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Comment by ALittleLight | Hacker News Reader

Maybe that's true and some Rasputin-like figure could manipulate you into believing you thought things that you didn't, but that doesn't seem to be what is alleged here. She wasn't living in this guy's cult, he helped her professionally and with conferences, and she agreed to share a room with him on a trip. That strikes me as less mind-control and more just a situation that people get into sometimes.

She is and was an adult woman. Can I not expect her to know, in the typical case, whether she does or does not consent to sex? And I'm not talking about "He got me drunk and then forced sex when I couldn't consent" - obviously that would be rape, but it seems like you should realize that when you sober up, not months or years later.

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She was left panicked and crying. That's not generally a sign that there was unambiguous consent.

And it doesn't take a Rasputin-like figure to be an abuser. Plenty of people are taken advantage of and taught to believe things they later realize were abusive, even in relatively short situations. Pretty held all the power here -- he controlled where she was staying, he helped her get to the conference, she was intoxicated, she believe he was her mentor, she believe he had the ability to get her industry connections, etc.

Coercing someone into sex that they later realize wasn't consensual (once they are free from that person's influence) doesn't mean she was lying in the moment or is somehow "discovering" something now.

> Can I not expect her to know, in the typical case, whether she does or does not consent to sex?

Adult humans (because I think this can happen to men too), can absolutely be caught off guard and be "unsure" about whether they are consenting to sex. Not everyone is wired the same, and not everyone is able to make a quick snap judgement. Not everyone is fully able to say no when pressured.

Furthermore, grappling with the question, "Was I just raped/sexually abused?" is really, really challenging. What does that do to your identity? Are you forever a victim? Are you going to have to out yourself and someone else? Will you forever be the target of the public's pity? Are you going to have that stigma attached to you when you want to enter relationships in the future? That's a LOT to put on someone, and many, many victims choose to try and believe that things were consensual, because it seems easier that facing the realization they were abused.

She says that she remembers panicking and crying. I agree that those are both clear signs of non-consensual sex. Why does it take months and therapy for her to decode those clear signals? If Jon noticed her crying and panicking we would expect him to interpret that as a clear "I do not consent" signal.

The power Pretty holds here is pretty minor. He's helping her get into conferences and mentoring her. He "controlled where she was staying" in the sense that he made the reservation for their AirBnB. He's not confiscating her passport, she isn't destitute. She could've gotten another hotel, hostel, AirBnB. To be clear, I am not saying "She didn't get another room and so deserves to be raped" but I am saying that his "power" in this regard is pretty minor - just because someone is paying for your room that shouldn't make it impossible for you to say "No" to them.

A big part of why it is morally and legally wrong to have sex with children is that children aren't mature enough to make decisions about sex. Children cannot consent. You seem to be suggesting that a similar standard applies to this adult woman - she can't know if she consented to a sexual encounter or not. To me, that implies you are suggesting it should be illegal to have sex with this woman - after all, she apparently can't tell if she consented or not.

> Why does it take months and therapy for her to decode those clear signals?

Because brains aren't just bundles of logical interpreters that fully understand what they are experiencing all the time. There are many, many reasons why we may rationalize some behavior in the moment. Why do victims of cons sometimes defend the con artists for significant periods of time after they leave? Why do humans hold out hope for lost loved ones, when the evidence is clear they've passed away?

Emotionally charged topics take a long time for our minds to process sometimes. Sometimes we need help from others to put our thoughts in order or to gain perspective. Maybe she never asked herself, "Why was I crying?" until a therapist said, "Why were you crying?" We're all wired different, and we have to allow for some flexibility in how were perceive and react to events -- especially traumatic events.

> To me, that implies you are suggesting it should be illegal to have sex with this woman - after all, she apparently can't tell if she consented or not.

Come on, that's a clear strawman. I'm happy to disagree with you about this and discuss it, but that whole paragraph feels needlessly out of line.

I think the paragraph that you identify as a strawman is actually the core of our disagreement. I don't intend it as a strawman of your idea but as an illustration of why I struggle to accept the idea that you can retroactively change whether or not you consented - or, phrased in a way you might be more likely to agree with, whether or not you can reevaluate your consent decisions after the fact.

If she doesn't know whether she genuinely consents to sex or not, then how is it morally acceptable to have sex with her? You might be raping her. If she can reevaluate consent decisions in the future, that implies they are not certain in the present. It seems straightforward to say that if you are uncertain about whether someone consents to sex you shouldn't have sex with them.

If this is a strawman I genuinely don't see it. I think it is the logical consequence of accepting mutable consent and it is part of why I don't accept that - or at least why I hesitate to accept mutable consent.

Convincing herself it was consensual after doesn't mean she consented during.

What does consent mean to you? Not saying no? Or an enthusiastic yes?

Not saying no.

I've had plenty of sex I wasn't super enthusiastic about but I wouldn't consider any of those exes rapists because I didn't say no.

When you're in a relationship for years not all of the sex is super enthusiastic. There were times when I had sex because I didn't want to hurt their feelings or they traveled a distance to see me.

And I'm sure there were times when my partner wasn't that in the mood and had sex with me for reasons besides they really wanted to have sex at that moment.

Personally outside of established relationships I always waited for the other person to make the first move because I was always so terrified of kissing someone who didn't want to kissed.

But talking with plenty of men and women over my life the majority of sex does not involve an unambiguous yes.

The problem I see with your definition of "Not saying no." is that it leaves a lot of ambiguity and requires a lot of caveats.

An unconscious person can't say no, but no one would agree they are consenting. What about someone intoxicated or under the influence? What about someone who is scared? Where does "I'd rather not", or "If I have to" fit? (Both of those seem to imply not consenting to me.)

Whereas a yes provides an unambiguous signal.

> Personally outside of established relationships I always waited for the other person to make the first move because I was always so terrified of kissing someone who didn't want to kissed.

I've moved to asking, "Can I kiss you?" or "Can I hug you?" before making a move like that. Simple, brief, and once you have an answer you forget it was even asked.

The problem with defining consensual sex as both parties saying yes explicitly and unambiguously is it ignores the world around us. An enormous amount of sex and sexual acts that are happening today without explicit affirmative verbal consent. Your definition classifies all of those sex acts as non-consensual. Should we prosecute people for rape? I imagine almost everyone has had at least one sexual act where they did not explicitly ask their partner if they wanted to have sex. This would make almost everyone a rapist.

Should we be teaching people to just lay their quietly if a sexual encounter is starting they don't want to be a part of and hopefully the other party will ask them for their consent at some point?

> I've moved to asking, "Can I kiss you?" or "Can I hug you?" before making a move like that. Simple, brief, and once you have an answer you forget it was even asked.

Can I kiss you, can I touch your thigh, I can tough your boob over the shirt, can I tough your genitals over the pants, you can touch my genital under my pants but over my underwear. If each sexual escalation requires consent that's a lot of question asking and responses for a typical sex act. And maybe that how the world should work, but it's definitely not how the world is working right now.

> If she doesn't know whether she genuinely consents to sex or not, then how is it morally acceptable to have sex with her?

Thing is, this is all a nonissue if your partner is enthusiastically into having sex with you.

So maybe more mutually fulfilling romps and less "well it was borderline but I did it anyway."

Yes consent isn't an issue when you assume your partner is consenting.

The problem is enthusiasm varies wildly. There are people I know whose sex would never be described as enthusiastic. There are lots of mild mannered anxious lovers out there. And I could see how it would be difficult for someone to judge the exact level of enthusiasm in a new lover.

> just because someone is paying for your room that shouldn't make it impossible for you to say "No" to them.

This is incredibly difficult to do, especially when you are young.

First, having the help and the time of someone who is known and respected in the community can already make you feel like you are imposing but also grateful for their generosity, especially if there are career implications (in your mind).

Second, when you are coming from a different culture, there may already be some battling of own (perceived) “inferiority” due to being an immigrant.

Third, when the person is “saving” you when you are in a situation of stress, the act of paying for a room is a lot more than just that.

Finally, the exact financial aspect of things can make it seem like you “owe” something.

I can picture my college self having a lot of trouble saying no in a situation like this. My current self would have no issues. In my own case, age and experience are very much factors that I would add as a fifth point.

She is and was an adult woman. Can I not expect her to know, in the typical case, whether she does or does not consent to sex?

Women often feel confused about the detail of their own consent after date rape or acquaintance rape. This is true in part because most people imagine rape is some kind of violent assault by a total stranger conking them on the head and dragging them into an alleyway.

They don't expect to have to ask themselves how much alcohol is too much alcohol for me to have been consenting? Did he or did he not intentionally get me drunk for the purpose of impairing my judgement?

Did he or did he not lie to me and maneuver me into staying alone with him in an Airbnb in the name of "helping" me? Since he did, in fact, help me get to this conference, does that somehow negate his bad actions or something?

Etc.

People expect rape to be some obvious, easily identifiable crime and it's often not.

I once saw a question posted to the internet where the woman was like "I know I need to drink less..." when a colleague plied her with alcohol until she couldn't stand up anymore and then took her to his hotel room. She felt she had been unfaithful to her boyfriend and internet strangers had to tell her "Girl, you were raped, not unfaithful."

Hopefully women are clearer than that "in the typical case." Presumably, "the typical case" isn't actually rape.

But what she described is very normal for anyone who has been treated abusively not by some random stranger at gun point but by someone insinuating themselves into their lives and claiming to be a friend who just wants to help, etc. Even without the detail of sex, people often agonize over what they did wrong, whether or not they "owe" someone who intentionally shafted them etc when they were supposed to be friends, business partners, etc.

People who know ahead of time how this works are much less vulnerable to such predators and can still get shafted. Predators typically seek to place themselves in a position of trust and to operate under a cloak of plausible deniability. They actively seek to obfuscate their real intentions and then act all hurt if you question their intentions, etc.

It's very hard to sort something like that out.

People expect rape to be some obvious, easily identifiable crime and it's often not.

They expect that because rape carries enormous jail penalties, because it's got a clear legal definition and because as the extremely low successful prosecution rate shows, most juries are not actually willing to send a man to jail for a decade on the basis of claims like "He invited me to his room, I brought a bottle of wine, we had sex and for months we were still friends because I told everyone I agreed, but now I changed my mind". That is not rape, and if she was claiming it was, she'd be making a false allegation of rape, which would be very serious.

This pretty simple concept has been relentlessly attacked for decades now by a rather nasty form of feminist activist who isn't satisfied with the standard definition of rape and who have been trying to change it to something more like this: "Rape is whatever a woman says it is". But they want the jail penalties to remain. That's dystopian and no honest person can support it, but sadly, many years of aggressive activism have resulted in the legal system being steadily chipped away when it comes to men and accusations of rape. That's why in the UK just a few years ago it was discovered there had been a massive set of miscarriages of justice, where men had been falsely accused of rape and sent to prison when evidence the women was lying was withheld from the defense. It happened because the woman in charge of the CPS had the mentality of "the victim must always be believed", leading to a collapse in standards. Many innocent men were jailed and their lives were ruined. Now one MP is campaigning to change the law to ban the form of evidence that was used to get the men released.

Honestly, I went into this article with an open mind. There are plenty of nerdy guys at programming conferences who don't know how to handle women. But this essay leaves a very bitter taste. As other commenters observe, she appears to be defining sexual harassment as "it means whatever I want it to mean at any later time", which is not something that can ever be fair to men.

That is not rape, and if she was claiming it was, she'd be making a false allegation of rape, which would be very serious.

The main problem is that it wasn't all that long ago that a woman couldn't attend a conference, agree to stay at an Airbnb with an unrelated man to whom she wasn't married, etc.

We are in a lot of new territory and still trying to sort out a lot of questions that simply didn't come up a generation or two back.

These questions are all too often being sorted out the hard way: By having things go wrong and having people who are upset about what happened air their grievances because they don't know what else to do to try to sort their lives and get everything back on track.

I think you underestimate how skilled abusers can be at emotional manipulation.

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