Thanks for posting this. I was not aware of the incident you linked to, and though I am left with some confusions about how things played out[1], it seems plausible to me that Alex is a rapist. Until other information comes to light, I’d caution people (maybe not men?) to avoid one on one situations with him.
EDIT: The other reason I found this comment valuable was because I realized I hadn’t updated enough in light of other rationalist adjacent orgs doing shady stuff. Nor did I updated enough in light of philh’s spoilered reply to this post of his. Henceforth, I am going to be more wary of attending month long training sessions hosted by rat-adjacent orgs, especially those with features similair to OAK.
How could someone be penetrated in an instant without being in a compromising position? What exactly did the penetration? If Alex viewed the situation as someone propositioning him, why didn’t he give more details? I am confused.
Based on the other person’s post, if I’m remembering it correctly, he had been previously told no, and hadn’t obtained a consent-to-penetration before doing it.
Edit: After skimming through it again, he simply penetrated her not only without consent, but also without any previous sexual contact going on.
I agree with everything you’ve said, but note that there’s some evidence they were in a relationship (AllAmericanBreakfast, a friend of Shekinah, says she was in “distress about being separated from Alex”. Moreover, they appear to have gone swimming together, which is somewhat intimate). Plus, I don’t see how someone can be raped (non consensual coitus instead of fingering) in a moment unless both parties are naked, one is sexually aroused and they are physically very near. But possibly I’m reading too much into the words there: memory can be faulty, and sometimes people block traumatic memories from their minds, or could just be bad writers.
In some fraction of worlds, I can see how someone could think that consent was implicitly given. Human communication is highly context dependant, with all of us living in our own models of reality. So maybe Alex made an honest mistake or Shekinah gave and retracted consent or so on. But in the vast majority of those worlds, I would guess Shekinah would have been fine with having sex. And in those worlds, I imagine Alex would have described things quite differently in his post.
Anyway, I’m going to stop replying because I don’t want to keep losing karma and I expect further discussion will not be that useful.
This is not relevant to the story, but seems to me good to say anyway: I believe Alex is a rapist.
Thanks for posting this. I was not aware of the incident you linked to, and though I am left with some confusions about how things played out[1], it seems plausible to me that Alex is a rapist. Until other information comes to light, I’d caution people (maybe not men?) to avoid one on one situations with him.
EDIT: The other reason I found this comment valuable was because I realized I hadn’t updated enough in light of other rationalist adjacent orgs doing shady stuff. Nor did I updated enough in light of philh’s spoilered reply to this post of his. Henceforth, I am going to be more wary of attending month long training sessions hosted by rat-adjacent orgs, especially those with features similair to OAK.
How could someone be penetrated in an instant without being in a compromising position? What exactly did the penetration? If Alex viewed the situation as someone propositioning him, why didn’t he give more details? I am confused.
Based on the other person’s post, if I’m remembering it correctly, he had been previously told no, and hadn’t obtained a consent-to-penetration before doing it.
Edit: After skimming through it again, he simply penetrated her not only without consent, but also without any previous sexual contact going on.
I agree with everything you’ve said, but note that there’s some evidence they were in a relationship (AllAmericanBreakfast, a friend of Shekinah, says she was in “distress about being separated from Alex”. Moreover, they appear to have gone swimming together, which is somewhat intimate). Plus, I don’t see how someone can be raped (non consensual coitus instead of fingering) in a moment unless both parties are naked, one is sexually aroused and they are physically very near. But possibly I’m reading too much into the words there: memory can be faulty, and sometimes people block traumatic memories from their minds, or could just be bad writers.
In some fraction of worlds, I can see how someone could think that consent was implicitly given. Human communication is highly context dependant, with all of us living in our own models of reality. So maybe Alex made an honest mistake or Shekinah gave and retracted consent or so on. But in the vast majority of those worlds, I would guess Shekinah would have been fine with having sex. And in those worlds, I imagine Alex would have described things quite differently in his post.
Anyway, I’m going to stop replying because I don’t want to keep losing karma and I expect further discussion will not be that useful.
I mean, it’s possible to feel that way about a friend.
(I strong-upvoted your previous comment (even though I weak-downvoted this one).)