
We were wrong - lukashed
http://www.kickstarter.com/blog/we-were-wrong
======
ebbv
Dear fellow HN dwellers,

If you read the writings of the Guide's author and do not recognize that it is
misogynistic and advocating sexual assault, you have a problem. That problem
is that you are mistaking sexual assault for "taking the first step."

You do not need to resort to pulling out your dick and forcibly placing the
woman's hand on it in order to "make a move." There's literally hundreds of
other things that aren't sexual assault that you could do before resorting to
that.

If you believe that's a reasonable "move" to make, then you not only have no
imagination, but your judgment of what's acceptable behavior is way, way off.
It doesn't matter if this is a woman who you're behind closed doors with for
the first time, that's not a normal, acceptable "move". That kind of thing is
for people already in an established, ongoing relationship with a solid
foundation of consent.

Without that consent, it is assault.

I strongly urge all of you who "do not see the problem" with the author's
writings to do more research into exactly what consent is, and what women (as
a whole, obviously it varies from individual to individual) see as acceptable,
expected behavior.

If women are loudly saying "This is assault.", you need to take them at their
word, because it is their judgment, it is their _consent_ that matters. Not
yours.

Sincerely,

A married, 34 year old HNer who is ashamed of this community right now.

EDIT:

I thought this was obvious but _I have already read all the comments in this
thread and all the "context" the excusers are providing._ If you think
pointing me to that again is refuting my points, then you didn't understand
what I wrote.

~~~
WA
Ask 100 women if they find it romantic to be kissed without being asked or if
they want to be asked first. I'm pretty sure the answer is: being kissed,
don't ask.

The author writes on reddit:

 _IMPORTANT NOTE ON RESISTANCE: If at any point a girl wants you to stop, she
will let you know. If she says "STOP," or "GET AWAY FROM ME," or shoves you
away, you know she is not interested. It happens. Stop escalating immediately
and say this line: "No problem. I don't want you to do anything you aren't
comfortable with." Memorize that line. It is your go-to when faced with
resistance. Say it genuinely, without presumption. All master seducers are
also masters at making women feel comfortable. You'll be no different. If a
woman isn't comfortable, take a break and try again later._

So I really don't see where this is assault by not asking first.

Thing is, if you try to kiss her and she doesn't want it, she'll turn away and
that's it.

~~~
king_jester
This is such a load of shit. There are so many circumstances in which someone
may feel powerless to say something or engage in a resistive act, or may be
physically incapable of doing so that the time. Rapists use the justification
of lack of "acceptable" resistive force all the time, there is no place for
this kind of comment.

~~~
tomp
There's a big difference between "resistive force" and saying no. Anyone can
say no, at least in situations in which both partners are of equal power. In
situations where one partner has greater power than the other, it's usually
illegal for them to be intimate anyways (teacher/student, employer/employee).
Also, if you, say, kiss someone without their explicit consent, I think it's
pretty obvious when they are not kissing you back/want to stop (actually, I
hope - never been in that situation, really, but at least I have lots of
passionate kisses as a benchmark).

~~~
king_jester
1) Power imbalance exists in general between men and women, in favor of men

2) Rapists and society at large often blame rape victims for not resisting
enough. Rapists do not have a problem with a lack of consent and relying on
victims to stop their own assault is completely unacceptable. The kickstarter
project in question advocated for physically violating actions to be
undertaken by would-be assaulters and put the burden of stopping assault on
victims and should this kind of thing should never be supported period.

~~~
tomp
2) Rapists don't care about Kickstarter banning a seduction manual; they
aren't seducing.

1) I don't think so; strength imbalance maybe, but not power imbalance. In
fact, when it comes to sex and intimate relationships, women are usually more
trained in socializing and have the upper hand in choosing a mate, and are
strongly favoured by the courts [1] and the police [2].

[1]: [http://voices.yahoo.com/presumed-fathers-act-man-pay-
child-s...](http://voices.yahoo.com/presumed-fathers-act-man-pay-child-
support-507695.html) [2]:
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LlFAd4YdQks](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LlFAd4YdQks)

~~~
hamax
Bot of your citations are totally irrelevant to the issue of power imbalance
in private settings.

~~~
tomp
Yes, they're only relevant in situations when other parties are called upon to
resolve a conflict that started in a private setting.

------
xauronx
Jesus, seems like an over reaction. Books and guides like this are nothing
new, and should be taken in context/used appropriately. A nerd in a club is
going to take this brash advice like:

"All the greatest seducers in history could not keep their hands off of women.
They aggressively escalated physically with every woman they were flirting
with. They began touching them immediately, kept great body language and eye
contact, and were shameless in their physicality."

And not go up and rape a woman, but perhaps take a chance and put their hand
on the girls shoulder during conversation to show interest, where they might
have otherwise oddly looked away from them. Also, there's a huge difference
between personal conduct in a night club and in a library.

Anyhow, I'm a nerd with a SO that has never drank and hates night clubs but
that's my take. Seems like any other topic and people would be crying free
speech and censorship. A guide like this isn't going to turn a normal man into
a rapist.

~~~
king_jester
> And not go up and rape a woman, but perhaps take a chance and put their hand
> on the girls shoulder during conversation to show interest, where they might
> have otherwise oddly looked away from them. Also, there's a huge difference
> between personal conduct in a night club and in a library.

Touching someone you don't know is a no-no and many people find that form of
contact (even in a night club) to be disturbing. Touching someone without
their permission is just something you shouldn't be doing.

~~~
rlt
Oh please, we're now comparing touching someone's shoulder in a night club
with sexual assault? If you don't want any contact at all with other human
beings you probably shouldn't be in a night club.

~~~
king_jester
There is a difference between accidental contact from being in public and
having someone intentionally do the kind of shit the kickstarter project was
advocating. Also, being at a night club is not an automatic invitation to
touch someone, saying so is implying that women deserve the unwanted contact
put upon them.

------
gilrain
I won't touch the issue of whether the action was right or wrong here on
Hacker News, but I think everyone has to admit that this is a brilliant
example of an apology done well.

They do not equivocate (the "sorry you were offended" apology) and they take
direct action to fix what their users felt was wrong (new policy made) as well
as somewhat atone for the original offense (donation to RAINN). It's also
written simply but very skillfully: zero weasel words or anything.

I happen to agree with the action taken, but bravo in any case for the
brilliant apology!

~~~
tomjen3
I don't see it as brilliant, I see it as a giant foot-in-mouth situation
(which may be colored by the fact that I don't have a problem with seduction
guides in general, and haven't seen the material in question) - until now
Kickstarter has been neutral on legal content so if I see something I don't
like, well too bad, but now there is a precedent for removing something
because somebody finds it offensive, but others like it; so now they either
have to issue an apology and retract the next offensive thing (say a t-shirt
commemorating the ban on assault weapons) or lose their stance as neutral.

If they had instead issued a non-apology-apology they would have been of the
hock.

~~~
bmelton
Agreed. The more dangerous precedent is that they are willing to cave to a
vocal group who may or may not be right. Without defending the material,
because I frankly can't, I am troubled to see Kickstarter imposing its own
value judgements on projects, and even worse than that, now subject themselves
to the value judgements of whichever populace can prove to be the most vocal.

~~~
shiven
Private company. They are free to cave in to demands from a vocal minority if
they so choose. They are free to ban anything remotely non-religious or
atheistic, if they so choose.

If you feel so strongl about it, start your own company that will publish and
market products in line with your values, get together with like-minded people
to start an advocacy group and most importantly, vote with your dollars and
encourage others to do the same.

It is easy to cry Free Speech, but hard to take actions to defend and
strengthen it.

~~~
tomjen3
Nobody is denying Kickstarters rights and I would be the first to defend them
if anybody ended up suing them over this, but actions have consequences, even
for companies. If they don't cave in to the next offensive project (t-shirt
with "I have a gun because I have a small dick") then they will stop being
percieved as neutral and will hurt their business with some groups. As a
company, they are trying to make as much money as they can, so they should
consider the consequences of turning away people, even if they unquestionately
have the right to do so.

------
blairbeckwith
Reading some of the comments on that blog post, I left thinking: Am I a
terrible person?

I just don't see what's wrong with this project, and I certainly don't see the
link between it and "sexual violence" – where is Kickstarter making this
connection? Say what you will about the seduction community, my very brief and
infrequent encounters with it have been largely positive and I left thinking
that they were a generally respectful, if a little bit misguided, group.
There's some of their terms and techniques I don't like, such as "negging",
but there's things like that in virtually every community that I don't like.

Certainly not sexually violent.

~~~
deong
Grabbing a woman's hand and forcing her to touch your exposed penis is, I
think, sexual violence by almost any reasonable standard.

~~~
shawabawa3
Actually it's completely context dependant.

The context, which is conveniently being ignored in most of the discussion, is
that at this point you are already "fooling around", at which point it might
actually be a fairly reasonable thing to do.

It also says "If she says no, stop immediately"

~~~
king_jester
What you are describing is still sexual violence. Forcing someone into a form
of contact they didn't consent to, even if there has been some other kind of
intimate contact, is still sexual violence. A lot of sexual assaults occur in
this way.

~~~
turtlerose
So trying to kiss a girl that you've been out on several dates with is sexual
assault?

~~~
xtrumanx
According to what I've gleaned from the folks against this book, you need
explicit verbal consent before proceeding with that kiss even if the girl in
question has been with you for several years. If not, you may possibly be
unwittingly sexually assaulting her because she was too afraid to say no. Even
if she kisses you back, she may be doing so out of fear.

So the key takeaway is; you can never be sure if you're raping someone or if
you had implied verbal consent so if you don't have explicit verbal consent,
stay the hell away from her.

And for you shy people who don't have the courage to ask your partners for
verbal consent and never get asked; it's better to be celibate than a
potential rapist.

------
DanielBMarkham
META: I know it's wrong to talk about flagging, but I think it's also
important for the community for people to try to bring up good reasons to flag
posts.

I read the linked article, I skimmed many of these comments, and hell if I got
anything useful at all from them. Dating standards and decisions about
misogyny and important topics, but they're also highly subjective. We HN'ers
could argue until the cows come home and not accomplish a damned thing. In
addition, it's highly emotionally-charged.

A couple commenters tried to take the conversation towards how a company
should act in the face of public outrage. Kudos to you guys. You were drowned
out, though.

I love talking about controversial topics. Heck, I'll post about the existence
of God, the reasons for controlling speech, the relationship between organized
religion and societal progress -- I really love good conversations among smart
people about important things.

But I got none of this here. Just a bunch of people making speeches to
themselves. Which looked like it could go on forever without either the
writers or readers gaining much insight. I flag not based on the topic, but on
the quality of the comments I see around the posting. So I had to flag it.
Sorry.

~~~
Helianthus
Provided HN is going to remove categories of posts, I've always advocated
banning gender discussion from HN. It's just not the forum for it, and it's
the same circle of discussion you see on r/politics.

HN is a "cultivated" free speech zone, which is another way to say it's an
arbitrarily censored forum where some legitimately objectionable material is
filtered away, some good material is lost through false positives, and we
_still_ frequently have garbage content and constantly moan about it because
the "cultivated" part is supposed to mean we only see gold.

To state plainly what I see in this topic: white men talking about feminism
presumptuously. White knighting; "as a man, I..."; mansplaining.

They're all terms I hate because they totally box out men from participation,
which is destructive and actually its own topic.

But they apply here.

~~~
Crake
>To state plainly what I see in this topic: white men talking about feminism
presumptuously. White knighting; "as a man, I..."; mansplaining.

But how do you know the person you're talking to is male? Or white? The person
might be womansplaining instead of mansplaining for all you know.

Are you assuming they must be white and/or male because they disagree with
you?

If so, is this because you consider opinions held by people of a certain skin
color or biological sex to be innately inferior to others?

Something to think about.

------
iandanforth
I don't respect this. I acknowledge that as it is their playground they can
make this kind of judgement call, however I have always believed that freedom
of speech also protects the freedom to hate and be a terrible person. There
are countless texts, movies, and other 'creative works' which both condone and
encourage violence against women, mass murder, torture, and other things I
find abhorrent, but I don't get to ban any of them, and that is a _good_
thing.

If your mission is focused on art I would encourage the kickstarter group to
go back and re-read the history of banned works of art, and pay attention to
which groups were pushing for those bans. I suspect you won't like the company
you now keep.

~~~
wmeredith
Freedom of Speech goes out the window when you start dealing with private
enterprise. Kickstarter doesn't have the power to "ban" anything more than you
or I. They're just addressing the kind of content they don't want to be
promoting, which is totally within their rights.

~~~
dspeyer
There don't seem to be any direct competitors to kickstarter, so when
kickstarter chooses to ban something from their site, they ban it from getting
kickstarted. Just because they don't use violence doesn't mean they don't have
power, or that their power doesn't come with responsibility.

~~~
jmduke
There are lots of competitors to kickstarter, such as
[http://www.indiegogo.com/](http://www.indiegogo.com/). Hell, the idea of a
kickstarter isn't exactly difficult to replicate: we've seen many, many sites
(App.Net and Soylent among them) 'roll their own'.

------
illtakesix
I think it's worth reading through the creator's response to the situation:
[http://pastebin.com/zwHYzCZe](http://pastebin.com/zwHYzCZe). He claims and
reasonably supports that the highlighted excerpts were taken out of context.

~~~
swombat
Definitely. Key part to quote:

> _The gist of the controversial advice is "Don't wait for signs before you
> make your move. Let her be the one who rejects your advances. If she says
> no, stop immediately and tell her you don't want to do anything that would
> make her uncomfortable. Try again at a later time if appropriate or cease
> entirely if she is absolutely not interested."_

> _The thing that the commenters on social media are leaving out is that the
> advice was taken from a section in the guide offering advice on what to do
> AFTER a man has met a cute girl, gotten her phone number, gone on dates,
> spent time getting to know her, and now are alone behind closed doors
> fooling around. If "Don't wait for signs, make the first move" promotes
> sexual assault, then "Kiss the Girl" from The Little Mermaid was a song
> about rape._

------
emingo
Maybe I was raised by a bunch of rabid dogs...

But after reading the cached page... I really don't understand what the
creator did wrong?

He was a guy that I a lot of people can identify with, whom is publishing a
book about his experiences?

Is seduction intrinsically bad?

~~~
maximilianburke
When the guide is written like a rape manual, yes, yes it is. It features
quotes like:

"Pull out your cock and put her hand on it. Remember, she is letting you do
this because you have established yourself as a LEADER. Don't ask for
permission, GRAB HER HAND, and put it right on your dick."

(from:
[http://www.reddit.com/r/seduction/comments/1dvnem/above_the_...](http://www.reddit.com/r/seduction/comments/1dvnem/above_the_game_part_7_physical_escalation_sex/))

The whole thing is disgusting, degrading, and has no place on this earth.

~~~
roc
At the same time... if this same content was written as fiction, with the
viewpoint character/hero accomplishing his goals through these same methods
and relaying that same philosophy through dialogue or internal monologue,
would it be (as) problematic?

~~~
loumf
Of course it wouldn't. Is that surprising? Fiction is different from a how-to
manual and should be treated as such. It's not just the literal words in a
particular paragraph, it's also the surrounding context.

~~~
roc
I agree the context matters, but there's a long history of equivocating the
fictional and instructional, on the part of people who try to draw these lines
with regards to speech. [1]

I simply don't think the line is as clear-cut, for many of those who were
outraged at Kickstarter. I think the company may have inadvertently stepped
out onto a PR tight-rope.

[1] Note the use of words like 'murder simulator'/'rape simulator' or the
outrage and claims of sexism/homophobia/stereotyping whenever there's a
fictional representation of a character or situation that happens to (however
briefly) conform to some stereotype.

------
josh2600
Great apology. Right to the point, no dodging blame, and an acknowledgement of
the debt to society.

Now, that being said, is this not a take on the book "the game", about picking
up women? Am I missing something or is Kickstarter now picking and choosing
what is "good" content? Obviously they have to do this to some extent, but
where is the line drawn?

~~~
HaloZero
I read "The Game", I was curious. It's less how-to guide than a journalist
foray into becoming ingrained into the pick up community. Any behavior by the
people in the book is just stating facts about what they did. So while it
might be viewed as a beginner guide, it's more of a story than anything else.

I believe this is more akin to a guide to specific actions that you should
take that are basically misogynistic.

------
vacri
No, they weren't wrong. They decided not to do a snap judgement on a
controversial topic. Let it slip with what little time is left, examine post
facto how it got through, tighten the cracks, explain it to the punters. They
did everything right except think that they did it 'so wrong'. Making snap
judgments on new areas of information can bite you back and make things much
worse.

------
pathy
For the sake of completion:
[http://pastebin.com/zwHYzCZe](http://pastebin.com/zwHYzCZe) This is a
statement on the matter by the author, linked in the original Reddit thread.

~~~
angersock
Relevant quote from your link:

 _" The thing that the commenters on social media are leaving out is that the
advice was taken from a section in the guide offering advice on what to do
AFTER a man has met a cute girl, gotten her phone number, gone on dates, spent
time getting to know her, and now are alone behind closed doors fooling
around. If "Don't wait for signs, make the first move" promotes sexual
assault, then "Kiss the Girl" from The Little Mermaid was a song about rape."_

------
philliphaydon
I'll probably get down voted for this, but reading through what was written,
and based on the fact woman LOVE the book, 50 shades of grey. I'm kind of lost
as to why on one side everyones offended, and on the other side its what they
desire... Yet get offended.

~~~
Crake
It's a power differential thing, I think.

What's most baffling is that...

With feminists: It's ok if women want sex, but not ok for men to want sex.

With fundamentalist conservatives: It's ok if men want sex, but not ok for
women to want sex.

------
OvidNaso
The linked blog post has an update that is really interesting:

[UPDATE: In the opening paragraph of this beast I mentioned a Kickstarter
campaign that I am passionate about, that represents everything I like about
Kickstarter. But for some reason I am getting bombarded with e-mails from
people that think that project and “Above The Game” are connected. And now
people are pulling funding for the project I’m pumped for. Because of that,
I’ve removed any mention of them by name.]

Makes you question if any thought was put into the situation by many of the
people who are outraged.

------
oscardelben
Has anyone read the actual response from the book author?
[http://pastebin.com/zwHYzCZe](http://pastebin.com/zwHYzCZe)

------
alan_cx
Just read this thread, and it applies to my newly learned wonder phrase:

"Tyranny is the suppression of nuance"

Not many people working with the nuance here, are there? Its gotten very black
and white , and if you don't agree with one side, you must simply be a sexual
predator.

------
Tichy
I guess to understand this one has to consider that Kickstarter is based in
puritan America?

~~~
vacri
I'm not sure where you get that from. Puritans have never been big on the
rights of women.

~~~
freehunter
Puritans in 1600, no. Puritan America in the 2000's, sex is a very taboo
subject, especially when it comes to women.

~~~
mwfunk
This was clearly, obviously, blatantly not in response to anyones hangups
about sex in general. Not wanting to be associated with creepy, rapey stuff
written by and for creepy, rapey people is hardly Puritanical, it's more like
being a human being.

~~~
Anderkent
But judging this content as creepy and rapey is quite puritanical.

All this screams about rape for something that sums up to "you're about to
have sex? Don't ask her to grab your dick, guide her hand to it".

~~~
mwfunk
No, it is not.

------
lotharbot
>> _" the decision had to be made immediately"_.

Kickstarter believes their only choices are "allow to continue unimpeded" or
"cancel the project". This incident suggests a third possibility: "flag for
review". They could set up a policy which allows them to temporarily suspend a
project, placing a short-term hold on project funds so that they do not go
either to the creator or get refunded. The review process would need to be
fast and transparent, but not so fast as to require snap judgments.

------
Paladiamors
I don't think Kickstarter's response to this incident is incorrect.

We're talking about the legitimacy of a single blog post vetoing 686 backers
(according to the cached link on the kickstarter post) from what it looks like
from the kickstarter post.

I don't think that this response was particularly measured:

-1) Does it only take a single blog post to have kickstarter ban a project?

1a) Can we be certain that the blog post did not take the passage out of
context?

1b) Can they be sure that the seduction manual was intentionally promoting the
alleged "sexual violence"?

1c) Was there any reasonable attempt to communicate with the author to address
the paragraphs in issue?

-2) What number of the kickstarter community reacting negatively to this project?

2a) Was "Sexual violence" the only controversial topic?

2b) Was a specific (kickstarter) clause for violation cited?

2c) Was any law broken because of this project?

3)Can malicious intent be proven?

[1] If you actually look at the link to reddit comment link I don't even see
conversation that could be taken as people taking this as "sexual violence"
and there is even one comment from a female user (derina585) that recommends
changing the language and offering advice.

This reaction to lynch mob the guy is unwarrented and is somehow legitimized
by kickstarter's "apology." I think that we need to take a closer look at the
information before jumping to conclusions here.

------
hosay123
Heh. So enslaving sentient organisms for the purposes of entertainment
(cockroach robot app) is classed as a "creative work", while teaching
teenagers how to pick up women results in outcry?

And no I'm not suggesting some equivalence between women and cockroaches, I'm
objecting to their frivolous dismissal of the project on the grounds of it not
being a "creative work".

------
doktrin
What a cesspool of a thread. Why is HN consistently at its worst when gender
issues are brought up?

------
mkr-hn
I see the same quote about stopping if there's any rejection being repeated
endlessly in this thread. Treating consent as a simple yes/no ignores the
reality of a culture where women are taught to be quiet and compliant, and
where they're punished when they don't go along. In a culture where half the
population is treated as subservient objects, it's a good idea to seek
explicit consent every time.

~~~
aeorgnoieang
There is no monolithic "culture" of which all humans are members and of which
all women are treated as subservient objects. There are in fact many
overlapping cultures throughout humankind and there is a staggering array of
diversity among them in all kinds of dimensions.

------
zedshaw
Wait, I'm going to sidestep the whole book's ultra-crazy content and ask a
kind of really obvious logistic question:

Why the hell was he doing a kickstarter for a book he could easily publish
online for 0 money down and only cost him the time to write it and maybe get a
copy editor?

The content of this book, and most similar unpopular material, is designed for
the internet. That's how 50 Shades of Gray got its start, and there's been
underground sex and erotica content for decades online. Doing a kickstarter
just seems like a blatant scam or complete laziness, either are an indication
that he won't finish the book.

So why the hell was he doing a kickstarter? Idiot.

~~~
Zelphyr
Brilliant actually. Look at all the people talking about his book now.

~~~
zedshaw
Looked like he already had people talking about it, and this was definitely
not planned. It's a stroke of pure luck not genius.

~~~
Zelphyr
The point I was trying to make is that publicity itself is often the reason
projects get put up on Kickstarter.

I suspect the author did the Kickstarter project knowing he could effectively
publish for free but wanted to generate the buzz that currently comes with
having a Kickstarter project. And maybe even to gauge interest. If he wouldn't
have been able to raise $2K then it may have been worth dropping the idea
altogether.

The negative publicity is the stroke of pure luck. Now he'll make even more
because of the free publicity the book is getting now.

------
gregd
Here is an entire quote from one of his passages on a reddit thread:

Hi guys. First off, big props to thesacred. I went out with him yesterday and
he has tons of game. Looking forward to many scandalous nights with him and
others in Tokyo. He skipped the club to go attempt a threesome! Awesome!

Anyway, if you've followed my FR's recently, you've probably seen me mention
the Physical Push/Pull (PPP) move I've been using. It's basically where you
substitute actual physical pushes and pulls for emotional push/pulls, OR
combine them with emotional push/pulls for maximum effect.

I was field testing it as an OPENER in the club yesterday and my GOD did it
work. I highly recommend some of you guys try this out, but it's not for the
faint of heart.

Example:

[see girl on dancefloor or near bar]

[approach]

[hook her in with your arm] "Aww you're so cute. Come here." [shove her aside
HARD, seemingly randomly]

[approach someone else and say hi]

[Turn around. About 75% of the time she'll be staring at you with a huge grin
on her face.]

[Walk back over to her.] "You really are so cute, you know that?"

[repeat]

This is one of those "reality destroyer" openers where girls have NO IDEA what
just happened. You can open as many sets as you want throughout the club/bar
this way and decide which ones you wanna pursue further at your leisure.

I did this yesterday in a dance club.

I re-open a girl by walking up, grabbing her, caveman-ing her against the wall
& kissing her. Then I cast her aside and get a drink at the bar. The entire
time she is staring like "OMG who is this guy?" (in a good way).

I come back to her with my drink. "Come on, let's go."

I walk her to the corner, escalate kino, smalltalk a bit. Fast forward and
guess who is getting a BJ in the dark corner of the club? THIS GUY!

Gentlemen, try this out. It's not only extremely effective but it's
hilariously fun. Your friends' jaws will hit the floor when they see you pull
this off.

Go and do likewise, gents.

[http://www.reddit.com/r/seduction/comments/f6ve5/fr_tofutofu...](http://www.reddit.com/r/seduction/comments/f6ve5/fr_tofutofus_physical_pushpull_as_an_opener_short/)

------
boldpanda
This book will sell more copies now that it's been banned by Kickstarter.

I'm curious how the funding was going before this, I can't imagine it was
getting much traction.

I quantify this as a paranoid over reaction by Kickstarter, if the post wasn't
breaking any of their terms of service.

~~~
Zelphyr
Agreed and now about a million more people will have heard about this project
that otherwise probably wouldn't have.

This reminds me a little of when The Last Temptation of Christ came out in the
late 80's. All the bible-thumpers were screaming about how blasphemous it was
and that everyone should boycot it. Which, of course, people being people they
did the exact opposite and had to endure what turned out to be a pretty bad
film.

~~~
kamjam
Also the Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie, which due to the protests, banning
by all the Islamic countries, the fatwah on the author and associated press
(and this was in the days of before the Internet!)just made the sales go
through the roof.

------
patrocles
Kickstarter should claim safe-harbor as they are a conduit.

This case means they open themselves up to being required to censor every
project for every jurisdiction. Kickstarter apparently views the cost of that
censorship as much less than the community cost.

Seems unlikely to be the case.

~~~
mcintyre1994
I believe they've always censored in a fairly opinionated manner. I'd only be
speculating if I tried to say why, but I imagine it's to do with wanting a
much more active audience - a site needs to do a lot more to make you give
your money than just keep on reading. If their projects list turned people
away they'd be in a lot of trouble.

------
dirkgadsden
It's easy to see why there aren't more women in computing with the mountain of
rape culture, misogyny, and male privilege on display in these comments.

~~~
papsosouid
Odd you should say so. My wife is a programmer, and distances herself from the
online computing world not because of "misogyny", but because of this insane
crowd of privileged people who insist on pretending to be victims in her name.

~~~
dirkgadsden
Nice straw-man, since I never claimed to be a victim (I was merely making an
observation). Also citing your wife's individual experience is a red herring
since she alone does not represent a large sample size.

~~~
papsosouid
I didn't say anything about you or what you claim. Resorting to the logical
fallacy fallacy is pretty poor in general, but quite ridiculous when you
aren't even using the terms correctly.

------
jmduke
A lot of comments are getting into the issue of whether or not seduction stuff
is appropriate/misogynistic/etc., which I think is missing the point.

Kickstarter received a _vocal_ outcry against the material. They responded
quickly and fairly to remediate the issue. There are tons of times that a
business is pressured/advised to stop doing something when that 'something'
isn't strictly illegal or immoral. How they respond to those opportunities
defines them going forward.

Part of Kickstarter's value proposition now is a certain level of content
curation: moving forward, they're much less the 'anything-goes' crowdfunding
platform than they used to be. I suspect they're okay with this, given how
much they're pushing the social networking aspect of their site (and for good
reason -- their stats on how many users went from funding the Veronica Mars or
Zach Braff kickstarters to other initiatives were pretty impressive.)

Free enterprise, of course, also dictates that now there's a vacuum for a
competitor which has less (or no) qualms about stuff like this.

------
mathattack
I am a fan of "I'm sorry" posts, though they have become frequent enough to
become cliche. When they put a $25K donation behind the apology, then it's a
lot more than false humility.

"Fourth, today Kickstarter will donate $25,000 to an anti-sexual violence
organization called RAINN. It’s an excellent organization that combats exactly
the sort of problems our inaction may have encouraged."

Well done!

------
solarmist
I can't believe I haven't seen a single comment about non-verbal
communication. No, a girl doesn't want you to ask for a kiss (it comes off as
incredibly lacking in self confidence), but she better be touching you,
smiling a lot (at you not just in general), laughing at your jokes, playing
with her hair and/or many other things that show you she's saying she wants
you to go further.

Everyone here is talking exclusively about verbal communication, but in
courting non-verbal communication is the key context. Women are masters of it,
but most men are only barely aware of it and that's where most of the problems
in these kinds of materials come from and how well authors teach inept men how
to read and respond to body language is what really separates a decent
"dating" guide from a misogynistic "how to get charged with sexual assault"
guide.

The Guide's author is a horrible writer and only makes passing references to
reading non-verbal communication, but builds all of his "techniques" upon it.
That's why they are all so horrible.

If you're chatting with a girl and she's smiling, playing with her hair and
glancing down when you make prolonged eye contact you're probably okay to
brush against her arm or touch her shoulder or elbow or even if you're bold
pick her up and put her in your lap (but that'd force a girl to immediately
decide if she likes you or to reject you).

In contrast if you're talking at a girl and she answers in the minimum length
sentences, won't look at you, and has her arms crossed then touching her in
anyway is going to make her want to get the hell away form you.

Similarly if you're in your bedroom because she came home with you when you
invited her, you've been making out and her shirt is off then opening your
pants and putting her hand on your penis probably isn't the smoothest thing,
but probably isn't a deal breaker for her at that point either.

Again opposed to you sharing a taxi with her and asking her 10 times if you
can come up for coffee/tea/drink then once you're inside her place and pulling
your penis out, that's probably going to get you thrown out at the very least
if not having the cops called on you.

This guide focuses exclusively on what the guy should "do" which, without a
similar guide on how to know how and when to "do" those things, will lead to
bad out comes if not sexual assault. It's written from the perspective of an
instruction manual for a video game/passive object (the girl), which is a lot
of what misogyny is all about, do A then B then C and you save the princess.

------
mkr-hn
For those who want to see what this book would have looked like, it's a
collection and expansion of the author's posts on /r/seduction:
[http://www.reddit.com/r/seduction/comments/11piau/above_the_...](http://www.reddit.com/r/seduction/comments/11piau/above_the_game_part_1_primer_on_who_you_will/)

------
VikingCoder
So, were they also wrong to allow Cards Against Humanity?

------
DannoHung
Look at all these HNers defending sexual assault.

~~~
shawabawa3
I think you're a murderer.

Anyone who defends you is defending murder.

~~~
blocking_io
brilliant analogy apart from the bit where this guide actually does advocate
sexual assault.

~~~
shawabawa3
According to who? Your opinion? Did you even read the author's defense?

~~~
blocking_io
Yes of course I have. I have also read the guides on reddit where he tells the
reader to sexually assault their partner.

~~~
merlincorey
Please link to said guide and describe exactly how to navigate to this
section.

~~~
blocking_io
Here you go:

[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:40tT3ne...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:40tT3neK7egJ:www.reddit.com/r/seduction/comments/1dvnem/above_the_game_part_7_physical_escalation_sex/+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk)

Search for 'permission' to find him directly telling the reader not to ask for
consent.

~~~
merlincorey
The chapter linked appears to be called "Physical Escalation and Sex" and
seems to be very late in the book.

Consent is assumed in the situation because of all the stuff leading up to it.
Like the getting the number, the going out on dates, talking a lot, and
finally ending up alone with them in their or your own residence.

Are you sure you've had sexual congress with a woman before? As many other
posters are pointing out in this thread, most _real_ women absolutely do not
want to be asked for permission every step of the way.

Furthermore, the author includes quite a bit of text about respecting when
consent is explicitly withdrawn, which is something I hope we can all agree is
a good thing, without getting lost in, "but you should discuss it first". Most
people don't, and that's the reality we live in.

~~~
blocking_io
>Consent is assumed in the situation because of all the stuff leading up to
it. Like the getting the number, the going out on dates, talking a lot, and
finally ending up alone with them in their or your own residence.

Consent should never be assumed. Just fucking ask. This chapter is explicitly
talking about transitioning from a non-sexual to a sexual relationship.
Assuming that your partner wants this to happen is a recipe for sexual
assault.

~~~
merlincorey
> Consent should never be assumed. Just fucking ask. This chapter is
> explicitly talking about transitioning from a non-sexual to a sexual
> relationship. Assuming that your partner wants this to happen is a recipe
> for sexual assault.

I think you're mistaken, and I think you're inexperienced with women. Most
women absolutely do not want to be asked every step of the way. Many women I
have been with have specifically enjoyed it when I have done things such as
not ask them but pick them up and place them in my lap, then kiss them.

If someone withdraws their consent, and you do not respect, that makes you a
rapist. Consent is typically withdrawn when she says things like "no", which
the guide you are calling a rape-manual specifically notes to respect.

You're being disingenuous. No one who already is not a rapist and respects
consent, can hear, and read body language is going to continue in the face of
withdrawn consent.

Finally, how do you know the "talking a lot" step doesn't establish explicit
verbal consent prior to the event?

~~~
blocking_io
I don't think you've read much PUA material. A lot of it is about trying to
have sex with a partner who does not (at least initaially) want to have sex.
Escalating physically until they say no, lying and saying you'll stop and then
escalating again. Charitably it is about convincing someone to have sex with
you, uncharitably it is wearing them down until they give up resisting.

There have been clear descriptions of rape which have been posted by redditors
on the PUA subreddit, which the poster apparently did not realise were rape.

~~~
merlincorey
If consent is not violated, it's not rape. You can't assume that consent is
not established... which is what you're doing. Convincing someone they raped
their girlfriend or their boyfriend raped them is pretty reprehensible, but I
am aware that it goes on.

I don't actually recommend following the lead of these so called Pick Up
Artists... but I don't think they were trying to teach anyone to rape.
Apparently we should agree to disagree on that point.

------
noamsml
This annoys me greatly. Whether or not the book itself was bad, an open
platform shouldn't have to apologize for not immediately censoring its users
on public outrage. To the contrary, I would have expected an apology if, given
the first blush or public outcry, they suspended the account without a proper
investigation into it.

------
benblack
I made a shirt for all you guys who think the rape, erm, PICK UP ARTISTE, book
is totes cool and nbd [http://www.cafepress.com/mf/79293678/i-am-rape-
culture_tshir...](http://www.cafepress.com/mf/79293678/i-am-rape-
culture_tshirt)

------
citricsquid
How does removing the kickstarter project after funding has taken place work
for the backers? Do the backers no longer get their rewards? Does the project
creator have no access to the backers information? Will Kickstarter refund the
backers out of pocket? Strange situation.

~~~
bayesianhorse
The backers shouldn't have a bone with the that project. They should have seen
the issue themselves before backing.

------
kepano
I don't think one can fault Kickstarter for this or the Kobe Beef Jerky
incident. As the platform grows so will the number of abuse cases. The
submission process is a fairly strict filter, but from there the project is
more than crowd-funding, it becomes increasingly about crowd-sourcing the due
diligence process.

My concern is that a crowd-sourced due diligence process can be slow and
requires active participation from the backers. That sense of common
responsibility is what's needed to help the company take rapid action and for
the community to remain a positive place for funding great ideas. I hope
Kickstarter can continue inspiring that proactive participation from its
users.

------
gfunk911
You start by saying that if you disagree with you you're a misogynist pig, and
any discussion of the merits is wrong. Just think about times you've read
other people say that, and try and think it over.

------
doki_pen
He mentions having only 2 options to decide whether to cancel or let the funds
go through. Isn't there a third option that they could use in the future, Put
a delay on the transfer while you review it?

------
loumf
Kickstarter is a private company that can decide what they want to have on
their site for whatever reason they want. They have to answer to their
customers. If you disagree, don't use Kickstarter.

But the idea that they have to comply with "freedom of speech" or be
consistent or anything else doesn't make sense to me. Every store curates it's
inventory with whatever rules they deem appropriate. Kickstarter never claimed
that any possible piece of content was ok.

------
king_jester
So many of the comments here are trying to justify this project's content by
saying this are things to do when you are with something you've already been
dating/wooing. I just want to say that the majority of sexual assaults are
perpetrated by someone the victim knows and that ANY kind of intimate contact
does not justify further contact that someone has not consented to. Saying
otherwise is an attempt to justify rape.

------
tomp
A woman has never asked me if I wanted to have sex... Rape? Sexual assault?
Come on!

------
bjhoops1
It's really quite remarkable how much good will a simple apology can generate.
I wish more individuals and organizations recognized this.

------
samspenc
Why is Kickstarter unable to return the money?

------
DanBC
I wish there was a moderate MRA group, that wasn't full of hateful idiots.

~~~
super-serial
Go to Japan. Gender roles are ingrained into the culture and women are
naturally feminine.

A lot of MRA groups seem to fight the hate with more hate... maybe these guys
just need a change of scenery.

~~~
diyang
What do you mean by "naturally feminine"?

------
hacker789
Women are sensitive, fragile, inferior creatures who require constant,
vigilant protection from honorable men.

If it becomes necessary to take a few quotes out of context in our noble quest
to protect the fairer sex, so be it.

Kudos to Kickstarter for adhering to feminist principles.

> _The thing that the commenters on social media are leaving out is that the
> advice was taken from a section in the guide offering advice on what to do
> AFTER a man has met a cute girl, gotten her phone number, gone on dates,
> spent time getting to know her, and now are alone behind closed doors
> fooling around. If "Don't wait for signs, make the first move" promotes
> sexual assault, then "Kiss the Girl" from The Little Mermaid was a song
> about rape._

[http://pastebin.com/zwHYzCZe](http://pastebin.com/zwHYzCZe)

~~~
Metrop0218
EDIT: Apparently the OP was being sarcastic, and I failed to read deep enough
into the ASCII characters. But if he hadn't been sarcastic, I would've still
said what I said below.

What the hell? I had to read this over 6 times to make sure I was
understanding it correctly.

"Women are sensitive, fragile, inferior creatures who require constant,
vigilant protection from honorable men."

That right there ladies and gentlemen, is the thinking that permeates and
sustains misogyny throughout our world.

I understand that the original poster had good intentions, but the way is high
and his eyes are definitely upon the ground.

Women are not sensitive, fragil, or inferior. Please avoid false blanket
statements like this.

~~~
rlt
Hint: sarcasm

~~~
Metrop0218
Ah, pretty poorly worded sarcasm there.

~~~
rlt
Subtle sarcasm is the best sarcasm, IMHO.

~~~
vacri
Not in text. There are too few cues available to avoid Poe's law.

