My personal thoughts on protest effectiveness is that America has the same problem Canada, China, and Russia have. The country is just too big for protests to work like they do in most other countries.
Local protests for national matters aren’t loud or threatening enough. You have to march on DC. According to the 3.5% rule, you’d need 1,115,000 people to stage a long term protest "siege" on DC to have any hope of change via direct protest action. So, you’d have to have that many people be willing to drop their lives indefinitely to go to DC on top of the 700,000 people already living crowded in the city. Then, because of the distance, you’d need 2 to 3 people per protestor back home sustaining supply lines across hundreds of miles. You’d also have to be prepared to fight the National Guard. They’ll institute a curfew, but you can’t go home because you don’t live there. That means you’ve got to have money to bail yourself out of jail and somebody to come bail you out because you can’t bail yourself out of jail here. Logistically, effective protest is a nightmare in large countries, though it’s also true that distractions are a huge problem.
Occupy Wall Street had the right idea but they weren’t reinforced, leadership was weak, and there weren’t nearly enough people making noise.
Yeah, I’m aware exactly of what ephebophilia is. At least one of them was 18 when they started dating and underage when they met. Others he started dating around 20 or so, but again, he was flirting with them in their teens. I didn’t use the term loosely. His current girlfriend squarely makes him an ephebophile. She had just turned 18 when they started dating.
No, you’re hearing that age gaps are questionable. We’re saying that when there’s an age gap it’s wise to look for certain potential problems that are often associated with age gaps. It’s not that age gap relationships are inherently predatory; it’s that all relationships are potentially predatory and should be examined before getting too involved based on known patterns. If there’s no problem, then carry on if you want to. It’s like...if I hear an undetermined squealing noise coming from my car I’m going to check the belts and the brake pads because that’s a known case of squealing in cars. That doesn’t make the belts or the brake pads inherently bad. It means they hold a potential to create a squealing noise if they are going bad. If I don’t know anything about cars, I might erroneously think it’s the battery or the carburator that is bad, because I’m ignorant of how cars work. Once I educate myself, I’m able to determine whether or not the belts and the brake pads are in good condition so I’m good to drive. I’ve examined our metaphorical relationship and used my skills to ensure it is safe and what it appears to be. No more, no less.
Yes, you’re right. It’s the predation and bad juju that is the focus and correlation is not causation but you’ve got to go through the flowchart or diagnostics to determine if there’s a problem or not. Those things are designed based on known congruences. Ultimately, that’s all red flags are. It’s still down to the individual’s choice. People can still date whoever they want. All these conversations are just sharing experiences and building that diagnostic flowchart for those who follow. Many women who have been in age gap relationships are saying after the fact they didn’t have a full understanding of what they were getting in to. They didn’t know what it would be like, or how it might harm them later in life or stall opportunities they might otherwise have had. Buyer beware.
And yes, we discriminate on other criteria as well, as does everyone. But each of us women determines our own diagnostic flowchart based on our own wants, needs, and desires. We leave the rest for other women to use as they need or leave alone if it’s not relevant to them. It’s funny this should come up because the article I’m hoping to publish tonight touches on this. Feel free to poke holes in the commentary. I reckon I’ve earned a good kick in the metaphorical nuts. Or two. Lol.
Speaking of double standards again, all these articles by feminists about red flags came about because PUA groups on Reddit were strategizing how to manipulate and trick women. Up to and including dosing them in order to rape them, where to get Rohypnol, what to say to police when complaints are made, and paying off accomplices. Guess you missed all that too?
Urchling asks if you’re deliberately missing the point or if you just don’t get it because it’s too close to home? She agrees that a twenty something young man might also be predatory but that’s a different conversation because he’s in a different bubble on the diagnostic flow chart. She suggests you might want to spend more time with creepy men so you can get a mental picture of that flow chart.
I suggested she might want to draft it out— saving us all the unnecessary grief and drama—as it would make a wonderful meme.
The entire point of being in a flock is to stick together, safety in numbers and all that. So no, not ecologically true at all.
That said, I feel your pain because I’m of a libertarian mind myself, as is Urchling. It’s hard to walk that line sometimes. Freedom ends at someone else’s flippers/nose. People should be able to do what they want. But, people are destructive in ways that other social animals are not. Penguins don’t try to harm each other they way primates sometimes do. We’ve got issues. Deep psychotic issues. Humans are always going to have to deal with the social aberrants among us, I’m afraid. We need to acknowledge that in order to stay true to our best selves. To be clear, I mean that from the ecological perspective of social altruism. Some people just believe deep down that social altruism is meant to service them, rather than being a survival strategy for a physically weak species.
