That’s not necessarily the case. Maybe you’ve heard of r/niceguys, but if you haven’t… it shows men acting aggressive or rude about any kind of rejection from women in particular. So sadly, a lot of times, we just put up with it and walk away without saying anything, just to protect ourselves or save ourselves from the retaliation. Or worse, because we don’t want to look weak.
I wish it were that black and white, I really do. But sometimes, people just make you feel so uncomfortable, even though they didn’t do anything “wrong,” perse. I have lost count of how many times I wanted to leave a “not positive” reference because of some weird flirty comments or creepy suggestions. But it’s really hard to do that when many of us have been conditioned to just shrug it off.
If I could anonymously say “this guy made me uncomfortable” and it would affect his score anonymously, on the other hand, that really changes things - at least for me.
You are completely missing the point for the sake of winning an argument. I was never talking about not having differences. I’m talking about basic human decency and respect. And whoever doesn’t have those two, should definitely be named and shamed. Believing sexism and harassment is “not a big issue” is disrespectful and other things that I won’t name.
If you want to play the devils advocate, go ahead, but let’s get real for a minute: you’re a decent guy, we met on FB and you were very nice. Does it mean everyone is? Nope. I’d give a 100% positive to someone who doesn’t share my political views… to an extent. If their political views are discriminatory or derogatory to certain groups, I wouldn’t. There is, actually, a limit to tolerance. I won’t tolerate intolerant beliefs.
I’ll say this one more time: I don’t believe the platform or its tools can prevent discrimination or harassment. That’s a lost cause. But I do believe in community, and in shared values, and on the colective stand to set the bar. I think a hospitality exchange group of people should share values of equity and inclusion and respect above all things.
I think some of you are forgetting that this is supposed to be a global community, and as such, cultural shock when in comes to the flirting/dating/hookup/hitting on someone/etc can be VERY big. Specially for woman. I’ve seen girls cry because they got overwhelmed for guys doing things that in my culture are somewhat accepted as normal. We need those girls to feel safe and know there’s a high standard on the community as a whole (not only on the tools, but in people’s values and how the people around you in the community react when someone crosses the line).
Are dates gonna happen? Suuuuure. We are human beings meeting other human beings. It’s statistics. But we should have standards as a community that make people think twice before acting on them without even having a signal of approval from the counterpart. We need to make people approaching this as a dating pool feel unwelcomed.
I completely agree with these points, and going forward, I believe we will do our best to make sure that message gets across - not only here on the forum, but in our communications about the platform and what it stands for.
@Eileen, thanks for the kind words! I don’t think we differ at all in what we want: Encouraging women no less than men to travel happily, to travel safely and to not be afraid to dive into the adventure out there. I’m having it easier as a guy (I couldn’t say: unfortunately; it’s only unfortunate that you and others have it harder) and so there are some problems I just can’t think of. I’m pretty hostile to the model of “you can’t understand an issue you’re not having first-hand”; but to understand something still requires me to learn about it, so thanks to you, @Aleja, @Emily and others for raising questions I simply wouldn’t have thought of.
On the constructive side I’d point to the reference thread. Similar things discussed there.
I’m sincerely not. I’m with you with on the basic decency and respect thing (and many other things) I do believe sexism and harrasment are big issues, massive ones actually. I just personally believe that naming and shaming is not the way to go. If you start a platform with rules that dissuade sexist behaviour or ejects nuisence sex pests, I think thats great and that would promote safety for women within the context of hospitality exchange. If you start a platform with the premise that a person will be named and shamed for ‘doing the wrong thing’, I think that lends itself to abuse in the other direction. ‘The wrong thing’ is very subjective. What one person finds edgy and charismatic, another may find chauvinistic and sexist. Meanwhile, all reputations only have to be ruined once.
Yes, I remember you. I’ve added a total of three people on FB this year and you were the second. I get your point though. I’m generally considered to be a decent guy and as such, I have not really had the first hand experiences with what many of you have had to endure. I also do not have the mindset of a sex pest. My general experince as a CS guest has not involved many ulterior motives. On the occasions when I was confronted with culturally different, sexually aggresive behaviour (yes, I’m talking about you Brazil) I was a young, single guy and was largely fine with it.
Again, in essence, I’m with you on that. The only bone of contention is the mechanism employed to achieve that goal.
I’d like to second that. I don’t agree with Antonio’s claims. At the same time he didn’t put them like “I don’t know this gal in particular, but I do know the type: girls that can’t just say no…” That’s quite aggressive language and I think staying clear of this type of naming and shaming is important here as well.
I think the “naming and shaming” she was referring to was in regard to the men in the community who choose to approach hospex as a dating platform. We should call them out for what they are doing (name), and reject that behavior as a community (shame). @Aleja, please let me know if I misinterpreted you there.
That was my interpretation too. The part I find problematic with naming and shaming is that it makes one woman’s subjective experience the sole adjudicator of any given guys motivations. This is a very grey area. Sometimes wires get crossed, sometimes it’s a particularly drunken event. There are a myriad of situations where any given individuals line could be crossed in reletive innocence.
With a private point system you would dissuade this behaviour, you would make such judgements community based and you would avoid the tit for tat revenge thing. Might be less satisfying but I think it would be more fair.
Well, this is exactly where we are now. “oh, he’s drunk, he doesn’t mean to, shrug it off and ignore it” “boys will be boys” bs. I wonder how come I get drunk as a sailor and don’t hit on anyone, I must have a superpower /s. I am the kind of person that, when sees that, doesn’t look away. I ask the woman if she’s OK with that and if it’s unsolicited attention I openly tell the guy that what he is doing is not ok, not acceptable, and he needsnto get lost. And I can do this because I know the local grop has my back, and share the same idea.
I do support this idea, but I don’t think is enough. Because it’s anonymous and you don’t know how many votes the person have, or why he got the negatives. Even with an open comment reference system everyone with a negative would just say it wasn’t true, it was retaliation. They could say the same about their ratings.
@Aleja and @Emily thanks for clarifying! I was put off by the sudden change in tone… but after having read throught this thread another time, I would agree that if we want a platform where women are truly safe we will need a culture that many guys might actually find off-putting at first
my comment didn’t invalidate no deny in anyway experiences of women. You re-read, I keep screenshots. You RE-READ. I was mentioning in another thread your lack of juridical status, and it seems that know you got one in Australia. Good f you want so we can go the libel way across jurisdictions.
you: Itsi Weinstock, Australia, and there’s the https://itsiweinstock.com/
me: Antonio Bravo, Kløfta , Norway, lookup norwegian yellow pages.
You want a case, I’ll give you one.
damn, YOU ARE ACCUSING ME of denying experiences of others, because one participant, Aleja, in the thread says so, which is not the case. And it’s not language related, gringo isn’t my main language but I think i can use written english good enough.
my initial comment, was two-fold, a secondary element (1), related to a main one (2), in the scope of the issue:
it doesn’t seems that sexual harassment is a statistically major issue in general among the population. This doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist, but that the occurrence of it isn’t dominant. Like any deviant and/or illegal behavior, it is minor. Like any illegal behaviour it has a character of major importance, but statistically not.
That said: if that was no longer true on hospex networks, but is as you put it a main prevalent issue, then there would be a big effect on the structure of a hospex site. Read further.
an hospex CAN NOT take preemptive measures. You can’t know nor detect in advance who is a thief, a rapist, a sexual offender, a murderer, an etc. You can’t.
You can only ban a profile after a feedback and complain has been posted. It’s always afterwards.
the big issue/effect in case sexual harassment was a main behaviour, statistically prevalent on hospex, is simple: implement gender separation, Boys host boys, girls host girls. Yet you would still have the cases of harassment among homosexuals.
you Itsi and Aleja should be apologizing for accusing me of an opinion that I didn’t hold.
my initial post:
"in my country and culture, when a girl gets annoyed by a guy who tries a flirt and she’s not interested, she just kicks the guy or gets away. you are hosted by a guy, he makes a pass at you: you leave. Done you host a guy, he does the same, you put him out. Done. a hospex is a listing for hosters and travelers to get in contact, nothing more."
which is true around me in most of Yurop and certainly in Scandinavia: girls in vast majority of cases do get rid of harassers by vocal warning, or kicking them or leaving them there. And what is true too: a hospex is a listing that does nothing in real life. What is not true there?
my 2nd post:
"of course it exists. All girls I know, know how to get rid of an annoying guy. No idea if the phenomenon is measurable by sociologists and stats, but it’s certainly minor, most guys don’t have dating or romance in head. So there are the ones who are the more or less harassing type and the dangerous ones, and these ones, you can just mark them with a bad feedback, but that’s not the capabilities nor the job of an hospex to go around doing preemptive social police. A hospex is a virtual tool, the rest happens in real life and is to be dealt with as is, like people do deal with any bad issue and if needed by local police. the real problem is instead that if you get hosted by a guy who is seriously harassing (he doesn’t get back to normality when told) you have to incur expenses for hotel, unless you find an adhoc replacement hoster. If you are the hoster, you kick out the guy. But again, what happens in real life, this or rape or robbers or serial killers, is outside the scope of an hospex, excepted for blacklisting or deleting profiles afterwards."
what is not clear there? what is denial of girls problems with harassment?
so:
I clearly mentioned, that there’s no preemptive cure. You can splash as much as you want “we don’t tolerate this, that, etc”, it doesn’t impeach offenders, rapists, thiefs, murderer or whatever to use the system.
you can only ban afterwards, but then, it’s too late.
if such behaviors are prevalent, then the only way to prevent problems is to implement gender separation. Yet, not miracle cure.
not a girl-boy case of harassment, but a boy-boy case. Long time ago, through Hospitality Club, a friend of mine, who is homosexual, was hosted by another guy, homosexual too. At a very expensive city in peak touristic season. The hoster tried to sneak himself into the bed of my friend, started to touch him. He told me he had a dilemma, because he had to keep the hoster away but was also threatened to be kicked out and it had been a problem for him to get accomodation, as he was in very low budget.
That’s a boy-boy instance. Now if I had two-neurons brains like Aleja I could accuse her to deny the issues experienced by homosexual and to center on her heterosexual experiences.
and oh yes, you can kick me out, delete me, because I state that Aleja didn’t read or lacks neurons. Which is btw. not gender related.
I’m in Europe, it’s definitely not the case. There are so many potential reasons anyone may not be able to easily and safely leave a host.
That’s ignoring the fact that even if this were true, that it might be necessary degrades the platform and that’s why this thread exists - to try and discuss ways of making it better, not just accepting it because it happens on the old platforms.
FALSE. It is NOT a minor issue, and you, a person that has neveer had to deal with it are openlly saying to me, a person that has actually suffered the issue, that I´m wrong. How is that not invalidating nor denying my experineces? you are doing it openly. You should stay in your line instead of saying you know more about something than the people actually living, you are not only disrespectful, you are also incredible arrogant.
All of it is NOT TRUE. I´ve seen girls from YOUR country, and from scandinavia, beeing harassed and needed to be “rescued” out of a situation. So I´m basing my opinion in facts and real experiences, you are just assuming something you have neer experienced. Once again: I, myself, Alejandra, assisted girls from norway to get out from situations they didn´t know who to get defend themselves of.
Statistics from norway:
Prevalence Data on Different Forms of Violence against Women:
Lifetime Physical and/or Sexual Intimate Partner Violence :27 % (1)
Physical and/or Sexual Intimate Partner Violence in the last 12 months : 6 % (2)
Lifetime Non-Partner Sexual Violence : Official National Statistics Not Available
So, minor issue in Norway? 27% doesn´t look like “minor” That´s more than one every 4, in case you need help with the math. I don´t think so. Stop talking about things you have no idea. If me, having only 2 neurons know all of this, how many neurons have someone that doens´t even google before forming an opinion, sweetheart?
Man, whatever you write next, try sleeping over it. You’re crying libel and “delete me” out of the blue. Regardless of your opinion and statements, some of which I agree or disagree with, you voice them as if everyone were cornering you in what I thought used to be a civil discussion.
hell, again: it’s an important issue by its character in itself, but statistically it’s a minor issue in real world.
I never said you didn’t suffer from sexual harassment. I state that serious cases like what seems to be yours are not a main statistical occurrence. It’s like people who get robbed or physically attacked. The fact that it happens to someone doesn’t mean that it’s a main phenomenon.
But you lose the scope: a hospex can’t, sadly, prevent this. You can just give the feedback so an offender is banned. It’s afterwards.
But theb iff harassment is statistically main issue on hospex, then the hospex isn’t viable unless gender separation is implemented. If say, 1 of 2 , or 1 of 3 or even 1 of 4 guys are potential offenders, harassers, then the only preemptive way is to ban guys and girls in the hospex scheme (host as well as guest)
I’d be very curious to see these statistics considering the huge volume of literature that include statistics showing how widespread sexual harassment is, including around Europe.
If you do your research and find this to be the case - that this is an extremely important and widespread issue that we should care about - I hope you will change your opinion. Then we can get on with finding better ways to fix these issues.
The point is not to stop an individual case before it happens. The point is to make sure that if someone, for instance, harasses their guests or pressures people into sex, then they’re removed from the platform. There are so many occurancss on CS of well referenced hosts that are predators, because the system was designed badly and didn’t encourage honest reviews.
27%.
That´s one every 4 persons.
And we are talking about explicit violence, harassment statistics are ususally way higher.
Is that minor to you?
If you need MORE statistics, I can google them for you afret I finish my shift at work, no biggie
Although we are still in the process of establishing our ethos, our growing community recognizes that sexual harassment is a serious problem on existing hospex platforms. Couchers.org will take actions to try and prevent that behavior as best as we can, and make sure that steps are taken against offenders. If anyone would like to discuss the issue further, please start a new thread. This one has been locked due to off topic replies and personal attacks.
