I will talk about dynamics between men and women now. First story is about Twitch boob streamers. Second is about a sexual harassment complaint and prostitution. Third is about domestic violence. None of these sections feature very insightful or amazing analyses, but here we go.
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Twitch boob streamers are female streamers who stream on a video game streaming site called Twitch. Usually people play games live while a the audience interacts with the streamer. Some enterprising young women started streaming themselves doing various activities while being scantily clad. Essentially they are women who try to turn guys on so they can give them money.
The problem this causes is mostly Twitch's fault in my opinion. Twitch's TOS doesn't allow for sexual content, but they poorly enforce their terms. They can't seem to decide if they want to allow boobie streamers. This creates confusion, and people who are angry that somebody is profiting from breaking the rules of Twitch. While the line between a woman removing a few buttons on her shirt to get some more viewers and a booby streamer is blurred, there are extremes which Twitch still turns a blind eye to.
This is a problem of expectations. Nobody gets mad a cam girl in a porn site gets money. That's because it's allowed on the site and the entire point of the site. People get what they expect. I might like Big Macs, but if I go to a 3 Michelin starred place and get a Big Mac, I'm going to be pretty upset. It's not because the Big Mac is all of a sudden disgusting. It's because I didn't get what I was advertised. What does Twitch want to be about? Is it a gaming only site, or will it allow "IRL", whatever that means?
But also, I think a good chunk of the blowback is really from a bunch of horny men who are jealous some beautiful women get to get paid and coveted for being who they are. (To be fair, being beautiful all the time is actually kind of time consuming. This isn't as simple as printing money.) Some people are disgusted by women who appear sexually promiscuous. Harassing women for that is total bullshit. That should go without saying.
As a trans person I can really identify with the jealousy part though. There are a lot of men who never find women who really adore them and covet them like they might covet many women. As a trans woman, I'm never getting that treatment. To some extent I think women who are ugly can relate. (In general though, women find it much easier to get sex if they want it than men... unless you're a trans woman. That, and the whole issue with envy of women from trans people, makes the experience a little different.)
Booby streamers don't often say they are booby streamers. They like to play it off like they are getting viewers for their amazing personality or skills at a game. This dishonesty is to some extent Twitch's fault due to their TOS which is oddly enforced, but I'm sure some women use their sexuality to make money but don't want to be confronted with the fact that it makes them a porn actor. Similarly, women who exchange sex for plane tickets, fancy dinners, and a rich husband, might be prostitutes or 'wife for hires' don't want to acknowledge that that is who they are.
But there's nothing really wrong with that. Women should be allowed to profit off of their sexuality. It's unfair that a lot of people can't do that, but life isn't fair. Personally I find the idea of 'paid love' kind of dishonest and distasteful because I have idealistic views about romance and love, but if an arrangement works out between two people, then good for them.
This is a problem of expectations. Nobody gets mad a cam girl in a porn site gets money. That's because it's allowed on the site and the entire point of the site. People get what they expect. I might like Big Macs, but if I go to a 3 Michelin starred place and get a Big Mac, I'm going to be pretty upset. It's not because the Big Mac is all of a sudden disgusting. It's because I didn't get what I was advertised. What does Twitch want to be about? Is it a gaming only site, or will it allow "IRL", whatever that means?
But also, I think a good chunk of the blowback is really from a bunch of horny men who are jealous some beautiful women get to get paid and coveted for being who they are. (To be fair, being beautiful all the time is actually kind of time consuming. This isn't as simple as printing money.) Some people are disgusted by women who appear sexually promiscuous. Harassing women for that is total bullshit. That should go without saying.
As a trans person I can really identify with the jealousy part though. There are a lot of men who never find women who really adore them and covet them like they might covet many women. As a trans woman, I'm never getting that treatment. To some extent I think women who are ugly can relate. (In general though, women find it much easier to get sex if they want it than men... unless you're a trans woman. That, and the whole issue with envy of women from trans people, makes the experience a little different.)
Booby streamers don't often say they are booby streamers. They like to play it off like they are getting viewers for their amazing personality or skills at a game. This dishonesty is to some extent Twitch's fault due to their TOS which is oddly enforced, but I'm sure some women use their sexuality to make money but don't want to be confronted with the fact that it makes them a porn actor. Similarly, women who exchange sex for plane tickets, fancy dinners, and a rich husband, might be prostitutes or 'wife for hires' don't want to acknowledge that that is who they are.
But there's nothing really wrong with that. Women should be allowed to profit off of their sexuality. It's unfair that a lot of people can't do that, but life isn't fair. Personally I find the idea of 'paid love' kind of dishonest and distasteful because I have idealistic views about romance and love, but if an arrangement works out between two people, then good for them.
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A man offers initially to pay for tickets for a woman's trip to GDQ, which is a charity event where people who try to play games are quickly as possible try to raise donations for a charity. She would be staying over for free with him in his hotel room.
It's not entirely clear if there were clear terms struck, but it seems the agreement was she would at least be his cuddle buddy in bed to make it up to her. Eventually their exchanges got extremely sexual, with the woman talking about all kinds of sexual stuff. She said she will be his sex toy for the week.
On the first night he cuddled her. The guy claims he put his arms over her breasts, and she lifted her shirt up, and things escalated from there. We only have his side of the story, and parts of it at that. On the second day she slept on the floor. Eventually he kicked her our of his room, though he did pay for her flight home. The woman complained about sexual harassment to GDQ.
The woman herself is a shady person who tried to get into GDQ with an expired pass, receiving a 2 year ban. She tried to come back yet again this year. The man's ex-girlfriend posted screenshots showing him saying he's trying to get her busted. It is his ex though.
When it comes to intimacy between men/women especially, it becomes weird. Some people are hell-bent on blaming men or women for everything and calling things rape or sexual assault when it was barely anything. Some other people have very weird, anti-women perspectives on things. Context matters when judging behavior. (What's okay off work at a bar is not okay at work.) Young people make stupid mistakes together and often it ends up being he-said she-said. People interpret things differently, human memory is unreliable, and people often lie. It's sad. Consent is tricky. But I for one would be okay with explicit consent the first time... literally asking if they'd be okay with sex. It's considered socially awkward and for many people it kills the mood but I think it simplifies things. If authorities keep attacking men by default over every sexual mishap, it will increase resentment in men. It's really a case by case basis kind of thing. It's possible to host a family-friendly event that looks out for LGBT people and women while not attacking men. GDQ has banned the man indefinitely, though it's unclear if the investigation is ongoing, and GDQ has better information than we do.If a woman offers sex in exchange for the man paying for her accommodations and travel expenses to an event, she is literally a prostitute. Prostitution doesn't mean the prostitute is forced to have sex with her client. She gets to change her mind and walk out. But she doesn't get to take a guy's money and walk out without having sex with him. That's a scam. If the client refuses to let her go and insists on sex, that is sexual harassment.
The guy is stupid for thinking a girl's going to be willing to have sex over some plane tickets and not just hiring some cheap prostitute instead. The girl is stupid for agreeing to have sex with a man she's never met before, giving him all of her power in the situation knowingly, and not thinking to have an alternative ready in case the plane ticket deal falls through. I don't think it's fair to shit on the guy for being very lonely and wanting sex, just like I don't think it's really fair to shit on the girl for being willing to sell her body.
Do we believe the accuser by default? It's tricky. I don't know what the statistics are on false accusations, and maybe nobody knows. The crime of falsely accusing somebody of a crime on purpose ought to be as bad as the punishment for said crime, if not worse. But how do we know what happened if we weren't there? Having a long line of accusers certainly tips the scales, but in many cases it isn't like that. In the case of Kavanaugh, it was a job interview for which we had a very long line of competent judges. The Supreme Court justices serve for life. It's better to be safe than sorry in that case. His behavior during the hearings, from his lack of control of his emotions to his blatant dishonesty, demonstrate he was unfit for the office. (Lying under oath isn't just bad. It's illegal. He should be in jail right now.) In this case, I really don't know. I really depends on what happened in the hotel room on that day.
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There was another man vs woman incident in gaming, when a Twitch streamer slapped his wife off camera after the woman was very upset that he wouldn't drop his stream to eat dinner with his family. She threw various objects, most of which didn't get shown on camera. She was very persistent and very annoying. The man was apprehended by police, and I believe charged.
I'm not sure that a man should lose his family for a single slap. It doesn't make the slap okay. Throwing objects at your husband also isn't okay. To be fair, none of the objects sounded like it was very dangerous. There were no sounds of glass shattering or metal objects crashing through.
I wouldn't be surprised if the justice system was biased against men. People kept talking about how he 'beat the shit out of her'. If one slap counts as 'beating the shit' out of someone, maybe you've never played a video game or watched a violent movie in your entire life. If you got the shit beat out of you and you stop crying 3 seconds later and have the vitality to continue throwing random objects at somebody, then you weren't hit that hard. Does it make slapping people okay? No. But we shouldn't be so loose with out language. It's like the people who call everything 'sexual assault', trivializing actual cases of sexual assault.
Men are on average stronger than women. Not all men are stronger than women. For many years of my life I lived as a guy and most girls could beat me up if they really wanted to. People look at domestic violence from the lens of gender, not power. Even when men are stronger than women, they are not so exponentially stronger to the point where they are incapable of inflicting violence that hurts but doesn't injure. It's not like men are so strong, they helplessly destroy a woman by flicking their fingers or accidentally bumping into them.
Women are not mentally retarded. They are adults just like men. They should be subjected to the same standards for better and for worse.
Men are on average stronger than women. Not all men are stronger than women. For many years of my life I lived as a guy and most girls could beat me up if they really wanted to. People look at domestic violence from the lens of gender, not power. Even when men are stronger than women, they are not so exponentially stronger to the point where they are incapable of inflicting violence that hurts but doesn't injure. It's not like men are so strong, they helplessly destroy a woman by flicking their fingers or accidentally bumping into them.
Women are not mentally retarded. They are adults just like men. They should be subjected to the same standards for better and for worse.
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Does it really matter to me who was in the wrong in the specific cases I mentioned? No. I think it's useful to think about these situations and explore dynamics between men and women.
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