This is a different situation though, for a few reasons: first, I actually don’t agree, once you’ve promised the raises, people will reasonably make plans in anticipation of them, so I do think you have an obligation (maybe not a legal one, but that isn’t what we’re talking about) to give them once you’ve made those promises. I don’t recall the women involved in any of this 4b stuff promising a relationship to any man or group of men, it isn’t like they “were going to get it” already.
Second, and perhaps more importantly, the stakes for business and personal relationships are different. We don’t generally require continuing and revokable consent for giving someone money, the state can for example issue someone a monetary fine, and that’s considered an acceptable consequence for many things. If you promise to buy something, and they then come to deliver it and you decide “actually I’ve changed my mind, keep it, I’m not buying it from you anymore”, the other person can in a number of circumstances sue you for breaking your agreement.
However, if the state were to mandate that someone enter into a relationship, or have sex with someone, as a penalty for something, that would be considered a human rights abuse where the monetary fine would not, and if you were to tell someone that you found some type of flower super romantic, and then they came over with those flowers to give, but you then told them you weren’t feeling a connection, no reasonable person would take their side if they tried to sue you to force you into a romantic relationship with them.
To put it a simpler way, if you promise someone a raise, the default state once that promise is made is getting the raise, as in professional matters, honoring promises and agreements is fundamental, revoking it later is therefore taking something from them, because you’re changing that default state to something worse for them. Personal relations do not have the same dynamic. It is well known and understood that people sometimes change their minds on romantic and sexual relationships, or sometimes just aren’t in the mood anymore. Promises don’t carry the same weight, when there exists an absolute right to revoke consent at any point and have things not continue. As such, the default state is “not having a relationship/encounter with a particular person”, right up until it happens. If the person in question never decides to enter into that relationship, because they have decided that they don’t want to even deal with having one at all, they haven’t taken anything from whoever else might have been interested in them, because they haven’t changed that state. There was never a reason for a guy to expect one of these 4b women would date them in the first place, and no reason to expect that they wouldn’t one day leave again if they did.
I actually don’t agree, once you’ve promised the raises, people will reasonably make plans in anticipation of them, so I do think you have an obligation (maybe not a legal one, but that isn’t what we’re talking about) to give them once you’ve made those promises. I don’t recall the women involved in any of this 4b stuff promising a relationship to any man or group of men, it isn’t like they “were going to get it” already.
I was very careful with my words, and very intentionally avoided the word “promise” because I knew it would be spun this way, even though I would argue that even if one promises to do something, they still have the right to say no (i.e. Is a woman who promises to have sex with a man required to have sex with that man? Or does she still maintain the right to change her mind?)
So can we retry again without putting the word “promise” in my mouth? Am I punishing that person by deciding to not give them a raise as a retaliation of the person saying “fuck you” to me? Or is it because the raise was never theirs, it’s impossible for me to punish them by taking it away?
I am saying that if what is to be given and then not is money, then it is punishment, but if it is sex, it is not, because these things are fundamentally different in a way that makes it reasonable to take one back without justification but not the other
I actually just saw this elsewhere in the thread, and it made me think of a good point here that might get you to see my position:
White women voted in favor of Trump. What if I said “That’s it, I’m not having sex with white women at all anymore.” Racist or no?
But your whole point relied on the “promise” aspect of it. If there was no promise of it, only the likelihood of it happening, then it falls under the same thing that there is no crime by withholding it. I agree that sex and money are different, as they are legally held to different standards. But that’s a distinction without a meaning in the context of the current discussion.
Let me try it this way.
I suggest that I’m going to have sex with someone. Then, as a form of retaliation, I tell them I’m not going to have sex with them. By your logic, this is not punishment.
I suggest that I’m going to give someone money. Then, as a form of retaliation, I tell them I’m not going to give them that money. By your logic, this is punishment.
This seems blatantly contradictory, even if we maintain that withholding sex is less a punishment. It’s still the same thing - withholding something that would likely have been given had there been no reason to retaliate - the only difference is that the state can’t do anything about the punishment when it comes to sex.
