I misspoke (well...wrote) when I said it’s not possible to have healthy relationships in a traditional context, of course that happens all the time. It’s happened to me. I meant to refer more to society as a whole. I think we will always have a sexual assault problem so long as traditional gender roles are expected in…

Half of my family recently picked up and moved from Los Angeles to Atlanta recently because they could buy a decent sized home there for the cost of the tiny condo they had in LA.

I’m not so sure I’m ready to call DC “the South”, and certainly not Bmore for that matter. But I get that’s a bit of a semantics issue.

I agree. We do need to distinguish scenarios that might reasonably involve mis-communication and a lack of sexual chemistry with the deliberate dismissal of someones expressed desires and concerns. The latter is firmly in predator territory. 

Yeah, the fact that people have different preferences, limits, boundaries, and desires is exactly why communication is so important. Instead of working on assumptions, and the risk of mis-reading signals, communicate with one another!

And this is why I’m so skeptical about anything changing.

Because that’s not true and you’re talking about ages that humans have only been able to live up to naturally for about .000001% of human existence......

Around the same age and that’s exactly how would react to any of that. I only date women, but if anyone moved my hand or expressed any degree of discomfort, all sexual activity is done and we’re just chilling that night. Your desire never ever trumps theirs.

Why do we need to keep old time views on courtship anyway? Old time courtship IS part of patriarchal culture. So why are we, and women in particular, so determined to keep it?

If we’re going to have an honest conversation about this, let’s be honest about what people are actually taught. Not being a woman, I can’t really get into what women are taught, but I can talk about what men are taught.

“And it definitely seems that no one teaches men how to be considerate that you are in this confusing and stressful position.”

I think it’s all related to your last question. To me, the particular body parts to be conjoined are irrelevant, what matters is that both partners make an effort to agree on conjoining them, and conveying that mutually.

My mother has become more and more Christian as she’s aged. As part of an explanation of why I’m not religious I brought up the notion of how Christianity was used to defend slavery and racism.

I know for a fact that I’m a few of my friends’ “black friend”—were they to characterize me as such which I am 99% sure they wouldn’t (partly that’s trusting my friends whom I knew well enough and partly cuz I’m in DC where everyone is characterized by what they do/who they work for anyway).

My mistake, shoulda known...

Agreed. There are important conversations here about consent, about feeling pressured to go along, about feeling pressured to be sexually aggressive, about real actual communication between human beings dating, and other issues where we as human beings dating each other have roles and responsibilities and…

“to suggest that sticking your fingers down a woman’s throat on the first hookup is unexpected - please get out more.”

“Reporting on sexual violence and misconduct is an incredibly delicate undertaking that requires a working understanding about how best to do it.”

Totally. This and Star Light zone had my favorite Sonic soundtracks.

FUuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuccccccckkkkkkkkkkkkk