Problems with the "JAQing Off" meme

[simpleton]

I would probably add that using such terminology will make you look to many, as my deliberately chosen alias - that is to say, a 'simpleton'. I agree 100% that better and more useful terms are available (leading questions, strawman arguments, etc.), but if you seriously use phrases like JAQing Off, (lame-stream media, crotch-rocket, tramp-stamp, or any number of usefully clever, elementary-school inspired, rhyming or otherwise playful use of terms) you may inadvertently lose the respect of many arguing right along your side. That's not to say that I intentionally judge those that do, only that the way you communicate will leave an impression.

Other than that, I really don't care what terminology is used by whom.

[Hershele Ostropoler]

If someone started criticizing a certain rhetorical device using a slur that's a homophone for female masturbation (or for anal sex, or for any other stigmatized sex-act), we would rightly object to it.

Because women are an objectified and opressed minority, and men are not. It's the difference between calling someone a dick and calling them a cunt. When you mock the phrase "jacking off" or call someone a "dick" you are not contributing to millenia of oppression and abuse

I've seen "jacking off" used of masturbation by women, including women who don't have penises. I've seen women use the phrase of their own activities.

In any case, the point isn't that the term stigmatizes male behavior, but that it is said to stigmatize ethically neutral sexual behavior. It doesn't have to be about women to be sex-negative.

However, I don't feel it's necessary to give up the term; I agree with the poster who suggests it's a reference to how masturbation is self-indulgent and inwardly-directed, and not the most productive way to engage with other people in public.

[SubMor]

However, I don't feel it's necessary to give up the term; I agree with the poster who suggests it's a reference to how masturbation is self-indulgent and inwardly-directed, and not the most productive way to engage with other people in public.

By associating these two things, however, trolling and masturbation, you give the impression that there's something wrong with engaging in the latter due to its inwardly-directed self-indulgence. There's not. (Although yes, doing it in public is bad.)

[Wicknight]

They're also easier to identify than the distinction between good-faith questioning and JAQing Off

Couldn't agree more.

While I appreciate that some do often use the technique of asking tiresome questions (personal fav of mine "If evolution is true why are there still monkeys?"), I've been on the receiving end of accusations of JAQing off when it seemed asking questions was precisely the correct thing to do.

Ironically during a discussion on Skepchick.org I was accused of JAQing off and being a MRA supporter. Ironic because this tactic of avoiding supporting ones position by accusing the other person of asking too many questions and being "hyper sceptical" is a tactic I've encountered most often in discussions with Male/Father Rights supporters who wish to present a particular narrative of oppression and discrimination without really bothering to support it with much at all. I have had long discussions with those who claim the Irish court system is hideously bias against fathers and allow mothers to get at the fathers by using custody as a weapon. That is the narrative they present and they demand that something be done about it. The problem comes when you ask for that narrative to be supported by actual evidence. Very little is forth coming, mainly because Ireland has closed family courts. The supporters of this narrative fall back on anecdotes of individual cases to support their claims and then attack those who ask for actual evidence as wishing to just support the current biased status quo. And of course the classic "The evidence is there, Google it!"

So I found it rather bizarre that those accusing me of being a MRA supporter were doing a similar thing. Even more bizarrely eventually most of them admitted they actually had no sources of evidences (one person did provide actual statistic, but most of the others seemed utterly unaware of this source), but that shouldn't matter because it should be obvious this is a problem and if you don't agree with that you are just supporting the current biased status quo. Where have I heard that before ...

The reality is that if you actually have evidence to support a position (eg I can link to a thousand and one web pages that explain why monkeys still exist even though evolution is true) it is far easier to simply send the person to that evidence than to engage in a tit for tat insult war that they are JAQing off. One post as opposed to, oh I don't know, 20. And if the person ignores the evidence you present then you can feel free to dismiss them as actually not interested in learning (ie not genuine).

But we should never be afraid to evaluate why we think we know what we know, nor to respond to questions that force us to support this. I always answer the Monkey evolution question, even if I suspect the person may not be genuine. Because who knows, maybe they actually are genuine, or maybe they think they have a got-cha but in reality their mind will be opened when exposed to the real answer, or maybe people reading it genuinely are confused about this aspect of evolution.

That's my view anyway, as someone who has experience with disingenuous questions and someone accused of asking disingenuous questions.

[Jadehawk]

but that it is said to stigmatize ethically neutral sexual behavior

pretty sure jacking off in public, in a room full of non-consenting participants is not ethically neutral. OTOH, if you wanna JAQoff only with consenting participants, go right ahead.

[Haley'sComet]

also: JAQing off is asking questions that are (almost) indistinguishable from the sort of questions that n00bs would ask, but doing so over and over again, doing it in advanced level discussions for the purpose of derailing, and never actually bothering to engage the answers. As such, it's a necessary meme, and an important reason to have an advanced forum and a beginners forum. Because real n00bs don't deserve to be confused with trolls, and on the other hand people also deserve the right to have advanced discussions without constantly being derailed into having to explain the basics. as such, pointing all people asking about basics to the education forum, regardless of whether they're genuine newcomers or trolls, should be an effective strategy. Engaging them on their turf, and thus letting them derail, is not.

The phenomenon you call JAQing off certainly exists. The question is whether the term itself should be used, since when accidentally used against mere n00bs (which has almost certainly happened and will almost certainly happen again) there is a risk of alienating them and any lurkers who are on the fence. I absolutely agree with the rest of what you say- that it's important to have a place to refer people who ask beginner questions in advanced conversations, and that we have the right to our advanced discussions without having to tend to the questions of n00bs. I think Robby B. would agree with you too on that, even if he thinks it's nice to stop and answer n00b questions wherever you are. (Nice to do and obligated to do are very different things obviously!)

I think it would be better to avoid the step of telling people they're JAQing off, and instead just point them to the education forum. If they cause trouble or simply won't listen there, we should just ban them.

[paddy]

Ironically during a discussion on Skepchick.org I was accused of JAQing off and being a MRA supporter.

Wicknight, had I been one of the people arguing with you on that thread, I would have got just as exasperated as they did. Re-reading the thread now, I still have very little idea what point you were trying to make, other than (maybe?) to suggest that sexual harassment wasn't really very common. (Was that your point? I don't know. Only you do.) That's the first problem. The second thing is that you began by ignoring people's requests to (1) clarify and then (2) go away - not a mortal sin, of course - but you then lurched into apologising to Ophelia and then flounced off with a resounding "fuck you". Perhaps you were arguing in good faith, but I found it impossible to tell, so varied were your *ahem* methods of discourse.

I honestly couldn't make head or tail of what you were asking, and I'm not saying that to make fun of you or anything. For a moderator, I would imagine dealing with such a thread is like wrangling an particularly cunning eel. I realise it's against the rules to "import hostility to the forum", and I'm not trying to do that. All I would say is that, in the case of sexual harassment in the skeptical community, you can't expect anyone to provide you with research papers on the subject because they simply don't exist. You *have* to settle for anecdotal evidence: the fact that a lot of women have said they've been harassed - and it's up to you to decide whether "a lot" is enough to satisfy your criterion of harassment being widespread - is enough for me. In my opinion, the other contributors on that thread were quite justified in accusing you of JAQing off.

[Aerik]

I just don't buy the complaint that it's derisive of male sexuality/masturbation. The fact is, the JAQing off derailing tactic is mostly used by men, as it's a tactic mostly aimed at woman-friendly or feminist spaces, especially concerning Atheism+. The point of the slang is that the person who is doing the JAQing isn't interested in any actual interaction between themselves and other people. It's an entirely self-aggrandizing activity meant to irritate us, i.e., it's just masturbating publicly.

You compare it to a teacher trying to get students to ask a series of questions that lead to a pre-determined conclusion. It's one thing if it's an established teacher/pupil relationship. However, when it's one alleged peer trying to guide a group of other peers? That's some arrogant crap. It's rude, it's dishonest, and the great majority of the time, it's just somebody trying to play the "gotcha" game, wherein the group asking the troll/asshat's questions believes they are engaging in one out of many hypothetical scenarios, only for the JAQer to turn around and display the conversation to his buddies as if the group he's talking to has been caught actually believing premises they don't, in order to make them look hypocritical or foolish.

It's just a variation on concern trolling.

So I'm all for keeping the meme JAQing Off. Becaue it's all they're actually doing.

[Grimalkin]

That kind of questioning should actually be encouraged if it IS actually digging deeper for the real underlying causes to problems.

No. Not in the main forum. We do not need to entertain every "why" question from "Why do we need a harassment policy" to "why is the sky blue" in the advanced discussion. If you're posting in the advanced discussion, you are expected to have that basic level of understanding.

If you post in the advanced discussion and you don't understand these basics, AND you want to ask people with better things to discuss to explain them, you are:

a) JAQing off.
b) You are deliberately ignoring forum rules and etiquette

And while, in my opinion, neither of those people deserve so much as the time of day in the forum that was created to escape from them, they still are redirected to the education forum first. And I shall reiterate; Most do not budge. They stay right there and cry censorship.

[Wicknight]

Ironically during a discussion on Skepchick.org I was accused of JAQing off and being a MRA supporter.

Wicknight, had I been one of the people arguing with you on that thread, I would have got just as exasperated as they did. Re-reading the thread now, I still have very little idea what point you were trying to make, other than (maybe?) to suggest that sexual harassment wasn't really very common. (Was that your point? I don't know. Only you do.) That's the first problem. The second thing is that you began by ignoring people's requests to (1) clarify and then (2) go away - not a mortal sin, of course - but you then lurched into apologising to Ophelia and then flounced off with a resounding "fuck you". Perhaps you were arguing in good faith, but I found it impossible to tell, so varied were your *ahem* methods of discourse.

I honestly couldn't make head or tail of what you were asking, and I'm not saying that to make fun of you or anything. For a moderator, I would imagine dealing with such a thread is like wrangling an particularly cunning eel. I realise it's against the rules to "import hostility to the forum", and I'm not trying to do that. All I would say is that, in the case of sexual harassment in the skeptical community, you can't expect anyone to provide you with research papers on the subject because they simply don't exist. You *have* to settle for anecdotal evidence: the fact that a lot of women have said they've been harassed - and it's up to you to decide whether "a lot" is enough to satisfy your criterion of harassment being widespread - is enough for me. In my opinion, the other contributors on that thread were quite justified in accusing you of JAQing off.

Its probably not a good idea to rehash the thread over here, as you say not "importing hostility". The thread is there for anyone to read, I obviously disagree with your assessment but that isn't really important to this thread.

The point was if someone asks for evidence that cannot be provided dismissing them as JAQing off becomes some what ridiculous. If they are "JAQing off" then this simply becomes a term for dismissing someone because you think they are about to embarrass your position when it becomes apparent there is actually no solid evidence for the assertions being put forward. But then the question should not be why is this person asking this question, what ulterior motive do they have. The question should be Why can't I put forward the evidence that lead me to this conclusion?

I used the examples from Creationism and Father's Rights to highlight that this really has nothing specifically to do with feminism or sexual harassment. This is a general issue for scepticism. People are prone to accepting as given positions that they personally relate to. A father who has had problems with the court system will be prone to accepting the position that this is a general trend, even if they have not actually seen solid evidence of this, because we naturally prefer to think of our own hardships in general terms. Asking them for evidence of this will often be met with annoyance or even anger (believe me), particularly if one does not simply accept their individual account or the accounts of others they have heard about, as evidence for a much wider trend.

If someone comes into the discussion questioning how that position or conclusion was arrived at dismissing them as asking too many questions, particularly when those supporting such positions aren't really sure themselves, is rather silly for scepticism.

This is why I hate the term JAQing off. It seems custom made as a method of dismissing those who might highlight that certain positions are not as well established as those putting them forward may like.

[Nathair]

it is said to stigmatize ethically neutral sexual behavior.

"It is said"? Really? By whom? 'Cause whoever it is that you're representing here, they're mistaken. When I say "You're just JAQing off!" I am absolutely not denigrating masturbation. I am a huge fan of masturbation! All this talk about whether female masturbation is "just as bad" as male masturbation is fractally wrong! There's just no bad there. Now it you suggested that female masturbation is just as good as male masturbation then we'd have the basis for a real discussion... or a contest! But I think I've wandered off the point.

The term is entirely due to the witty but coincidental intersection of Just Asking Questions, the common acronym "FAQ", and slang Jacking Off (which is also used for "wasting time" or "fooling around".) It's funnier than saying "Get lost you JustAskingQuestions Troll!" I just wish there was some similarly witty and evocative term for concern trolls and for people that pretend to be offended by references to masturbation.

[Exi5tentialist]

I just wish there was some similarly witty and evocative term for concern trolls and for people that pretend to be offended by references to masturbation.

What about people who actually object to the term on the grounds that in itself it promotes an atmosphere of sexual harassment in a forum thread, such as this one? Are they trolls?

[Robert_S]

I just wish there was some similarly witty and evocative term for concern trolls and for people that pretend to be offended by references to masturbation.

What about people who actually object to the term on the grounds that in itself it promotes an atmosphere of sexual harassment in a forum thread, such as this one? Are they trolls?

I don't see it promoting such an atmosphere, but I'm willing to hear you out and consider changing my mind.

[Grimalkin]

What about people who actually object to the term on the grounds that in itself it promotes an atmosphere of sexual harassment in a forum thread, such as this one? Are they trolls?

If they really want to conflate the phrase JAQing/jacking off that is directed at nobody in particular and if anyone, at males, with sexual harassment, then I'm tempted to call them some sort of troll. Particularly when JAQing off is something done to silence women, and the use of the phrase gives us something to call a very common behavior.

[Exi5tentialist]

I just wish there was some similarly witty and evocative term for concern trolls and for people that pretend to be offended by references to masturbation.

What about people who actually object to the term on the grounds that in itself it promotes an atmosphere of sexual harassment in a forum thread, such as this one? Are they trolls?

I don't see it promoting such an atmosphere, but I'm willing to hear you out and consider changing my mind.

Thanks Robert. To be honest I don't see why it isn't obvious. People have clearly said what the word is meant to reference. I think it's ridiculous we're still excusing it.

Ultimately I believe in free speech, people can say what they damn well like, including obvious sexual slurs like this one. But when others answer back and defend themselves, and try to assert their equality, my experience is that they are the ones whose comments get moderated. It's happened to me a lot, I've seen the pattern, it seems to be a particularly atheist phenomenon and I see it being argued for again here.

If people insist on using this particular little gem of a term, then don't be surprised when their targets back-chat with snarks, sarcasm, defensiveness and counter-attacks. When it gets to that stage, be careful who gets moderated because we may end up supporting, yet again, sexual harassment while at the same time suppressing people's ability to defend themselves. That process usually drives forums down to a place where they really don't intend to be. Or at least, I seriously hope they don't intend to be there. Seeing a relatively successful forum with high ideals turning into an absolute cesspit is a pretty ugly one; once you're there, there's often no way out. But if people really want to go there, there's nothing I can do to stop it.

[Robby B]

And yet, I will say it again. The people JAQing off are not using leading or loaded or whatever questions, and that has not changed with your assumption that I did not know what constituted a leading question.

I'm not assuming anything about what you personally know; I'm just drawing attention to the fact that your examples of JAQing Off sans fallacies were examples of leading questions. In such a case, you get more done faster if you note they're leading questions than if you personally attack the questioner for 'JAQing Off' -- whether or not he or she actually is JAQing Off, which is often impossible to definitively determine.

JAQing off is simply "Just asking questions". Not necessarily fallacious ones.

If the person isn't doing anything wrong (isn't committing a fallacy or posting in the wrong place), then you shouldn't be levying accusations regardless. If the person is doing something wrong, it's more efficient to explicitly say what that is, or just to ban the user if it's egregious enough, than to try to collapse a whole family of vague accusations into a single derogatory acronym.

The vast majority of visitors to forums don't read the rules.

Well golly, if nobody's expected to read them, why bother having them?

You're committing two fallacies here:

(1) You're assuming that if X isn't always effective, it isn't useful overall. A net doesn't need to capture every fish in order to be useful; it only needs to capture enough to outweigh the associated costs.

(2) You're raising a red herring. Nothing I've said previously depends on whether forum rules are or aren't valuable. All I was claiming was that a nontrivial number of good-faith posters will not have fully read, fully understood, and fully internalized every forum rule on every subforum of a page they're newly visiting. That's so whether or not forum rules themselves are a good idea.

You know what most mods I've encountered will say if you break the rules and then claim "But I didn't read them!" ?

"Well gee, maybe you should have."

I agree. My saying that it's a fact that many good-faith editors have not read, understood, and internalized all the forum rules, is not saying that it is a good idea for them to not read them, or that not having read them is an excuse for violating them. None of that has any bearing on my argument, which was not 'You shouldn't punish people who break forum rules,' but rather 'You shouldn't assume that everyone who fails to read and understand every forum rule is a troll.' The fundamental point I'm pointing to here is that ignorance is more common than malice. If we don't recognize that, we'll respond to the problem ineffectively -- and it is a problem. We're disagreeing about the best way to address the problem, not about whether the problem exists at all.

First off, most of the naive people we're talking about don't use such rhetoric.

Maybe the ones you've seen. All the people I've seen called trolls have done such things.

Citation needed. A fair number of people on this forum already have been called "trolls" (myself included, by you, for making this thread!) or accused of "JAQing Off," yet I have not seen any of those people use "Feminazi"-level rhetoric. This forum itself seems to provide data refuting the hypothesis that abusive language like this is only lobbed at people who obviously and unambiguously are bad-faith misogynist trolls.

I didn't prove you right by way of you being in good faith. A tone troll does not imply bad faith.

If tone trolls are good-faith disputants, then they aren't trolls. All the more reason not to call people 'tone trolls,' and all the more proof that 'troll' is being misused as a term for labeling and silencing any group of people that someone finds annoying or disagreeable, rather than being reserved for people who are only making posts for no other reason than to annoy or otherwise harm people.

A tone troll quite simply is someone who just can't get why we can't all be nice and hold hands and use nice words all the time. Nothing about bad faith.

So "unrealistic optimist" + "advocate for civil discourse" = "a certain kind of troll"? Oy vey.

Yes, and this is why the internet is so rife with feminists, and why the major places on the internet have virtually no misogyny.

This is a fallacy's form as well. 'Internet use correlates with feminism' does not imply 'the Internet has virtually no misogyny;' it doesn't even imply 'most Internet users are not misogynists.' That's not how correlation works. Since it doesn't imply what you suggest, the negation of the latter doesn't imply the negation of the former (i.e., the contrapositive doesn't hold either).

I can simplify the point even more for you. Being in a developed nation makes you less likely to torture, abuse, and rape women, makes you likely to behave misogynistically less often, and makes your misogyny less severe on average when it does occur. Being in a developed nation also makes you more likely to use the Internet. Is the rationale behind the correlation a bit clearer now?

First, people who talk down A+ are not necessarily impossible to persuade

Impossible to persuade? No. But the ones that make a point of coming her and ignoring the rules to spout their slymepit bullshit are not going to be convinced by nicely telling them that they're using fallacious arguments.

Using disagreeable and widely refuted arguments and not memorizing all the forum rules does not prove that one is impossible to convince, much less that one is both impossible to convince and a bad-faith poster (i.e., troll). Even if it did, it would be counterproductive to use sex-negative or verbally abusive rhetoric against them, because most of the impact of forum posts occurs when lurkers read posts without participating. Fence-sitting lurkers are commonplace (you're less likely to post if you don't have a settled view yet), and it is to our advantage not to alienate them by overreacting to problems that are more easily resolved by substantive refutation, by a link to the relevant forum, or by a swift and to-the-point ban.

No, no it doesn't. It discourages asking off topic and basic questions in the entirely wrong place.

Since humans are so bad at understanding and interpreting one anothers' arguments -- nearly all fallacies and errors in argument result from leaping to interpret some argument without first asking questions about what precisely the arguer meant -- it is universally a good idea to encourage much more question-asking. In fact, I don't need to hesitate to say that one of the top 5 ways to make the Internet a more rational and humanistic place is to have people instinctively ask questions about each other's life-experiences, world-views, and intended assertions rather than leaping to pigeonhole or personally attack those they disagree with.

That doesn't mean we can't move off-topic questions away to more appropriate venues. That's simply an organizational matter, not to discourage or stigmatize question-asking but to make discussions more to-the-point and questions easier to efficiently answer, by relocating them to a relevant thread.

You'll notice that terms like JAQing off are not allowed in the Education forum, where basic questions are allowed.

That's great. The Education Forum should serve as a model to most of the Internet's discourse, since all of us (myself included) could above all else do with a whole lot more education. (In fact, is that not one of our biggest goals as skeptics?) Notice that my original post made no reference to the structure of the forums here; my argument is completely general, and applies in pretty much every locus of public discussion.

And the phrasing of JAQing off is not "ewwww masturbation!"

It's because, like jacking off, it is entirely self congratulatory and self loving. Which is fine, for jacking off. But not for JAQing off.

That's a bit of a stretch. I'd think you weren't being intellectually honest in trying to justify the phrase in this tenuous way, except I know how easy it is to rationalize a view like this, and have done it in error enough times myself, to know how likely it is that you actually believe this, in spite of its prima facie implausibility. Some points to note:

First, there's actually nothing specifically self-congratulatory or self-loving about 'Just Asking Questions.' At least, such a tactic is no more self-congratulatory or self-loving than is any other case of fallacious reasoning or bad-faith editing. Just Asking Questions may be rude to others, but it's not self-directed, and if it were self-directed it still wouldn't be specifically about 'self-loving.'

Second, the term isn't a homophone for 'public masturbation' or any other potentially rude activity. It's a homophone for masturbation, or male masturbation, specifically.

Third, the origin of the term is very simple to explain. Some people started asking bad-faith questions, and others wanted a way to dismiss this tactic, so they started dismissing it as 'Just Asking Questions,' or 'JAQ' / 'JAQing' for short. Someone wanted to make this acronym more insulting, so they extended 'JAQing' to 'JAQing Off,' knowing that most people in our culture find masturbation sick, disgusting, and selfish rather than a natural and healthy mode of sexual expression, and familiar with the derogatory character of saying that someone 'is just jacking off.' (Note that this derogatory connotation in no way depends on whether the person in question is jacking off in private or in public.) So one exploits this sex-negative assumption to make 'jacking off' a clever insult. But I'm not disputing the cleverness; I'm disputing whether this is a good misunderstanding to perpetuate. Whether or not we intend to convey the evils of masturbation in doing this, that's indeed part of what gets conveyed; surely as feminists we should be aware of the potential harm that comes from using language in a way that unconsciously perpetuates a harmful social norm.

This. JAQing off is essentially the grown up version of endless "Why?"s

When a toddler asks me too many 'Whys?', I don't respond by telling the toddler s/he's metaphorically jacking off, or by trying to insult him/her in any way. I either ignore him/her until s/he shuts up, or (if I'm feeling patient) I start off responding honestly, then respond with questions of my own for the child, like 'Does it make a difference what the answer is?' 'Do you know why you're asking "Why?"' 'What do you think is the answer? I'll only talk about it if you come up with some theories first.'

And no, I never call the toddlers 'trolls' either. No matter how tempted I am.

[Robby B]

Most of the commentors on this thread so far have expressed serious misgivings about the 'JAQing Off' meme, each coming from a unique perspective. If that many of our allies (so far, around 12 of the 23 discussants) are turned off by the term, how many undecideds and fence-sitters might we be turning off when we use discourse that frames question-asking and masturbation — two of the most important, healthy, under-appreciated, and under-performed activities in all of human society — as Bad Things? I realize that's not the message any of you intend to convey; but intent is only one part of what people take away from our choice of word and meme.

I consider ceepolk one of the tragic casualties of this anti-inquiry trope. S/he has internalized the lesson that s/he's bad or wrong because s/he 'asks people lots of questions' — the single most important and healthy attitude any aspiring skeptic, humanist, or rational human being can possibly cultivate, since it is the gateway to accessing new perspectives and life-experiences. From hostility s/he's learned that it's "bothersome" to be openly curious about other people's lives, the meaning of their statements, their reservoirs of learning. This honestly terrifies me. I imagine a world in which this meme has continued to spread and become ubiquitous in other discourses, and am horrified at the thought of people being too timid to honestly inquire and question the claims of those around them lest they be accused of 'jacking off.' (It's not fantastical; people already ask far too few questions of the phenomena and people around them.) This is, in a snapshot, the Skeptic's Nightmare. I find it almost beyond belief that we'd even consider propagating a meme that so easily falls into patterns of misuse embodying precisely the negation of everything that makes skepticism skepticism.

Yes, there are contexts in which it's wrong to masturbate or ask a question; but we don't need a general meme to note either of those facts, since it's easy to explicitly say what's wrong when the situation arises. And yes, bad-faith questioning does occur. But it's easier, more effective, and less risk to note this in ordinary human speak on a case-by-case basis, rather than trying to get derogatory abbreviations to do your work for you.

And, seriously: 'X is a behavior that harms women, ergo if you object to any word (no matter how derogatory, sex-negative, or prejudicial) used to dismiss X or insult possible X-users, you are by definition a troll.' Is this really a healthy way to respond to tactical disagreements?

[Cipher]

Most of the commentors on this thread so far have expressed serious misgivings about the 'JAQing Off' meme, each coming from a unique perspective.

At least one potential commenter has refrained from responding because they feel that this thread is pointless.

I have no misgivings about the use of the meme and think that you in particular, Robby, and possibly others, are eliding distinctions that matter. However, since other people have this covered, I didn't care to say anything til now. Since you're apparently going to use the number of respondents as support of your argument, I feel compelled to make this otherwise pointless post.

[paddy]

The thread is there for anyone to read, I obviously disagree with your assessment but that isn't really important to this thread.

The luxury of disagreement isn't available to you in this case. My description was accurate.

Asking them for evidence of this will often be met with annoyance or even anger (believe me), particularly if one does not simply accept their individual account or the accounts of others they have heard about, as evidence for a much wider trend.

You're doing exactly the same thing you did on the Skepchick thread. Please Wicknight, put me out of my misery. What is your point? Do you think that the problem of sexual harassment in the skeptical community is overstated? If so, please just say it. Nothing but a sad, twiggy-looking stump remains of that bush you've been beating round.

[Wicknight]

The luxury of disagreement isn't available to you in this case.

How very Orwellian

You're doing exactly the same thing you did on the Skepchick thread. Please Wicknight, put me out of my misery. What is your point? Do you think that the problem of sexual harassment in the skeptical community is overstated? If so, please just say it. Nothing but a sad, twiggy-looking stump remains of that bush you've been beating round.

No I don't think the problem of sexual harassment in the sceptical community is overstated. To conclude that I would have to know the extent of the problem of sexual harassment in the sceptical community. I don't. And apparently neither do a lot of people who have already made up their minds either way.

Maybe stop searching for an ulterior motive and just look at what I have written. It really shouldn't be necessary to explain why the lack of data supporting an accepted conclusion is an issue for someone in the sceptical community, irrespective of what topic is being discussed.

[paddy]

Maybe stop searching for an ulterior motive and just look at what I have written. It really shouldn't be necessary to explain why the lack of data supporting an accepted conclusion is an issue for someone in the sceptical community, irrespective of what topic is being discussed.

There is no lack of data. We're not talking about the abstract case, we're talking about sexual harassment in the skeptical community.

[Wicknight]

There is no lack of data. We're not talking about the abstract case, we're talking about sexual harassment in the skeptical community.

No we really aren't. Perhaps we should get back to the topic at hand ...

[paddy]

No we really aren't. Perhaps we should get back to the topic at hand ...

Eh? It's an absolutely perfect example. The motivations and opinions of a JAQer are quite important to the discussion, aren't they? But anyway, have it your way. I give up.

[Nathair]

What about people who actually object to the term on the grounds that in itself it promotes an atmosphere of sexual harassment in a forum thread, such as this one? Are they trolls?

Really? There are other threads like this one? Other people trying to morph "JAQing off" into SEXUAL HARASSMENT!!1!!eleventyone!1 I guess I'd have to take the question on a case by case basis. Are they genuinely but unnecessarily concerned, confusing anything that even indirectly refers to to sexual behaviour as harassment? Are they intentionally and cynically trying to use the concerns of the feminist community as weapons against that community by claiming that anything that even indirectly refers to sexual behaviour is harassment? I know which one I find more generally plausible.

To be honest I don't see why it isn't obvious. People have clearly said what the word is meant to reference. I think it's ridiculous we're still excusing it.

Ultimately I believe in free speech, people can say what they damn well like, including obvious sexual slurs like this one.

We're still excusing it because what it is meant to reference does not make it a sexual slur. It is not intended or interpreted as a comment on anyone's actual sexual behaviour, nor is it intended as a comment upon the general validity or acceptability of a sexual behaviour. It is no more directly sexual than telling someone to fuck off is an actual reference to coitus and thereby sexual harassment.

Most of the commentors on this thread so far have expressed serious misgivings about the 'JAQing Off' meme

That's a pretty silly thing to say in a skeptic forum. Self selection. Argument by poll. Silly stuff.

And, seriously: 'X is a behavior that harms women, ergo if you object to any word (no matter how derogatory, sex-negative, or prejudicial) used to dismiss X or insult possible X-users, you are by definition a troll.' Is this really a healthy way to respond to tactical disagreements?

[/quote][/quote]That's a pretty enormous straw man you've got there. Objecting to this one particular phrase on the grounds that it is derogatory (when it is not), sex-negative (when it is not) or prejudicial (when it is not) does not necessarily make you a troll, but the possibility certainly exists. Trying to leap from this one specific issue into some huge sweeping damn-the-torpedoes general condemnation as you have just done, yeah, that certainly smacks of trolling.

[sondosia]

I would agree that it's pretty useless to tell a person that you think is JAQing off that they're JAQing off without further explanation, just as I think it's useless to tell someone who's tone policing that they're tone policing (without further explanation). People who do these things tend not to understand what they're doing and why it's problematic, so they need a better explanation than just having our jargon thrown at them. (Not that this means that the target of said behavior is obligated to educate the person on how to argue properly.)

That said, this isn't the way I usually see "JAQing off" used. I usually see it used by activists who are sharing frustrations with each other, discussing comment threads on their blogs, etc. For instance, "Ugh, I had to take a break from responding to comments because there was an asshole just JAQing off all over the place." I think that having silly, humorous terms that we can use to vent to each other is really useful for our sanity.

I also find it a bit laughable that people think this term stigmatizes male masturbation somehow. Really? I'm pretty sure everyone knows that it's inappropriate to masturbate in a public forum around people who don't want to watch or take part. Do that in private and/or with a consenting partner(s).