
A hell of a time - ssclafani
http://blog.nerdchic.net/archives/418/
======
hop
A friend in college was accused of something worse, luckily witnesses (her
friends) and a video camera proved otherwise and she finally admitted the
truth to the police two months later. No jail time for her lying, but this
guys whole life was on the verge of destruction - jail time, registered sex
offender for life, everyone in your social circle would think you are a
monster, all friends in your hometown, your parents, their friends, any future
employers that could Google, etc.

I'm certainly not saying that in this case, but this type of thing is
completely your word versus theirs and an ounce of caution should be taken in
the rush to judgement until all the facts come out.

~~~
earl
I'm curious -- do you run around posting in every thread that concerns
potentially criminal behavior that people shouldn't rush to judgement? And if
not, what in particular makes this case prompt you to jump in with that story?
And people wonder why more women don't come forward.

------
smokey_the_bear
The article seems to be down, so I can't read it right now. But I went to
DefCon when I was 17, and it was the most sexually threatened I've ever felt.
Some things were benign, a lot of strange looks and stupid things like guys
dropping stuff and asking me to pick it up. Someone followed me in a parking
lot and then ducked out of sight twice. Someone grabbed my ass on the way out
of a talk.

I otherwise had a great time there, but I didn't go back for 10 years. I had
none of the same issues later, but I'm not sure if the crowd has changed or if
they're just less interested in 27 year olds.

~~~
marvin
Okay... I am a pretty experienced party animal, and this stuff (sexual
assault, that is...not random hookups) is NOT normal. I've heard the
occasional story, but both you and the author of this post seems to imply that
this is a pretty regular occurrence. Hell, if "it was everyone else's job to
prevent being sexually assaulted" and her friends "managed to do this job on
several occasions" (parapharasing here), this sounds like one of the seediest
parties I have ever heard of. Stuff like this does NOT fly in any normal
social setting - the guys usually have the decency to back off before things
get too awkward, and if they don't, someone will usually break in and stop it.

I've never been to one of these conferences, but what's the deal here? Being a
bit of a cynic in regards to the social skills of a lot of techies, I'm
thinking that this is could be the result of alcohol + desperate and socially
inept guys + a few women that don't have the critical mass to put up a proper
pick-up shield. If this is really a normal phenomenon at tech conferences, I'm
a bit shocked that no one have mentioned it before.

The incidents that have been mentioned sound more to me like completely
clueless pick-up attempts than any genuine attempt at assault or rape, but the
end result is pretty much the same.

~~~
skorgu
The issue of this kind of thing simply not being talked about is a large part
of the problem. Your friends may simply (understandably!) not want to talk
about it.

It's uncomfortable to suggest but picking 10 of your close female friends and
asking directly if they've been sexually assaulted at a party might be
informative. I'll say that from my personal experience if you get fewer than
10 affirmatives I'll be fairly surprised.

~~~
smokey_the_bear
It's definitely something women don't always want to talk about. It would suck
to tell men you didn't want to go to a conference because you were vulnerable.
I went to DefCon that year with my older brother, and he didn't want me to go
the next year because he felt he had to spend too much time worrying about me.

That said, I've been to lots of other technical conferences without any
issues. I'm not much of a party animal, but anything else I've encountered at
bars or parties has been milder and less frequent than at DefCon, and has
generally seemed more awkward and less predatory.

------
sp4rki
While I don't condone at all this kind of behavior on behalf of men, I have
also seen the other side of the story on various occasions. One specific
incident actually comes to mind. A friend of mine had been dating a woman I
was friends with from high school and used to keep in touch with. At this
point I didn't know they where dating each other. One day he terminated the
'relationship' and the woman while seeking my advice made the comment that she
could 'fuck up his life by saying he raped her'. I tried to convince her not
to do so and though that she had desisted of such idea. A week later I was
informed that my friend was being detained and charged with sexual assault, at
that moment I actually put everything together, made a few calls and realized
what had happened. I ended up telling everything she told to the police and my
friend's lawyer and a week later the charges had been dropped.

I even had a closer to home to home experience with this in highschool, I was
a girl's scape goat in a plot to make a boyfriend jealous while I was actually
still a virgin. She told everyone that she had sex with me, when it wasn't
true and it almost became a problem.

I'm not trying to say that this is the case here and that the author is lying
though, but with lack of proof (and that certainly seems to be the case by
reading the blog post) it is a very slippery slope to name the person on your
blog. This could most probably ruin the guys life, the same way my friends
life was on the verge of being ruined by someone with a bone to pick. Again,
I'm not saying this is the case here, nor that I don't believe her, nor that I
condone some men's behavior. As a matter of fact I'd rather side with the
author on this one, but naming a person publicly like this, can easily destroy
his and his family's life and future.

~~~
dekz
This is similar to a story which involves one of my (then) friends. Schoolies
is what can be compared to as Spring Break in the US. It's a place where kids
finishing high school go to celebrate for a week. There's plenty of drinking
and socialising, your usual parties. We made friends with a group of girls who
were staying in the apartment next to us. They were all friendly (or so we
thought), offered to make us breakfast, we drank and partied with them a few
times.

After one long day of partying, we were all just relaxing and drinking and
watching some late night television. My friend is lead into the room by one of
the girls and that's the last we see of him for the night. Now I can't say for
sure what happened in that room, but all we know is that the next morning we
find out this girl has a boyfriend, who now also knows of what had happened
the previous night. Hours pass, doors are banging, my friend is now being
threatened by the boyfriend. Then the police show up. The girl who had lead my
friend into the room has gone to the police station and accused him of rape.

At this stage, that girl has left with her boyfriend, while the other girls
still remain in the room next to us. We chat across the veranda and the other
girls still seem normal and friendly (you wouldn't expect this from friends of
a girl who had just accused one of the guys of rape). The issue of the pending
allegation of rape arises and one of the girls notifies us that she believes
our friend is telling the truth and will give a statement to say that the last
thing she saw was her leading him into the room. And that after speaking to
her in the morning she seemed normal and didn't confide in them about any
problems that night.

That night ends and a new day begins, my friend is clearly shocked and
frightened. His phone rings, it's an unknown number. He picks it up and the
person on the other end introduces himself as the father of the girl. (One of
the other girls had given his number to the father). The father goes on to say
that this has happened before multiple times. This girl has falsely accused
men of sexual assault multiple times (wtf?). He goes on to say that he
believes his story and apologizes for what he has been going through. Charges
were eventually dropped, other girls made similar statements, things were
supposed to go back to normal. I noticed a bit of a change in my friend from
this experience, he was not the same person he was before the accusation.

I'm not saying women are liars or anything close to that about this story. I
certainly do not advocate the naming and shaming this blog post is doing, it
is unprofessional and frankly, ridiculous. Women say men exert power over
them, yet they forget just how easily they can destroy a mans life and career.

~~~
jules
Why wasn't this girl sent to jail? She tried to completely destroy somebody's
life multiple times. That's about as bad as trying to shoot somebody in my
opinion.

~~~
sp4rki
This is not punished with jail time most of the time, but it easily becomes a
case of defamation of character, which the person in the story could have
easily pursued IF the event had clearly damaged his reputation in some way. If
he had done serious jail time, been fired from his job, or expelled from
college then you have a clear cut case of a libel suit.

~~~
jules
Why is this? You don't walk free if you shoot but miss. Why do you walk free
if you try to put somebody in jail for a long time and ruin the rest of his
life too?

~~~
sp4rki
Generally this sort of cases are dismissed in court because of lack of
evidence. The same way that woman needs proof of a sexual assault, a man needs
proof that she has done damage to his name and reputation so he can file a
civil lawsuit against her. This type of procedure rarely carry jail time, it
at all. In this case, if the woman has no proof AND the man has been fired
from his job he can easily file a lawsuit and seek damages.

~~~
jules
Right, but that's not what I was wondering. I was wondering why does actual
damage need to be done to file a lawsuit? Isn't trying to hurt somebody good
enough? If you try to shoot somebody you'll end up in jail even if you miss.

~~~
sp4rki
Because technically, as a citizen of the United States (in this case) are
protected by freedom of speech rights. If you ask me what I think of my
neighbor, I might tell you that I think she's a whore and that she probably
has syphilis. That is in no way illegal, BUT if I start a campaign to slander
her name publicly, it can be taken as a deliberate attack on the victim's
reputation and even then it's not so much that it's illegal, but that you
caused another citizen damages from your actions.

I have a right to tell the world you're a rapist, there's a freedom of speech
inherent to being a US citizen which allows me to do this, but you have the
right to seek damages for the troubles you're being put through.

------
puredemo
I'll probably get downvoted for asking, but I'm curious, would everyone be as
upset over this had it been a drunken female guest inappropriately grabbing a
guy's package? And if the male blogger had then written a similar blog about
being sexually assaulted at a party, naming the female who grabbed him?

I'm not endorsing this sort of behavior obviously, but the public shaming
element here seems fairly twisted. If a sexual assault occurred she should go
to the police about it and press charges. Not start an internet witch hunt.

~~~
JabavuAdams
So, I'm going to venture beyond the issue of consent (which legally, and
ethically is the only issue), into a grey area of perception.

Often when men think about this situation, they think of some non-repulsive
(to them) woman who doesn't have any power over them grabbing their package.
Often they conclude "Well that wasn't so bad. I generally want to have sex
with females. A female just pawed my package. Cool, maybe she'll sleep with
me."

Now let's assume that's a hypothetical guy's default reaction. What are some
nuances that might change that reaction?

1) What if the woman is repulsive to the man? What if his friends will mock or
shame him?

2) What if rather than pawing at his package, she tried to stick her finger in
his ass? There's a psychological (and physical!) difference in vulnerability
to having stuff put in you, rather than probing with your appendages.

3) What if the aggressor has power over the victim (I'm not saying that's the
case in the article)? I.e. She can paw you, and you're going to always wonder
whether your next review depends on your reaction.

Now, you may think I'm distorting the situation, but I'm just trying to
illustrate that even for a guy who thinks his reaction would be "Cool,
gropage.", the real situation may well just feel like an attack.

I.e. it's fun to theorize about men's reactions versus women's, but unless
you're actually a man who has been the victim of unwanted attention, you're
unlikely to really know how you'd feel about it.

My reaction on reading the article was "Holy shit, people actually do that?" I
guess I live in a sheltered world, oh and I'm a large male.

~~~
tommorris
Another hypothetical:

4\. The guy is gay and doesn't want to be inappropriately touched by a woman
because he's attracted only to men.

I think that, in general, men getting sexually assaulted by women is something
we take less seriously because, yes, as you say, men want sex, they aren't so
bothered and because in general men have power (physical and otherwise) over
women. But in most cases there are good reasons to challenge those
assumptions, which we should do.

------
ssor
Not to give that dude an excuse for his behaviour, but consider this:

This happened at a private after-party in a private hotel room where a small
crowd got all cozy with apparently too many drinks involved.

This did not happen _at_ the conference.

The difference is important. Context is everything in these cases.

~~~
_delirium
Maybe it's too much to hope for, but I would hope that tech events filled with
smart people would hold themselves to a higher standard. Even if it's not a
tech-event-specific problem (women get assaulted in bars in every city every
weekend), we should try to get rid of it here.

I do agree that this is where most of the problems happen, though. I've only
heard of something along these lines happening at one academic conference I've
been to, and it was the most party-ish one, where the academic and non-
academic/drinking parts were pretty loosely separated. The kind where 100
people get in a drab room on a university campus and listen to talks for 8
hours, then go sleep so they can get up again at 7am for the next morning's
keynote, seems to result in no trouble of any kind (admittedly, there could be
problems at those too and I'm just out of the loop).

Oddly, I've never heard of any problems at the _most_ party-ish hacker event
I've been to, SuperHappyDevHouse. I don't know if it's the culture, the
frowning on drunkenness, the mixture of people it attracts, the physical
layouts, or what.

~~~
mkross
I'm confused by your first sentence; it isn't a higher standard to not assault
others. Or do you mean that because techies are so .. something that they in
particular should eliminate every possibility of someone being assaulted
around them?

~~~
_delirium
I guess not a higher official standard (nobody is supposed to commit sexual
assaults anywhere), but it'd be nice if our events were safe/etc. even if bars
on average aren't. I'm sort of objecting to a view that, as long as tech-
conference afterparties are _no worse_ than a typical bar, then there's no
problem.

------
sh1mmer
I can't share the specifics to protect the privacy of the people involved.
But, I help out with a lot of conferences and speak at dozens more every year.
I've heard at least 3 accounts similar to this, just this year, at other
conferences.

Very often they end with a minor hero, like Bill in this case, acting as a
chaperone for someone who should never need one at all.

It frustrates me greatly that despite the effort that many conferences do to
make conference going more egalitarian, welcoming and safe for women some men
are still as ignorant, offensive, and disgusting as to treat women this way.

------
patio11
The presumption of innocence and punishment only following guilty verdicts at
trials arbitrated by neutral parties are hard ideals to stick to when crimes
are heinous, it is clear to any right thinking person what happened, and a
message needs to be sent... and that is _precisely_ when they are most
valuable to society.

~~~
smanek
How is it clear to any 'right thinking person what happened'?

Until there is corroborating evidence (witness, confession, etc) I see no
reason to believe _anything_ about events that took place. It seems incredibly
dangerous and irresponsible to default to believing one person's (as of yet)
unsubstantiated tale.

I can think of half a dozen scenarios in which the accused was innocent.
Everything from mistaken identity (that has happened to me!), to drunken mis-
remembering, to flat out lying is still on the table.

~~~
patio11
This is why "right thinking person" is generally supposed to be read as an
ironic marker: it is a subrosa way to say "the meaning of my words is
different than than their literal import."

You will virtually never hear those words meant literally.

~~~
smanek
Ah, my apologies! With the new parsing, your comment makes perfect sense.

------
phugoid
I don't know any of the people involved here, but I would rather see this
handled by the law than by an Internet lynch mob. The law maybe impotent and
incompetent at times, but it's the best we have for dealing with criminal
behavior.

------
TamDenholm
While I realise this is a sensitive issue and I hope the author is ok, one
thing I noticed is the implication that this is a thing that happens at tech
conferences. I would just like to make sure we are not dissuading women from
coming to tech conferences by gaining some sort of reputation here.

Most people in the world are good but unfortunately this kind of thing happens
and when it does we have to show it will not be tolerated and will be properly
dealt with.

~~~
hypatiadotca
the OP is the third friend of mine this year who's been sexually assaulted at
a technical conference. sadly, this is not as rare an event as we'd like to
think :(

we had a post about the whole "talking about all the bad stuff will discourage
women in tech" bit a while back at geekfeminism:
<http://geekfeminism.org/2010/06/10/dont-mention-the-war/>

------
elliottcarlson
I have a few women in my life that were sexually assaulted at various ages
ranging from grabbing of their asses to stuff I just can not write; and it
saddens me that so many people in this thread are shocked that it is such a
common occurrence. Statistics have shown that a woman is assaulted every 2 to
3 minutes in the US alone, and that 1 in 3 women will be assaulted in their
lifetime. This is not an uncommon thing, and it happens whether it's in some
dark alley or at a tech conference.

Just as a woman needs to be vigilant of what is going around her, us men (or
other women) need to be vigilant of threats to other women around them when in
bars or conferences or wherever.

If this allegation is true, I hope that the perpetrator is charged and his
life altered so he can't do something like this again or worse.

------
forgotusername
This is a sensitive subject, and quite possibly she has been the victim of a
crime, however it is impossible to ignore that a further sin in many ways as
bad as the original has been committed, and that is to deny fair trial to a
man, which is very much what has been done by accusation of sexual assault in
such a public manner (just check some of the results for a Twitter search on
@flo right now).

I can only hope she is beyond all doubt the situation as described could not
have been perceived any differently, particularly after using language such as
"told him I wasn’t interested (I may have been less eloquent, but I don’t
think I was less clear".

It's also sickening to see how many people have sided with the accuser in the
weblog's comments and elsewhere (especially on Twitter), given nothing more
than a name and an accusation.

Not cool (either way).

~~~
foldr
AFAIK, it's not considered prejudicial to a fair trial for an (alleged) victim
to name the accused before the trial begins.

After all, the name of the accused will be made public in any case if there is
a trial.

------
lucisferre
Wow, this is... well both unbelievable and sadly believable at the same time.
It is pretty amazing the alleged culprit has also been named, It makes me
wonder what, if any, sort of resulting fallout will follow this.

~~~
rue
Yes. Report it to the police and certainly write a blog post to bring
attention to the matter! I assume sexual violence is a problem at any
gathering with a large (intoxicated) mixed crowd. Perhaps the thought was that
it was not as common in tech conferences as it might be elsewhere?

But naming a person before they are even a police suspect, that I do not agree
with. Plus…as evidenced by myself…it may draw attention from the real problem
at hand.

 _Edit: I disagree with naming names at this stage of events because it sets a
precedent that will lead to irreparable damage at some point. Given the police
has all the necessary details, the potential downsides of publicly naming a
person outweigh the potential benefits. I will leave it at that._

~~~
rdl
If someone assaulted me, and I wasn't at all unclear about what happened or
his identity, I would absolutely name him. You don't need to convince a court
to convict first -- that's absurd.

Third parties may or may not believe or take action unless otherwise
convinced. I would be highly suspicious of someone who has been credibly
called out for something like this (and would probably not invite him to drink
with me, especially if I were female), but would need more evidence before
taking much more action.

Even in the UK, it's not slander or libel if it's true.

~~~
natrius
Sexual assault is a special crime in our society. If newspapers find it
prudent to avoid publishing the names of victims of sexual assault, I don't
see why the suspects can't be afforded the same courtesy. The potential damage
is far higher for the suspect, anyway.

------
iopuy
Please lets not assassinate Florian Leibert character based off of the
uncorroborated evidence of a single individual.

Noirin obviously has some strong opinions regarding gender and technology and
I pray that these haven't had any role in this matter.

Her Geek Feminism affiliations -
<http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Heroes_Women_in_FOSS>

Her involvement in the org.apache.women group -
<http://markmail.org/message/dwdadluiapbg5qrs>

A blog entry about her divorce that pretty much blames it all on her husbands
health. -
[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:cm9PvCv...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:cm9PvCvek70J:www.linuxchix.org/aggregator/sources/26+noirin+Plunkett+sex&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us)

~~~
follower
Just to clarify for those who may not click through and read the links posted
by the newly created "iopuy" account:

> Her Geek Feminism affiliations -
> <http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Heroes_Women_in_FOSS>

A web page created by Kirrily Robert (a.k.a skud) who was liveblogging a talk
by Pia Waugh entitled "Heroes: Women in FOSS" at OSCON 2008. On that page in a
list entitled "We gots hackers: a list of women" Noirin Plunkett's name
appears along with ten other women.

> Her involvement in the org.apache.women group -
> <http://markmail.org/message/dwdadluiapbg5qrs>

In which, amongst other things she asks if the charter for the group "could
replace every instance of 'women' with a word that includes both genders -
'people', 'newbies', 'interested proto-participants', anything that's not
discriminatory." and concludes with:

"""

If we can make the ASF a more open, comfortable, easy-to-work-in environment,
everyone wins. I understand that it's very easy for a group of women to focus
on helping other women - it's easier to put ourselves in the shoes of those
who are similar to us. And I'm certainly not saying we should insist on fixing
everything at once. However, I do think we should start the way we mean to go
on, and that, to me, requires a much more inclusive charter.

"""

> A blog entry about her divorce that pretty much blames it all on her
> husbands health. -
> [http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:cm9PvCv...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:cm9PvCvek70J:www.linuxchix.org/aggregator/sources/26+noirin+Plunkett+sex&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us)

And also links to a blog by her ex-husband wherein he says "How Noirin lasted
so long, i’ll never understand. She’s amazing."

I don't want anybody in the tech community to die at the hand of character
assassination, Florian, Noirin, you or me.

~~~
iopuy
" I don't want anybody in the tech community to die at the hand of character
assassination, Florian, Noirin, you or me. "

Absolutely right, that's why it is so important we have ALL that facts before
arriving at a conclusion.

------
sqrt17
I think that the most appropriate way to deal this is with consistent and
timely enforcement of rules: if someone gropes you or worse, call him or her
out _in front of the group_ and ask for help from bystanders to remove the
person from the place, or, if appropriate, hold him or her and call the
police.

There's no shame in asking other people for help when there's a situation to
be dealt with, and I'd be surprised if a bunch of ApacheCon attendees were
less than helpful in this regard, even in an after-several-beers state.
Independently of whether someone barfed on you, stole your wallet, sexually
assaulted you or wanted to start a boxing fight.

~~~
lizzard
I agree that is a good way to deal with these situations. React immediately,
in the moment, and enlist the people around you.

That turns out to be very hard to do. It's difficult to have the presence of
mind. I've done it many times, but haven't always managed to react
immediately, 100% of the time. I believe it takes practice. It's worth setting
up a situation to role-play and actually say the words to call someone out and
shut their bad behavior down, and how to support someone who's trying to do
that.

The Open Source Women Back Each Other Up Project might be helpful:
<http://backupproject.org/faq.html>

------
skorgu
I'd post this to her site if I could but I'd like to sincerely thank Noirin
for speaking out about this. We as a community have a long way to go and
speaking honestly and openly about problems is the very first step.

------
DevX101
Apparently this guy is a twitter dev. Should heinous behavior like this at an
after party be grounds for firing him? What would you do if you were his boss?

~~~
cperciva
_What would you do if you were his boss?_

I would show him the post and ask him to explain himself.

All we have here is an unsubstantiated allegation; it happens to be an
allegation I personally believe, but it's still not reasonably enough to fire
someone over. If he was my employee and responded "that's all lies and I
wasn't even at the pub" I'd encourage him to sue for libel. If he said "oh
shit... yeah, I screwed up", I'd reconsider any important responsibilities I
had assigned him (since such behaviour is evidence of not being able to act
responsibly) but continue to employ him as long as he could contribute in
other ways. If he said "yeah, so what's the big deal?" I'd fire him on the
spot and phone the complainant to encourage her to press charges.

But above all I'd wait to hear both sides of the story before passing any
judgement.

~~~
fjh
>If he said "oh shit... yeah, I screwed up", I'd reconsider[...]

Really? I think that doesn't cut it here. "yeah, I screwed up" is an
appropriate response when you show up hungover for an important
presentation,not when you try and force yourself on someone.

~~~
cperciva
I don't believe that anyone is beyond salvation providing that he is willing
to confront his sins and avoid repeating them. If I thought an employee was
likely to sexually assault someone else, I'd cut him loose immediately; but if
he was as shocked by his behaviour as any reasonable person would be, then I
wouldn't necessarily think he was any more likely to reoffend than anyone
else.

But I come from Canada -- a country which eschews the death penalty and even
gives parole to multiple murderers on occasion. We're more forgiving than
Americans.

~~~
SkyMarshal
I'm American and I agree with you.

Ideally the accused, if guilty, would man up, admit wrongdoing alcohol or no,
apologize, and do whatever is in his power to right his wrong, make whole,
undo the damage, seek counseling, stop drinking, donate a large sum to a
women's shelter, speak out against sexual assault at tech conferences, that
sort of thing.

Incredibly embarrassing for him yes, but the fact that she has only so far
publicly shamed him and not actually pressed charges is more than charitable
on her part.

She's left the door open for him to respond in kind and for this to be
resolved between the two of them. But he has to realize the generosity she's
displaying here, and reciprocate ten-fold.

To me that would be evidence that someone was not only shocked by their
behavior, but sincere about being shocked, and willing to make it right. I'm
not one to throw stones in such cases.

~~~
rue
That is a very interesting interpretation, and very charitable; but it could
just as easily be explained by malice because justly or not, the revelation
has pretty much destroyed his reputation with a very, very small potential of
successful redemptory action.

I think that she did it without really thinking it through because she is
personally involved. People do not always make the best decisions under those
circumstances, which is why we have the legal framework.

I must stress that I cannot really blame her, I do not know how I would have
acted in similar circumstances. I just _wish_ she had not done it because when
naming names becomes precedent, something bad will happen to someone
undeserving of it.

~~~
SkyMarshal
Agree with your second and third paragraphs. I was also a bit shocked as I was
reading it when she named him. It would have been even more charitable not to,
since he clearly would have known who she was referring to upon reading that
blog post even without his name, and would have had the same opportunity to
find a way to right his wrong.

But you can't expect a woman to act charitably after being sexually assaulted.
That she hasn't pressed charges is still above and beyond the call of duty on
her part, and I do think the road to redemption for a guy in this situation is
clear, though not easy.

PS - all this presumes guilt; consider it hypothetical.

~~~
rue
I do not think we should really presume anything.

> _That she hasn't pressed charges is still above and beyond the call of duty
> on her part, […]_

This I disagree with. A public outing can be just as, if not _more_ damaging
to the alleged assailant. It is possible that she also thought or thinks along
your tracks, but I do not think it is factually true that this is somehow a
"soft" option.

~~~
SkyMarshal
Wouldn't pressing charges = public outing + legal ramifications? Seems clearly
worse than just a public outing.

And no, definitely shouldn't presume anything in these cases, which is what I
meant by that last line.

------
nreece
Cache:
[http://www.google.com/search?q=cache:http://blog.nerdchic.ne...](http://www.google.com/search?q=cache:http://blog.nerdchic.net/archives/418/)

~~~
tocomment
Why is that site slow to load. Isn't it just coming from google?

~~~
patio11
It is loading Javascript from her site. She probably has Apache KeepAlive on
with a maximum number of connections far insufficient for the number of people
currently trying to request files. They all get into a line and request their
file, get it almost instantly, then keep the connection open for 2 ~ 3 seconds
waiting for another request to come in... while several thousand people behind
them have their requests time out. Javascript included in the HEAD of a
document will block rendering until it is either downloaded and parsed
completely or times out. Thus, it doesn't matter if Google's CDN gives you the
HTML in 5 milliseconds -- your user-visible experience is dominated by her
server's timeout on the Javascript.

Apache KeepAlive: it kills more blogs than cancer.

For learning about this general subject, I recommend the YSlow presentations.

~~~
colmmacc
Hi there,

I'm the administrator of the box running the blog. I'm also colm@apache.org,
one of the authors of Apache httpd. KeepAlive's are enabled on the host, but
with a deliberate timeout of 1 second. The listen backlog is 25, which can
contribute to a backlog looking like the above but it isn't.

The hosted ended up getting wedged due to poor MySQL contention, there is a
limit of just 80 server processes (and hence connections - we're running pre-
fork on this host), and they were each getting blocked on MySQL reads.

That's been sorted now, and some better caching, compression and more put in
place. It's a 1Ghz, 1GB RAM box is a colo that got slammed by HN, Reddit and
Techcrunch in one go - to an uncached wordpress instance. I'm surprised it did
as well as it did ;-)

------
sp332
She, and a lot of commenters, are talking as if Florian Leibert thought this
was a good idea, or that this behavior is OK, or something. It looks like he
had a few too many and lost control. "Thousands and thousands of years of
civilization and education" (as emmanuel lécharny put it in the comments on
that page) just don't come into it. If he'd gotten into a car and accidentally
driven off a cliff, no one would call him suicidal. I don't think he has a
"double standard", and I don't think he was planning to "get patted on the
back for it", as L. claimed.

~~~
mkramlich
Agreed. When people have alcohol, they often lose inhibitions and do or say
things they otherwise would not. There's a good chance this applied to many of
the people described in the story.

~~~
drags
One implication of this statement is that some people hold back from
committing sexual assault in large part due to societal pressure. Perhaps
true, but not much of an excuse on a moral level.

~~~
sp332
No one said it was any excuse. I'm worried that people will get the wrong
answers when they ask the wrong questions. My point wasn't about social
pressure but mental exertion: consciously examining one's own thoughts in
real-time. Definitely the only thing that keeps people back from sexual
assault is consciously deciding not to.

~~~
MoreMoschops
" Definitely the only thing that keeps people back from sexual assault is
consciously deciding not to."

That is so not true. Don't extrapolate your own pitiful lack of morality onto
others. If you have to explicitly remind yourself not to rape people, it
doesn't mean everyone else does too.

~~~
sp332
This isn't just about rape, it's about ANY physical contact.

~~~
MoreMoschops
Oh, I'm sorry. I'll rephrase.

That is so not true. Don't extrapolate your own pitiful lack of morality onto
others. If you have to explicitly remind yourself not to sexually assault
people, it doesn't mean everyone else does too.

Is that better?

~~~
sp332
Yeah, it's better. But the reason I don't do those things is specifically
_because_ I think they're immoral. I can look at the impulse and say, "No,
that's wrong." Do you think that makes me immoral?

------
Judson
Wow, think about waking up from a drunken night to realize not only that you
made poor decisions the night before, but that you are now the Internet
douchebag.

This guy probably wishes he kept his hands to himself.

~~~
MediaSquirrel
Probably not the first time. Most guys who pull this shit are serial
offenders. Once they realize they can act with impunity, they repeat the
behavior.

~~~
nkohari
I'm not defending either side in this situation, but it seems unfair to
immediately think the accused is a serial rapist.

------
logicalmind
As the father of two daughters I am somewhat appalled by the responses here.
I'm not taking anyone's side, but the responses here are shocking to me. I
don't know what to say, but, WOW! Maybe I need to rethink the advice I am
giving my daughters.

~~~
pjscott
Could you cite some specific examples of replies that appall you, and perhaps
give a short explanation of what you take issue with? That would help make
this discussion more concrete, and hopefully more productive.

~~~
logicalmind
Sure, Here was the original top comment I found appalling:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1875900>

This right here is called denial. In short "I have a friend, who is like this
guy, who was accused of the same thing and he got off." Which in my opinion is
denying that the female involved is telling the truth and that this person is
completely innocent.

Additionally, this is the second highest post as I type. I don't think I even
have to respond. At this time, the comment that makes the same point as me is
downvoted to the negative:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1875948>

At this point I don't want to continue further defending my point. Downvote me
if you like. I find the responses here about 50% disturbing and 50% uplifting.
That is no reflection on HN, but on the tech community. Before today I would
have gladly recommended to my daughters to follow a tech path. But after
tonight I've lost my innocence on that. I've never really thought about these
issues from a woman's perspective before tonight. And I've never really been
involved in a situation like this. So my responses might be a bit different
than the typical younger 20's male responses. And I'm fine with that. Maybe
I've just lost my innocence.

~~~
rue
> _Before today I would have gladly recommended to my daughters to follow a
> tech path. But after tonight I've lost my innocence on that._

This type of thing is, unfortunately, by no means exclusive to or even at all
more common in tech than anywhere else. By all means try to prepare your
daughters for the world, but I think evaluating tech as any different in this
respect would be a disservice to them.

~~~
logicalmind
You may be 100% correct, it's just that it hadn't become real for me. I am in
my late 30's and have father-friends in various industries. When I went to
school there were a couple of female students in the class here or there. We
treated them no different than any other students. There were plenty of
embarrassing sexual advances by students, but nothing along the lines of
sexual assault. Men and women of the tech community were the smart students.

I've talked to many father-friends who have sons and daughters who go to
various high schools and colleges. I've heard stories of sexual assaults and
very unfortunate situations. But I could always justify them to myself as
inferior disciplines and sad situations.

It's not like I thought this never happened in tech. Just the combination of
highly skilled, top company, person in tech and the response of a general
community that I highly respect give me pause.

In general, I think I am older than the HN crowd, so I am fine with thinking a
bit different.

~~~
hypatiadotca
we had a conversation on the geekfeminism blog a while back about the issue of
not talking about the bad stuff in tech - you might find it insightful, in
terms of how some women who are in tech, and have deal with this shit, think
about it: <http://geekfeminism.org/2010/06/10/dont-mention-the-war/>

------
Legion
She has tweeted a link to a working copy of the article:
<http://blog.nerdchic.net/archives/418/>

The tweet quotes the line: "It is not my job to avoid getting assaulted. It is
everyone else's job to avoid assaulting me."

I think that statement is wrongheaded. Not the second part - it is indeed
everyone else's job to avoid assaulting people. The responsibility for the
crime lies entirely with the perpetrator.

Unfortunately, because of this, making any statement as to the victim's
behavior is always seen as "blaming the victim".

The problem is, in this world, we only reliably control the actions of one
person: ourselves. We can take principled stands that "it's everyone else's
job to not assault me", and that's so true, but in the end, being right isn't
a suitable stand-in for being safe.

That is why I don't like the statement, "It is not my job to avoid getting
assaulted". Because regardless of where the responsibility should lie, in
reality, we are ALWAYS the stewards of our own personal safety. We have to be,
because we're the only person in the world who will treat the job with the
gravity it deserves.

If I walk down a bad alley, it is not my fault if I get shot. The person
pulling the trigger is 100% at fault. But, I was not being a good steward of
my own safety.

Towards the end of the post, she says, "I’m tired of people who think I should
avoid having a beer in case my vigilance lapses for a moment." You have a
right to be tired. I've lived in a couple of unsafe places where I grew tired
of the fact that I had to be vigilant just to go about my daily life. It is
draining and it is frustrating to have to alter your behavior because of the
threat posed by others. But we only have one life, and safety must take
priority over principle.

It is right to say that the perpetrator is the one at fault. It is right to
call them out and make them account for their actions. Innocent people
shouldn't have to alter their behavior to avoid danger. But the reality is
that they _have_ _to_ _anyway_.

EDIT: Allow me to clarify a couple of points. Some people are taking me as
saying, "you have to do everything possible to protect yourself, and if
something happens, then you didn't protect yourself enough."

This is false. Sometimes, stuff happens even if you do everything right. The
point was simply that you have a responsibility to your own personal well-
being to do everything right, even though you can't guarantee 100% safety.

Also, I have avoided applying my comments to her specific sequence of events.
Some people have taken me as lecturing her in failing. Folks, she was largely
_successful_ in doing what I'm saying. Her attacker was clearly intending to
do more and was foiled. This may not have been the case if, say, she had been
too drunk, or in a place where she was not able to make the escape she did,
etc.

What her attacker did was the sexual assault equivalent of a sucker punch. He
found the ever-so-slightest opening and exploited it. She successfully shook
off the initial attack and defended herself from any further assault. We're
talking about a situation that _could_ have ended much worse, and didn't
because she was able to take ownership of her safety. And she had to do so
because there was no one else to do the job.

Which is why I found the comments in her blog/tweet that I replied to a little
puzzling, and made this post to address them.

~~~
shaddi
She said no, he groped her. What do you propose she should have done to be a
"steward of her personal safety"? Live as though every male could attempt to
sexually assault her? Is that how you want your wife/girlfriend/daughter going
through life? Do you think that's how they want to go through life? Is that
how we want female members of the tech community feeling at these types of
gatherings?

Look, I appreciate the fact you're trying to make a reasoned, pragmatic
argument on an emotional issue. But the fact of the matter is this is a
situation that we can change and do something about. Anyone should feel
comfortable participating in our community without fearing for their personal
safety; we have the ability to support victims and make clear to those who
would commit these crimes that it's not something they can get away with,
which is not the current status quo.

~~~
anperson
>"But the fact of the matter is this is a situation that we can change and do
something about."

What can we do something about? Aren't loud, drunken, dark, crowded venues the
kind of places that sexual assault happens? Is the hypothesis that if we shame
people more that we can eliminate sexual assault?

I am not sure that insufficient shame is the problem. I doubt the males that
do this think it is a fine thing to do when sober.

Our society thinks frat parties, dance clubs, and drunken after parties are a
swell way to have fun and a huge percentage of our women are sexually
assaulted at some point in their lives. These two facts are related. It's dumb
to think we can pack people together and dull their inhibitions with alcohol
and nothing bad will happen. It's not harmless fun.

Maybe the Mormons have the right idea about alcoholic partying. We're playing
with fire and we're lying to ourselves if we think we'll ever make it safe.

~~~
commodorecomma
Actually, if someone wouldn't commit a sexual crime, they're not going to do
it drunk. Only 30% of reported rapes and sexual assaults involve alcohol use
on the part of the offender. (Keep in mind that this is reported rapes and
sexual assaults; sexual crimes are extremely unreported.) The Center for Sex
Offender Management quotes a 1998 Greenfield study when it says that
"[a]lcohol use, therefore, may increase the likelihood that someone already
predisposed to commit a sexual assault will act upon those impulses. However,
excessive alcohol use is not a primary precipitant to sexual assaults." Note:
These numbers are from 2000, unfortunately. However, there has not been a
dramatic change in the last decade.

~~~
usaar333
How often is someone drunk? 30% is absolutely huge conditionally.

~~~
pyre
Really? There is going to be _some_ correlation between the times that people
are most likely to commit sexual assaults and the times that people are likely
to be drinking.

I'm sure people spend a lot of time doing things like commuting to work or
sleeping at night, but it's highly unlikely that they will commit sexual
assaults during those times. People are just more likely to be drinking at
times when they are looking for sex (e.g. at a party, at a bar, etc).

You should probably be following something like the following line of
reasoning:

1\. How many sexual assaults happen on dates?

2\. How prevalent is drinking while on a date? (Maybe you'll have to divide
the data up regionally or something for it to make sense)

3\. How many sexual assaults happen when there was drinking on a date?

 _Then_ you can start to look at how likely it is that alcohol is really the
cause of sexual assault (at least for the dataset that you're looking at).

------
bradleyjoyce
"It’s not the first time something like this has happened to me, at all. It’s
not the first time it’s happened to me at a tech conference. But it is the
first time I’ve spoken out about it in this way, because I’m tired of the
sense that some idiot can ruin my day and never have to answer for it."

At this risk of everyone taking this the wrong way....

(1) If it's not the first time this has happened, it might be time to re-
evaluate the pattern of behavior that led up to the unfortunate event.

(2) Never have to answer for it?!!? Um if you're sexually assaulted (multiple
times?!?!) you should definitely be reporting that to the POLICE where the
offender will, I'm pretty sure, have to answer for it. Right?

I totally understand that blogging about this must have been incredibly
difficult for this person, and perhaps naming the accused in the post lightens
the burden on her a bit... but this should definitely be a police issue, not a
blog issue!

~~~
cowpewter
"If it's not the first time this has happened, it might be time to re-evaluate
the pattern of behavior that led up to the unfortunate event."

Responses like this are exactly why women don't speak up when these things
happen.

~~~
bradleyjoyce
I'm in no way trying to say it's her fault. But if there is some pattern to
the situation perhaps it would be worthwhile to analyze in the hopes that it
didn't happen again? It's unfair and unjust that in doing so she might uncover
something she could change to help prevent some pervert from doing something
atrocious... but if it did prevent it, wouldn't it be worth it?

It seems logical to me... but I guess in being logical I'm somehow being
sexist or something (which is why my original comment is getting downvoted?)?

~~~
cowpewter
Yeah, I get that _you_ specifically aren't trying to say it's her fault.

It's just that overwhelmingly, when harassment occurs to women, the
conversation turns to 'What could she have done differently to make it not
happen to her?' and NOT 'What can we do to make it so men don't harass?'

If it didn't happen to so many women, so often, then maybe the conversation
could go that way.

But as you say, let's analyze the pattern. What if the pattern is "Go to tech
conferences and socialize in a normal and acceptable manner with other people
who share my interests"?

What are you going to tell her? Don't go to tech conferences? Don't network
with other people in your industry at a bar? Don't talk to a man while drunk?
While sober but he is drunk? Don't talk to a man at all? Don't walk down the
street at night in a skirt. Don't walk down the street at night at all. Don't
leave your house.

~~~
bradleyjoyce
I wouldn't tell her anything, quite frankly, other than to suggest that SHE
analyze the situation and make her own determinations.

Going to extremes (don't leave the house) is obviously not a realistic or
constructive option.

~~~
cowpewter
Again, nothing against you specifically. Consider it a generic 'you' and that
absurdist reduction is absurd. But unfortunately, it's what a lot of people
actually seem to believe, even if they don't state it in so many words.

------
iuguy
While I understand that the author is extremely upset, afraid (and right to be
so), I think naming the guy on her blog is a bit of a dick move. If this
happened and it affects her then she should report it to the police who will
investigate and if sufficient evidence is found press charges.

If she isn't going to do that, then a guy gets accused of this without any
opportunity to defend himself (regardless of whether or not she's telling the
truth, if accused of something he should be called to account and should be
able to defend himself). Instead anyone googling for his name is going to hit
a ton of blogs accusing him of being the kind of guy that would commit sexual
assault.

I sincerely hope that the girl in question gets all the support and help she
needs, but if she believes that his activities constituted sexual assault she
should call the cops, not just accuse someone of things on the Internet.

------
faramarz
Disgusting! It's equally appalling that this has happened to her numerous
times.

wtf?

~~~
eli
What's worse is that isn't really an outlier. Hard numbers are tough to come
by, but sexual assault really is that common.

~~~
usaar333
It's certainly common, but it is radically different across demographic
groups.

I find it very hard to believe it is common for women to get sexually
assaulted at a tech conferences full of intelligent, upper class , and
generally meek around women guys. I'm sure it unfortunately does happen, but I
doubt it is something occurring every other conference.

~~~
callahad
> _"I find it very hard to believe it is common for women to get sexually
> assaulted at a tech conferences"_

And that's the crazy part. It doesn't make sense. You've got intelligent
folks, not the dregs of society or anything, and yet, it _is_ common. I
attended a tech conference earlier this year in which one of the attendees set
up an open space to discuss "invisible diversity" (transgender / genderqueer,
sexual orientation, neurodiversity, etc.).

1/10th of the conference's attendees presented as non-male, while 1/2 of this
particular open space presented as non-male, which seems to indicate that it
touched on a subject of particular interest to folks that didn't fit into the
white, cisgendered, male majority.

More interestingly, most of the non-male individuals in attendance explicitly
stated that they felt sexually threatened at most conferences.

Crazy, right?

But when someone makes that claim, and sufficiently many others offer their
assent and echo the claims, then I'm left having to believe that, yes, those
things do happen, and at a far greater rate than is directly visible to you or
I.

------
sofal
What in the hell? How is this believable and usual? I have been living under a
rock.

Is this seriously what typically goes on at drinking parties?

~~~
_delirium
I wouldn't say "typically", but it's sadly not uncommon. I'm a guy and make no
real effort to observe (or even attend) most of these kinds of afterparties,
and have still seen stuff ranging from "somewhat inappropriate" to "wtf" a few
times. Usually a really drunk guy is involved, and it often turns out that
said drunk guy has done inappropriate things while drunk at previous events.
Not sure how to make it happen, but there are some people who really should
not be drunk at public/semi-public events.

(There are also people who are totally out of line while sober, but I think
it's a minority of the serious incidents at conferences.)

------
sheena
I'd recommend reading through some of the comments on
<http://www.metafilter.com/85667/Hi-Whatcha-reading> for some perspectives on
how men and women experience the world very differently in many cases. While
the general tenor of discussion gets a bit strident and I don't agree with a
good deal of what's being said, it's very relevant to several comments in this
thread. It seems to me always worth trying to understand how the world looks
through other people's eyes.

~~~
silverlake
Wow. The strident comments actually turned my OFF on the whole discussion. I
resolve to continue not caring about the subject.

------
Maxious
Note that this is just one in a long history of convention "incidents" in the
open source/geek community to the extent that there is a "Con Anti-Harassment
Project" site @ <http://www.cahp.girl-wonder.org/>

------
MediaSquirrel
The original post in entirety...

I had a hell of a time last night – in good and bad ways.

The good came first. The ApacheCon lightning talks were, as usual, hilarious.
The talented Paul Fremantle brought out his tinwhistle and I danced an only-
slightly off-time hornpipe. Bertrand revealed the secrets of the members@
mailing list with a speaking chorus. A crazy person with a graphing calculator
and a psychedelic three-ring binder gatecrashed and spoke about no-one’s sure
what. Ross, Paul and I did an “Ask Me!” talk. Leo, Rich, Shane filled their
five minutes in traditional and hilarious and moving fashions. Jean-Frederic
had us saying Hello World in more languages than I could count. We laughed as
we counted hesitations, repetitions and deviations. It was great.

The party moved up to my room. We had beer, and beer pong, and altogether too
many people crammed in. It was more egalitarian than I remember last year’s
being – lots of new people, lots of people who weren’t part of the old Apache
guard. A charming Southern gentleman with the most awesome belt I’ve ever seen
(Carl, where did you get that!?), an excited Berliner who picked me up and
whirled me around and somehow managed to avoid having me kick anyone in the
head. I lay across the bed, sat on laps, generally tried to squish in to any
available space and get time to talk to all the fabulous people thronging the
place.

At some point, it was too late and too loud to reasonably continue. Everyone
cleared out (Nick, you are a _god_ , for spending the extra five minutes to
clear the carnage, so that I could wake up in a room that showed no signs of
what had happened the night before!), and we headed to the Irish pub next door
that has become our local.

Some food, a few more beers. Squeezing everyone up so I could sit next to
someone I wanted to talk to. Laughing at the events of the week, and the
night.

And then I went to the loo, and as I was about to go in, Florian Leibert, who
had been speaking in the Hadoop track, called me over, and asked if he could
talk to me.

I’m on the board of Apache. I’m responsible for our conferences. I work on
community development and mentoring. If you’re at an Apache event and you want
help, information, encouragement, answers, I will always do my best to
provide. So this wasn’t an unusual request, and it wasn’t one I expected to
end the way it did.

 __ _He brought me in to the snug, and sat up on a stool. He grabbed me,
pulled me in to him, and kissed me. I tried to push him off, and told him I
wasn’t interested (I may have been less eloquent, but I don’t think I was less
clear). He responded by jamming his hand into my underwear and fumbling._ __

I broke away, headed back to the group, and hid behind some of the bigger,
burlier infra guys, while Bill sorted out all the people who’d left stuff in
my room, so that I could reasonably escape. We headed back, people got their
stuff, Bill stayed around, and I slept.

When Bill woke up, I pretended to still be asleep, because I couldn’t deal
with speaking to anyone. I sent a mail to our planning committee to say that
I’d been assaulted. Charel came to talk to me, and then I e-mailed Nick, who
came up and helped me sort things out so I could get to the keynote and feel
safe. Florian didn’t turn up today, and it’s probably for the best.

I had a few drinks. I was wearing a skirt of such a length that I had cycling
shorts on under it to make me feel more comfortable getting up on stage and
dancing. I had been flirting with a couple of other boys at the party.

It’s not the first time something like this has happened to me, at all. It’s
not the first time it’s happened to me at a tech conference. But it is the
first time I’ve spoken out about it in this way, because I’m tired of the
sense that some idiot can ruin my day and never have to answer for it. I’m
tired of the fear. I’m tired of people who think I should wear something
different. I’m tired of people who think I should avoid having a beer in case
my vigilance lapses for a moment. I’m tired of people who say that guys can’t
read me right and I have to read them, and avoid giving the wrong impression.

But I don’t give the wrong impression, and it’s simply not true that guys
can’t read me right. I don’t want to be assaulted, and the vast majority of
guys read that just fine. It is not my job to avoid getting assaulted. It is
everyone else’s job to avoid assaulting me. Dozens of guys succeeded at that
job, across the week. In the pub, in the stairwell, on the MARTA, in my
bedroom.

One guy failed, and it’s his fault.

~~~
sh1mmer
You didn't post the full text. That last paragraph is important.

[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:DUxu_L4...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:DUxu_L4at94J:blog.nerdchic.net/+nerdchic.net&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us)

~~~
MediaSquirrel
fixed

------
swaits
Is it just me, or was there not a lot of "Apache stuff" going on at the Apache
con?

------
freiheit
Bit of commentary from somebody who was there (but didn't see anything):
[http://journal.paul.querna.org/articles/2010/11/06/disappoin...](http://journal.paul.querna.org/articles/2010/11/06/disappointed/)

------
rue
Reading through the comments here, they for the most part strike me as coldly
analytical. Knowing our "breed", though, I think mostly everyone is also upset
about the situation, genuinely sorry that it happened and interested in
ensuring it does not in the future.

It may not seem that way but I feel confident in saying that it is.

Hell, even my "emotional" post is not. Perception is a funny thing.

------
prawn
The male in question appears to have deleted or renamed his Twitter profile:
<http://twitter.com/floleibert>

(At the time of the incident, he worked for Twitter. Wonder if he still does?)

Edit: Ignore this - seems to have switched to <https://twitter.com/flo> at
some point.

~~~
elliottcarlson
Actually his Twitter profile is at <http://twitter.com/flo>

~~~
prawn
Just spotted and was about to mention that. Must've changed at some point as
there were old links around. Thanks Elliott.

------
danielnicollet
The two people at the heart of the matter: Noirin Plunket Shirley -
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wiM6_pCyvMI> Florian Liebert -
<http://vimeo.com/4211288>

I'd like them to concentrate on tech stuff more and this stuff less.

~~~
mkramlich
at least she's been named explicitly too. only fair. neither should be named
in public, before/outside a legal venue. but if she's going to name him, then
she needs to be named too.

~~~
danielnicollet
that's what I thought too - she came to the court of HN opinion which maybe
not the best for this particular matter but at least all should be fully
transparent

~~~
follower
In what way is writing a blog post that was then posted by Stephen Sclafani
(<http://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=ssclafani>) coming to the "the court of
HN opinion"?

------
petenixey
In 1940's Alabama a young black man grasps the breasts of a white girl as they
get drunk together late one night in a bar.

The girl goes home shocked and crying and tells her Daddy who rouses up an
angry mob to march down to the mans house, pull him from his home and lynch
him in front of his family.

Two wrongs, one tragedy.

------
andrewvc
Seems to be down, anyone got a cache?

------
yason
An _immense_ repository of good background information on all the numerous
dynamics involved in situations such as a rape:

<http://www.nononsenseselfdefense.com/rape.html>

~~~
lizzard
That's really horrible victim-blaming site. It also presents men as out-of-
control animals. Sort of rape-robots who have to be placated at all times so
as not to lose their thin veneer of civility.

------
Mrdev4
[http://pauloflaherty.com/2010/11/06/what-about-the-other-
sid...](http://pauloflaherty.com/2010/11/06/what-about-the-other-side-of-the-
noirin-shirley-accusation/)

------
Mrdev4
HN is a starting to feel like the tribal region of Pakistan.To make a
assumption of guilt based on a blog post is ridiculous.

------
MediaSquirrel
Holy cow.

------
jules
A lot of people here are only considering whether what she says is true or
not. I do not think it's necessarily so black and white. Let me explain.

One one side, there is the possibility that he came to her out of the blue,
tried to kiss her, and put his hands in her pants. One the other side, there
is the possibility that she is consciously lying about all this (the people
arguing that this is a possibility mention previous cases of false
accusations).

Now, there are three very important things to consider: alcohol, communication
and memory.

About memory: Memory is not as robust as people think it is, I learned this
many years ago. When I was a small kid my dad accused me of destroying some
plants he was growing indoors. At first I said "no I didn't do it", but then
he explained that that could not be the case because I was the only one who
likes to pick leaves off plants (which was true). I still persisted that I
didn't do it.

The next day however, I remembered quite clearly that I was picking the leaves
off his plants. So I apologized. And he planted new plants. These new plants
got destroyed too, and we discovered that it was the work of mice. Telling the
difference between a real memory and a memory of a dream is very hard.

So what happened to me was that I remembered something that (1) was completely
the opposite of what actually happened (2) it was a memory that portrayed
myself in a negative light, and the mind usually tries to remember things so
that they show yourself in a positive light. So it seems very unlikely to me
that such a completely fake memory could enter my mind. Yet it did.

I can definitely imagine that a memory was altered from "he touched me on my
clothes" to "he tried to put his hand in my pants". Especially if you're upset
about what happened, and then dream about it. Or perhaps she wasn't as clear
about telling him to go away as she remembers. Note that I'm not saying that I
believe that this is what happened. I am merely saying that it is a
possibility that memory wasn't 100% accurate.

About communication: It is possible that she flirted with him (she even
mentions that she flirted with guys in the post), and he thought that she was
attracted to him.

Alcohol: obviously some things happen when people are drunk that wouldn't have
happened when they're not. And it doesn't improve memory either.

So in addition to the stories:

(1) He came to her out of the blue, tried to kiss her, and put his hands in
her pants.

And:

(2) She is consciously lying about all this.

This is also a possibility: A girl flirted with a guy. Later that evening,
after a few too many beers, the guy went to the girl and tried to kiss her.
She pushed him away, but then he put his hands on her hips at the edge of her
pants.

For that matter, everything between (1) and (2) is possible. So please do not
just consider "Guilty" vs "Consciously lying" as the only possibilities.

------
savoy11
I'd like to put this into the perspective of a foreigner. I believe the sexual
assault problem has been blown out of proportions in American culture - there
are things that are just too much, like the sex offenders registration/web
site for example. Sex offending is a bad crime, but so is killing someone with
a car while driving drunk, how come there is no web site for offenders like
that? You can very easily ruin someone's life forever with a blog post like
this and while I do not defend him, I believe this is too much and too mean to
do at this point, especially without hard evidence of what really happened.
This blog post will come #1 for his name forever on all Google searches, she
has effectively ruined his personal and professional life forever now.

This sex offender thing results in curious effects in American society that I
have not seen anywhere else. For example, in a typical American bar/night-
club, the women would typically be the active part in initiating conversations
and even talk directly about sex/one-night stands. This has happened to me
multiple times. Men are very cautious to even initiate a conversation, let
alone suggest something more, because it is very easy to label this sex
offense. This is at least my observation with my American friends (Silicon
Valley, educated, geek) - this may be different somewhere else.

Just my $0.02. I do not defend the guy, it is just so easy to drop names in
blog posts lie that, but you have to be careful when you do that. Also read
the comments on her blog. Some of the comments say that this is not the first
time she has written blog posts about her being sexually offended (contrary to
what she says it's the first time she talks about that). Do not kill the guy
based on that. Even if he did what she claims, there are still 1,000 crimes
that are much worse than that and we do not even discuss them so much here.

~~~
savoy11
Read carefully guys before downvoting and know there are always two sides of
the same story. Tomorrow this can happen to you too. Ruining someone's
personal and professional life forever is a very drastic thing to do and is a
very hard punishment even for the worst crimes.

This is a comment from her blog post. This greatly differs from her original
point that she has never talked about this before, let alone name anyone.

<quote> Please don’t think i’m accusing you of fabricating this story but it
concerns me greatly that this isn’t the first time you have blogged about
being sexual assaulted and named the men involved. Why do you think it is ok
for you to do this?

I don’t know who Florian Leibert is but without any proof of what happened you
have essentially libeled him by making a (technically) baseless allegation of
sexual assault.

~~~
studer
You're seriously arguing that a throw-away comment from an anonymous internet
poster is enough to invalidate her story, and that we should ignore the
victim's story because we might find ourselves in the attacker's situation?
What the fuck is wrong with you?

~~~
savoy11
I am just saying there are two sides of the story and we have not heard the
other side yet. And we are talking about a professional and personal life
getting ruined here (the guy is already screwed up regardless of what comes
out of this, with this HN submission and even a Techcrunch article about
that).

We are getting a pattern of events that emerges we need to analyze that.
Public history of multiple sexual harassment claims in blog posts, "flirting
with a couple of guys", "having several drinks", "private party in my room".
Try to be fair here - we need to hear the other side of the story here for
sure.

------
mkramlich
"assaulted"

uh....not sure i can say much more without the PC crowd hammering me to death.
While none of us were there -- which is a big caveat -- from the description I
read I'd hesitate to call what happened "assault". I'm picturing the assault
on the Normandy defenses in 1944, in it's best usage. Or someone walking up to
you and slamming a baseball bat into your face. Ouch. That's assault. But
being kissed or having someone come on to you in a sexual/romantic manner --
even if you did not want it or reciprocate -- I think really stretches and
abuses the language.

Here's one mental tool to help tease out the important distinction involved.
Let's say the exact same thing happened as described in the story, except that
the woman was sexually attracted to the man in question -- it would not be
described as assault, just a man being aggressive and the woman liking it and
being glad he did. It's pretty well known that a lot of woman like men to come
on strong to them and be dominant -- of course the catch is they like this if
they were attracted to them in the first place, but if they weren't, then it
can have the opposite effect. Well, even if there were German soldiers
stationed along the beaches of Normandy in 1944 who "kinda wanted" for the
Allies to invade, it would regardless still be a military assault when they
did.

Now add alcohol drinking, a bar, late night, partying, lots of rowdy behavior,
touching, intentional flirting, geeks with poor social skills and body
language cue reading, etc. and things become even more, shall we say, less
clear cut.

~~~
tptacek
You're right, Mike. This wasn't sexual "assult". It was sexual _battery_. Let
me help you parse this out:

Official Code of Georgia, Title 16:

16-6-22.1. Sexual battery.

(a) For the purposes of this Code section, the term "intimate parts" means the
primary genital area, anus, groin, inner thighs, or buttocks of a male or
female and the breasts of a female.

(b) A person commits the offense of sexual battery when he intentionally makes
physical contact with the intimate parts of the body of another person without
the consent of that person.

(c) A person convicted of the offense of sexual battery shall be punished as
for a misdemeanor of a high and aggravated nature.

He's lucky he "fumbled". It otherwise would have been _aggravated sexual
battery_ ; a felony, in Georgia.

Hope that helps.

~~~
mkramlich
Thanks for quoting that tptacek, but that's just a law. :P

But seriously: it's arbitrary words on paper. And just one possible
jurisdiction. I guess my take is that every legal jurisdiction can have a
different definition. And even assuming that jurisdiction is the pertinent one
from purely a legal standpoint, it is tangential to whether, in a more
substantive sense whether an "assault" occurred, or rape, or whether violence
occurred, or whether anyone was _actually_ harmed in RL -- not in theory, not
in some textbook.

All I've personally heard for sure, in this case, is that one guy made some
moves in a bar which were waaay too forward relative to what the woman liked.
Because she did not like it, she publicly names him and accuses him of
"assault". I would bet you money that _if_ she _liked_ what he did then she
would not have did that and nobody here would be talking about it. I think
_this_ element of it is what makes it so tricky, and so controversial for some
folks.

~~~
tptacek
It's _the_ jurisdiction, Mike.

(It's "criminal sexual abuse" in my jurisdiction, and in the circumstances
described it's already a class 4 felony. That makes me happy.)

~~~
mkramlich
Again, these are arbitrary words on paper. :) They could be changed or deleted
or rearranged tomorrow if we wanted.

How I'm approaching it -- and this is really really important in order to
understand why I'm saying what i'm saying so I'm going to draw it out a bit to
emphasize it further -- is that we should listen to this story, and consider
the details of this incident in terms of the physical activities that
occurred, and the context in which it occurred, and come to our own
independent judgement as to whether what happened was (1) evil, and (2) what
was the magnitude of it (if it was), and (3) was their actual harm done (not
imagined harm, not theorized harm, not genericized extrapolated harm, etc.)
but real harm, and (4) if whether the very same incident were to occur except
that the woman _liked_ it, would we still consider it to be a big deal, and
would we still consider it a crime or think it should be a crime.

I clearly am coming down on the side that says that what happened should not
have happened, but, oh darn, it's really not that big of a deal and she'll be
fine. The guy misread how forward he could be, and/or was drunk and/or she was
also drunk, and/or one or both were flirtatious and things went too far. It
can happen. It's going to happen. It will keep happening just as long as
humans are sexual and have to play the mating dance with incomplete and
imperfect knowledge of the other's intentions and desires, and heck, even of
their own.

And look, by her own admission, it's not like a case where he dragged her into
an alley at knifepoint and violently raped her, leaving her bruised, bleeding,
in pain, etc. That is stereotypical rape, and is evil, and I think there's a
very large social consensus that that is bad and should be a crime and be
punished. We are _not_ talking about _that_ kind of event in this particular
case. But some people seem to have the same emotional baggage in mind when
they evaluate it. And I think that's a misleading and weak position to be
arguing from.

I think I would care much less about this particular case if (1) the guy was
not named, and (2) it was not blogged about publicly, and (3) here on HN. I
mean at most, this is a situation for her, that other guy, and the legal
system (and that, arguably) to deal with. The fact that it's been laundered
here makes me want to play Devil's Advocate with the hopes of illustrating
what I think are extremely important distinctions that should be considered,
but often are not.

~~~
tptacek
I'm not judging the veracity of the story, Mike. All I'm saying is that in the
story she told, the guy committed an actual crime. It has a name, and
everything.

~~~
mkramlich
I understand. And in all of my comments, I've never argued from the position
that this was definitely not a paper crime. It may or may not be, depending on
what actually happened. Only two people know for sure. And a judge, etc. But I
was arguing from the position of whether this _should_ be a crime. And whether
this _should_ be made public, and names named, at this point in the game. And
my take on both of these points was no and no. Or at least "very probably not"
and "definitely no," respectively.

I don't want to live in a society where we care more about whether something
is literally legal or illegal, and not more about whether something is right
or wrong, and in making subtle judgements and comparisons about how right or
how wrong something is, in the grand scheme of things. Ultimately, it should
not matter whether something is technically legal or illegal because _we can
change the laws_ , and, laws _are_ being changed all the time, and laws are
getting _bought_ by special interests all the time. They are literally just
words on paper. What should matter is the purpose and intent of laws -- why do
we have them? Why should we have them? When do they work well and when are
they broken or could use improvement. I think all of these issues are at play
in this particular case. And this is way more interesting to me, both as a
geek and as a citizen, than whether what happened is literally a crime or not.
That's for cops and DA's and judges to decide. But we can, in theory,
ultimately decide what those laws should be.

thanks for sparring with me on this!

------
earl
since I can't get the site to load

[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?sourceid=chrome...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=cache:http://blog.nerdchic.net/archives/418/)

