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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   35038 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of March 6, 2023

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I feel some sympathy for OP that he's so clueless and has had so little experience or advice that he thought "Hi, we've had some positive interactions in class so... wanna fuck?" would be an acceptable approach.

But my sympathy is limited - unless he's literally impaired (i.e., autism spectrum, and even then, most folks on the spectrum are able to learn some baseline rules, particularly when it comes to asking people for sex), this was just unbelievably stupid.

I've seen a number of posters suggest that he was done in by bad/disingenuous feminist dating advice, implying that women will tell men "Yes, we like to fuck just as much as you do!" and that means you can approach a woman for sex the same way you wish a woman would approach you for sex. But I don't recall ever seeing dating advice, even from feminists, suggesting that any woman wants a proposition like "How about being my no-strings-attached fuck buddy?" That's a relationship that usually develops from mutual attraction and having hung out together enough that clearly there are some sparks, but neither one (claims) to want a "relationship."

(Do I think "FWB" is generally a stable kind of relationship? No, and I believe that very few women really want to be someone's FWB, it's something they settle for while trying to secure a real commitment.)

So this poor guy wasn't ill-intentioned, but he made an absolutely horrible social blunder, one that anyone, man or woman, could have told him was a blunder, and unfortunately he's suffering the effects people usually do when committing a massive faux pas. It sounds like the consequences for him are that she's told all her friends (and realistically, would you expect her not to?) and he's probably sunk what dating prospects he had at that school. This is sad, but unless this becomes a story of him being charged with actual sexual harassment and academically punished (which I'll grant is certainly within the realm of possibility), I don't think he's suffering more than you'd expect. He fucked up, and fucking up has consequences.

I think he fucked up. But let me say this.

If your social media...and hell...maybe your social experience tells you that FwB relationships are very normal, maybe in that case you think that maybe that's LESS intrusive than asking someone out on a date. I can easily see how someone would think this. Again, I still think that's bad advice, and a dumb thing to do.

(I'll be honest, I don't understand how anybody can ever ask anybody out on a date, but that's just me)

Yeah that's exactly it I think. The OP redditor's main mistake was being under the impression that FwB is a normal thing in modern dating, and that it's the casual next-step after flirty friendship (before taking the much bigger step of committing to a real monogamous relationship). There's almost no way this guy internalized that the mythical social media 'FwB' status was a prize final destination that he was just entitled to waltz right into.

So that's why summing it up as the guy 'essentially' asking "hey, wanna fuck?" / "Hey, wanna be my fuck buddy?" like many are doing here is a borderline strawman. With really minimal charity, it looks like confusion about the modern landscape way more than crassness. He likely already knew he was in trouble when she said "what's that?" and found himself trying to explain it.

If your social media...and hell...maybe your social experience tells you that FwB relationships are very normal, maybe in that case you think that maybe that's LESS intrusive than asking someone out on a date. I can easily see how someone would think this. Again, I still think that's bad advice, and a dumb thing to do.

Yes, I think it's very easy to get the impression FwB relationships are common and normal from the media too. Not just social media. And maybe for some groups of people outside of my filter bubble they are. But OP fucked up by jumping in without understanding the dynamics by which these relationships happen. The name isn't helping: FwB implies it is an "upgraded" friendship (friendship + sex), whereas to my understanding they're more "downgraded" dating (dating - romance and commitment). While the difference between those two definitions seems academical as the resulting status is pretty much the same, there is a meaningful difference in that it changes completely the direction you approach them from.

While the difference between those two definitions seems academical as the resulting status is pretty much the same, there is a meaningful difference in that it changes completely the direction you approach them from.

I think this is correct. That said, I understand why somebody might not be aware of that distinction.

But I don't recall ever seeing dating advice, even from feminists, suggesting that any woman wants a proposition like "How about being my no-strings-attached fuck buddy?"

Not directly, and certainly not specifically about that topic. But there is quite a bit of "always be honest about what you want" messaging out there that, on the surface, seemingly points in that direction. Which does indeed seem disingenuous, because following that advice will rarely if ever work out well for the kind of guys who need dating advice in the first place. I don't really believe that "shit tests" are something anyone does in a conscious, deliberate way, but advice like that makes it easy to see why some people find it tempting to believe in them.

There's a difference between being honest and being honest. You talk to said friend and say you've built an attraction to them, and wonder if they're up for exploring things further. You don't walk up an basically say, "want to be friends with benefits" with no lead up.

Now, before you respond, yes, if you were 6' 4" and ripped, you could maybe do that. But even then, that guy could easily crash 'n' burn with an approach like that. Especially in a situation where that isn't expected. Yes, at a club in Vegas you can try for the direct approach, but not at what seems like outside of a study session at a school library.

say you've built an attraction to them, and wonder if they're up for exploring things further. You don't walk up an basically say, "want to be friends with benefits" with no lead up.

The difference here is one of suaveness, not honesty.

There's a lot of advice out there that says, literally, just treat women like people/your guy friends.

So consider: doing something like he did in the gay community would be on the awkward side, but it would still have some chance of success and certainly wouldn't get him buried under accusations of being a would-be rapist. He's just stating he wants something, directly and honestly, and men are told to do just that with the expectation that the worst that can happen is rejection, and nothing bad will happen if you take that rejection in stride. Not the case. His mistake was treating his friend like someone who has agency to accept or turn down a reasonable proposition and move on with life.

Men have to navigate a whole lot of unstated norms and rules when it comes to dating, and those don't come embedded in our heads at birth: it takes learning and trial and error to discover them. (For some of us, clearly a lot more trial and error.) Many women don't like to acknowledge this ("it's easy for the average man to have casual sex, you just have to ask!"), and so when a learning example comes up, they want to attribute malice or evil intent to the rule violator.

It's also worth considering things with the genders flipped: a woman approaches a man in her study group and says she wants to have sex with him, he rejects her, and he then warns everyone in all their shared social circles that she's a desperate slut. It's unlikely that Reddit would pile on and say norm violator is a would-be rapist.

The social response in the original scenario is to be expected, although it's probably miscalibrated: if men are to learn the rules through trial and error, then they need to be granted the space for low stakes, non-harmful trial and error.

Many women don't like to acknowledge this ("it's easy for the average man to have casual sex, you just have to ask!")

I can't say I've ever heard a woman say that, but if someone does I think that most people (even other women) would laugh at it as remarkably naive. All the women I've ever encountered know damn well (and will acknowledge) that it's easy for them to get casual sex and hard for men to do so.

Just my personal experience, but I haven't experienced the same thing you have. Generally, I've seen a lot of women indicating both that is easy for men to get casual sex, and also women who indicate that it's not super easy for women to do that. Just my 2 cents.

And I can't recall exactly the articles, but I remember seeing a few articles back in like 2018 decrying how put upon women were by dating apps like tinder, and how men there are having tons of string free sex, and stringing along the women, taking advantage of them, and how devastating this is to women and how hard it is for them. Anyone in real life knows how much easier it is for women on tinder than 99% of men.

Generally, I've seen a lot of women indicating both that is easy for men to get casual sex, and also women who indicate that it's not super easy for women to do that.

If they genuinely think that it's because they're comparing themselves only to the top few percent of men - the ones they'd actually consider for casual sex, that bar being far higher for most women than most men. At least in that context, virtually all men outside those few percent are invisible to them. It may literally not cross their minds (again, in that context) that other men besides those few percent exist.

but I remember seeing a few articles back in like 2018 decrying how put upon women were by dating apps like tinder, and how men there are having tons of string free sex, and stringing along the women, taking advantage of them, and how devastating this is to women and how hard it is for them. Anyone in real life knows how much easier it is for women on tinder than 99% of men.

Yes, I remember the most infamous one: Tinder and the Dating Apocalypse by Nancy Jo Sales, who I remember mainly cause I hate a lot of stuff she wrote.

But I do recall her getting pushback from journalists who did actually cite the dropping sex rate as a counter to the anecdotes in her article.

It's an effect of online dating - a women can see and match with a lot of men, but those men will disproportionately be from the small group of popular men who can easily have casual sex. Hence the woman can imagine that it's easy for men (she's met a lot of men who are doing it, and many of them did her) while women have it hard (she doesn't like her own results and wants to be treated better). I'm not sure how common this belief is, but I recognize it.

Your second paragraph makes perfect sense to me, but I think it's important to bear in mind that women aren't (in my experience) complaining about casual sex there. Rather, what women complain they find difficult is how hard it is to find a stable relationship. It's easy for them to find someone to have sex with, but harder to find a boyfriend. Which is why in the articles you mentioned, those women are complaining about Tinder and getting strung along by men trying to have no-strings sex. They aren't after sex (which, idk why you're on Tinder if you aren't because that's explicitly the point of Tinder), they're after a boyfriend and are upset it's hard to get one.

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I have more sympathy than this, because while I am very aware of how weird it would be to ask a female friend to have sex with me, I am also very shy and have remained single for many years because everything that might lead to any kind of romantic relationship seemed very weird and overly forward to me at first until I forced myself to do it, with my heart beating out of my chest and every instinct telling me not to.

Because of this, the first time I had sex as an adult was at 25 and I had my first serious girlfriend, who I met online, at 28. The only relationship I've had with someone I met in person started when I was 31. So while I always have a strong reaction to these stories where I think the guy was obviously doing something really weird, I also recognize that I am really bad with women and that I really should be doing a lot more things that feel wrong to me. So who am I to judge people who make these mistakes? At least they're trying.

The thing is, no one ever sits you down and tells you how dating works. Almost everything I know comes from TV, the internet, and experience, and experience is really the most important one that allows you to figure out what from the first two sources is bullshit and what is not.

That's a relationship that usually develops from mutual attraction and having hung out together enough that clearly there are some sparks, but neither one (claims) to want a "relationship."

It sounds like he thought that's what happened.

So this poor guy wasn't ill-intentioned, but he made an absolutely horrible social blunder, one that anyone, man or woman, could have told him was a blunder, and unfortunately he's suffering the effects people usually do when committing a massive faux pas.

And this is probably where my evolved instinct to never take any risks comes from. But I had to force myself to overcome those instincts and when I started trying to date, I made some mistakes which may have resulted in my ostracization from a group of friends in my late twenties, which was very difficult, especially since it happened right before covid. Finding the right level of risk aversion to maximize social success is very difficult when you are fundamentally just not good with people. It's not enough to recognize what you shouldn't do. You also need to be able to recognize what you should do. Telling the difference is the hard part.

I empathize with this more than you might think, and I agree that the poor OP probably did misread the signals he thought she was sending.

I hope his life and future dating prospects are not destroyed by this, but he suffered a painful (and appropriate) lesson which hopefully will be a learning experience for him.

If real I dont think transferring schools to reset his reputation will be a bad call given a fair number of people meet their partners in college and given how retarded he is, he should probably optimize for that.

Even just approaching someone for sex in a FWB situation, as I understand it, requires that you be friends and have hung out and done things together and that there is some attraction there, before you get to the sex.

I think the guy really hasn't any close friends to advise him so is taking cues off social media, and went for the worst possible approach because he had no idea how it would come across.

There's also the whole problem of mixed signals; he interpreted "she is friendly to me in class and seems to have increased the intimacy level" as "she is flirting with me" and that may not have been the case. Even if that were the case, that is an invitation to treat, as they say, inviting him to up the intimacy level as well.

But that does not mean going straight from "lab partners" to "booty call". Ask her if she wanted to grab lunch together, or go get a coffee, or something easy at first. Depending how that goes, move on to asking for a date. Then broach the "wanna get physical?" question.

Not "I like you, wanna fuck? But on a casual basis, as a convenience to me and not that I'd be interested in a relationship" straight out of the gate. They didn't have the kind of friendship/existing relationship to get to the "I like you, you like me, we're mildly attracted to each other, want to have some fun sometimes?" step.

It's good he did have the courage to ask her out, however clumsily, and I hope he gets some friends to give him good advice and help him out.

Even just approaching someone for sex in a FWB situation, as I understand it, requires that you be friends and have hung out and done things together and that there is some attraction there, before you get to the sex.

Right-o. A central example of a friendship with benefits would be two people who are good friends, have high libido, have some sexual chemistry with each other, but have sufficiently incompatible personalities that they both don't want to become a couple. Then they can agree to help each other out when both of them are going through a dry spell.

"I like you, you like me, we're attracted to each other, want to have some fun?" is not a FwB, it's a fling. "Our time together is limited, when it's over we'll go our separate ways, so how about we don't take it seriously and just enjoy each other's company to the fullest?"

I've seen a number of posters suggest that he was done in by bad/disingenuous feminist dating advice, implying that women will tell men "Yes, we like to fuck just as much as you do!" and that means you can approach a woman for sex the same way you wish a woman would approach you for sex. But I don't recall ever seeing dating advice, even from feminists, suggesting that any woman wants a proposition like "How about being my no-strings-attached fuck buddy?"

I don't understand the reasoning in these 2 sentences. The latter - "How about being my no-strings-attached fuck buddy?" - is clearly just an instantiation of the former - "Yes, we like to fuck just as much as you do!" and that means you can approach a woman for sex the same way you wish a woman would approach you for sex. It'd be like telling someone that they can order anything from the menu and when they say they want the pizza that's on page 2, responding with "I don't recall ever telling you that you could order pizza."

You might be able to have anything on the menu, but you can't just order it. There is a ritual you have to go through that may end up with you eating what's on the menu if you pass.

Thing is: there wouldn't be rituals if he was making the rules - it'd probably be the stereotype of Grindr. So he projects that unto the woman since, y'know, they're allegedly just like him here.

Which just goes back to "believing that men and women are identical was the error".

I don't understand the reasoning in these 2 sentences. The latter - "How about being my no-strings-attached fuck buddy?" - is clearly just an instantiation of the former - "Yes, we like to fuck just as much as you do!"

"We like to fuck" does not mean "We like fucking without even an implied relationship or commitment."

There may be some women who like the latter, but the former does not imply the latter.

It'd be like telling someone that they can order anything from the menu and when they say they want the pizza that's on page 2, responding with "I don't recall ever telling you that you could order pizza."

No, it would be like saying "I like making pizza" and someone concluding that means "I can randomly ask you to make me a pizza."

No, it would be like saying "I like making pizza" and someone concluding that means "I can randomly ask you to make me a pizza."

It's a strained analogy:

  • everyone's taught the polite lie that it's "baking a pizza together", not "you bake, and I eat"

  • there's a whole spectrum of propositions asking for casual sex maps onto, from "hey, would you be my on-call pizzaiolo?" to "hey, could I have a slice of your pizza the next time you feel like baking one?"

No, it would be like saying "I like making pizza" and someone concluding that means "I can randomly ask you to make me a pizza."

I feel like that argument undermines your point. It's totally normal if someone says "I like making pizza" to hit them up and be like "hey would you make me a pizza?".

It varies. I have friends who are chefs who kind of hate it when people expect them to cook at parties, at times they question whether they were invited just to cook. On the other hand if someone became friends with me just to listen to me rant about shit I don't know enough about, I'd be flattered.

Personally I'd consider it kind of rude to ask someone to make me a pizza just because they said they like making pizzas, so interpreting someone saying they like sex as meaning they are DTF with anyone who asks is just deeply weird to me.

I think that @ThenElection picked up on an important nuance I missed. Asking someone to have sex with you isn't like asking "make me a pizza", it's like asking "let's make pizza together sometime". Which is 100% acceptable to ask someone.

deleted

Well, there's a twee expression "a bun in the oven", which usually is the result of making pizza together.

Be rude or stay hungry.

Those are not the only options.

Cannibalism is never aceptable Amadan.

I'd kind of be miffed by "hey would you make me a pizza," though I wouldn't make it a federal case.

Here, though, the question is more analogous to "hey, want to make a pizza together sometime?" Which is entirely reasonable.

"We like to fuck" does not mean "We like fucking without even an implied relationship or commitment."

But that's not the message being discussed here. The message being discussed here is, "Yes, we like to fuck just as much as you do!" Which absolutely means "without even an implied relationship or commitment" (beyond the FWB relationship in this case).

No, it would be like saying "I like making pizza" and someone concluding that means "I can randomly ask you to make me a pizza."

The analogy here is quite different from the menu one, but I can engage with it. If the message "Yes, we like to fuck just as much as you do!" is analogous to "I like making pizza," then the analogous behavior to asking someone to be fuckbuddies would be more like "hey, want to make some pizza together?" Which would be a perfectly reasonable thing to ask someone in your friend group if you know that they like making pizza, especially if you also like making pizza. The whole thing about being fuckbuddies is that it's cooperative, not that one party is being demanded to serve the other person on a whim.

I think our disagreement is that you think the explicit message is "We like to fuck just as much as you do" and that implies "We have exactly the same attitudes towards sex and relationships that you do."

I can see how a socially obtuse person could infer the second statement from the first, but this goes back to the need to help socially obtuse people navigate social messaging that usually communicates things beyond the surface level.

  • -10

I think our disagreement is that you think the explicit message is "We like to fuck just as much as you do" and that implies "We have exactly the same attitudes towards sex and relationships that you do."

That is the message people - including some feminists - have gotten.

There's been a recent push for post-Sexual Revolution feminist philosophy for laymen and, from what I've heard from Louise Perry, that is one of the major bones of contention. That a lot of the messaging was basically that: "anything you can do we can do as well, or better"

From a review of her book (which matches what I've heard from her):

Well, not quite everything, as the author herself understands. True, women understandably celebrated their new freedom from unwanted pregnancy and successfully created a culture in which the traditional double standard seemed like the absurd relic of an oppressive age. Yet, over the ensuing decades, as sexual taboos melted away, women found themselves marching to the beat of another set of equally ill-suited norms. These norms largely aligned with the preferences of those high in sociosexuality, which generally means men, writes Perry. The idea was to be able to “have sex like a man,” in Sex and the City’s memorable phrase—purely for fun, without any messy emotions or attachments. Perry catalogues magazine and web articles explaining how to avoid “catching feelings” after a hook up, examples of women who can’t quite explain why they’re unhappy in a friends-with-benefits “pseudo-relationship,” and porn showing women “begging men for painful or degrading sex acts.” The cool kids, goes the message, should be comfortable with any and everything purported to bring sexual pleasure: oral, anal, polyamory, threesomes, BDSM, breath play (i.e., choking). The only limiting factor, the only moral imperative really, is consent from both parties.

https://www.city-journal.org/review-of-the-case-against-the-sexual-revolution

So, even for some feminists, the message was not necessarily that nuanced IRL.

I think our disagreement is that you think the explicit message is "We like to fuck just as much as you do" and that implies "We have exactly the same attitudes towards sex and relationships that you do."

I don't think this quite gets at the heart of it. It's not that "exactly the same attitudes" are implied, but certainly SOME sort of attitude is. Because the concept of "liking" something comes with it certain attitudes. If you like pizza so much that you'd eat it even if you're so full as to throw up or accompanied with chocolate cake or if the pizza is cold, and you're told that someone else likes pizza as much as you do, you'd reasonably be surprised if they only wanted fresh pizza from a specific restaurant and when they're hungry. Even if they clearly got just as much enjoyment out of that pizza as you did and would move heaven and Earth to get to that restaurant for that delicious, delicious pizza. That's not someone who meaningfully likes pizza as much as you do.

I can see how a socially obtuse person could infer the second statement from the first, but this goes back to the need to help socially obtuse people navigate social messaging that usually communicates things beyond the surface level.

Yes, this I agree with, and I think we can say that the types of feminist messaging about which we're talking is for the benefit of the socially apt at the cost of the socially obtuse. Perhaps all social messaging is like this to a large extent, though some are probably better than others at elegantly handling its predictable failure modes.

The latter - "How about being my no-strings-attached fuck buddy?" - is clearly just an instantiation of the former - "Yes, we like to fuck just as much as you do!" and that means you can approach a woman for sex the same way you wish a woman would approach you for sex.

Or, you know, the way gay dudes approach sex. Because it very very very much is exactly like that between us.

I don't recall ever seeing dating advice, even from feminists, suggesting that any woman wants a proposition like "How about being my no-strings-attached fuck buddy?"

I did a quick Google search for the phrase "Women want sex as much as men". On the first page I came across this article titled Science Proves Once and For All That Women Want Sex Just As Much As Men Do. Now, this article is not framed as dating advice, but it is the kind of thing a naïve young man trying to understand female sexuality might stumble across. Here are some choice quotes our young hero might focus on:

  • "Breaking news: Women like sex. Furthermore, we're pretty cool with having it outside of marriage and we're increasingly becoming more comfortable demanding it include (at least) an orgasm."

  • "according to a recent survey from the fertility awareness app Kindara, what they want is to get laid — not only at least as much as their male partners do, but actually more often."

  • "In terms of basic desire, though, most women want more sex than they're having. More than half of respondents said they weren't entirely satisfied with the amount of sex they currently have"

  • "As the journalist Daniel Bergner described in his seminal 2013 book, What Do Women Want? scientists have begun to uncover what could be "a new, unvarnished norm" for female sexuality, which could confirm that women's libidinousness is, "at base, nothing if not animal." All of that is to say, it's distinctly more similar to men's than was previously thought."

  • "A study released earlier this year, for instance, found women were as likely as men to be interested in casual sex — but only when there was no threat of sexual violence or of social judgment."

"Women were as likely as men to be interested in casual sex — but only when there was no threat of sexual violence or of social judgment," Hmm, I have an idea. I'll show her that I am trustworthy and nice and nonviolent by being totally honest with her what I want, and I'll show her that I won't socially judge her for having casual sex by acknowledging that FWBs are perfectly ok to have.

NO NO NO NO NO

You know why this is obviously wrong. I know why this is obviously wrong. It is not obvious from first principles why this is wrong. The reasons why it is wrong have to be learned. I would have expected someone 21 years old to have figured it out by now, but do also consider that he was 18 (the age I was when I finally put it all together) when Covid hit. He was locked down while he should have been experimenting.

You know why this is obviously wrong. I know why this is obviously wrong. It is not obvious from first principles why this is wrong. The reasons why it is wrong have to be learned.

Also, people vary dramatically in their exposure to information about how dating works. Some people have close knit groups of friends where it is a constant topic of conversation while others have rarely spoken about it with anyone.

Where is the quote from? It's not in the post you're replying to, nor either of the links it contains, nor the OP.

Fixed. It wasn't meant to be a quote. It was just something I wrote and then thought I deleted. I meant to quote something else. I should stop posting so much from my phone.

Ah, pity. I asked because I liked it and wanted to see it in the original context.

You know why this is obviously wrong. I know why this is obviously wrong. It is not obvious from first principles why this is wrong.

Yeah, feminists have certainly pushed the idea that women enjoy sex (as opposed to the traditional view that sex is something women grudgingly, reluctantly provide in exchange for commitment, and that women who actually like sex are sluts), but like all fraught social interactions, people have to learn how to actually navigate the territory. I feel sorry for the OP that no one ever taught him anything, but I still feel like even passively observing people and popular culture, you have to be pretty socially oblivious to reason from "Women like sex" to "Women like being propositioned for sex by their classmates without even being offered a date."

I feel sorry for the OP that no one ever taught him anything, but I still feel like even passively observing people and popular culture, you have to be pretty socially oblivious to reason from "Women like sex" to "Women like being propositioned for sex by their classmates without even being offered a date."

(emphasis added)

I think one of the big issues in this particular case is that the very same feminist messages we talk about also emphasize that things like pop culture and more generally just modern social norms are irredeemably drenched in patriarchy and thus shouldn't serve as things to learn from. It specifically pushes social obliviousness as the right thing to do; instead of learning how to socialize from observing and experimenting in one's culture, one must follow those aforementioned prescribed rules in order to behave in a truly just and equitable way, lest they be a horrible misogynist. Some people take these messages seriously.

It specifically pushes social obliviousness as the right thing to do;

"Don't believe your lying eyes... No! Not like that!"

Some people take these messages seriously.

This is certainly a problem. A lot of "not being socially oblivious" is figuring out which messages you should take at face value, and which ones you shouldn't.

Also understanding nuance, which a whole lot of people who seem to think the only options are "Yes, asking women to be your fuck buddy is totally appropriate" or "Let's go back to chaperones and all women are virgins or whores" do not seem willing to grapple with.

All he did was verbalize a reasonable request. If he’d made a physical move, it would have amounted to the same thing, except it might have worked. He gets shit for choosing the most innocuous option available, speech.

You serve him the ‘freedom of speech is not freedom from consequences’ hogwash. “This is sad”, indeed. Take responsibility for the punishment instead of delegating it to the passive machinery of consequences. People decided to punish him. Should he be punished for such a crime?

All he did was verbalize a reasonable request. If he’d made a physical move, it would have amounted to the same thing, except it might have worked.

The physical move would include incremental escalation and (likely) plausible deniability of the whole thing if there's no reciprocation. It wouldn't be the 0 to 100 approach taken in his verbalization.

That depends on "I want to fuck you" being seen as a reasonable request, with no "let's go on a date first" set up. While it does have the charm of brevity and directness, it's perhaps a bit too raw unless you're approaching a hooker.

The really sad part is that the guy does seem to have some, at least, romantic interest in the girl and isn't just going for "wanna hit hot chick". But the approach he took has pretty much cut off that possibility.

All he did was verbalize a reasonable request.

You think asking a female classmate "Hey, wanna be my fuck buddy?" is a reasonable request?

If he’d made a physical move, it would have amounted to the same thing, except it might have worked.

I'm not sure what you mean by "physical move" here. The only thing I can think of is pretty uncharitable - surely, you're not suggesting he should have just grabbed her?

You serve him the ‘freedom of speech is not freedom from consequences’ hogwash. “This is sad”, indeed.

You know, sometimes that's actually true. If I approach a woman and say "Hi, wanna fuck?" I am not breaking any laws, but I am certainly committing an egregious faux pas and should expect consequences for that.

People decided to punish him. Should he be punished for such a crime?

Yes. Not literally, since it's not literally a crime. But yes, if you fuck up socially, you get punished socially.

Do you think it should be socially acceptable for men to just straight up ask women for sex without fear of women finding that creepy?

You think asking a female classmate "Hey, wanna be my fuck buddy?" is a reasonable request?

Is it a reasonable request for gays and lesbians?

The only thing I can think of is pretty uncharitable - surely, you're not suggesting he should have just grabbed her?

No, I do not mean rape her over her screams, friend. Of course I mean officially approved infinitesimal physical escalation, like gradually maintaining eye contact for a femtosecond longer than usual, lightly blowing in her direction when she's not looking, sitting one hair closer to her, brushing against her clothed arm for a planck time, and so on, over the course of a lifetime. Or he could just try to kiss her.

Yes. Not literally, since it's not literally a crime. But yes, if you fuck up socially, you get punished socially.

Still too passive. We both know his judges will be women. Will you join them in shunning him (say, if you were both regulars at a sports club), or are you just passively accepting their judgment?

Do you think it should be socially acceptable for men to just straight up ask women for sex without fear of women finding that creepy?

Yeah, not worthy of punishment at all. I'd go further though. I think from a pro-social view it reflects well on his character, though not on his smarts and social skills (not that I think it's 'unbelievably stupid' either. What's with the hyperbole, jesus).

lightly blowing in her direction when she's not looking,

Wait, what? Is this a thing?

No. I confess that sentence has a bit of sarcasm in it, because when you get into the details of the 'escalate' strategy, every escalation no matter how minor can be framed as a violation.

edit: I tracked down the source .

Would not recommend...

Is it a reasonable request for gays and lesbians?

I don't know. Supposing it is, how would that make it reasonable for straight guys?

No, I do not mean rape her over her screams, friend. Of course I mean officially approved infinitesimal physical escalation, like gradually maintaining eye contact for a femtosecond longer than usual, lightly blowing in her direction when she's not looking, sitting one hair closer to her, brushing against her clothed arm for a planck time, and so on, over the course of a lifetime. Or he could just try to kiss her.

I suppose that could work, but that presumes some level of game which our OP clearly did not have in the first place.

Still too passive. We both know his judges will be women. Will you join them in shunning him (say, if you were both regulars at a sports club), or are you just passively accepting their judgment?

I wouldn't "shun" him, but I'd agree with them that that's creepy behavior and if he asked me, I'd tell him "What the hell were you thinking?"

Yeah, not worthy of punishment at all. I'd go further though. I think from a pro-social view it reflects well on his character, though not on his smarts and social skills (not that I think it's 'unbelievably stupid' either. What's with the hyperbole, jesus).

How about "believably stupid" then?

No, I don't think it reflects well on anyone's character to go around asking for no-strings-attached sex and expect that no one will react negatively to that.

I don't know. Supposing it is, how would that make it reasonable for straight guys?

The universality of the human condition, I guess. If I consider it unjustified to act a certain way in one situation, changing one minor parameter should not change my opinion. Take one's own experience: I find it difficult to think of an analoguous situation where I would react with such pettyness. Eg, if my male friend confesses he's gay and proposes to have sex with me, it's going to make the friendship weird for a while to say the least, but shunning him and telling everyone he's a piece of shit? Unjustified.

No, I would hope you'd be kinder than that to your friend, but you'd probably tell him "Dude, what the fuck?"

Random classmate you've been chatty with who suddenly asks if you'd like to be his fuck buddy? I would not blame you for telling him to back the hell off, or for telling your other friends what a weirdo he is. Is that different from "shunning him and telling everyone he's a piece of shit"? That's going to be largely a matter of perspective. Apparently you think this girl's only appropriate response was a polite "No thank you" and then pretend it never happened. I think you are putting an unreasonable expectation on her. She's not only supposed to not take offense, but also not mention it because it might be embarrassing to poor OP.

Why would I be softer on her than I would be on myself? Have you seen Dogville ? It toes the line to unwatchable arthouse crap, but the ending is cool.

From a higher vantage point, I don't view maintaining the current social order, where legible propositions and social awkwardness are harshly punished, as moral. Especially when there is no legitimate answer to his conundrum, according to its proponents. When me and the gang suggest the more viable way, physical escalation, it's also worthy of condemnation. That means to them his desires are immoral in themselves, and I won't accept that.

I haven't seen Dogville or even heard of it, so I don't get the reference, sorry.

From a higher vantage point, I don't view maintaining the current social order, where legible propositions and social awkwardness are harshly punished, as moral.

I think we disagree on what constitutes "punishment." Being laughed at is punishment. Being labeled a creep is punishment. Being shunned and made a pariah is punishment. Academic sanctions are punishment. Being charged with a crime is punishment. An awkward proposition will generally result in a "punishment" somewhere on that spectrum, and while we obviously agree that sanctions and charges are too severe, you apparently believe that anything worse than embarrassed giggling (and maybe even that) is too harsh.

When me and the gang suggest the more viable way, physical escalation, it's also worthy of condemnation. That means to them his desires are immoral in themselves, and I won't accept that.

Nonsense.

It would have been entirely appropriate for him to just ask her out, and I'd agree completely that the worst he should suffer for that is a potentially embarrassing rejection.

"I don't want to date her, I just want to fuck her" is certainly a desire you can have, but having a desire doesn't mean it needs to be socially acceptable to express it.

More comments

Eg, if my male friend confesses he's gay and proposes to have sex with me, it's going to make the friendship weird for a while to say the least, but shunning him and telling everyone he's a piece of shit? Unjustified.

Sure, because a straight guy being propositioned by gay friend is embarassing for both parties. Even if you shunned him you wouldn't want to tell anyone about it because doing so would harm you as much as him. The same doesn't apply with men and women.

Turning down gay sex doesn't harm you, you should absolutely let women you want to sleep with find out - an open invitation to have sex makes you more sexually desirable through peer pressure and fomo mechanics, even from a gay guy to a straight guy. You might take a hit to your status with guys, but not much of one these days.

I've heard from some women that a bi man or a straight man who has had sex with men is less attractive to them than one who hasn't had sex with men, all else being equal. Obviously the opposite tends not to be true for women who've had sex with women. A gay man propositioning you is obviously different from having sex with you, but I wonder if there would be some effect here in the same direction. I never delved deeply into why these women felt this way about men who had sex with men, so I have little clue on the underlying mechanism.

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You think asking a female classmate "Hey, wanna be my fuck buddy?" is a reasonable request?

I wouldn't think so, but according to this Aella Twitter poll (I know, I know, "Aella Twitter poll"), almost 30% of respondents have had sex with someone within an hour of meeting them. I'm not sure how much I believe that, or how biased the sample is, but empirically, ultra-casual sex does happen. How? I have no idea, but I presume whatever mechanism it happens by would seem unreasonable at first glance.

sex with someone within an hour of meeting them

Two ladders, fellow human being, two ladders. If the dude from the OP had spent only a single study session of intense flirting with the girl before propositioning her for sex, he would've gotten a different reply.

At an event based around any of these themes, it would probably be very easy to find someone to sleep with because that would be one of the main reasons for the event existing.

I've done this. Alcohol was involved. Incidentally, it wasn't that different from this situation because the girl asked me if I wanted to make out within seconds meeting her. Her best friend also asked me the same thing without our having even met. So there's some clustering of these behaviours in the social graph.

I'm skeptical of the sample being representative of the general college-age public, but setting that aside, I'd bet that nearly all of those are in settings that are much, much more likely to be expected locations for immediate propositions. That might range from literal sex clubs to drugged out raves to heavy drinking party bars, but it almost certainly isn't starting in libraries all that often.

You know, sometimes that's actually true. If I approach a woman and say "Hi, wanna fuck?" I am not breaking any laws, but I am certainly committing an egregious faux pas and should expect consequences for that.

Except when it works, which it does more than never. Which is what I assume fuckduck is getting at with the physical move - grabbing her and pulling her into a kiss has a better chance of working than awkwardly and earnestly try to express himself, because sexual dynamics are crazy.

Except when it works, which it does more than never. Which is what I assume fuckduck is getting at with the physical move - grabbing her and pulling her into a kiss has a better chance of working than awkwardly and earnestly try to express himself, because sexual dynamics are crazy.

If asking a classmate to fuck is a bad idea, I think it should be pretty obvious that just grabbing her and trying to kiss her is an even worse one.

If you are the sort of guy who can actually get away with that, you are not the socially awkward OP.

I've done this and gotten away with it and am very socially awkward. The context was different though because it was at a party. I've also had a girl do it to me in even more dramatic fashion.

Agreed, but the socially awkward op is too socially awkward to know that. That's where the tragedy lies imo.

If asking a classmate to fuck is a bad idea, I think it should be pretty obvious that just grabbing her and trying to kiss her is an even worse one.

Obvious and wrong. If she's actually attracted to you, the former is much worse than the latter, usually. Even if you don't get away with it, she'll likely be much less upset.

I'm surprised that there's a disagreement here; it seems obvious that you're right here, in that the kiss would be considered more overly aggressive/thirsty than creepy, and have less social censure placed on it. I'd expect even Reddit to have a more sympathetic response if the situation involved a kiss instead of the invitation.

At the same time, it seems equally obvious to me that in an ideal world an unwanted kiss should be considered much worse than an unwanted invitation to fuck. Words are words and can't violate anything, while physical actions can violate actual boundaries.

I think reddit might not, but that's because it's a super storm of purity spirals.

I'd be curious to know which approach in the workplace is more likely to get you fired: a spergy request for sum fuk or an unwanted kiss at a happy hour. I'd speculate that even there the kiss would be better received, though the guy would be an idiot either way.

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