Oh yeah, we had a lot of threads here in ATMB about Misogyny . I remember one was about something about “who is hotter Mary Ann or Ginger” or something like that, and I took a rather middle position of get rid of the misogynist assholes, but Threads like that can just be meant in fun. But since the other posters mentioned it was mostly in the pit, yes, I was likely “up in the trees”, or I am Captain Oblivious sometimes unaware of what was really going on. But I never heard the term 'rape month" until today.
I am glad we have taken a stand against the bad stuff. I fully support that.
I love to debate, but the issue with this issue is that you cant debate it. You cant even take a middle ground, which is what I like to do. You either say “Yeah, absolutely, you are clearly very right” or stay out. I need to learn to stay out.
The fact that some people are having fun doesn’t mean that there isn’t a problem. The fact that some people think certain sorts of things are fun is itself a good deal of the problem.
I don’t understand why threads like that can’t be had in fun. Nobody is required to read them. I’m uncomfortable with the idea that everything to do with sexuality is off the table.
I recently remarked that I wanted to have a fictional character’s babies. Is that no longer allowed?
I don’t know what a “middle ground” is on the subject of rape, but I’d be happy with the most egregious comments and hijacks getting modded while allowing a certain degree of ignorance-fighting to happen. In the case of the Der Trihs cluster, that thread was specifically a “share your story of sexual assault” thread and he should have been modded immediately for trying to hijack it.
The central tension is whether we want a safe space for sexual assault survivors or whether we want to fight ignorance about sexual assault. Maybe there is a middle ground. I don’t know.
While this is a real phenomenon and it would be dishonest and unfair to deny that, there’s also another real phenomenon that can be important in these kinds of conversations.
That’s the situation where… let’s say that opinions about a thing can range from 1 to 10, and 4-6 is the “middle ground.” Often somebody will plant their flag on position 8 and say that they’re in the middle, because they can concretely point to the fact that they aren’t in position 9 or 10. And then, based on the response to position 8, they conclude well, I guess you just can’t take a nuanced, subtle intellectual posture anymore. Someone in position 3 might look at that and say nah, man, you can be in the middle. You just aren’t.
Options could be different rules in different forums, or requiring a trigger warning on threads devoted to certain topics, with content inappropriate for a given thread strictly modded.
My understanding is the rules are more laxed in the Café when talking about actors & actresses or models or the like. It still shouldn’t look like Penthouse letters though no matter what.
I’m a mod and I’m not 100% sure of the rules though.
That would be for the ‘so-and-so is hot’ type of comments? For the subject of sexual assault it would need to be the other way around; ignorance allowed in the debate forums in order to fight it (and probably in the pit too), other forums a safe space.
OK. So I guess I can still fangirl over Aral Vorkosigan. I have no idea what he looks like anyway.
I guess it depends upon the nature of the thread. In a thread soliciting experiences of sexual assault, people can learn just by reading. But in a thread about, say, Aziz Ansari, where the line is blurred about what actually happened or what constitutes assault, if we shut down ignorance, there’s nothing left to say. There’s no opportunity for learning if there’s no debate to begin with.
I’m curious about what you would have done in the following situation. In a thread, “Is Sydney Powell Insane?” someone remarked that she was cute. I considered that jerky and mod noted him saying so (No warning). Would you have let it pass?
Actually, it was worse than than just saying she was cute. The post implied he would have sex with her if she weren’t crazy: “But … (don’t put it in the crazy) …she’s kind of cute”. It was more than commenting on her attractiveness, it was a crude sexual comment.
I probably would have modded that. I’m not personally bothered by it, but the decision to mod, or not mod isn’t really about one’s personal sensibilities so much as facilitating whatever kind of culture is desired. And you wouldn’t want a culture where people are always making gratuitous sexual comments about public figures, I presume.
You cant even take a middle ground, which is what I like to do. You either say “Yeah, absolutely, you are clearly very right” or stay out. I need to learn to stay out.