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PaperclipPerfector  7d ago (text post)   31415 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 5, 2026

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I don't know. Maybe I am too credulous but Mr. A's account seems fine to me. Was he naive about why someone might want to meet at the toilets? Sure, but even he admits that! As best I can tell he expressed a consistent preference against having sex in public, or proceeding to sex without getting to know Dr. Stefan better. Even before the incident occurred. I guess I'm not sure about other people but I would consider "the toilets at my work place" to be "public", at least in terms of having sex. As the tribunal mentions it's also not clear to me what Mr. A has to gain by reporting this as sexual harassment if he didn't think it was. Like, what's the downside to him if he never says anything about it to anyone? Mr. A's disturbed demeanor after the fact was also noted by, like, half a dozen colleagues who testified. I guess this was all a Machiavellian show he put on to get the guy who catfished him in trouble?

I am happy to believe Mr. A was willing or intended to proceed to a sexual relationship with Dr. Stefan at some point in the future but I am skeptical he went to this particular meeting with the intention of having sex.

I think the debate we're really having here is:

What level of activity do you consent to when you consent to meeting someone from a dating app?

This is essentially the same as the debate over whether you need to [consent to every action in a romantic escalation] or whether there are basic menu expectations you have, an overton window of things that you consent to when you start. And then of course the argument over what is in that overton window.

Do I have to ask specifically before trying to put my arm around a girl on a movie date, or is that basically expected and her saying "no" after is sufficient? After a date, if I try to kiss her goodnight, is that allowed? Clearly kissing someone who says they don't want to be kissed is bad, but when you get kissed once when you didn't want to be, that's just a hazard of being in certain situations with someone, you have effectively consented to it by going on a date/going to the movies/going to a dance club etc.

But of course, we're talking about gay men so the question is, do you consent to seeing a naked man by going to meet a man in a men's room stall. I think the answer is probably yes, inasmuch as it is bad and offensive to see a naked man you didn't want to see, that's just a risk you took when you met a guy on Grindr.

But they should probably both be fired for this.

Was he naive about why someone might want to meet at the toilets? Sure, but even he admits that!

He "admits" to a level of naïveté which I would expect from an adult suffering from Down's syndrome, not from a medical doctor. If he really is as naïve as he claims to be, he has no business working in this capacity and ought to be struck off.

(Paraphrasing) "I met a man via an app which everyone knows is a hookup app for gay men. When he invited me to meet him in a bathroom, I assumed this was because he was concerned about being hygienic and wanted to make sure we both washed our hands (even though he never even suggested that this was the reason for the choice of venue). I had no idea that he wanted to have sex with me in the bathroom – I just use the app in question (which everyone knows is a gay hookup app) for professional networking. Also he wasn't anything like as hot as pics made him out to be but that's neither here nor there..."

I'm sorry, but I refuse to believe a qualified medical doctor can be this naïve. I'm even having a hard time believing that you are this credulous.

It struck me later, but it's worth noting that A is consistently referred to as Mr. A throughout the report.

In the context of a British hospital, that means:

  • A senior surgeon, since they shirk the doctor title for ~traditional reasons
  • A med student, since interns are called doctors
  • Someone who isn't a doctor at all: nurses, ward staff, admin etc

It is very unlikely that he's a senior surgeon. He could be a med student. He might be a particularly dimwitted porter.

Does this make things better or worse? Idk. I would only hope a medical "colleague" would have the common sense not to come up with such farcical excuses, but I've met idiots in the profession. They are overrepresented in both those making and receiving GMC complaints.

That being said, it is still idiotic, regardless of career choice.

Mr. B doing some administrative task while in the same room as a Dr codes as young intern to me (and his included writing, like 'not very slay' codes as very young), but you'd know far better than I how the UK medical norms on that go. Doesn't necessarily mean Dr. Stefan was looking especially young as chickenhawks go, but could be part of it.

Agreed that it's a hilariously bad as an excuse, even assuming Mr. A was genuinely derpy enough to have bought Grindr's 'it's a social meeting app' spiel.

I guess I might buy this if he's young and this is his first attempt at "okay I am gay, I want to do it with guys, how do I meet guys, okay there's an app for that" and he didn't know the rules of how encounters off Grindr are supposed to go.

Yeah, maybe he's stupid, but being socially awkward and stupid in that way can go along with "smart enough to become a medical doctor".

It does seem quite plausible he didn't want to engage in sex that day with Dr. Stefan. That's a wise and rational move for many reasons.

But if you are chatting to a man on Grindr, by far the most "hookup" of all hookup apps, and you agree to meet a man who you met on Grindr (who had already asked if you wanted to fuck in the woods!) in a BATHROOM, I genuinely don't know what to expect.

"he had thought that perhaps in wanting to meet at the toilets, Dr Stefan had wanted to stay hygienic and maybe wanted to wash his hands or for Mr A to wash his hands. "

I can't even begin to attempt to explain this logically. Why would you need to meet up to mutually wash your hands? If anyone needed to wash their hands, couldn't they just do that before? If washing your hands before a coffee date is important to you, just do that? Has anyone ever said "hey I know we're chatting over coffees and not touching, but it's really really important to me that I know your hands are washed"

Similarly, back to the bathroom, why not just meet for a coffee in the place where coffee is (the cafeteria, a nearby cafe)? Why on earth would you detour to a bathroom with a man you just met on Grindr? No one could be this oblivious. I'm not gay and I know for a fact if a gay man invited me to a bathroom, it's because he wants to fuck me. If I was talking to a girl on ChristianMingle.com and she asked me to meet her in a bathroom, my first thought would not be "damn she must love washing her hands".

I expect that Mr A pictured the encounter as "we meet fully-clothed, size each other up, flirt and banter a bit; if the chemistry is off the charts we are already in the perfect place to take things further, if not we can take things slower or end it there".

That sounds very plausible

My guess is Mr. A's justifications for meeting in the bathroom are post-hoc but I don't think it's in, like, a malicious way. Stefan probably suggested meeting in the bathroom. Maybe Mr. A thought it was weird in a general way but he didn't interrogate him about why he wanted to meet there. Any explanation is Mr. A trying to come up with what he could have been thinking when he actually didn't think much of it. But he doesn't feel, for whatever reason, like he can just tell the investigators that he didn't think anything of it, so he has to concoct come post-hoc explanation and there are, frankly, not many good ones!

I don't understand how you couldn't think anything of "this man I met on the gay sex app wants to meet in a bathroom after previously asking if I wanted to have sex in the woods"

But thankfully, this isn't my job to understand, I just get to be amused by this incredible story.

Probably he is trying to come up with post-hoc explanations, but Dr Stefan seems to have wanted to get straight down to it, Mr A wanted to take it slower, so "meet me in the loo" was the compromise choice. Private enough that they could, as you say, size each other up; public enough that Dr Stefan can't just jump his bones immediately. At least, that would be the idea, looks like Dr S was ready to get to the jumping right away even so.

Yeah this tracks

There's a significant addendum that I discovered on a second trawl through the tribunal records. It's in the Substack version, I didn't bring it over here because I'd have to juggle markdown and HTML.

The gist of it is that there are significant discrepancies in A's accounting of events. Just after the incident happened, he claimed he was physically dragged in and assaulted. This was later watered down to being flashed and inappropriately beckoned.

Call me cynical, but I don't see how even the immediate shock of seeing a dude horny and nude would cause someone to jump to accusing them of physical assault.

I'm not sure what A is getting out of this. Perhaps he just was that genuinely spooked, and decided to escalate pre-emptively. He might have thought that rejecting a senior would come to bite him in the ass (metaphorically), or he might not have been thinking straight (pun not intended).

A hospital toilet... Well, it's a bit of a liminal space. Not quite private, not quite public. This one seemed very low traffic, it seemed to be specific to a floor and surgical theater, so probably closer to private for the purposes of a quick fuck.

While I was willing to give A the benefit of the doubt, his rationale for even being there is ludicrous. Does he expect us to believe that handwashing was all that was on his mind?

The least unlikely explanation, to me, seems to be that A felt genuinely aggravated by the catfishing, lost their cool, and disclosed too much before they were able to calm down and collect their thoughts. Or perhaps they didn't like the surgeon in the first place, he seems like a rather unpleasant chap. But it's all speculation, and I haven't heard anything on the grapevine.

I had the same thought. Even if you do meet someone with the intention of having sex with them, it's a further escalation if they get fully naked before you arrive. The combination of catfishing and rapid unwanted unreciprocated escalation would certainly shock me, although I admit I'm not a gay doctor so maybe I'm not as jaded as Mr A.

It actually feels to me like a comedy beat in some kind of off-beat sketch.

"I've got a hot date?"

"Where?"

"In the bathroom on the 3rd floor."

"Is he hot?"

"Check out his profile pic." (The profile pic shows an attractive white man in his late 20's who vaguely resembles Pete Buttigieg.) "Wish me luck!"

<Smash cut to the bathroom. A stall door slowly swings open to reveal a fully-naked older man of ambiguous ethnicity, grinning creepily while maintaining eye contact. The camera is aimed too high to see his genitals, but his arm can be seen moving suggestively in that area.>

<Pan to Mr. A, who looks into the camera and screams.>

record scratch

You're probably wondering how I got into this situation

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