Without reading this whole thread I can say only that I saw people here calling him the very light of reason (paraphrase). Personally I found him frustratingly unwilling to engage in direct points, at least those I raised, and incoherent in his actual position on the value of evidence once some core values have been philosophically established. (If you check this was consensus pretty early on) He kept vacillating between science informs philosophy and science is useless in philosophical discussion. Then again he also seemed to refuse to acknowledge applied sciences (like medicine) as science, so there were problems all through out the thread.
While I disagree with your interpretation, and I believe that Mr. Samsa was always quite clear and consistent in describing his position, that's not actually why I referred to that thread.
I referred to that thread, as you said, because of "the end with Mr.Samsa and the eventual shutdown".
What I found bizzarre--perverse, even--was the community's decision not to simply abandon or ignore a fruitless discussion, but to actively threaten Mr. Samsa with mod action if he couldn't find an acceptable way to express his ideas, and to ultimately call for and enact a closure of thread because Mr. Samsa's explanations were not satisfactory to some participants.
In the thread, Mr. Samsa was censured for using hypothetical examples, because some people couldn't wrap their heads around them. Then he was berated for using real-world examples, because some people couldn't tolerate them. He was berated for consistently maintaining his position. At one point, he was berated for using big words and compound sentences! Finally, the thread was closed for no other reason than some people were tired of disagreeing with him.
I can understand cutting off a fruitless discussion in meatspace, for what I believe are obvious reasons. But for reasons which I believe are equally obvious, I cannot understand cutting off a fruitless discussion on an Internet discussion board, at least not in this scenario.
tl;dr -- it's not about the discussion itself, but how it was handled, and how mr. Samsa was treated, by the mod team.
Thanks for the heads up zoot. That's why I waited, so I could check out ones already there. As I suck at searches, it would be hard to determine now if anyone included AA's video. I tend to doubt they did.
I believe AA makes a reasonable case for RW's reaction in his video, though I spot some straw at it's core. That may just be my privileged bias showing. As this story has become a major dividing line with the feminist SJW's I think it is worth another look within the context of this thread which AA has now joined.
Certainly EG has been discussed before itt, and I mentioned I hoped it could continue a few pages back. So here is AA's view of RW's tale, which might be easier to use as a jumping off point than throwing all the questionable actions taken by A+ staff at him all at once. Or not. Here's a link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MbTkqq023nA to AA's video.
@AA: Your rhetorical prowess has exceeded my fondest hopes. And while I am hesitant to pile on another request, I would much appreciate it-when time permits-if you could take a look at my last post on A+ and explain to me how it warranted my being banned. You will find it on p. 2 of the thread I started on changing the PM rules in the FM forum. While your at it look at my previous posts at A+ and see if anything I said prior to the post which got me a 1 month suspension had contributed to it. And as this was changed to a ban while I was still on suspension, that decision must have been made based on critical statements I have made here. So don't think big sister isn't watching what you say itt, or that any statements you make won't influence how your are treated there.
I would also bring to your attention that like kbon and at least a dozen others I know of that have been banned, my name does not appear on the banned list. Even when mood2 poised a question at me in the PM thread nobody mentioned I had been banned so she shouldn't expect any reply. Think maybe they are becoming a little embarrassed by the body count there? If not they should be. At A+, many posters just disappear.
I'm starting to feel like that kid in the Dr Suess book who can't mow the grass fast enough.
First, Kbon, when I use the quote button I am getting the same result as you. So I abandoned it in favor of keeping two windows open and manually typing the quote scripts in, so far I've been able to nest 3 quotes and have not hit a limit on how many quotes I can add to a single response.
Myriad,
You are right, fire is a big topic and there are some benifits to it, many actually, but lets roll this down to a simpler example. Person A has suffered 3rd degree burns on thier hand from touching fire. Person B has read that fire causes trauma to exposed skin. Person C is pretty sure you can hold fire without consequence and wants to grab some.
This is closer to someone defending the idea of racism or classism or what have you. Do you still think person B will be a better advocate for don't touch that?
Do you believe that a rational appeal alone is stronger than a rational appeal backed with an emotional appeal when it comes to convincing someone of something?
Finally, do you see how you had to frame the burn victim into an extreme position to contest them? Wanting to ban all fire everywhere..
RandFan said:
Here at JREF, if you want to discuss the existence of Bigfoot, there is no presumption that Bigfoot does not exist
Fair enough, but the presumption is that A+ does bad does. I have lost count of the number of times that someone will walk in with a unsourced negative claim, or highly negative interpretation of that board and go unchallenged. In fact what I see is rapid agreement. My first post pointed to an instance, and I was told by the people responding to me, variously we established that already, they could but don't have to, and I should read the thread. Not one person backed up the post with evidence. One person did point out the hyprocracy of the two events.
I understand this is a place biased against my position, and that I am in turn biased against this thread. Claiming that bias does not exist here is blatantly false.
@zooterkin, Are you suggesting that the term wank is not synonymous with masturbation, or that masturbation is not sexual? Perhaps you think sexual poetry with strangers does not reinforce a chilly climate for women. Are you a woman? Why would you disagree with women if they tell you about how they experience something gender related?
zooterkin said:
What conceivable sexism is there in that? It was claimed that 'wanker' has a sexual connotation, and the poem therefore constituted sexual harassment; it may have that literal meaning but in common usage in Britain it is pretty close in meaning to "jerk" (which may have a similar origin as a term of abuse). Just because some limericks have a sexual pun, doesn't mean that all of them do (and this one doesn't, unless I'm missing it; having grown up listening to Round the Horne, The Goons and I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue, I think that's unlikely).
I see you chose jerk, what if instead you had compared it to a more sexual but common slur? Again, A+ is a safe space, I expect I'll have to keep reiterating this since I keep getting comments that relate conduct in non-safe spaces to it. A better example would be a limerick about bombs in an airport security line. Do you think that would go without comment from the security staff there?
@kmortis, thank you. that is valuable information.
@Tuskan Buddah, Do you see a difference in your grandmother's comments from the ones I am discussing? She is saying all X are Y where X is a group of people and Y is something bad. I'm talking about people who say, Z exists, because I have lived it. I would not believe her claims about all people in a group, but I would not dispute the abuse she lived through.
@dasmiller, no limericks are not bad. They can be bad, and there is often sexual connotation with them. This is especially true when they contain sexual words. As for the downside for favoritism, you are stretching my point beyond recognition. I never made either of those claims and painting me into an absolute position is dishonest in the extreme. Context matters.
Groups forming bonds of trust with people they have come to rely on is a good thing. There are some downsides, this is true of any good thing, but solid relationships of mutual trust are good. Conversely trusting absolute strangers is bad. Much of the time nothing bad will happen, but with far more regularity than is good you will wind up hurt or dead. Bad people exist.
@RP, thanks. I'll wait for it to show, then respond. If I miss it just nudge me.
@Squeegee Beckenheim I'm speaking of your pulling one word out and emphasizing it to such a degree. I think you are trying to place me on the defensive. Otherwise it seems like pure pedantry, what is the point? How does that advance a conversation?
Squeegee Beckenhiem said:
I wouldn't assume what my opinions are, were I you. If you want to know my opinion on something, please ask.
Words have context, I wouldn't deny that or the ability of those around me to read it. I won't claim to be infallible at reading it either. However I will not ignore context in favor of only what the words say. That is not how we use language. If I'm wrong about your opinion, please let me know and I can withdraw the statement.
*emotion* Quote hidden for length
Squeegee Beckenheim said:
I'm speaking about how you claimed that a demand was made of you, yet no demand was. I don't know why you would contest this after you already admitted to engaging in hyperbole.
I have, and you have seen, already admitted to hyperbole. Why are you still trying to insist that I am defending an argument I most certainly am not? Here I'll be explicit, no one demanded I read the thread, one person suggested I should read it and refused to provide support for a claim on the basis that it is already here somewhere. Is that better?
I attempted to move on to your comment about injecting emotion, as though that were a bad thing. You have accused me of strawmanning you, but you didn't back that up with an argument, you just left it hanging out there. So no, that's nonsense. Your quote is a rejection of emotion, here I'll put them back under the spoiler tag. What part of my quote strawmans what specific thing you said?
Squeegee Beckenheim said:
And you're free to think that. I think that using terms like "demand" and "upset" where they're not accurate is mischaracterising those you're speaking with, attempting to make a discussion of fact into an emotional discussion, and acting in bad faith. All of which you're welcome to do, as long as you understand that posting in that manner is less likely to be conducive to friendly and constructive debate than not engaging in such hyperbole would and, instead, is more likely to lead to bad-tempered and irrelevant derails.
We are speaking about personal responses to posts. Fact is so heavily colored by emotion in this place that I am amazed you can't see it. Frog in slowly boiled water I suppose. More importantly why are you rejecting emotional bandwidth in this, or any, conversation? That looks to me like a rejection of emotion as a valuable intellectual tool. I will freely admit too much emotion is likely to shut down cognitive processes but I'm not a vulcan and won't pretend to be one.
*Implication versus Inference. I am well aware of these words and their meaning. You seem to reject that you can imply what I infer. I read this to be the claim "Implications are conscious acts and any inference which was not consciously implied is the fault of the person inferring only."
Is that how you feel? If it is I would say I think all parties in communication have a burden to be aware of both the intended implications of their communication and the unintended ones which a person around them can infer.
Case in point, if you imply something from my posts, and tell me about it, I will either agree that I mean that, or I'll apologize for communicating poorly and try to clarify my position. I expect that to go both ways though.
I disagree. The explanation for how he did is in the thread and I find no fault in that logic. I don't think he did those things intentionally, I don't think he would choose to do them intentionally but that doesn't stop them from having been done. Why do you consider the word of the people affected by it to be insufficient to acknowledge it happened? Is it the intention thing again?
Squeehee Beckenheim said:
See, this is the thing. They "explained" it was sexist. He disagreed (as I do). Rather than agreeing with them, he continued to disagree. Therefore he was moderated. How is that not banning someone for dissent?
I never made the claim that all dissent is allowed or that certain kinds of dissent won't get you kicked. Very specifically see my arguments about safe space, and Alcoholics Anonymous. A+ is not a place to call into questions the fundamental concepts, it would not be a safe space if that was allowed.
How would you distinguish an anecdote from a point of data? I see them as one and the same. An anecdote is a specific point of data. It is bad to draw too many conclusions from one point. Some conclusions can be supported with only a single point. The broader conclusion you reach for, the more data you need.
bedlin88 said:
I think I would just point out that the whole concept of the Patriarchy is wrapped around favoritism. So advocating the one use is bad and another is good is a double standard. Personally I think it depends on the circumstances in which it is used that makes it good or bad. Life is very rarely black and white.
I disagree about the double standard. You would be right if I claimed that all favoritism is good or bad. What I do claim is that earned favoritism is earned. You have to do something to get it. Unearned privilege is unearned. Certain people get bonuses and certain people get repression through no fault of their own. That's a bad system. A less charges example would be monarchy versus a republic. Both will have ruling classes, but the latter does a better job of removing bad leaders and letting new people into leadership roles.
I agree though, things are rarely black and white.
Why are particular emotional responses to situations necessary correct and unassailable? Personally, since I sometimes become angry in certain situations, and my goal at such times transfigures in a need to harm the perceived transgressor, are perhaps not reasonable responses, and often the appropriate lesson to be leanred is initially missed.
Be it known I am a white man, moderatel well positioned financially, and I am now moderately aged, so based on my reading, I am a beneficiary of the modern whtie, middle ages, partrarchy socieity.
I also spent the first half of my life living in minority communites, mugged and abused with regulary, with the powers that be being miniorty members of the groups that abused me. Oddly, I never accused/expected indivitually endounted members of the minority groups to target me. I will cop to feeling quite uneasy about entering a community convenenience store with a group of minority youth hanging out about side. Likewise, I felt equally uneasy then a white group of youth ere hanged outside a comminty store also.
I have been stopped by police (both white and minority from driving the wrong care in Beferly Hills, on more that one occassion standing against the hood while being frisded. I've also been stopped for having a rationally different woman in my car, which was ackward.
In each sitatuion, I've shook the hand the LEO, and thanked him for his attention to the community. I've also had the opporunity to discuss why I was puuled over, and several of the repsonses were ones I had not immagined were possible, and upon learning the reasons, I accepted them as reasonable actions.
I've interpretted reasons or being stopped as being racist, masoginist, personal attacks, and at various times I've been formed to reeavaluate those reasons. The police I've talked to have been very profoessional and extremely forthcomingin on their rationalles.
I am also interrationally married, and with four children. I've been refused because my childred are black, and I am white as they come. They asked me to prove I was the childrens pareents. I asked why other parents were not asked to prove this, to which they would not answer. I pointed out that people that steal children have a tendency to take rationally similar children. No soap.
Because of all this, I've had rather unique personal experience with racism & reverse racism. I know A+ questions reverse racism, as there is no beaurocracy involved, but they are definately wrong. The Administrators, both Medical and Educational, were minority. The vast majority of teachers were minorties. I was person non-grata.
I've run a "support message board" modelled after my interpretation of JREF. Discussion of -Isms were incoured, as long as they were not pointed at individuals for groups on the forum. Experiences could be questions. Conclusions could be questions. But discounting messages could not. Ideas were presented on avoiding the issues, and addressing the issues after the fact. Attacks on individuals were not permitted. In three years, asided from spam bands, on person was banned. There were no temporary bans.
The most exciting aspect was members revisited the site of their horrible experniece, had a dialogue with the manager, and came away with appologies, couplons, and written changes of company policy in changed with situations.
As an employer, I have been accused of being Racist, Sexist, and Religiously inollerant, because I am willing to discuss such issues in the workplace, and how they can be dealt with.
Yet, based on my reading at A+, my experiece would not be tolerated.
There is a moderators-only forum here. We use it for discussions regarding mod actions such as whether or not to infract someone, whether or not to suspend them and for how long, whether or not to ban someone, etc.
What A+ doesn't seem to have, at least in my limited viewing, is anything like our Forum Management section, where people can go and ask questions, make comments and, yes, complain about the administration of the Forum. It also seems that there's no mechanism to appeal any mod decision; the word comes down from on high and that's pretty much it.
IMO, the A+ mods are on a collective power trip, and I will stand by that assessment until evidence to the contrary surfaces.
@zooterkin, Are you suggesting that the term wank is not synonymous with masturbation, or that masturbation is not sexual? Perhaps you think sexual poetry with strangers does not reinforce a chilly climate for women. Are you a woman? Why would you disagree with women if they tell you about how they experience something gender related?
I see you chose jerk, what if instead you had compared it to a more sexual but common slur? Again, A+ is a safe space, I expect I'll have to keep reiterating this since I keep getting comments that relate conduct in non-safe spaces to it. A better example would be a limerick about bombs in an airport security line. Do you think that would go without comment from the security staff there?
zooterkin may not be female, but I am, and we are both British. Wanker is a very common, fairly mild insult here, along the same lines as jerk or dickhead or prat or ******** (the autocensor caught that one, but it relates to the rectum). In Britain, many minor swearwords are almost totally removed in connotation from their etymological roots. I've discovered that the same can't be said in the US. For example, the "c" word - while pretty vulgar, is not a gendered insult in the UK, the way it seems to be in the US. Also, in the part of Britain I come from, the word "bugger" is very innocuous and used by fairly young children: as in "bugger off, you daft bugger".
Now since the word wanker is primarily a British word, and relatively little known in the US, I believe you should listen to what Brits tell you about their experience and perhaps check your US* privilege I find that Americans assuming that their interpretation of language is always the correct one is very unwelcoming to us Brits and we wouldn't want this to become a non safe space for UK posters. Heaven forbid!
*That is assuming you are from the US, please correct me if I am incorrect.
ETA And if all words which derive from sexual meanings make a space unsafe for women (delicate little flowers that we are) what do you make of the liberal use of the F-word by many of the regulars over there? Isn't that sexual talk which creates a chilly climate for women?
I thought that at first, but looking at his posting times I think he's in Europe. Dutch, maybe, given his nick. Those dike pluggers with wooden shoes love the recursive handles, right H'ethetheth?
If you watch AA's video-link above in my last post-you will see him wink at you after he explains his user name. That is you, right AA? With the face of smug, youthful white privilege?
@zooterkin, Are you suggesting that the term wank is not synonymous with masturbation, or that masturbation is not sexual? Perhaps you think sexual poetry with strangers does not reinforce a chilly climate for women.
Words have context, I wouldn't deny that or the ability of those around me to read it. I won't claim to be infallible at reading it either. However I will not ignore context in favor of only what the words say. That is not how we use language. If I'm wrong about your opinion, please let me know and I can withdraw the statement.
I will say it again - if you have a question about my opinion on anything, then feel free to ask. Assuming I hold a specific position on any subject and holding me to it unless I directly refute the position that you have invented is not critical thinking.
Here I'll be explicit, no one demanded I read the thread, one person suggested I should read it and refused to provide support for a claim on the basis that it is already here somewhere. Is that better?
I have not told you that you shouldn't be emotional. I have told you that if you post in an emotional and hyperbolic manner that you shouldn't be surprised if conversation isn't as productive as if you post in a less emotional and hyperbolic manner.
*Implication versus Inference. I am well aware of these words and their meaning. You seem to reject that you can imply what I infer. I read this to be the claim "Implications are conscious acts and any inference which was not consciously implied is the fault of the person inferring only."
I think "fault" is rather a loaded term. But, certainly, if you read into my posts something that has nothing to do with what I said, then I don't see how that is down to me. I will happily defend the things that I do say and think. I don't see why I should waste time defending things that I didn't say and do not think.
Case in point, if you imply something from my posts, and tell me about it, I will either agree that I mean that, or I'll apologize for communicating poorly and try to clarify my position. I expect that to go both ways though.
If I infer something from your posts that isn't something that you've explicitly said, I will ask you if that's what you meant, rather than telling you that that's what you meant. If you agree that that is what you meant, then I will continue from there. So far in your replies to me you have inferred things from my posts that weren't there, assumed them to be true, and then replied from that basis.
I know what I think. I don't need you to tell me.
I disagree. The explanation for how he did is in the thread and I find no fault in that logic. I don't think he did those things intentionally, I don't think he would choose to do them intentionally but that doesn't stop them from having been done. Why do you consider the word of the people affected by it to be insufficient to acknowledge it happened? Is it the intention thing again?
I'm not a big fan of going over and re-hashing things I've said on forums, let alone things that other people have said. Seeing as it looks like our conversation is rapidly devolving into going over and over old posts and quoting and re-quoting the same things to each other, I think I'll abandon the discussion of other people's posts on other forums. Other people are discussing this issue at the moment, and I don't think I'd have anything particularly useful or insightful to add in any case. Suffice to say that we can agree to disagree on this matter.
I never made the claim that all dissent is allowed or that certain kinds of dissent won't get you kicked. Very specifically see my arguments about safe space, and Alcoholics Anonymous. A+ is not a place to call into questions the fundamental concepts, it would not be a safe space if that was allowed.
A fundamental concept of A+ is that posting limericks is sexual harassment? Can you direct me to the particular link in the welcome basket, forum rule, or introductory thread that specifies this, please?
How would you distinguish an anecdote from a point of data?
There are usually checks and balances which aim to eliminate bias and cognitive flaws in points of data. Anecdotes are necessarily biased and flawed.
Let me ask you this - doesn't the argument that someone who has experienced something directly has more value than someone who hasn't automatically mean that we should value the opinions of those who have experienced religious feelings above those of atheists? Don't we, in fact, have to accept god's existence as true?
Now since the word wanker is primarily a British word, and relatively little known in the US, I believe you should listen to what Brits tell you about their experience and perhaps check your US* privilege I find that Americans assuming that their interpretation of language is always the correct one is very unwelcoming to us Brits and we wouldn't want this to become a non safe space for UK posters. Heaven forbid!
I must correct this. Here in the States, at least in my neck of the woods, the word "wanker" is quite common. Its definition, though, is (as you said) not sexualized. And you're also correct about the c-word; in the States it is almost exclusively applied to women, and it's also just about guaranteed to get you into a fight (again, at least around here).
I thought that at first, but looking at his posting times I think he's in Europe. Dutch, maybe, given his nick. Those dike pluggers with wooden shoes love the recursive handles, right H'ethetheth?
If you watch AA's video-link above in my last post-you will see him wink at you after he explains his user name. That is you, right AA? With the face of smug, youthful white privilege?
zooterkin may not be female, but I am, and we are both British. Wanker is a very common, fairly mild insult here, along the same lines as jerk or dickhead or prat or ******** (the autocensor caught that one, but it relates to the rectum). In Britain, many minor swearwords are almost totally removed in connotation from their etymological roots. I've discovered that the same can't be said in the US. For example, the "c" word - while pretty vulgar, is not a gendered insult in the UK, the way it seems to be in the US. Also, in the part of Britain I come from, the word "bugger" is very innocuous and used by fairly young children: as in "bugger off, you daft bugger".
Now since the word wanker is primarily a British word, and relatively little known in the US, I believe you should listen to what Brits tell you about their experience and perhaps check your US* privilege I find that Americans assuming that their interpretation of language is always the correct one is very unwelcoming to us Brits and we wouldn't want this to become a non safe space for UK posters. Heaven forbid!
*That is assuming you are from the US, please correct me if I am incorrect.
ETA And if all words which derive from sexual meanings make a space unsafe for women (delicate little flowers that we are) what do you make of the liberal use of the F-word by many of the regulars over there? Isn't that sexual talk which creates a chilly climate for women?
zooterkin may not be female, but I am, and we are both British. Wanker is a very common, fairly mild insult here, along the same lines as jerk or dickhead or prat or ******** (the autocensor caught that one, but it relates to the rectum).
I am not zooterkin, nor British, nor female. But I will say that while I agree that there are contexts in which the term "wanker" can clearly imply masturbation, there are also contexts in which it just as clearly has nothing to do with masturbation or anything sexual. I will further say that the limerick in question was about as clear an example of the latter as one could ask for, and that only someone going out of their way to find something to be offended by could possibly mistake it for the former. Calling it "sexual poetry" is such an obvious and egregious mischaracterization that I find it hard to believe it's not intentional. And I echo previous comments that if that is the A+ standard for "language that might trigger an unwanted sexual response," then everyone who has ever dropped an F-bomb on that board, in any context, should be subject to the same treatment.
I must correct this. Here in the States, at least in my neck of the woods, the word "wanker" is quite common. Its definition, though, is (as you said) not sexualized. And you're also correct about the c-word; in the States it is almost exclusively applied to women, and it's also just about guaranteed to get you into a fight (again, at least around here).
Ah, thank you. I have previously encountered Americans who had never heard the word before, and assumed that to be the case for most of the US. But as you say, the point still stands, since it is not a sexualised term in either locality. Apart from when certain people are looking for a reason to be offended.
So, if I'm following this correctly: Limericks are bad because they can be tool for oppressing women and enforcing the status quo. But there's no historical or social downside to favoritism.
@dasmiller, no limericks are not bad. They can be bad, and there is often sexual connotation with them. This is especially true when they contain sexual words.
There was some confusion about that point in the original thread, then. And simply containing a sexual word makes it bad? On a site where a vulgar slang word for intercourse is used routinely?
As for the downside for favoritism, you are stretching my point beyond recognition. I never made either of those claims and painting me into an absolute position is dishonest in the extreme. Context matters.
"dishonest" implies an intent to deceive, and I really must object to that. I sincerely believe that there's a substantive inconsistency in the A+ use of favoritism, and I think my example was on-point.
It is true that you didn't use the words "social" or "historical," but you said "The core assumption to this argument is that favoritism is bad, but I do not see any argument for why." I believe that the historical uses of favoritism are exactly why institutional favoritism is a very bad thing from an SJ perspective.
Groups forming bonds of trust with people they have come to rely on is a good thing. There are some downsides, this is true of any good thing, but solid relationships of mutual trust are good. Conversely trusting absolute strangers is bad. Much of the time nothing bad will happen, but with far more regularity than is good you will wind up hurt or dead. Bad people exist.
I believe you are conflating individual behavior with institutional behavior, and our objection (mine, anyway) is to the A+ policy of favoritism, not the actions of individual posters. It's one thing for you to be nice to you friends, it's another thing for the police or the courts or employers (or, on teh interwebz, the moderators) to have a different set of guidelines for dealing with people that they feel comfortable with.
Institutional favoritism is simply incompatible with fairness. It quickly, inevitably creates an oppressed class: by definition, some people will be treated worse than others, and when people complain about their treatment, they're considered to be unpleasant and untrustworthy, justifying any future poor treatment. This should be EXACTLY the sort of thing that A+ would be fighting, but the attitude seems to be "it's okay when we do it."
I am not zooterkin, nor British, nor female. But I will say that while I agree that there are contexts in which the term "wanker" can clearly imply masturbation,
There a precious few contexts in which I think the word "wanker" would have anything to do with masturbation. Wank, yes. But wanker?
In much the same way that I don't think that calling someone an effer (you'll have te bear with me due to the auto censor I mean a **********) has anything to do with sex, although the word **** ("the f word") clearly still has sexual uses. In what contexts do we need to differentiate those who masturbate (wankers) from those who do not (in a derogatory manner no less), when do we need to differentiate those who copulate from those who do not (****ers) in a derogatory manner? Surly these usages are all relics of a bygone slut shaming sex negative age? Why would anyone wish to reinforce those stereotypes?
If you want to go down that route of saying that words which have you may as well claim that the favored cry of "**** you" is either a sexual proposition or a rape threat.
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If not they should be. At A+, many posters just disappear. 
