My take is the action is quite bad, though its origins were in clumsiness. But people not intending to do harm can still do quite bad things. I have two theories as to what Owen even meant, one of which is much worse than the other, but both still result in the action itself being quite bad.
One version is, Owen felt attracted to this women, her presence caused him to want to masturbate, and so his sharing this information meant (at least to him) “I am very sexually attracted to you and cannot treat you ‘normally’ until I have masturbated.” This is truly appalling behavior, though I can understand why someone who is socially obtuse about these things might not realize the extent of its harm/its appalling nature. It’s just this whole implication of “Frequently, I do not think of you in terms of your accomplishments or personality, but rather your looks and body. I indulge in my sexualization and objectification of you and am making little attempt to remedy that. I want you to know that I think of you sexually, and I will leave and think about your body as I go engage in this sexual act. Only after this will I be able to think of you as a full, fully fleshed out person with value that stems from things other than your sexual appeal. But you should know, at any time I may revert to objectifying you.”
A second version is, Owen wanted to masturbate for unrelated reasons, and was oversharing.
Frankly, based on his apology, and his linking his behavior to his shame about feeling attracted to people, it seems more likely to me that the situation is the former. Since he’s making it sound like attraction played a role here. But it’s hard to tell. And regardless, whether it’s the first situation or the second is unclear to the woman, leaving in her mind that it very well could be the first situation. This could make her feel extremely uncomfortable and harm her in other ways—such as internalizing that a large part of her value stems from her sexual appeal.
I appreciate the comment, and agree that accurately understanding motivations is important for effective reform. I also agree that a lot (if not most) of the harassment/women face in EA come from sentiments like the one you’re describing in this comment. Admitting fault and vulnerability can be difficult to share, and I’m glad you’re doing so.
I also agree with S.E. Montgomery’s reply that some of this comment rubbed me the wrong way. As I mentioned, my guess is that most sexual harassment stems from sentiments like the one you described. It comes from an understandable place—romantic longing—but has oppressive outcomes. This means, even if the emotional origin is sympathetic, the men who hold this perspective should still work to change their perspective. The specific manifestation of romantic longing that I find ends up being oppressive is one which causes men to see EA women they encounter primarily as potential romantic/sexual partners. Rather than say, having their thoughts about a woman shaped by her professional accomplishments or personality. This is de-personifying, and leads to many harmful behaviors. If you meet a woman and categorize her primarily as a romantic/sexual interest, you are much less likely to instinctively think of other aspects of her. For example, if you learn of a new opportunity, and are thinking of people who might be matches for it, just on a gut level, it makes it more likely you’ll forget about her when you’re not in a romantic/sexual state-of-mind. Or, if you describe her to other people, if you are primarily commenting on her appearance/your interest in her, what you are then not commenting on (at least as much) is other aspects of her, aspects you would describe if you were meeting a man. This causes other people to view her in a de-personifying way, even if they’ve never met her/don’t have any romantic/sexual interest in her. Maybe she gets a reputation for being a “hot EA” rather than a reputation for something like “early career but seems good at x/y skills, and quirky in z way.” Usually, it’s more subtle than this, but still quite harmful.
Your comment is reflecting on this, and I appreciate that. But some sections come across as you are still framing women’s primary role, at least here, as potential romantic partners. I think you could write a comment about this motivation and how you are still wrestling with it in your own life, without indulging it it so much. Sorry if that’s too forward.
One sentence that stood out to me in particular:
“Selfishly, I’d love to see more mid-late 20s or older women join.” This gives me the impression that the main thing you think of when you think of older women joining is how it benefits your dating prospects. That’s at least the framing here, though in real life I would guess you oscillate more between this framing and a more personifying one. But this specific sentence has no real reason for being here. There’s some self-reflection that this perspective is harmful (the “selfishly”) but not enough in my view. If this statement was necessary to include, I would have liked to see more caveating along the lines of “I don’t like that this is how I think and I’m trying to change it, but …” But since this statement seems unnecessary to me, I’m wondering why it’s even included.
The section that S.E. Montgomery commented on about EA’s gender ratio also stood out to me. As they already explained, it read to me like you were saying one important reason to work on the gender imbalance is to help men date. That seems like a nice benefit of improving the gender ratio, but far and away from the most important reasons for it. Framing it in a dating context feels uncomfortable.
I’m going into detail about this comment not because I want to chastise you or anything, but because this serves (to me at least) of an example of where a lot of harassing/objectifying/oppressive behavior towards women comes from. It’s a subtle thing, so I want other people to read this, see an example worked out in real life, and have that inform their thoughts in the future. This comment isn’t egregious or anything; and I think it is quite valuable for many reasons (namely, the content itself, describing motivations). But I also wanted to point out in detail what I saw as flaws.