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[jim-jam bongs]

Well Kotaku probably deleted the article. There is actually an article about it on Everyday Feminism.

Maybe I'm just a few beers short of a case, but I still don't understand what any of this has to do with the topic.

 

[NoirVisage]

Flirting's fucking great, but if your idea of flirting includes the phrase 'I will kiss you on the vagina', you should do something else instead.

I find it hugely ironic that this chap would host a show called 'Dirty Talk Dating' if that's his idea of dirty talk. Sounds like a line I'd have dropped when I was 14.

I dropped it at 17, you would have beat me by 3 years.

 

[marrec]

This is a tough question. I don't know the answer. I think it's possible for some people to change. Other people are just assholes and always will be. And I have no idea who's who.

All I can do is speak for myself -- I found his behavior pretty gross and I have a difficult time relating to it as a "I'm not like that, I just slipped up and seemed to be like that" type of incident. This seemed to truly be how this dude rolls. There are a lot of websites to go to, and so I just wouldn't go to his. Other people can make up their own minds about that.

Again, I don't think WE do anything with him.

If you don't want to work with him anymore based on this (like me) then don't work with him.

I would say this though, I think we should be open to his redemption if he proves it legitimate.

 

[Steve Youngblood]

Well Kotaku probably deleted the article. There is actually an article about it on Everyday Feminism.

OK, let's take a step back. My initial entry into this discussion was in response to a post by Senor Kami that included the following.

Guys in the game industry should just consider any woman also in the games industry as off limits unless they approach you. Flirting to any degree will get you frontpage on Kotaku as a sexist/misogynist if it comes to light, let alone sending text request to perform cunnilingus.

Pay attention to what I bolded. In response, I offered this:

Is there some Kotaku article out there where some guy was outed as a misogynist for asking a female colleague if she wanted to grab a cup of coffee sometime?

Why are you linking me Kotaku articles vaguely related to feminism? I'm really not following what you're trying to accomplish here.

 

[Pastry]

I had a couple of girls do similar advances to me and even if I was not interested they kept texting me while I was at work. They stopped when I ignored them, and I didnt go around showing my cellphone and the texts to everybody around me to shame the girls. Now it's out in the open, so of course he will be shamed for it, just like the Amazing Atheist got shamed for the Bananagate story.

It will die down, people will make comment about it, and it will be in the back of everybody mind for a long time. But it's really not that bad. He flirted with a women by text, maybe thousands of miles away from her and she didnt show any sign of being uncomfortable or wanting to stop it. It's really not a crime or something that do not happen every single second everywhere.

This isn't flirting, at all. I would punch any of my friends and remove them from the situation if they said shit like this when we were out at a bar. It's just as wrong via text or FB.

 

[Rubius]

I think we need Jason to get in here and explain why his organisation is so dead-set on demonising men who think Vagina is a woman's name.

If we trust Snopes, and we do, there was a couple of people named Vagina but pronounced Va-GEE-na or Va-JAI-na.
Imagine if the women was really named Vagina, the guy wrote Virgina on the cup. It's as bad really.

 

[FloatingDivider]

I think this is really sad, specifically in a knowledge of biology sense. Besides the absolute lack of skill in human interaction that's on display here I take serious issue with the fact that a fully grown man is so clueless in regards to the amount of nerve endings on human genitalia. A clitoris is estimated to have roughly 8000 sensory nerve endings. This is a rough estimation and some women have more and some have less. Meanwhile the penis, or as I prefer to call it the royal wand of doom has around 4000, this is obviously a deficit that is larger than the purported 14 nerve difference this guy is indicating being present. So obviously any intended sensitivity he was planning would have been lacking. He would have tortured that woman and I don't take kindly to implied torture, waterboarding would have been kind in comparison to what this guy was planning.

Spoiler

J/K

Honestly she should have stopped talking to this D-Bag the second he dropped that first WTF worthy line. I don't feel like this represents any legitimate attempt to flirt and if it was it's still horribly inconsiderate. I'm also fairly sure 99% of men know better than this.

 

[Noray]

Moved from the bottom of the previous page -

To the question of what should be done about Josh:

He should be shamed, of course. His actions were shameful and now that they're public part of the reaction will be to have shame.

Should he be ostracized from Video Games(tm) for ever?

Absolutely not.

He could, given the proclivity of humans to forgive other humans, use this as a real turning point in his life. Make sure he really understands why what he said was wrong and how he can go about preventing stuff like this from happening in the future. It's a pretty simple road to redemption.

Step 1: Apologize (which he's done... in a ham-fisted way)

Step 2: Retreat from public life for a bit to educate yourself on what you did, why it was wrong, and what you can do to stop it from happening in the future.

Step 3: Emerge from your douchey cocoon and engage with people about the issue in a professional and reasonable way. Spread your newly gained knowledge to other people in the industry and promote a generally healthy and happy work environment for all people of all gender and race and nationality and religion.

The thing is, it's up to Josh now to change how we view him.

We aren't going to just sleep on it, wake up, and say 'Okay we've shamed him enough lets forgive him without any reason'.

I agree, but it's just as likely we'll have another Ryan Perez on our hands. A dude who said some dumb sexist shit one time, got a ton of crap for it, got fired, apologized, and instead of wising up, doubled down on being a 'devil's advocate' for issues relating to sexism and gender. ie. he's a massive troll who thinks he's smarter than everyone else.

For this reason, I think a witch hunt is ineffective. If and when he returns, he absolutely deserves a second chance if he shows true remorse. If you keep hounding a person for dumb shit they've done in the past, there's no way they're going to become a better person. But it needs to come from both sides.

 

[Rubius]

OK, let's take a step back. My initial entry into this discussion was in response to a post by Senor Kami that included the following.
Pay attention to what I bolded. In response, I offered this:
Why are you linking me Kotaku articles vaguely related to feminism? I'm really not following what you're trying to accomplish here.

I thought you wanted the article about the "is it okay to offer coffee to a girl",. That's what I got from your post. My first post was about articles that Kotaku did that were kind of silly, and a article about feminism, to show that I didnt find the actual article.

Then I posted the actual article, from an another website. I just woke up, but that make sense in my mind. Meh. Just trying to help you find the article you were looking for.

 

[Dark Octave]

I'm guessing [URL="http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/877458309/indie-statik]the people that funded the kickstarter for his entire website (indiestalk)[/URL] might not have if they knew this was the type of man they were giving their money to.

Well said alex.

Yeah, but has his brother ever died while he was drunk and trying to get a scoop...among other things?

Big difference, man. Big difference.

 

[Gabe3208]

Man reading that convo made me cringe.

 

[Featheredkitten]

I thought you wanted the article about the "is it okay to offer coffee to a girl",. That's what I got from your post. My first post was about articles that Kotaku did that were kind of silly, and a article about feminism, to show that I didnt find the actual article.

Then I posted the actual article, from an another website. I just woke up, but that make sense in my mind. Meh. Just trying to help you find the article you were looking for.

But the article you posted is about how to flirt and respect other people, there is exactly ONE mention of coffee in the whole article.

 

[Steve Youngblood]

I thought you wanted the article about the "is it okay to offer coffee to a girl",. That's what I got from your post. My first post was about articles that Kotaku did that were kind of silly, and a article about feminism, to show that I didnt find the actual article.

Then I posted the actual article, from an another website. I just woke up, but that make sense in my mind. Meh. Just trying to help you find the article you were looking for.

Just so we're perfectly clear, the question I asked was a rhetorical one. Without needing to look, I know that nobody has ever been outed (at least in such a public fashion so as to be front page news on a moderately trafficed website) as a misogynist for something as innocuous as asking a colleague out for a cup of coffee (which was just an example).

 

[jon bones]

christ that dude is such a creeper

 

[Violence Jack]

I feel sick just from reading that.....

 

[Prophet Steve]

But the article you posted is about how to flirt and respect other people, there is exactly ONE mention of coffee in the whole article.

What I get from is is that he thought that Steve Youngblood was genuinely searching for the article calling somebody sexist for asking someone for coffee.

And he proceeded to search for that article, which he assumed Kotaku had removed (it never existed in the first place) and figured that blog post was in response to the non-existent article.

 

[Featheredkitten]

What I get from is is that he thought that Steve Youngblood was genuinely searching for the article calling somebody sexist for asking someone for coffee.

And he proceeded to search for that article, which he assumed Kotaku had removed (it never existed in the first place) and figured that blog post was in response to the non-existent article.

Thank you Steve, I was genuinely confused.

 

[Prophet Steve]

Thank you Steve, I was genuinely confused.

Oh yes, me too for a long time.

 

[Rubius]

This isn't flirting, at all. I would punch any of my friends and remove them from the situation if they said shit like this when we were out at a bar. It's just as wrong via text or FB.

It is flirting. Aggressive and rough flirting that even Austin Power would say "woah", but it's still flirting. I got that kind of flirting from girls before, so I would assume that guys do it really often. She was on facebook, and could have easily blocked him away really. She's a women, she's not defenseless.

I mean, we have whole sketches about guys flirting on facebook Is the fact that he mention his vagina easily that weird and heavy? I would never do something like that, but in my mind it's really not like he stalked her, called her on her phone and kept harassing her after she said no. He flirted rough and she stayed neutral and smiling. He used bad judgement maybe, or he thought she liked it, I dont know.

 

[Cybit]

Even as someone who is firmly in the "be brutally honest and brutally blunt" at all times camp; I can't really hold fault with anything she did.

Please note that based on the timeline, she never really had a chance to respond to the crazy part at the end, as it came much later. I think she did a pretty good job of just blowing it off for the most part.

I do think there is a difference between someone saying "I wish she had been more forceful in her rejection" (Which is totally 20/20 hindsight, even based off the first conversation, you couldn't have reasonably expected the second part 6 hours later) and saying "it was her fault." Trying to conflate the two is making it black and white and ignoring the shades of gray. I am hoping no one legitimately thinks she did anything to warrant what happened. We are all in agreement on that part, right?

Now, that said, the issue then becomes "how do we stop demonizing women who are blunt and forceful?" Fix that, and you then potentially fix a whole host of miscommunication issues. (I have my own thoughts on that, but different time, different place)

 

[SmokyDave]

I think this is really sad, specifically in a knowledge of biology sense. Besides the absolute lack of skill in human interaction that's on display here I take serious issue with the fact that a fully grown man is so clueless in regards to the amount of nerve endings on human genitalia. A clitoris is estimated to have roughly 8000 sensory nerve endings. This is a rough estimation and some women have more and some have less. Meanwhile the penis, or as I prefer to call it the royal wand of doom has around 4000, this is obviously a deficit that is larger than the purported 14 nerve difference this guy is indicating being present.

My god you're making me so hot right now. I'm gonna go and read 50 Shades of Grey's Anatomy.

 

[studyguy]

I don't mind the idea of throwing in a few flirtatious comments. Some people generally come off as amorous to people they already know... whatever. Some of those comments made though, my god. A few less penis & vagina comments would have served him well... Should be a cautionary tale to keep that thirst in check.

 

[Deleted member 22576]

It is flirting. Aggressive and rough flirting that even Austin Power would say "woah", but it's still flirting

Don't be silly. The fact that we have hundreds of people here saying "ewwwww" is fact enough. Also, you can check the "I've had girls say this to me" bs at the door.

 

[Prophet Steve]

It is flirting. Aggressive and rough flirting that even Austin Power would say "woah", but it's still flirting. I got that kind of flirting from girls before, so I would assume that guys do it really often. She was on facebook, and could have easily blocked him away really. She's a women, she's not defenseless.

I mean, we have whole sketches about guys flirting on facebook Is the fact that he mention his vagina easily that weird and heavy? I would never do something like that, but in my mind it's really not like he stalked her, called her on her phone and kept harassing her after she said no. He flirted rough and she stayed neutral and smiling. He used bad judgement maybe, or he thought she liked it, I dont know.

Where for you is the border between flirting and sexual harassment? Because this should easily be over the line, no matter what you have experienced.

She did not stay neutral, ignoring behavior is not neutral. Not confronting him can be for many reasons. Some people just don't do that in awkward situations, maybe she did not want to make it worse, maybe she was afraid of what would happen professionally.

Even as someone who is firmly in the "be brutally honest and brutally blunt" at all times camp; I can't really hold fault with anything she did.

Please note that based on the timeline, she never really had a chance to respond to the crazy part at the end, as it came much later. I think she did a pretty good job of just blowing it off for the most part.

I do think there is a difference between someone saying "I wish she had been more forceful in her rejection" (Which is totally 20/20 hindsight, even based off the first conversation, you couldn't have reasonably expected the second part 6 hours later) and saying "it was her fault." Trying to conflate the two is making it black and white and ignoring the shades of gray. I am hoping no one legitimately thinks she did anything to warrant what happened. We are all in agreement on that part, right?

Now, that said, the issue then becomes "how do we stop demonizing women who are blunt and forceful?" Fix that, and you then potentially fix a whole host of miscommunication issues. (I have my own thoughts on that, but different time, different place)

You'd think nothing would warrant it, but then you have the tweet of Jaffe that says she gave a signal and you start to think some people might think differently.

 

[APF]

It is flirting. Aggressive and rough flirting that even Austin Power would say "woah", but it's still flirting. I got that kind of flirting from girls before, so I would assume that guys do it really often.

Wow, you must be really hot!!

 

[Featheredkitten]

Now, that said, the issue then becomes "how do we stop demonizing women who are blunt and forceful?" Fix that, and you then potentially fix a whole host of miscommunication issues. (I have my own thoughts on that, but different time, different place)

I'd rather support "how do we stop confusing politeness with flirtation" because it's at the point where a lot of women would rather be thought of as bitchy than take the chance of being friendly/polite.

Or both issues, both issues would be sweet.

 

[Interfectum]

It is flirting. Aggressive and rough flirting that even Austin Power would say "woah", but it's still flirting. I got that kind of flirting from girls before

Sure brah, sure...

 

[Featheredkitten]

Sure brah, sure...

That's just disgusting.

 

[NTIETS13A_Superiority]

Oh wow you're alive!

I agree it can be, but so few know how to do it naturally, especially in this age of people communicating behind computers, you can practically cut through the awkward vibes coming off some of them when they attempt to in person.

Women can be something else in internet. It is not subtle atall. I prefer flirting in rl. When you get the "yeah i like it too" flirt back, so subtle yet so awesome. I think people generally like flirting so we are just improving each others days.

on-topic: Hopefully people do not have to take this kind of bs much longer. Preferably atall.

 

[marrec]

That's just disgusting.

I know, Sunday's are the fucking worst.

Really though, that diatribe he spewed seems like some kind of parody rather than someone actually attempted to flirt with someone else.

 

[freenudemacusers]

That's just disgusting.

Someone out there might find it cute and disarming. Doesn't hurt to try amirite.

 

[Interfectum]

Jaffe tripling down with his bullshit on Twitter. I still fail to see what point he's trying to make other than wanting his reputation to go down with a sinking ship.

 

[Jobbs]

edit: double post, my bad

 

[Senor Kami]

OK, let's take a step back. My initial entry into this discussion was in response to a post by Senor Kami that included the following.

I can find you one where laughing at the word dongle with your friend gets you blasted publicly, labeled as a sexist/misogynist, and ultimately fired from your job all within 48 hours.

 

[luxarific]

It is flirting.

From someone she doesn't know personally? LOL no. (And even if she had met him before in person, LOL, no.)

 

[Jobbs]

It is flirting. Aggressive and rough flirting that even Austin Power would say "woah", but it's still flirting. I got that kind of flirting from girls before, so I would assume that guys do it really often. She was on facebook, and could have easily blocked him away really. She's a women, she's not defenseless.

That's flirting?

You guys realize that flirting is about mutual connection and subcommunication, right, and not nerve endings and cocks and vaginas and pussy eating and threats involving all of those things, right?

That was pure harrassment. They were talking in a professional capacity and he slung all that on her. You can't be serious.

And, enough with the "girls do this to me". Please. Seriously. Just stop it. Even if you're a drop dead dreamboat, a model, and girls are aggressively sexually harrassing you everywhere you go, (by the way, girls don't usually come on this way, even if you ARE a dreamboat) you should have enough intelligence not to make those claims on internet forums, because even if it's the extremely unlikely case that it's true, you still come off very poorly, to put it diplomatically.

 

[marrec]

I can find you one where laughing at the word dongle with your friend gets you blasted publicly, labeled as a sexist/misogynist, and ultimately fired from your job all within 48 hours.

Yep, she did end up getting fired for that.

 

[jon bones]

rubius do you read tucker max

 

[Nephtis]

It is flirting. Aggressive and rough flirting that even Austin Power would say "woah", but it's still flirting. I got that kind of flirting from girls before, so I would assume that guys do it really often. She was on facebook, and could have easily blocked him away really. She's a women, she's not defenseless.

I mean, we have whole sketches about guys flirting on facebook Is the fact that he mention his vagina easily that weird and heavy? I would never do something like that, but in my mind it's really not like he stalked her, called her on her phone and kept harassing her after she said no. He flirted rough and she stayed neutral and smiling. He used bad judgement maybe, or he thought she liked it, I dont know.

LOL, c'mon now. "How are you, pretty lady?" is flirting, "I will kiss you on the vagina" is stepping out of bounds though. I mean, if that's what some people would honestly consider flirting, they're pretty terrible at it. What he goes on to say -- and the insistence of it -- is what really creeps a person out. I mean, I think I can be forward in my approaches sometimes if I feel things are going well, but god damn, that shit made me cringe and I wanted to nope out of there quickly.

 

[Featheredkitten]

Jaffe tripling down with his bullshit on Twitter. I still fail to see what point he's trying to make other than wanting his reputation to go down with a sinking ship.

Yes I really should stop but...victim blaming it's a hard concept is it? I mean I personally think she handled the situation the best she could have, who knows what his reaction would have been if she expressed her discomfort. I mean, disgusting people do disgusting things when they don't get their way. Like things to your career, so...yea.

 

[Interfectum]

Someone that works with/for Jaffe needs to pull him away from Twitter asap.

 

[Cybit]

I'd rather support "how do we stop confusing politeness with flirtation" because it's at the point where a lot of women would rather be thought of as bitchy than take the chance of being friendly/polite.

Or both issues, both issues would be sweet.

Personally, I like women who are bitchy in the "I will stand up for myself" way; I think it's totally something that should be encouraged. (Not a fan of women who are bitchy in the "I'm going to use you" way, admittedly).

I'm curious as to whether you can globally do something like "stop confusing politeness with flirtation" though? A lot of my female friends are polite when not flirting, and polite when they are flirting...it seems impractical to try to get a universal set of "flirting rules".
Though I wonder if that's tied to the idea that someone aggressively flirting can be seen as desperate which then gets tied to all sorts of dumb negative connotations...(as a statistician, this ties into my overall beef with folks confusing correlation with causation. Desperate people are often aggressive. Not all aggressive people are desperate.)

Hence why I am a fan of not demonizing women who are brutally and bluntly honest - if they're not demonized, then maybe you don't put them in the situation of having to be polite and potentially getting misconstrued. This also stops the small minority of women (and even some men I've met) who deliberately use unclear signals to get what they want out of someone and claim plausible deniability afterward.

Curious to hear your thoughts on it - most of my female friends are jocks / not gamer types or in academia (which has its own set of ridiculousness); I don't have too terribly much perspective beyond that and a few super Type A (corporate climber) types I know.

 

[Featheredkitten]

Personally, I like women who are bitchy in the "I will stand up for myself" way; I think it's totally something that should be encouraged. (Not a fan of women who are bitchy in the "I'm going to use you" way, admittedly).

I'm curious as to whether you can globally do something like "stop confusing politeness with flirtation" though? A lot of my female friends are polite when not flirting, and polite when they are flirting...it seems impractical to try to get a universal set of "flirting rules".
Though I wonder if that's tied to the idea that someone aggressively flirting can be seen as desperate which then gets tied to all sorts of dumb negative connotations...(as a statistician, this ties into my overall beef with folks confusing correlation with causation. Desperate people are often aggressive. Not all aggressive people are desperate.)

Hence why I am a fan of not demonizing women who are brutally and bluntly honest - if they're not demonized, then maybe you don't put them in the situation of having to be polite and potentially getting misconstrued. This also stops the small minority of women (and even some men I've met) who deliberately use unclear signals to get what they want out of someone and claim plausible deniability afterward.

I mean in that way that saying "how are you doing today?" with a smile has put me into really awkward and uncomfortable positions. :/

Someone that works with/for Jaffe needs to pull him away from Twitter asap.

I'm sorry guys i had no idea that would happen.

 

[Steve Youngblood]

I can find you one where laughing at the word dongle with your friend gets you blasted publicly, labeled as a sexist/misogynist, and ultimately fired from your job all within 48 hours.

Is this in reference to the story where Adria Richards was fired as well for Tweeting that some men at a conference were making crude jokes during a presentation? If so, you needn't bother, as I'm not sure what you think that situation would have to do with the current conversation wherein I challenged your assertion that any flirtation at all will get you labeled as a misogynist.

 

[marrec]

Someone that works with/for Jaffe needs to pull him away from Twitter asap.

He literally just said on Twitter that the victim of rape can 'react to the situation better'.

Hooooly shit.

 

[Deleted member 22576]

He literally just said on Twitter that the victim of rape can 'react to the situation better'.

Hooooly shit.

OMG that guy needs to stop talking. We need an EMP.

 

[Rubius]

rubius do you read tucker max

Nope. Never read any of his stuff.
I'm gonna avoid this thread because obviously my opinion is not shared by the majority. He was out of line, yes. I wouldnt do something like this, even to a girlfriend. But yes, I did have 2-3 women do this kind of talk to me while I was working and not really interested, so that might be my problem for this story.

We all agree that he went too far with the sexual advances, I just dont think it's anywhere close to somebody harassing somebody over the phone, text or actually going to see her. A simple No or Stop, would have made him stop and I cant really see how she could have been in trouble professionally about him being mad at her.

Anyway, have a good discussion.

 

[Nephtis]

He literally just said on Twitter that the victim of rape can 'react to the situation better'.

Hooooly shit.

I think he's saying that it's always better to fight back and not just take it. The whole rape thing wasn't brought up by him though, c'mon. But I really think he should stop. Or make his arguments here because twitter is such a crap place to make any kind of statements for outside of "food was tasty!" or "hey guys, I'm releasing [product]".

 

[Interfectum]

https://twitter.com/davidscottjaffe

SAYING 'I AM EASY!' AROUND YOUR NECK- BUT once the rapist started (yuch) doing his terrible thing, here are ways I think you could have reacted to have made the situation better (i.e. use pepper spray vs. just hoping for the rape to stop,etc.)

I don't know what he is trying to accomplish publicly with this thought process.

 

[Featheredkitten]

I think he's saying that it's always better to fight back and not just take it. The whole rape thing wasn't brought up by him though, c'mon. But I really think he should stop. Or make his arguments here because twitter is such a crap place to make any kind of statements for outside of "food was tasty!" or "hey guys, I'm releasing [product]".

Well yea, but asking a traumatized woman why she didn't fight back when women are often threatened and/or terrified is, oh come on i shouldn't have to say this. I think we all know how inappropriate the journalist's comment's were and i think we all know what's wrong with Jafe's statements.


Edit: Too be honest I kinda expected him to say "I mean, next time you go out maybe dress a little less slutty." I was half sure that was coming, but am thankful it didn't.