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PaperclipPerfector  7mo ago (text post)   27751 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 18, 2023

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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 karen social 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.

Just to point out that as per usual, this is a case of the researchers being a lot more reasonable than the media summarizing them and the politicians exploiting them.

The actual title of the paper is

Sexual harassment, aggression and violence victimisation

And I think it would be reasonable to call all those things either harassment or aggression, depending on the circumstances.

And also, while the government is obviously overselling the findings to justify their policy with the 75% interpretation, I think you're also underselling the findings to make your point about slipping definitions.

10% had their drink spiked for the purpose of sexual assault, 19% subject to stealthing or someone lying about having an STD before sex, 11% had someone take photos or video of them during sex without knowledge/consent, 14% experienced in-person stalking.

I'm obviously against these regulations, that's a dumb way to handle this problem, but I do think those are very real harms and those numbers are scarily high.

If you wonder why there are so many incels, consider how justified women are in being afraid of dating men. It's a pretty strong disincentive, especially when you can already get vibrators online and be very safe. It's a problem that is in everyone's interest to solve.

I know too many women who seek out and stay in relationships with shitty men that already do this stuff to them. For people so afraid of sexual assault and abuse, they're really, really bad at avoiding it.

Okay, and?

"women have it so tough because men are so evil" falls flat to me. I have no sympathy for it. I spent my entire youth being told that women's #1 priority is to avoid "abuse" and that any time a woman lied to me or flaked on me or was less than honest with me it was because I made her "feel unsafe." I'm reeeeealy tired of hearing it.

Then you can say that, rather than list an anecdote that doesn't look very related and leave your post at that.

Anyway.

Yeah, people lie. Lots. Oldest problem in the world. I'd appreciate if we might all be sincere as much as the next autist does, but we've got to live with the world we have. So it goes.

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