So using as an argument that they felt upset rejecting his advances would mean that anybody who’s ever asked somebody out and been rejected has behaved unethically and should be exiled from EV events for 2 years. This proves too much.
The women pointed to specific factors that were relevant to being upset: the specific content and frequency of the advances. The Boards also found that some of the advances were made under circumstances where it was “difficult for the women to avoid interacting with Owen while the inappropriate actions were taking place.”
I think the volume of complaints is also relevant here. Presumably, the [EDIT: individual(s)] who went to Community Health with concerns are not doing so every time—or even a significant portion of the time—someone in EA expresses romantic/sexual interest in them. Nor is CH likely to learn of romantic/sexual advances in EA that are anywhere near the baseline level of upsetness that is inherent to declining an advance. That suggests there was something about Owen’s advances that was particularly upsetting to a number of the recipients of those advances. Although a single recipient concluding that an advance warranted CH involvement might not itself be evidence of inappropriate behavior, the existence of a number of similar reports [EDIT: would be] a much stronger indication that something more than baseline upsetness with turning down advances was at play here.
Thus, I don’t think the quoted statement is an appropriate inference from the Boards’ action.
I’m not sure that there was more than one (unprompted) complaint to CH. In addition to the one complaint, there was one case of something potentially inappropriate they heard about from a third party, one case they uncovered when they went looking, and a couple of other cases I told them about.
However, I do think that my communications were unusually likely to be upsetting (and relatedly that some of what I now understand to have been the most damaging communications were not understood by me at the time to be advances).
The women pointed to specific factors that were relevant to being upset: the specific content and frequency of the advances. The Boards also found that some of the advances were made under circumstances where it was “difficult for the women to avoid interacting with Owen while the inappropriate actions were taking place.”
I think the volume of complaints is also relevant here. Presumably, the [EDIT: individual(s)] who went to Community Health with concerns are not doing so every time—or even a significant portion of the time—someone in EA expresses romantic/sexual interest in them. Nor is CH likely to learn of romantic/sexual advances in EA that are anywhere near the baseline level of upsetness that is inherent to declining an advance. That suggests there was something about Owen’s advances that was particularly upsetting to a number of the recipients of those advances. Although a single recipient concluding that an advance warranted CH involvement might not itself be evidence of inappropriate behavior, the existence of a number of similar reports [EDIT: would be] a much stronger indication that something more than baseline upsetness with turning down advances was at play here.
Thus, I don’t think the quoted statement is an appropriate inference from the Boards’ action.
I’m not sure that there was more than one (unprompted) complaint to CH. In addition to the one complaint, there was one case of something potentially inappropriate they heard about from a third party, one case they uncovered when they went looking, and a couple of other cases I told them about.
However, I do think that my communications were unusually likely to be upsetting (and relatedly that some of what I now understand to have been the most damaging communications were not understood by me at the time to be advances).