18-year-old asks man for advice on her startup, he texts back sleazy messages
mashable.com
mashable.com
I don't think what this guy did was even slightly morally wrong, but I would say it sounds unprofessional trying to milk your social status and social capital for physical affection.
But then again, so is hopping to the press because you found 1 sleazy man out there and trying to milk the cultural moment for a few views. (not that one cancels the other)
I think you have to be very very careful when you start labelling things as moral or otherwise.
Not to nearly the same extent, no. If someone has power over you and you refuse them sex, they could potentially do you all kinds of harm. If someone is very sexually attractive but has no power over you, then the worst that they can do is leave you a bit sexually frustrated.
In other words, being offered sex with strings by an attractive person is hardly as bad as being threatened by a powerful person.
>I think you have to be very very careful when you start labelling things as moral or otherwise.
Behavior that is clearly wrong is clearly wrong. The danger lies in not calling it out and allowing it to become normalized.
On the question of morality I stick to my guns: I think we are all tempted from time to time to ascend to our high horse and start declaiming of our righteousness, but my question to you would be: are you really so pure of morals that there are none that might find fault with you, given the chance?
I'm also struck by the stridency of some of the statements I'm reading on HN. I wonder if this is a cultural thing as to my British ears they sound almost comically absolutist. Perhaps in Europe this kind of forceful speech is less fashionable?
Sure, in a sense. But as I said previously, your sexual attractiveness to a person is not something that you can use to threaten them or ruin their life. On the one hand, you have situations where an attractive woman tries to get what she wants by offering sex. On the other, you have situations where a powerful man threatens a woman who refuses his sexual advances. You only have to think of it from a first-person perspective. Would you rather be coerced into sex, or offered sex in return for a favor?
>to my British ears they sound almost comically absolutist.
I am also British.
If you are someone's boss, you can control and humiliate them by, say, having them fired. You can't say "no thanks" if your boss fires you.
That is the distinction that I was drawing.
Much of this information, if released publicly, would be dismissed out-of-hand as incorrect to anyone who is an upright and decent person.
To the poster below me, the offer of sex can be used as control regardless of acceptance. If a wealthy and attractive person offers you sex, and you are unaware of an ulterior motive, the mere act of offering does factually impact your psychology and changes your cognitive biases. If the changing in these biases is directed, you are being controlled.
I recommend brushing up on your espionage knowledge. This isn't magic, it's intellectual honesty.
>the mere act of offering does factually impact your psychology and changes your cognitive biases.
Everything impacts your psychology and changes your cognitive biases. In that broad sense of the word "control", we are all "controlling" each other every day, no sex required.
I did not say that there are no women who use sex to control men. I said that it is not possible to control someone merely by offering them sex. It requires the cooperation of the person who is being offered sex. This is in stark contrast to the kind of power older men often have over younger women.
>And the idea that we can just decide to switch lust on and off is ridiculous.
Who said anything about switching lust off? All you have to do is decline the offer, which is eminently possible.
Edit: I can no longer reply due to the thread length, so here is reply to below post:
To say that someone offered you sex, is to inculcate the idea of a sexual relationship with a person which you would otherwise not be associated with in such a context.
I only mean to say that typically people meet potential mates/partners in school and at work. Now, taking a text based conversation to that level is definitely wrong. But I would propose that actually testing for interest in the workplace isn't inherently wrong, only in so much that it's a matter of intent, extent and explicitness that isn't always easy to judge.
Personally, I'm of the mind that a soft ask about dinner/drinks/coffee sometime, and if a decline, then one more ask a few weeks later is probably okay, as long as it ends on a second ask. The reason I say this is only because sometimes a person doesn't feel comfortable if they don't know the person well enough yet, so best not to close the door right away.
On the flip side, this was very explicit without any of the contextual cues you get in person, especially with a soft rejection, is definitely over the top. Never be overtly sexual or dominating over someone in the workplace.
Well she blocked him before it got further.
I don't consider it a problem– she very quickly discovered this guy had zero interest in helping her without using her. So she blocked him, which was the obvious next step.
Posting the conversation publicly? Her prerogative.
Like he said: he didn't break any laws and he doesn't think communicating with people this way and having that become public will cause damage to him.
Does that mean there's an institutional bias against girls becoming entrepreneurs? Or lesbians becoming entrepreneurs? Or 18-year-olds becoming entrepreneurs?
If there is, this situation isn't an example of it. It's just an example of a guy who took a message from a young nobody on the off chance he could score.
I think men will always have to fight the urge to not "go for it" with women they find attractive. In a way, we're kinda hard-wired to do that. That doesn't mean that we can't or shouldn't fight the urge and be decent to women - especially now that women everywhere are speaking up and letting us know how this kind of behavior makes them feel.
Addendum:
The first reactions to my post are pretty negative. I can see why (over-generalization) but on-balance I don't feel like my post is negative. The core message is - be decent. If the volume of women's complaints are a measure, I'd venture to say there are a lot of men out there that struggle to do so. If you're not one of those guys- awesome . But a lot of dudes are and the first step to getting them to treat women well is to vocalize the expectation that they do so and maybe while we're at it, not trying to shame them into decency by pointing out how awesome you are and, by contrast, what horrible human beings they are for having unacceptable feelings.
> I think men will always have to fight the urge to not "go for it" with women they find attractive.
For you, maybe. Not for me, and not for a lot of men. Please don't typical-mind-fallacy the rest of us who don't need to expend effort to not be a douchebag.
Not cool dude :D
I have higher than average testosterone levels, always have, and I'm 48 now. And I wouldn't do something this stupid - it is all about context. And understanding how women operate (duh).
If someone messaged me asking for tech related advice, I'd freely give it and not try to do something out of the psychosocial boundary lines. If the interaction develops, then you and her are starting a relationship (generic use of the word). Time goes on, you meet at some conference etc... then you can appropriately gauge what your chances are and possibly will have more of a chance b/c 1) you have shown you're not an idiot and 2) women control the personal sphere of life - they grok relationships better. Play by their rules (ish, sort of) and things go much better.
Dumbasses don't understand the dance that goes on. This guy's behavior is exactly equivalent to asking every woman at a bar if they want to fuck. The ones who say yes are the ones more likely to have daddy issues etc and no one in their right mind deliberately goes down that road except for douchebags
Some people--a lot of people--just don't have those thoughts. That doesn't make them better or worse than people who do; both can do good, or harmful things. I think the point of GP's comment was that there are many of people out there who simply don't feel that way.
There are a lot of ways that might play out: they might not be attracted to others until someone is attracted to them; they might be attracted, but have no automatic desire to turn that into action/hitting on people; they might not be attracted to others period, et cetera.
> The urge to hit on a woman you find attractive ... makes [you] a straight/bi male
You're still assuming the two go hand in hand. Your impressions might be confirmation/selection bias: people who don't have the urge to hit on people they find attractive are going to be less obvious to you (insofar as they are competition for people you find attractive), and are also likely less inclined to jump into public discussions on the subject, given that a lack of sexual aggression is, in many demographics/situations, a basis for shaming.
Edit: punctuation.
No, I'm listening to women. I'm watching the cat call videos. There are lots of guys out there that have these thoughts. What percentage they are? I don't know and don't really care because it doesn't matter. They exist. Period. Saying as much doesn't harm anyone. Not saying so does.
My original message stands; if you feel like being an asshole to a woman, resist it - be decent.
I have lots of lurid thoughts. I also have enough respect and self control to not blurt them out. I've managed to interact with many women without overtly showing that I find them sexually appealing. Remarkable in this age of entitlement, isn't it?
That said, your premise is invalid. Biological prerogatives are not significant in the not-even-slightly-sexually-premised interactions between members of the 21st century tech community with career motivations and numerous other factors at work that evolution did not prepare them for. Saying that "biological prerogatives" are a significant factor here is like saying that a lemur let loose in a supermarket would be drawn to product branding based on how likely a given brand was to help the lemur secure a mate--too many factors have changed for simple parallels to be drawn.
Edit: spelling, I still keep forgetting this isn't markdown.
I guess we are in tech so we should be able to suppress all the impulses, desires, and feelings that have been carved into us over hundreds of thousands of years of evolution.As a man, I am offended by this stereotype.
It takes no more effort to not make sexual advances in an inappropriate context (even when there is an attractive woman around) than it does to not assault and rob vulnerable passers-by on the street.
Which, I suppose I now must add for clarity, also does not take any effort worthy of the name.
Thus because we are conditioned to sometimes be indecent, it does in some circumstances require effort to override it.
There's a time and place for everything. "going for it" every time you meet a woman is just immature and needs to be corrected.
If you want to indulge in more, that's sad, but don't project that desire onto anyone else.
Here's the thing: this is called projection. You're speaking for yourself, not men in general.
Wow. That's blatant sexist bigotry.
Can you imagine if someone said the same thing about women and what the reaction on HN would be?
She messaged him on Facebook, that's not a professional environment, it's social. He took it as such, his messages weren't inappropriate. Labelling it as 'sexism' is a little much, it's normal human interaction.