I'm a woman and I've done a fair bit of research on the topic. I don't think it helps to use this framing. When I talk about my opinions, I am often accused of being a rape apologist. Women often perceive me as the enemy. Many of them seem to want to preserve some special victim card just for women rather than acknowledge that lots of men are also sexually assaulted, though it typically is not legally defined as rape because in many jurisdictions the legal definition of rape does specify that it is something only done to a woman. Nonetheless, men who are sodomized against their will in prison will say they were raped. The word encapsulates something that no other word quite captures.

Second, joking about being slaughtered in the meeting probably in no way increases the risk of actual physical violence per se, much less murder, in an otherwise civilized environment. But letting ugly and actively hostile sexual remarks become the social norm can start a slippery slope that can help make things less safe when it comes to sexual boundaries per se.

Most sexual abuse doesn't begin with rape. In a worst case scenario, it culminates in rape.

It begins with myriad forms of disrespecting your boundaries and that disrespect absolutely can begin as verbal disrespect and then move on to unwanted touching, etc. Rapists whittle away at your expectations of respect and act like you are being ridiculous to react negatively to their behavior. This is done very intentionally and persistently.

People who stand idly by and do nothing as they watch things go down this slippery slope are complicit, whether they realize it or not. It can't happen if other people stand up and say "No, this is not okay as a social norm."

I used to be a lot more affectionate and expressive than I am. But I did a lot of research and, these days, I try hard to err on the side of treating other people with respect first and foremost. I don't always get it right, not by any stretch of the imagination. But I'm too aware of how this stuff works to not feel that it needs to be taken seriously.

This is an intellectually dishonest strawman. The GP comment asserts rather that these statements create a context in which sexualization and boundary violation become more acceptable.

And yes, the last few years have demonstrated clearly that sexual harassment is a huge problem for the gaming community.

Would I ever work in place where rape jokes are acceptable? Good lord no, but I'm okay with that place existing.

Congratulations.

I don't have trgv's original comment (because it was deleted) but I don't think your characterization of their statement as a strawman is accurate.

More directly, I think trgv's question (at least the part you quoted) is relevant to the discussion.

We may reject the objectionable statements/offensive jokes on their own grounds for simply being offensive and unconstructive (I do). However, when you say "these statements create a context in which sexualization and boundary violation become more acceptable" that sounds like you are making argument that permitting such speech also encourages more serious (even criminal) behavior. In that context, trgv's comment sounds like an invitation to test that hypothesis.

Regarding the slaughter analogy: it's not explicitly about murder, but killing. Slaughter doesn't apply only to humans, of course. Slaughter is typically associated with the killing of animals for food, after all. The difference between rape, killing, and stealing, en mi opinion, is society still grapples with killing and thievery, for certain edge cases. There's no such gray area for rape.

Stealing if you're starving isn't condoned, but people do have more sympathy if you have extenuating circumstances. Murder is wrong, of course, but killing people in self defense is understandable. Killing animals for sustenance is okay. We need to eat or we'll die. Killing animals for pleasure is also okay. I could cut out steaks/Popeyes/breakfast sausages from my diet, but I've calculated the cost of a dead cow/chicken/pig is worth a nice meal.

There's no equivalent case in society where people find it defensible to rape.

Rape doesn't apply only to humans.

>Killing people in self defense is understandable

Nobody's thinking of self-defense when they say "we absolutely massacred them."

I think arguing rape analogy is somehow worse than murder analogy because rape is always unacceptable is self-deprecating. NOTHING should be black and white in this world if you subscribe to the belief that murder is acceptable in some situations.

Yes, and society generally doesn't find it acceptable to rape animals, either, which was my point. As a counterpoint, try to think of the most contrived example where rape can somehow be justified. My argument is it doesn't exist in western society, whereas this isn't the case for killing and stealing.

>>Nobody's thinking of self-defense when they say "we absolutely massacred them."

My point is that there are other cases where the of killing people is justifiable in some way. Self defense may not apply, but that phrase could be used when both parties are complicit in the killing. Generally, you'd use the above phrase in competitive events - that is, two parties fighting each other and one side winning in a landslide. Same difference in warfare - what separate it from murder is the complicity of both sides. Murder keeps getting thrown out there, but again, the analogies are more in line with general killing than murder.

I'm a little shocked that you think warfare has two sides that are complicit when in reality it's full of young clueless kids who don't know what they're doing. Are you implying that soldiers are like UFC fighters on a ring? That there's some competitive element to killing in war and that makes rape worse than murder? I'm going to argue again that your argument is self-deprecating.

Rape happens a lot in war too, for strategic reasons. Are you going to argue that rape in war is also competitive?

I'm honestly baffled at how you came to any of these conclusions.

I don't condone war at all. I don't condone murder or rape either. Like I said earlier, my point is that there are certain scenarios in which western society rationalizes killing as acceptable. There is no equivalent for rape.

Please don't troll HN. The last thing we need on divisive topics is people stirring up worse flamewars.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Technically, it's not. Historically in some places and tubes it may have been, but “was” and “is” are different things.

No. Not in most of the Western world it isn't today.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/whats-really-behind-indias-rap...

That one or the other is being called out now, specifically, is a matter of political fashion. Sexualized language, racist language, those get airtime because there's groundwork there to carry those stories widely. In the past, it was religious oaths and the like that were transgressive. On the other hand, language around mental illness and disability, for example, has less of a support system now. You will easily get away with saying that an idea is "fucking retarded". I know I've said similar things many a time and I have some regrets about it.

And that's a thing that the culture negotiates one conversation at a time. It might not matter in any one instance, and if you look at it in more weaponized terms of "oh, I need to call out that guy for using a bad word" it gets embittered and negative really quickly, but any sensationalization ultimately hinders intended use of the term. When you go looking for strong language of this sort, you end up in a space where you're going to borrow the imagery and insert it in situations that are just flat out not the same, and make people think: "What? Is that normal? Should I play along?"

On an individual basis what's most important is just communicating clearly to make language and conversation pleasant and not going for "colorful" just because you can.

Further, I'd wager rape and sexual assault occur much more commonly than murder for those working in white collar, professional contexts, and that it disproportionately affects women, who already have a bad hand dealt in tech.

You mentioned a "slavery analogy," which makes things interesting: I'm sure if you think hard enough you could come up with a slavery joke that, if uttered, would be obviously inappropriate.

Nothing you've said even gets off the ground until your counterexamples are analogous to the joke uttered.

It'd be like, "We're gonna smash the competition so hard they have PTSD." to room where 30% are Iraqi war vets likely insulting to some of them.

So yes, murder/theft/violence are perceived as indiscriminate are thus less severe compared to rape/racist/religious jokes.

It reminds me of "punching-up vs. punching-down" in humor.

Men might be reasonably afraid of getting raped in jail.

Women have every right to have a reasonable fear of getting raped in a night club or an Uber or walking home from the grocery store. Because that happens all too regularly.

(I'm not saying "men don't get raped", but I am saying that "in general, most men never have any real fear that someone might be about to rape them".)

As someone who has been coerced into sex against my will, I think this narrow idea of what constitutes rape is harmful.

I am though - still reasonably sure that the gender balance of people being coerced into sex is hugely asymmetric as well.

Rape jokes are 100% contemptible when made in front of men who are victims of or genuinely fearful of rape or sexual assault. They are 100% contemptible when made in front of women.

(It's contemptible when anyone does it in private with their frat bros or gaming friends/opponents, but I won't judge what they do in private so long as it stays private... But I will recommend they take a long hard look at what sort of person they are if that's what they think is an appropriate way to communicate with _anyone_...)

* Well that sucks, but it was just a one off event.

* Oh you're a guy that's been raped, what are you some kind of pussy?

* Are you sure you're just not making rape claims for attention?

* Let's just probe you a bit more for evidence that we'll lock away and probably won't even use to help prosecute the criminal who did this to you.

Theft and murder also don't usually have undertones (or rather really overt tones) of homophobia and toxic masculinity.

The manner and context in which these jokes/hyperbole are delivered can be the difference between being topically hyperbolic and just outright revealing how ignorant of a person you are. To use your murder joke analogy, there's a difference between "You're gonna get slaughtered this game" versues "I'm gonna lynch you this round", to a presumably black competitor.

It's not the fact the action is being used in a joking, hyperbolic manner. It really is about the context and manner you deliver the joke. You can in that process play to darker aspects of our society's status quo. The author of the article gives explicit examples of this and pretty much spells it out.

Expectations are transient and certainly not universal.

Brandon's expectations about the way people perceive his dialogue were not universally correct. The condemnatory part of the article, in my mind, is that he tried to change the employee's reaction rather than his definition of insensitivity.

I don't think those norms within dialogue can be wholly avoided though, sadly. As far as I can tell, our id penalizes effemince in men.

Ps: your bulletins seem more like venting frustration than anything else. Hope you're doing alright.

Not sure why it would read that way, those are common talking points/situations in American society.

I wish that you could find ways to engage which are more in line with the HN guidelines. Many of us with strong opinions, including myself, have had posts flagged and received constructive feedback from dang, just like you under your old identity. I think about those guidelines and dang's feedback a lot when composing posts.

I don't consider it constructive at all. In fact it's often just been used to stop a conversation with no clear purpose or direction. It's been pretty vague, with really whimsical throwbacks to the guidelines that he's never been able to elucidate on which part I'm violating.

>I nevertheless find that your posts tend to be strident

They're blunt when I know people are not commenting in good faith or they've made no effort to actually educate themselves about a subject (the former and latter are often intertwined). I will not be changing my tone on such posts.

>I wish that you could find ways to engage which are more in line with the HN guidelines.

Which guidelines? So far as I've seen it's only based on which opinions are popular and are worded in a faux-intellectual manner and then you can basically get away with anything. I had the CEO of Bitlocker basically tell me I was worth less than his dog (because his dog does not have the ability to criticize him) and lo and behold guess which one of us got dang's attention. There are countless examples of this pattern that do not involve me, but other users on this site.

I don't say anything I wouldn't say to anyone's face on here, so I'm certainly not going to be try to be even more academically-cutesy on the internet than I am even in person. A yesteryear account actually had my name and company information on it. Too bad that my place of employment started getting harassed by hard right-wingers for my comments on here (the only place any alias of mine has has had personal information on it has been this site).

But the point is I am being honest, topical, and forthright so any any claims that I'm causing threads to spiral into flame wars seem a bit over the top.

The "In Comments" section on this page:

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

> They're blunt when I know people are not commenting in good faith

I think that may be where things start to spin out of control. From the guidelines:

"Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith."

Even when we may believe that someone is not commenting in good faith, adopting the constraint that we assume good faith nevertheless leads to more invigorating, challenging exchanges. By grappling with the strongest plausible interpretation, we grow to understand the opposition better and become stronger ourselves.

I hope that you can engage under those terms, because if you can we'll all be enriched by your continued participation. But if that's not for you, I hope you'll find another venue. You write well and you're good at the harsh stuff (I'm reminded of Hunter from Daily Kos), but that's not what I come to HN for.

> lo and behold guess which one of us got dang's attention.

Here's someone who also thinks dang is biased, but in the opposite direction. :)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17656115

Dan's an effective moderator. He can't police every transgression, but under his watch the forum stays more-or-less to the liking of those of us who value exchanges under the HN guidelines.

Anyway, thanks for giving a busybody like me a hearing. :) Happy trails.

> The accusers’ identities have not been made public, but—according to the NZZ report—students charged that Carollo expected “superhuman commitment,” including being reachable on weekends, rarely taking vacations, and participating in evening meetings that would sometimes go until midnight. According to the report, Carollo would criticize students’ postures and tell them to spend less time on makeup and more on research. The article says that one-third of Carollo’s Ph.D. students failed to graduate, and many of her postdocs left the field after they failed to publish enough papers.

a) "Brandon, imagine that I f* your wife..."

b) "Brandon, imagine if I cut off your arms and legs one at a time..."

c) "Brandon, imagine if you shot yourself in the back of the head... with a shotgun... twice... and declared it suicide..."

d) "Brandon, imagine if I fed you to the pigs, and they never found your body..."

e) "Brandon, imagine if I tortured you to death..."

f) "Brandon, imagine if the Germans cut your d* off..."

I just don't really get their "sense of humor". Why is (a) funny? It's like when somebody says "that's what she said", it's just not very funny, but I can imagine they say that there.

I've actually never heard of Riot Games before this article, but I don't think I would ever want to work there. Seems like a waste of time.

The problem wasn't using rape in a verb like that sentence, definitely not as a one-off. It was the fact that everything was being reduced to rape analogies. And it was culminated by a comment that very much crossed the line, and was very much meant to cross that line.

There is a comment I saw quite a long time ago which was to the effect that the use of swearing to convey emotional intensity is a sign of immaturity, not maturity.

You can't imagine seeing massive pushback to a Silicon Valley type deciding to make a tone deaf, poorly timed "slaughter" analogy in the U.S. in 2018?