5 ms·

This is a wild exaggeration. Men used to be able to basically hit on women in all contexts with zero consequence (e.g. hitting on women at work was ok, let alon

This is a wild exaggeration. Men used to be able to basically hit on women in all contexts with zero consequence (e.g. hitting on women at work was ok, let alone butting into a group at a bar). More recently, people have been pushing back on men who are inappropriate. This leads to some men who don't understand the new boundaries having a very large overreaction and essentially saying that it's impossible or scary to 'chat someone up'. See also the men who won't work/game in mixed gender groups because it's "too difficult". The new rules are essentially 'be respectful' and "there's a time a place" and 'politely accept no as an answer' and 'no one owes you shit'. They aren't complicated rules.

amvalo 8y ago
Actually the rules are even simpler than that: 1. don't.
- Pfhreak 8y ago
  They really aren't? You can flirt, you can come on to people. Some people want that, and it's ok in some contexts.
  - Mirioron 8y ago
    And there is no way to tell which people are okay with this and which aren't without taking risks that can have severe consequences. Some men are just going to say "no thanks" to this, and on the scale of society that some men is a large number.
    - golergka 8y ago
      > And there is no way to tell which people are okay with this and which aren't without taking risks that can have severe consequences. Ask?
      - Mirioron 8y ago
        Just asking can be considered creepy or harassment.
        Pfhreak 8y ago
        Navigating consent is a skill. Skills take practice. Can you intend to be respectful and still fail? Yes, absolutely. Just like any social skill, if you've not practiced it you run the risk of making yourself an outsider. My general thesis is that we're expecting men to be more practiced at this skill these days. Some men balk at this, some men were poorly prepared for this and struggle with a lack of proficiency in navigating consent. (To be clear, I believe there are women and gender minorities who fail to learn this skill as well, but the context of this conversation is about men this far.) The problem arises, I think, because most of us are taught a set of social skills pretty early - sharing, listening, etc. But we didn't start teaching the skill of consent very well until recently, and it's folks like us who were kids awhile ago who are left trying to pick up a new skill that people expect us to have. It's bloody difficult to learn a new skill when the consequence for failure is risking becoming a pariah.
        Mirioron 8y ago
        >It's bloody difficult to learn a new skill when the consequence for failure is risking becoming a pariah. And some will simply choose not to take that risk. On a societal level that some suddenly turns into millions of people who don't have a vested interest in the long-term future of that society. PS I don't think that people lack skills around consent because they weren't taught it. I think people lack skills around it, because there is no clear expectation of what requires and doesn't require consent depending on the person.
  - amvalo 8y ago
    Ok then, tell me the last time you saw someone flirt with a stranger.
jtr1 8y ago
The new rules are essentially 'be respectful' and "there's a time a place" and 'politely accept no as an answer' and 'no one owes you shit'. They aren't complicated rules. This should be a poster in every bar.
- Pfhreak 8y ago
  If you thought an advertisement about razors caused trouble, wait till bars start expecting people to accept no as an answer.
swayvil 8y ago
So in short, "I'm not overreacting, you're overreacting".
colordrops 8y ago
These were always the rules since I can remember and I'm in my mid 40s. where do you live?
- Pfhreak 8y ago
  Pacific northwest, and I'm gonna guess you're a man? Cause these may have been the rules as written, but these were not the rules 'on the field.' How many jokes do you remember in the 90s about "buying her dinner first"? And the pressure to put out after a nice meal even if you sorta didn't want to? Even after you found a partner, it was legal to rape your spouse until what, 93? That doesn't seem like "politely accept no" was the rule to me...
  - colordrops 8y ago
    I didn't hear these sorts of jokes in my circles. I certainly never heard them at work. And I suspect the people that told these jokes then are still telling them now. I don't even know what you are talking about re: raping spouses, and is frankly a non sequitur.
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
    - Pfhreak 8y ago
      Buying dinner jokes were totally in the zeitgeist from that era. See all the jokes in media about who should pick up the tab. For the second part, I'm talking about consent in all parts of a relationship. Politely accepting no is a part of finding a consenting partner. Up until very recently, men didn't have to accept no. They were legally protected in not accepting no. I said the new rule is "politely accepting no as an answer" was a new rule, you said it was always the rule. I provided a counter example saying it was clearly not always the rule.
      - colordrops 8y ago
        Some states had the age of consent at 14 until as recently at 2001. It doesn't mean that the old rules were that pedophilia was accepted before the change.
im3w1l 8y ago
You may think simple rules like "be respectful" are easy to follow, but for many people a such vague rules are harder than formal and strict rules "First you look at her. If she smiles you are allowed to say hi. After 10 minutes of smalltalk you " may be an improvement over "be respectful".
- Pfhreak 8y ago
  Sure. Believe me, I understand how difficult it can be if you haven't practiced this skill or are not neurotypical. But unfortunately, constructing an exhaustive decision tree is impossible. But yeah, be respectful is obviously a little glib for the purpose of brevity on this forum.
cybersnowflake 8y ago
Just because you say things are simple doesn't mean they are... https://thewaterpipe.files.wordpress.com/2013/12/capture.png?w=390 https://thewaterpipe.files.wordpress.com/2013/12/capture.png... https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/06/netflix-five-second-staring-rule/ https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/06/netflix-five-second-s...
wnoise 8y ago
> Men used to be able to basically hit on women in all contexts with zero consequence Zero legal consequence -- social consequence or vigilante consequence was always a possibility. > More recently, people have been pushing back on men who are inappropriate What's considered inappropriate is precisely what's changing. > The new rules are essentially 'be respectful' and "there's a time a place" and 'politely accept no as an answer' and 'no one owes you shit'. Those have always been the rules. What has changed is what counts as respectful, and exactly when and where are the allowed times and places. There really are those pushing a message that any (non-reciprocated) sexual interest is disrespectful. Excluding work from allowed time-and-place and then "there's a time and place" excludes the places where one spends a great deal of one's time out of the house, with people one knows and can judge, and are likely to be prefiltered to have similar interests and socio-economic background. Work romances are still a huge proportion of how marriages start. > They aren't complicated rules. They are when the underlying terms are in the process of being redefined.
- Pfhreak 8y ago
  Agree to disagree on all counts?
  - wnoise 8y ago
    Um sure, I guess. I really would like to understand how and why you disagree though, but I think if I said anymore, it would just be reiterating my points in a not terribly useful way.
  - Mirioron 8y ago
    You can disagree, but we know that young men are having less sex than ever before. We also know that young men are having significantly less sex than young women. Something is broken in the system and I'm afraid that something this fundamental to humans can result in bad consequences.
    - Pfhreak 8y ago
      Ok, I'm willing to believe the less sex claim for the sake of argument. But "something is broken" doesn't follow from those data. Maybe things were broken before, and they are normal now? I'd certainly believe things are different, sure.
bonestamp2 8y ago
Even easier, just be nice, friendly and maybe even charming. You shouldn't even start to flirt until all that is going well, and by then the flirting is probably fine.
- wnoise 8y ago
  Many people would consider being nice, friendly, and especially charming to be flirting.
  - bonestamp2 8y ago
    I just mean in the same way that they are (or should be) nice, friendly and charming with their friends and family. If you meet new people and you find them attractive, treat them like they are already a friend that you've known for years. Don't be weird, just tell them a funny story, embarrass yourself, show them that you're fun and human. Those are my rules, and I've dated way out of my league my entire life. I'm not saying it's easy, but it is simple (not to be confused).
- Pfhreak 8y ago
  Just be careful, you can overdo these. You can be obsequious or obnoxious while over performing charming.
- Mirioron 8y ago
  And attractive.
Mirioron 8y ago
You make it sound like all boundaries are set in stone and everyone can perfectly tell where they are for every single person. This is clearly untrue. Life and social interactions aren't as easily navigable for everyone as they are for you. Men are expected to take the risk of approaching women. When they do that they have to know what the woman's boundaries are, because if they don't then they're labeled a creep or a sexual harasser (even though it could be a one time event). The consequences of this kind of failure can result in being ostracized or even a loss of your livelihood. Just a misunderstanding is enough in some cases and there are plenty of cases of false accusations too. Some men aren't going to take these kinds of risks, because instead they can just go home, watch porn, and play video games. We have evidence of this too - young men are having far less sex than young women.[0] I think this might be a big problem going forward, because these young men are going to be less invested in society than previous generations. This could have all kinds of implications on the economy, but also the future path of society. We've read articles [1] about how surplus young men can cause society to become less stable. One of the important pieces is that the men that don't get married are less invested in society. Those articles were in reference to Asia, but I don't see how that couldn't also apply to the young men in the western world if they don't have any relationships. The worst part is that I don't think this is something that can be changed. [0] https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2019/03/29/share-americans-not-having-sex-has-reached-record-high https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2019/03/29/share-ame... [1] https://qz.com/186066/this-lost-generation-of-young-men-is-threatening-global-stability/ https://qz.com/186066/this-lost-generation-of-young-men-is-t...
- titanomachy 8y ago
  "Men are expected to take the risk for approaching women..." Thank you for clearly articulating this sentiment. I've found it hard to empathize with this point of view but your description helped. I would argue that building a robust social life rather than approaching random women is a better approach to finding a partner for people who can't imagine taking this kind of risk. The point about less investment in society is also interesting, and potentially scary. I agree there's no easy solution to that one.

amvalo 8y ago

Actually the rules are even simpler than that: 1. don't.

Pfhreak 8y ago
They really aren't? You can flirt, you can come on to people. Some people want that, and it's ok in some contexts.
- Mirioron 8y ago
  And there is no way to tell which people are okay with this and which aren't without taking risks that can have severe consequences. Some men are just going to say "no thanks" to this, and on the scale of society that some men is a large number.
  - golergka 8y ago
    > And there is no way to tell which people are okay with this and which aren't without taking risks that can have severe consequences. Ask?
    - Mirioron 8y ago
      Just asking can be considered creepy or harassment.
      - Pfhreak 8y ago
        Navigating consent is a skill. Skills take practice. Can you intend to be respectful and still fail? Yes, absolutely. Just like any social skill, if you've not practiced it you run the risk of making yourself an outsider. My general thesis is that we're expecting men to be more practiced at this skill these days. Some men balk at this, some men were poorly prepared for this and struggle with a lack of proficiency in navigating consent. (To be clear, I believe there are women and gender minorities who fail to learn this skill as well, but the context of this conversation is about men this far.) The problem arises, I think, because most of us are taught a set of social skills pretty early - sharing, listening, etc. But we didn't start teaching the skill of consent very well until recently, and it's folks like us who were kids awhile ago who are left trying to pick up a new skill that people expect us to have. It's bloody difficult to learn a new skill when the consequence for failure is risking becoming a pariah.
        Mirioron 8y ago
        >It's bloody difficult to learn a new skill when the consequence for failure is risking becoming a pariah. And some will simply choose not to take that risk. On a societal level that some suddenly turns into millions of people who don't have a vested interest in the long-term future of that society. PS I don't think that people lack skills around consent because they weren't taught it. I think people lack skills around it, because there is no clear expectation of what requires and doesn't require consent depending on the person.
- amvalo 8y ago
  Ok then, tell me the last time you saw someone flirt with a stranger.

jtr1 8y ago

The new rules are essentially 'be respectful' and "there's a time a place" and 'politely accept no as an answer' and 'no one owes you shit'. They aren't complicated rules. This should be a poster in every bar.

Pfhreak 8y ago
If you thought an advertisement about razors caused trouble, wait till bars start expecting people to accept no as an answer.

swayvil 8y ago

So in short, "I'm not overreacting, you're overreacting".

colordrops 8y ago

These were always the rules since I can remember and I'm in my mid 40s. where do you live?

Pfhreak 8y ago
Pacific northwest, and I'm gonna guess you're a man? Cause these may have been the rules as written, but these were not the rules 'on the field.' How many jokes do you remember in the 90s about "buying her dinner first"? And the pressure to put out after a nice meal even if you sorta didn't want to? Even after you found a partner, it was legal to rape your spouse until what, 93? That doesn't seem like "politely accept no" was the rule to me...
- colordrops 8y ago
  I didn't hear these sorts of jokes in my circles. I certainly never heard them at work. And I suspect the people that told these jokes then are still telling them now. I don't even know what you are talking about re: raping spouses, and is frankly a non sequitur.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - Pfhreak 8y ago
    Buying dinner jokes were totally in the zeitgeist from that era. See all the jokes in media about who should pick up the tab. For the second part, I'm talking about consent in all parts of a relationship. Politely accepting no is a part of finding a consenting partner. Up until very recently, men didn't have to accept no. They were legally protected in not accepting no. I said the new rule is "politely accepting no as an answer" was a new rule, you said it was always the rule. I provided a counter example saying it was clearly not always the rule.
    - colordrops 8y ago
      Some states had the age of consent at 14 until as recently at 2001. It doesn't mean that the old rules were that pedophilia was accepted before the change.

im3w1l 8y ago

You may think simple rules like "be respectful" are easy to follow, but for many people a such vague rules are harder than formal and strict rules "First you look at her. If she smiles you are allowed to say hi. After 10 minutes of smalltalk you " may be an improvement over "be respectful".

Pfhreak 8y ago
Sure. Believe me, I understand how difficult it can be if you haven't practiced this skill or are not neurotypical. But unfortunately, constructing an exhaustive decision tree is impossible. But yeah, be respectful is obviously a little glib for the purpose of brevity on this forum.

cybersnowflake 8y ago

Just because you say things are simple doesn't mean they are... https://thewaterpipe.files.wordpress.com/2013/12/capture.png?w=390 https://thewaterpipe.files.wordpress.com/2013/12/capture.png... https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/06/netflix-five-second-staring-rule/ https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/06/netflix-five-second-s...

wnoise 8y ago

> Men used to be able to basically hit on women in all contexts with zero consequence Zero legal consequence -- social consequence or vigilante consequence was always a possibility. > More recently, people have been pushing back on men who are inappropriate What's considered inappropriate is precisely what's changing. > The new rules are essentially 'be respectful' and "there's a time a place" and 'politely accept no as an answer' and 'no one owes you shit'. Those have always been the rules. What has changed is what counts as respectful, and exactly when and where are the allowed times and places. There really are those pushing a message that any (non-reciprocated) sexual interest is disrespectful. Excluding work from allowed time-and-place and then "there's a time and place" excludes the places where one spends a great deal of one's time out of the house, with people one knows and can judge, and are likely to be prefiltered to have similar interests and socio-economic background. Work romances are still a huge proportion of how marriages start. > They aren't complicated rules. They are when the underlying terms are in the process of being redefined.

Pfhreak 8y ago
Agree to disagree on all counts?
- wnoise 8y ago
  Um sure, I guess. I really would like to understand how and why you disagree though, but I think if I said anymore, it would just be reiterating my points in a not terribly useful way.
- Mirioron 8y ago
  You can disagree, but we know that young men are having less sex than ever before. We also know that young men are having significantly less sex than young women. Something is broken in the system and I'm afraid that something this fundamental to humans can result in bad consequences.
  - Pfhreak 8y ago
    Ok, I'm willing to believe the less sex claim for the sake of argument. But "something is broken" doesn't follow from those data. Maybe things were broken before, and they are normal now? I'd certainly believe things are different, sure.

bonestamp2 8y ago

Even easier, just be nice, friendly and maybe even charming. You shouldn't even start to flirt until all that is going well, and by then the flirting is probably fine.

wnoise 8y ago
Many people would consider being nice, friendly, and especially charming to be flirting.
- bonestamp2 8y ago
  I just mean in the same way that they are (or should be) nice, friendly and charming with their friends and family. If you meet new people and you find them attractive, treat them like they are already a friend that you've known for years. Don't be weird, just tell them a funny story, embarrass yourself, show them that you're fun and human. Those are my rules, and I've dated way out of my league my entire life. I'm not saying it's easy, but it is simple (not to be confused).
Pfhreak 8y ago
Just be careful, you can overdo these. You can be obsequious or obnoxious while over performing charming.
Mirioron 8y ago
And attractive.

Mirioron 8y ago

You make it sound like all boundaries are set in stone and everyone can perfectly tell where they are for every single person. This is clearly untrue. Life and social interactions aren't as easily navigable for everyone as they are for you. Men are expected to take the risk of approaching women. When they do that they have to know what the woman's boundaries are, because if they don't then they're labeled a creep or a sexual harasser (even though it could be a one time event). The consequences of this kind of failure can result in being ostracized or even a loss of your livelihood. Just a misunderstanding is enough in some cases and there are plenty of cases of false accusations too. Some men aren't going to take these kinds of risks, because instead they can just go home, watch porn, and play video games. We have evidence of this too - young men are having far less sex than young women.[0] I think this might be a big problem going forward, because these young men are going to be less invested in society than previous generations. This could have all kinds of implications on the economy, but also the future path of society. We've read articles [1] about how surplus young men can cause society to become less stable. One of the important pieces is that the men that don't get married are less invested in society. Those articles were in reference to Asia, but I don't see how that couldn't also apply to the young men in the western world if they don't have any relationships. The worst part is that I don't think this is something that can be changed. [0] https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2019/03/29/share-americans-not-having-sex-has-reached-record-high https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2019/03/29/share-ame... [1] https://qz.com/186066/this-lost-generation-of-young-men-is-threatening-global-stability/ https://qz.com/186066/this-lost-generation-of-young-men-is-t...

titanomachy 8y ago
"Men are expected to take the risk for approaching women..." Thank you for clearly articulating this sentiment. I've found it hard to empathize with this point of view but your description helped. I would argue that building a robust social life rather than approaching random women is a better approach to finding a partner for people who can't imagine taking this kind of risk. The point about less investment in society is also interesting, and potentially scary. I agree there's no easy solution to that one.