of argument, that you've correctly identified this list of factors that may have contributed to this event. How does that make it any less big of a deal?
- follower 16y ago
  > If there was no violence "Violence is...compelling action against one's will on pain of being hurt." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Violence http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Violence) "I tried to push him off, and told him I wasn’t interested ... He responded by jamming his hand into my underwear and fumbling." (from the article) To me that sounds like "against one's will" and ergo an act of violence.
  - mkramlich 16y ago
    Interesting! I've never heard violence defined like that. When I was a kid and first learning words like that, "violence" meant physical harm and attack. A punch. A gunshot. A bomb explosion. That was violence. I think this other definition you cited is a rather newer and more "lawyer-y" definition. That said. Even if that's the definition we're going to use, then, by that definition, this case still did not involve violence. The alleged evildoer in this case did not do anything against another's will "on pain of being hurt." Sounded like he was waaaaaaay too forward, I'd agree. :) But by her admission there was no threat, no pain and no use of "old-fashioned" violence (no attack or physical harm). I'm going to go read up on the latest arbitrary definition du jour of "rape" and "sexual assault" tonight. What I expect to see is that especially the latter will be defined so loosely that if a guy merely touches a women's arm after she has drunk a glass of alcohol, then he could possibly be charged with the crime of sexual assault. That's how ridiculously overreaching this area of our laws seem to be.

sp332 16y ago

I think really stretches and abuses the language. Yeah, but the damage is long done. These definitions are already codified into law.

mkramlich 16y ago
Laws can be changed. Just words on paper. We could have all such laws changed throughout the country by the end of the month -- at the latest -- if we collectively wanted to. (Obvious adjustment in time window for whatever arbitrary rules/laws/processes are in place that would slow this down further, etc., etc.)

daxelrod 16y ago

I hardly think correct use of a technical term (in this case, in the field of law) is an "abuse of the language"; see http://dictionary.findlaw.com/definition/assault.html http://dictionary.findlaw.com/definition/assault.html The rest of your argument seems to boil down to the same behavior would have been fine if it were consensual, and that kind of situation makes it easy for the guy to misinterpret consent. This reasoning is absolutely ludicrous. First, he kissed her, then "I tried to push him off, and told him I wasn’t interested (I may have been less eloquent, but I don’t think I was less clear)", then he jammed his hand down her underwear. How would that be misread?

Anechoic 16y ago

Let's say the exact same thing happened as described in the story, except that the woman was sexually attracted to the man in question -- it would not be described as assault, just a man being aggressive and the woman liking it and being glad he did. I can't believe this comment is getting upvoted - by this logic, a random guy who comes up and punches me in the fact shouldn't be convicted of a crime because I let random guys in our dojo try to punch me during Aikido class(and some of them succeed when I screw up my blocking/avoidance technique). BTW, the legal definition of assault doesn't require direct violence, merely the threat of violence: http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/assault http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/assault

kprobst 16y ago

It's really simple my friend. Imagine this happens to your daughter/wife/girlfriend/mom. Then come back here and help us rationalize whether or not it was an assault.

steveklabnik 16y ago
Generally, getting emotions involved is not the way to decide upon proper punishment for a crime. This is textbook assault, though.
- kprobst 16y ago
  Agreed, but the OP was in fact arguing that this does not constitute assault.

shaddi 16y ago

You seem to not understand why people would call this violence, nor why serious harm could come from it. It might behoove you to take time to learn about why others might hold a different position. Not to sound sarcastic, but given that a sixth of women have experienced sexual assault in their lifetimes, it shouldn't be difficult to find someone who has been a victim of this who is willing to share their thoughts with you, especially if you approach them with a sincere desire to understand another viewpoint. Edit: incorrect statistic.

mkramlich 16y ago
Here's a thought experiment. Say we define "sexual assault" as being any case where a person is touched on their skin by another person, without that other person first getting explicit permission from the "victim" person to do that. By that definition, I'd wager that 99%+ of all women alive today have been sexually assaulted -- or if they haven't already, 99% will be. Now, in this thought experiment, let's start narrowing the requisite conditions. Say, that the area touched has to be near genitals or buttocks or breasts. Bet the percentage drops some, but still high. Let's say we widen it so it can be outside of clothing -- not necessarily on bare skin. Guess what, the percentage goes back up. Now let's specify that the touchee is not sexually attracted to the toucher. Percentage drops. Now we could narrow it further, or widen it, whatever, and we're going to end up with whatever percentage we want -- even one we want to call "high" or "prevalent" or an "epidemic", if we wanted. Let's add in some error margins and uncertainty because (1) people don't always tell the truth, and (2) people don't always remember things perfectly. Now the importance and validity of your percentage becomes, well, let's say arguable and ambiguous, at best. Have some women been "raped" (in the clearest, most old fashioned sense of the word) -- hell yes. And that's horrible. And should not happen. But to say that a third of all women are "sexually assaulted" in their lifetimes and/or to say that that is (always and necessarily) an evil thing -- that part I'm not so sure of. Rape? Bad. Sexual assault? Depends on particulars of the specific case -- not what words/laws say.
- shaddi 16y ago
  First, I made a mistake: 1 in 6 women will be victims of sexual assault in their lifetime. [1] My apologies; despite the mistaken figure it's still a large number. This figure represents the number of women who will claim they have been a victim of sexual violence. You are claiming that some (likely significant) portion of these claims do not meet your definition of harm or violence. I'm not looking to get into a pedantic argument here about what kind of touching counts as sexual assault, or how far an assailant needs to go before the victim is "really" hurt. All I'm suggesting you do is talk to someone you know who considers themselves a victim and try to understand why they do; I really think you might learn something new. All you've said so far is that sexual assault isn't really a big deal because you don't think it's a big deal -- something of a circular argument. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_assault#cite_note-1 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_assault#cite_note-1

tptacek 16y ago

You're right, Mike. This wasn't sexual "assult". It was sexual battery. Let me help you parse this out: Official Code of Georgia, Title 16: 16-6-22.1. Sexual battery. (a) For the purposes of this Code section, the term "intimate parts" means the primary genital area, anus, groin, inner thighs, or buttocks of a male or female and the breasts of a female. (b) A person commits the offense of sexual battery when he intentionally makes physical contact with the intimate parts of the body of another person without the consent of that person. (c) A person convicted of the offense of sexual battery shall be punished as for a misdemeanor of a high and aggravated nature. He's lucky he "fumbled". It otherwise would have been aggravated sexual battery; a felony, in Georgia. Hope that helps.

mkramlich 16y ago
Thanks for quoting that tptacek, but that's just a law. :P But seriously: it's arbitrary words on paper. And just one possible jurisdiction. I guess my take is that every legal jurisdiction can have a different definition. And even assuming that jurisdiction is the pertinent one from purely a legal standpoint, it is tangential to whether, in a more substantive sense whether an "assault" occurred, or rape, or whether violence occurred, or whether anyone was actually harmed in RL -- not in theory, not in some textbook. All I've personally heard for sure, in this case, is that one guy made some moves in a bar which were waaay too forward relative to what the woman liked. Because she did not like it, she publicly names him and accuses him of "assault". I would bet you money that if she liked what he did then she would not have did that and nobody here would be talking about it. I think this element of it is what makes it so tricky, and so controversial for some folks.
- tptacek 16y ago
  It's the jurisdiction, Mike. (It's "criminal sexual abuse" in my jurisdiction, and in the circumstances described it's already a class 4 felony. That makes me happy.)
  - mkramlich 16y ago
    Again, these are arbitrary words on paper. :) They could be changed or deleted or rearranged tomorrow if we wanted. How I'm approaching it -- and this is really really important in order to understand why I'm saying what i'm saying so I'm going to draw it out a bit to emphasize it further -- is that we should listen to this story, and consider the details of this incident in terms of the physical activities that occurred, and the context in which it occurred, and come to our own independent judgement as to whether what happened was (1) evil, and (2) what was the magnitude of it (if it was), and (3) was their actual harm done (not imagined harm, not theorized harm, not genericized extrapolated harm, etc.) but real harm, and (4) if whether the very same incident were to occur except that the woman liked it, would we still consider it to be a big deal, and would we still consider it a crime or think it should be a crime. I clearly am coming down on the side that says that what happened should not have happened, but, oh darn, it's really not that big of a deal and she'll be fine. The guy misread how forward he could be, and/or was drunk and/or she was also drunk, and/or one or both were flirtatious and things went too far. It can happen. It's going to happen. It will keep happening just as long as humans are sexual and have to play the mating dance with incomplete and imperfect knowledge of the other's intentions and desires, and heck, even of their own. And look, by her own admission, it's not like a case where he dragged her into an alley at knifepoint and violently raped her, leaving her bruised, bleeding, in pain, etc. That is stereotypical rape, and is evil, and I think there's a very large social consensus that that is bad and should be a crime and be punished. We are not talking about that kind of event in this particular case. But some people seem to have the same emotional baggage in mind when they evaluate it. And I think that's a misleading and weak position to be arguing from. I think I would care much less about this particular case if (1) the guy was not named, and (2) it was not blogged about publicly, and (3) here on HN. I mean at most, this is a situation for her, that other guy, and the legal system (and that, arguably) to deal with. The fact that it's been laundered here makes me want to play Devil's Advocate with the hopes of illustrating what I think are extremely important distinctions that should be considered, but often are not.