It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia - The "Implication"

Not everyone can afford to just walk away more than once or twice. And people may perceive the uncertain alternative of not getting that job right now as much worse than it would actually turn out, and agree to stuff they don't really want. Like the point made in this short comedy scene: ▶ this video

Your partner shouldn't be pressuring you into having sex; that's wrong of them, and you deserve better. Coerced consent isn't consent [1]; the fact that there are different levels of violence and pressure involved in some cases of coercion doesn't mean that the less-obvious levels are okay. [1] ▶ this video

Yes, I do not think women had complete agency in deciding to have 5+ kids each. Or even 4. And it is probably still the same case for many around the world. Kind of like this scene: ▶ this video

That makes me imagine The Sopranos, and the mob telling the staff of the strip club how important this law not passing is (or vice versa), and how the implication of not voting for it isn't necessary to say out loud. There's a great Mitchell and Webb sketch about the issues with leaving things be implicitly communicated rather than explicit. (NSFW) link And, if I left out a clip of Always Sunny In Philadelphia's take of the pitfalls of implication, I'd be remiss. (NSFW) ▶ this video

This is a subtle point. The court ruled that you can't be guilty of threatening to hurt someone unless you actually intend to hurt them. But if you play in the grey space, by intending to create fear of harm without (in the vein of It's Always Sunny's infamous "because of the implication" ▶ this video ), that's apparently legal. Presumably because to some extent the law is not intended to directly prevent crime, but only to deter crime by punishing it. At a social level, it may make sense to "sacrifice" a few people to murder in order to maintain a free society while detering most murders by punishing completed murders, but that's cold comfort to victims and potential victims, and not particularly fair if the risk of victimhood is not uniform across the population.

I've seen a few comments on this and articles like this to the effect of "so any time you proposition a woman it could be assault?" and I think it's worth responding to that idea in general. Yes, there is generally an expectation that men initiate romance, and that is an unfair burden both on men (who have to do the propositioning) and women (who have to decline unwanted propositions). For game-theoretic reasons, this is difficult to change, but it is changing slowly. In the mean time, restrictions on how to initiate disproportionately affect men, and a lack of restrictions disproportionately affects women. Even more so in situations of gender imbalance (look up "Petrie Multiplier" for more on this). I believe it's for this reason that some men are resistant to "err on the safe side" type policies; as long as they are expected to initiate, they can't succeed without taking risks. But it's impossible to address this without also including the effect of power imbalance. Even in a world where women initiate 100% of the time, men would in almost all cases still be more physically powerful, and sometimes hold other kinds of social or institutional power. This power can be used to coerce, assault or rape but, even if it isn't, the consequences of a power disparity can be an implicit part of the equation (cf "I hope you can see your way clear to letting Flynn go"). So, what was wrong about Dave McClure's behaviour with Sarah Kunst? Not propositioning her at all, but propositioning h

Seriously, I think "Always Sunny" explains it best (i.e., because of "the implication") ▶ this video