I just had to have the "No means no" speech with a friend of mine. What the actual.

I'll address paragraph by paragraph, so I don't have to use the quote function, which I don't particularly like.

This is why I acknowledged your statement to be valid in the first sentence of my last post. I very well acknowledge the plights women go through. I also brought up other situations in show that there are other factors. The point was that situations need to be understood independently to truly understand them. We all have cognitive biases, and unless we’re aware of them they’ll continue to cloud our judgment.

People should second-guess you. But they shouldn't second guess you just because you're a woman. But one of the luxuries you likely have is getting to pick your friends. So does everyone else. There are a great many people I choose to simply not be friends with for various reasons. People have the right to be bigoted. It’s their first amendment constitutional right. And if you choose to continue hanging out with someone as friends, and they ask you out many times despite you saying no, but you still choose hang out with them, that isn’t harassment. That’s them exercising their right to free speech, and you choosing to continue spending time with them anyway. Now if you tell them to leave you alone, and they keep contacting you despite that, it becomes harassment.

I do actually know what it is like to have a stalker, even after I’ve cut ties. Showed up at my work. Kept trying to get my roommates to invite her over to my house. Wouldn’t stop incessantly texting me sexual things. I actually do understand what that’s like. And in a place where knives, guns, and passive aggression are common, I didn’t know what she might do either. Plus I have the added benefit of being automatically blamed for any violent interaction that could’ve occurred simply because I have a penis. So yes, I understand what this is like.

I understand that there are many reasons why women go for persistent men. And I think there are situations where it is not okay, and situations where it is fine. If you are a bartender and a guy constantly shows up at your work and doesn’t leave you alone, that is not okay. If you have a friend and you choose to keep hanging out with him despite him constantly nagging you on the subject, then that is fine because you are responsible for how you exercise your personal freedoms. Thus far though, your solution to the issue is that men simply need to change. This is not pragmatic. People change when they are given incentive to, and there is no incentive for them to change. We can’t write laws on the subject because it will start to infringe upon people’s constitutional rights to believe and say what they want. So we need to have a cultural change, which requires changes on both men and women.

/r/TwoXChromosomes Thread