Yet the majority of marriages after college are formed exactly that way - a guy asks an acquaintance (not generally a friend) from work on a date.

If women want to fix the fact that men do all the legwork in starting relationships, and don't like that men do so in a way that offends them personally (even though most women seem OK with the system) then they're free to demand other women take up a bit of the slack.

Do you have any evidence of that at all? Because to me it sounds simply made up. A quick google, and the first link I got back also seems to disagree.

https://mic.com/articles/112062/the-way-most-people-meet-the...

It amazes me how much people push for responsibility for their actions - but for some reason when it comes to this topic its: I can't help myself, this isn't fair. I must impose a sexual relationship on my co-workers when the feeling strikes me.

And this alternative false excuse of pretending like these are "just misunderstandings". The absolute vast majority (even going by whats been in the news) are completely blatant, repeated, inappropriate approaches.

Nevertheless, even this shows that the work place is a significant factor to meet a partner - even if it has lost relevancy. Which leads to the question why. Is it because the other places somehow got more effective for that purpose, or is it fear of being perceived as crossing boundaries which makes people hesitant to try. Both (or other) explanations seem imaginable to me.

Most of the time an acquaintance is fully empowered to tell you to fuck all the way off if you make an unwanted advance. And their life goes on as normal afterward. The equation is vastly different if people are coworkers, especially if there is any sort of difference in authority, seniority, connectedness, or anything whatsoever on the line (deals, employment, career advancement, mentoring, opportunities, etc.)

Even something seemingly as banal as interactions between coworkers who are perfect peers with the same level of seniority and authority in a company and work under widely separated management structures is potentially problematic. Because of the pressure to "not cause a scene" or "not hurt anyone's feelings". As I said, it's not about not doing it, it's about being absolutely, positively ensuring that everyone is 100% fully empowered to respond to an advance with absolutely zero fear of any negative repercussions no matter how minor.

Sure, many marriages are made between people who met through work, but many people already follow these rules, it's the people who don't that are the problem. Ask all of your female friends, if you have any, how many of them have been sexually harassed in some way at work. I don't have a single female friend who has not experienced it, because it's absolutely ubiquitous. That doesn't mean every guy in the workplace is doing it, it means that it continues to be tolerated and ignored enough in the workplace to make the few who do it be able to harass a huge number of people. It has to stop, and the way it stops is with changing the norms of what is expected behavior.

She finally had to resort to flashing her boobs at the guy to get him to acknowledge and fulfill her desires.

Me personally, it would take that level of chutzpah from a female co-worker before I'd even consider and I still might be worried about the whole thing ending badly. Kind of funny where we're at with male/female relationship dynamics these days.

[1] I don't like the idea of coworkers dating because if they break up, it can be messy and cause all sorts of problems for them and for their other coworkers. Having said that, if I really liked a coworker and she was interested in me, I probably wouldn't let that stand in my way either, but it is something I'm conscious about. If she were on my team, I would at least ask to move to another team.

Presenting a coworker with a long legal document giving consent to be propositioned, signed with a notary present of course, wouldn't work. It would be sexual harassment to even present the contract for consideration!

They would have to use something like Tinder where they could be both unaware of the others interest until both parties had signed the legal agreement consenting to be propositioned by the other. They would then be directed to do some sort of custom secret society hand sign in the others presence to verify that they had actually consented. The hand sign would be innocuous when seen by someone who hadn't actually signed the contract via the app and seen the secret hand sign the other would display to acknowledge they had signed the contract.

The next billion dollar startup idea?! A cross between Linkedin, LegalZoom and Tinder. The idea would at least make for a hilarious episode of "The IT Crowd" or "Silicon Valley".

Well, there has been this Slack app[0].

[0] https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2017/05/slack...

"He gave several very obvious hints to the woman he was interested in with no response. He finally had to resort to flashing his muscled chest at the woman to get her to acknowledge and fulfill his desires."

Or they rarely report it (partly because they afraid they won't be believed)?

So easily said than done. You make it seem that "making a move" is so clear, but it isn't. Many times people are not even "making a move" and someone will think they are "making a move" and then get uncomfortable. It is very hard to realize that you are making someone uncomfortable when you aren't even thinking in that direction and the recipients (for a lack of a better word) aren't being vocally clear. In such a case, I'm siding against the one that wasn't vocally clear.

The fact is we live in a society that is still in an extended hangover from a multi-centuries long binge of incomparable misogyny. There is a burden on those who still hold positions of privilege from that legacy to make everyone in society feel safe, wanted, and free. Do the work or it's not going to get done.

If people are feeling uncomfortable but not speaking up, they are going to have to come to terms with the fact that a large segment of the programmer community is going to be incapable of identifying their discomfort when interacting with them. Getting them to speak up might be a more tractable problem than trying to teach everyone to identify non-verbal subtext.

(I agree with your comment insofar as it applies to people who are capable of doing it, and I aspire to being able to interact with people so fluently.)

Second, those who find it harder to read social cues may just need to follow the rules more carefully. For example, don't try to make romantic or sexual advances towards someone who is in some way (directly or indirectly) subordinate to you.

Implicit in this statement is that your view on this issue is the truth, and anyone who disagrees with you is ignorant. If you want to have a genuine discussion with people, that attitude does not invite dialogue. You're not going to change anyone's mind.

I (and I think everyone else) is strongly disagreeing with you that your unvoiced emotions are my responsibility.

But, you're right, in that it's a chicken-and-the-egg style scenario; how do you voice the emotion that you're not comfortable voicing your emotions? And, how does anyone (including yourself) tell if that discomfort is all in your head, or real?

Actually. It really is. It really is. You can't brush the enormous complexities of life, human perception, self-image, misunderstanding, varying life experiences and social norms under the carpet with a wave of the hand.

It really, really is hard for normal decent human beings to get this right even if you don't throw bad actors and out-and-out sociopaths into the mix.

The problem is that sexual harassment does exist. But so does horrific misunderstand or outright false accusation. The latter two are probably an order of magnitude less common than the former but they are potentially life-destroying and shouldn't be brushed aside.

Also - it fuels the crazy men's rights types and lends credence to their sense of persecution. If you vacate the center of the debate then the other side will claim it.

1. Be attractive.

2. Don't be unattractive.

Two simple rules to not commit sexual harassment.

I'd avoid it generally, as you just failed both your stated rules by repeating it.

That's an interesting and incendiary interpretation. Do you know for a fact that this person views women as prizes to be won or are you perhaps ascribing more meaning to the comment than can reasonably be inferred?

It is an impossible argument to make it you assume that the other party has a right to make a choice about who continues to pursue them for whatever damn reason they please.

How? There's no connection between what was said and the conclusion you drew from it.

arkh's post observes that women often apply different standards to men's behaviour based on whether they find them attractive or not. That's not really in dispute, it's the origin of the "hot women being attracted to asshole boyfriends" cultural cliche.

I'd dispute it in this sense: women, like humans of any gender, are more likely to apply different standards based on pre-existing status (e.g. whether they're friends already or not) but not to the degree that as a rule they'd welcome a sexual advance from one co-worker and not an identical one from another based simply on attractiveness, or that they'd consider the unwanted one harassment.

This isn't hard: women are humans and capable of rational thought, just like men. Your comment diminishes them.

This would directly translate to welcome a sexual advance from one co-worker but not an identical one from another based simply on attractiveness. Social setting (e.g. workplace) may drive the lower limit below skirting board for some individuals, but that does not make certain social settings universally irrationality free grounds where evaluation as potential mate has no effect on social (and even professional) interactions.

While both men and women are capable of rational thought, likewise both are not individuality, emotion and desires free.

Your comment reads to me as asserting that women are basically incapable of moderating their behavior based on sexual desire.

Viewing social interaction as a series of rules/steps to follow in order to "succeed" or "win" is how you view being attractive as a form of "cheating" or unfairness. This doesn't account for the other party having agency, since the only perspective taken is that of one side of a two sided issue.

Even in your post you say "women often apply different standards to men's behaviour based on whether they find them attractive or not".

Let's be damn clear: there are no different standards at play, there are two completely different behaviours at play - welcome romantic advances and unwelcome romantic advances.

Where did you read the word women in my post? I wrote about sexual harassment which can come from a person of any gender unto a person from any other gender.

The attractiveness also mean a lot of things to different persons.

A man who does not like tattoos may react differently to the same behavior coming from someone with a face tattoo or someone without.

But I hope you can reflect on how many things you unconsciously assumed from one comment and where it was posted and how it can relate to its content (double-standard due to bias).

We can move on, and now you know that this is a rather famous thing to say among people who are angry that women are allowed to choose who they wish to pursue them romantically.

I wonder if people who believe that prostitution should be legalized consider sexual harassment in the workplace to be a lesser problem, since one of the arguments is struck from the table. #2 doesn't seem to be a major concern, since you claim it's already in the existing system and isn't important(or is that just a matter of degree? That would imply it's more wrong to hit on someone shy than someone outspoken)

If exploiting a power imbalance is wrong, I wonder if employing a homeless person is wrong because you profit off of the labor of the helpless.

I don't think so, and I don't believe the 3rd argument is struck at all. There's a gaping difference between accepting an advance fully willingly (whether the motivations behind acceptance are romantic, sexual or economic) and feeling pressured into accepting the advance (regardless of whether such pressure is intended or accidental). A happily employed prostitute in a perfect well-regulated industry will still never feel that they can't turn down a prospective client, no matter how well they're paying. In any workplace, if accepting an advance is necessary to succeed professionally, that's a systemic problem.

> If exploiting a power imbalance is wrong, I wonder if employing a homeless person is wrong because you profit off of the labor of the helpless.

Again, this comes down to pressure. A homeless person might be under disproportionate economic pressure to take a job they would otherwise decline, so I'd say that from a purely moral standpoint this needs to be taken into account and if you're not ensuring the job is taken willingly, then yes, it is wrong to profit from that labour.