Well by now I think I do have a decent grasp of it. I didn't, I had some ideas, and then I almost immediately clamped into defensive mode when people started saying all sorts of things about how my presentation of my lack of understanding was disrespectful or that my explanations and clarifications about the initial…

Ryo just makes me think of Shenmue.

I think what's being said is that gender neutral language lets the reader fill in the blanks, and so some people will walk away filling in those blanks as 100% man-on-woman-violation.

Sorry. I got into the back and forths, and I got kinda defensive because some people are or were trying to make me out to be a terrible person - I had to dismiss one comment! - and it's easy to have a person or two get lost and un-replied-to in the kerfluffle.

The first half of this post doesn't make any sense to me. You're saying that, feelings aside, we want to look at objective harm. Okay. Then you say that theft of a small object doesn't cause objective harm because it's a negligible amount. Negligible harm is not the same thing as zero harm!

Let me just stop you right there.

I was trying to define harm based on feeling because I can't find any objective harm in having your butt grabbed for half a second. You've lost no time or possessions and your body has taken no damage. And you're still doing that thing I was talking about. "Unwelcomed touching is harmful in its own right."

Ah, okay. That makes sense. That's an approach that I not only hadn't thought of, but demonstrably didn't even understand as it was being suggested.

Okay?

Not to poke the hornet's nest too hard, but what's with the nigh-daily Reddit front page posts that slide over here?

I don't know. I can't know. I would say that probably anything that either causes physical pain/discomfort or lasts longer than half a second would probably bother me.

It is sorta like that, but there everybody can see the difference easily.

The simple fact that you're actually willing to step back and say you were wrong after we've already gotten to this point says enough.

If I were being dismissive, I'd ignore you or actually use that "dismiss" button. I probably should at this point, because clearly you're not going to change your mind on how much of an asshole you think I am.

My first post said that I experienced a thing, and didn't feel the same thing others feel when experiencing the same thing. I then listed some thoughts about why that might be the case. Go read the first post again. That is exactly what I did.

I guess I see what they were trying to do. Y'know, if you were being mugged by someone and they told you you could have your phone and wallet back if they could just stab you two or three times, I guess technically you could "choose" to get stabbed and the headline could read that you "let" yourself get stabbed.

There are some things I understand and believe.

Verbalizing those assumptions in a space controlled and moderated by the marginalized group and expecting feedback isn't okay? It has to be specifically structured as a question?

I do take at face value that it's harmful. I don't assert that it's "no problem".

I did imagine that as an explanation. In the first bullet point in the first post.