SarahC said:

I hadn't realized that the fear of harming women could actually be that paralyzing in real life that it actually scares men away from getting dates at all.

I'm glad that I've been able to minimize the inferential distance. This feeling of anxiety is one reason why some men get sensitive or defensive in discussions about consent.

'm used to my male friends talking about bedding unconscious girls and planning to screw my teenage little sister. The idea that someone could be so scrupulous that it hurts his dating prospects simply didn't occur to me.

Ah, it looks like we are talking about different areas of the moral spectrum. Since we were talking about manipulation and compliance tactics, I thought we were talking about something a bit more subtle. Can someone give a concrete example of objectionable "manipulation" or "compliance tricks" that they have in mind?

And definitely I believe in putting more pressure on adult women to be more straightforward: say yes when you mean yes and no when you mean no.

I do think it's a good thing if women are encouraged to be straightforward. Also, I would like to see women consider whether men following their preferences would be a good thing for other women. For instance, if you (general "you") are a woman who likes men to initiate when they could only be 70% sure you are consenting... is that really a good practice to encourage men towards? How will other women feel if guys act this way?

If it would be good for women to be more assertive, then everyone has to actually behave as though they prefer to be around assertive people.

Yes. And it's unfortunate that even women who like to communicate verbally about what they want are likely to run into men who have been trained by other women to guess rather than ask. Similarly, women who prefer to do most of the initiating themselves will often run into men who've been trained by other women to do most of the initiating.

As I've mentioned before, women's responses to men are like votes in a democracy. Some women are running a tyranny of the majority over other women in determining men's default dating behavior.

It's hard to figure out where to draw the line ethically, when it comes to the compliance stuff. The David X tactic doesn't seem obviously immoral to me; I'm not sure I would mind if my male friends tried it on a woman; I can imagine some women falling for it and feeling really shitty in the morning, though. Is a man doing wrong if he makes a woman feel really shitty? I'm not sure -- it's just feelings, after all.

That's my reaction, also. I think if a man knowingly does something that reliably makes women feel shitty, that's problematic. In this case, I guess we have to weigh the possibility of her feeling shitty with the possibility of her having a good time. I'm not sure what the correct weights are, or how to do that calculation.

My intuition is against this particular tactic, because I believe that there are ways to have women leave bars with you that are just as good, but which don't have potential downsides.

One way of looking at it: if a sleazy come-on is followed by a healthy relationship

As SilasBarta has pointed out, it's conceivable for men to use "sleaze" to get in the door with a woman, but then be scrupulous in gaining consent before actually having sex.

It's difficult to excuse a "sleazy" come-on ex post facto because it happened to result in a healthy relationship. Yet if the come-on has that result, that could be evidence that the come-on actually wasn't sleazy: the positive outcome is evidence (at least, weak evidence) against the potential harmfulness of the come-on.

Such people exist; you are obviously not one of them; but yes, they exist, and even despite the unfair structure of society, I'm going to judge them.

Sure. It's not them I'm trying to protect. I'm worried about the more scrupulous guys who might get caught by the sweeping language that is commonly used to criticize the sleazy guys.