"barely legal" is a key word phrase from the porn industry used to describe 18 year olds.
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Sometimes I've had the thought "Maybe there is just something deeply wrong with some men and this will always be with us. They have this perverse need to exploit and dominate and nothing can be done."
Then? I reject it. It's a choice to treat people in this way. It's a choice to glamorize it as some pinnacle of masculinity.
Amazing to see that men with all of that money and power still found themselves falling short. This taught them nothing.
@futurebird I think wondering whether such behavior is innate is a red herring. The important questions are, how do we limit the power to abuse others, and how do we respond appropriately to stop it?
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Sometimes I've had the thought "Maybe there is just something deeply wrong with some men and this will always be with us. They have this perverse need to exploit and dominate and nothing can be done."
Then? I reject it. It's a choice to treat people in this way. It's a choice to glamorize it as some pinnacle of masculinity.
Amazing to see that men with all of that money and power still found themselves falling short. This taught them nothing.
There will always be something deeply wrong with some people and nothing can be done about them specifically. I do believe that, some people aren't willing to put the work into changing and the work has to come from within.
But as a society we can avoid putting them in positions of power over others.
Edit: changed men to people. This behavior and exploitative attitude exists among women and other non-men too, they just don't end up in positions of power as often
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@futurebird I think wondering whether such behavior is innate is a red herring. The important questions are, how do we limit the power to abuse others, and how do we respond appropriately to stop it?
@epicdemiologist @futurebird I’m saying this unironically, learn from anarchist thinking. That’s literally the core idea of anarchism.
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"barely legal" is a key word phrase from the porn industry used to describe 18 year olds. It's also tied to "virgin" porn. To some it is 'soft' immorality. "Boys will be boys." (Why are the boys all wealthy men over 50?)
The attraction of these products is in part about a naive inexperienced person (a virgin) being taken advantage of. But also how whatever is "off limits" becomes more attractive and mysterious.
But can we please stop and recognize how gross it all is? 1/
@futurebird Try Good Ol' Boys (ie Rednecks) rather than boys
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Sometimes I've had the thought "Maybe there is just something deeply wrong with some men and this will always be with us. They have this perverse need to exploit and dominate and nothing can be done."
Then? I reject it. It's a choice to treat people in this way. It's a choice to glamorize it as some pinnacle of masculinity.
Amazing to see that men with all of that money and power still found themselves falling short. This taught them nothing.
@futurebird The weirdest wrinkle of this to me is that the adults who get off on exploiting young people also want to tell themselves that on some level, the child is aware and happily exploiting themselves. It's Nabokov's greatest insight in Lolita about pedophiles, that unfortunately pedophile readers thought he was celebrating. For young people, it makes it impossible to get predators to believe when you say no, not me, not anyone my age.
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If you listen to people who have been exploited in this way the stories are horrific.
That "this person knows nothing and we can trick them" is part of the "fun" in so much of this kind of content and fantasy is very disturbing.
But the whole thing is so normalized. And it's conflated with nostalgia fantasies, turned into a joke...
There isn't anything cute about someone who is 15 or 20 being coerced, trapped, humiliated, stripped of agency.
I can't believe it's an excuse. 2/2
@futurebird the concept of age-of-consent definitely needs to be supplemented with some kind of age-gap-upper-limit-for-consent.
maybe not exactly like this xkcd comic (and maybe not a linear function like in the comic), but this could be a starting point to figure out a better formula (in consultation with psychologists, etc):
https://xkcd.com/314/ -
How do the wealthy and powerful women navigate all of this? Some have experienced this exploitation themselves and they seem to learn to blame themselves for letting it happen.
But what about when it happens to your daughter? Oh? She's not that kind of girl? The disposable kind?
This is the impression I get from these emails and documents. People so accustomed to using people they struggle to shift their perspective to understand what they are even doing that is wrong.
@futurebird There's a reason that eugenics is so popular with those people.
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@futurebird The weirdest wrinkle of this to me is that the adults who get off on exploiting young people also want to tell themselves that on some level, the child is aware and happily exploiting themselves. It's Nabokov's greatest insight in Lolita about pedophiles, that unfortunately pedophile readers thought he was celebrating. For young people, it makes it impossible to get predators to believe when you say no, not me, not anyone my age.
@futurebird A while back, I taught at a college where affairs between faculty and students were tolerated, and it was awful, seeing young people call themselves "jailbait" and prance around in front of professors who claimed they had no other choice. (None of the students were underage, but they clearly IDed some profs as pedophiles.) One student in sociology even wrote a thesis about how exploiting oneself is a map to power. But whose? The men got tenured and promoted. They lost.
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@futurebird the concept of age-of-consent definitely needs to be supplemented with some kind of age-gap-upper-limit-for-consent.
maybe not exactly like this xkcd comic (and maybe not a linear function like in the comic), but this could be a starting point to figure out a better formula (in consultation with psychologists, etc):
https://xkcd.com/314/I think it's very simple.
It's the exploitation of it all. It's the "what are you going to do to me about it?" of it all.
And the way some men spend all their time trying to get as close to the line as possible should be recognized as a much bigger red flag and by more people.
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@futurebird the concept of age-of-consent definitely needs to be supplemented with some kind of age-gap-upper-limit-for-consent.
maybe not exactly like this xkcd comic (and maybe not a linear function like in the comic), but this could be a starting point to figure out a better formula (in consultation with psychologists, etc):
https://xkcd.com/314/@futurebird but on second thought, if it only considers age, then it can't solve problems brought on by other factors (like indications that the older person likely doesn't care about consent in general)
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Sometimes I've had the thought "Maybe there is just something deeply wrong with some men and this will always be with us. They have this perverse need to exploit and dominate and nothing can be done."
Then? I reject it. It's a choice to treat people in this way. It's a choice to glamorize it as some pinnacle of masculinity.
Amazing to see that men with all of that money and power still found themselves falling short. This taught them nothing.
@futurebird there’s a YouTube video that shows the house of one of these guys in Japan. It is located in a very expensive neighborhood and looks like a medium size museum.
Imagine what did that guy do to get that an his other houses. What he does to people on a day to day basis.
Now imagine that he wants to have some fun, no holds barred, and there’s this guy that it’s offering it. His choice was to use people, it’s the other guys problem how he hires them.
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@futurebird there’s a YouTube video that shows the house of one of these guys in Japan. It is located in a very expensive neighborhood and looks like a medium size museum.
Imagine what did that guy do to get that an his other houses. What he does to people on a day to day basis.
Now imagine that he wants to have some fun, no holds barred, and there’s this guy that it’s offering it. His choice was to use people, it’s the other guys problem how he hires them.
@futurebird he lives in this world of plausible deniability that is so convenient to all of them.
When you are that rich, no one tells you “no”.
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@futurebird A while back, I taught at a college where affairs between faculty and students were tolerated, and it was awful, seeing young people call themselves "jailbait" and prance around in front of professors who claimed they had no other choice. (None of the students were underage, but they clearly IDed some profs as pedophiles.) One student in sociology even wrote a thesis about how exploiting oneself is a map to power. But whose? The men got tenured and promoted. They lost.
I keep thinking about how lonely it must be to know that people only want to be around you because of your money or your power.
Or because of your looks or your age.
It's degrading to everyone, and so often when there is a community where this is going on there are a few guys at the center of it all. "come on honey you know that's how it works" type guys. Because they can't hack it any other way and make it a problem for everyone.
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I keep thinking about how lonely it must be to know that people only want to be around you because of your money or your power.
Or because of your looks or your age.
It's degrading to everyone, and so often when there is a community where this is going on there are a few guys at the center of it all. "come on honey you know that's how it works" type guys. Because they can't hack it any other way and make it a problem for everyone.
@futurebird Totally, and it changed the dynamic for everyone who worked there. I was constantly loudly talking about it, because it was so pervasive and acidic to the pedagogical purpose of being at college that I finally said, look, if it is fine, then we should talk about it, the way we do about things that are fine. If it is fine, then we can take a look at how many students who "date" professors attempt suicide or abandon ambitious paths, because it is so fine.
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There will always be something deeply wrong with some people and nothing can be done about them specifically. I do believe that, some people aren't willing to put the work into changing and the work has to come from within.
But as a society we can avoid putting them in positions of power over others.
Edit: changed men to people. This behavior and exploitative attitude exists among women and other non-men too, they just don't end up in positions of power as often
@futurebird @gbargoud > Edit: changed men to people.
I think framing it as a problem only among men can be harmful. Women like Ghislaine Maxwell are every bit as dangerous as any man, and talking about exploitation as something men do to women makes it easier for them to go unnoticed.
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Sometimes I've had the thought "Maybe there is just something deeply wrong with some men and this will always be with us. They have this perverse need to exploit and dominate and nothing can be done."
Then? I reject it. It's a choice to treat people in this way. It's a choice to glamorize it as some pinnacle of masculinity.
Amazing to see that men with all of that money and power still found themselves falling short. This taught them nothing.
@futurebird
Also, what kind of self image is that? What does it say about you if you require your (sexual) partners to be at your mercy? These people are just so fucking broken. And we should as a society do a much better job at protecting people from them and expect them to deal with their
like any other person. If you feel the need to harm people, get some help. -
@futurebird Totally, and it changed the dynamic for everyone who worked there. I was constantly loudly talking about it, because it was so pervasive and acidic to the pedagogical purpose of being at college that I finally said, look, if it is fine, then we should talk about it, the way we do about things that are fine. If it is fine, then we can take a look at how many students who "date" professors attempt suicide or abandon ambitious paths, because it is so fine.
@carrideen @futurebird
There is not a world in which this is ethical behavior. Unethical at minimum, and dismissible IMO.
The inherent power differential between facility and student places a pressure to comply on the student. Consent within power differentials hard to navigate. That’s why most places have rules against bosses dating subordinates. Too much potential for abuse, or favoritism.
Add in the relative immaturity of 18-22-year-olds and that power gap grows. Our brains are not done developing until middle-late twenty’s. Presumably, a prof has hit that point and has more life experience, where the student has not. Another way the student is disadvantaged in these interactions.
Any institution that does not explicitly denounce this behavior, and set up safeguards for students is also inherently an unethical and immoral institution. There should be no tolerance for abuse in higher education. We should be preparing the next generation to take over and run this world into a better future, not compound trauma many already have experienced. -
@futurebird Totally, and it changed the dynamic for everyone who worked there. I was constantly loudly talking about it, because it was so pervasive and acidic to the pedagogical purpose of being at college that I finally said, look, if it is fine, then we should talk about it, the way we do about things that are fine. If it is fine, then we can take a look at how many students who "date" professors attempt suicide or abandon ambitious paths, because it is so fine.
It's really interesting when you start doing that how some people will shrug, others will agree, others will push back a little "is it such a big deal?"
But then there are the ones who get *angry* and they are often the "source" of the whole shift in social norms. You are threatening their fun and they really can't imagine living without treating people like this.
People who shrug, and say "it's not a big deal" protect them.
And no, this isn't "just how things are"
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@futurebird Totally, and it changed the dynamic for everyone who worked there. I was constantly loudly talking about it, because it was so pervasive and acidic to the pedagogical purpose of being at college that I finally said, look, if it is fine, then we should talk about it, the way we do about things that are fine. If it is fine, then we can take a look at how many students who "date" professors attempt suicide or abandon ambitious paths, because it is so fine.
@carrideen @futurebird those old powerful men ruin so many careers, yet when one of these victims (usually women) dare to speak up, everyone else thinks the old man career could be ruined and *that* shouldn't happen because he's "so brillant"
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I keep thinking about how lonely it must be to know that people only want to be around you because of your money or your power.
Or because of your looks or your age.
It's degrading to everyone, and so often when there is a community where this is going on there are a few guys at the center of it all. "come on honey you know that's how it works" type guys. Because they can't hack it any other way and make it a problem for everyone.
@futurebird @carrideen
I get that in _theory_ being surrounded by people who are only interested in your wealth or your power could be lonely, but that would require a degree of introspection which the wealthy and powerful don't seem to have a lot of spare time for, between the red carpets and the yachts and so forth. Instead, they seem quite happy to surround themselves with people who help them normalize whatever craziness they're prone to.
I keep remembering that, in the thousands of emails that got dumped into the public domain when Musk was prosecuted for the Twitter acquisition, there wasn't a single one pointing out that it was a stupid idea. They were all like, "genius, man!" And he clearly believed them.
