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Culture War Roundup for the week of January 30, 2023

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Of course. And I'm not making a point about the objective morality of strip clubs or whether the folks I was among did anything wrong.

My story is simply an example of where 'they said yes, what's the problem' is far to binary to be a discussion ending heuristic.

Pressure to be liked / career advancement / social belonging (and yes drinks) , etc can all mitigate a yes enough that the person doing the asking should not have brought it up and did something wrong for some spectrum of degree.

If Louis says 'can I show you my penis'...

  • on a date after the girl invited him up vs

  • in a dressing room while on the road with an upcoming comedianne who wasn't expecting any sexual advances

  • vs to a young saleswomen on a call who just confessed that she needs his business to hit her quota.

These are three different scenarios where acting on a no is certainly worse than on a yes... But a yes doesn't blanket make them all the same and make it ok for Louis to ask in the first place.

And I'm not making a point about the objective morality of strip clubs or whether the folks I was among did anything wrong.

But surely that has to be part of the point, or else we are veering dangerously close to /r/antiwork "my boss is abusing me by threatening to fire me if I don't show up for work" territory.

I don't think so? For instance, if your boss asks you if he can give you $1000, it's still problematic. Getting financial support from a supervisor may be bad for you emotionally for various reasons, even though it's very hard to see it as morally bad. So I think there's a strong point that the argument holds regardless of the moral quality of the act in itself.