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Continuing on with The Motte's theme of the week, the Australian Federal Government has given the online dating industry a year to implement a 'voluntary' code of conduct in the face of 'online sexual violence' or presumably face regulation.
This ultimatum seems to be motivated by “An investigation by the Australian Institute of Criminology last year found three-quarters of online daters had been subject to some kind of online sexual violence in the past five years.”
Finding the referenced report 'Dating App Facilitated Sexual Violence' (their term, not mine) seems to include amongst other acts:
- Pressured the respondent to give them information about their location or their schedule
- Continued to contact the respondent even after they told them they were not interested in having a relationship with them
- Pressured the respondent verbally to perform unwanted sexual acts (eg making promises, lying, repeatedly asking or insisting etc)
- Sent the respondent an unwanted sexually explicit message
- Sent the respondent an unwanted sexually explicit photo or video of themselves
- Pressured the respondent to meet them in person when they did not want to
This would include dick pics or non-consensual sexually explicit language sent through a dating app, along with other mundane dating activity. The march to broaden the definition of sexual violence to include 'making women uncomfortable' continues.Australia, is usually a follower of countries like Canada and the UK when it comes to these sorts of policies, but it does occasionally become the first mover when there is the chance of getting a cheap political win (and to seem like it is doing something in the face of more serious issues such as the housing crisis).
The linked news article is kind of buried down the state news media's front page and references the federal government's
karensocial services minister who has previously worked on 'cyber safety' committees. There is a fair chance this is a complete nothing burger that will blow over and is just the govt making noises rather than actually intending to follow through, but time will tell.Well, if you followed the implied rules here, dating apps would be completely useless for men -- just that last point is enough; there's not much point in dating if you're not going to meet in person and there will 99% of the time be some reluctance expressed to take that step. But of course rules or not, Chad isn't going to follow them (and he'll usually get away with it) so nothing changes.
If someone doesn't want to meet in person, why not just move on?
Because women on OLD apps don't say they aren't interested. They say they'd love to meet up, but they can't this weekend. Or the day after. Or next weekend. But they'd love to see you and grab coffee. Then they just stop responding.
A well intentioned man might think this is a problem to be solved. Meanwhile they just did a harassment.
Unironically this is a male skill issue thinking that communication is only literal and verbal. Men who are confused about this need to get good, not only for dating but because this is an important generalizable life skill.
Women don’t “play hard to get” by failing to make or keep plans. An interested women, shy or forward, slutty or chaste, of any culture or nationality, will make an effort to meet with you. A woman “playing hard to get” will let you in on the game. It’s mutual flirting and it will feel like that.
If she cancels once and doesn’t take the initiative to make a new plan, she’s not interested. Move on, don’t be pathetic.
Of course when a guy like Andrew Tate says this and actively tries to teach males the skills to achieve these he gets hammered.
So I dunno where you expect them to learn the skills if the teaching of the skills is socially verboten, and the opposite message (believe women and take them at their word) is what saturates society.
From their fathers, maybe. But with an increase in the number of men growing up raised by single mothers, there really is no other place they can even see a role model demonstrate this for them.
A guy like Andrew Tate who pimped women? Gee I wonder why his spin on "mutual flirting" got him hammered.
Or Jordan Peterson.
Or Matt Walsh.
They even tried cancelling Joe Rogan.
Good luck finding a personality who takes a 'pro masculinity' approach who isn't vilified in the mainstream.
That is, in fact, the reason Tate is able to find an audience. There's NOWHERE ELSE for the audience to go.
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