Room for Hamlet and Rand al'Thor

Hamlet

00:48

Can we continue this discussion here

@Randal'Thor

@Emrakul

Here's the thing about this question

the problem with the question are phrases like "perhaps even inadvertently encouraged his advances"

and "having foolishly allowed Alec d'Urberville to get her on her own in the middle of nowhere"

Hamlet

In the book, it literally is explicitely stated that Tess fell asleep. The book says "She was sleeping soundly, and upon her eyelashes there lingered tears. "

What is ambigous is what happened that night. We don't have a description of the scene. We know that the scene happened because of information later on.

user61230

I would recommend continuing the conversation in the main room, but I'm fairly neutral to where it happens.

Hamlet

@Emrakul people kept interrupting

So if Tess had sex, because she was asleep, she couldn't give consent, and it was rape. There is no debate.

user61230

To be fair, it is a public discussion. Ash has a valuable perspective on it, too.

Hamlet

The actual academic debate here is about why the author kept the scene so ambigous

What you imply in your question is that, because Tess was "inexperience", she somehow "encouraged his advances" , and the fact that she "encouraged his advances" invalidates the fact that she can't give consent because she was asleep.

user61230

00:57

I will say that this seems like content that would be reasonable to post in an answer to the question as it was originally written.

Hamlet

That implication is demeaning to people who have been sexually assaulted.

It detracts from the academic debate at hand.

Since this is a question about sexual assault, I feel that it's my responsibility as a moderator to focus the question about the academic debate, instead of having a question where any answer would have to deconstruct the assumptions about sexual assault that are made in the question

That's why I edited the question.

Rand al'Thor

@Hamlet I removed those phrases already. Your latest edit doesn't have anything to do with either of those.

@Hamlet Then post that as an answer, rather than editing it into the question.

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Hamlet

@Randal'Thor but you didn't

The last edit you made says "having allowed Alec d'Urberville to get her on her own in the middle of nowhere"

Rand al'Thor

@Hamlet Yes: I removed "foolishly", which I was guessing was the bit you objected to.

He did get her on her own in the middle of nowhere.

Hamlet

@Randal'Thor yeah, Alec has the power in the situation, not Tess. Alec is her employer and has a lot of power.

You said that Tess allowed Alec to get her alone. Big difference.

Let me try to edit the question one last time.

Rand al'Thor

01:08

@Hamlet OK, so change it to "Alec d'Urberville successfully got Tess on her own in the middle of nowhere, and they end up having sex." You still edited a lot more than that one sentence.

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Q: Edits to the Tess question

I posted this question about Tess of the d'Urbervilles. My latest version read as follows: The first part of Thomas Hardy's Tess of the d'Urbervilles ends on an extremely dark and sinister note: Tess, having allowed Alec d'Urberville to get her on her own in the middle of nowhere, ends up hav...

Hamlet

@Randal'Thor how is my latest edit

Rand al'Thor

If you don't mind, I'm going to step away from this for a bit before I get too worked up.

user61230

@Randal'Thor Before you go, would you like your main site question to be locked for the time being, or would you rather it be left unlocked?

user61230

I'd be using the "content dispute" lock reason.

Hamlet

@Randal'Thor I wish you had waited for us to work this out in chat before posting that meta question.

Rand al'Thor

01:10

@Hamlet Hang on, let me check.

@Hamlet I can delete the meta post if we do manage to work things out here. It didn't seem like we were going to, some minutes ago.

Hamlet

@Randal'Thor give me some credit

@Randal'Thor sorry, I made one last (minor) edit. I had copied something from the original question that I didn't mean to.

Rand al'Thor

@Hamlet That looks much better, but you've still removed the paragraph about this being a long-running debate, which I think gives the question some legitimacy (since I do agree it seems pretty obvious that it wasn't consensual).

Hamlet

@Randal'Thor sorry, I'll add it back in

Napoleon Wilson

@Hamlet With...their opinion on the discussion about a question on the site?

Rand al'Thor

@Hamlet How about rolling back to revision 3 and editing just the first paragraph to your latest version?

Hamlet

01:15

@NapoleonWilson I wasn't able to focus.

@Randal'Thor how does it look now

Napoleon Wilson

Ahah.

Hamlet

@NapoleonWilson and I thought it might be a calmer conversation if we spoke in private

Rand al'Thor

@Hamlet It's OK, but you've changed the ordering of some of the sentences and removed some bold text around the main question, which seems a bit pointless. Give me a sec, and I'll post (here in chat) my suggested final version.

Hamlet

I would like to appologise. I don't think I handled the situation as well as I should

It's my first time being a moderator

user61230

It happens! Tripping up now and then is a part of learning how to do the job well. You've got the right idea, though.

Rand al'Thor

01:22

The first part of Thomas Hardy's *Tess of the d'Urbervilles* ends on an extremely dark and sinister note: Alec d'Urberville successfully gets Tess on her own in the middle of nowhere, and they end up having sex. This scene is deliberately not described explicitly, and we need to deduce what happened from surrounding events.

The big question is **to what extent their sexual relationship was consensual**. It was already established that he was attempting to seduce her and she, despite not returning his feelings, was too inexperienced to know how to deal with him. But did she allow herself to…

@Hamlet How's that? ^ (Essentially revision 3 with changes to the first paragraph.)

@Hamlet I agree, but all's well that ends well :-) As long as we can agree on this in the end, it's fine.

Hamlet

@Randal'Thor a few tiny changes

Rand al'Thor

@Hamlet Changing the thing which you said makes a "big difference".

19 mins ago, by Hamlet

You said that Tess allowed Alec to get her alone. Big difference.

Hamlet

The first part of Thomas Hardy's *Tess of the d'Urbervilles* ends on an extremely dark and sinister note: Alec d'Urberville successfully gets Tess on her own in the middle of nowhere, and they end up having sex. This scene is deliberately not described explicitly, and we need to deduce what happened from surrounding events.

The big question is **to what extent their sexual relationship was consensual**. It was already established that he was attempting to seduce her and she, despite not returning his feelings, was too inexperienced to know how to deal with him.

@Randal'Thor basically, I removed the sentences "But did she allow herself to be persuaded to consent to sex with him, or did he actually force himself on her? Was she raped, or merely seduced?"

That was the only change I made

Other than that, it looks good.

@Randal'Thor I just put the updated version of the question on the site

Rand al'Thor

@Hamlet Hmm ... that's the main point of my question right there in those sentences, but I guess I've asked the same thing, expressed less dichotomously, in the "to what extent" sentence.

@Hamlet Let's agree on that as far as content then. But the 2nd paragraph now kind of feels like it ends in mid-flow. Mind if I rearrange the sentences slightly?

Hamlet

@Randal'Thor no

If you don't mind, I'm going to write an answer to the meta post, since that seems to have gotten a lot of attention

Rand al'Thor

01:33

@Hamlet Done. Hopefully that's an end to it.

@Hamlet Sure.

Hamlet

@Randal'Thor looks good! Thank you for being patient with me

Rand al'Thor

:-)

Hamlet

01:54

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A: Edits to the Tess question

The actions I took on that question are probably going to be unpopular. And I agree that I could have handled the situation a lot better than I did. But I think what I did was necessary. As a moderator, I have a responsibility to ensure that sensitive issues can be discussed productively on this ...

HDE 226868

@Hamlet I have no desire to enter the discussion because everything I'd want to say has been said, but I think you did the right thing by posting a meta answer. Even if people disagree, or maybe even in those few cases where you absolutely screwed up (I'm not saying this was one), the best thing to do is to always explain your actions. I can't count how many times that transparency has turned out well for me as a mod and the site as a whole.

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Room for Hamlet and Rand al'Thor