Me

The BBQ Pit
1

I’m not really sure how to go about writing this thread. I’ve been a pretty much annonymous face in the crowd here for nigh on three years now, but as of late it seems I’ve gained the dislike of more than one fellow doper.

In this thread Homebrew states:

and, later in the same thread, ultress proclaims:

Well, I guess I’m rather thick headed, because I hadn’t picked up on that.

I recently made a MPSIMS that I will not link to because it has been locked, but some of you may remember the thread I’m talking about. This seems to be where this entire mess was started. All I did was let out some thoughts that had been on my mind and ask for a little bit of friendly advice. What followed was nearly 80 posts of people attacking me and basically calling me a big jerk. I’m not trying to portray myself as an innocent little lamb devoid of all guilt in the situation, because I did say some things that I probably shouldn’t have said, but I apologized and tried my best throughout that thread and the ensuing pit thread to stay rational, lighthearted, and not launch any personal attacks against other posters. Many posters failed miserably short of staying rational and not personally attacking me.
Now, Homebrew seems to be mad at me for stating my opinion in this thread, which was non offensive, not attacking, and many dopers agreed with. All I said was that it wasn’t uncommon or surprising, am I not allowed to state a rational opinion in your threads Homebrew? Did what I said in that thread really bother you or were you just mad about my OP mentioned earlier? Just to address a point made in your Lesbian Cutest couple thread without ressurecting it for needless arguement:

Troy McClure SF said:

To which I replied:

to which Troy McClure SF replied:

Well, let’s see here, I don’t remember the last time a thread got started because a straight couple was elected cutest. The thread was obviously supposed to surprise everyone and I simply stated that it didn’t seem unusual to me. What’s wrong with that? I wasn’t a jerk about it, I made no personal attacks and didn’t use any swear words. Why would you take offense at that?
Now, back to ultress. You said:

Sorry, I don’t remember you from that thread. I do remember you from the pit extension of it though and you came in and needlessly attacked me in the middle of myself and several other dopers (yosemitebabe and libertarian come to mind) calmly and rationally finding a middle ground in our differences. I wasn’t the only one who noticed how unneccesary that was, even in the pit.

Next you said:

Well, I’m not the same age as the OP of that thread and I don’t have a sucky attitude towards people and life. Did you deduce that from the 5 or so posts of mine you’ve read out of over a thousand, or however many posts I’ve made here? I try to keep a very positive attitude towards people and life in general. You’re actually the only doper I can recall ever being rude to on purpose and that’s because, in the few instances I remember interacting with you, you’ve came across with such a horrible attitude. Maybe you’re a great person and a model doper, maybe we would even get along great if we got to know each other, I don’t know. I just know you’ve presented a bad attitude to me from the start.

Now, there seems to be one last case where I lost favor in the eyes of my fellow noble dopers. There’s a thread, still not far from the front page of the pit, where I said some things I really shouldn’t have said. I believe it’s titled “Some arrogant ass got paid for this review of The Two Towers?” but I won’t link to it because I posted some pretty major spoilers without spoiler tags and I don’t want to ruin it for anyone else.

This is the one case where I believe I was completely 100% in the wrong and I was being a total ass. I apoligize to any that read that thread and I have contacted all three pits mods asking them to please edit my posts in that thread. I suppose they are on holiday vacation right now and haven’t had a chance to modify my posts so again: I am truly sorry for acting like such a dick that day and don’t read that thread yet unless you don’t mind major LotR and Citizen Kane spoilers.

I had a few other topics I wanted to address but somehow in the midst of typing this they’ve slipped my mind. I might be back later to amend this post.

In conclusion, some might say that I was asking to be flamed by starting this thread. Well, in a way I kind of am. I’ve been pretty stressed lately and I know I’ve acted needlessly like a dick, especially in the Two Towers thread. I want to be redeemed in the eyes of all that I’ve obviously lost respect from and I don’t feel like that can happen over in MPSIMS. Flame on.

2

:rolleyes:

3

I’m not sure why Hastur rolled his eyes at your apology, but I think you were being sincere. And it doesn’t look like you’ve done anything maliciously or hate-filled, from what I can tell. So, okay. I don’t have a flame for you.

How about a simple, “Merry Christmas.”

4

Add me to the list of dopers who were incensed by your LoTR spoilers, but hey, you recognized that you were being a dick in that thread, and that’s a BIG step towards starting over.

So, FWIW, I accept your apology, and here’s to a new beginning. Merry Christmas! :slight_smile:

5

Cisco, I think that was a classy apology. In the lesbian thread, I can see where people would think you were saying that lesbians have no problems with discrimination and gaybashing just because you personally have never seen it. And in the thread about your girlfriend’s religion (not the Pit one) I personally thought you were being a punkass about it, and I told you so, only not in so many words. But you don’t seem like a bad person. Maybe you just have a way of saying things that makes you sound more insensitive than you are. If you just accept responsibility and take forward the lessons learned, I’m sure people won’t hold it against you. And if they do, the hell with them. One does the best one can.

6

I figured the misunderstanding in the lesbian thread had something to do with the generation gap. Are you fairly young, Cisco? I’m 24 and I’ve had similar experiences. I can’t tell you how many guys I’ve met who were openly homophobic when it came to men, but worshipped the ground that lesbians walk on.

I also thought that ultress’s comment about you not being a respected poster was rude as fucking hell, even for the pit. I like how she speaks for all 28,000 of us. Fucking cute.

A preemptive pit thread chock full of sincere apologies for your past actions is admirable, IMHO. Everybody fucks up now and then. I know I’ve had my share of embarassing incidents on this board. I’ve said stupid shit and was (rightfully) flamed mercilessly for it. I learned from the flames and apologized. And I meant it. Apparently, so do you. Good job, Cisco.

7

I always respect and admire an attempt to apologize, as long as the attempt is sincere. Which, in this case, I think it is. I haven’t read some of the threads mentioned (though remember the Christian girlfriend one well) and I didn’t think you deserved a lot of the crap you got. Did I think you were mistaken or “wrong” in some of the points you tried to make? Sure. But that didn’t automatically make you an asshole.

Once again, I’ll repeat—I think when an apology is sincerely made, credit must be given for that. I think there are too many people on these boards to keep holding a grudge forever. We all grow, learn, and evolve. I’d much rather deal with a person who screwed up semi-frequently but was able to admit it and apologize for it than a person who screwed up less often, but was NEVER able to admit it or apologize over their missteps.

8

I honestly don’t understand the idea that you express that Lesbians are somehow immune to homophobia. Just days, or perhaps even hours, after I posted the thread about the couple, some else posted a thread about a jr. high girl being banned from her gym class for being a lesbian. No homophobia? Read the stories in the gaybashing thread and tell me that homophobia and violence towards lesbians doesn’t exist.

I found your comments somewhat dismissive of the signficance of the event. The whole point of the thread was that things may be getting better if something like that could happen. For you to come in and say, “eh, no big deal,” would be a great thing, if that were true. And perhaps it is no big deal for some of you. But for people who live it day to day, this was a signficant event that gives some hope for a better future.

Yes, you pissed me off. Put that thread with the other two, all three taking place within a few days of each other, and you’ve burst into my awareness as an amazing asshole.

But I’ll accept at face value that you meant nothing offensive with your comments in my thread. Although, I think you should read (or re-read again) the gaybashing thread to gain a little prespective. I’ll chalk up your girlfriend thread as a learning experience for you. Afterall, I’ve got my own issues with religion. And I’ll acknowledge your apology for the errors in the TTT thread.

You’re absolved. Go and sin no more.

9

My sentiments exactly, Homebrew and Cisco.

Homebrew was highlighting a step being taken in the Fight Against Ignorance™, in the midst of high school, a place not known for tolerance. Obviously, we’ve all had different life experiences, so the weight of that event may not register as much with you. But we all teach and we all learn, eh?

Anyhoo, forgiven and forgotten. As far as I’m concerned, you’re a poster in good standing.

BTW, what’s the inspiration for your username?

10

What’s going on? I really need to start hanging around this board more often. :slight_smile:

11

Gosh, where have those men been my whole life? I sure could have used some worshippers when I was having bolts thrown at my head or having myself thrown into garbage cans when I was in high school – and I’m a few years younger than you are, so it’s not a generation gap. And I went to school in a notoriously liberal mid-sized city, not some rural backwater.

Or perhaps by “worshipped the ground that lesbians walk on” you meant “subjected lesbians to persistent unwanted and inappropriate sexual advances”. Been there, done that. I’ll grant that it’s preferable to being brutally beaten and left to die, but that’s about all I’ll grant you.

Plenty of men like girl-on-girl porn, but that doesn’t mean they like real lesbians. It doesn’t mean they want to be their friends. It doesn’t even mean they’re willing to respect their basic human dignity. All it means is that sometimes when these guys jack off they like to think about two chicks goin’ at it. If you, or Cisco, or anyone, thinks this is some sort of great achievement for the “lesbian cause” then you are delusional.

12

Well, I never said that all lesbians have it great, and I’m truly sorry to hear about your experiences.

As for how actual, living, breathing lesbians were treated at my high school, well…umm, there weren’t any. I mean I’m sure they existed, but they were all in the closet. There was one bisexual girl, but she seemed to have tons of friends.

The one gay man that came out was taunted so much that he ended up switching schools. There was even an article in the paper about how intolerant students of my school were.

Again, I’m sorry that you had to go through shit like that, and I’m sorry if my remarks were insensitive.

13

I’m not surprised. Most lesbians don’t come out young, and part of the reason is that they quite rationally do not expect to “have it great” if they do. Many also do not come out because they share the impression you and Cisco seem to have of the lesbian as some sort of semi-mythical porn goddess, and that’s just not something they can identify with. It’s not something the average teenaged lesbian or bisexual girl can look at and say “That’s me! I want to have sex with women, just like her!” It’s more like, “That’s not like me at all! But I don’t feel the same way about boys as other girls I know. I guess I’m just some sort of freak. Better keep quiet about it…”

It’s okay, and I do appreciate the apology. I just want people to realize that the acceptance of “hot girl-on-girl action” as popular entertainment does not equate to acceptance of, or even social justice for, real lesbian and bisexual women. It’s sort of a personal mission for me here on the SDMB to fight that particular bit of ignorance whenever it shows itself, which is disappointingly often.

I don’t deny that gay men have a rough time of it, and when it comes to outright violence I would not be surprised if they were at much greater risk than lesbians. But an important reason for the comparative lack of open hostility towards lesbians is the fact that many people don’t really believe that lesbians exist at all! They believe in women who can’t get a man, women who wish they were men, and the pornographic “chick so horny she’ll do anyone…even another chick!”, but the idea “woman who genuinely wants to have sex with another woman” just doesn’t compute. And when it does – when a man who may claim to “love lesbians” finally comprehends that the woman before him is not willing to have sex with him or put on a little “hot lesbo action” show for his entertainment – things can turn very, very ugly.

I think this is why I have so often heard straight people (men and women both) say that they think lesbians must have it great because they’re so popular but have never heard a lesbian say that she really liked the way guys treated her. The sort of guy you mentioned before, the type who are openly homophobic towards gay men but “worship” lesbians, are rarely pleasant to lesbians in real life. They are the sort of guy I do my best to stay far away from, because they are at best creepy and at worst the type who rape women to “cure them” or “teach them a lesson”.

That sort of guy is no friend to lesbians, and it galls me whenever anyone suggests that he is, or that lesbian and bisexual women must have it easy because he is so eager to treat them like an erotic freakshow. This seems simple and obvious to me, but a lot of people don’t understand it. I hope they will, someday. Someday soon. I’d like that a lot.

Sorry for going on so long about this, but it’s an important subject to me.

14

Lamia - I didn’t really want to debate this here but let me just ask; how are your assumptions about guys jacking off to lesbian porn any more valid than my observations of lesbians being treated nice?

Neither one of them are canon law, they are merely personal observations. I never said that all lesbians get treated great and hopefully you aren’t saying that all guys jack off to lesbian porn but secretly hate lesbians.

I was just thinking this after hanging out with two lesbians in a large group last night and they got treated perfectly normal.

I also wanted to mention that, as I recall, you are the only person who has said anything whatsoever about porn.

15

Well, FWIW, Cisco, I don’t think you’re a dick. << shrug >>

16

Um, I’m not assuming that there are men who jack off to lesbian porn. I know there are, because many men freely admit to it. You could find plenty examples of this here on this very message board! If you can produce a single lesbian who can honestly say, “Gosh, I sure love the way straight guys start treating me as soon as they find out I’m a lesbian!” then perhaps your assertions will have some similar claim to validity.

I think I very clearly did not say that, so I don’t know why you’re bringing it up. I was quite careful to use qualifiers a’plenty, words like “some” and “many” and “the sort of guy”. When I wish to make a statement about all men I will type the words “all men”.

I don’t believe you exhibited similar care, but even if you did it doesn’t matter much to me because I do not believe for one minute that you have ever encountered even one young lesbian who, by virtue of her lesbianism alone, was ever treated especially nicely by any adolescent non-lesbians. I know I never have, and I’d bet that I know a lot more lesbians than you do.

That’s very nice. But you did not claim in the other thread that lesbians were treated “perfectly normal”, but that they were treated better than that, just because they are lesbians. You were called on that in the other thread by plenty of other posters, and I did not feel the need to join in. I am only doing so now because I did not like seeing you get patted on the back for your big apology when that apology explicitly excluded any admission that your bizarre claims about the high status of lesbians in contemporary American society might reasonably be considered both incorrect and offensive.

For what it’s worth I don’t think you’re a dick either, I just think you’re a young man who has drawn false conclusions from limited experience.

17

Well if you’re going to say I was ‘called on it by plenty of other posters’ then you also have to mention that plenty of other posters agreed with me.

You know what you’ve seen, I know what I’ve seen. You have a negative view on the matter, I have a positive one. We’re not going to reach a conclusion here nor do I care to. Feel free to start another thread if you feel that strongly about the subject.

18

I only mentioned that others disagreed with you as a reason why I did not participate in the other thread – I had nothing to say there that hadn’t been said already. I don’t see how the fact that one – not plenty, one (two if you count Blackeyes, who agreed at first then took it back) – person in that thread did agree with you is relevant to that point, so no, I don’t think I “have to mention” it.

I have a negative view of your opinion to either perceive reality or speak the truth if you are going to continue to insist that you have “never even heard of lesbians being treated as anything less than goddesses”.

**

Thanks for the invitation, but I have never started a Pit thread about another poster and you are not going to be my first.

19

::in awed silence:: Please start another thread if you wish to continue speaking about this. And I don’t necessarily mean a thread involving me or even a pit thread. This discussion is scarcely relevant to this thread.

20

I do not really wish to discuss anti-lesbian discrimination here, what I wish to discuss is the fact that in a so-called apology thread you have not only failed but actually explicitly refused to apologize for offending people in the other thread. If you still don’t want to apologize for it then fine, that’s your right. I’m not going to demand an apology. I am merely going to point out to everyone praising you here for being a big enough man to apologize that you did not actually apologize for everything. And if that is not relevant to this thread then I don’t know what is.