this post was submitted on 23 Apr 2025
959 points (98.6% liked)
Curated Tumblr
4932 readers
169 users here now
For preserving the least toxic and most culturally relevant Tumblr heritage posts.
The best transcribed post each week will be pinned and receive a random bitmap of a trophy superimposed with the author's username and a personalized message. Here are some OCR tools to assist you in your endeavors:
-
FOSS Android Recs per u/m_f@discuss.online: 1 , 2
Don't be mean. I promise to do my best to judge that fairly.
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Yeah and, in my hypothetical, the person accepted the meals, so they must have consented to consuming the HGH too. You seem obstinate in refusing to see how intent shapes consent.
Imagine a person thinks it's in their partner's "best interest" to gain weight and only ever suggests the greasiest, most fattening foods and eateries. It is still incumbent on the partner to maintain their own fitness but the intention behind the person's offers taints the offer and ignores what the partner might wish.
You're assuming intent has to be something dry and contractual. "You had a bad day? I'll make you some cookies." You expressed your intent (assuming you aren't lying to them) and presented the offer: I'm making you cookies to help alleviate your bad day. Specifically in the OP, she recoils from the idea of telling the boyfriend what she's doing and chooses to hide the intent. I said as much in another comment, if she said as little as "I've noticed peanut M&Ms cheer you up when you're sad, you want some?" then she has obtained consent and has informed him what she's doing when she randomly hands him singular M&Ms. I'd wash my hands of this debate. Her reticience does not paint as rosy a picture as that.
Trying to whitewash the situation because "it doesn't seem to be negative" and "she's trying to help" doesn't negate that hiding things is a terrible precedent to set.
Well, wait, are you assuming she's not already saying “I’ve noticed peanut M&Ms cheer you up when you’re sad, you want some?” because I have been. The thing she's been "hiding" is the concept that she's training him like a dog, which as I said in my original comment isn't true; she learned the skills from training dogs, but they are skills that offer the same love and respect you would give a human.
Her friend focused on the fact that she treats dogs and humans the same, thought that meant she was disrespectfully training her boyfriend like one might train a dog, and believed that she was hiding this secret training from her boyfriend, which is just an incorrect assessment of the situation.
So yeah, she could tell her boyfriend that she's treating him like she would a dog, which technically would be the most honest thing to say, but I think it would just lead to him forming a negative association with what is ultimately a caring act, the same way her friend sees it. It's enough to just stick to "I'm giving you candy because you're stressed" rather than "I'm giving you treats in the way that I would give a dog treats."
I am not assuming she made a plain offer.
I admit my inferences are predicated on the context that she is applying dog training but it is entirely core to the discussion. Her quote says not "some [M&Ms]", but "one". She's doling them a singlular M&M at specific instances. Again like trainers do when they're priming a reward for an animal after they perform the right action. And her self-defense is based on the idea that humans aren't that different from dogs and the boyfriend isn't aware of her actions, instead of anything normal like "he said he's glad I'm helping him" or "he's shown he's appreciative that I'm helping distract him from stress".
I'm getting the picture she's more doing "hey , here's an M&M" when she's training then anything resembling a clear mention of a helpful motive.
I suppose you could be right. I do think it'd be strange not to ask your girlfriend why she randomly gives you a singular M&M all the time.
I agree, but that whole situation is strange to me.