Tyrrell_McAllister comments on I'd like to talk to some LGBT LWers. - Less Wrong

4 Post author: Solvent 30 December 2011 10:39AM

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Comment author: Tyrrell_McAllister 04 January 2012 05:21:28AM *  5 points [-]

And frankly, if it's more about the "undesirable" part -- if it's okay to proposition women in an elavator as long as she deems you hot -- I just can't sympathize.

"How dare he proposition me in an elavator ... without being desirable, I mean!"

Even if feminists said exactly that, it would still be helpful.

Sympathy is not yet relevant at the stage I'm talking about. Such a remark would still be helpful as a correction on a factual error into which the Typical Mind Fallacy would have led me. Setting aside for the moment how anyone ought to feel, the "what would I feel" heuristic would not suffice to tell me that many women are in fact uncomfortable being propositioned by someone undesirable — in an elevator at least. I can't even get to the stage of judging the appropriateness of that reaction until I know that that reaction is in fact happening. That knowledge is one bit (of a very simple sort) that I have gotten from reading feminism.

Comment author: SilasBarta 04 January 2012 03:59:07PM 1 point [-]

I thought I made clear that my evaluations of sympathy would be given at a later stage, similar to when you would do so, and after a (predictable) response is given.

Also, having to turn a man down is always going to be uncomfortable; the relevant question is whether doing so on an elevator is more uncomfortable in any relevant sense, and whether women would apply the rule hot guys..

Comment author: Tyrrell_McAllister 05 January 2012 12:11:36AM *  1 point [-]

I thought I made clear that my evaluations of sympathy would be given at a later stage, similar to when you would do so, and after a (predictable) response is given.

Okay, then we are on the same page here.

Also, having to turn a man down is always going to be uncomfortable; the relevant question is whether doing so on an elevator is more uncomfortable in any relevant sense,

I agree that the nature of the discomfort is relevant, such as whether it is affected by being in a confined space. I am persuaded that the confinement of an elevator makes it more uncomfortable. More generally, I am persuaded that the possibility of violence is a more prominent feature of these kinds of interactions for women than it is for men.

and whether women would apply the rule hot guys..

I don't really see this as so important a question, at least not for my purposes.

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