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Culture War Roundup for the week of August 28, 2023

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There is no level of status at which any man becomes attractive to every woman. The phenomenon in which high-status men sometimes get away with sexual harassment or assault was never win-win to begin with. Your comment doesn't even consider the possibility that sexual attention from a powerful man might at times be deeply unpleasant in itself, and that refusal is important for personal reasons rather than some kind of elaborate power play.

Boy band audiences, particularly those in the front row, can usually be assumed to be fans. That makes them a special case. Even then, it would be possible to go too far, I think.

The important question is what concrete harm something like that does - and how that trades off against other interests people have. One such interest is 'exuberant celebration of a sports win'. If a random guy walked up to me and kissed me on the lips - I'd take issue with it. But if a (male, say I'm also male) friend of mine did that right after we won the biggest sports event of the year - I'd personally, without finding it to be worth doing myself, understand the spirit of it and not mind too much. From the perspective of popular sports, winning is massive, it's what you've spent your entire life working towards, and a grand celebration is worth doing! Gonna link the socialist fraternal kiss again. Obviously the m/f dynamic changes that a bit, but how much? Feminism/#MeToo have brought with them a deep intuition that that what happened here is very wrong, as opposed to just 'somewhat wrong', and others who don't hold that intuition are objecting to the apparently disproportionate response - so one should ask, which intuition is accurate? What specifically happens with such a kiss, what cultural ideas and instincts cause the harm, and is it important enough that 'winning the BIG GAME' can't make a brief exception? (not rhetorical, I think that's the thing worth discussing here)

Obviously the m/f dynamic changes that a bit, but how much? Feminism/#MeToo have brought with them a deep intuition that that what happened here is very wrong, as opposed to just 'somewhat wrong', and others who don't hold that intuition are objecting to the apparently disproportionate response - so one should ask, which intuition is accurate?

In my eyes, it's not just or even mainly the disproportionate response that needs to be opposed, but the gendered nature of it. Feminism has severely inflamed people's existing bias towards disproportionately punishing men for behaviors that they refuse to similarly permit society to punish women for.

"Display of affection" not sexual assault! If the jumbotron at stadiums starts zooming in on a man and woman and instead of saying "kiss?" says "sexual assault?" it seems things have gone too far. In fact, even if there is "full consent" and you go for a really long sexy kiss on the jumbotron, the crowd will boo. A peck on the lips is neither a step too far nor should it be taken further: a perfect social ritual as it stands.

But perhaps we should improve society somewhat, and remove this burden of a sometimes deeply unpleasant experience? I'll expand below in reply to 2rafa how this kind of thinking is a clever trap that promises increased personal empowerment but actually ends in the opposite.