"You have told that man, I'd absolutely be interested in fucking you — pretty much tonight.... If you send the message I pretty much am up to fuck, and the guy leans in to kiss you, he may be operating on bad information. Our system doesn't put him off the hook. The man is still required to respond to the signals as soon as they are clarified.... I suppose there could be such a thing as a 24-year-old who can be in a meeting with a Senator and is still too dumb to know what an invitation to come up to his place really means.... The Senator didn't read the signals wrong. The Senator read the signals exactly as they were sent. They were the wrong signals. I think it was very generous of the Senator to say he read the signals wrong. He didn't read anything wrong. The signals were crystal clear. They were sent wrong."
Scott Adams takes a strong position on the Huma Abedin accusation against an unnamed Senator.
1. I initially resisted taking this story to heart because Abedin did not come out strongly on the side of women but is continuing a pattern of protecting Democratic Party men, as I showed you here, yesterday.
2. I have personally lived my entire life, going back to adolescence, with the understanding that Scott Adams is putting very starkly, that one's actions are understood that way. In fact, I followed a personal credo: Don't give him any ideas. I'm sure I missed out on some lovely experiences because I was so cautious, and this was a caution that went way beyond avoiding sexual assault. I didn't want the other person to feel hurt or embarrassed.
3. So I agree with part of what Scott Adams is saying, that by accepting the Senator's invitation, she gave him hope, and she ought to know that her action inspired hope.
4. But hope goes on only in his head (and the rest of his nervous system). He probably also had hope as soon as he saw her, as soon as she was friendly to him. He got ideas. Fine! The question is what can he do with that hope?
5. Since I spent a lifetime operating under the credo Don't give him any ideas, I'm not in a great position to parody Scott's advice to ladies with a statement that begins, "Gentlemen, if a woman accepts your invitation," but there is one thing I'm sure of, so let me try.
7. Notice Adams's language: "the guy leans in to kiss you." That's like kissing in a romcom, where the man gradually and gently moves his lips closer to hers and observes her response, so that there's lots of nonverbal communication. That's not what happened (as far as we know from Abedin's description). The Senator suddenly advanced to French kissing (and whatever that "pressing" was).
8. I would tend to think that Abedin had a lot of self-esteem and — rightly! — believed she could offer a man a wonderful relationship and intended to give this man a chance to enter into the highly valuable sphere that is her life. Let's keep talking about what actions mean. His action meant: You're not an important person in my life.
I absolutely disagree with Adams' take. Not the initial "he asked and you said probably yes". But the idea that it's reasonable to go straight from those signals to physical contact. If someone invites you to their place "for coffee" and they say yes, that's a hopeful sign that your proposition won't be rebuffed. But you still have to propose, verbally, before moving on to the physical stuff. Adams is wrong. Indeed I would say that Adams is evil (in an Orwellian, "objectively pro fascist" way) for normalizing the omission of a critical, necessary step in the process. We should be telling people "no matter what signals you think you've received, you must *always* see and obtain verbal consent before acting on those signals." Instead, we're getting this other crap. And crap it is. There's putting it starkly, and there's being wrong. Adams is wrong.
Let me get this part out of the way quickly: "His action meant: You're not an important person in my life." US Senators give off this communication via their action to most of their constituency. It's part of their makeup.
Other than that, you pretty much nailed it with your #6.
I'm wondering if Sen. Chris Dodd was still around when she was working in DC?
I suppose there could be such a thing as a 24-year-old who can be in a meeting with a Senator and is still too dumb to know what an invitation to come up to his place really means...
Well, if that 24-year-old is the lesbian f*cktoy, and Personal Property of Hilary! she might assume that No One would be so stupid as to potentially piss off Hilary! Everybody Knew, that Huma was Hilary!'s chattel. What was this 'Senator' trying to do? Commit Suicide?
"I didn't want the other person to feel hurt or embarrassed.
What a concept. Do any entitled, self-centered, vindictive Humas think the same way these days?
"she gave him hope, and she ought to know that her action inspired hope."
But now women are no longer responsible or accountable, and in fact can exploit any result not to her liking. Ought is irrelevant.
"Gentlemen, if a woman accepts your invitation into your place for a drink" etc.
Shorter version: if a woman accepts your invitation, and accepts lots of other things, she can still turn on you, in the moment and years later. What the Humas and their enablers are doing is to poison normal heterosexual relationships.
"His action meant: You're not an important person in my life."
Huh? A hot sexual partner is not an important person in his life? I know, I know: he should have guessed that her female sense of entitlement would read overt overtures, on the issue most important to him, as unimportance.
And for all I know, assuming the man involved is indeed a Dem senator, the guy was in fact an utter scumbag. Which Dems aren't? Serious question: which ones at the time would any of us, Althouse included, have regarded as a decent fellow worthy of visiting late at night?
That's not what happened (as far as we know from Abedin's description).
If we can believe Huma Abedin, which we cannot.
The Senator suddenly advanced to French kissing (and whatever that "pressing" was).
Again, if we believe Huma Abedin’s “recovered memory,” which we should never do because (1) “recovered” memories are suspect, and (2) it’s Huma Abedin.
So the Senator could have avoided all this by asking for the consent of the woman, right? As in, "I hope the coffee was to your liking. Thank you for your company. I would very much like to kiss with you now. Shall we kiss?" Then we would only have the issue of a power dynamic in which the Senator held overwhelming advantage over her. Even had she said, "Yes, of course!" and gleefully participated after such an invitation, she might argue with justification that she was still taken advantage of by the older, more powerful Senator.
As I recall, Bill Clinton's go-to move was to drop his pants and say, "Kiss it." Sufficient to establish consent or a bit too forward, what with his penis hanging out without any warning, let alone consent from the woman involved? And Senator Kennedy was famous for making "waitress sandwiches" with his buddy Senator Dodd. So if this was 10 years ago, surely Huma had heard about the way elected male Democrats behaved. Warned but not aware is no way to go through life, Huma.
Maybe an omniscient observer would agree that, "leaned in to kiss her" is correct. (by the way, if you claim to have "buried" a memory of something, and then recovered it a dozen years later, you've already called the accuracy of your memory into question.)
The scenario set out by Blasey Ford might have been characterized as, drunk high school student gropes another high school student in a bedroom at a party. Of course, to do that, one has to admit that the event occurred. Otherwise, her characterization of it as attempted rape is unchallenged (if it happened).
So, if Abedin ever puts a name on this supposed kissing bandit, and he denies the event occurred, we're stuck with Huma's description of something that didn't happen -- or maybe did happen.
The #MeToo movement died with Biden. She says she didn't consider it sexual assault. In her description, it was little more than a common social faux pas. Did it even happen? Is it a hook to sell the book?
If the account is correct, the man behaved boorishly, maybe ineptly, and then behaved as a gentleman when he realized his advances were not appreciated. Remind me again: (a) What was the real offense? Was it really 'sexual assault'? (b) If it was really 'sexual assault' what recourse did lawyer Huma Abadin pursue within the criminal or civil justice system? (c) What was the point of re-telling this non-event? Was this incident 'remembered' as a way to snark Kavanaugh yet one more time for posterity? If not, then what for? If so, well....the effort is as clumsy the kiss and I'm really turned off - you should leave now.
The problem isn't how a man reads the signals, it's what a man in a position of power assumes what he can get away with. There's no excuse for the man's behavior when he doesn't read the clarifying signals, but by the same token a woman should be doubly cautious about the risks.
It's not the woman's fault if she's attacked in a dark place, but a wise women would avoid dark places. Same logic here. She used bad judgment. He's not worthy to represent the American people.
...his was a caution that went way beyond avoiding sexual assault. I didn't want the other person to feel hurt or embarrassed.
That is kind. For the average man, pursuit of the opposite sex is filled with humiliation. The ratio of rejection to acceptance is around 10:1. At least it was for me. And that was OK. I knew the rules, and girls/women were so intriguing they were worth the cost of wounded pride.
His action meant: You're not an important person in my life.
Of course. He's a U.S. senator and she's a 24-year-old ladder-climber. I can see that being humiliating for her, misreading HIS signals. Now she gets revenge, by labeling it "sexual assault." Perhaps he did something else after that to warrant such an exaggerated charge.
He goes in for the kiss, awkwardly, assertively at worst. She rejects him. He apologizes. What else does she want? She is an adult woman who thinks she should be in a position of government power but she is emotionally damaged by a guy making a strong but non threatening pass when she put herself in his apartment, alone at night? If women really are this naive and fragile then the misogynists were right, women shouldn’t be allowed out without their parent’s or husband’s say so.
As a woman I have always worked under the assumption that any man I am around may not mind throwing a leg over me. That doesn’t mean I think I am so attractive. It just means I know that biology has wired men to have no commitment sex with any willing female that isn’t completely repulsive to him. I’m not saying that is a good thing for human society which requires a higher standard of behavior than basic survival of the species. It just is what it is.
We shouldn’t be teaching young people to “do what feels right”. We should be teaching them that they will have instincts that are based on a different existence than we have now and that outside of certain parameters those instincts could be damaging for them and/or their intended sexual partners. But we don’t have this conversation. We either tell both sexes they can act like the worst of men, the “Mad Men” type of scumbags, or we tell them sex is bad and don’t do it. Neither of those options are good for young people. They both leave them ignorant of reality and open to serious mistakes or being taken advantage of by older more experienced predatory people. I often think the current thoughts on sex and sex education were developed especially for sexual predators. They certainly are not in the best interest of women or young people in general. Look at the soaring levels of mental illness, depression and obesity in teens and young adults.
So traumatized by this powerful yet unnamed politician five years later she married Congressman Anthony Weiner. Yeah, I 'believe all women', especially this woman and this report, sixteen years later.
Let's keep talking about what actions mean. His action meant: You're not an important person in my life.
Correct. That's exactly what his actions meant.
I was warned many years ago that DC was a miserable place. For young men: the women there want Senators, Representatives, high executive officials. They're there for politics and power, not romance For young women: There's a lot of cute young women there willing to screw their way to get next to the powerful. If you're not, you're going to be locked out. IUf you are, you're going to be used then thrown away.
If Huma wanted a respectful relationship, she was in the wrong f'ing place
1. "I initially resisted taking this story to heart because Abedin did not come out strongly on the side of women but is continuing a pattern of protecting Democratic Party men, as I showed you here, yesterday."
This is why I mentioned Abedin qualified as a LLR: the protecting of democraticals at all costs.
I agree with the you Professor, if a woman agrees to come into your house for a beverage that means she is amenable to a relationship. That doesn't mean she is ready to knock boots right then and there. She may be, but discovering that requires a little finesse.
But here's the thing, the guy was a senator, which means he probably is offered sex six times a day. Agreeing to go into his house for coffee is analogous to taking Mike Tyson up on his offer to go to his room for a nightcap.
Yes! That's in truth the worst part. "I thought this was the beginning of a Special Relationship! A professional partnership even!" she hoped. Only to get hit on like a common thot. Lol.
I was like you, Ann. Just don't go there unless you're dtf.
Why the crude language. Is there now only one word for "Sex" now? Fuck. People like Scott not only pepper there language with Fucks, what the fucks, you fucker, etc. etc. they now use it as the only word for sexual intercourse. It reminds me of the army with every 3rd word being fuck.
And Sorry, I don't care that whats her name got kissed against her will. Liberal/Leftwing women have been playing this game forever. If he's someone they like, they take one for TEAM LEFT. If not, then they pretend its the GREATEST OUTRAGE EVER. Boring.
Remember the rich French Leftwing Politician who raped a maid in NYC. After he got arrested and kicked out of high position, all these Leftwing women came out of the closet and said "He raped me too. He took me like a soldier". But they said nothing, because they didn't want to "Help the right wing". LOL! How many Liberal women gave Clinton a pass?
Given this sort of attitude, I just laugh when some lefty woman cries sexual harrassment. They're just FAKES!
Unless there's a signed consent form (w/ attorney review), it's assault, plain and simple.
Okay, not really. People send and receive signals all the time, and sometimes they are misconstrued, and some people are a bit awkward at the process. Such is life.
Accepting an invitation to a man's apartment for a drink? That's one pair of signals, pretty traditional stuff. Stuffing your tongue into someone's mouth as the opening physical move? I agree with Ann that you skipped a necessary step or two.
And Huma's "story" (ahem) about a guy who was a bit oafish but then backed off as decency demands? Not much of a story at all. But I guess these books don't sell themselves.
Strangely enough a US Senator might feel that a political neophyte social climbing staffer might have been on the same page.The littlest princess wannabe probably did not think that.But then she has an inflated opinion of herself.Bolstered by a lot of toadies.
Women are encouraged to think of themselves as professionals. Two professionals "meeting for coffee" means networking. The mistake Human Abedin made was that an attractive, young, professional woman thought a Senator could think of her as a professional - or a potential friend. She should have known better but perhaps she had been reading Vanity Fair and thought: "things have changed" or "he's different." Mistake. These days women and men don't exist any more so the situation never comes up. Things have changed and preferred pronoun is different. Possibly very different.
PS. That's quite an interesting background to Scott Adams. I listened to that segment also.
Ms Abedin has or had worse problems than an unnamed Senator putting the crude moves on her. There's a husband in her past who would and did provide all the humiliation any spouse can stand.
The truth is somewhere in between. When a person invites another person alone up to their apartment after a date, unless other factors make it clearly not about sex, it's about sex. When the other person accepts the invitation, they agree to sex. We all understand that that agreement can be withdrawn at any time, but it's there--sex is on the table.
For purposes of the argument, we have to accept her rendition of the prefucking song…that he went in aggressively and shoved his tongue down her throat. It could have been that, or it could have been less than that. Either way, there was no other message sent than “I am here to fuck you, Senator”. So the tongue thing, accepting her version of the song, was just bad prefucking and very likely to turn off any girl.
But unambiguously, when she accepted his invitation to come up to see his paintings, she was agreeing to let him enter into her highly valuable pussy sphere. She wasn’t just giving him ideas by going in the front door. She had done that prior to when he felt he could ask her up down on the sidewalk.
Any young woman who doesn’t understand that cannot complain about whatever follows. I’m not excusing oafish behavior, but that was not a sexual assault, and he immediately stopped and apologized when she choked on his 👅 and she closed off access to her valuable ⚽️
Abedin did not come out strongly on the side of women...
What is Althouse advocating here? No armistice in the sexual war? What is morally good or socially desirable about a woman coming out strongly on the side of women? Why not come out strongly on the side of truth, justice and the American way?
Women coming out strongly on the side of women only invites men to come out strongly on the side of men, thus perpetuating conflict. If feminism has any sort of morally defensible goal, which is not proven, the movement could hardly do better than to advocate a reduction of psycho-sexual conflict and could hardly do worse than to promote it.
Suppose a municipal police department, the Birmingham, Alabama PD under "Bull" Connor for example, had a tradition or unspoken policy of anti-black racism. The officers could be expected to come out strongly in defence of whites which might be just in some cases -- two guys fighting tooth and claw but the white guy was the one attacked -- but grossly unjust in others. Clearly a police force committed to just enforcement of the law cannot take a discriminatory stand by default. Each situation calls for unbiased assessment of concrete facts and not vague or eccentric perceptions like arrest the black guy because we know what those people are like or arrest the white guy because the black said he gave off "racist vibes".
The leading figures of American feminism have seldom embraced real justice. Instead of employing a blindfold and a true balance they engage in keyhole-peeping and routinely thumb the scale, consequently it's should surprise no one than today fake women garner the benefits rightly belonging to genuine women.
As for Huma Abedin and the unnamed senator, this is nothing more than a literary agent making sure his ten percent is more than just lunch money.
Huma has a problem with politicians in general. She works for a corrupt scammer, married a scummy congressman and got a tongue bath from a horny senator. All of them democrats. Her problem isn't that she's naive, its that she's surrounded herself with slime and can't expect to not occasionally get some one her.
"Signals" aren't unambiguous. Men and women -- and different generations -- don't understand them in the same one. I didn't go for the "what did they expect" argument in the Bill Cosby case. The guy spent so much time on stage acting like a child and trying to make himself likeable, that I could almost understand a young woman wanting to spend some time in conversation with him and thinking he'd behave. I guess Huma thought the senator would be interested in her personality and ideas. She was wrong, but she was lucky she went to his place and not to Cosby's.
It wasn't sexual assault though. I don't think she "forgot" about the incident before the Kavanaugh case. She reinterpreted a bad date as a sexual assault because the atmosphere of the time gave her a new way of labeling what happened to her.
“I didn't want the other person to feel hurt or embarrassed.”
Interesting. And that is the sort thing that worked with me. But connecting up was maybe harder than it should have been. For a couple of my old girlfriends, my not pushing because I didn’t want either of us to be embarrassed, and didn’t want to pressure the woman, ended up in long buildups, where, when I finally made a move, by putting my arm around her, she almost attacked me. These weren’t girls who had slept around a lot, but rather very selective “good girls”.
What is a bit funny is that I ended up with the woman I have been with for 20 years by sitting back and not pushing. She grew up in Las Vegas, where by her late teens was considered one of the most beautiful women in town. Several Hollywood stars told her that they could make her famous, and one, a neighbor of Aaron Spelling, and a friend of her husband’s, had done so with his wife at the time (playing doubles with Spelling, then ending up in one of his TV shows). Starting at maybe 15, she was under almost daily assault by men in Vegas, asking her out, up to their rooms, to their houses, etc. Made the mistake a couple times, early on, assuming that the guys couldn’t actually think that they could get away with it. Nope. It means sex. One of those times, it was a very successful real estate broker her father worked with. She never told her father why she wouldn’t go out with him after that - she didn’t want him to go to prison (he was very protective, and the guy was twice her age). Her mother knew though (she is very intuitive) and told him to drop it. Since then, she has lived by that understanding that if a guy asks you up to his room, or to his house, it means that he is offering sex. Almost every time. Funny thing is, that one of the times this comes up is with Bill Cosby. She knew him decently well back then, and was up to his suite for champagne multiple times - but always with his entire family. Whenever one of his “victims” claimed that he raped her, she would defend him, and respond that that woman had essentially gone up to his room, or to his house, etc, for sex. He knew it. She knew it. One of the things that somewhat surprised me, was that there was a somewhat large group of young women in Las Vegas at the time who banged famous guys, to add them to their lists, and notch their belts. And, yes, on the flip side, there were plenty who would willingly bang rich or famous guys in order to get pregnant, and get a nice settlement. The Catherine Willows character in CSI was based on real life instances, of casino owners, and their sons, having illegitimate by-blows. She dated one, knew several others, and of several more.
So, how did I end up with a woman rated maybe a 12 on a 10 scale at 21? Because she was twice that age when I met her, but mostly because I didn’t pressure her. Our first “date” was a barbecue with her daughter and future son-in-law, and I spent my time talking to them, and esp him. They finally left, we continued to drink wine, talk, and I didn’t press her. Eventually she was ready, when I threw a throw away line at her. It wasn’t intentional, but ultimately we got together because she became the aggressor, after hundreds of guys had been that with her.
“ The problem isn't how a man reads the signals, it's what a man in a position of power assumes what he can get away with. There's no excuse for the man's behavior when he doesn't read the clarifying signals, but by the same token a woman should be doubly cautious about the risks.”
The reason that they think that they can get away with it, is because they have done so, repeatedly, in the past. They don’t wake up, one day, and say “I’m powerful, so I can have sex with any woman I want”. Instead, likely over a period of years, they get more aggressive, as they are successful in cruder and cruder come ons. And, then, one day, for some, they assume too much, once too often, and it all crashes down. But by then, they may have been successful with hundreds of women.
Isn’t it fun to have Huma Abedin to kick around again? The British press knows how to do this well, with the lead off Guardian headline on this story, “Longtime Hillary Clinton aide Huma Abedin describes sexual assault by US senator”. “Describes” is the tell - the reporter writing the story has judged Huma’s description of the encounter as being a sexual assault. That gets translated by the New York Post as “Huma Abedin claims sex assault by US senator in new book” and “Abedin makes a mockery of real sexual assault”.
But does Huma claim she was sexually assaulted? She doesn’t, she says it was an uncomfortable situation not a sexual assault, but the New York Post still headlines that as “Huma Abedin speaks out in first interview about alleged sexual assault by US senator”.
"Ann Althouse said...Scott Adams ought to go on to explore his idea in the context of Harvey Weinstein and Louis C.K."
I'm pretty sure he has. I don't know if his old Disqus threads are still available but he definitely dove into both stories when they were in the news.
The thing that makes this a bit ironic is that Huma is Muslim. And not the sort of assimilated Muslim that we all hope they all become. Her family is still closely aligned with, and works closely with, the Muslim Brotherhood, which essentially believes that traditional Islam requires Jihad to conquer, dominate, and tax Christians and Jews, and kill or convert everyone else. And essentially that women, outside the protection of their families, are open game for rape. As a Muslim, what did she expect to happen, when she went to the Senator’s room. Many of the MB followers wouldn’t have stopped when faxed with rejection, like the Senator did. They probably would have called their family members in to participate.
Regardless of Huma here, I find it very interesting how Chuck is all over the "Trump's letter to the WSJ" story, and yet here we have blue on blue allegations of assault by a Democrat Senator... surely something a "lifelong Republican" would be gleefully rubbing their hands over, right?
Crickets from any leftist, and Chuck, at least at the moment I write this comment.
Chuck is sooo, sooo interested in any and all allegations of impropriety against Trump. But no interest at all in Democrat assault? Funny, that.
As for the merits of this story: when I first heard "Huma alleges Democrat senator assaulted her" I thought for sure it was Hillary. And that she wanted to commit suicide!
As a woman I have always worked under the assumption that any man I am around may not mind throwing a leg over me. That doesn’t mean I think I am so attractive.
"When the other person accepts the invitation, they agree to sex."
No. What they are agreeing to is letting the other person make the case for sex. That case may involve varying amounts of small talk, charm, and flirting, depending on how amiable the other person is to the idea in the first place. One has to judge each case separately.
In this specific case (if it happened) the Senator had reason to believe (past experience) that a woman who says yes to "coffee" with someone in his position is also saying yes to other things. Had he used his wit and charm instead of his tongue, he might have even been right. Instead he made a clumsy (and entitled) pass and she said no. That doesn't qualify as sexual assault, just cluelessness.
If someone invites you to their place "for coffee" and they say yes, that's a hopeful sign that your proposition won't be rebuffed. But you still have to propose, verbally, before moving on to the physical stuff.
I agree that this obligation to obtain specific verbal consent is the new American rule, and definitely advisable to mitigate potential liability both civil and criminal. That said, I think this is a pretty recent development in America, and is certainly not standard in most of the world. In fairness to the Americans, this kind of hyper-legalistic approach is probably unavoidable in a diverse population, where every intimate interaction carries a serious risk of miscommunication thanks to incompatible cultural expectations. To some people, showing a bit of ankle on the street might be a clear sexual invitation. To others, an unmarried woman going to a man's room at 11pm for a drink shouldn't have any sexual implications whatsoever. In other countries with clearer shared cultural mores, the risk of that kind of cross-cultural miscommunication is lower.
Has Rebecca Watson weighed in? wasn't that the SciFi Chick who got invited up to someone's room for "Coffee" and a discussion at 2 AM? And freaked out about it. She felt she'd be sexually assaulted.
So yeah, Scott Adams is expecting too much for people. Not "Everyone knows".
In times past every girl's mother warned her that if a man asks you to accompany him to/visit him alone in his hotel room/apartment/house/private office after hours, he has only one thing on his mind. Even if he's a senator. The ruse was: "Would you like to come up and see my etchings?"
But the mothers of today apparently say to their daughters: "You have every right to be wherever you like dressed however you like and doing whatever you like. Teach men not to rape!"
Back in college, I was in a field project of a couple of dozen people. One was a particularly attractive woman who was damned sure to send the right message. Dressed against her figure, her affect when by herself was dour. Do not even think it. Turns out we were both exclusive with people we would later marry so she eventually figured out I wasn't a threat, so we got along. She would really light up when I was around. Not necessarily my effervescent personality, but if the others thought this big frat/jock guy who didn't look like Mr. Rogers was her special friend...that sent yet another message. If she were going to send an invite, I suspect, it would involve grabbing your shirt front and kicking you in the shins, because anything less wouldn't overcome her general demeanor. Even the group photo showed her...perfectly composed and expressionless. You don't do that without practice. She once said she'd been out with a guy who offered her a seat on the sofa, but she was sure he was going to try to "thrash" and so she went for a chair. She knew the score and made sure to...make sure.
Back in college, I was in a field project of a couple of dozen people. One was a particularly attractive woman who was damned sure to send the right message. Dressed against her figure, her affect when by herself was dour. Do not even think it. Turns out we were both exclusive with people we would later marry so she eventually figured out I wasn't a threat, so we got along. She would really light up when I was around. Not necessarily my effervescent personality, but if the others thought this big frat/jock guy who didn't look like Mr. Rogers was her special friend...that sent yet another message. If she were going to send an invite, I suspect, it would involve grabbing your shirt front and kicking you in the shins, because anything less wouldn't overcome her general demeanor. Even the group photo showed her...perfectly composed and expressionless. You don't do that without practice. She once said she'd been out with a guy who offered her a seat on the sofa, but she was sure he was going to try to "thrash" and so she went for a chair. She knew the score and made sure to...make sure.
"I'm pretty sure he has. I don't know if his old Disqus threads are still available but he definitely dove into both stories when they were in the news."
Yes, but I'm challenging him to go on to them after what he said that I quoted here. Test his little idea. See how it goes.
He's saying the woman by going to the man's room sends a message and he hears it loud and clear and can act on that message until he gets a clarification. I want to see that precise notion tested with the facts in the Louis CK and the Harvey Weinstein cases.
And also, he needs to test the idea with the Huma Abedin facts, which he didn't do properly, because he pictures the Senator merely "leaning in for a kiss." No, the guy went straight into French kissing (in the story she told, which is the only story we've got).
"Has Rebecca Watson weighed in? wasn't that the SciFi Chick who got invited up to someone's room for "Coffee" and a discussion at 2 AM? And freaked out about it. She felt she'd be sexually assaulted."
Good point. Adams should support her anger and outrage, shouldn't he? To be consistent?
My daughter knows to a certainty, as if Moses had descended with it etched on the tablet, that an invitation to come up for a drink is an invitation to have sex. A simple ‘no thank you, gotta run’ will suffice to stave off any misunderstands. However, there is nothing wrong with negotiating the point in a bar around the corner or over dinner in a public place.
The senator had every reason to think that her willingness to get into the elevator was a prelude to a Humahumporama. He behaved himself when it didn’t go as expected, and it most certainly was not a sexual assault. If her recounting is to be accepted, it was a poorly executed start.
I'm saying that in the sense that — in his understanding — the woman should know this about the man in order to manage her life competently in this world.
He is not saying that as a legal matter the man is entitled to act, and I don't want to look as though I might be trying to say that. I see the distinction, and agree that it's important.
The Weinstein cases are certainly related, but they can be distinguished.
To the extent many of the women went to his hotel room, they should have known to a certainty what to expect, even if they had a starlet itch that could only be scratched by one of the most powerful and successful producers in Hollywood. If he physically forced them to have sex, it was rape. If they acquiesced, it was a trade. You just DON’T willingly agree to go to a guy’s room if you are an attractive young woman. Who doesn’t know that very simple fact?
Cosby drugged women with party drugs that were very popular at the time. If they took the drugs willingly, they cannot complain about the outcome unless he physically forced them to have sex. If he drugged them without their knowledge, he raped them.
Lewis CK was a freak show jerking off in front of women in his hotel rooms and dressing rooms. He didn’t assault anyone (except their tender sensibilities). If a girl accepts an invitation to a guy’s room, that girl is communicating assent to little johnny coming out to play. If you don’t like it, leave with great haste, but don’t complain about having been victimized later.
It is an interesting story without a name, and it seems like a wise decision not to identify the Senator in the book, although I suspect that over the past two decades she has told the story with that detail more than once, and that there is a good chance that a name surfaces from some source soon. When she told the story closer to the event, did no one before the confirmation hearing ever suggest it was more serious than she took it at the time?
Because he wasn't looking for a joyous sexual and sensual exchange, he was looking to screw some young girl, and if she made him happy enough, maybe give her an intern position.
I had an attractive lady over to my house for dinner. After dinner, sitting on a love seat drinking wine, I leaned in to kiss her. She turned her head to the side. That one little turn of the head said loud and clear that she wasn't interested. I made no further attempts and a few minutes later she left.
I know that if the woman who wants to talk to me alone in my office is my boss, she's not after sex. That has been a consistent pattern, and I've had a lot of female bosses. And none have been the stuff of wistful fantasy, so that's all good.
Some of my peers, and some students, now they're a different story.
The problem is with ideologies that assume a false understanding of human nature. Such ideologies can only be imposed or maintained by overwhelming force. Communism assumed that humans were, or were capable of being molded into, worker ants. Feminism assumes men are eternally evil and women are eternally victims, denying agency to both.
The fake outrage over this "assault" is typical. For solid psychological and biological reasons, men tend to be the aggressors in sexual negotiations and women are the prizes whose reluctance has to be overcome. Pretending it is otherwise, as feminism does, pretending that men and women are identical widgets, has led to generations of increasingly unhappy women.
The problem is with ideologies that assume a false understanding of human nature. Such ideologies can only be imposed or maintained by overwhelming force. Communism assumed that humans were, or were capable of being molded into, worker ants. Feminism assumes men are eternally evil and women are eternally victims, denying agency to both.
The fake outrage over this "assault" is typical. For solid psychological and biological reasons, men tend to be the aggressors in sexual negotiations and women are the prizes whose reluctance has to be overcome. Pretending it is otherwise, as feminism does, pretending that men and women are identical widgets, has led to generations of increasingly unhappy women.
She's a Muslim Brotherhood spy with the best beard ever (five years later): a Jewish pedo husband who can't stop confessing. I don't think her considerations include interesting conversation. Maybe blackmail sex, which I guess can be interesting, if that's your thing. No, I don't believe a thing she's saying, and I do think it was Obama. Either to have something on him to bring back to Clinton or to have something on him for some other political purpose. But he behaved like a gentleman.
I've been married 33 years and sexually faithful to Mrs Perspective. I still get the signals wrong at times. "Don't give him ideas" is as complicated as "give him ideas." In the end, sexual satisfaction is one reason marriage is one of God's great gift to men.
Men, you still have to read the signals, you still have to be worthy, you still have to ask knowing you might be turned down. Get married, stay married, the challenge never goes away.
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87 comments:
Besides, after Hillary, she doesn't do guys.
Althouse said...
In fact, I followed a personal credo: Don't give him any ideas.
"Blech! Blech! He just French kissed me!"
I absolutely disagree with Adams' take. Not the initial "he asked and you said probably yes". But the idea that it's reasonable to go straight from those signals to physical contact. If someone invites you to their place "for coffee" and they say yes, that's a hopeful sign that your proposition won't be rebuffed. But you still have to propose, verbally, before moving on to the physical stuff. Adams is wrong. Indeed I would say that Adams is evil (in an Orwellian, "objectively pro fascist" way) for normalizing the omission of a critical, necessary step in the process. We should be telling people "no matter what signals you think you've received, you must *always* see and obtain verbal consent before acting on those signals." Instead, we're getting this other crap. And crap it is. There's putting it starkly, and there's being wrong. Adams is wrong.
1. Ann's new phrase, "Don't give him any ideas."
2. What's the Senator's name!
3. When I saw the story it was accompanied by a picture of Humma and Hillary. I thought Hillary was the unnamed Senator.
4. She's just trying to sell books. I don't like this woman and I hate her boss. They need to go away.
Oh god.
This thread is going to be lame.
Michael: You like her?
Buddy: Like who?
Michael: The girl you're staring at.
Buddy: Oh, uh...
Yeah.
Michael: Why don't you ask her out?
Buddy: Out?
Michael: You know, on a date... to eat food.
Buddy: Food?
Michael: Yes, real food, not candy.
And if she says yes, you're in.
It's like a secret code girls have.
My cat has found the last dress work shirt I wore and is snuggled up on it on top of the dresser.
Do you think she is trying to tell me something?
I heard cats like it rough.
Do I need to wash my shirt now if I get all the hair off?
See what you all can do with this and make it more interesting than the first batch of posts.
Let me get this part out of the way quickly: "His action meant: You're not an important person in my life." US Senators give off this communication via their action to most of their constituency. It's part of their makeup.
Other than that, you pretty much nailed it with your #6.
I'm wondering if Sen. Chris Dodd was still around when she was working in DC?
I suppose there could be such a thing as a 24-year-old who can be in a meeting with a Senator and is still too dumb to know what an invitation to come up to his place really means...
Well,
if that 24-year-old is the lesbian f*cktoy, and Personal Property of Hilary! she might assume that No One would be so stupid as to potentially piss off Hilary!
Everybody Knew, that Huma was Hilary!'s chattel. What was this 'Senator' trying to do?
Commit Suicide?
"I didn't want the other person to feel hurt or embarrassed.
What a concept. Do any entitled, self-centered, vindictive Humas think the same way these days?
"she gave him hope, and she ought to know that her action inspired hope."
But now women are no longer responsible or accountable, and in fact can exploit any result not to her liking. Ought is irrelevant.
"Gentlemen, if a woman accepts your invitation into your place for a drink" etc.
Shorter version: if a woman accepts your invitation, and accepts lots of other things, she can still turn on you, in the moment and years later. What the Humas and their enablers are doing is to poison normal heterosexual relationships.
"His action meant: You're not an important person in my life."
Huh? A hot sexual partner is not an important person in his life? I know, I know: he should have guessed that her female sense of entitlement would read overt overtures, on the issue most important to him, as unimportance.
And for all I know, assuming the man involved is indeed a Dem senator, the guy was in fact an utter scumbag. Which Dems aren't? Serious question: which ones at the time would any of us, Althouse included, have regarded as a decent fellow worthy of visiting late at night?
That's not what happened (as far as we know from Abedin's description).
If we can believe Huma Abedin, which we cannot.
The Senator suddenly advanced to French kissing (and whatever that "pressing" was).
Again, if we believe Huma Abedin’s “recovered memory,” which we should never do because (1) “recovered” memories are suspect, and (2) it’s Huma Abedin.
So the Senator could have avoided all this by asking for the consent of the woman, right? As in, "I hope the coffee was to your liking. Thank you for your company. I would very much like to kiss with you now. Shall we kiss?" Then we would only have the issue of a power dynamic in which the Senator held overwhelming advantage over her. Even had she said, "Yes, of course!" and gleefully participated after such an invitation, she might argue with justification that she was still taken advantage of by the older, more powerful Senator.
As I recall, Bill Clinton's go-to move was to drop his pants and say, "Kiss it." Sufficient to establish consent or a bit too forward, what with his penis hanging out without any warning, let alone consent from the woman involved? And Senator Kennedy was famous for making "waitress sandwiches" with his buddy Senator Dodd. So if this was 10 years ago, surely Huma had heard about the way elected male Democrats behaved. Warned but not aware is no way to go through life, Huma.
I was hoping to go the rest of my life not hearing again about Huma Abedin.....but here we are.
One wonders how such a demure flower could find happiness - if only fleeting - with the likes of the love muscle wagging Weiner.
She has a book to sell.
Maybe an omniscient observer would agree that, "leaned in to kiss her" is correct. (by the way, if you claim to have "buried" a memory of something, and then recovered it a dozen years later, you've already called the accuracy of your memory into question.)
The scenario set out by Blasey Ford might have been characterized as, drunk high school student gropes another high school student in a bedroom at a party. Of course, to do that, one has to admit that the event occurred. Otherwise, her characterization of it as attempted rape is unchallenged (if it happened).
So, if Abedin ever puts a name on this supposed kissing bandit, and he denies the event occurred, we're stuck with Huma's description of something that didn't happen -- or maybe did happen.
When was Bill Clinton a US Senator?
The #MeToo movement died with Biden. She says she didn't consider it sexual assault. In her description, it was little more than a common social faux pas. Did it even happen? Is it a hook to sell the book?
If the account is correct, the man behaved boorishly, maybe ineptly, and then behaved as a gentleman when he realized his advances were not appreciated. Remind me again: (a) What was the real offense? Was it really 'sexual assault'? (b) If it was really 'sexual assault' what recourse did lawyer Huma Abadin pursue within the criminal or civil justice system? (c) What was the point of re-telling this non-event? Was this incident 'remembered' as a way to snark Kavanaugh yet one more time for posterity? If not, then what for? If so, well....the effort is as clumsy the kiss and I'm really turned off - you should leave now.
Your points 3 - 8: Thanks for the elementary biology lesson.
The problem isn't how a man reads the signals, it's what a man in a position of power assumes what he can get away with. There's no excuse for the man's behavior when he doesn't read the clarifying signals, but by the same token a woman should be doubly cautious about the risks.
It's not the woman's fault if she's attacked in a dark place, but a wise women would avoid dark places. Same logic here. She used bad judgment. He's not worthy to represent the American people.
...his was a caution that went way beyond avoiding sexual assault. I didn't want the other person to feel hurt or embarrassed.
That is kind. For the average man, pursuit of the opposite sex is filled with humiliation. The ratio of rejection to acceptance is around 10:1. At least it was for me. And that was OK. I knew the rules, and girls/women were so intriguing they were worth the cost of wounded pride.
His action meant: You're not an important person in my life.
Of course. He's a U.S. senator and she's a 24-year-old ladder-climber. I can see that being humiliating for her, misreading HIS signals. Now she gets revenge, by labeling it "sexual assault." Perhaps he did something else after that to warrant such an exaggerated charge.
Wrong, Prof. At that moment Huma was the most important person in his life . . . Second most.
Could that unnamed senator later become Sec of State and a Presidential candidate?
He goes in for the kiss, awkwardly, assertively at worst. She rejects him. He apologizes. What else does she want? She is an adult woman who thinks she should be in a position of government power but she is emotionally damaged by a guy making a strong but non threatening pass when she put herself in his apartment, alone at night? If women really are this naive and fragile then the misogynists were right, women shouldn’t be allowed out without their parent’s or husband’s say so.
As a woman I have always worked under the assumption that any man I am around may not mind throwing a leg over me. That doesn’t mean I think I am so attractive. It just means I know that biology has wired men to have no commitment sex with any willing female that isn’t completely repulsive to him. I’m not saying that is a good thing for human society which requires a higher standard of behavior than basic survival of the species. It just is what it is.
We shouldn’t be teaching young people to “do what feels right”. We should be teaching them that they will have instincts that are based on a different existence than we have now and that outside of certain parameters those instincts could be damaging for them and/or their intended sexual partners. But we don’t have this conversation. We either tell both sexes they can act like the worst of men, the “Mad Men” type of scumbags, or we tell them sex is bad and don’t do it. Neither of those options are good for young people. They both leave them ignorant of reality and open to serious mistakes or being taken advantage of by older more experienced predatory people. I often think the current thoughts on sex and sex education were developed especially for sexual predators. They certainly are not in the best interest of women or young people in general. Look at the soaring levels of mental illness, depression and obesity in teens and young adults.
So traumatized by this powerful yet unnamed politician five years later she married Congressman Anthony Weiner. Yeah, I 'believe all women', especially this woman and this report, sixteen years later.
Too much common sense, he should be destroyed
Let's keep talking about what actions mean. His action meant: You're not an important person in my life.
Correct. That's exactly what his actions meant.
I was warned many years ago that DC was a miserable place.
For young men: the women there want Senators, Representatives, high executive officials. They're there for politics and power, not romance
For young women: There's a lot of cute young women there willing to screw their way to get next to the powerful. If you're not, you're going to be locked out. IUf you are, you're going to be used then thrown away.
If Huma wanted a respectful relationship, she was in the wrong f'ing place
So she put her clothes back on and left.
1. "I initially resisted taking this story to heart because Abedin did not come out strongly on the side of women but is continuing a pattern of protecting Democratic Party men, as I showed you here, yesterday."
This is why I mentioned Abedin qualified as a LLR: the protecting of democraticals at all costs.
I agree with the you Professor, if a woman agrees to come into your house for a beverage that means she is amenable to a relationship. That doesn't mean she is ready to knock boots right then and there. She may be, but discovering that requires a little finesse.
But here's the thing, the guy was a senator, which means he probably is offered sex six times a day. Agreeing to go into his house for coffee is analogous to taking Mike Tyson up on his offer to go to his room for a nightcap.
'You're not an important person in my life."
Yes! That's in truth the worst part. "I thought this was the beginning of a Special Relationship! A professional partnership even!" she hoped. Only to get hit on like a common thot. Lol.
I was like you, Ann. Just don't go there unless you're dtf.
Cf. Ann Landers, Necking and Petting and How Far to Go (1958)
How does Scott Adams know this?
Why the crude language. Is there now only one word for "Sex" now? Fuck. People like Scott not only pepper there language with Fucks, what the fucks, you fucker, etc. etc. they now use it as the only word for sexual intercourse. It reminds me of the army with every 3rd word being fuck.
And Sorry, I don't care that whats her name got kissed against her will. Liberal/Leftwing women have been playing this game forever. If he's someone they like, they take one for TEAM LEFT. If not, then they pretend its the GREATEST OUTRAGE EVER. Boring.
Remember the rich French Leftwing Politician who raped a maid in NYC. After he got arrested and kicked out of high position, all these Leftwing women came out of the closet and said "He raped me too. He took me like a soldier". But they said nothing, because they didn't want to "Help the right wing". LOL! How many Liberal women gave Clinton a pass?
Given this sort of attitude, I just laugh when some lefty woman cries sexual harrassment. They're just FAKES!
Unless there's a signed consent form (w/ attorney review), it's assault, plain and simple.
Okay, not really. People send and receive signals all the time, and sometimes they are misconstrued, and some people are a bit awkward at the process. Such is life.
Accepting an invitation to a man's apartment for a drink? That's one pair of signals, pretty traditional stuff. Stuffing your tongue into someone's mouth as the opening physical move? I agree with Ann that you skipped a necessary step or two.
And Huma's "story" (ahem) about a guy who was a bit oafish but then backed off as decency demands? Not much of a story at all. But I guess these books don't sell themselves.
Strangely enough a US Senator might feel that a political neophyte social climbing staffer might have been on the same page.The littlest princess wannabe probably did not think that.But then she has an inflated opinion of herself.Bolstered by a lot of toadies.
Women are encouraged to think of themselves as professionals. Two professionals "meeting for coffee" means networking. The mistake Human Abedin made was that an attractive, young, professional woman thought a Senator could think of her as a professional - or a potential friend. She should have known better but perhaps she had been reading Vanity Fair and thought: "things have changed" or "he's different." Mistake.
These days women and men don't exist any more so the situation never comes up. Things have changed and preferred pronoun is different. Possibly very different.
PS. That's quite an interesting background to Scott Adams. I listened to that segment also.
His action meant: You're not an important person in my life.
Good of him to send clear signals. It let's her know what she is getting into. (Or what is potentially getting into her)
Ms Abedin has or had worse problems than an unnamed Senator putting the crude moves on her. There's a husband in her past who would and did provide all the humiliation any spouse can stand.
The truth is somewhere in between. When a person invites another person alone up to their apartment after a date, unless other factors make it clearly not about sex, it's about sex. When the other person accepts the invitation, they agree to sex. We all understand that that agreement can be withdrawn at any time, but it's there--sex is on the table.
Here, let Seinfeld explain it to you.
For purposes of the argument, we have to accept her rendition of the prefucking song…that he went in aggressively and shoved his tongue down her throat. It could have been that, or it could have been less than that. Either way, there was no other message sent than “I am here to fuck you, Senator”. So the tongue thing, accepting her version of the song, was just bad prefucking and very likely to turn off any girl.
But unambiguously, when she accepted his invitation to come up to see his paintings, she was agreeing to let him enter into her highly valuable pussy sphere. She wasn’t just giving him ideas by going in the front door. She had done that prior to when he felt he could ask her up down on the sidewalk.
Any young woman who doesn’t understand that cannot complain about whatever follows. I’m not excusing oafish behavior, but that was not a sexual assault, and he immediately stopped and apologized when she choked on his 👅 and she closed off access to her valuable ⚽️
- Krumhorn
Flashiebackie: "In my day, if you went to a guy’s hotel room, you knew why you were going", Kathy Bates
https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/kathy-bates-metoo-times-were-different-143906307.html
Abedin did not come out strongly on the side of women...
What is Althouse advocating here? No armistice in the sexual war? What is morally good or socially desirable about a woman coming out strongly on the side of women? Why not come out strongly on the side of truth, justice and the American way?
Women coming out strongly on the side of women only invites men to come out strongly on the side of men, thus perpetuating conflict. If feminism has any sort of morally defensible goal, which is not proven, the movement could hardly do better than to advocate a reduction of psycho-sexual conflict and could hardly do worse than to promote it.
Suppose a municipal police department, the Birmingham, Alabama PD under "Bull" Connor for example, had a tradition or unspoken policy of anti-black racism. The officers could be expected to come out strongly in defence of whites which might be just in some cases -- two guys fighting tooth and claw but the white guy was the one attacked -- but grossly unjust in others. Clearly a police force committed to just enforcement of the law cannot take a discriminatory stand by default. Each situation calls for unbiased assessment of concrete facts and not vague or eccentric perceptions like arrest the black guy because we know what those people are like or arrest the white guy because the black said he gave off "racist vibes".
The leading figures of American feminism have seldom embraced real justice. Instead of employing a blindfold and a true balance they engage in keyhole-peeping and routinely thumb the scale, consequently it's should surprise no one than today fake women garner the benefits rightly belonging to genuine women.
As for Huma Abedin and the unnamed senator, this is nothing more than a literary agent making sure his ten percent is more than just lunch money.
Huma has a problem with politicians in general. She works for a corrupt scammer, married a scummy congressman and got a tongue bath from a horny senator. All of them democrats. Her problem isn't that she's naive, its that she's surrounded herself with slime and can't expect to not occasionally get some one her.
"Signals" aren't unambiguous. Men and women -- and different generations -- don't understand them in the same one. I didn't go for the "what did they expect" argument in the Bill Cosby case. The guy spent so much time on stage acting like a child and trying to make himself likeable, that I could almost understand a young woman wanting to spend some time in conversation with him and thinking he'd behave. I guess Huma thought the senator would be interested in her personality and ideas. She was wrong, but she was lucky she went to his place and not to Cosby's.
It wasn't sexual assault though. I don't think she "forgot" about the incident before the Kavanaugh case. She reinterpreted a bad date as a sexual assault because the atmosphere of the time gave her a new way of labeling what happened to her.
She fucked Anthony Wiener. Anthony Wiener for fuck's sake.!
“I didn't want the other person to feel hurt or embarrassed.”
Interesting. And that is the sort thing that worked with me. But connecting up was maybe harder than it should have been. For a couple of my old girlfriends, my not pushing because I didn’t want either of us to be embarrassed, and didn’t want to pressure the woman, ended up in long buildups, where, when I finally made a move, by putting my arm around her, she almost attacked me. These weren’t girls who had slept around a lot, but rather very selective “good girls”.
What is a bit funny is that I ended up with the woman I have been with for 20 years by sitting back and not pushing. She grew up in Las Vegas, where by her late teens was considered one of the most beautiful women in town. Several Hollywood stars told her that they could make her famous, and one, a neighbor of Aaron Spelling, and a friend of her husband’s, had done so with his wife at the time (playing doubles with Spelling, then ending up in one of his TV shows). Starting at maybe 15, she was under almost daily assault by men in Vegas, asking her out, up to their rooms, to their houses, etc. Made the mistake a couple times, early on, assuming that the guys couldn’t actually think that they could get away with it. Nope. It means sex. One of those times, it was a very successful real estate broker her father worked with. She never told her father why she wouldn’t go out with him after that - she didn’t want him to go to prison (he was very protective, and the guy was twice her age). Her mother knew though (she is very intuitive) and told him to drop it. Since then, she has lived by that understanding that if a guy asks you up to his room, or to his house, it means that he is offering sex. Almost every time. Funny thing is, that one of the times this comes up is with Bill Cosby. She knew him decently well back then, and was up to his suite for champagne multiple times - but always with his entire family. Whenever one of his “victims” claimed that he raped her, she would defend him, and respond that that woman had essentially gone up to his room, or to his house, etc, for sex. He knew it. She knew it. One of the things that somewhat surprised me, was that there was a somewhat large group of young women in Las Vegas at the time who banged famous guys, to add them to their lists, and notch their belts. And, yes, on the flip side, there were plenty who would willingly bang rich or famous guys in order to get pregnant, and get a nice settlement. The Catherine Willows character in CSI was based on real life instances, of casino owners, and their sons, having illegitimate by-blows. She dated one, knew several others, and of several more.
So, how did I end up with a woman rated maybe a 12 on a 10 scale at 21? Because she was twice that age when I met her, but mostly because I didn’t pressure her. Our first “date” was a barbecue with her daughter and future son-in-law, and I spent my time talking to them, and esp him. They finally left, we continued to drink wine, talk, and I didn’t press her. Eventually she was ready, when I threw a throw away line at her. It wasn’t intentional, but ultimately we got together because she became the aggressor, after hundreds of guys had been that with her.
Looking for love in all the wrong places.
“ The problem isn't how a man reads the signals, it's what a man in a position of power assumes what he can get away with. There's no excuse for the man's behavior when he doesn't read the clarifying signals, but by the same token a woman should be doubly cautious about the risks.”
The reason that they think that they can get away with it, is because they have done so, repeatedly, in the past. They don’t wake up, one day, and say “I’m powerful, so I can have sex with any woman I want”. Instead, likely over a period of years, they get more aggressive, as they are successful in cruder and cruder come ons. And, then, one day, for some, they assume too much, once too often, and it all crashes down. But by then, they may have been successful with hundreds of women.
Scott Adams ought to go on to explore his idea in the context of Harvey Weinstein and Louis C.K.
"I suppose there could be such a thing as [being] too dumb to know what an invitation to come up to his place really means."
And we're told that women are indirect.
Isn’t it fun to have Huma Abedin to kick around again? The British press knows how to do this well, with the lead off Guardian headline on this story, “Longtime Hillary Clinton aide Huma Abedin describes sexual assault by US senator”. “Describes” is the tell - the reporter writing the story has judged Huma’s description of the encounter as being a sexual assault. That gets translated by the New York Post as “Huma Abedin claims sex assault by US senator in new book” and “Abedin makes a mockery of real sexual assault”.
But does Huma claim she was sexually assaulted? She doesn’t, she says it was an uncomfortable situation not a sexual assault, but the New York Post still headlines that as “Huma Abedin speaks out in first interview about alleged sexual assault by US senator”.
"Ann Althouse said...Scott Adams ought to go on to explore his idea in the context of Harvey Weinstein and Louis C.K."
I'm pretty sure he has. I don't know if his old Disqus threads are still available but he definitely dove into both stories when they were in the news.
The thing that makes this a bit ironic is that Huma is Muslim. And not the sort of assimilated Muslim that we all hope they all become. Her family is still closely aligned with, and works closely with, the Muslim Brotherhood, which essentially believes that traditional Islam requires Jihad to conquer, dominate, and tax Christians and Jews, and kill or convert everyone else. And essentially that women, outside the protection of their families, are open game for rape. As a Muslim, what did she expect to happen, when she went to the Senator’s room. Many of the MB followers wouldn’t have stopped when faxed with rejection, like the Senator did. They probably would have called their family members in to participate.
Regardless of Huma here, I find it very interesting how Chuck is all over the "Trump's letter to the WSJ" story, and yet here we have blue on blue allegations of assault by a Democrat Senator... surely something a "lifelong Republican" would be gleefully rubbing their hands over, right?
Crickets from any leftist, and Chuck, at least at the moment I write this comment.
Chuck is sooo, sooo interested in any and all allegations of impropriety against Trump. But no interest at all in Democrat assault? Funny, that.
As for the merits of this story: when I first heard "Huma alleges Democrat senator assaulted her" I thought for sure it was Hillary. And that she wanted to commit suicide!
As a woman I have always worked under the assumption that any man I am around may not mind throwing a leg over me. That doesn’t mean I think I am so attractive.
That reminded me of this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h55rTtbCy7o
"When the other person accepts the invitation, they agree to sex."
No. What they are agreeing to is letting the other person make the case for sex. That case may involve varying amounts of small talk, charm, and flirting, depending on how amiable the other person is to the idea in the first place. One has to judge each case separately.
In this specific case (if it happened) the Senator had reason to believe (past experience) that a woman who says yes to "coffee" with someone in his position is also saying yes to other things. Had he used his wit and charm instead of his tongue, he might have even been right. Instead he made a clumsy (and entitled) pass and she said no. That doesn't qualify as sexual assault, just cluelessness.
Re: stutefish:
If someone invites you to their place "for coffee" and they say yes, that's a hopeful sign that your proposition won't be rebuffed. But you still have to propose, verbally, before moving on to the physical stuff.
I agree that this obligation to obtain specific verbal consent is the new American rule, and definitely advisable to mitigate potential liability both civil and criminal. That said, I think this is a pretty recent development in America, and is certainly not standard in most of the world. In fairness to the Americans, this kind of hyper-legalistic approach is probably unavoidable in a diverse population, where every intimate interaction carries a serious risk of miscommunication thanks to incompatible cultural expectations. To some people, showing a bit of ankle on the street might be a clear sexual invitation. To others, an unmarried woman going to a man's room at 11pm for a drink shouldn't have any sexual implications whatsoever.
In other countries with clearer shared cultural mores, the risk of that kind of cross-cultural miscommunication is lower.
Scott Adams ought to go on to explore his idea in the context of Harvey Weinstein and Louis C.K.
That plant knew Weinstein would be there!
That plant knew what it was in for!
Has Rebecca Watson weighed in? wasn't that the SciFi Chick who got invited up to someone's room for "Coffee" and a discussion at 2 AM? And freaked out about it. She felt she'd be sexually assaulted.
So yeah, Scott Adams is expecting too much for people. Not "Everyone knows".
Meatloaf addressed this issue years ago:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C11MzbEcHlw
In times past every girl's mother warned her that if a man asks you to accompany him to/visit him alone in his hotel room/apartment/house/private office after hours, he has only one thing on his mind. Even if he's a senator. The ruse was: "Would you like to come up and see my etchings?"
But the mothers of today apparently say to their daughters: "You have every right to be wherever you like dressed however you like and doing whatever you like. Teach men not to rape!"
Who has/had the better grip on reality?
Back in college, I was in a field project of a couple of dozen people. One was a particularly attractive woman who was damned sure to send the right message. Dressed against her figure, her affect when by herself was dour. Do not even think it.
Turns out we were both exclusive with people we would later marry so she eventually figured out I wasn't a threat, so we got along.
She would really light up when I was around. Not necessarily my effervescent personality, but if the others thought this big frat/jock guy who didn't look like Mr. Rogers was her special friend...that sent yet another message.
If she were going to send an invite, I suspect, it would involve grabbing your shirt front and kicking you in the shins, because anything less wouldn't overcome her general demeanor. Even the group photo showed her...perfectly composed and expressionless. You don't do that without practice.
She once said she'd been out with a guy who offered her a seat on the sofa, but she was sure he was going to try to "thrash" and so she went for a chair.
She knew the score and made sure to...make sure.
Back in college, I was in a field project of a couple of dozen people. One was a particularly attractive woman who was damned sure to send the right message. Dressed against her figure, her affect when by herself was dour. Do not even think it.
Turns out we were both exclusive with people we would later marry so she eventually figured out I wasn't a threat, so we got along.
She would really light up when I was around. Not necessarily my effervescent personality, but if the others thought this big frat/jock guy who didn't look like Mr. Rogers was her special friend...that sent yet another message.
If she were going to send an invite, I suspect, it would involve grabbing your shirt front and kicking you in the shins, because anything less wouldn't overcome her general demeanor. Even the group photo showed her...perfectly composed and expressionless. You don't do that without practice.
She once said she'd been out with a guy who offered her a seat on the sofa, but she was sure he was going to try to "thrash" and so she went for a chair.
She knew the score and made sure to...make sure.
"She fucked Anthony Wiener. Anthony Wiener for fuck's sake.!
No woman can resist the primative anthony root wiener.
I'm a pretty old guy and I've been around the block. I know that when a woman wants to talk to me alone in my office, they're only after one thing.
"I'm pretty sure he has. I don't know if his old Disqus threads are still available but he definitely dove into both stories when they were in the news."
Yes, but I'm challenging him to go on to them after what he said that I quoted here. Test his little idea. See how it goes.
He's saying the woman by going to the man's room sends a message and he hears it loud and clear and can act on that message until he gets a clarification. I want to see that precise notion tested with the facts in the Louis CK and the Harvey Weinstein cases.
And also, he needs to test the idea with the Huma Abedin facts, which he didn't do properly, because he pictures the Senator merely "leaning in for a kiss." No, the guy went straight into French kissing (in the story she told, which is the only story we've got).
"Has Rebecca Watson weighed in? wasn't that the SciFi Chick who got invited up to someone's room for "Coffee" and a discussion at 2 AM? And freaked out about it. She felt she'd be sexually assaulted."
Good point. Adams should support her anger and outrage, shouldn't he? To be consistent?
My daughter knows to a certainty, as if Moses had descended with it etched on the tablet, that an invitation to come up for a drink is an invitation to have sex. A simple ‘no thank you, gotta run’ will suffice to stave off any misunderstands. However, there is nothing wrong with negotiating the point in a bar around the corner or over dinner in a public place.
The senator had every reason to think that her willingness to get into the elevator was a prelude to a Humahumporama. He behaved himself when it didn’t go as expected, and it most certainly was not a sexual assault. If her recounting is to be accepted, it was a poorly executed start.
- Krumhorn
"... and can act on that message...."
I'm saying that in the sense that — in his understanding — the woman should know this about the man in order to manage her life competently in this world.
He is not saying that as a legal matter the man is entitled to act, and I don't want to look as though I might be trying to say that. I see the distinction, and agree that it's important.
The Weinstein cases are certainly related, but they can be distinguished.
To the extent many of the women went to his hotel room, they should have known to a certainty what to expect, even if they had a starlet itch that could only be scratched by one of the most powerful and successful producers in Hollywood. If he physically forced them to have sex, it was rape. If they acquiesced, it was a trade. You just DON’T willingly agree to go to a guy’s room if you are an attractive young woman. Who doesn’t know that very simple fact?
Cosby drugged women with party drugs that were very popular at the time. If they took the drugs willingly, they cannot complain about the outcome unless he physically forced them to have sex. If he drugged them without their knowledge, he raped them.
Lewis CK was a freak show jerking off in front of women in his hotel rooms and dressing rooms. He didn’t assault anyone (except their tender sensibilities). If a girl accepts an invitation to a guy’s room, that girl is communicating assent to little johnny coming out to play. If you don’t like it, leave with great haste, but don’t complain about having been victimized later.
- Krumhorn
It is an interesting story without a name, and it seems like a wise decision not to identify the Senator in the book, although I suspect that over the past two decades she has told the story with that detail more than once, and that there is a good chance that a name surfaces from some source soon. When she told the story closer to the event, did no one before the confirmation hearing ever suggest it was more serious than she took it at the time?
All these comments, some wonderfully humorous, persuade me it never happened.
rcocean said...
Why the crude language?
Because he wasn't looking for a joyous sexual and sensual exchange, he was looking to screw some young girl, and if she made him happy enough, maybe give her an intern position.
Soon, simply talking to anybody about anything will be considered sexual assault.
I'm glad I'm old and married.
There's a new interview out in which she says that she doesn't consider the episode to have been a sexual "assault."
Whatever. It's the first time I have heard her speak at length and ... she sounds like Hillary!!!!
She's been around the evil one so much that she's picked up her accent and speaking pattern. Weird.
'No, the guy went straight into French kissing (in the story she told, which is the only story we've got).'
Hard to get a tongue in your mouth if it's closed...last time I checked, teeth were a pretty good defense.
She’s too swarthy for me
Too, too swarthy for me
I don’t want her, you can have her
She’s too swarthy for me
Hey!
“I'm a pretty old guy and I've been around the block. I know that when a woman wants to talk to me alone in my office, they're only after one thing.”
Probably two things:
1. A sizable cash settlement
2. Your job
I may have erred on the conservative side.
"But you still have to propose, verbally, before moving on to the physical stuff."
Is this a joke? Get real.
This is all very theoretical and political. I want to know how it works for people in real life.
For example, how did Meade make "the move" on you Althouse? Surely you remember.
I had an attractive lady over to my house for dinner. After dinner, sitting on a love seat drinking wine, I leaned in to kiss her. She turned her head to the side. That one little turn of the head said loud and clear that she wasn't interested. I made no further attempts and a few minutes later she left.
I know that if the woman who wants to talk to me alone in my office is my boss, she's not after sex. That has been a consistent pattern, and I've had a lot of female bosses. And none have been the stuff of wistful fantasy, so that's all good.
Some of my peers, and some students, now they're a different story.
The problem is with ideologies that assume a false understanding of human nature. Such ideologies can only be imposed or maintained by overwhelming force. Communism assumed that humans were, or were capable of being molded into, worker ants. Feminism assumes men are eternally evil and women are eternally victims, denying agency to both.
The fake outrage over this "assault" is typical. For solid psychological and biological reasons, men tend to be the aggressors in sexual negotiations and women are the prizes whose reluctance has to be overcome. Pretending it is otherwise, as feminism does, pretending that men and women are identical widgets, has led to generations of increasingly unhappy women.
The problem is with ideologies that assume a false understanding of human nature. Such ideologies can only be imposed or maintained by overwhelming force. Communism assumed that humans were, or were capable of being molded into, worker ants. Feminism assumes men are eternally evil and women are eternally victims, denying agency to both.
The fake outrage over this "assault" is typical. For solid psychological and biological reasons, men tend to be the aggressors in sexual negotiations and women are the prizes whose reluctance has to be overcome. Pretending it is otherwise, as feminism does, pretending that men and women are identical widgets, has led to generations of increasingly unhappy women.
She's a Muslim Brotherhood spy with the best beard ever (five years later): a Jewish pedo husband who can't stop confessing. I don't think her considerations include interesting conversation. Maybe blackmail sex, which I guess can be interesting, if that's your thing. No, I don't believe a thing she's saying, and I do think it was Obama. Either to have something on him to bring back to Clinton or to have something on him for some other political purpose. But he behaved like a gentleman.
I've been married 33 years and sexually faithful to Mrs Perspective. I still get the signals wrong at times. "Don't give him ideas" is as complicated as "give him ideas." In the end, sexual satisfaction is one reason marriage is one of God's great gift to men.
Men, you still have to read the signals, you still have to be worthy, you still have to ask knowing you might be turned down. Get married, stay married, the challenge never goes away.
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