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Notes -
A rule that stated that a woman who happened to be alone with a man (say because her car broke down and someone stopped to help, or because she was the only customer in a store run by a man) had no recourse if she was raped by him? I’m not aware of that being a common policy in most trad civilizations.
In any case, in the example in the OP, the woman arrived at Gaiman’s house having been hired by his (essentially) wife as a babysitter, only to find he was the only person in the house. I do not sympathize with her and don’t think he’s guilty of a crime, but her mere presence in his home ought hardly to have given him the right to rape her.
And yet monogamy exists and functions, at least mostly and in many cases for many years. Sexual instincts can be tamed by civilization, that is arguably the point. Civilization is about tempering and overcoming the biological imperative, almost any kind of savagery and barbarism can be justified by your logic here. ‘Dominant men’ succeed every day in remaining faithful, it is no impossible expectation to believe they can hold themselves back from fucking groupies. I have seen it done.
“Happened to be alone” is an exceptional case, not a normative case. So such an exceptional case is unique and would need to be considered uniquely. The rule in traditional societies, from what I recall reading, is that no one would believe a woman regarding rape if the woman by her own volition went off to meet a man. I’m not sure what’s up with the specific nanny allegations. According to Twitter the alleged texted him “I think you need to give me a huge spanking very soon. I'm fucking desperate for my master." So there is more to the story than “happened to be alone”. It certainly throws a wench into the allegations.
It only ever functioned when there were strict rules about gender mingling. That’s my point. Does it function well today? I don’t know, divorce stats don’t look good. I know that kings were quite promiscuous in European history, because they had the power to override gender mingling rules.
Hard disagree. But it’s interesting that we may have found a key point of divergence. I think civilization is about orienting, redirecting, confining and filtering our instincts. This is probably not very Christian of me, but I do not actually believe that you can overcome the sexual urge except with limited Herculean cognitive effort. The monks had to keep themselves away from women, after all, and yet even Peter Abelard fell for Heloise. The monks would fast and rejoice in their self-control but really their low caloric intake reduce the sexual drive.
Gates, Musk, Bezos, Trump… I really don’t know. I think the ones who succeed are the ones who eschew any context where temptation may arise.
Too great to ignore, lol
I'm glad you pointed it out; I might had missed it otherwise.
That could be the greatest pun or Freudian slip I've ever seen.
We had “esprit de corpse” crop up here some time ago.
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