LOL

Yeah, and a charmingly sexually assaultive predator-rapist was who Bill Cosby was. Welcome to the 21st Century.

And no, it wasn’t cute. It was intimidating. Considering that the Crafty Trilobite (#43) has clarified that complaints “weren’t taken seriously”, not by Asimov, not by anyone, the fact that it was intimidating is clear. No one who spoke out would be taken seriously – how “cute” is that??

And I don’t know *where* you get the idea that legal names are required on Facebook – I have a phony-named Facebook page just because I sometimes need to search through Facebook for sources or use a Facebook ID to log in to some sites to comment.

@ 43 The Crafty Trilobite says “But it’s worth noting that she giggled and AFAIK, never considered it offensive. Asimov apparently got a lot of other positive feedback for heavy-handed leching and flirting. The concept, ‘a person of his time’ has to include the fact that a lot of the supposed victims of that time seem to have been fine with it — and those who were upset were not taken seriously by most people, not just by Asimov. Nor have I yet heard about anyone who walked away traumatized – his conduct appears to have been at the nuisance level, no worse.”

OMG. OMG. CT thinks giggling was “positive feedback”!! CT doesn’t realize that giggling was the only way of avoiding a confrontation that girls/women used to have. There was a lot of that men-gladhanding-other-men for leching and being disgusting – it used to be quite socially acceptable. It’s worth noting that CT did not understand that her giggling was most likely a stress-mediated defense mechanism – I remember my first father-in-law berating my first mother-in-law, telling her how stupid and useless she was, and she just giggled. The leches always declared that the giggling meant the women *LIKED* it. Yet CT acknowledges that a cool-headed, serious protest of that behavior would not have been “taken seriously” – and does not see the dangerously misogynist double-standard being described. THAT’s why I never considering reporting when that gross guy who worked with my roommate forced me to give him a hand job that one time in the summer of 1978 #YesAllWomen I suppose CT would take away that I *liked* it, or at least saw nothing wrong with it, from the fact that I didn’t report it – when *I* know that, if I had reported it, I would have been told it was MY FAULT for going out driving alone with him and that I was clearly a slut.

Fortunately, things have changed. Now, we realize that women have options other than just giggling and hoping it goes away (since they know they won’t be taken seriously anyway). For the record, my own father, who died in December at age 82, was of that generation AND of that persuasion. Toward the end of his career as a department administrator at a major state university, he was slapped with a sexual harassment suit for repeatedly informing a lesbian coworker that she should “try it, you might like it.” That lawsuit was not successful, but the charges were certainly believable. And he was always openly grabbing our mom’s boobs, even though he knew it repulsed us kids when he did it. He did the same to his girlfriend the last time I visited, which was last September. He and my mom were married; he and his girlfriend were monogamous, so it wasn’t a problem, you see. He loved blond jokes up to virtually the day he died. And Dolly Parton jokes. HE was a man of his time.

I realize it is socially unacceptable to say you’re looking forward to someone and/or their generation dying off already, but the fact is, there are any number of socially toxic attitudes that are much more prevalent among the older than the younger: conservatism, racism, sexism, misogyny, homophobia, hatred of nonChristian religions, condemnation of the poor and of social welfare programs, anti-unions and anti-workers’-rights, pro-war, support for torture and the death penalty – in fact, you name it, and if it’s pernicious and poisonous to society, we’re far more likely to see it within the oldest members of society than the younger (adult) members of society. Go ahead, hate on me. It’s true.

Here you go, Random Fan: http://freethoughtblogs.com/almostdiamonds/2015/03/18/right-where-dr-a-pinched/

The elevator door opened and there at the back stood Isaac Asimov and his wife. I was startled then just said “Hi!” as I got on and stood in front of him. He said to me, “May I kiss you?” And I’m like, what? He told me he always gives a kiss to all the women he meets.”

And me, I’m like 22 years old, and I think it’s funny, cause I’m turning my head to look at him, and I can see his wife rolling her eyes. I said sure, and he kissed me on the cheek and it was the nicest kiss any man ever asked to give me. lol