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I didn't read that the same way you did. I don't think GP was using "culture" as an excuse for anyone's behaviour; rather I read it as a suggestion that maybe i

I didn't read that the same way you did. I don't think GP was using "culture" as an excuse for anyone's behaviour; rather I read it as a suggestion that maybe in addition to personal culpability, there are cultural problems in place which perpetuate/encourage/condone bad behaviour. Doesn't sound like horseshit to me, at least not in the obvious sense which you seem to suggest. (FWIW, I might also forego the "alpha/omega" labels, but that's a small nit to pick.) The last part of your comment almost seems orthogonal to that; "whether or not there is a problematic culture in place, there are also crazy people alive, and the internet gives them a platform".

tptacek 13y ago
If there's a cultural problem, it's the one that suggests that having a hard time finding a date when you're 17 (or 24) is a problem that implicates all of society and can be expected to motivate a hatred of women. The person we're talking about on this thread did nothing worse than write a blog about a topic that makes certain people feel uncomfortable. In return, she was the victim of a concerted and unrelenting campaign of harassment. And what the commenter we're replying to has to say about this is that he thinks she might be mentally ill, and, if nothing else, surely provoked the harassment by writing. That would be a contemptible sentiment if it wasn't instead alarming evidence of a real problem within the commenter.
- napoleond 13y ago
  I think you might be letting your opinions about 'michaelochurch unfairly affect the way you parsed his comment. You have to read pretty deeply between the lines (and his mentions of "alpha"/"omega"/"Game") to get to any point about "having a hard time finding a date". What he does directly refer to is "a culture of casual sex" and although I'm far from a prude and ideologically believe that what happens in someone's bedroom is their own business, I don't think it's "horseshit" to suggest that a culture of casual sex (or even a culture which glorified that idea, without it necessarily being a reflection of the way things actually are) could negatively affect social norms with regard to male-female interactions. I also take issue with the assumptions 'michaelochurch has made about the mental welfare of someone who is completely foreign to me (and presumably, him, and... you?) and if that was your only original issue, you should have said so. (Then again, it could be argued that you repeatedly make assumptions about his mental welfare publicly, so I guess that would have been a strange comment for you to make.) As an aside: if we really think someone on the internet is crazy, we can nicely suggest to them one time that they may want to speak to a professional (which I know you have already done in this case, and in an admirable fashion). After that, for a foreign commenter on a message board, the remaining options are to a) engage with the content of their posts or b) ignore them. Replying to each of their comments in disagreement without actually coming up with a good reason is what I took issue with here (not that there weren't good reasons to disagree with GP, just that I didn't think you chose one) and, of course, making further commentary about them frequently also seems problematic to me.
  - tptacek 13y ago
    You're right about how I'm engaging with him. I'll stop. Thanks for the sanity check.
- michaelochurch 13y ago
  I actually read quite a few posts on her blog. She wasn't just writing about sex. She was writing about people she was with, sometimes in intimate detail. No one sane has any problem with sex columnists, who write about the topic in general. "[Identifiable person] has weird genitalia" is another.

tptacek 13y ago

If there's a cultural problem, it's the one that suggests that having a hard time finding a date when you're 17 (or 24) is a problem that implicates all of society and can be expected to motivate a hatred of women. The person we're talking about on this thread did nothing worse than write a blog about a topic that makes certain people feel uncomfortable. In return, she was the victim of a concerted and unrelenting campaign of harassment. And what the commenter we're replying to has to say about this is that he thinks she might be mentally ill, and, if nothing else, surely provoked the harassment by writing. That would be a contemptible sentiment if it wasn't instead alarming evidence of a real problem within the commenter.

napoleond 13y ago
I think you might be letting your opinions about 'michaelochurch unfairly affect the way you parsed his comment. You have to read pretty deeply between the lines (and his mentions of "alpha"/"omega"/"Game") to get to any point about "having a hard time finding a date". What he does directly refer to is "a culture of casual sex" and although I'm far from a prude and ideologically believe that what happens in someone's bedroom is their own business, I don't think it's "horseshit" to suggest that a culture of casual sex (or even a culture which glorified that idea, without it necessarily being a reflection of the way things actually are) could negatively affect social norms with regard to male-female interactions. I also take issue with the assumptions 'michaelochurch has made about the mental welfare of someone who is completely foreign to me (and presumably, him, and... you?) and if that was your only original issue, you should have said so. (Then again, it could be argued that you repeatedly make assumptions about his mental welfare publicly, so I guess that would have been a strange comment for you to make.) As an aside: if we really think someone on the internet is crazy, we can nicely suggest to them one time that they may want to speak to a professional (which I know you have already done in this case, and in an admirable fashion). After that, for a foreign commenter on a message board, the remaining options are to a) engage with the content of their posts or b) ignore them. Replying to each of their comments in disagreement without actually coming up with a good reason is what I took issue with here (not that there weren't good reasons to disagree with GP, just that I didn't think you chose one) and, of course, making further commentary about them frequently also seems problematic to me.
- tptacek 13y ago
  You're right about how I'm engaging with him. I'll stop. Thanks for the sanity check.
michaelochurch 13y ago
I actually read quite a few posts on her blog. She wasn't just writing about sex. She was writing about people she was with, sometimes in intimate detail. No one sane has any problem with sex columnists, who write about the topic in general. "[Identifiable person] has weird genitalia" is another.