I hate to be contrarian, because by the standards in most cultural spaces in the US I wholeheartedly agree with that statement, but I've traveled enough to know that there are exceptions to the exceptions people are taking with this material when you take culture differences into account. The majority of women in the majority of cultural spaces we on HN frequent of are saying it is assault. In those spaces and for those women it is. However this is not a universal truth.
I've lived abroad several times in different places and the behavior of women in certain culture actively promotes/encourages the behavior being promoted by this book. For example, I've lived in Rio de Janeiro (and several places in the US) and there in particular you are expected, by the women, to behave in the manner promoted by this book otherwise you simply won't meet women when going out to many night venues. Seriously, the nice guy approach will net you not one number in a nightclub/dance club in Rio, you actually have to "manhandle" women to enter into a conversation. I'm a decent looking guy and normally don't have too much difficulty meeting women, but when I was in Rio, my US-acceptable "passivity" relative to the culture norm in Rio, got me absolutely no where there. It was only when I forced myself to be physically assertive that women started responding well and flirting back and I started getting dates.
With this in mind, I honestly would not be surprised if the backlash we are seeing here is indicative of a cultural echo chamber that finds this behavior reprehensible that is also ignorant of of the existance of cultural spaces in the US where this behavior is not only acceptable but welcomed by women, and that this guide is geared towards men who frequent those cultural spaces. Examples of cultural spaces in the US where this behavior is expected by women are probably the same spaces that the cast of Jersey Shore and their real life analogues frequent. Watch this video of interviews with people on a certain beach on the Jersey shore and try to tell me that these assertive "mating practices" are not only acceptable but welcome: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5weU2olAl-E . What is unfortunate is that behavior that is acceptable in those spaces bleeds intquo the common cultural spaces where this is not acceptable behavior.
Anyways, I'm neither defending nor supporting this kickstarter, but merely saying that a lot of the people on their high horse need to realize the relativism of culture and that some things that may be wildly offensive to many women may actually be encouraged by certain subsets of women in certain cultural spaces. With this in mind, public outcry and censorship of material you may find objectional can sometimes suppress culture and you need to be aware of when you may be doing so.
I think Neil Gaiman's thoughts "Why defend freedom of icky speech" is particularly relevant here.
I personally would prefer that this speech be protected even if I don't agree with it, but that Kickstarter require that the author write a chapter on the importance of being discriminatory in practicing this behavior in cultural spaces where it is not acceptable and helping them identify women that don't welcome these advances in those cultural spaces where they may be acceptable.
The cultural acceptability and effectiveness of the asking for consent is incidental to the issue at stake.
I honestly find it shocking that so many people on HN are having such difficulty accepting the principal of expressly verbalized consent. Surely we can move on from the notion that men need to "be dominant" and "force her to rebuff your advances".
While a particular culture may call for certain shifts in attitude, that does not mean verbalized consent is not important.
>I think Neil Gaiman's thoughts "Why defend freedom of icky speech" is particularly relevant here.
I think a key distinction between the subject of Gaiman's thoughts and the material at hand is that "Above the Game" purports to offer advice applicable to real word scenarios. This advice, however, will, unquestionably, lead to sexual assault if followed (not in every case, but in some).
I would certainly find it dubious for the United States Government to condemn the book, but I feel that Kickstarter's stance is defensible from the position of not wanting to be associated with such dangerous and callous material.
"While a particular culture may call for certain shifts in
attitude, that does not mean verbalized consent is not
important."
Nor does it mean that verbalized consent is important or necessary. Not all human communication is verbal.
"but I feel that Kickstarter's stance is defensible from
the position of not wanting to be associated with such
dangerous and callous material."
Do you find the financial embargo of Wikileaks by Visa, Mastercard, Paypal and Amex to be acceptable?
With centralized electronic payments and centralized crowdfunding platforms we've lost the neutrality of money and that is a threat to a free and open society.
Good god this. Until these guys can explain why we must suddenly ignore a million years of hardwired non-verbal communication, their argument is completely moot.
when I was in Rio, my US-acceptable "passivity" relative to the culture norm in Rio, got me absolutely no where there. It was only when I forced myself to be physically assertive that women started responding well and flirting back and I started getting dates
This ability to read feedback and adapt to a cultural context is exactly what the guide should teach. I know you say you're not defending the Kickstarter, but you're criticizing criticism of it, so the exact content of what we're talking about is very relevant. If you take a look at what the guide says, you'll know this has nothing to do with an "echo chamber" and has everything to do with sexual assault.
Consider the audience of seduction guides. They wouldn't be reading explicit guidance on how to verbally and physically interact with women if they had any understanding of the boundaries and expectations in their own culture. They should be learning how to read feedback from women and how to map out the boundaries in their culture and in each individual interaction with a woman. Instead, the guide advocates specific ways of physically handling women to people who are not remotely capable of figuring out whether those actions are appropriate in context or whether they constitute sexual assault.
Even worse, the guide teaches them that their "nice" impulses, their desire to respect women and their fear of making them angry by being openly sexual, are sabotaging them and making them less attractive to women. This is often true, but it's horribly irresponsible to teach people to interact in physically assertive ways while also teaching them to distrust their inhibitions against sexual aggression. If your inhibitions against sexual aggression prevent you from touching a woman while you talk to her, then your inhibitions need to be recalibrated. However, you absolutely cannot physically interact with women unless you have some trustworthy sense of how to avoid unacceptable behavior.
In other words, what the readers are in desperate need of is a way to figure out when they're making small or large mistakes, and when they're actually doing well. This would liberate them to start learning by trial and error. Instead, the guide actually says that men are notoriously bad at reading women, and you should never let any "signs" hold you back from the proper course of "ALWAYS BE ESCALATING!" What level of "resistance" is explicit enough to pay attention to? (Seriously, this is from a section titled "IMPORTANT NOTE ON RESISTANCE.") "If she says 'STOP,' or 'GET AWAY FROM ME,' or shoves you away, you know she is not interested." It then gives you a line to memorize -- seriously, a line to memorize for this situation -- and says, "If a woman isn't comfortable, take a break and try again later. All that matters is that you continue to try to escalate physically until she makes it genuinely clear that it's not happening."
Because "STOP" and "GET AWAY FROM ME" don't mean it's genuinely not happening -- they just mean you should try again later. Is this really good advice to give people who in all likelihood are already not that great at figuring out when they're assaulting somebody?
The kicker: "From now on you must ASSUME that she is attracted to you and wants to be ravished." Ravish means rape. It only sounds nicer because it is associated with an indistinct, rose-tinted past when rape could be considered classy under the right circumstances. (It is also used as a metaphor for overwhelming emotion, but the key to that image is the experience of being carried away against one's will, and once again the usage comes from a time when the concept of rape wasn't so intrinsically offensive as it is now.)
"GET AWAY FROM ME" means try again later, and you have to assume every woman wants to be "ravished" by you. This is not ambiguous material; this is material that teaches a model of interaction in which sexual assault is a commonplace side effect.
I've lived abroad several times in different places and the behavior of women in certain culture actively promotes/encourages the behavior being promoted by this book. For example, I've lived in Rio de Janeiro (and several places in the US) and there in particular you are expected, by the women, to behave in the manner promoted by this book otherwise you simply won't meet women when going out to many night venues. Seriously, the nice guy approach will net you not one number in a nightclub/dance club in Rio, you actually have to "manhandle" women to enter into a conversation. I'm a decent looking guy and normally don't have too much difficulty meeting women, but when I was in Rio, my US-acceptable "passivity" relative to the culture norm in Rio, got me absolutely no where there. It was only when I forced myself to be physically assertive that women started responding well and flirting back and I started getting dates.
With this in mind, I honestly would not be surprised if the backlash we are seeing here is indicative of a cultural echo chamber that finds this behavior reprehensible that is also ignorant of of the existance of cultural spaces in the US where this behavior is not only acceptable but welcomed by women, and that this guide is geared towards men who frequent those cultural spaces. Examples of cultural spaces in the US where this behavior is expected by women are probably the same spaces that the cast of Jersey Shore and their real life analogues frequent. Watch this video of interviews with people on a certain beach on the Jersey shore and try to tell me that these assertive "mating practices" are not only acceptable but welcome: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5weU2olAl-E . What is unfortunate is that behavior that is acceptable in those spaces bleeds intquo the common cultural spaces where this is not acceptable behavior.
Anyways, I'm neither defending nor supporting this kickstarter, but merely saying that a lot of the people on their high horse need to realize the relativism of culture and that some things that may be wildly offensive to many women may actually be encouraged by certain subsets of women in certain cultural spaces. With this in mind, public outcry and censorship of material you may find objectional can sometimes suppress culture and you need to be aware of when you may be doing so.
I think Neil Gaiman's thoughts "Why defend freedom of icky speech" is particularly relevant here.
http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2008/12/why-defend-freedom-of-...
I personally would prefer that this speech be protected even if I don't agree with it, but that Kickstarter require that the author write a chapter on the importance of being discriminatory in practicing this behavior in cultural spaces where it is not acceptable and helping them identify women that don't welcome these advances in those cultural spaces where they may be acceptable.