Problematic John Dehlin, a short list

[SaturdaysVoyeur]

I get where you are coming from. I'm as male as the next guy. I have a hard time with the idea that someone dresses provocatively and then get mad at people merely noticing. We are all the sum of our biology at the end of the day and for most men that means we will notice attractive women.

Reminds me of one of the highly-quotable exchanges in "When Harry Met Sally":

Harry: No man can be friends with a woman that he finds attractive. He always wants to have sex with her.
Sally: So you're saying that a man can be friends with a woman that he finds unattractive?
Harry: No, you pretty much want to nail them too.



Anyway, I think I might be able to address your difficulty understanding about male attention and provocative clothes. Notwithstanding that individual women are going to have different opinions about this.

Remember when I posted about "Schrodinger’s Rapist" on the Epic Rosebud thread? In short, it's the idea that women's survival (sometimes quite literally) depends on reading men's cues about our boundaries. When interacting with a man, especially a man we don't know well or at all, women are constantly paying attention to any potential boundary violations. Of course, no one can do this with perfect accuracy and we all have different boundaries, but the idea is that, even though he knows he's not a rapist, she doesn't know that, and her boundary-violation radar kicks into high-alert.

(Recall the "Rape Prevention Tips," too. We are taught that it's our responsibility to suss out your intentions based on very minute behaviors. Otherwise, it will be all our own fault if you attack us, because we should have been a better judge of your character, or just not have been anywhere near an unknown male in the first place. Makes dating tricky. I guess that's why the "purity" zealots skip dating altogether and just marry after a brief, formal "courtship." But, I digress...)

So, what do chicks want when we wear skimpy clothes? Well, it depends on the chick and the situation. I think most reasonable women realize that straight men find breasts fascinating and will forgive a slightly overlong glance, even if it's unwelcome. At least that's something I wouldn't hold against a guy, especially if I'm wearing something that emphasizes my breasts. Y'all like titties. I get it.

The trouble comes in if I really start to notice your noticing. If your noticing is that obvious to me, then it's probably too much and is going to set off my boundary-violation radar. Because consider this: While, sure, I may have chosen my outfit to attract male attention, maybe I just don't want your male attention. (Hypothetically, warbreaker. I'm sure you're a dear.

I'm just saying that the reasons I choose my clothes aren't really any of your business (unless you happen to know me, and usually not even then). That's why women get annoyed with, "Why do women get so angry at men for simply noticing when they wear revealing clothes?? If you show me your body, I'm going to see it! Sheesh!"

That's why: If your noticing reaches the point where I can tell, you're probably scaring me, either a little bit or maybe a lot. Because you're setting off that radar, possibly in a way where I can't do anything about it without appearing to be overreacting, so I'm cornered. It's not like there's any objective measure for how long you can look at a woman's body before it becomes a leer. There's no stark line between the natural attraction to breasts, and behavior that indicates you aren't attuned to my boundaries and might have no respect for them.

I think it also irritates women to hear, "Why did she dress that way if she didn't want to be noticed?" because it gets tiresome to have our bodies be SUCH an issue all the goddamn time. I think that's even more true in religions, like Mormonism, that emphasize modesty, chastity, and purity. It's yet another restriction on our lives and our activities. Don't wanna get stared at? Well, then we get to dictate what you wear, and if you stray outside of that, you only have yourself to blame if men's reactions make you frightened or uncomfortable.

Men will often reply to this that, if they walked around in nothing but a g-string, they would expect to attract attention. And that's true---at least to the extent that there aren't very many places it would be socially acceptable to wear nothing but a g-string. If you show up to a funeral that way, I'm not staring at you for your hot package, but for your appallingly bad taste.

But there really are few, if any, other clothes that men could be accused of wearing only for the sake of seeking sexual attention. Whereas, for us, the list of "provocative attire" is seemingly endless. Especially for a large-breasted girl in Mormonism, the sumptuary norms of church-sanctioned modesty are impossible to meet.

It's a cliché, but it's true: Most of the time, we aren't dressing for your attention at all. We're just wearing what we feel like wearing. After a lifetime of hearing that your little-girl legs or a peek at your shoulders are "leading the brethren astray," it's nice to be able to dress without regard to how men might respond to that.

[warbreaker]

Reminds me of one of the highly-quotable exchanges in "When Harry Met Sally":

Harry: No man can be friends with a woman that he finds attractive. He always wants to have sex with her.
Sally: So you're saying that a man can be friends with a woman that he finds unattractive?
Harry: No, you pretty much want to nail them too.



Anyway, I think I might be able to address your difficulty understanding about male attention and provocative clothes. Notwithstanding that individual women are going to have different opinions about this.

Remember when I posted about "Schrodinger’s Rapist" on the Epic Rosebud thread? In short, it's the idea that women's survival (sometimes quite literally) depends on reading men's cues about our boundaries. When interacting with a man, especially a man we don't know well or at all, women are constantly paying attention to any potential boundary violations. Of course, no one can do this with perfect accuracy and we all have different boundaries, but the idea is that, even though he knows he's not a rapist, she doesn't know that, and her boundary-violation radar kicks into high-alert.

(Recall the "Rape Prevention Tips," too. We are taught that it's our responsibility to suss out your intentions based on very minute behaviors. Otherwise, it will be all our own fault if you attack us, because we should have been a better judge of your character, or just not have been anywhere near an unknown male in the first place. Makes dating tricky. I guess that's why the "purity" zealots skip dating altogether and just marry after a brief, formal "courtship." But, I digress...)

So, what do chicks want when we wear skimpy clothes? Well, it depends on the chick and the situation. I think most reasonable women realize that straight men find breasts fascinating and will forgive a slightly overlong glance, even if it's unwelcome. At least that's something I wouldn't hold against a guy, especially if I'm wearing something that emphasizes my breasts. Y'all like titties. I get it.

The trouble comes in if I really start to notice your noticing. If your noticing is that obvious to me, then it's probably too much and is going to set off my boundary-violation radar. Because consider this: While, sure, I may have chosen my outfit to attract male attention, maybe I just don't want your male attention. (Hypothetically, warbreaker. I'm sure you're a dear.

I'm just saying that the reasons I choose my clothes aren't really any of your business (unless you happen to know me, and usually not even then). That's why women get annoyed with, "Why do women get so angry at men for simply noticing when they wear revealing clothes?? If you show me your body, I'm going to see it! Sheesh!"

That's why: If your noticing reaches the point where I can tell, you're probably scaring me, either a little bit or maybe a lot. Because you're setting off that radar, possibly in a way where I can't do anything about it without appearing to be overreacting, so I'm cornered. It's not like there's any objective measure for how long you can look at a woman's body before it becomes a leer. There's no stark line between the natural attraction to breasts, and behavior that indicates you aren't attuned to my boundaries and might have no respect for them.

I think it also irritates women to hear, "Why did she dress that way if she didn't want to be noticed?" because it gets tiresome to have our bodies be SUCH an issue all the goddamn time. I think that's even more true in religions, like Mormonism, that emphasize modesty, chastity, and purity. It's yet another restriction on our lives and our activities. Don't wanna get stared at? Well, then we get to dictate what you wear, and if you stray outside of that, you only have yourself to blame if men's reactions make you frightened or uncomfortable.

Men will often reply to this that, if they walked around in nothing but a g-string, they would expect to attract attention. And that's true---at least to the extent that there aren't very many places it would be socially acceptable to wear nothing but a g-string. If you show up to a funeral that way, I'm not staring at you for your hot package, but for your appallingly bad taste.

But there really are few, if any, other clothes that men could be accused of wearing only for the sake of seeking sexual attention. Whereas, for us, the list of "provocative attire" is seemingly endless. Especially for a large-breasted girl in Mormonism, the sumptuary norms of church-sanctioned modesty are impossible to meet.

It's a cliché, but it's true: Most of the time, we aren't dressing for your attention at all. We're just wearing what we feel like wearing. After a lifetime of hearing that your little-girl legs or a peek at your shoulders are "leading the brethren astray," it's nice to be able to dress without regard to how men might respond to that.

I appreciate that and just to be crystal clear agree with everything you said. The line that should not be crossed is the line that makes someone else uncomfortable. That’s difficult to negotiate but should be done with charity. And honestly “provocative” is a poorly chosen word since one it implies intent on part of the woman and two men will notice women regardless of clothing status.

[Lem]

Another issue I have is with Lem calling me a pig. Lem is free to call me whatever she wants. I can take it.

But how would Lem react if I called her a stereotypical animal name in return?

I expect she and others would suddenly get a serious case of the vapors.

This is because, according to the rules of your game, what is good for the goose is not good for the gander.

Should the time come when you really want women to be treated as equals, I will continue to engage with you.

Until then, I am no longer interested in playing this game by your decidedly unequal rules.

I called you a pig because in my opinion your posts here have frequently been inappropriate and sexist. That's posting like a pig.

You respond by saying you can take it, but then you assume that "she and others" would get a "case of the vapors" if it happened to them. That's not calling me a "stereotypical animal name in return," that is a stereotypically sexist response.

I'm sure you are fully aware that telling a group of woman (the implication from your not-so-subtle "she and others") that while you can handle something, they will be brought down by "vapors" is a stereotypical sexist slur. Yet another piece of your communications here that I find piggish.

So, in the same post where someone called you a pig for your posting, to which you respond by predicting how a group of women will behave using a sexist slur, you also tell people that the goose and gander are not treated equally. By you, no, they are not.

Should the time come when you really want women to be treated as equals, I will continue to engage with you.

Should the time come that you can actually treat women as people, you might get some engagement back.

[dastardly stem]

Not sure there's much more to say but I'm feeling inclined anyway.

If we grant Dehlin wasn't trying to be flirty with this lady, which seems to be a stretch at this point, one must wonder what the point of the defenses are. As it is Dehlin called this lady and, it appears, her husband, evil, jealous, and accused them of orchestrating an attack on him in order to destroy him for pointing out that which made her uncomfortable. He apparently spent a ton of time deleting posts from many who showed concern and banned many from the community he suggested was set up to help these people. Oh and he noted he unfriended them for life because she dare point out behavior that made her uncomfortable.

I mean if there's not an element of protesting too much on his part...well....nevermind we're still granting he wasn't trying to be flirty.

One must wonder why he feels justified in trying to run over someone like that..at least. His reaction, of course, is far more problematic then his flirting, if he was intending such as she alleges.

Back to kish, no I don't see any justification whatsoever for his behavior because he also feels justified in reacting with paranoia due to the church and mopolgists of the past following his public profile. This really only supports the notion that he overreacted in the past too.

[Kishkumen]

I agree that he overreacted, stem. I am not sure how many times I need to concede that before we discover we don’t really disagree on that point. The question is why, and that appears to be where we really disagree. So, I don’t know about you, but I have never had any kind of following, never done any level of Ted Talk, never been featured in a newspaper article, never been interviewed on tv. In short, I have never been a public person. That feels nice, free, and relaxing to me. I felt really good just typing that. Since I have never been in JD’s shoes, and I really don’t want to be, I find myself thinking it could be pretty stressful. Now, he would definitely be better off if he were unflappable, but it looks like he isn’t. Still I extend a measure of sympathy and allowance to the person who has to deal with those pressures I would not want.

[SaturdaysVoyeur]

Suddenly, SexyPicGate is looking more like a Facebook glitch misconstrued by someone with a very recently acquired medical condition that, by definition, causes (usually temporary) difficulties in perception, and who had had some trauma in her past to the extent that she had been uncertain for quite a long time as to whether she wanted to tell her story publicly because of the emotional toll it would take on her. I don't underestimate either factor.

Thank you for this, SV. I feel a lot more sympathetic for this person, and a lot more regretful on John Dehlin’s behalf that he berated her so. Having suffered a concussion that landed me first in the hospital and then in a chair at a therapist, I have some idea of how disorienting in the long term such an injury can be (I have some permanent memory loss of the time after my injury). I hope there was no lasting damage done, and I wish her all the best. To have John Dehlin cone down on her so hard must have been truly upsetting. He really overreacted, I think, although I understand it is difficult to bear all of the emotions that can bombard a person in his position.

Thank you also for your kind words.

I guess this is where I'm still confused: Where did Dehlin berate the woman who accused him of SexyPicGate? I posted his public response to her in its entirety and I can't find a single thing to criticize about it. He never contradicts her feelings. He apologizes for acting in any way that made her feel uncomfortable or unsafe. He says he wants to understand what he did so that he can avoid doing it again. He thanks her for letting him know, and apologizes a second time for doing anything that might have caused her any difficult feelings. What's to criticize in that??

Then there's the undated letter in Googledocs that Meadowchik posted (which, by the way, is a crappy redaction job; both the woman's name and her husband's name appear unredacted at least once each, which is how I was able to immediately look this up on Facebook). The Googledoc is actually two letters, one to SexyPicGate woman herself, and then a much longer one, also undated, written to an unidentified party, explaining his side of what happened.

I don't see any berating of her in these communications either. He just seems bewildered and distressed. The second letter (the one to the unidentified party) is a bit disjointed. He explains that he hasn't been able to sleep because he's been ruminating on the situation, trying to figure out what the hell he did wrong here. Gotta say I'm with him on that. I can't figure out what he did wrong here either.

Yes, he solicited public opinion on Facebook as to how exMo men can be disrespectful, abusive, or creepy towards exMo women. The post received something like 500 replies. He did remove some (not all) of the replies that accused him personally of being disrespectful, abusive, or creepy.

I would expect this, just as I would expect him to remove any replies that directly accused any identifiable person. He's responsible for the content on that page and he shouldn't allow it to become a platform for potential slander of identifiable people, himself included.

He's also certainly got to know that the Rosebud Brigade is ready to resurrect that affair at any moment and talk about how creepy, rapey, and "problematic" he is. In light of that, I'm impressed that he raised the subject at all, given the virtual certainty that it would become a siren call to the Rosebud Brigade (which it seems it has).

Then, apparently out of the blue, someone he thought he was on friendly terms with replied with SexyPicGate, claiming to have had a pretty extreme emotional reaction (terrified of him, literally shaking, etc.) to pretty minor behavior (liking a bunch of her Facebook pics, possibly twice). This was two months after the fact, and neither she nor her husband had apparently ever confronted Dehlin, privately or otherwise, about this in those intervening months.

That looks to me like getting blindsided by something no reasonable person would have known was inappropriate behavior or would elicit such strong feelings. I just don't blame him for removing that stuff. I don't see that as silencing her. She screenshotted the comments that were removed and reposted them herself; he can't silence her on her own Facebook.

Where do you see him berating her? I'm honestly curious. You know I respect your opinion.

In the letter to the unidentified party, he calls the accusations "outrageously dumb and harmful," although he still doesn't invalidate her feelings. He just wants to understand WHY she feels that way and what he could have possibly done to CAUSE her to feel that way.

He may be somewhat exaggerating that her friends "brigaded" him on Facebook. It's hard to tell since those threads were removed. He says in the private letter to her that her friends are "continually harassing" him. Again, perhaps an exaggeration. He doesn't specify what these supposed friends of hers are doing exactly. But by now we're up to Year 10 of Rosebud doing her Rosebud thing, making sure that each new generation of Mormon Stories listeners are SURE to find out that she feels severely wronged by him, with her accusations becoming successively more serious in each retelling.

So, yeah, maybe there was no coordinated pack-attack to defend SexyPicGate woman. In fact, that seems unlikely. And maybe he wasn't being "continually harassed," although, Jesus....how many pages are we up to now? I can understand why he would perceive himself as continually harassed by this stuff!

There is a tendency on social media, and it's bled over into real life, to interpret "Believe Women" to mean that when a woman---even a woman you don't know at all---says something happened to her to immediately validate her. It's always struck me as insincere. (This is the "PC smokescreen" I referred to back on Epic Rosebud.) It may take on a patronizing tone ("There, there, dear, I believe you. Calm down. Yes, rape is bad, I know."), or it may take on a level of sincerity that's unwarranted by such an immediate reaction before knowing “F”-all about what the person is claiming happened.

Probably half a dozen or more women immediately replied to SexyPicGate with, "Oh, my God, that's horrible! That's soooo creepy! I'm so sorry John did that to you! I believe you. I validate you." And I'm thinking....WTF are you even claiming he did?? It takes reading through the entire thread, plus reading the Googledoc letters to get even any sense of what she accused him of doing. And even then, the allegation makes very little sense.

I'm deeply unsettled by this immediate "Jump To Believe." Not because most victims aren't telling the truth, but because it creates such an obvious weapon that ultimately makes it MORE difficult for women to be believed, that puts victims under more scrutiny, and that makes it all that much harder for women to be taken seriously when we talk about our lives.

About the time I quit using my personal Facebook (I still have to use the platform for work), there was a trend of people posting the meme: "Let me know if anyone on my friends list as ever harmed you in any way and I will remove them."

Really? So, it doesn't matter whether you know me or not? It doesn't matter if what I say is true or not? If I, with whom you are barely acquainted, tell you that your bestest friend in the whole world "harmed me," then you'll just dump your best friend and believe me on no evidence or explanation whatsoever?

That's the PC Smokescreen. Because of course they're not going to just dump their best friend and believe a wild allegation from a stranger. It's all just grandstanding.

[Doctor CamNC4Me]

I guess this is where I'm still confused: Where did Dehlin berate the woman who accused him of SexyPicGate?

SV,

Did you read the 7-page Google doc posted upthread?

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1hTf ... Ugxqo/edit

- Doc

[SaturdaysVoyeur]

except that she proceeds to outline her complaint on her own Facebook, where it still sits today.

Do you mean on her own wall? On what day?

Some of it's on her own wall and some of it remains on the Mormon Stories wall. I don't recall the exact dates of the posts. Mid-March, about two months after he liked her pics in January.

You should be able to easily find the posts yourself. That Googledoc letter you posted identifies both the woman and her husband by their real names. I don't know who redacted that thing, but they did a crap job.

I'm starting to wonder if these redaction jobs are intentionally crappy. JP posted Rosebud's entire document dump, with every private person's name left unobscured at least once, and many highly personal details left intact.

Then, whoopsies! And down it comes pending "better redaction." Except by then it's too late because the materials have already been read, downloaded, and reproduced.

[SaturdaysVoyeur]

I guess this is where I'm still confused: Where did Dehlin berate the woman who accused him of SexyPicGate?

SV,

Did you read the 7-page Google doc posted upthread?

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1hTf ... Ugxqo/edit

- Doc

Um, yeah, Doc, I did. Did you read my post that you're replying to? I'm kinda joshin' you here, because I can tell by a few of the intermediate posts what you're referring to.

The Googledocs letter is in two parts. Less than one page is addressed to SexyPicGate woman herself. The remaining 6 to 7 pages are addressed to an unidentified party. The recipient appears to be someone who knows Dehlin well enough that the names of his wife, one of his employees, and his employee's husband (all these names are unredacted) don't require any explanation except for the employee's husband. Beyond that, I see no obvious clues as to who the recipient of Part 2 might be. He asks that the letter not go public, but seems resigned to the likelihood by now that it probably will.

Part 1 addresses SexyPicGate woman because she apparently said she's going to appear on another podcast and go public with What He DID To Her. (I hope this woman isn't aiming for a spot on Ellen, too, because I doubt too many talk show hosts are going to be exactly bowled over by the tale of "The Creep Who Liked My Facebook Pics.")

He's also unhappy that her "friends" (or at least people who claim to support her; I strongly suspect this is actually the Rosebud Brigade, not a pack of this woman's personal friends) are making unwanted contact with him. He doesn't describe what they're saying or doing, but I think after a decade of Rosebud, we can guess the gist.

Part 2 is pretty disjointed, and I think that's where the confusion comes in as to what he's referring to at various points throughout. He jumps around from getting harassed in response to SexyPicGate, to attacks from Mormon apologists, to explaining why he never even thought twice about liking a friend's Facebook pics and that it in no way indicates any sexual attraction to a woman half his age, to comparing his position to that of other public religious dissidents, to describing the casual level of his acquaintance with SexyPicGate woman and her husband, and so on.

Part 2 is rambling and long-winded and makes my posts on here look like haiku. He's ruminating. He admits he's ruminating. But the harsher words he uses, like "jealous" or "evil," aren't used in reference to any particular person, but to the fact that he feels beset from all sides: He's TSCC's Enemy #1. Mormon apologists go after him. Active Mormons go after him. All of that I suppose he might expect.

He sounds more bewildered as to why so many exMos are gunning for him. He does call the level of harassment "evil" and suggests "jealousy" as a possible motive for some of these exMo attacks. (I interpreted that as a vague reference to his falling-out with Kate Kelly, but I'm inserting that in there myself. He never mentions Kelly, even obliquely.)

But Dehlin is the 10,000-pound gorilla of the ex-Mo world. No one else has even come close to matching his success in gaining an audience. So, is Part 2 a little bit self-aggrandizing? Perhaps. But I'm also not sure he's entirely wrong. Others who have tried to make a go of gaining a public ex-Mo platform have eaten Mormon Stories' dust. Sour grapes may have made some of these accusations more palatable to those whose efforts collapsed under the popularity of Mormon Stories, even if it wasn't the case that any of them intentionally made up false rumors just to have a go at him. (I don't think Kate Kelly, for example, is behind any of these stories, though she's certainly boosted them. And of the two, who do you think would get a computer if they asked their supporters for one?)

If I try to put myself in Dehlin's shoes here, the way I previously tried to put myself in Rosebud's shoes on the other thread, I think I would feel under siege from all sides. Mostly for no apparent reason. The accusations against him a tar baby. The more he tries to defend himself, the more trapped he winds up. I'd probably be losing sleep too, desperately trying to understand what I was in the crosshairs for this time. Liking some Facebook pics a couple of months ago? Seriously??

The one thing he does not reference in Part 2 is the Rosebud debacle, but I think it all goes back to that. It allows any subsequent accusations to gain a foothold. After all, he might be a predator, right? There was that whole Rosebud thing, and where there's smoke, there's usually fire, right?

Except when you follow the smoke in Dehlin's case, all you wind up with is a mistress who fell in love with him and couldn't let go. I don't believe most of us would give any of the rest of it any credence at all if it weren't for Rosebud's persistence.

[SaturdaysVoyeur]

I appreciate that and just to be crystal clear agree with everything you said. The line that should not be crossed is the line that makes someone else uncomfortable. That’s difficult to negotiate but should be done with charity. And honestly “provocative” is a poorly chosen word since one it implies intent on part of the woman and two men will notice women regardless of clothing status.

I, too, appreciate your response to mine. I never thought your question about it was raised in bad faith. I wouldn't have responded if I did. It's a legit confusion that comes out of the fact that men and women have such different experiences.

I wasn't going to say it, but just the fact that you see the problems with the word "provocative" tells me you heard me.

Thank you for truly listening.