Weinsteins step down as Miramax CEOs

otm

I think they already have...

also - get this - every generation has spent its horniest years being completely confused about how to do this

and Sanpaku, I don't mean that to be dismissive of the points you raise. I'm trying to be reassuring.

I'd give you a pat on the back and maybe a hug for making it through what you've had to deal with, if that would be okay with you.

What one learns in coding is that if you can't define, explicitly, what you want from a system, you don't understand it at all.

The range between wholly uninterested complement, to flirtation, to borderline harassment is very broad, and after months of this, we still don't have a heuristic for how those who might like to complement, but would also like to avoid potential for future career termination, should behave.

Saying it depends on the individual and situation is saying you are also clueless. If we can't find a consensus on this, then the safest course will remain silence.

every generation has spent its horniest years being completely confused about how to do this

otmfm

That's my disappointment with the present moment. It's an opportunity to clearly demarcate red lines, but as there's been practically zero effort to this end, its been mostly establishing that some celebrities are indeed creeps, and that some people will use the moment to political ends.

sanpaku the only thing i can say is that if you really think your compliments are going to be misinterpreted as come-ons then i think you're right to hold off on compliments until you feel more sure of how you come across.

and you really gotta get away from this red line thing. everyone's different, and everyone's relationship to you is different. there is no template.

OK, I like a challenge. Here's how to do this

1. If you want to say a nice thing about somebody's looks, you do it with NO ULTERIOR MOTIVE whatsoever, and you only say it about things that person has agency over. You can mention that a haircut / dye job looks great. You can talk about fashion choices. You can even, if you couch it right, mention other cosmetic choices, like "hey, can I just say, your toenails look great with that color." But you do this in when you are complimenting without concern for your future bedmate options. Strictly. It is not to be done as an opener to hitting one anyone. Easy enough? Good.

2. If you want to hug someone or pat them on the back, ask them if that's okay. "Can I give you a hug?" "I think you deserve a pat on the back, is that ok?" Again, this is done with NO expectations of further contact or intimacy.

3. If you want to compliment somebody as an opening gambit on the way to furtive glances over coffee or wine or whatever, then the subject of the compliment had better be something more substantial than the shape of their buttocks or their inseam or what the fuck ever. "I thought the way you handled that situation the other day was amazing. Would you be interested in [innocuous activity in a public place] sometime together, just you and me?"

This is an incomplete guide to not being a creep. But does it seem helpful?

xp:
Do you understand, that if you generalize this instruction, it means that no person should flirt? Because among the range of individuals, some outlier will interpret complementing a haircut as harassment.

I complement others maybe once every few months, but not at my place of work. A week ago I complemented the woman who staffs the storage I rent on her new haircut. She smiled and seemed happy that someone noticed. I had no sexual interest in her, just wanted to brighten the day of a middle aged woman stuck behind a desk with no windows.

However, the assumption that the kids will figure this out, or that everyone will come to understand the norms, assumes that others share your intuitions, social background, and experience. Maybe adequate for the sloppy reasoning of legal work, but a nonstarter for clarity. If everyone can come to a conclusion that sexualization of coworkers is problematic, but no one can come to a set of guidelines to prevent it absolutely, while permitting friendly socialization, it just perpetuates the problem. Those who find the new social world confounding just turtle up, those who look for loopholes continue to do so.

El Tomboto: that's the sort of thing I think should be hashed over in the mass media, yes.

Do you understand, that if you generalize this instruction, it means that no person should flirt? Because among the range of individuals, some outlier will interpret complementing a haircut as harassment.

wait are you flirting or complimenting someone's haircut?

i feel like there is a really big, basic thing that is getting in the way of us understanding each other here and i wish i knew what it was!

there are no red lines. there is reading the room and being respectful of the person you’re communicating with by listening to them and talking to them and, yes, ditching your ulterior motives. if you’re on the spectrum you’ll have to work harder, which sucks and is unfair but also: that’s life.

(can we move this tangent to another thread because it’s sort of annoying to have this discussion marshaled by men. thank you)

Unfortunately, there is. My sister asserts Trump's behavior is normal workplace tomfoolery. "That's just the way people behaved," says a 55 year old CPA. Some get [creeped out](Weinsteins step down as Miramax CEOs) when personal acquaintances mention their new haircut. Still others like myself suggest we need clearer lines between acceptable complements and flirtation, and unacceptable sexual harassment. I expect the line will be much closer to La Lechera's than my sister's, but for all the attention in the media, there's precious little published writing devoted to delineating it.

i mean sure there’s THAT red line.

my request to move this discussion stands btw

maura otm

Afraid the train has been off the tracks in this thread for several months.

maura was pretty clear with her request. don’t make it worse by being salty

start another thread if you want. just don’t do what you keep trying do in ~this~ thread

I'm removing my bookmark, and am unlikely to return, but have you seen the title of this thread?

Just start a male flirting thread

Maura otm x 1000.

Oh my god

Ridley Scott: I haven’t ruled out Harvey Weinstein making a comeback

 I had no sexual interest in her, just wanted to brighten the day of a middle aged woman stuck behind a desk with no windows.

Maybe she was having a perfectly good day without your fuckin' input.

Xps that link to la lachera’s post - the WHOLE POINT of her post was that she HAD NOT done anything to her hair, that it looked exactly the same as every other time she’d seen this guy, which is why it creeped her out - she wasn’t creeped out that a guy noticed she’d cut her hair, she was creeped out bc he clearly had ulterior motives in saying such a weird and pointless thing to her

(can we move this tangent to another thread because it’s sort of annoying to have this discussion marshaled by men. thank you)

Sure but I don’t think anybody is playing referee here, except you just now, and men are the ones who apparently need shit explained to them in boolean algebra so they don’t come off even worse than they already think they do.

Sanpaku is asking sincere questions and is confessing to ASD symptoms and comorbid side effects, but yeah, let’s tell him and his enablers where to stick it, we’re the problem.

I’d love to live in a world where we don’t need a lifehacker post with bullet points about how to say a nice thing to a person without coming across like an oleaginous blob of erect cocks that can talk but apparently that isn’t in the cards

This conversation is roughly on a par with people who complain that feminism means they can't hold a door open for a woman anymore

I mean if you aren’t holding the door open for everyone you were raised wrong

hell yea

i feel like there is a really big, basic thing that is getting in the way of us understanding each other here and i wish i knew what it was!

― illegal economic migration (Tracer Hand), Sunday, January 7, 2018 1:47 AM (seven hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

don't wish to prolong this conversation if ppl think it would be better had somewhere else, but I just wanted to say that I relate to a lot of the confusion that Sanpaku is expressing here, and (cf Tracer) to the feeling of a big basic gap in understanding between myself and other ppl when I read discussions of this stuff, something more fundamental in how you relate to other humans even aside from specific issues of flirting and complimenting etc - I wish I knew what the solution was! (if there is one)

Literally all anyone is suggesting is that this interesting and possibly useful discussion move to its own thread, Tom.

So how bout those Weinsteins eh

not a fan, honestly

for reference: Fired for being nice? a Sanpaku help thread

Well that's kinda dickish. Digression was interesting, and my male flirting/etc behaviour or whatever thread idea was a serious suggestion. Could actually be useful, even.

that's not a flirting thread! but i suppose it could be used for that purpose? i have asked for a retitle tho so it's a little less dickish :)

I've retitled that thread per Tracers request in MRF and I hope Sanpaku sticks around to particpate in it or to continue to participate in this one.

I do want to say that I think it's lame that so many people suggested that Sanpaku leave the thread. His thoughts and questions were relevant to the discussion and well-intentioned. There are necessarily going to be people in the wake of huge events like these who want to seek clarification about the issues that have been raised. It doesn't benefit anybody to shut them down.

I think it was a digression that needed its own thread

I think this is a good thread not to be too clueless in

I think that if that thread were to become a thread where similar shutdown requests were made and subsequently treated as disobeyed orders then ilx needs to have a chat about that maybe

I do want to say that I think it's lame that so many people suggested that Sanpaku leave the thread. His thoughts and questions were relevant to the discussion and well-intentioned. There are necessarily going to be people in the wake of huge events like these who want to seek clarification about the issues that have been raised. It doesn't benefit anybody to shut them down.

― how's life, Sunday, January 7, 2018

OTM. I'd also like to add that telling Sanpaku to 'git gud' (as the gamers say) is incredibly counterproductive, even harmful. For everyone.

well, i did not expect to find my name pop up in here, or that not-exactly-relevant-to-workplace-harassment comment about the hair* -- which was weird for ways i obviously can't explain well enough because of the profound comprehension gap this thread is currently experiencing. a good place to start: don't actively flirt with your coworkers.

* Justine was partially right, but also 1) this did not happen at work 2) i did not intuit sexual menace from this comment 3) it struck me as memorable because of how scripted it felt, like it was from a reader's digest "list of things to say to women if you want to make a positive impression" 4) this is why the word "creepy" is grossly insufficient and way too vague for describing the range of dnw behaviors we are trying to help people avoid

good luck everyone.

"This conversation is roughly on a par with people who complain that feminism means they can't hold a door open for a woman anymore

― Chuck_Tatum,"

haha, yes, I just popped in here and baffled by this shit. but you know, that NYT op-ed by Merkin kind of leaned in that direction. FFS.

seriously
it's disingenuous at best

i’m just speaking as me, not for anyone else

it’s hard enough to wrestle with the high profile rape, abuse & harassment that this thead was revived to ultimately discuss.

i don’t want to come here for that ~and~ to help some of you interrogate how to be around women or how to flirt or what is acceptable behaviour. it’s too much. and for me in the current time, even though they’re all part of the same thing, for now they kind of have to be separate discussions. i think the seriousness of the high profile stuff needs to be dealt with and weighed on its own here, and the out in the world flirting/interactions “how to be” wrestled with elsewhere.

you can talk about it. you’re not being silenced or gagged. i just would rather not have to have that conversation here along with it. because it’s too much.

It's like you can't even compliment a woman on her haircut by telling her you'd like to smell her hair anymore

Sorry all I misinterpreted Maura’s post and clearly overreacted.

You gotta stick to that bedtime, buddy

Sure but I don’t think anybody is playing referee here, except you just now, and men are the ones who apparently need shit explained to them in boolean algebra so they don’t come off even worse than they already think they do.

Sanpaku is asking sincere questions and is confessing to ASD symptoms and comorbid side effects, but yeah, let’s tell him and his enablers where to stick it, we’re the problem.

yeah this was weird, condescending, kind of defensive overreaction. probably shouldn't accuse women of "playing referee" esp in this thread.

it's made pretty clear how to not be a jerk in public and professional settings. i don't get the outpouring of self-pity for the man who now has to question shit before he does it. like, we all make sacrifices, every day, to live in society. grow the fuck up.

thank you vg for articulating my discomfort.

np <3

also daphne merkin sucks