This place is far from an echo chamber, and I’m glad of it. Yes we have our biases, but I think we’re pretty much all reasonable here, or at least civil.
That said, the NeoGAF replacement board Resetera, looking at what they’re doing, so far it seems like they’re trying to make a new culture and get rid of the some of the problems NeoGAF had. Too early to tell how that will hold up when problems happen, but I’m hoping they can pull it off.
This isn’t the complete story. Men are VERY VERY secretive about sex and gender stuff in general. They actively hide it, like it’s their kink. (Remember the Chris Rock bit about how “when it comes to porn, men have a hidden batcave?” It bites and is funny because it’s true.) And these types of men are super careful to only execute power submission moves when no other men are present, maybe when no other witnesses are present. Because they know other people would probably not be comfortable with what they’re doing.
Gender and sex stuff, particularly as it gets toward the freakier end of the spectrum, people outside of an intimate relationship typically have NO CLUE what is going on. That’s quite intentional. Common even.
Why can’t I lean like?!!?
One guy put his brother in the hospital, broke his ribs because he was disrespected. His father said men have to be respected. Rape has little to nothing to do with actual sex. It’s about power. If this former vet thought being respected was important enough to put his younger brother in the hospital… you really think that aggression showed up for the first time at that moment? That aggression would have been there the entire time, and no, they might not beat their wives in front of their friends, but I’d bet my life it surprised almost no one he would turn to violence quickly. And that kind of entitlement easily shows up in any relationships he has with women.
If a person is violent everywhere, sure. But there’s a lot of kink people get into with sex and gender that they keep bottled way down deep inside and rarely show to others. So the simplistic idea “step in when you see other dudes doing this bad sex related thing” is fine enough, and I agree with it insofar that it goes, but most skilled predators are smart — and they know never to bare their teeth around other wolves, only prey.
This does emphasize “listen to women when they tell you a dude did some freaky uncool crap” though. They hide it like hell from everyone else.
So, you’re saying that unlike normal predators, who are emboldened by pack members, men tend to behave more when in numbers and only get stupid when less observed? Maybe so. I wouldn’t call it a rule, but it’s ponderable. Not just because their fellows will call them out and block them from unacceptable behavior, but also if the woman gives back as good as he’s giving, it’s an embarrassment his fellows will burn him with for a good while.
Speaking of embarrassment and awkwardness… let’s go there a moment. I think, going back to my “boys tribe / girls tribe” observation, that one big factor in non-communication between the two is discomfort, bordering on terror, of the engagement. Hey, I’m 47 now and I don’t give a shit at all, I’ll say anything to anyone honestly and constructively. But, when I was 20ish for some reason, rejection and ridicule were comparable to physical assault. I mean, think about the leap of bravery a guy has to work up to even walk up to a girl. Then you get there and your brain shuts off, you panic, can’t talk… “uh… um… Hi. Well, gotta go!” and then the internal “god dammit, shit fuck shit, now she thinks I’m an idiot” burn that goes on for an agony of moments afterwards. Yeah, it’s no wonder we don’t get good at it for a while.
The worst thing that can happen is open ridicule. Our friends really help by trying to pour gasoline on the fire if they’re around. Thanks guys. So this, I think, sets up a couple of problems. One way to overcome how insanely high-stakes this social game is, is to construct a scenario where you’ve already lost so it doesn’t matter. Be a jerk. Women can mis-identify that as “confidence” and skinner-box men into thinking that “douchebag = success”. The other possible angle is objectification, where women are a strategy game, and you develop a routine of pushing buttons to see what results you get - but what matters is cause and effect and not acceptance or rejection because it’s not social rejection of you, just your strategy. Once rejection isn’t personal, it’s something you can do all night, trying to fish for the result you want.
Point being, to talk to girls without fear of burning emotional trauma, inexperienced men have to find a mind-game to play on themselves that gets personal risk out of the equation. And, generally that involves eliminating the person status of both parties. Guys who don’t do that aren’t noticed because they’re wall-flowering and dealing with their inadequacy compared to the guys they see apparently having no issue with the approach and rejection/success cycle. What have they got that I don’t? Well, they’ve “got game”. Ding.
Chatting up the opposite sex turns out to be more like door to door sales than high stakes poker. The guys who bloom late go “all in” on their bets. You don’t last long in sales if you don’t realize fast that it’s a numbers game… 10% will buy what I’m selling, so if it’s not going to happen just move on and don’t dwell on it as failure, just iteration. Salesmen who agonize over every rejection and agonize about knocking on each door don’t stay in the business because they take rejection personally instead of brushing it off as “who knows why, but they weren’t buying, next house!” The good sales guys will tell you this secret, but knowing it and internalizing and living it are very different things.
Some salesmen are too persistent, try too hard, get overly aggressive about pushing their product on a customer who is obviously not interested. They might even make some sales that way, and think it’s the way to go. But, they don’t get repeat business or good referrals. They, too, are overly invested in outcomes. They can knock on the door, but it took so much investment to do it that they’re not leaving until you buy. Once that works a few times, it becomes their game. But they never beat the guy who is concerned about the customer’s needs and realizes when his product isn’t needed and moves on gracefully with a smile. Next time in the neighborhood, they’ll remember he wasn’t pushy or unpleasant and hey maybe they do need something now - so they’ll even approach him.
I think the big step in “effective salesman training” is to eliminate the terror factor.
How do you do that? Well, instead of educating men about how to sell, and women about how to be wiser shoppers - what if you had a no-risk no-investment meeting? Nobody’s here to make any deals, we’re just going to talk about the game. We get to know each other as people, and talk about why I’m terrified to knock on your door, and why you’re nervous about answering the knock.
Envision this… instead of college having classes about women’s studies or gender inequality problems and such, let’s have a “sex ed” class about men and women communicating. Call it “inter-gender communication studies”, and instead of talking about the problematic history of it, actually conduct it as a lab. Men and women sit with each other, in groups at first, and just talk about something. Start off with neutral stuff like “what music do I like and why” and move into things like “things I wish I could ask girls/boys but can’t.” Later in the course, each person sits 1-to-1 with someone else and tells the other person things they find interesting or attractive about them and asks questions about how that makes them feel. By the end of it, everybody has had multiple benign non-sexual questions in a zero-stakes environment with someone of the opposite sex and has gotten over their awkward terror and fear of rejection. At the end of the process, they can all talk to each other in groups again about how they’ve gotten over their anxiety, don’t have objectification mechanisms as rejection-defense, and have actually talked to 15-20 people of the other gender about themselves as complex people and not obstacles to be overcome.
I guess my thought is that if you take a bunch of young adults who haven’t had a game-free environment to learn about each other without the pre-conceived tribal barriers, and put them in a safe environment for purposes of acclimatizing and “getting over it” you might get more compassionate, comfortable, and confident acclimatized people coming out the other side of it. Mostly, this defuses the tension and discomfort that I think breeds the negative behaviors. Maybe… what would happen if you had one of these PUA seminars where half the attendees were women? Let’s talk about what men do, why they do it, and what would be better - and let’s talk about our vulnerability and discomfort. If women are half of the people there and you move it from “us vs. them” into “how do we do this without creating negative outcomes?” then maybe you’d have a whole other sort of seminar that gives men what they actually need instead of what they think they have to have.
I dunno… I just think if I’d had as many girls in my circle of friends as I did guys, and everybody was unconcerned with defending against “being judged” and just was above the table with all their feelings and reasons, all that dating awkwardness wouldn’t have existed back then. The shit is too tense and false high-stakes as it’s currently done. Men don’t understand subtle signals and women don’t understand “just say it”. Why don’t women just say what they want? I assume that’s awkward in their camp. Sure wish we could have just confessed to each other and got it out of the way.
Related story… I married the girl who said “We could talk all night, but I’d rather do something else to you.” You see, sometimes ladies the direct approach wins. I’d have kept talking otherwise.
Me! Not sure if there are others.
But again, rape and sexual assault is not about sex. If you keep thinking that way you won’t see the patterns outside of the sex arena. Just look at these Nazis running around with their torches, then you look at their social media and what do you see, and you look at them on video game forums and what do you see? What I am saying that what men can do is not laugh off inappropriate and aggressive behavior simply because it’s “in the locker room”. If they behave like that in a guys only environment it’s a pretty good bet they’re assholes to woman outside of it.
Asking a woman out or hitting on her isn’t really sexual harassment either. I do know a few guys who seem pretty entitled to a positive response though or thinks buying a drink or a meal is some sort of guarantee to something. If being turned down from a woman leads to anger and not disappointment… probably something to evaluate.
Yeah. Approaching a person for purposes of romance or just plain sex is one thing. Without that I don’t there’s much procreation or satisfaction for anyone. But not understanding “no” is another thing. And there’s a lot of monsters who have somehow convinced themselves that “no” means “this person should be harassed till they say yes”, or even worse, “I deserve to be raped”. However many millions or tens of millions of them there are out there, they all should be reeducated or imprisoned.
Sounds like friendship. It seems to work fairly well but there seems to be a societal idea that it is crazy.
OMG not the dreaded “friend zone”!!! Nooooooooo…
Yeah, I think instead of segregating boys and girls so strictly as we have traditionally done out of fear that they’ll catch the sex, I think the opposite is true. If we didn’t make a big deal and forbidden fruit out of it, it wouldn’t become an obsession. You have to get the friendship stuff established before the mating rut hits though, because I think at that stage boys aren’t trustworthy about their intentions… in fact, we know better. They’re hunting, not befriending. So, you have to get some normalization and communication BEFORE this comes on.
Society won’t buy it though. Every parent thinks their kids aren’t the ones being promiscuous. I’d prefer mine to be selective instead of desperate opportunists.
Yeah I’ve pretty much decided when my kids get older I’m going to make sure they at least are playing it safe. Going to buy condoms by the bucket. “Hey, who wants condoms? You guys grab a few, I got a bucketload! Oh, you’re just going to check the mail? Well take one anyway, you never know!”
You should require them to wear condoms 24/7! Just around the house, even!
That reminds me of an old Dennis Miller joke, something like, “Some folks say they hate the feeling of sex with a condom, but me I walk around all day wearing two! That way when the time comes I whip one off and I’m a wild man!”
This seems like a good place to ask:
Should I start the Mass Effect series with the first game?
You haven’t experienced Mass Effect until you line up four machines and play through them simultaneously. Really shows you all the possibilities.
Yes. Just wear a condom.
I got some, if you need ‘em.
Edit: ok, so anyway, NeoGaf. Just from casually browsing the last few days one drastic change I’ve noticed is that, in the past, new posts and updates came so fast they’d fall off the first page as fast as you could read them. The place almost had too much happening. But lately it’s moving so much slower - they must have lost a bunch of posters during this whole shindig.
NeoGAF takes another hit. Allegedly, this longtime member turned out to be a registered sex offender. He made up a fake gaming site and told people he was an industry journalist. He used those faked credentials to harass women.
At the same time, he maintained a pro-feminist persona in his social media posts.
That’s just some random loser, not anyone with power on the forums, right? The fake gaming website aspect makes it interesting for us, but nothing to do with neogaf specifically.