It is true that some participants in the analogy are “non-player characters”. That is because some ethical questions only have implications for the choices of a subset of the agents. It should be permissible to discuss these ethical questions. Doing this properly will require adding information about all stakeholders whenever it is relevant, but it does not necessarily require all stakeholders to be “playable” in the sense that they actively make ethical decisions.
It is also true that the women in my story have a preference on a single axis, and that in real life, they also have preferences on other axes. I did not specify those preferences in the analogy, because I did not see the point in adding complications that do not have relevance to the resolution of the ethical question, which is a choice faced only by Martians.
If you feel that there is an additional axis which has important implications for the ethical choice that the Green Martians are facing, please specify what that axis is and why it is important. This would be an important contribution to the discussion. Otherwise, this comes across as saying “you should have added additional complications that were not relevant, in order to sufficiently signal that women are important ethical agents and not objects”.
The fact that women are important ethical agents is so obvious that it is not even worth debating. However, I shouldn’t have to signal this at every opportunity as a precondition for taking part in the discussion, especially not when this would require me to add unnecessary information to the story.
As for why the women don’t express their preference not to be tickled by green martians, this is simply because I took this preference to be obvious and common knowledge to all participants in the analogy.
because I don’t see the point in adding complications that do not have relevance to the discussion
Your parable is flawed at the core because you made a basic category mistake. Flirting is not an action, not something one person does to another one. It is interaction, something two people do together.
Deciding that one person in that interaction controls the encounter and does things, while the other is just a passive receptacle to the extent that not even her consent is required, never mind active participation, is not a useful framework for looking at how men and women interact.
It is true that some participants in the analogy are “non-player characters”. That is because some ethical questions only have implications for the choices of a subset of the agents. It should be permissible to discuss these ethical questions. Doing this properly will require adding information about all stakeholders whenever it is relevant, but it does not necessarily require all stakeholders to be “playable” in the sense that they actively make ethical decisions.
It is also true that the women in my story have a preference on a single axis, and that in real life, they also have preferences on other axes. I did not specify those preferences in the analogy, because I did not see the point in adding complications that do not have relevance to the resolution of the ethical question, which is a choice faced only by Martians.
If you feel that there is an additional axis which has important implications for the ethical choice that the Green Martians are facing, please specify what that axis is and why it is important. This would be an important contribution to the discussion. Otherwise, this comes across as saying “you should have added additional complications that were not relevant, in order to sufficiently signal that women are important ethical agents and not objects”.
The fact that women are important ethical agents is so obvious that it is not even worth debating. However, I shouldn’t have to signal this at every opportunity as a precondition for taking part in the discussion, especially not when this would require me to add unnecessary information to the story.
As for why the women don’t express their preference not to be tickled by green martians, this is simply because I took this preference to be obvious and common knowledge to all participants in the analogy.
Your parable is flawed at the core because you made a basic category mistake. Flirting is not an action, not something one person does to another one. It is interaction, something two people do together.
Deciding that one person in that interaction controls the encounter and does things, while the other is just a passive receptacle to the extent that not even her consent is required, never mind active participation, is not a useful framework for looking at how men and women interact.