Silicon Valley's Secretive, Orgiastic Side
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Can anyone vouch for this behavior being prevalent? To me it just seems like a result of psychology where people think that others have more interesting/fulfilled social lives than they do despite it not being actually true, but maybe I live under a rock.
Furthermore, there are a ton of small VCs and startups in the valley. Of course a small percentage will do sketchy stuff. This is true everywhere and would really only be a problem if it was widespread or common amongst the major players and served as a meaningful barrier to entry. The only firm mentioned by name, Binary Capital, looks like a two or a one person shop, and I assume doesn't have much market power.
Agreed that it seems totally out-of-phase with my understanding of reality
We're pretty careful to take linkbait out of titles on HN, but beyond the gratuitous "Inside" I didn't see a lot. I suppose we could s/dark side/side/ as well.
I think you and most of us on here fall within "the vast majority" referenced in the article:
"Still, the vast majority of people in Silicon Valley have no idea these kinds of sex parties are happening at all"
Then again, I don't know what I don't know.
He seemed bewildered by the whole scene, but was very matter of fact about it/I don't think he was bullshitting. This stuff is definitely happening in a regular and organized way, albeit well above my pay grade.
Well damn. The whole idea is kinda a gross-out to me personally, but if the world is going to suffer horrific wealth inequality, then for God's sakes, I at least want the decadent upper class to be having fun with it. From each according to his ability to throw freakin' huge parties, to each according to his ability and desire to handle himself maturely at freakin' huge parties.
Still, I assume what's described in the article is happening to some degree, and it's an interesting lens through which to explore the gender and sexual dynamics of Silicon Valley (or Wall Street or w/e other high-powered industry we can think off). It's the age old story of royalty trading (promises of) power for sex. Even though both parties officially consent, is this behaviour morally okay? Or does the asymmetry complicate the situation? Are the powerful manipulating the less powerful? Or is it the other way around?
I remember working in Camden during the 2000 boom and we had a lesbian college who came across as the office mom with pictures of her cats up.
One evening in the Pub she met or former colleague in the film industry and did the whole lovey kiss routine and later on recounted some of her escapades including the classic line
"People have take much less coke than that and died"
How would you know? Maybe it's a side of their lives they do not want to share with their coworkers.
I have a family member whose philosophy professor (back in the 70s) seemed to be as straight-laced as they they come. One day she discovered, to her astonishment, that he was the author of these books:
As a young Linux enthusiast, I always thought it was funny that they involved a place called Torvaldsland.
A friend of mine in tech has been invited to "edgy parties" on two continents and she never went, having heard what they entailed. She had already dealt with plain harassment at work and didn't want to end up in even messier situations outside. There were a couple of famous names that scared her, based on their reputation in her circles.
I'm not sure if this is correlated more to the tech industry, Bay Area customs or a combination. Another friend, who's not in tech, years ago went to what her new boyfriend described as an edgy party, but turned out to be an orgy. One of the women she saw there ended up, by chance, as her fitness instructor years later.
Last but not least, do not assume that people can't be entirely different outside of work. Perhaps because of their intense daytime jobs, some might resort to "activities" as a way to handle stress levels. That said, I can think of at least one person in tech fired for having sex in the workplace.
From TFA:
If you’re reading this and shaking your head saying, “This isn’t the Silicon Valley that I know,” you may not be a rich and edgy male founder or investor, or a female in tech in her 20s.
Of course, this scene tends to be explicitly feminist, disproportionately queer/trans, and anti-classist (public events tend to have sliding-scale prices and opportunities to volunteer for free admission). I didn't read the article in detail, but a lot of the bits and pieces sound like an upper-class, MUCH more heteronormative, more patriarchal attempt to reproduce those experiences. (e.g. explicitly gender-differentiated rules, which tend to create a mentality of men chasing sex and women giving it.)
I've been to two cuddle parties. They are very concerned with consent, and I have to say that their facilitation is very well thought out. I don't think I'd put them in the same general category as other parties mentioned here, which I'd call a "bacchanal." For some attendees, it's a cross between a party and a form of group therapy.
Alchemy closed, only to have the space taken by Catalyst, which continues to provide events at a similar price point. It's just a new set of owners who had the cash to make the necessary fire safety renovations.
Wicked Grounds is finally on firm financial footing, and events there now pass around a donation jar (well, pumpkin) for local non-profits instead of for the cafe itself.
The Armory has become a high-end, upper-crusty events/classes venue for people (mostly hetero couples) who know nothing and are willing to shell out $150 for a class, but by pushing out the kink.com filming sets rather than displacing a local community venue.
Engineer here. Yeah, headlines should stop saying "Silicon Valley". How about "Rich Entrepreneur's Secretive, Orgiastic Side."?
I suspect some of it is due to SV being under attack by political opponents. Telecoms who want net neutrality/open internet dismantled, and perhaps politically right folks who see lots of political support and donations for Dems coming from SV. The recent spate of articles advocating breaking up Google and other SV "monopolies" is especially suspect, considering they don't have strong competitive moats (at least not compared to owning the physical infrastructure of the Internet).
I can't imagine this is emotionally healthy for most of the folks involved. The once socially-exiled men trading wealth and drugs and (implicit) promises of career advancement for sex. The women who hope to leverage their looks for access to a better life, but risk ruining their reputations due to societal double standards. Being aware of these facts, would either party feel good about the encounters?
Orgies are fine. I've never been to one and have no desire to go to one. The real issue here is the power-asymmetry between the men and women involved. It reminds me of someone like Harvey Weinstein inviting an aspiring actress up to his hotel room and making an advance. It puts the women in a damned-if-you-do-damned-if-you-don't situation. Just extending the invitation itself can be vaguely threatening to a lot of people.
I'm not surprised it's bigger than I thought. The more we change the more we stay the same.
Very true. I feel that if these people were really in the business to live out their kinks they would be a hell of a lot more explicit and safe about these things. As far as I can tell none of these people would explicitly refer to any of these parties as an Orgy in the invite, leaving me to believe they are ashamed of the inherent sexism in the actions they are performing.
Or they're ashamed about living in a wider society that isn't fully accepting of the practice.
Be careful with that brush you're painting with. There are plenty of now-accepted lifestyles that previously got the exact same treatment. "They act that way because they know they're wrong!" often turns to "Oh, they acted that way because the rest of us were assholes about it."
I disagree, because they are sending these invitations to people they know will be on board. Although it is claimed they avoid the term to not have the photos of the parties if shared be extremely explicit, which supports your hypothesis.
I'm not implying there is anything wrong at all about orgies. I am claiming that calling these parties orgies would be more explicit and upfront and therefore less wrong. It's simply the fact that they can't call it a progressive orgy because they ratio of women to men is so incredibly skewed.
Orgies are fine. I've never been to one and have no desire to go to one. The real issue here is the power-asymmetry between the men and women involved
Heck, there are low-rent "eyes wide shut" style events in Houston which are distinctly lower middle class. Glowing bracelets to color code your availability. Mud-wrestling scale large amounts of home formulated glycerin lubricant. Not a VC in sight, not a whiff of money and power. Just a whole lot of ex-employees of ISPs and assorted lower middle class nerd/weirdo friends. One of the parties I know of is lesbians only. Another one of them is yearly and run by a woman in an open marriage.
There are only two things in the Bay Area I know of that might fall vaguely into this sensational category. One of them was some kind of brunch with a live sex show. (The other: furries, and I don't know much more than that and I don't want to know!)
People have been doing one variation or another of this bacchanal stuff since time immemorial. It's "Honest" John the Fox and Gideon the Cat from Pinocchio offering you the tickets to Pleasure Island. There's much better one can do with the strength of one's body, mind, and passions than that nonsense. For those of you still in your teens and early 20's -- it's your job to make it past your youth with your honor, your mind, and your optimism intact.
Thank you for that. I dated a poly woman at one point. Not all parties are the same. From my experience, there is a definite rationality and morality associated with the poly scene which is based on consent. I'm not saying that pleasure is bad. Nihilistic pleasure without regard to anything else is pessimistic and simply doesn't lead to good things in the long run. Even Orthodox Jewish teaching recognizes certain kinds of sexual pleasure as a mitzvah. (In fact, sex has been shown by researchers to encourage neurogenesis. One grows more brain when one has good sex.)
If orgies are fine then why aren’t they part of mainstream culture? They aren’t part of the mainstream culture because orgies themselves are opposed to the things that are part of a working society: sacrifice, honor, wisdom, and self control.
Thank God that our society isn’t like this or we’d all be dead.
The article also manages to stay more neutral and non-judgmental than the lurid material would easily allow, and that deserves respect too. Overall, it's better than the median for the genre.
What I was trying to say was: The article is overblown in its tone, and that's important for reasons I'll get to at the end.
There are other, much worse things going on in the world, some of which Emily Chang has admirably broken as news.[1] It probably would have worked better if the orgy angle had been woven into a chapter of The Circle. I don't find much in it that surprises me. And given its lack of concrete details, it doesn't strike me as particularly newsworthy. I try to read things that I hope will surprise me and that I might learn from. This book chapter tells me that rich, powerful people behave in Silicon Valley much as they do in other parts of the world (Wall Street, for example), and much as they have done in other times (the Marquis de Sade's books are one example among many).
Personally, I don't find the article to be neutral or non-judgmental. Quite the opposite. It is part of a book titled "Brotopia", and it advances a thesis that Silicon Valley is dominated by emotionally immature or egotistical men who use their relative wealth and power to prey on young women. These sex parties are cast as part of a gender war with two sides: straight males vs straight females. That's a vast oversimplification, making a lot of noise about a very small sample of the humans who constitute the tech community. The only reason why this doesn't fall into the cateogory of "things we can assume happen weekly" is that it's Silicon Valley.
I could name at least one powerful lesbian in tech who left her wife to shack up with a female employee. I'm quite positive that some gay men in tech find opportunities to prey on male interns just as much as the revanchist straight male geeks in the article manage to live out their adolescent fantasies by acting like players. But neither of those fit the direction of Emily Chang's outrage (which is also the dominant direction of outrage in liberal circles). That tells me either that Chang is not reporting this story as diligently as she could, or that she's ignoring significant information to advance a point in this debate. The villain's role has been cast.
Emily Chang is a professional journalist, and she knows how to maintain a journalist's neutral tone while letting her sources drive home her point. If you look at the most emotionally powerful quotes (take that of Elisabeth Sheff, for example [2]) or language like "sport fucking", you can tell which side Chang is on. She's portraying the males here as powerful, predatory and ridiculous all at once:
"Furthermore, these elite founders, C.E.O.’s, and V.C.’s see themselves as more influential than most hot-shit bankers, actors, and athletes will ever be."
All the voices in the piece are Chang's, because she selected them to tell this story, which is a very particular story out of all the threads she could pick. And those voices land heavily in the judging camp.
She lets Founder X make a fool of himself between double quotes, just as she did with Tom Perkins. Is Founder X a fool? Probably. Is he typical of male entrepreneurs? Not in my experience. Did he think he was speaking to a sympathetic ear? Probably. That's how journalists get people to say embarrassing things. They use their sources, just like their sources use them to gain publicity. Just like the men and women at these orgies are using each other. And that's a fundamental part of human interactions that she sounds really judgey about.[3]
My chief concern is that this article is part of a prurient and puritanical movement to police sexuality in America, a movement that has gone far beyond condemning acts of coercion or workplace sexual harassment (both of which I, too, condemn), and drifted into condemning the gray area of fluid power dynamics juxtaposed with consent.
Masha Gessen has talked about it more articulately than I can:
https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/when-does-a-wa...
https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/sex-consent-da...
If we become too easily outraged and rigid in the way we judge sexual behavior publicly, we will simply become a society of hypocrites and rule breakers who can't talk about or understand real humans. A lot of things already can't be discussed calmly -- eppur si muove, as the man said.
Good journalism pushes us to look at things in new ways that deepen our understanding of the world. This article didn't do that for me.
[1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-12-01/uber-inve...
[2] “That’s exploitation. That’s old-school, fucked-up masculine arrogance and borderline prostitution,” she said. “The men don’t have to prostitute themselves, because they have the money. . . . ‘I should be able to have sex with a woman because I’m a rich guy.’ That is not even one particle progressive; that is the same tired bullshit. It’s trying to blend the new and keeping the old attitudes, and those old attitudes are based in patriarchy, so they come at the expense of women.”
I'm sure it's nice to have enough money to get people to bend to your will, but using it to manipulate people who are already marginalized in your industry into sleeping with you is not exactly an ethical thing to do. It may not be illegal, but people should maybe ask themselves if the men who use their money for sexual conquest are the kind of men we want controlling tens of billions of dollars in capital.
I have no problem with open-relationships, group sex, drug use etc. amongst consenting adults - I have dabbled myself - but I do have a problem with power dynamics coming into play and exerting unfair pressure on people to engage in sexual situations that they wouldn't otherwise consent to.
> “What’s not O.K. about this scene is that it is so money- and power-dominated. It’s a problem because it’s an abuse of power. I would never do it again.”
Can we imagine a society in which men with money and power in an industry don't use it to try and sleep with young women? Maybe that's desirable and maybe it's not. But society defines a wide range of conduct as legal, but unseemly or even unethical. Could this maybe fall into that bucket?
I can imagine it, yeah. But it’s one of the less plausible utopias.
Speaking of which, the social opprobrium gets dismissed as prudishness, but I suspect most readers would react differently to the article if everyone involved was economically and socially equal.
If you're writing a breathless Vanity Fair piece you're going to try and spin the economic coercion narrative, because it's fashionable to hate on Silicon Valley and we're in a weird cultural moment when it comes to the intersection of sexuality and power (thanks to stories that are coming out of the other, far more sordid side of California), but money and power are still sexy, and they always will be, and the rich and powerful will take advantage of that.
As an Ivy-leaguer, let me say this: There was plenty of questionable stuff that went on when I was an undergrad!
> ... Founder X told me.
The things here on the record are by those who aren't involved, those who are involved speaking on the record do so anonymously. It really seems less that this is a 'side' of Silicon Valley but more that there is a small number of people engaged in the activity.
Further drawing into question the author's credibility...
>Managing directors at top-tier investment banks may pocket a million a year and be worth tens of millions after a long career.
Principals at mid-tier firms can make a couple million per year. A million dollar quarterly bonus for a fund manager isn't absurd. Henry Paulson took the Treasury Secretary job because it gave him a tax-free sale of his $500M worth of equities after being a Managing Director at Goldman Sachs.
Those at VC funds may have more influence socially because they hold purse strings, but banking is the 'traditional' way to make too much money. I'm really having a hard time not thinking that the entire article is exaggerated.
From my perspective, there seems to be some weird intermixing between various alternative cultures in this article. Some parts of the article reminded me of swinger culture. Some parts of the article reminded me more of MDMA oriented cultures. Burns and bondage clubs are briefly mentioned.
Although there is some interplay between all these cultures, these cultures are in many other ways very separate from each other. MDMA, for instance, or other hallucinogenic / empathetic drugs really isn't found that much in a lot of swinger culture (or, for that matter, the majority of BDSM culture).
All of the above alternative cultures tend to heavily emphasize consent, but they are also very frequently misinterpreted from the outside. If people are being forced and coerced into these types of parties by VC types as this article implies, that would be a bad thing indeed. But it also would very much be against the spirit of these cultures. From my perspective, the author seems to be combining several entirely different subcultures together here with an overfocus on the lurid, so I personally don't have a lot of confidence in the accuracy of this article.
That does mean something.
What I am trying to say is that I see the author making an allegation but they don't do a very good job of justifying. If a small percentage of all people engage in alternative lifestyle cultures then it's not surprising if a small percentage of powerful and influential people in Silicon Valley also engage.
What the author alleges is that the behavior is cultural which would put women who didn't participate at a disadvantage, neither of these assertions are backed up with a reasonable journalistic standard in the article.
Not being a member of that community I make no assertions about the veracity of the authors claims, my point is that the author is lobbing some pretty big allegations that they didn't back up well in this article.
After all, what well-adjusted adult would consider it a normal hum-drum part of life to interact with previous sexual partners in work situations? /s
Dog walkers: Can be lots of fun to party with. Terrible band mates. In general, do not date, or at least be cautious. (Based on a low sample size.)
If you hang around investment bankers long enough you'll hear some stories.
> MDMA is a powerful and long-lasting drug whose one-two punch of euphoria and manic energy can keep you rolling for three or four hours. As dopamine fires, connections spark around the room, and normal inhibitions drop away. People start cuddling and making out. These aren’t group orgies, per se, but guests will break out into twosomes or threesomes or more. They may disappear into one of the venue’s many rooms, or they may simply get down in the open. Night turns to day, and the group reconvenes for breakfast, after which some may have intercourse again. Eat, drugs, sex, repeat.
Listen, MDMA is great. But make people want to fuck it does not. In fact, it's damn near impossible to become seriously sexually aroused on MDMA. It promotes a much more fraternal feeling than a sexual one.
It’s pretty sad that across all of the women interviewed they’re either portrayed as naive and disempowered or “merely” prostitutes.
Despite its semi-neutral tone, in the end this article is quite sexist.
What's the deal with that hot tub party photo from 1996? In particular what is supporting the laptop? It appears to be right on the surface of the water, which would be a ridiculous way to try to use it, as any ripples or waves would get it wet.
Introduced in '96: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toughbook
I wonder what software he's showing off!
People are crazy. People like to do drugs and have sex. Money adds fuel to the fire. Also, water is wet.
Rich people have parties and they're fun because when you're rich you can afford good drugs and nice venues. News at 10.
Prostitution is fine morally. However, the manner in which it is currently conducted in most of the world is incredibly exploitative. e.g. pimps beating the shit out of the people they're supposed to protect.
No. It's film at 11.
In this context, however, I believe we are witnessing an unprecedented and radical redefinition of traditional monogamy in real-time.
Naturally, social media plays a fundamental role in the re-thinking of modern monogamy. And one can't help but infer some connection between a platform and its creator's biases.
At root is perhaps a philosophy born in the heyday of the Haight-Ashbury scene. Free Love. The idea that anyone can share intimacy with any one else. Without possessiveness. Without jealousy. Without betrayal. As long as there is explicit consent.
It's not even a modern idea. Some elements are found in Plato's Republic. Fertility rites attended by the entire polis. Followed by newborns becoming wards of the state. To be raised with egalitarian love. And no parent showing any preference for their own offspring over another.
But does it actually work in practice? Are we actually wired for pan-amory?
Sex at Dawn: The Prehistoric Origins of Modern Sexuality
I'm going to call bullshit.
They’re referred to by the logo, e.g. “orange teslas” or “purple instagrams”. See [1] for photos of pills with the Instagram logo.
[1] http://pill.report/index.php?page=search_reports&sent=1&name...
I think the bigger question might be--in an age of safe sex and (ostensibly) loose morals--why isn't it more common?
I would expect a bit more from a Bloomberg presenter but then again superficiality is clearly what she needs to sell her book.
This is honestly nothing new at all unless you're a prude
But SV has over the years adopted the money-hungry, the investors and startup-flippers, as the core demographic by which it continues and grows. And these people are always in search of that next high. If that next high can be taboo and paid for with an exclusive amount of money, they'll be there.
SV is no longer defined by its engineers. We see this in the hypergrowth cycles, in the "you can't engineer yourself out of a societal problem" phenomenon, in the fact that you can't get anywhere in SV without getting on your knees in front of a VC board.
Preface 2: this response was to someone else in this thread but it got pulled out to the top level for some reason.
The intention of the article was, probably, just to shed light on the fact that this sort of stuff happens. It might not even be accurate. But, for the sake of argument, let's assume that it is. The author wasn't suggesting solutions. Why is it interesting to Vanity Fair readers?
- It's about the glamorous lives of the 0.1%.
- It's about sex.
- It's about drugs.
- A lot of these men are socially oblivious, so it provides material to laugh at otherwise powerful people. Who, in their right minds, sees a co-worker at a bondage-event and tells others at their workplace? And who, in their right minds, brings it up with said co-worker?
- If what the article reports is true, the behaviour of some of the male participants could reasonably be interpreted as sexually predatory.
It's the last point that's a bit troublesome. I think a lot of the men involved don't realize their behaviour is shitty. They flash wealth and reputation and make drunken suggestions like, which I've personally witnessed, "Oh, you're interested in starting a company... I could totally put you in touch with my friend who runs a VC firm. He's always looking for new investments. Hey, let's get another drink. You're super interesting. Oh, it's closing time. Wanna head back to my place, it's only a couple blocks away, and we could continue this conversation?"
It's even worse if the dude talking has some sort of professional connection with the woman (e.g. introduction through co-worker or investor). It's not illegal but it's lousy. It's also reasonable for her to think that their might be some form of punishment for saying, 'no'. I think the lesson those sorts of guys could learn is that they're, at best, being manipulative and assholes. And the lesson targeted women can learn is that these guys probably aren't telling the truth and they should stick to mostly professional channels to get ahead (if that's their reason for engaging sexually with these men).
Guys, if sex is your goal, I suggest the old-fashioned method. This isn't targeted at you, OP, but just a rhetorical bit aimed at the hypothetical male described in the article:
- Work your way into a good job.
- Be polite.
- Be funny.
- Work out.
- Dress well.
- Be financially responsible.
- Have a drink or two, if that's your thing.
- Don't be too flashy and avoid mentions of wealth or powerful connections.
- Show genuine interest in the other party and her friends and family.
- Be forward but not obnoxious about your intentions before sex (e.g. looking for sex, looking for a relationship, etc...).
- Never lie.
- Never EVER make promises or suggestions that you can help her career until you're well into a relationship.
- If you genuinely believe in her and want to help her career, do so, but save any romantic or sexual advances until after you've helped and you can't renege what you've done. Be absolutely clear that she doesn't owe you anything.
EDIT:
- And never kiss and tell. It might win you a few bar-room points but it's frankly trashy and teenager-like behaviour. Romantic and sexual relationships involve two parties and are inherently intimate and you might be violating your partner's trust and reputation by divulging you've had sex or what the sex was like and so on. Even if your partner is okay with it, a lot of people don't find talking about your sexual conquests entertaining.
There was recently an article about a prostitution ring busted in Seattle involving Amazon/Microsoft employees, which just shows these type of situations are inevitable in male-dominated industries, and wealth just exasperates the issue.
The old-fashioned method is one of those win-win situations, but if you're willing to let go of being morally correct, it certainly does not hold up against what is currently going on.
On the east coast:
- I get 5x as many matches.
- Most of my matches respond to my openers.
- My matches are significantly higher quality.
- My matches suggest meeting up for dates.
- My matches compliment me.
- My matches never unmatch me.
The whole silicon valley gender skew seems like a bad situation for everyone involved. But I'm not sure what can be done about.
I suggested the old-fashioned method because it does no harm. My only issues with the orgies described in the article is there seems to be quite a bit of consent-through-manipulation.
It’s how a predatory part of the startup population exploits these kinds of environments to use and hurt people.
I’ve gotten a lot of questions recently why I sort of dropped off the radar a few years ago in going to a lot of VC/founder rage scene. This is a big part of why. I don’t want me or the people I care about to be exposed to this.
And to be honest, I don’t know how to stop it.
> In racism, the other is not simply an enemy. His figure is also usually invested with some specific perverse enjoyment, or maybe he his someone who tries to steal our enjoyment from us.
This was one of the more eye opening articles I read last year -> https://jezebel.com/the-slutty-resurgence-of-new-yorks-under...
Also I'll leave this here... https://www.yelp.com/biz/power-exchange-san-francisco-3
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/285214736_Deviance_...
Also, I wonder if in today's world (with more gender equality) if some of the female participants might actually not have wanted to be intimate.
Over the last few years I've been involved in the furniture and construction industries and their "decadent underbellies" are just as bad if not worse than what I've seen in tech, finance and elsewhere. According to many insiders I know in the concrete world, they have the most insane industry parties. Carpeting is pretty crazy too from what I've seen.
It's not unique to any industry.
Ultimate levels of NOPE.
My only point is that not all similar events prominently feature the male/female power dynamic described in this article.
Those parties and connections are not for normal people, more like 1%.
The kinds of parties being described aren't all that unusual for the bay area. It's certainly not isolated to tech.
Meet interesting people, network. You'll figure it out eventually.
That aside, they can be fairly inclusive.
I got involved in the community in 2002. I was a typical dot-com nerd. I'd been doing some amateur rocketry events in the black rock desert and had heard about Burning Man. Eventually, I decided I had to go. Got introduced to a group of people that had a camp, they discovered I was terribly useful (I could weld, machine, fix electronics, repair generators, build things, etc), and the rest was history.
I went, met a tremendous number of people, cultivated lots of friendships and from there became privy to all the other inter-related things happening in the bay area, including the kinds of parties described above. The debauchery I've had the opportunity to participate in is quite extensive.
Be useful, be nice, be non-judgmental, go meet people, get involved, do stuff, become part of the community and you'll enjoy similar opportunities.
The easiest filter is to look for parties where alcohol and drugs are banned, and latecomers are not allowed.
I go to play parties regularly, but only go to ones that are constructed in a manner that encourages enthusiastic consent and safety.
>That technique may be used for women (and, heck, men too -- I'm the female 'breadwinner' of my household, although I didn't meet my husband at a sex party...)
Yes some men, but those case are very rare and fare in between. I don't have any better analogy than saying that's like talking about female on male rape or white people being also subject to police violence when talking about black life matters.
> to better their lives, but those gains may be sporadic, and they depend on the continued cooperation of the man they're sleeping with.
But isn't that true for 99% of the working population ? My salary depend on my continue cooperation of my company i am working for.
> Having a job, skills are easily transferable between employers, resources in my own name, and a relationship built on mutual respect and kindness, gives me far more freedom and security than sleeping with guys for the lifestyle perks.
Is this true for any jobs ? Or are you describing the reality for you (what i presume being a conventionally beautiful ,upper middle class American woman)?
Is that true for any man ? or just the one you dated ?
> Now, I'm not saying women shouldn't go to these parties or sleep with these men if they want to, or that considering a man's private jet ownership when debating about whether or not you want to sleep with him is an immoral choice.
Yes, but you are implying that having those choices is not a intrinsic privilege mostly associated with being a (conventionally beautiful) woman and that pointing this privilege is something of a simplification. I am born with a relatively high intelligence. It's also usually comes with high propensity to anxiety and depression and social awkwardness and as such my intelligence doesnt by me everything in life, but all in all it's still a nice privilege to have in 2017. I see female beauty the same.
If had to point an overarching theme on you answer, is that you seems to compare the "gains" from the sexual options of being a woman with those of very power man. We can agree on this (although there is something to be said on comparing a man in his late 35 and the fruit of his labor with the life style of a 20-something, but that a discussion for another time). I don't think that's the fair comparison.
What we need to look at : while you were being a "trophy girlfriend" , how did you life compare to you less desirable friends, and to your male friends around you? Beauty, like intelligence or any other intrinsic quality is an asset; It can be used wisely or not, it can be very valuable or not, but it's still an asset...
> the two choices sound like equivalent things, when they're absolutely not.
Which two choices ?
> On a side note: The presence of these particular sex parties, and the fact that they're so closely intertwined with business in Silicon Valley, I think is an problem. As the article paints it, there's sort of a "damned if you do and damned if you don't" issue that they're introducing for women working in certain companies or who are seeking VC funding.
I guess i can try to share the male perspective on this. It seems that there is wide belief that male sexuality is by nature predatory. Might be some truth to that and the news these days don't really help. But from anecdotal experience, and for having been to those type of parties. Trying to coerce women into coming to those type of party is always plan B. Plan A is always to find open minded women with common interest. And much in the same way that height and muscular bodies are attractive to certain women, money,weath and power is attractive to enough women that plan A i usually all one needs...
That second analogy isn’t what you probably want; White people are very much subject to police violence; BLM is about the lack of accountability for (not just police; the impetus was actually the Trayvon Martin killing, which was not by police) violence against black people and not about the idea that black people are uniquely the target of police violence.
I guess we will have to disagree on this. My perspective is that they are. The frequency, the magnitude and ubiquity of said violence makes it a distinct experience than most other racial group.
Another analogy, both I and a poor child in Somalia experience hunger from time to time, but i think his/her experience is distinctively worst than mine.
But, no matter what you "think" you're doing, what you will find there is drama. Lot's of drama. Try as you might to keep that out, it is impossible to do that. It's human nature.
The women who attend are every bit as calculating and self absorbed as the men who pay them to come, so I have no special sympathies for their plights that ensue from it. And the men are hardly immune themselves. I have no doubt that some of them have fallen deeply in love with a woman at one of those parties and spent many long hours crying in bed alone because the woman didn't give a single shit about them afterwards.
Another thing that's bullshit is that this is a "progressive" lifestyle. It's a sex obsessed lifestyle. That too is a human nature that some cannot resist, but again, there's always drama down that path. And some who you'll find there thrive on that drama and constantly work at creating it and can cause you all kinds of stress with their bullshit.
So, no, there's nothing "progressive" about it. That stuff is as old as civilization itself. Calling it "progressive" is putting lipstick on a very old pig.
And finally, the entire “OH MY GOD, THIS IS SO F---ED UP” approach to paint this as an exposé is bullshit too. You can find the same thing going on in Branson, Missouri with plumbers and concrete finishers.
This is a tired old journalistic trope. Take a secretive, not-socially-acceptable topic, and present it to the world, as if exposing some hidden evil lurking behind a corner. Sadly, the truth is a lot more boring than most people will ever realize.
"Perhaps this culture is just one of the many offshoots of the sexually progressive Bay Area"
This is a tiny example of what is happening all over the world, in addition to this country. Ignore that the topic's location is the literal epicenter of not only the sexual revolution, but gay liberation and the effective birthplace of hetero BDSM. These events happen _everywhere_. You can find them in North Dakota, in Alaska. This is not in any way new, or weird, or irregular. This is normal. It's not "socially acceptable", but it is normal.
"It’s worth asking, however, if these sexual adventurers are so progressive, why do these parties seem to lean so heavily toward male-heterosexual fantasies?"
Welcome to swinging culture, enjoy your cisheteropatriarchy. Again, nothing to do with Silicon Valley. The fact that there are men with lots of money throwing parties has nothing to do with tech. You'll find a different set of men [and women] throwing parties in DC, New York, LA, Paris, Rome, Madrid, Sao Paulo, etc.
"The party scene is now so pervasive that women entrepreneurs say turning down invitations relegates them to the uncool-kids’ table."
Oh no, peer pressure!!! We better make an after-school special for the women V.C.s. It's not news that wealthy men have been making deals in strip clubs and private parties for a long time, and breaking those barriers is not easy, but also not some mysterious invisible barrier. People in power should obviously not use these one-sided venues for business, but shaming or banning the events altogether doesn't seem like a healthy answer to this.
"The problem is that weekend views of women as sex pawns and founder hounders can’t help but affect weekday views of women as colleagues, entrepreneurs, and peers."
And I agree! But 'orgies' are not what are creating unfair societal expectations and marginalizing women. The real causes are slew of issues that start and end in everyday human activity. If you want to help marginalized women, help them where they are being marginalized every day! Not by shaming a generic amalgamation of parties that all happen to feature the lowering of inhibitions in ways that won't get you invited back to the church social.
And by the way, writing an article about a bunch of people who cannot or will not give their names leaves no room for them to offer a rebuttal. This isn't journalism, this is an op-ed hit piece.
The author is a woman; not saying you didn't know that, but knights are traditionally men.
> The real causes are slew of issues that start and end in everyday human activity. If you want to help marginalized women, help them where they are being marginalized every day!
What sorts of activities, and where? I agree with all the rest of your points--just probing this one for the sake of completeness.
Surely there's nothing (drug use aside) that's legally actionable about this. The encounters seemed consensual in the sense that the women weren't threatened or forced and were told about what the drugs offered would do.
If there's not any legal wrong doing then is it social misconduct? Somehow it feels wrong for me to judge or condemn adults for their sexual conduct - even if it seems cheap, transactional, and gross to me. I understand different people have different values and preferences, so why should I apply mine to them? Furthermore, I can't imagine that finger wagging from the likes of Vanity Fair is going to make these rich young men give up on their drug fueled sex parties.
It's an interesting article, even though the author is decidedly biased and at times intentionally misleading (e.g. when she scorns the idea that there are some/many women interested in taking advantage of men, in the middle of an article about rich nerds finding themselves suddenly with a surfeit of women). I don't understand what is supposed to be done about this though or even if something should be aside from educating young women about the tradeoffs they may make in these environments.
Aside from the obvious fact that the drugs are illegal, there is also the question of whether those who are under the influence of these drugs can consent to sex.
If you have a colonoscopy done, the medication they give you will make it so you don't remember things or (I hope) feel things, but, my doctor told me, you will still respond to instructions like "roll on your side" etc. If I consent to go to the doctor's office, and have the IV after it's explained to me what the drug does, and then they give me the drug and I have the procedure, am I consenting to the procedure even though I'm very much impaired during the process? I'd say so.
However, reading this, it seems that affirmative consent was given at all times, first to taking drugs and then to making out (or having sex) so this article is basically just a hoo-hah over consenting adults engaging in drug-enabled group sex.
In might be consensual in the sense that everyone said yes, but there’s a known balance of power. Sounds like coercion and naivety.
Sounds like they are explained the situation when they get invited.
But it also sounds like there is no way to back out or participate without repercussions leaking into their normal lives. Not exactly fair.
How do you know these women don’t genuinely want casual sex with rich, powerful men?
Drugs, alcohol, and whores are cheap compared to the value you can extract from people using them. This article was fun to read; there have been lots of hit pieces coming out this year on SV, can't say it's undeserved either. Nothing here is shocking or unexpected, pederasty would be shocking -- no names which takes a whole lot of fun out of it for the spectators.
My point here is that there seems to be affirmative consent, as you say. The example with the young woman who made out with a founder in front of his wife, then took MDMA and then (I assume) had sex with him (possibly, maybe she just left) is one where she consented to go to the party, she consented to the kissing, even checking in with the wife first, she got an accurate description of what the drug would do when it was offered to her, it was clear that she was being offered a drug, she chose to take it, and then she left when she wanted.
I don't want to defend non-consensual activities, but I don't see any being described. Given that these are consensual acts between adults - my point is "What's the issue?"
I don't consider recreational drug use nor recreational sex to be a problem that social norms nor government should be involved in.
Fortunately despite your sense of things, try that as a defense for rape and you’ll be in a deep, dark hole full of other rapists. Consent can be revoked, can be modified, and taking drugs doesn’t imply that you’re up for being passed around like a joint.
I completely agree that consent can be revoked or modified and that nobody should be passed around like a joint against their will. That's not what the article is describing though, at least not in my reading. The young woman who went to the party did consent, the whole way through, and didn't revoke or modify her consent until she decided to leave, and when she did, she left, presumably unimpeded. Furthermore, neither the woman in question nor the author of the article called this rape, so for you to imply otherwise seems a bit inappropriate.
Give people enough drugs and put them under enough pressure, and you’ll get in some of their pants. You might even get something that sounds like consent, but is it really?
Maybe a bit off topic but I skipped the drugs for my colonoscopy and it was less discomfort than a trip to the dentist, plus watching my insides on the screen was very interesting. I definitely recommend considering no medication.
[Midseason spoiler warning]
"Bezzerides goes undercover, posing as Athena to infiltrate one of the secret elite parties in Monterey. With no phone, transmitter or weapon, she is forced to rely on Woodrugh and Velcoro for support. At the party, she is drugged and taken to the guests with a busload of other girls. Her attempts to search the party are hampered by the male guests (Geldof, Holloway and Tony Chessani among them) and hallucinations of a strange man from her childhood, implying that she was sexually abused"...etc
I imagine that if, even if they took the drugs voluntarily and with full knowledge it could be a problem.
As the men also took the drug, we could make a powerful case that they are not consenting neither.
An article about cultural practices outside of the social norms doesn't have to imply that there is either something wrong or something that needs to be done about it. Different readers will think different aspects of it are wrong and have their own opinions about how, if at all, to respond to the things they see as wrong.
Back when I was going to ecstasy-fueled weekend-long after parties at peoples houses, there was a lot more talking, hugging and dancing happening than sex.
I think people who haven’t tried ecstasy have a really skewed idea about how people behave on it. Mostly you just want to listen to music and dance and talk. You often couldn’t have sex even if you wanted to.
I only ever attended one party with MDMA. After I took a 1/2 tab, I emerged from the kitchen thinking to myself, "I'm going to try and give a massage to every woman in this living room!" I never made it past the cute med student who took the other 1/2 of the tab, and we both left the party with the illusion that we had just found our soul mates, then proceeded to have a 2 week relationship that suddenly evaporated.
I think that was 1999. It's confusing to talk about these things, because "ecstasy" or "E" means something very different today than what it referred to back then.
Barring some actual test kit results, i wouldn’t take people’s self reports of what they’re taking as being reliable, because people’s response to mdma seems to change a lot with repeated use.
Some young folks have tried to tell me that GHB == "ecstasy."
I don't know why we can't have a discussion about this. Possibly feminism is caught up in a narrative that is overly female-centric, which isn't really unexpected (or entirely unreasonable). But just as feminism is reactionary to abuse by males, there are going to be reactionary elements to the desire of some feminists to suppress men in general.
If you think that isn't true, do a google images search for "feminist tshirts", the sixth one is a woman kneeing a man in the testicles. A simple image search on feminism points out just how much anger there is on all sides of the argument.
The other question is what site did this image come from? Was is some toxic red pill fringe site that created it for the purpose of "proving" the "feminists agenda" or an actual mainstream feminist site selling actual real life tshirts to people who actually identity as feminist for the purpose of wearing? A single unqualified Google image search results doesn't tell you anything of any value.
I think you show more about your search history and browsing habits than anything about the feminist movement or the average person's feelings on the matter. If you go seeking "them wimen folk are out to get me" crap Google is going to show you more of it.
Maybe your results show more about your search history and browsing habits than anything about the feminist movement or the average person's feelings on the matter.
In fact, I literally said "a single unqualified Google image search results doesn't tell you anything of any value."
Says very little about my browsing history through: I very rarely browse anything non-work related from my work computer and I aggressively block third party scripts, tracking scripts, ads, and I never search Google while also logging into Google plus I have browser extension that deletes cookies after I close a tabs and all traffic coming from my company has a single IP address.
"The neatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing people he wasn't real."
How does it keep women down? Sleeping with a guy is a built in option women have to better their lives, that men don't have.
Otherwise they're just like the rest of us poor schmuck dudes that actually have to go into work everyday.
I'm so confused about what women expect these days.
"Something you can pay with" and "something you're expected to pay with or you're out" can describe the same asset, but are much more driven by the relative power of the person being paid. We tend to honor the former (as you do) until it becomes the latter (as it mostly seems actually is when it's allowed).
I suspect you are asking what is the social contract expectation from women ?
In this period of deep social unrest, I don't think people could give a unified answer.
This is a complicated issue, and there's a lot to unpack here.
That technique may be used for women (and, heck, men too -- I'm the female 'breadwinner' of my household, although I didn't meet my husband at a sex party...) to better their lives, but those gains may be sporadic, and they depend on the continued cooperation of the man they're sleeping with.
I was in a "trophy girlfriend" relationship when I was young and my entire life revolved around "keeping" this guy. After a while, he broke up with me, I had to ask my parents for rent money (I had taken a first class trip to Europe the month before, but what was I going to do, ask him to put the money into my emergency savings account instead?), my entire life sort of fell apart. I went to parties with his friends, lived in his apartment, had a credit card on his account. Making sure he was happy was a job, but the skills weren't entirely transferable and there was no security. Not a situation I wanted to be in again, and I didn't.
Having a job, skills are easily transferable between employers, resources in my own name, and a relationship built on mutual respect and kindness, gives me far more freedom and security than sleeping with guys for the lifestyle perks. Even with alimony and child support in the picture (in which case you need to "get him" to marry you and/or have children) there is no facet of your life or lifestyle that is insulated from the whims of a single person. No, you may not starve after a divorce, but, especially if there's a pre-nup involved, the "betterment" in your life will always be temporary gain during the length of the relationship while his will be a permanent one.
Now, I'm not saying women shouldn't go to these parties or sleep with these men if they want to, or that considering a man's private jet ownership when debating about whether or not you want to sleep with him is an immoral choice. But saying "This is a built-in option for women that men don't have... the rest of us poor schmuck dudes actually have to go to work everyday" is an incredible simplification that makes the two choices sound like equivalent things, when they're absolutely not.
On a side note: The presence of these particular sex parties, and the fact that they're so closely intertwined with business in Silicon Valley, I think is an problem. As the article paints it, there's sort of a "damned if you do and damned if you don't" issue that they're introducing for women working in certain companies or who are seeking VC funding.
" Rich men expecting casual sexual access to women is anything but a new paradigm. But many of the A-listers in Silicon Valley have something unique in common: a lonely adolescence devoid of contact with the opposite sex. Married V.C. described his teenage life as years of playing computer games and not going on a date until he was 20 years old. Now, to his amazement, he finds himself in a circle of trusted and adventurous tech friends with the money and resources to explore their every desire. After years of restriction and longing, he is living a fantasy, and his wife is right there along with him."
If I may humblebrag for a moment, I had a really great sex life in the years before I got married when I was young and good-looking, so all this kind of stuff seems like a very risky and mildly pathetic way to create a lot of trouble in one's personal life. Young nerds, I implore you to have a really awesome time while you are young and good-looking so you make some great memories so you won't have to deal with all this regret and pathetic chasing around after a lost youth that these older guys engage in.