You are conflating issues. Forced servitude and voluntary sex work are not interchangeable things, and the presence of involuntary sex workers in Amsterdam, regrettable as it may be, does not invalidate the choices of the majority of Dutch prostitutes who voluntarily chose that profession.

Participating in porn is a personal choice that people voluntarily make - and get compensated for. Viewing porn is also a personal choice that people voluntarily make. Neither choice has any direct or significant effect on anyone other than those directly involved in the choice itself.

Feminist of all stripes - be they first, second, or third wave, or beyond - can say whatever they want and cast any judgments that they wish, but by and large, neither the participants nor the viewers of porn are going to care. Nor should they. Both came to their position through personal, voluntary choices, and those ain't anyone's business but their own.

If one is to have any respect for the legitimacy of the personal choices of others - and thus, for the legitimacy of your own personal choices - one must recognize this, and recognize that, as The Rock would say, IT DOESN'T MATTER WHAT YOU THINK!

Perhaps this is one of the problems with feminism, or at least its less individualistic and more post-modern variants. Its goals frequently involve such things as controlling what men think about when they jerk off.

I am not trying to be snarky here. I am pointing out a legitimate concern with feminism. You just put it quite viscerally.

Just wanted to point out that you have provided little evidence, other than your own personal guarantee, that porn does, in fact, some how "train" men to view women as objects, and to remind you that your experience isn't necessarily the only one.

I for one, have visceral experiences in response to certain sexually charged images, and frequently enjoy those responses. However, my response to such images is not the whole of my being and existence. I also have a mind and a consciousness which is able to take those images, and the visceral responses that they invoke, and to place it in context, at times pushing back against it. I am not programmed like a pavlovian dog, as you assert that men are. I recognize that images are images, and that people are people, and I treat the two in different ways.

....I agree that she is the mother hen in this race. I think that that is the image that she has been projecting in her campaign. That's what all of the talk about experience and readiness have been aimed at - creating a matriarchal sense of familiarity and safety. I think that she has chosen that tack becase, in essence, that is who she is. She has spent the past 15 years publicly playing this role with regard to her daughter's position in the public eye, and it is a role that she has embraced from the start. That, at least, is my non-insiders assessment of the situation.

I also think that that is why she does well with Hispanic voters, as I think that the matriarchal archetype looms large within that culture.

"By breaking one social norm, he's suggesting that he has no problem shattering a few more."

That's quite a jump in logic, don't you think? As you said, looks can't kill, and willingness to make someone uncomfortable is not even close to an express willingness to do one harm. Also, this assumption on your part fails to take into account the possibility that intense, uncomfortable staring can be done out of mere thoughtlessness or ignorance, with no overt intent to cause discomfort.

When dealing with a person or situation like this, you should be free to make whatever assumptions you feel are necessary for your own safety. Assuming the worst is probably wise.

However, those assumptions are not the assumptions that the government should be making in these situations. Because the government is not present in this situation, it has no way of knowing either what you are feeling, or what he is thinking or intending to do, and thus has no basis for accurate judgment. Its actions, when it assumes the worst, are therefore bound to be more heavy handed, far reaching, and disproportionately disruptive than intended.

Its not about comfort or safety. Its about freedom - freedom from punishment and/or incarceration based on the kind of unprovable negative assumptions that you both are, perhaps wisely, making about your fellow man.

Men are not immune from violence. It hurts us when you hit us, too. Most of us don't relish the idea of a fight. We are just as afraid of threats, and just as wary of scary or imposing figures as women are. Dark alleys scare us too.

Most of us deal with this by avoiding the dark alleys, keeping distance from the imposing strangers, and being wary when we are out at night. I imagine that this is the way that most women deal with this as well.

Please explain to me the difference between the "hate stare," which, apparently, always betrays a violent intent, and other, more innocent forms of staring. How does one differentiate the two? This differentiation is important to establish. Otherwise, how is the government to separate the "hate starers" from the other, more innocent or absent minded starers, in order to punish them accordingly? I know you indicated in your post that African Americans apparently all "know" the "hate stare" intuitively, but you and I both know that the government must rely on something other than individual intuition in making these distinctions. Please, do tell.

...and it didn't say anything about touching her. It indicated only two incidents: one in which he sat "too close for comfort," and one in which he sat in front of her and stared at her the whole time. It gave no indication that she either asked him to stop staring, or got up and moved to another seat.