tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5673382.post932657255433697683..comments2024-03-27T08:33:11.834-07:00Comments on There is some truth in that: Administrators and Snowflakes on Sexual Assault PoliciesJonathan Jenkins Ichikawahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05260245860017778409noreply@blogger.comBlogger101125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5673382.post-21629329012583468092017-05-14T04:00:06.343-07:002017-05-14T04:00:06.343-07:00The person who has written under the name “Anonymo...The person who has written under the name “Anonymous Sense” demonstrated to me in their previous comments that their interest is in being insulting, rather than in having a productive conversation. I see no reason to use my blog as a platform for such comments, or to use my time and energy reading and thinking about them. One recent comment offered an apology (along with more insults and aggressiveness), but it does not make me think they’ll behave any better in future comments.<br /><br />The short answer to the question, why do I not approve their comments, is that I don’t want to engage with them or their comments. Sorry if you or they think that’s rude. Norms of politeness are pretty different when dealing with anonymous commenters than with people with faces and names.Jonathan Jenkins Ichikawahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05260245860017778409noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5673382.post-74835882677743995062017-05-14T00:07:27.802-07:002017-05-14T00:07:27.802-07:00Anonymous Sense's private communications have ...Anonymous Sense's private communications have informed me that you have not approved his follow-up comments here. I've read them. They're not inflammatory or combative or injurious. One wonders, then, why.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5673382.post-24436991765426839112017-05-11T16:17:34.227-07:002017-05-11T16:17:34.227-07:00Certainly.Certainly.Jonathan Jenkins Ichikawahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05260245860017778409noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5673382.post-32109011560977336282017-05-09T06:34:52.093-07:002017-05-09T06:34:52.093-07:00RE: Kipnis: No, she's being disingenuous in pr...RE: Kipnis: No, she's being disingenuous in pretending not to know the nature of the complaints against her. This was made clear at many points (including, again, the Huffpo piece I linked).<br /><br />RE: Murder: You're wrong. Intent to kill is not a necessary condition for murder. Mens rea is required, yes, but there are many ways this can be established without intending to murder or to kill. Reckless indifference, for example.<br /><br />RE: Satirical videos: If I were playing sexually explicit videos in my classrooms or making students watch them in my office, I think a sexual harassment complaint wouldn't be at all ridiculous. If a student googled my name and chose to play a video, then it is obvious that I am not creating a hostile environment.<br /><br />RE: Your general tone and the value of your comments: You asked elsewhere (assuming, as I generally do, that there's only one person using your name here) whether your comments strike me as gratuitous and insulting. Many of the comments appearing under "Anonymous Sense" don't, but these do. Since we're being frank with one another, my opinion is that no, these comments do not strike me as "intellectually fair or rigorous". I won't ask you to agree—I know you won't. But you asked my opinion, and there it is.Jonathan Jenkins Ichikawahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05260245860017778409noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5673382.post-43126709927868493902017-05-08T22:29:39.955-07:002017-05-08T22:29:39.955-07:00You may have noticed that Itchy has a new post say...You may have noticed that Itchy has a new post saying that your comments are worthless (mine obviously are, but he lumps you in too, by implication). He isn't listening. He can't. He has too much to lose by truly acknowledging your points, so he waffles but largely sticks to his talking points. He believes that anyone who disagrees with him advocates rape culture. That makes him a fanatic. Others must be converted (as his new post implies) or else condemned. Sanctimonious doesn't get to the half of it with him.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5673382.post-59037052323672154012017-05-08T20:54:17.275-07:002017-05-08T20:54:17.275-07:00I don't think Jonathan is a fanatic, from anyt...I don't think Jonathan is a fanatic, from anything I've seen. But I think he's profoundly in error and knows it and is backtracking in order to save face. I don't think characterizing those videos as awful is fair, I think that's exactly the kind of paranoia that needs to be dispelled.<br /><br />Unfortunately, I think his naivety does have some influence - he and his wife and her boyfriend have received national press.<br /><br />I looked up that "September statement" you mentioned, here's an outside take.<br /><br />The initial call for kindness and civility seemed to me very reasonable, and something I would support, given how inhumane academia has become, structurally and socially. I can understand how it might strike some moral sensibilities or temperaments as unnecessary, but that varies to taste. It seems also to have been a way of claiming leverage in a more mundane power struggle about an unrelated topic.<br /><br />Ironically, the "sanctimonious *sshole" accusation seems to have both confirmed the fact that there's a need for more civility, and confirmed the fact that the spirit of the letter was sanctimony.<br /><br />Why? Because if its goals had been truly magnanimous, an appropriate response to the criticism would have been "I'm sorry you received it that way. The intent was not to be sanctimonious." The end.<br /><br />Instead, the response was sanctimonious - a letter, 600 signatures?<br /><br />Am I getting the details or sequence wrong here? I googled quickly, it's all very inane. <br /><br />The joke about academic politics is that they're so bitter because the stakes are so small. But for the Title IX stuff, the stakes are very high - hundreds of thousands of dollars lost, reputations damaged, careers ruined. At least one humiliated suicide.<br /><br />My impression of the SStatement suggests that some women might in fact be acting histrionically, feigning innocence and aggravated injury in order to gain professional and social power over men. That would in fact be quite ugly, and a way on their part to confirm the worst stereotypes about women while claiming to fight them. And potentially a way of exploiting rape victims as fodder for feminist cannons.Anonymous Sensenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5673382.post-17932092281696123942017-05-08T20:37:14.334-07:002017-05-08T20:37:14.334-07:00https://www.thefire.org/cases/rowan-college-at-glo...https://www.thefire.org/cases/rowan-college-at-gloucester-county-professor-fired-after-student-complaints-over-classroom-language-and-course-content/<br /><br />There's a case where a tenure-track professor was fired because she had used profanity a handful of times in class and shared a "Blurred Lines" parody video called, funny enough, "Defined Lines." Who drew those lines? Where are they? Who decides?<br /><br />Who doesn't say "fuck", for fuck's sake? Who didn't see the "Blurred Lines" video, when it was tremendously popular in the entire United States? Or the parody?Anonymous Sensenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5673382.post-63199566741420900302017-05-08T20:29:18.219-07:002017-05-08T20:29:18.219-07:00Perhaps you don't *have to* worry about it bec...Perhaps you don't *have to* worry about it because you're part of the pitchfork brigade, and no one would ever suspect you of impropriety or misconduct, given your sterling record on sexual justice issues?<br /><br />As I've said elsewhere, anonymous tips and third-party characterizations have, in the U.S., been investigated, and have been used to expel people.<br /><br />I think you are not taking responsibility for endorsing the deeply flawed worldview which distorts the reality of sex and rape and didn't notice that depriving the accused of due process might be unfair until after a long tally of unfairnesses and injustices (including one young man's suicide) had accumulated.Anonymous Sensenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5673382.post-61212530089202903752017-05-08T20:25:16.036-07:002017-05-08T20:25:16.036-07:00Just saw this one. The point is that it's the...Just saw this one. The point is that it's the design and ideology of advocates, activists, and feminists which have contributed to and informed the system: exaggerated and false statistics and ideas about rape, about how we should treat accusers, and about how we should treat the accused. Those fungi found rich soil in the moral vacuity and self-interest of the neoliberal university.<br /><br />What would you do if you felt like one of your students was having their private life misrepresented from having been accused? Would you speak up and try to correct the record then?Anonymous Sensenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5673382.post-13451705011549035122017-05-08T15:33:07.044-07:002017-05-08T15:33:07.044-07:002. I'd also suggest that when someone indicate...2. I'd also suggest that when someone indicates your online activity could be construed as sexual harassment, saying it has nothing to do with sexual assault seems a bit odd. Is that on your mind? If someone accuses you of stealing, you will startle them by crying out, "I've never killed anyone!" Tell-tale heart, etc?<br /><br />You have no complaints "in" Kipnis' book. Unless there's one in there you reported? You mean, I think, that you have complaints "with" Kipnis's book.<br /><br />Very interesting that you've thought a bit about the details of the supposedly "satirical" spam email reading. I'm glad that women consent to being degraded in your imagination, but that's not really information you need to share with us.<br /><br />You are, again, confusing sexual harassment with sexual assault. And don't you think that's all sort of likely to happen, when there's an umbrella term for such a broad spectrum? Imagine if we called everything from murder to a shove to a hard, kind of friendly, kind of aggressive pat on the back to a too-firm handshake "assault", and went around calling out "assault" culture and demanding investigation? Wouldn't you consider that sort of odd? Alarmist? And isn't it sort of unjust or inaccurate to then say anything who kills a person or really, really crushes that hand, is guilty of "physical misconduct"? Wouldn't that be providing the cover of euphemism for grave things, and the weight of great seriousness for trivial things, and diluting the entire label? I'd imagine that would be of great benefit to murderers.<br /><br />I don't really know what else to say to you at this point. Your language is careless, your reasoning is bad, you haven't replied compellingly to anything I've said, your arguments are easily picked apart. Double down again?<br /><br />You already agreed that the system is failing and unfair. You don't think that the worldview which installed it bears any blame, and I don't think anyone will ever convince you away from your blamelessness with that adorable face, Mommy's darling boy. You've agreed false accusations do happen, and that a person can wrongly believe themselves to have been harassed or assaulted or raped. You might concede, though, that something like a "moral panic" is an apt description, and that "paranoid" and "zealous" describe the screws I've put on you here for the sake of demonstration, even as they've been put on so many others. And although I can't match your philosophical acumen or training in logic, it seems like if you acknowledged an atmosphere of moral panic and paranoia and zealotry, some other things would follow.Anonymous Sensenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5673382.post-74573767938250158742017-05-08T15:31:46.721-07:002017-05-08T15:31:46.721-07:001. Perhaps Kipnis did not know the particular deta...1. Perhaps Kipnis did not know the particular details of the complaint against her because she did not know the particular details of the complaint against her? Because that's one of the denials of due process people have found so - in the words of Paul Bloom, certainly a less perceptive mind than either of us here, "Kafkaesque"? About which a couple dozen Harvard Law professors (what do they know against a philosophy professor at UNC-Wheresboro who signs a letter without reading it?) expressed serious concerns, etc. Anyone else reading can decide which of us has paid less attention, which has more concern for accurate description.<br /><br />Intent in fact is necessary for murder. It's called "mens rea", you can Google it pretty easily. Because "murder" is a label we assign, with a set of qualifiers, when one person is responsible for another's loss of life. We also have terms like "voluntary manslaughter", "involuntary manslaughter", which precisely depend on proving *intent*. I am amazed that you don't know this. And amazed that you can't see how the Title IX system, which you have already agreed has major problems - works to stack the deck against anyone accused.<br /><br />I am a little concerned, Jonathan, about the rest. No one is saying your email reading is sexual assault. It could be considered sexual harassment by creation of a hostile environment, though. What exactly are you satirizing? Do you think the instantiation of centuries of patriarchal oppression upon a woman's face is... something to laugh about? Couldn't seeing you have such a sporting go at the description cause a nervous student - say, one with PTSD or anxiety - to be psychologically destabilized? Couldn't you provide a trigger warning before splashing so gleefully in? Would it be wrong for a viewer to surmise that you might do or enjoy such an abominable thing?Anonymous Sensenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5673382.post-26160475989222796002017-05-08T11:58:30.810-07:002017-05-08T11:58:30.810-07:00Anonymous Sense, you are trying to reason with a f...Anonymous Sense, you are trying to reason with a fanatic. There's no point in it. Especially not now, when he is so desperate to spin these awful videos where he mocks sexual assault and gay people. He is way too entrenched in his own foolishness now to step back and see reason. Let him have his little blog. No one reads it anyway.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5673382.post-73645253365321820712017-05-08T02:21:41.215-07:002017-05-08T02:21:41.215-07:00Reading the Hess story again now, the first six pa...Reading the Hess story again now, the first six paragraphs, it strikes me that we're using the bodies of inexperienced, intoxicated young people as a field for discursively negotiating and determining what sexual equality is, and how it varies between the intimate, personal, relational, social, professional, public and political.<br /><br />Which would be fine, except first of all, gross. Second of all, prying. Third of all, moralistic. Fourth, cruel and unusual punishment. Fifth, frequently dishonest.<br /><br />It's like Foucault's argument about the 'repressive hypothesis' acted out in a new way. Like, you people who are all so righteous, disapproving of and traumatized by rape and assault, anxious to see them censured and stopped - gosh you sure love sending a judge into other people's bedrooms to take notes, then hearing all about the details, just to explain just how disapproving you are, and how shameful they are for doing those things, but you really need to hear more. It's not the tragedy of 'show me on the doll where they touched you', it's the tragic farce of 'show me on the doll where they touched you, ok, show me again, maybe one more time after that.'<br /><br />One explanation could be that the moralists or zealots are, of course, actually getting off to this, on some level. If you told me that Andrea Dworkin had some sexual bitterness or envy, you know, I just wouldn't believe it. So now her ghost gets to haunt the beds of attractive young people and torment them, and everyone around them, until her spirit can find rest.<br /><br />This explanation would make sense, because that's exactly what hardcore Christian censors do: we really need to talk about the evils of Satanic death metal, over and over and over, let's play another one, this is so awful.<br /><br />And the "sex education" universities have been giving young people is just as bad, if not worse, than that given at Christian schools and at schools in Christian counties. It's impossibly naive, it's dishonest, it picks and chooses what information to share, it exaggerates some details out of proportion and omits others, and constructs an entirely bogus narrative that predisposes people to feel vulnerability and shame. And then instead of learning the good responsible Christian way to have sex, all else bringing damnation, we learn the good responsible feminist way to have sex. And again, Christians are trying to prevent their kids from being sexually taken advantage of, from sexual disease, from emotional compromise and regret and trauma. But also from making informed choices. But they're doing it by lying about sex, and breeding a hothouse atmosphere of fear and naivety. Likewise the people responsible for this mess.Anonymous Sensenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5673382.post-35461348557627632512017-05-08T01:01:59.171-07:002017-05-08T01:01:59.171-07:00Rape has been constructed as the trauma surpassing...Rape has been constructed as the trauma surpassing all others (IDK, can you measure that?), from which one never recovers, as a constant, pressing danger, even with someone to whom you have already consented, though the rate of forcible rape has been estimated to be 1 in 100. Still higher than it should be, but I think most women - and men, if they were in those shoes - who have anything like a healthy sexual pulse - would probably be ok with *those* odds.<br /><br />So I feel like there's some way in which performing vulnerability and victimization, and joining in the (Kipnis-calls-it-a-) "moral panic", has become a way for women and men to show solidarity with each other, and with feminism. That we’re like, or at least on the side of, rape victims. Prove you're not a rapist, prove you're anti-rape.<br /><br />Short of rape, the things being called sexual assault and harassment sometimes seem to be received by women as an insult, a mark on their honor, more than a lasting trauma or crisis, as if, if they were men in a different era, they would challenge the offender to a duel. Like transposing "The Rape of the Lock" to a college party and dimly lit dorm room. Or there’s a paralysis, because there’s no clear way to respond – you can’t sleep with a guy to get ahead, and maybe you’re already neck and neck with, or ahead of, him – but rejecting someone can backfire to, and are we really equal if he thought he could say that to me? Do I have more power because I tempted him into bad behavior? If he persuaded me? Does he have more power? If you're already in bed with him, did he just disrespect you? Is he one of *those*? Infinite loop, short circuit, steam out ears.<br /><br />One good question is why young women of prior generations were *less* insecure about their autonomy and equality, even though they possessed less of it. And less scared or angry about the problem of male sexual coercion, even if it happened more often in the past, and without censure. Better able to cope with it. Perhaps now the anxiety is that to give an inch is to lose a mile. To have some sexual relation with a slight awkwardness or indignity, to have a man make a joke or "pass" and shrug it off, or tell him off, would be to betray the general project. To show that one’s autonomy and equality are not absolute or inflexible. (Ask a man if he feels like he has absolute autonomy in his life, by the way, and, you know, link here to statue of the Laocoon group..)<br /><br />And this conflict would also continue because women admitting that they feel scared of or intimidated by men would be taboo, because it would seem to contradict the claim that women are "equal" to men because just as strong tough etc., capable of giving as good as they can get. The current seems to be resisting that by making men feel that they aren't "equal" to women because not as empathic, considerate, tactful, sensitive, polite - always making coarse jokes and dumb comments and not picking up on social nuances, never able to tell the difference between a friendly vibe or a sexual or romantic one, getting the wrong idea, and raping.<br /><br />I wonder if projecting onto men the belief that they are all rapists or potential rapists is a way of introducing moral clarity, when power is complex, or of deferring female guilt about competition and advancement. If men are all rapists anyway, you can feel ok about treating them as rivals and competitors. Though attacking their character on gendered terms is, you know, not really sporting.<br /><br />& if you normalize rape as 'one of the traumas', that does mean that some men get away with it. Some men - and women - get away with murder. Or abusing their children. It's horrible. But it's not right to make men guilty until proven innocent. To wrongly convict. Or to liberate women from self-consciousness about their behavior/reputation by transposing it onto men.Anonymous Sensenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5673382.post-6262248100883794592017-05-08T00:30:48.056-07:002017-05-08T00:30:48.056-07:00Kipnis doesn’t provide this information in her boo...Kipnis doesn’t provide this information in her book, but the complaint against her essay wasn’t that it made anybody feel traumatized—it was that it provided harmful and inaccurate information about an individual who had brought forward a complaint against Ludlow. According to the complaint, her inaccurate public description of these private details constituted unlawful restitution. So when you write this: “A climate which took an essay as a - what - assault? Harassment? Or *ideological crime*?”, I feel like you’re either not paying attention, or you don’t care about describing things accurately. Either way, you're wasting my time.<br /><br />I agree that intent is not necessary for sexual harassment. Intent isn’t necessary for murder, either. But in neither case does it mean that “it's the complainant’s interpretation of victimhood that rules the roost”. I am amazed that you think otherwise.<br /><br />As for my satirical email reading, I’ll just repeat myself. It has nothing whatsoever to do with sexual assault. <br /><br />Nothing, whatsoever, to do with sexual assault.<br /><br />You accurately described a spectrum of assault from an unwanted kiss to a forceable rape. Nothing described in the video you are discussing falls on that spectrum. It is not part of the scenario described that anything is done non-consensually. Confusing sex with sexual assault is one of my central complaints in Kipnis's book. You are guilty of it too.Jonathan Jenkins Ichikawahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05260245860017778409noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5673382.post-37812283364836344372017-05-08T00:29:00.053-07:002017-05-08T00:29:00.053-07:00I knew women in college who sometimes had drunk se...I knew women in college who sometimes had drunk sex, at times blacking out or not remembering it. One laughed it off the next day, like 'so I guess that happened.' Was that healthy behavior? I don't know. But stereotypically one of the reasons people *become* drunk is to defray embarrassment or responsibility for choices they're tempted by. Not everyone, not always, but sometimes.<br /><br />I suspect one reason sexual assault has become such a concern, separate from its inherent trauma, is because it so triggers anxieties about female autonomy and equality between genders.<br /><br />I feel ambivalent about saying "separate from its inherent trauma", but it's worth remembering that women sexually assault and rape men, and there's no clear data on how much that happens, either, AFAIK. I've known men who have been "roofied" and woken up the next morning unsure of what occurred. Older generations used to be aware of the danger you might get "slipped a mickey", even if you were a man. Sometimes just to steal your shit, other times not. There is some data suggesting men experience being pressured or coerced into sex, at least psychologically, as much as women do. <br /><br />And that there are other kinds of trauma we don't treat as a cultural symptom, though maybe we should: the rape of men by men in prison, child sexual abuse and the production of child pornography (do we have a "culture" of that in which the majority is complicit? We actually have widespread horror and disgust and contempt, and strong enforcement, yet the pathologies still persist), physical and emotional abuse of children by their parents (is it our whole culture, for which everyone is responsible, contributing to those pathologies? And if that's true, if there's an argument for that in the literature somewhere, why isn't it a cause?). Job - I can read the book over, though - wasn't raped. There's a whole, wide, wonderful variety of ways to get PTSD in this world.<br /><br />So it's a serious trauma, but not the only one of the afflictions of life, and if the scope has been greatly exaggerated, by misleading statistics, paranoia and alarm, it seems like there could be other, underlying reasons than a deficit in sympathy for victims or a problem in policies.Anonymous Sensenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5673382.post-63414248435449663852017-05-07T20:42:53.452-07:002017-05-07T20:42:53.452-07:00I would add that one condition in which someone mi...I would add that one condition in which someone might perceive themselves to have been assaulted when that was not necessarily the case is when both parties are deeply drunk and in the dark. Alcohol does induce disinhibition and impair judgment, but it can also impair memory and blur or distort perceptions of events as they are happening. I am confident enough in my knowledge of human nature and the history of alcohol consumption prior to modern science and psychology to assert that, though I can take correction - but I suspect there are abundant studies on the effect of alcohol on all of those things.<br /><br />And we don't know, because everything happens in secret, just how many cases *did* only involve mutual intoxication. And it is possible for one intoxicated person to forcibly rape another and ignore or overpower protestations. We can't lose sight of that. But it seems like quite a few do.<br /><br />There's a larger cultural climate around this, too - I saw an article somewhere, Jezebel maybe, by a young woman who wrote about her alcoholism and sexual practices, and talked about getting drunk, having sex, not remembering it, and thinking it was rape because she felt sore. Another case where, I think, a drunk man and woman went into a bathroom, were starting to have sex, other students were watching through a window to check whether it was assault...(?)<br /><br />Trying to find it - there's a more fair and honest article from 2015 here: http://jezebel.com/ask-a-former-drunk-its-time-to-talk-about-alcohol-and-1783117457<br /><br />There are also cases like this one: https://www.bustle.com/articles/165150-i-cant-remember-my-rape-and-that-shouldnt-matter - where a woman blacked out and didn't remember her rape, where it's not a phantasmal retroactively imposed nightmare.<br /><br />There's a good write-up here, this is from Amanda Hess at Slate back in 2015 - http://www.slate.com/articles/double_x/doublex/2015/02/drunk_sex_on_campus_universities_are_struggling_to_determine_when_intoxicated.html<br /><br />The issue is that these cases are all over the map, and treating anything that looks like it *might* be rape or assault or harassment as such is horrible.Anonymous Sensenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5673382.post-16981602309873149252017-05-07T19:15:52.335-07:002017-05-07T19:15:52.335-07:00I will surrender the field now to Anonymous Sense,...I will surrender the field now to Anonymous Sense, whose eloquence and command of facts vastly exceeds my own. He is in no way associated with my gibes. But he does speak for me and (you can be sure) many others in his moral outrage at the Title IX horrowshow. If he can educate you even a little bit on these matters here, Itchy, then your blog has some justification for existing.<br /><br />By the way, I have now watched all your YouTube videos, and I have to say I've never seen such a profuse anthology of shitty haircuts.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5673382.post-48481875563216242592017-05-07T18:10:24.021-07:002017-05-07T18:10:24.021-07:00Or you say, you know, looking at the village destr...Or you say, you know, looking at the village destroyed, sorry, we were just trying to get that one rapist who's raping everybody. Bad aim.Anonymous Sensenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5673382.post-31350958417592422142017-05-07T18:08:20.574-07:002017-05-07T18:08:20.574-07:00My point, ultimately, is not that I think you'...My point, ultimately, is not that I think you're in support of unfair procedures. I think you're in support of specious arguments, talking points and statistics that led to and undergird the procedures. You're right that Kipnis doesn't have a good theory of consent. But you don't, either, since you've admitted that a person can rape or assault or harass without knowing it, but also that a person can believe themselves to have been raped or assaulted or harassed and be in error.<br /><br />This all sort of feels to me like a giant snowball rolled down from the top of the mountain, gathering mass, crushing or absorbing everything in its path. Now that it's gone, we all turn to the top of the mountain, see people standing up there building ideological snow forts and snow people, and you hold up your hands in a show of innocence, whoa, don't look at us.Anonymous Sensenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5673382.post-27491842593327616882017-05-07T18:03:31.654-07:002017-05-07T18:03:31.654-07:00I'm not personally attacking you, I'm demo...I'm not personally attacking you, I'm demonstrating what those attacks look and sound like. Anon is just jeering at you, and I'm disappointed he's the only person reading who thinks I have a point.<br /><br />If we were really so reliably and coolly competent at differentiating between talk of sexual matters and sexual harassment, between a pass and a pest, between rape and assault and drunken miscommunication, the entire climate which occassioned Kipnis to write her book wouldn't exist. A climate which took an essay as a - what - assault? Harassment? Or *ideological crime*?<br /><br />Title IX administrators have actually literally used the phrase - I've heard it - "intent doesn't matter." So if I claim to be traumatized by your YouTube "jokes", or interpret them in a hurtful or demeaning way, it's my interpretation of victimhood that rules the roost. There are stories like this - I can put together a list - professors being investigated for jokes, or for broaching subjects in class, or making statements students do not like. It has been a climate of insecurity, surveillance, paranoia, and shaming, shameful conformity.<br /><br />The idea that we can differentiate between different kinds of speech and act reasonably, too, I mean holy sh*t brother. The momentum has been to redefine sexual assault in order to efface those differebtiations. So anything from an unwanted kiss from a study partner with a crush to forcible rape could be categorized as "sexual assault."<br /><br />And you claim not to recognize that picture of moral innocents, yet you claim innocence when confronted with exactly the same reasoning that had found people guilty, or at least, worthy of being intimidated by a Kafkaesque or inquisitorial bureaucracy. This whole time you've been full of cautious reservations about the system, but just not shared them? Or you just didn't notice the pitfalls in advance?<br /><br />I'm sure many people interrogated by the system would love to have the rights I've given you here - to know the evidence and accusations against them, to have a right to speak to their accuser, and to have their self defense heard and recognized by truly reasonable people, rather than paranoid ideologues or people just following orders.<br /><br />You say you don't recognize the picture of moral innocents described here. That's good, because it means you don't think you are one. But you place all of the blame on administrators, none on the activists or academics who have designed and enabled and enforced the system, peddled alarmist statistics, anticipated no problems, and had no qualms about due process or the system until after the fact.<br /><br />If you think my rhetorical enactment of inquisitorialness here is "horrifying", or a "personal attack" - imagine this - imagine, without due process, being accused of rape, or sexual assault, or sexual harassment or misconduct, then being figuratively blindfolded, gagged, and having both hands tied behind your back. And then convince us, when the system is stacked in my favor as the accuser, that my interpretation or version of events isn't even only 1 percent more likely than yours. Remember that the administrator mediating this may have been trained to take your protestations of innocence (you're horrified at the misinterpretation) as a sign of guilt, and has been taught "Intent doesn't matter". And remember that the OCR has given incredibly vague instructions on all of this, but that the consequence for failure to comply is loss of huge amounts of funding.Anonymous Sensenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5673382.post-10536396160994482362017-05-07T17:55:40.745-07:002017-05-07T17:55:40.745-07:00Jonathan,
You can "Et tu" me, but then ...Jonathan,<br /><br />You can "Et tu" me, but then you're not reading with the care one would hope for on a subject with such high stakes. I specifically said to Anon that I don't want to be associated with personal attacks in any way. I have made no attack on you - I'm only holding your behavior under the lens (remember, Kipnis calls it "paranoid" and part of a "moral panic") that has been applied to others. I don't *mean* any of those descriptions of your video, I'm parroting a particular mindset and way of hunting for fault and offering cynical or fearful or group-protective interpretations. More in a minute.Anonymous Sensenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5673382.post-38827810243597157142017-05-07T13:35:28.039-07:002017-05-07T13:35:28.039-07:00You also mock gay people. Shameful!
https://www....You also mock gay people. Shameful! <br /><br />https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bJRs4RDBYAgAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5673382.post-242422102119645642017-05-07T12:57:52.529-07:002017-05-07T12:57:52.529-07:00You willfully misunderstand. No one is accusing yo...You willfully misunderstand. No one is accusing you of sexual assault. We are accusing you of gleefully celebrating sexual assault. You of course have the right to do so. Whether you should is another matter. Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5673382.post-49653104900067792012017-05-07T12:48:55.161-07:002017-05-07T12:48:55.161-07:00If, after all of this exchange, you still can'...If, after all of this exchange, you still can't tell the difference between talk of sexual matters and talk of sexual assault, then the world is in an even sorrier and scarier condition than I'd thought.<br /><br />In case it needs spelling out: the satirical video linked is sexually explicit, but has nothing connection whatsoever to sexual assault. I'm frankly horrified that so many people misunderstand he difference.<br /><br />For a moment I thought that an open and frank exchange on these topics might be possible. I am sad to see that all you are interested in personal attacks. (Et tu, Anonymous Sense?)Jonathan Jenkins Ichikawahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05260245860017778409noreply@blogger.com