Talk:Sexualized environment

"This is othering..."

"This is othering for anyone who is not a heterosexual man, including, obviously, women, and contributes to their invisibility in the field."

There was an edit that I just rolled back, but I wanted to explain further. The above text isn't assuming that all women are heterosexual. it's saying that women are not men (and therefore, are not heterosexual men).

I tend to think any sentence with "obviously" in it needs to be rephrased, so there is room for improvement here, but the edit wasn't an improvement. Monadic (talk) 23:27, January 13, 2013 (UTC)

Why does this article make me feel like women are super fragile and cannot take a sexually loaded joke? Jokes are always loaded with something absurd, offensive, strange, confusing, etc. Why is sex different for women?

Some general comments

I think it's excellent that the article is started with "consensual sex is fun(...)". It could be stronger/vaguer/more touching to say "Geek feminists agree that sex can be a beautifull thing" but then I'd be pretentious as I'm male and it has a certain view of sex. Point I was going to make is that it's good to recognize that sexuality is not something women are point-blank against. It's very diplomatically put now, which makes it seem like an excuse a bit more than I think is healthy. Something there.

I am not insensitive to the problems of women etc. I even recognize that the thickness of skin is no matter, as it is worn down continously. But there is something about this article that just makes me feel like "Gosh, better not to have women in the office, imagine how offended they'd be all the time! Imagine the amount of self control I'd have to expect from everyone to make them comfortable. Better for them not to be there.". It's really very hard to nuance it properly.

I think I should take it point by point, it's hard otherwise.

+ Otheringness of common bonding over attraction - this is not actually specific, is it? Group A sharing an experience that group B does not experience will not cause bonding in any measure. Irrelevant of the experience. I think the manner of discussing it makes a big difference, and so does the assertiveness of the woman in the scene. I had at one point turned the such a conversation to the women present, they could not pinpoint what about men attracted them. Regardless I do not think that experience was othering to them. I don't get a lesson out of this bulletpoint, what can I do to improve the situation? Not talking about this specifically will not help in similar situations. Is it just a "Don't do this"? Is it a personal experience then? The footnote is that this happens even without sexualization, and it happens to men as well as women.

+ Sexual anti-female brutality. I think this is crystal clear. It is practically impossible to arm one's self against this, and exposing it is devestating. The set-up of this statement is plain wrong though. The writer seems to want to rationalize many women's inability to deal with sexual situations and indeed sexuality. It would be great to ask men to consider a woman's sexual past might have been bad (extremely so even), it's another to recommend abstinance and asexuality because someone might get offended. It's offensive, in fact, as it rationalizes a woman's sexism towards men and their sexual intensions always being to hurt. All those sexual offenses are commited by a vast minority of the men out there. Any decent person, worthy of being in an office with anyone, would NOT enter sexual experience with the intention of hurting the woman he wishes it with.

Please don't misunderstand. I understand where this bulletpoint came from. I know why it was written, and I know it is essential to do something about the problem it addresses. The problem is that you will never make most men understand the kind of pain woman could have gone through. You also solidify the fragile abused woman stigma. THAT alienates men too. I'm sorry to have to point this out in this way, but please try to understand the point I'm trying (and probably failing) to make. Woman have to command their own sexuality, not ask for mercy!

+ I hate the slut-shaming culture and I don't understand it. It's a vast mayority of the world, and it's even bigger amongst women than it is amongst men (who hardly ever take it fully seriously). It doesn't help that it works, either (eg: calling someone a slut hurts). Being unable to be a safe haven from this piece of rediculous human culture it is indeed the strongest reason on the list to simply avoid a sexualized environment. I don't see any way around this. Raising awareness of this issue is not something easily done without being (called!) a slut yourself.

Note that for guys being "perverted" is at least as stigmatizing, and as hard to wash off. Being genuinly called a pervert is much harder than genuinely being called a slut, so it is different.

+ Images are frequently illegal, actually. Given sexual harassement is illegal too, it's not true. Legal is irrelevant anyway. This is not "The feminist idea of sexual freedom" either, it cannot be claimed by feminism. It isn't limited to sexuality or even situations either. Free consent is good in each and every situation. This smells somewhat like crimestop, where you stop thinking or dealing with a bad thing before it ever happens. Not having offensive or inappropiate material around is obvious, and should be mentioned. But not like this.

+ This is a problem for fat, thin, muscular, short, tall, brown, white, redheaded, etc, etc, etc. You cannot boil this issue down and project it to women's cases only. It's not fair. Frankly, it's sexist. It is not addressable on it's own. It should be addressed for all these forms of uncertainty and ego destruction.83.87.143.161 19:00, April 23, 2014 (UTC)