@82 Dadddy
"If you were fighting for workers, you'd be calling for laws that protect private behavior"

I was fighting for workers. As a VOLUNTEER (as is the norm in unions) 40 hours/week in addition to my actual (ill-) paid 60 hours/week job. In the real world.

I'm still not sure what laws would be needed to change the entire legal-employer dynamic of the modern world (that I brought to light @41), but why was it my THIRD job to conceive and fight for that too? Were YOU doing that? Is ANYONE?

@84 vennominon
"A good human being would be devising ways for LW to subvert and overthrow the evil system without being fired."

WTF. Please see my reply to Daddy above. I wasn't a good human being because I didn't personally change the modern world's system of hierarchical business structure? I was already working 100 hours a week, I didn't have time to be the only one on Earth working on a third (near-impossible) job. And have you noticed that the world is full of stuff that even more desperately needs changing? I was already ALSO working on some of those in my minimal free time. Unions in the US run on volunteers, so I ALSO needed to wear many hats in mine, including negotiating labor contracts with the evil employer on behalf of tens of thousands of employees (yes, I hear you, 'a perfect opportunity to change the modern world's system of hierarchical business structure!'; er, no. US labor law gives unions relatively little power. Oh, a perfect opportunity to change THAT you say! Er, were you? Is anyone reforming US labor law?). In other words, as much as I'd have loved to fix the world, I was and am just one person doing my best. I am not the bad guy.

Thank you fubar@87 and LavaGirl@88@94 and BiDanFan@95 for your understanding words.

Harriet @107: "when man came down from the trees"
Or perhaps you could note that some of them appear to still be up there!
I'm curious (pun intended) as to which of the commenters Venn read as female whom you read as gay men. I don't want to go down the road of "outing" anyone who's been ambiguous about their gender and/or orientation, but I have my theories (and some evidence) that differ slightly from yours.

The thing that I'm trying to save the LW from happened to me. (That thing being, that as a result of the legal-employer dynamic of the modern world, employers only want supervisors in place whose HYPOTHETICAL future...personnel actions, both favorable and unfavorable) will be legally rock-solid".)

During my years fighting for employees against evil managers , I always wanted to be a manager. (Most supervisors lack the abilities to lead with anything but negativity and punishment; in other words, 'with the stick'. I wanted to, and when I became a manager, did supervise 'with the carrot'. I made sure none of the shit that rained down from above affected them. I compensated them as well as I was allowed to, and devised ways to do even more than that. I prioritized their 'career development'; that means I made sure that they'd be able to land even better jobs as fast as possible; even though that meant they'd leave and their position would be vacant. I wasn't helping as many people as I did with the union, but I was making work ideal for my employees. And the employer benefitted too: When someone's career progressed and I needed to fill their position, I had a line of great candidates out the door eager to work for me. The team spirit and productivity of my department was through the roof.)

So it made me sad when I lost my job as a manager. They of course were cunning enough to make up a pretense, but it happened IMMEDIATELY after the employer (long story short) discovered I had a pot bust on my record (that occurred while I worked there but prior to my promotion).

That's how I learned (at first from an employment lawyer) first-hand that (because of the legal-employer dynamic of the modern world,) employers will not countenance supervisors whose personnel actions can potentially be weakened in court by the other party's lawyer.

No one helped me. No one (including me) tried. I wasn't upset about that. I understood that I'd been run over by a bus the size of the world.

Of course it isn't fair that the legal-employer dynamic of the modern world and the modern world's system of hierarchical business structure did this to me (and my employees). I'm just saying I've been against this a lot longer than it appears most people even thought of it. Welcome to the bandwagon, Dadddy and vennominon; but now that you're on it, how dare you want to throw me off?

@109 BiDanFan
When Venn@84 addressed me as "Ms(?) Curious", I just figured he'd chosen (to which I take no offense) to skip (all) the posts where my gender had been specified.

Harriet @102: a troll is someone who posts purely to provoke a reaction, and I stand corrected that @Dadddy was trolling - with apologies to @Dadddy who, despite being wrong, is not a troll ;)

@87 I wrote: "Venn @84: what's with the M?? and Ms(?) prefix to people's names when you reply to them? You're not writing a letter, so there's no need to be formal. It comes across as trolling." The word "needling" would have more accurately conveyed my meaning, so apologies to @Venn for that too!

BiDanFan @94: Re. the above, "Formality is Venn's thing". That may well be, but M?? and Ms(?) are not formal salutations. Still, it seems the folks so addressed don't mind, and the comments here are enriched by all the idiosyncrasies, so don't mind me and carry on!

As I mentioned @108, I did more than my part (as a VOLUNTEER) to build a number of unions in the US. Strong unions could make the changes we all want, but unfortunately in recent decades union membership has declined.

Most people don't understand when they vote for a union, that it's self-defeating to do nothing to support it or even to join it. Because when the employer exerts power to counter the opposing force, when the union is weak (low membership, little volunteer participation, etc.) good results can't be expected.

It's easy for a pair of people (you know who you are) to do nothing about a problem but whine about it in Comments on the Internet once it pops into your heads, but unless you did something yourself, don't tell me that I didn't (as I explained @108&@110) do everything I could do. Hell no matter what you did, I was working as hard as a person could 100 hours a week, and I'm extremely pissed off at you both for blaming me for not personally doing the impossible job of changing the entire world in the way it /now/ suits your fancies to fucking notice and blame on me from your computer screens. You disgust me.

Curious2 @110: It sounds like you were a good manager. You certainly had a great attitude about it. From my own experience, I know that good managers/leaders are hard to find.

I feel really badly for you that your former employer panicked due to a pot bust. It's really hard to understand how that put them at risk at all. Indeed, if it did, they'd likely have had grounds to fire you with cause, instead of having to trump something up.

Maybe JACKS shouldn't go to such places if he's worried about getting caught. And it's not like he was fucking the employee through a gloryhole at Club Z or Steamworks..

Fuck, what a pathetic problem to write in about

@109. Bi. Let it come to light in time. In saying 'disturbingly' I was preparing to be wrong (!).

@111. Fubar. If that's a troll, then we all should have our private intelligent contrarian troll ... inside our heads. Unintelligent trolling is anything from unengaging to objectionable; and being unable to distinguish intelligent from unintelligent trolling can be sanctimonious.

LW3, I call red flag on your wife accusing you of being irrational because you don't want her to have sex with other men. Since this wasn't something you agreed to before marrying each other, you have the right to set your boundaries in negotiating any change in the monogamy agreement which you both entered into (I'm assuming this is true) with marriage. I think you need an unbias person to mediate your discussions on opening up your marriage, since your wife is using bullying and gaslighting tactics to get what she wants over your objections. Time for major marriage counseling. If your wife can't see what she's doing as unfair, then your marriage is in trouble. She might even start going behind your back to sleep with other men, since she doesn't seem to have much respect for your feelings and your needs. Please make sure you work this out BEFORE having any children.

It's shocking how often Daddy's comments, like @13, recommend courses that are coercive, unethical, or illegal. Your employer generally doesn't have a right to dictate how you conduct your sex life (though they might functionally have such a right under either the BS cover of "religious freedom" of the corporation or at-will employment in a state or municipality where sexuality isn't considered a protected class status), but they very much have a right to dictate the power relationships WITHIN a company that may be impacted by behavior outside of work hours, and limit their liability as a result. It's all in the framing - my employer, for example, explicitly acknowledges that they cannot police the kinds of relationships that develop between coworkers, so they can't and won't prohibit sexual relationships between employees, but in order to limit potential abuses of power and liability, they will alter direct reporting structures so that subordinates are not sexually involved with supervisors in cases where a subordinate and supervisor happen to become involved and HR becomes aware of it (and it is required that anybody report such occurrences), which could actually alter a manager's job classification if ze is already supervising very few people (I think three is the minimum for a "manager" classification, so shifting one of them may result in reclassification).

Yet another reason to prefer socialism to the labor structure under market capitalism - lateral power distribution rather than hierarchy means many fewer cases that present potential abuses of power, which means fewer harassment/exploitation concerns.

@100 Harriet_by_the_Bulrushes: Congrats on scoring this week's Lucky HUnsky Award! May all the very best come your way soon.

In the yrs I’ve been on SL, John @118, I’ve never seen you or hardly any other man confront hunter, with his sexist comments and here you are pointing to Dadddy, who is a relative newby. Interesting.

So I suppose all those times in the 90s when I fucked my employee's boy friend at orgy house parties they hosted (while he watch) was, in hindsight, a bad career move... seemed pretty hot at the time though... And I'm doing fine (3 cars, 2 houses, a boat and long vacations to far away places) so "-Eh-". Who cares.

Mr Curious - The (?) in your case indicated a guess. As this is the first time our paths have crossed that I can recall and nothing you'd previously written had stuck in my mind, I guessed you were female, because women support the evil corporate drone system more often than men. My apologies for misguessing.

I am perfectly prepared to believe you were the One Good Manager. If so, anything I say about the guest expert Isn't About You. The profession does, to my mind, attract many people because of the opportunities it presents to them to exercise their bad character traits. The guest expert manifested quite clearly that her true interest was in perpetuating the system. I've known many people exactly like her. One of them told me it was my own fault for not being able to pass for straight. There was a way a guest expert could have presented the safest course of conduct and assessed the degrees of risk of various alternatives.

If you were in the trenches for all those years, good for you. Maybe you can devise a fix in your retirement. I find that position perfectly compatible with that of finding those managers who only want to entrench themselves and their successors to be quite evil.

@110 p.s.
"When Venn@84 addressed me as "Ms(?) Curious", I just figured he'd chosen (to which I take no offense) to skip (all) the posts where my gender had been specified."

I can't think of any reason I would be insulted by being taken for a "Ms."

Though I've been 100% truthful, this in the Internet after all, and https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/on-the-internet-nobody-knows-youre-a-dog
In other words, I can't expect everyone to trust me. Only those with good judgement and discernment will know that I've been 100% truthful including when describing myself as a cis het male.

Honestly, I take that someone could think I'm a woman 'playing a male on the Internet' as a compliment.

In my view, growth is about balance. At birth everyone is many things; things that come naturally/that one is good at; things that don't come naturally that one is not good at. Aspects of their "unique temperaments" that advantage them, and others that disadvantage them.

I don't believe in resting complacently upon the ground I started on, in other words simply leaning on (as would be so easy) the things that I started out great at, that came naturally. So I've made a point to try to be great at everything I can. (I'm told I've done a damn good job.)

In other words, I've added strengths to my repertoire that more women than men start out with. I'm taking it as a big compliment that apparently I've done so well that I'm taken for a woman!

Ms Fan - Good for you for jumping in the correct direction. And I'm tolerably pleased with my system of address. I've annoyed a bunch of anti-feminists because I don't allow women the privilege of choosing whether to be addressed as Mrs or not.

@121, this is not the 90’s, and that must have been some boss you got there. Not every work place is so relaxed.
This LW is so clueless about how he, as a manager, should/ can behave he needs to write to Dan about it. Check your work place LW, the clue to how to proceed is there.

@113 fubar
Thank you fubar. It meant the world to me to be a good manager, my heart was totally in doing so.

@122 vennominon
Thank you. I apologize for going off on you the way I did. I'm proud of what I did, and I gave it everything I had. I guess that's why hearing that I should have done more really pushed a button.

During the years I helped build some US labor unions, the big picture for unions in the US was that they have basically collapsed. We were swimming upstream with everything we had, with few others volunteering with us to help us. That also has something to do with it setting me off that /I/ should have done more.

I'm glad I didn't blow up worse. (At one point when I was going off on how I did as much as I humanly could, I thought of blathering something along the lines of that to have been able to do more I'd have had to be a character in a book. Speaking of which, hey, it's very considerate that you cite sources now for literary references, even if I now do miss the full modern art they were previously.)

"women support the evil corporate drone system more often than men"

Do they? In my extensive experience I found the opposite to be true. Men were at least as numerous and bad as evil HR drones. And most of my comrades (and the best most effective) in the labor movement were women.

"If you were in the trenches for all those years, good for you."

Yes I was, but I know you can't know that for sure since on the Internet for all you know I'm a dog.

"Maybe you can devise a fix in your retirement."

I would like to help make that happen. I think helping would be the most I can hope to do though, since my life has become very challenging to say the least.

Curious2 @126: You're welcome. Several years ago, while taking some management courses, I took a psychometric test which reported that I have such a poor view of management, I should question why I'm in the programme. I realized that I needed to substitute the word "leadership" for "management" and I was good to go. It sounds like you're of that ilk.

Re. Venn @122 "Maybe you can devise a fix in your retirement". A fix is in the works. Google "servant leadership", which is becoming increasingly popular and important due to the difficultly of hiring and retaining skilled people in the technology sector.

You_Gotta_Be_Kidding_Me @121 -- Since things worked out great for you, you can congratulate yourself on having fun without consequences. If a different person took a similar risk and got fucked over, then, in hindsight, they might regret their choices. Why regret choices which worked out well for you? Unless you feel they harmed someone else along the way?

It’s funny the men didn’t stamp hunter out yrs ago, for his offensive words about women. Maybe it’s suited some to have a resident man so stuck in old attitudes nothing and nobody can shift, around. Means nothing has really changed.
Then Dadddy joins us, obviously a man with a kink, some rough attitudes around women to my mind, and wow everybody goes a little gang warfare. Give the guy a chance. And hunter, you had lots of chances to stop being stuck, far as I’m concerned, your time is up. Please go away.

Venn is right to point out that HR’s main goal is keeping the company out of trouble, thus the capacity to be mean at times.
In most if not all companies I’ve worked at women way outnumber men in HR. My guess is the reason for this gender inequality stems from a long history of assigning women the clerical jobs.
The fact that those women may be mean at times does not necessarily mean that women in general are meaner than men.

The guest speaker clearly comes from the corporate world, hence her grim clear cut advice to LW. I wish she could have been able to think outside the box, come up with some creative ideas, and maybe even inspire change.

Lava- you must be looking for fresh challenges now that the Sportlandia reeducation program has proved so successful.
Oh, and I recall that when I first joined you often defended….yes, Mr. H himself.
Hi Sangui.

What, are you jealous. CMD.
I know my past, so you don’t need to remind me. An unfortunate lapse for a newly separated woman. And my husband had many sexist attitudes lurking, like so many men still have, and I was stupidly caught by similar bullshit.
Now, these many years later I find there are many men who don’t need to hang on to these tired old sludgy ways of interacting with women. I’ve weaned myself from needing sexist jerks in my life.
And yes, I like Dadddy as I do Sportlandia. I like men with a bit of energy, even if some of their attitudes need some tweaking. Intelligent men who do seem to listen, Fine by me. I don’t see their know it all maleness is any different to yours or Harriet’s.

And your woman self has picked up one of the worst traditionally known traits, CMD, being a bitch.

@132 * waves * Hi CMD!!

I find H very easy to ignore. He pops up every now and again and spouts something that earns an eye-roll and very little else. Not responding to his quips has led to fewer posts. At this point he is less 'troll' and more 'crazy old coot'.

Like I said, CMD, give people a chance when they first join the threads. I also remember being nearly crucified when I first came here, and I see now some of it was justified. Some of it wasn’t.

Dadddy @129: "Rule-breakers and risk-takers have contributed countless benefits to humanity."

No doubt. But its hardly noble to for ordinary people to lurk in the comments section, advising LWs to trash their lives in order to accomplish the above.

CMD @131: My experience working with women in HR is that they're great at communication, good at setting and recognizing boundaries, and generally level headed and calm. YMMV.

M? Venn @99: I just noticed this post of yours. I'm not sure if I'm the newcomer you were referring to (I've been around as long as you have, although much less prolific), but either way, thanks for the salutation explanation. I'll try to take note. This place really needs a gallery of rogues page, with profiles of the regulars!

...No wonder the "PFFT" argument got so heated. This letter is incredibly vague. What other parameters were set? Are friends/neighbors/coworkers okay? People from your social circles? What's in? What's out?

...I'm going to be in the vast minority, here, but I honestly don't feel "PFFT" saying his wife can fuck only women, but no men, was so unfair. If she's attracted to BOTH, why should it matter? Everyone assumes that because she wants to fuck WOMEN, she'll be spending lonely afternoons with Ben&Jerry, waiting for potentials, while he's rattling the fuck out someone's headboard/shower door/bathroom stall, etc...but aren't there a smaller amount of women who would be cool with getting involved with a MAN in a truly open relationship? Doesn't that put him in the minority, too?

It's not about him having a larger handful...it's about her wanting to have her cake, and eating it, too, and she PROVED that to him by hopping on Tinder to meet MEN!! ...What, no bi/gay/curious women use Tinder? Come on. She's being inconsiderate and defiant, using his fantasy as the greenlight. SOMETIMES, fantasies need to stay fantasies...she has no right to force it to happen against his current wishes.

LW, definitely get that divorce lawyer handy, just in case. This doesn't bode well for you.

...No wonder the "PFFT" argument got so heated. This letter is incredibly vague. What other parameters were set? Are friends/neighbors/coworkers okay? People from your social circles? What's in? What's out?

...I'm going to be in the vast minority, here, but I honestly don't feel "PFFT" saying his wife can fuck only women, but no men, was so unfair. If she's attracted to BOTH, why should it matter? Everyone assumes that because she wants to fuck WOMEN, she'll be spending lonely afternoons with Ben&Jerry, waiting for potentials, while he's rattling the fuck out someone's headboard/shower door/bathroom stall, etc...but aren't there a smaller amount of women who would be cool with getting involved with a MAN in a truly open relationship? Doesn't that put him in the minority, too?

It's not about him having a larger handful...it's about her wanting to have her cake, and eating it, too, and she PROVED that to him by hopping on Tinder to meet MEN!! ...What, no bi/gay/curious women use Tinder? Come on. She's being inconsiderate and defiant, using his fantasy as the greenlight. SOMETIMES, fantasies need to stay fantasies, for the other person's own security and sanity...she has no right to force it to happen against his current wishes.

LW, definitely get that divorce lawyer handy, just in case. This doesn't bode well for you.

Less than a dozen of these clubs in USA, finding another club not easy. They are not a giant circle jerk but a cluster of smaller group jerks. Consent rules. Discomfort running into someone you know is your own insecurity. But HR types don't care, their job is to protect the company and in USA we are sex phobic.

@127 fubar
Yes! I totally get that nearly every manager is bad (so one does need to expect that) because being a bad/negative/mean manager is 'easy', very limited abilities (social, psychological) are required. So simpleminded, selfish, mean people gravitate there. I totally get how vennominon would see my claim as to be (@122) "the One Good Manager".

Good leadership is so infrequently modelled. On of my favorite bits on leadership is

"A leader is best
When people barely know he exists,
Not so good when people obey and acclaim him,
Worse when they despise him.
'Fail to honor people,
They fail to honor you;'
But a good leader, who talks little,
When his work is done, his aim fulfilled,
They will all say, 'We did this ourselves.'"
-Lao Tzu (Tao Te Ching, chapter 17, Witter Bynnerr translation)

Good leadership is certainly not a monstrous orange narcissist pig.

And it is not insecure; many managers are so stupid and incompetent they won't hire smart people justifiably fearing they'd end up taking their jobs. Me, I valued intelligence above experience (recalling another thread a month back, I'd hire a smarter applicant who didn't have the experience called for, because smart people can learn anything.)

As long as I'm up on my manager high horse, I have a tip for interviewees, based upon having interviewed many hundreds of people: Show enthusiasm for the job. (So few interviewees do, you will stand out!) If someone doesn't show enthusiasm for the job DURING THE INTERVIEW, how much enthusiasm can a manager expect them to have for it down the road while actually doing it? When I'm the interviewee, I find that sometimes the only time to slip in a statement of enthusiasm is at the end when they ask you if you have any questions.

@118 John Horstman
I liked your interesting post.

Could 'market socialism' also provide a more "lateral power distribution"? (I ask because I'm a socialist, and because of course it would be easy to move towards socialism with public capitalization of co-ops floating upon the existing market framework.)

@124 vennominon
Particularly on this sex advice forum where folks are enlightened about gender, I agree with @87 fubar's
"what's with the M?? and Ms(?) prefix to people's names when you reply to them? You're not writing a letter, so there's no need to be formal" because it feels to me like using such prefixes (in order to be polite) draws undue attention to each individual's gender.

@131 CMDwannabe
"In most if not all companies I’ve worked at women way outnumber men in HR"

You're right, I now recall I was wrong yesterday when I wrote @126 "Men were at least as numerous and bad as evil HR drones". And the higher up the HR hierarchy, the more appallingly evil they were.

At lower levels, they had some heart (but fundamentally, HR is as you say "clerical", they are the hand of management tasked to implement evil management's will). Once when an HR employee lost /their/ job (for caring too much), I reassured them that "you are too /human/ for HR".

@101 vennominon
"the guest expert...A few decades ago, she'd have had no problem with telling me to put a photo of a distant cousin on my desk and call her a girlfriend."

Maybe you're right. I have faith in Dan so I've been hoping he chose a 'good' guest expert.

But in any case Ms. Green really didn't succeed with her contribution because she failed to give any concrete example (like I did, I think far more helpfully than Ms. Green, @41), and instead (as /is/, yes, SO like an HR drone), gave us just unexplained general statements.

@146 p.s.
If someone (unlike me) wants just one translation of the Tao Te Ching, I would recommend instead the one by Stephen Mitchell.

Dadddy @140: You echo my point: there's a difference between being a rule-breaker and risk-taker, contributing countless benefits to society, and being a "corrupting" influence, encouraging others to break rules and take risks. When it comes to anarchy, it sounds like you fall into the "middle management" category :)

I stand by my suggestion that your advice @13 would likely lead to the trashing of LW's life, given today's legal and corporate realities. A Human Rights tribunal (at least here in Canada) would have no sympathy for LW's jerk circle participation if it made a subordinate uncomfortable. And an employer would likely have little sympathy for LW's bad judgement.

Before a rule-breaker and risk-taker comes along and liberates kinky managers so they can wank openly with their subordinates, someone first needs to solve the problem of rampant abuse of power.

Mr Curious - I've found that increased and more strict regimentation tends to favour women, but it's not a major point; I'm far more concerned with the regimentation's growth and expansion of scope. I don't think this is an accident, but rather the result of careful attempts of regiment-builders to enhance their position and cause an increase in their own necessity. While there doubtless have to have been a handful of good agents over time, I think the majority are prone, however they may start out, to fall into going along to get along. I'm reminded of a letter to an ethicist some years ago from a mother who felt she ought not to put her son(s) into the Boy Scouts, but wondered whether she could change them from the inside, to which the reply came that what usually happened was that such people ended up going on camping trips from the inside.

At any rate, if you are genuinely on the side of the angels, then good luck to you.

pollyc @144: "I honestly don't feel 'PFFT' saying his wife can fuck only women, but no men, was so unfair. If she's attracted to BOTH, why should it matter?"

PFFT didn't specify, but assuming that both he and his wife are heteroromantic, it matters.

We see this from time to time: wives of bi men are okay with them getting some cock on the side; husbands of bi women are okay with them getting some pussy. I don't see how that arrangement requires that the marriage be "open". The hetero partner gets what he or she needs at home - assuming the getting is good - and unless what they really want is some extra-marital sex... in which case the marriage should be "open" for both partners.

@150 vennominon
"I've found that increased and more strict regimentation tends to favour women"

I think quite the opposite is true (of the tendencies of the male and female genders; for example in relationships, the former I see often satisfied in a routine rut, the later with a deeper desire for spontaneity).

I think women just got stuck with "more strict regimentation" due to the patriarchy's (now quoting @131 CMDwannabe) "long history of assigning women the clerical jobs".

Oh, and c'mon, do you really need to /keep/ qualifying "if you are genuinely" (and @122 "If you were") to me? Granted (as I said @123) "this is the Internet" where no one knows you're a dog, but I don't see your conversations with others /highlighting/ this understandable lack of trust like your relies to me have. I do get that I've made extraordinary claims...but maybe I'm not ordinary?

I think this is irrelevant to giving JACKS responsibly good (and responSIVE) advice, but has it occurred to anyone else that given

@113 fubar "I know that good managers/leaders are hard to find."

statistically the odds are against JACKS being one of the good ones? (Sorry JACKS, for all I know you are, as I was, are an exception to the stats.) Again, not that that matters, bad managers have a right to all possible personal freedom too.

@137 fubar "advising LWs to trash their lives in order to accomplish the above"

While JACKS wrote asking how to avoid losing his job, maybe good /would/ have come from his taking Dadddy's advice @13 to, essentially, go ahead and jack it. Sure he might involuntarily lose his job, but (playing Devil's Advocate here), maybe that would have been /good/ for JACKS. He would have got his personal freedom back, since (as I alluded to @70) "when one becomes a supervisor in a corporate structure, one does opt into this shit". In other words, it might have been good for JACKS in the end to lose his job involuntarily, but become free. (And maybe for his employees too if he isn't the exception to good managers being hard to find.")

Still (as I made all-too-clear already) I agree with fubar. Believe it or not one of my current roles is to oversee a team of people who give the public advice and support in dealing with a difficult challenge; I continue to feel it's wrong to give people advice that, for example, would lose someone a job they don't want to lose. Even if (see previous paragraph) there's a possibility it might be for the best, I feel it's important to prioritize doing no harm.

But it's not like JACKS will /only/ see the Comment to 'go ahead and jack it'. He'll also see all the comments warning ('for pete's sake don't do THAT!') how/why that is ill-advised given his desire to keep his job. I don't exactly love taking the time I really don't have to do that, but at least in this thread I think it led to more understanding than the overly vague HR-speak guest expert provided. As LavaGirl said @90 "I don’t think the comments should all be facing the same direction, fubar. Can get a bit bland"; OTOH I really don't have time for THIS much non-bland again.

Who's up for a Two HUnsky Award?

What's the most Comments ever on a thread here? (Last week October 9 made it to 325.)

@155 curious2: I may be wrong about the actual number, but I think we reached over 500 comments in a single week once (!). Actually, last week's ( October 10, Quickies) is up to @326. I just made one last one, to CMD. and
@CMDwannabe: I know this is SO last week's column, but I responded late upon realizing I'd meant another comment and not yours at @288. My humblest apologies.

@156 auntie grizelda
"I think we reached over 500 comments in a single week once (!)"

That musta been quite a flame-war.

‘It didn't pan out, my wife was bummed, we moved on.’ Matron.

@157 curious2: I don't remember the actual comment thread(s) way back when, but do believe it had to be one helluva vicious trollfest, indeed.

I apologise too CMD, calling you a bitch. Your comment was bitchy though. And I don’t understand what the issue is for you.
I don’t like to see people ganged up on, if I see they are not trolls. And if you’d noticed, I’ve confronted Sportlandia and Dadddy, and will continue to do so if I disagree enough with their comments.

@157 curious2: I do remember that Hunter in particular had plenty of help once upon a time fanning the flames in what he considers his glory days. His favorite subject of heated debate remains none other than the battle of the sexes.

Thing is hunter, it’s not a gender war with a lot of developed men. They listen. They hear.
Some, like you, still hanging onto old old ways, have become boring and destructive and in the way of progress.

@163 LavaGirl: Thank you and bless you. I find it amusing that Hunter certainly can't be getting any when he's trolling, which he does a lot.

@164:....unless he opens up with a pair of jacks.

@164: ....unless he opens up with a pair of jacks.

@165 & @166: Ooops--did I up the ante?

Not at all Grizelda... A momentary lapse responding to the troll. I won’t let it happen again.

@155 curious2: I'm pretty sure the record of 1,434 still stands:

https://www.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2011/02/11/hello-i-am-fat

Lava @120: Dadddy is confrontational, and clearly possesses a brain and is therefore dangerous, while Hunter's comments are mostly clueless and therefore easier to shrug off.

Venn @122: I gave you more credit than you seem to deserve. I would have thought Curious2's obvious feminism and challenges to misogynists like Dadddy and Sporty were the clues that led you to believe him to be female. Also possibly the tendency to write longer posts, as women are more typically verbose. (See EmmaLiz and myself!) Fubar is also male, to my knowledge; I don't get a sense of his orientation, but Curious is straight or possibly bi, from what he has written previously.

Curious2: I'm sorry about what happened to you. I once lost an internship opportunity due to a random drug test. The laws must change, and I'm glad they are.

Venn @124: OK, you've redeemed yourself for rejecting those awful, archaic, sexist titles Miss and Mrs. :-)

Dadddy @129: So this guy is obligated to risk his job for your cause? Very brave of you to sacrifice a stranger's future like that. It's not your ass on the line here, so your opinion should be taken with the kilo of salt it deserves.

Lava @130: I give everyone on the board a chance, and Dadddy has shown his true colours. Still though, I respond to his thoughtful and respectful comments in kind, just as I respond to his misogynist ones with the reactions they deserve. You really think misogynists' attitudes can be tweaked by women? LOL, you'll quickly learn otherwise.

Fubar @151: Exactly.

Fred @169: The link you shared is not a Savage article so is disqualified. :-)
There were far more flame wars when Eudaemonic was around. Thank goodness he's gone. As The Avalanches sang in their one hit Frontier Psychiatry: "That boy needs therapy!"

Oh Fan, I’m a woman a few years off seventy. Gulp. And you think I’ll learn what quickly? And maybe you should leave Dadddy’s comments unread, if he sets you off so much. Like you tell me re Harriet’s comments. And yes, thru interactions I do think people change, if they are open to it.

Lava @171: "If they are open to it." That's the key. I don't see any evidence in Dadddy, Sporty or especially Hunter's posts that indicates to me that they're willing to rethink their positions. Quite the contrary, in some cases. Several people on this thread, including an expert on employment matters, have told Dadddy that his advice would lose JACKS his job, yet he hasn't budged. And you're the one who volunteered that you were planning to skim past Harriet's posts. Which is entirely your right, as it's entirely my right to respond to any post with agreement or disagreement as appropriate. Dadddy doesn't "set me off," he's just frequently biased and I for one don't like to let such comments pass unchallenged.

@130 LavaGirl
"It’s funny the men didn’t stamp hunter out yrs ago, for his offensive words about women"

Wait, how would we have gone about 'stamping out' a poster on an Internet thread? (Please don't say 'hackers and a road trip'.)

@170 BiDanDan & @171 LavaGirl

I somehow agree with you both about "change". I try to do it constantly. Not a day goes by I don't reflect upon/review my thoughts and behavior. I EXPECT (aka 'demand') this of myself; I think nothing is more important that growth.

OTOH when it comes to others, say in relationships (the theme of Dan's column, hey this is actually on-topic!), I try to never count on/invest in anyone changing. If I'm attached to their changing, I'm just setting myself up for disappointment. I adopt the perspective that people change themselves. Ya know "you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make them drink"? When it comes to people changing, I think all you can do is /tell/ them where the water is, and the rest is up to them. Otherwise I'd leave myself open to feeling like /I/ have failed (and feeling frustrated) if/when they don't change. A horse is way too big to drag to water or anywhere they don't want to go, so I try not to try to. I try to just suggest, but not EXPECT it.

To remind myself of this I use the cryptic phrase "I don't EXPECT anyone to change except myself".

Hunter @162: Normally I'd ignore posts like this, but LavaGirl put out a call for responses, so I'll give it a whirl.

There is no gender war. There was and is a systemic patriarchy, and there was and is a crapload of misogyny and sexism going on. People are right to fight for an end to all that, but the fight is not gendered.

Men have sisters, daughters, partners and friends, and men, other than the most blighted or antiquated, want women to have everything we'd wish for ourselves and our brethren.

It may be true that women lead, just as LGBTQ+ people, people of colour, indigenous people, working people, lead the various movements toward equality and justice... but most men are their allies.

If there ever was a "gender war", you may be like one of the Japanese soldiers we read about from time to time, sitting alone on an isolated island, with his rusty rifle at the ready, not knowing that WW2 ended long ago. But more likely, you're a troll.

Lava-
Admittedly I started working on detailing the so many contradictions and inaccuracies in the stuff you toss at others and myself.
Yet considering the ongoing bickering and recent admittance that you have neither interest nor ability to change, I’m afraid it will be a waste of my time.

As for your attempts to hit me below the belt by assessing my “realness”, this very likely forever-penis-haver will continue carrying their bitchiness with pride.

CMD. You got something to say about my attitudes and comments then spit it out or why mention it. So many tricky little word games you play.
Curious, I know nobody can change others. I did say if people are open to it.
Thank you fubar.

What is it you think I should change, CMD?
I’m a cis het woman of advanced age, my experiences inform my perceptions. I have no issue with how people want to self identify and I respect the experiences they speak from.
What I reacted to with Harriet is the constant put downs of cis het people and their constant superficial telling cis women who and what we are. I feel like I walk on egg shells enough, and at the same time feel cis women are denied our Womb experiences. We have wombs, we have vaginas, out of which blood flows monthly for x yrs and babies are born. We have breasts which produce milk to feed babies. You hear my rage because as always cis women are expected to twist and turn and take up less room in defending our experiences and rights and wants and desires. Bad enough it comes from pig cis men.
Anyway. A much bigger battle to wage. I read trump is looking to cause more horrors for trans people.

Of course, Trump is feeding his base just before the elections with his latest dispicable plan.
Trump proving again how evil he is.

I wish we could post gifs here...

fb @174 I think that what Hunter meant by the "gender war" is not any supposed broad societal phenomenon but the back-and-forth bickering by men and women on the Savage Love comment threads. CMD used to call it the "genitalia wars" if I remember correctly.

Curious2 @173: And this is why I love to read your posts and appreciate everything you have to say, versus the other men whose attitudes are being discussed. As Fubar says, there's no gender war. It's not men vs women, it's misogynists vs human beings. :)

You are absolutely correct about not expecting people to change in relationships. One mark of maturity is when you realise this. You cannot change your partner; you have to accept them as they are or decline to stay in the relationship. Those are the only options. As a cynic, my view is that if people DO change, it's probably for the worse. Then again with this attitude I leave myself open to the occasional pleasant surprise!

I agree that Hunter's "Gender War" means: Some heterosexual will write in with a problem; some commenter will opine that the problem is solely the result of their dating the opposite sex because all members of that sex are horrible people and what else did they expect; other commenters who are members of the sex that's just been dissed will blast that commenter's sexism. Voila, "Gender War." Funnily, Hunter himself has started more than a few of these.

Jokes at cishets' expense are like women's jokes about men--a sometimes underhand way of pointing out entitlement, entrenched and misogynistic attitudes. They're 'talking back'. Not putdowns, not debating points or the sort of thing expected to 'stand up in court'.

If anyone thinks that I have ever told cis women what they are or should be--rather than claiming it can be prejudicial to assume that 'all' women share any essential features--then let them print my remarks out, and I will either explain, contextualise or retract them.

Hunter @185: That particular shitstorm erupted when you suggested that women's primary purpose in every sartorial decision they ever make is "to gain looks," in denial of the fact that shorter skirts are simply more comfortable in hot temperatures than long skirts are. Wanting a breeze on one's legs when it's 90 degrees out has nothing whatsoever to do with any gender war. (Your claiming certain irrelevant things are battles in a gender war doesn't make it so, either!)

Good to see you finally accepting the existence of the Patriarchy, though. Perhaps Lava is right, and people can learn and change!

@176 LavaGirl
I really did mean it when I wrote "I somehow agree with you both about "change"". What does or does not bug each of us writing here is totally their own right/business; no one is wrong to not be bugged by something!

I'm sure it goes without saying that I'm less bugged by Hunter than I am by some others. I think the thing that bugs me more about the others is that each (now quoting @170 BiDanFan) "clearly possesses a brain and is therefore dangerous".

I /love/ that I only sometimes feel I need to reply to Hunter's comments, and when I do I /love/ that it's simpler/less time consuming to do so. OTOH, the things the others say that I feel a need to respond to tend to be more complex and time consuming to respond to. (And sometimes literally "dangerous" in telling someone [quoting Dadddy@140] "to live his life" but not cautioning them that this opens them up to losing a job they don't want to lose; for that I would fire someone on my [mentioned @153] "team of people who give the public advice and support [oh, and information] in dealing with a difficult challenge.") No, I'm not saying we should fire anyone (after all as I mentioned @173 "'stamping out' a poster on an Internet thread" isn't an option), I'm just sharing what bugs me personally about some more than others. Everyone's mileage has every right to vary.

@181 Dadddy
"@fubar: "My experience working with women in HR is that they're great at communication, good at setting and recognizing boundaries, and generally level headed and calm.""

There's nothing wrong with being "great at communication, good at setting and recognizing boundaries, and generally level headed and calm.""

@185 Hunter
"when the Patriarchy oppressed women"

When past tense?! ROFLMAO.

Wow, in this post (contrary to what I wrote in the larger paragraph above) there was some stuff that was substantive. But for some reason I /still/ can't motivate myself to put time into debating it. (No offense, I'm dreadfully busy.) Maybe it's that Hunter was less brash than those other commenters, and that I have a tendency to 'match energy' when interacting with others.

@98 Harriet
I know that C-J's were a thing when i was a teen, but was too shy to ask to be invited. I identify with your expression of the occasional exhibitionist. Many times I think maybe I settled down too young.

Mr Curious - I was thinking of such things as schools, and more generally how men tend to dominate the outliers in both positive and negative directions when considering group distributions (apologies for inexact terminology). Women, being closer to the mean and/or the median, are better suited to and served by strict rules for the masses. At least that's the theory; it could be wrong, and I haven't any serious thought invested in it. I just find potential interest in odd reasons for things that one never knows when one may be able to turn them to advantage.

Dear Mr. Vennominon,
I now see rather clearly what you weren't talking about.

I will admit, Sir, that I am somewhat less clear on what you were/are talking about. And for that I humbly and gratefully pay tribute. In this case I have some idea what you are talking about. That could only be exceeded by my delight were I to have had no idea, for I have never encountered a wordsmith with more potential for delight with puzzles.

This case @189 was a truly delightful combination, giving both answers and questions, if not the full measure of either a greedy person should be ashamed to whine for.

Your humble servant,
curious

Curious2 @187: I read that as "when the Patriarchy decided to oppress women," as opposed to the time in the rosy past when everyone co-operated and contributed equally to the raising of children and the slaying of meat for dinner. At some point it was decided that the work of meat-slaying was more important than the work of child-raising, and from then on out, women have had to fight to be taken seriously. But you're right; knowing Hunter, he may have meant that the Patriarchy has now been defeated and what a wonderful sexism-free utopia we live in where women must only show a bit of leg and men will do whatever we want them to. Because that's what we meant by "being taken seriously." -eye roll emoji-

@191 BiDanFan
You're right, I think that the meaning was as you say something like "when the Patriarchy placed women into the ongoing state of oppression". In which case I apologize, Hunter!

@168 LavaGirl: I was referring to my accidental double post. I didn't see the first one (@165). I was trying to be funny with "a pair of jacks" Saturday evening, with plans to watch some Nicholson films, which later switched to screen adaptations of Stephen King novels. Technically I did up my own ante to a pair of kings--ha ha.
@169 Fred Casely: 1,434 posts in a single column?!? That must have been when nuts like Eudamonic were still prowling around.
@170 BiDanFan (re @169 Fred Casely): Agreed.
@178 LavaGirl: The sooner Trump and its ilk are removed from office, exponentially the better.

Two HUnsky? So close, yet so far...

@186 BiDanFan: Atta grrrrrrrl!
@195: That's right--keep telling yourself that.

Hunter @185: "Your saying there's no gender war doesn't make it so."

What I was trying to say, perhaps without sufficient eloquence to get my point across, is that, in my humble view and limited experience, there's no war between genders. It seems that even you are an ally when it comes to women's rights!

"But when I suggest women (in general) enhance and use their attractiveness, a shitstorm erupts."

It's hard to understand why a shitstorm might erupt over such a constructive suggestion. After all, as a straight cis man, I always shove a rolled-up sock down my oh-so-tight pants, and suck in my gut, before I walk into a meeting.

Myself @149: "someone first needs to solve the problem of rampant abuse of power."

Dadddy @ 181: " Of corporations? At last we agree!"

I was referring to the rampant abuse of power by (mostly) men in charge. You know... the whole #metoo thing?

We might well agree about abuse of power by corporations... corporations that destroy local business, eliminate living wages, put their employees on food stamps, and then donate millions (of their billions) to charities of the owner's choice so they can "give back".

Hunter @195: "Your theory that that temperatures control hemlines unfortunately demonstrates perfectly how your rigid dogma distorts your understanding of the world."

And your comment demonstrates perfectly that you've never worn a skirt.

Or have you?

Oh look. We've reached 200! If there's luck to be had, I need it this week, so dibs.

Fubar @200: Congratulations, and I hope you get all the good luck you deserve for those great comments @197 and @199. I declare you the winner of this week's gender war. ;)

@200 fubar: Keep kicking ass and taking names, fubar! Congrats on the Lucky Two HUnsky! May riches of amazing size enter your life soon (MegaMillions Jackpot is over $1 billion 600 million-!!)!

@195 Hunter
Of course we all see that one sees more skin when the temperature.

Might Hunter's theory here be that hot temps don't so much cause, as they do ENABLE a baseline desire by women, to show more skin?

Not being a woman I wonder how one could have an opinion on this that wouldn't flow from prejudice as much as anything, so we should defer completely to the expert gender on it. Which brings me to:

If my proposed Hunter theory is wrong, does that mean that when temps rise and we see more skin, this happens either reluctantly or with indifference? (As opposed to Hunter's presumed theory that latent desire to show as much skin as possible is unleashed on hot days. [To me, this theory would sound pretty paranoid and suspicious. And wouldn't explain why we don't see women cranking up thermostats so they can peel layers off.)

@203 p.s.
I've long heard (and heard here repeatedly) that women aren't dressing 'for the male gaze'. (I admit that when I first heard this it was news to me, but) why would one not believe women? I've heard women here say recently that all the whiny bitter men would be better off expending a little effort on their appearance.

I admit I personally don't love attending to clothing, and wouldn't do it if women didn't care. But I don't assume women are as primitive in this as I am.

Personally I love that women aren't the same as men. Why wouldn't any man with OS attraction?

Hunter @205: For themselves, perhaps?

also, I've been told, 'for each other'

This is so incredibly tiresome.

No doubt there are some straight women who make all their sartorial decisions based on what they know the man in their life prefers or in order to attract the attention either of a particular man or men in general.

It's disingenuous for all women to insist that no woman anywhere at any time has ever dressed in a way that seeks male approval or attention.

But so the fuck what?

I assume that somewhere, sometime, some straight man has dressed in a way that he knows or hopes will make him more attractive to either a particular woman or to women in general.

Why is this an issue?
Oh, yeah, I remember why it's an issue: because our oldest misogynist-in-residence has claimed that he understands why ALL women do whatever they do and it's in service of conquering men, by being so damn alluring. (sigh) Somehow, his stupid ideas about why SOME women behave the way they do is treated as though this is evidence of some "gender war" which, in Hunter's opinion, the women have "won." And by the way, when women dress for other women (which I know I certainly do), it's not to compete with them: it's for their appreciation. I appreciate a beautifully-dressed woman. I compliment women on their articles of apparel all the time, and receive compliments on my outfits or accessories frequently. And they're genuine compliments on taste and style, as opposed to an attempt to get into someone's knickers, which makes them appreciated by all. But H, reading the phrase, "women dress for other women," interprets it to mean "women are in constant competition against other women for male sexual approval."

Do we really have to go through this? AGAIN?

What a sad and limiting worldview--and one which prioritizes men and their sexual response to women who conform to male desire. Which is--SURPRISE!--an example of how the patriarchy works. Apparently, it works just fine for Hunter--again, no surprise.

Yes, Hunter thinks we're done with the patriarchy--a term and a concept he willfully chooses to misunderstand and misapply because it conflicts with his preferred view of the world, in which there is a battle of the sexes and women, having men in their sexy, sexy thrall, have undoubtedly won. Oh, and there's no such thing as "rape culture," says the man who has more than once represented heterosexual sex as something a man tries his hardest to "get" from a woman.

If this was about racial issues, rather than gendered issues, I have no doubt that he would claim we're living in a post-racial society.

Let the pathetic old sexist man cling to his beliefs--no one is going to get him to change them; he doesn't WANT to change and not only is he resistant to logic or to the input of actual women, but in trying to convince him, women end up denying that any woman anywhere, ever has dressed to attract male attention. Which is simply not true. Then he can feel victorious.

Meanwhile, otherwise intelligent people, like fubar and curious2, get sucked into this absurd argument.

Lava, Griz, Bi: move on when you see it--stop engaging. Save your intelligence and energy for more worthy endeavors.

@207 nocutename
Thank you for the very sensible Comment.
I'm sorry, I should have known that this had been beaten to death before. I know I'm bored to death with it already.

@210: Not your fault, curious2. Some of these arguments were started long ago, and you may not have been reading these comments then. But it pains me to see people get dragged into it. It is a very boring topic.

@208 Hunter78
Geez Hunter, you abandon all pretense of being above the scum so fast it's patheticly clear the brief pretense (which couldn't have been easy for you to present) otherwise was just to get attention (aka troll).

"women...can always be overpowered by men"

They can, huh old-timer? At your age no matter what kind of shape you're in there's some ten-figure number of women who could beat the shit out of you. Have you left your house in the last half-century? Now that gender roles have evolved, women athletes are nothing like when you were young. Women are strong, you crazy bitter sad coot.

I understand better than ever now why we all want you to crawl back into your hole with the other scum.

@213 Hunter78
Your statement was that "women...can always be overpowered by men" implies that any man can overpower any woman, so this reply was stupid you peabrain.

Let us know when you defeat the best woman MMA fighter.

I'm pretty sure the gender flame wars were at their peak when Mydriasis was around to troll H back...

nocutenasme @207: I'm going to have "otherwise intelligent" engraved on my tombstone. It really does seem to be a recurring theme in my life.

Hunter @208: you should probably look up the meaning of the word "meme".

@207 nocutename: Bless you, nocutename. Agreed; I really do try not to fall into tedious conversations like Hunter's idea of "what men want" unless I really have to.
@217 fubar: I like your idea of having "otherwise intelligent" engraved on your tombstone. That epitaph would be perfect for me, too.. Now if I could just stop feeding trolls, as nocutename and LavaGirl keep warning me...

@217 fubar: I didn't mean that you were a troll--I was referring to the usual suspects here in Savage Love.

Nocute @207: I am happy to let you have the last word. If anyone disagrees with what you have said, they are just plain wrong. Hunter, can you seriously not see that as a man you are physically incapable of being an expert on women's motivations? The word "mansplaining" was invented for men like you.
If short skirts aren't more comfortable in hot temperatures, please explain to me whom these boys are trying to attract:
https://www.theguardian.com/education/2017/jun/22/teenage-boys-wear-skirts-to-school-protest-no-shorts-uniform-policy
And with that I move on to next week.