PolyskeptiCast Episode #1

[edit: If you tried to listen and it didn’t load, it may have been because I had to re-upload the file to podbean. It should be fine now]

So, we here at the PolySkeptic compound (or “playhouse” as Jessie calls it) have been talking about getting our sexy voices out there for people to enjoy. And what do you know, we have a microphone and some spare time, and I was willing to spend a couple of hours editing it, and here’s the first episode!

We would love to get some feedback, especially letters and comments that we could read for episode #2 (we will see how often we will do this).

In the mean time, enjoy!

Listen to this episode

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On red flags and the benefit of the doubt

We seem to have breached a new wall in the “sexual harassment in skepticism” war: names are being named, stories are being told. If you haven’t been following it, Greta Christina has a good rundown on the news to date here. (If you haven’t been following it, and would rather look at pictures of a baby elephant playing on a beach, those are here, and I don’t blame you.)

Essentially, these stories implicate a couple of big skeptic organizations, specifically JREF and CFI, in severely underreacting to accusations and confirmed incidents of sexual harassment by various of their employees and speakers. This is not the first time JREF and CFI have been at odds with feminists in the skeptic and atheist movement — for CFI, it’s not even the first time this summer. Both organizations (and individuals like DJ Grothe, the current president of JREF) have said and done offensive things and been called out. But, to people like me who are not on the inside track, this is the first we’ve heard about this level of unacceptable behavior, this level of sweeping things under the rug and prioritizing keeping popular male leaders over creating a safe and welcoming environment for women.

And one thing I’ve heard a couple times, in reading over blogs and comments on this subject, is “We shouldn’t have been so forgiving before. We shouldn’t have given the benefit of the doubt.” And that’s disturbing to me, because it suggests that the next time someone behaves in moderately assholeish ways, we should go ahead and assume they’re full-blown rotten scumbags. Which, I think we’d all agree when looking at it coolly, is not a rational approach to take.

Anger here is justified. I know some people have a much hotter response when angry than I do, and say things they don’t actually think and mean. (How this works I don’t fully understand, but I recognize that it does.) I want to be sure, though, that when the dust settles and the anger loosens its grip, we don’t actually go around upgrading offenses and declining forgiveness (that we’d otherwise have granted) because a different organization or person screwed us over in the past. I think there’s this fear of being a fool, of granting someone the benefit of the doubt — in a case where it was fair to do so — and then being shown later that they didn’t deserve it. Ironically, there’s something victim-blamey about that very notion that it’s foolish to give someone the benefit of the doubt if they later prove to be a thorough jerkass. It suggests that if we fail to fully intuit or extrapolate the depth of someone’s rottenness from a few initial red flags, we’re the ones who have messed up. Not true. It is always meritorious to judge someone based on what you know of their actions at the time. Failure to act on the basis of information you didn’t have is not a mark of foolishness.

Now, pattern recognition is a thing, which is why the “red flag” concept exists in the first place. If we’ve observed that the people who publicly belittle women’s concerns frequently turn out to also be privately harassing and assaulting individual women, it’s not wrong to keep that data point in mind when making a judgment about another person who publicly belittles women’s concerns. That’s different from concluding that that person must also be a sexual predator. (Also take into account confirmation bias and the availability heuristic and all that.) It’s even okay to say, “You know what, I’ve been burned before by people who acted in ways that you’re acting, and even though you might not go on to do what they did, I’m not willing to take the risk of trusting you.” That’s a personal call that everybody has every right to make. What I’m not okay with is people saying, “I’ve been burned before by people who acted in ways that you’re acting, so I am going to assume you’re also guilty of everything they were.” It’s okay to hold a little cognitive dissonance around “they might not be guilty / I still don’t trust them.”

Let your anger burn, my fellow feminist skeptics. But don’t blame yourself for forgiving in the past, or giving the benefit of the doubt when it seemed merited. We judged then based on what we knew then. Now we know more.

Baby elephant says that’s ok.

baby elephant face looking up from the surf

The Physical Touch Spectrum

Editorial Note: This post was written by Wes Fenza, long before the falling out of our previous quint household and the subsequent illumination of his abusive behavior, sexual assault of several women, and removal from the Polyamory Leadership Network and banning from at least one conference. I have left Wes’ posts here because I don’t believe it’s meaningful to simply remove them. You cannot remove the truth by hiding it; Wes and I used to collaborate, and his thoughts will remain here, with this notice attached.

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Ace, at The Thinking Asexual has a great post up discussing a concept which Ace calls “the physical touch escalator”

The physical touch escalator is based on the premise that each form or level of touch on the spectrum automatically and undoubtedly implies a progression to the next form or level, usually beginning somewhere after “nonromantic/casual hugs.” Therefore, if you enthusiastically engage in one type of nonsexual, affectionate touch with someone, you are expected to eventually engage in whatever physical act comes after it on the spectrum—and keep going until you eventually reach penetrative sex.

If you don’t want to share Touch C with a person, then you better not agree to share Touch B, and if you go through with Touch C, you’re implying that you’re interested in Touch D, etc. The nonsexual forms of physical affection are only means to a sexual end, their main value the potential for sex that they carry by default.

It’s a fantastic post, and an important idea. I don’t really have anything to add to it. It reminded me, however, of a different concept. Ace began the post by saying:

I look at physical touch between two people via a spectrum model: on one end of the spectrum (of positive touch only) is the handshake and on the other end is full-blown penetrative sex. What falls in between progresses from that most casual and non-intimate/nonsensual type of touch to more intimate, more sensual, and ultimately sexual.

The nonsexual/nongenital forms of touch include: unemotional hugs, emotional hugs, holding hands, nonromantic kissing, romantic/erotic kissing (that breaks down further into “on the mouth, close-lipped,” “on the mouth, with tongue,” “on the body, close mouthed”, “on the body, open-mouthed”), cuddling (clothed or partially unclothed), caressing or petting the body affectionately, intimate paired dancing.

The erotic and/or sexual forms of touch include: mutual masturbation, sexual groping of the body with particular attention to the breasts or buttocks, dry humping, oral sex, anal sex, sex with toys, and penile-vaginal sex.

The “sexuality as a spectrum” model is very ingrained in our culture. The “correct” progression of a sexual relationships starts at one end of the spectrum, goes through each intermediate step, and ends at penetrative sex. This is why baseball is such a common metaphor to describe sex acts. You can’t go straight to second base without tagging first! It’s against the rules! Even if you hit a home run, you have to take a ceremonial lap around the bases or it doesn’t count.

I do not look at physical touch as a spectrum in that way, where there are “levels,” and each “step” progresses to a more intimate/sensual/sexual (hereafter abbreviated as “intimate”) level. In fact, I actively resist this model.

I resist it because I do not believe that any physical act is inherently more intimate or “more sexual” than any other. Certainly, there are acts which will mean more to us as individuals (for instance, cuddling tends to be more intimate to me than groping), more stimulating (genital touching is more stimulating to me than touching elsewhere), or more dangerous – and thus, requiring a higher level of trust (intercourse vs. outercourse), but these things are not universal. Some people consider kissing more intimate than sex, and some don’t. Some people consider anal sex to be more intimate than vaginal sex, and some don’t. Some people think oral sex “doesn’t count” as sex, and some emphatically argue that it does. This is, of course, not even getting into the endless variety and ranking of activities within the BDSM community. There is a world of variety is what is considered intimate to someone and meaningless to someone else. The dominant narrative encourages people to feel shameful or broken if certain steps don’t fit in to their proper place on the escalator. It’s uncool, and we should encourage people to experiment and make their own choices about what is intimate and what is not.

The other reason why I resist the spectrum model is that I don’t see anything wrong with consensually skipping steps if you don’t like them. Each physical touch is a completely different thing to me. Some people are very compatible kissers with me, but not compatible in terms of sexual groping. Sometimes, it’s the exact opposite. What if I’d like to engage in sexual groping (or something “higher” in the spectrum) with someone, but not kiss? I feel as though our society doesn’t have a narrative for that, and I wouldn’t know how to bring it up in a way that doesn’t result in offense and hurt feelings.

Another side effect of this view is that it encourages people to judge their compatibility on “higher level” activities by their compatibility on “lower level” activities. A few weeks ago, I had a conversation with a few friends whereby they all agreed that an incompatible kisser would almost certainly be incompatible sexually. I reject this view, mostly from experience than anything else. While I think that the emotional component of physical intimacy tends to remain largely unchanged from activity to activity, a person’s physical compatibility can be much different. Even changes as small as what part of my body a person is touching can result in vastly different amounts of pleasure.

The physical touch spectrum, though widely accepted, seems to be yet another socially-created norm that shortchanges everyone who doesn’t conform. Your thoughts?