The main part I object to in this essay is the ideological carveout. The author is seemingly willing to defend the #MeToo movement because it was in the service of a mission "to end a long-standing and long-permitted norm of sexual abuse within institutions", and "cancel culture" (I'm also putting it in quotes as I agree it's a very loaded term) because the backlash to it was helpful to the right and detrimental to the left. If you agree with the reasoning, then, all of the behavior being criticized is okay? In that case I don't see how or why anyone would ever change their behavior. The author's friend who wanted her to apologize to the hairdressers probably has a strong belief that being sexualized at work is a serious problem faced by women. From the right, many Christians strongly believe that criticizing behaviors like premarital sex is part of the social immune system that keeps family and community bonds strong.

I think there's a meaningful difference between being a genuine liberal who wants to change how American society thinks about sex, and being a partisan who wants to use puritan callouts as a cudgel on your enemies while ensuring that your own behavior is never subject to criticism. The essay displays an awareness of the tension, but decisively chooses the partisan path.

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zozbot234 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> "to end a long-standing and long-permitted norm of sexual abuse within institutions"

Sure, but it makes no sense to equate institutional abuse with genuine erotic connection among equals, which is what OP seems to ultimately be advocating for. The two are polar opposites. And the OP is not arguing that sexualizing people in the workplace is a good thing; her stance is that she never even sexualized the person to begin with. She's talking about her inner thoughts, not her overt behavior.

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resfirestar 3 hours ago | parent [-]

I'd push back on drawing a sharp line between "institutional abuse" and "genuine erotic connection among equals". As the essay points out, the MeToo campaign did use call-outs against individuals in service of its goal. Some of those callouts were alleging criminal conduct, but on the other end of the spectrum you had much more dubious stuff, or completely unsubstantiated rumors that some person was "bad". I agree that stopping institutional abuse is a noble goal, but the MeToo practice of naming and shaming personal friends in anonymous spreadsheets is the type of thing that builds the internal panopticon: what if our personal circumstances changed so that there's a power imbalance, or someone misinterpreted them? If you accept that practice on political grounds because it's a useful weapon against the "enemies of liberation" (as the author put it), can you really claim to want people to change their attitudes about sex? It doesn't work nearly as well if we stop seeing sexual behavior as inherently scandalous.

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zozbot234 2 hours ago | parent [-]

It's not so much that sexual behavior is inherently scandalous, the issue is with the broader context where a formalized hierarchy of power and a potential for intimidation are quite antithetical to any kind of genuine, consensual connection. The potential for borderline-abusive behavior in the workplace (not necessarily criminal, either) is orders of magnitude greater than any concern about "naming and shaming".

	▲	rafabulsing 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		I think the author's (ex) friend believes the same about the hair salon thing. That there is a hierarchy of power and potential for intimidation in the context of a worker and a client. E.g. the guy at the restaurant being flirty with the waitress.

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the__alchemist 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I was struck by this too. I initially found it offputting, but then realized that it reinforced her point: We are all subject to social media (etc) bubbles, and it's tough to see the insides of them!

By including these, she demonstrated her point with a genuine, meta example of how even someone writing about these can be unwittingly part of them.

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buu700 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

I did find it interesting that the entire post was such an eloquent description of a generalization of cancel culture, yet the author still went out of her way to virtue signal to readers who would reflexively dismiss any allusion to cancel culture as made up or partisan. Probably the right call, since those are the ones who most need to hear what she has to say, but still funny.

> I think there's a meaningful difference between being a genuine liberal who wants to change how American society thinks about sex, and being a partisan who wants to use puritan callouts as a cudgel on your enemies

I mean, those aren't just meaningfully different; they're entirely at odds with each other. You can't have a liberal attitude toward sex and a puritanical attitude toward sex at the same time.