4 ms·

In an economic game sense, it is rational behaviour. The costs are externalized on the people who don't want to be propositioned and the gains accrue exactly to

In an economic game sense, it is rational behaviour. The costs are externalized on the people who don't want to be propositioned and the gains accrue exactly to the propositioner and the propositionee who wants it. We're solving it by internalizing that externality (calling out cat callers) and I think that's the right thing to do. I wonder if there is a mechanism (there probably isn't) which instead rapidly matches folks so that they can catcall exactly the people who want to be cat called, assuming there are any.

WorldMaker 7y ago
> I wonder if there is a mechanism (there probably isn't) which instead rapidly matches folks so that they can catcall exactly the people who want to be cat called, assuming there are any. Human cultures have adapted all sorts of symbols and codes for social boundary negotiation. One really obvious and ancient one is the Wedding Ring. The fact that Wedding Rings are an "opt out" by default model in many folks' view for what is "fair game" is a problem to redress. Another example that comes to mind from books I've read is the 70s "handkerchief code": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Handkerchief_code https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Handkerchief_code. That one at least is more opt-in. There are descendants of that coding system still in use, of course. In several of the real world conventions that I attend there's a growing pin and button culture that tries to encode directly and explicitly in English some negotiations, across a wide spectrum of consent/interest lines, things such as "I'm a hugger" and "Yes, I'm interested in socializing right now" (plus pronouns, and so forth). The advantage of making plain English over some cryptic code is nice for avoiding some forms of miscommunication, and you can do that in constrained settings like sci-fi conventions. They become a useful laboratory for exploring which ideas should possibly grow out into the real world, even though I don't think there are many ideas of how to do that "at scale" just yet. (They are also laboratory experiments that some of them still fail and various communities are continually learning from them. Almost every broad consent has exceptions and navigating the line, for instance, of "I know I've given broad consent, but right now you need to accept that this particular circumstance is a no" is probably always going to be a challenge.) Arguably a large part of the evolution of human communications has always been about social negotiation and we keep building new systems to signal/communicate/explore it. We've never perfected it, but maybe a big part of our human drive is that we keep trying.
- infinite8s 7y ago
  > Another example that comes to mind from books I've read is the 70s "handkerchief code": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Handkerchief_code https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Handkerchief_code. That one at least is more opt-in. There are descendants of that coding system still in use, of course. It's interesting that the opt-in signaling culture arose in the context of symmetrically powerful relationships (two members of the same sex) vs a catcall culture (which is clearly between assymetric power relationships - a male and female). I wonder if the power imbalance has something to do with the consensuality of the interaction.
  - WorldMaker 7y ago
    That's definitely a concern. The growing modern understanding is maybe that you cannot have consent in a power imbalance, and sometimes a lot of the "code" work right now is as much finding and signaling possible power imbalances as much or more than establishing even a broad consent signal. Consider pronoun signaling as one first example where it may also signal an unobvious power imbalance (though not necessarily in every case; part of the normalization work behind pronoun signaling is that if everyone does it, for many people it signals a status quo/no change in power dynamics). Though also an interesting counter-note to me is that the handkerchief code itself was commonly used in BDSM cases intended to signal the consensual creation of a power imbalance and asymmetry, and it is in (mixed gender) BDSM communities where I've heard most of the less publicly documented, but possibly more generally useful, successors to handkerchief code can be found. So asymmetric power structures have always been intertwined in the opt-in signaling, even if yes some of the early symmetry was probably a necessary bootstrap state.
- scarejunba 7y ago
  Hey, thanks. I really learned something from this. I'll think on it.
quickthrower2 7y ago
> I wonder if there is a mechanism (there probably isn't) which instead rapidly matches folks so that they can catcall exactly the people who want to be cat called, assuming there are any. I think this is what dating apps are for to some extent. Except the 'catcall' becomes ... conversation on a date. Although some of the apps are more on the catcall end of the spectrum.

WorldMaker 7y ago

> I wonder if there is a mechanism (there probably isn't) which instead rapidly matches folks so that they can catcall exactly the people who want to be cat called, assuming there are any. Human cultures have adapted all sorts of symbols and codes for social boundary negotiation. One really obvious and ancient one is the Wedding Ring. The fact that Wedding Rings are an "opt out" by default model in many folks' view for what is "fair game" is a problem to redress. Another example that comes to mind from books I've read is the 70s "handkerchief code": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Handkerchief_code https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Handkerchief_code. That one at least is more opt-in. There are descendants of that coding system still in use, of course. In several of the real world conventions that I attend there's a growing pin and button culture that tries to encode directly and explicitly in English some negotiations, across a wide spectrum of consent/interest lines, things such as "I'm a hugger" and "Yes, I'm interested in socializing right now" (plus pronouns, and so forth). The advantage of making plain English over some cryptic code is nice for avoiding some forms of miscommunication, and you can do that in constrained settings like sci-fi conventions. They become a useful laboratory for exploring which ideas should possibly grow out into the real world, even though I don't think there are many ideas of how to do that "at scale" just yet. (They are also laboratory experiments that some of them still fail and various communities are continually learning from them. Almost every broad consent has exceptions and navigating the line, for instance, of "I know I've given broad consent, but right now you need to accept that this particular circumstance is a no" is probably always going to be a challenge.) Arguably a large part of the evolution of human communications has always been about social negotiation and we keep building new systems to signal/communicate/explore it. We've never perfected it, but maybe a big part of our human drive is that we keep trying.

infinite8s 7y ago
> Another example that comes to mind from books I've read is the 70s "handkerchief code": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Handkerchief_code https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Handkerchief_code. That one at least is more opt-in. There are descendants of that coding system still in use, of course. It's interesting that the opt-in signaling culture arose in the context of symmetrically powerful relationships (two members of the same sex) vs a catcall culture (which is clearly between assymetric power relationships - a male and female). I wonder if the power imbalance has something to do with the consensuality of the interaction.
- WorldMaker 7y ago
  That's definitely a concern. The growing modern understanding is maybe that you cannot have consent in a power imbalance, and sometimes a lot of the "code" work right now is as much finding and signaling possible power imbalances as much or more than establishing even a broad consent signal. Consider pronoun signaling as one first example where it may also signal an unobvious power imbalance (though not necessarily in every case; part of the normalization work behind pronoun signaling is that if everyone does it, for many people it signals a status quo/no change in power dynamics). Though also an interesting counter-note to me is that the handkerchief code itself was commonly used in BDSM cases intended to signal the consensual creation of a power imbalance and asymmetry, and it is in (mixed gender) BDSM communities where I've heard most of the less publicly documented, but possibly more generally useful, successors to handkerchief code can be found. So asymmetric power structures have always been intertwined in the opt-in signaling, even if yes some of the early symmetry was probably a necessary bootstrap state.
scarejunba 7y ago
Hey, thanks. I really learned something from this. I'll think on it.

quickthrower2 7y ago

> I wonder if there is a mechanism (there probably isn't) which instead rapidly matches folks so that they can catcall exactly the people who want to be cat called, assuming there are any. I think this is what dating apps are for to some extent. Except the 'catcall' becomes ... conversation on a date. Although some of the apps are more on the catcall end of the spectrum.