Aziz Ansari accused of sexual misconduct

I kind of disagree with both sides of the public discourse on this.  Assuming her story is true "Grace" had every right to tell it just like Ed Sheeran has every right to write a song about Ellie Goulding cheating on him.  It might have been nice if we waited until after #MeToo had died down so Ansari wouldn't immediately get lumped in with all the "_______ Accused" headlines, but again, she's not Ansari's publicist and has no obligation to make sure he gets good press.  On the other hand I the people reading the story should probably see it for what it is instead of becoming a judgemental mob.  I'm certainly not going to stop watching Ansari's stuff over this, then again I'm the one who has no qualms about seeing Roman Polanski movies so my views on this sort of thing might be a bit different than others.

The point towards the end of the video is communication. You can want to go back to someone's apartment and not necessarily engage in sexual acts, but men are men. You should at least have an inkling that a man is clearly sexually attracted to you and is interested as such if he's inviting you back to his apartment. Yes, that is Dating 101. Men are not some mysterious animals. Especially after he is trying to go down on you, if you're not wanting to take it there, communicate. Don't just let it happen and give "non-verbal cues". Clearly communicate. It's not that complicated. "I'm not interested in doing that tonight. Let's just hang out." And if he pursues it further beyond that, end it. Go home.

Most people are smart. This is not rocket science. Hopefully lessons learned on both parts. Ansari's approach was a tad on the creepy side as he clearly misread the situation and hopefully he learned from that. And on other side of the fence, hopefully she now knows to say out loud 'enough is enough' and leave when it's going too far for her liking.

The mature responses to the entire situation is exactly how it already played out. On both sides. He followed up with her via text messages (again, clearly having misread the situation), telling her he had a good time and wanted to see her again. She responded that she didn't have a good time and she had been uncomfortable. He then responded that he didn't realize and that he was truly sorry. The communication THERE was perfect. She let him know she was not happy with the date and not interested in continuing. He let it be and apologized.

Where it was taken to another, wholly unnecessary level, was her feeling the need to go to the press about it and potentially destroy someone's career. Which she has to have known was a possibility, and possibly even counting on it. That's the main point of this discussion. Not 'was he wrong, was she right'. Rather, was this anything more than a shitty date and did it really need to be brought to the press for the purpose of burning someone at the stake? This was not sexual assault, and clearly this situation is a good lesson in this movement encouraging women to speak up. They NEED to be speaking up, but they need to know the difference. This has provided a much needed conversation among everything that has been happening lately.

I do think it's fair to criticize the reporter and publication. Some of the gravity of the reporting is taken away by some details and wording which seems only designed to tittilate.

If another publication had ran with the story I don't think there would be as much pushback in the discourse.

It kind of is... my single friend who are much older follow these same rules.

Even girls say it’s what they expect from guys as well. If I like a guy I will go on a date, and I expect him to ask me to go to his place.

Girls can say

1 not tonight maybe next time

2 no, they didn’t like how the date went and this is the end

3 yes, they are interested and continue the evening, they expect the guy to make a move at this point