This piece was first written in 2017, and first appeared on my website on October 1, 2026
This is my final essay in a series examining sexual harassment and assault.
The first essay can be read here, which also includes more information about the study participants. The second essay can be read here and the third essay can be read here.
I sometimes hear people ask why victims of sexual harassment or assault don’t report what happened to them (or why they sometimes wait years to mak...
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shame
My Social Experiments
For many years, I've thrown social experiments as part of a group I founded, called Ergo. Our rule: we can never repeat the same event format. Once we've used one, it's dead, forcing each event to be experimental. Here are a few of our bizarre/entertaining past events:
1) Novelty party: each attendee brings something interesting (an experience, food, or object) that they believe other attendees will not have experienced before. A winner is crowned based on surveying attendees about how novel...
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When Is Gossip Good?
Gossip has a very bad reputation. The word "gossip" itself (and its synonyms, like "idle talk," tittle-tattle," "hearsay," "blather," and "rumor-mongering") have negative connotations. And this bad reputation is not totally unreasonable, as gossip is sometimes very harmful.
But, on some occasions, it's actually a very good and useful thing that people gossip. For instance, if someone in a community is genuinely very dangerous, it's important that the evidence of this is spread throughout the...
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