May 2013
6 posts
4 tags
“…The culture tells us to look at the surface. If we want to revoke...”
– Invasion Of The Bodysnatchers |
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This is not the "persecution of old men". This is... →
…The fact that these men felt they were doing nothing wrong is precisely the problem. The fact that for generations, men of all ages have felt able to use and abuse the bodies of women and children for their own entertainment is the problem, and the fact that our culture legitimises this approach is a bigger problem.
For centuries, men in positions of power were untouchable, while women and...
6 tags
Got Consent? Part III: FetLife Doesn’t Get It |... →
…FetLife wants you to believe their walled garden is safe, but not only can anyone create an account in seconds, the walls themselves are full of holes. The security problems with FetLife were put on display when last summer, a simple proxy connection service was set up to allow access to the site without an account. FetLife responded by trying to block the server and assure everyone that...
4 tags
Monogamous Cultural Norms Contribute to Protecting...
unquietpirate:
Okay. I’m angry today so, instead of doing all the Important Responsible things I need to do like buy groceries and go to the bank, here’s a rant. It’s about what’s wrong with monogamy. But first I’m going to give a bunch of background that has to do with a computer program. I’ve been working on this post about the Predator Alert Tool for OkCupid and why it’s awesome. There’s...
10 tags
“…FetLife doesn’t even wait for users to complain; they proactively search...”
– Got Consent? Part III: FetLife Doesn’t Get It | Disrupting Dinner Parties
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“…FetLife is essentially saying that if you were raped, the onus is on you...”
– Got Consent? Part III: FetLife Doesn’t Get It | Disrupting Dinner Parties
April 2013
2 posts
7 tags
5 Ways We Can Teach Men Not to Rape - News & Views... →
…1. Teach young men about legal consent: Legal consent tops my list for a reason. Without it, sexual contact with someone is rape…whether you intended to rape or not. A woman who is drunk, unconscious or sleeping cannot give legal consent. And it’s not about a woman simply saying “no,” it’s really about making certain she’s saying yes!…
2. Teach young men to see women’s...
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“…Even if you believe, as I do, that the predators are not confused and...”
– Teach Consent! (But What Good Is Teaching Consent?) |
March 2013
1 post
9 tags
February 2013
2 posts
8 tags
Deep Inside - A Study of 10,000 Porn Stars | Jon... →
Fascinating despite its limitations. Any given piece of evidence in the edifice of science is gonna have its limitations, that’s a big part of the point of replication. & the study of human sexuality tends to get short shrift, lending a beggars can’t be choosers flavor to the mix.
Given all that, however, this is an interesting little looksee at a goodsized subset of porn,...
8 tags
The Pervocracy: The Myth of the Boner Werewolf. →
“…There’s a pernicious myth out there that the male sex drive is unstoppable and irresistible—that once a man is aroused, he literally cannot control his actions. We tell jokes about “thinking with the other head” and “all the blood went out of his brain” that aren’t entirely jokes. We have a cultural narrative in which sexual arousal makes...
January 2013
4 posts
10 tags
So, somebody called you a Unicorn Hunter? |... →
Decent explication of many of the problems of ‘unicorn hunting’.
Unicorn hunting is a kink, polyamory, & swinging term referring to the common scenario of couples looking for a ‘hot bi babe’ to form the perfect triad of their dreams. Since such scenarios working out as planned are as rare, or nearly so, as unicorns, the phrase was born . .. …
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“…so many…BDSMers would rather align themselves with systematic abuse...”
– This is a story of isolationism and group loyalty. How about we make it a story of compassion? « Kink in exile
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“…Those numbers are even worse than victim self-reports of rape in the...”
– One In Three Kinksters Reports A Consent Violation «
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December 2012
2 posts
6 tags
Tracking rape culture’s social license to operate... →
…if we continue to track spam reports this way, assuming that the publication of this post doesn’t change griefers’ future behaviors, we will eventually see the pattern described above repeat. That is, we’ll see the friends of an alleged abuser start to spam FAADE by reporting themselves with griefer reports. If this hypothesis can be proven, it may provide a far more reliable red flag for...
8 tags
PSA: it's not being a prude to object to strangers...
sinshine:
Nor is sending those kinds of messages “perfectly normal” or in any way acceptable.
November 2012
1 post
7 tags
“…While the scene’s mantra—“safe, sane and consensual”—is heard so often it...”
– The Story of ‘No’: S&M Sex Clubs Sprout Up on Ivy Campuses, and Coercion Becomes an Issue | Observer
October 2012
2 posts
12 tags
8 tags
FetLife Epic Thread « Maybe Maimed but Never... →
The FetLife Epic Thread user script makes reading long, passionate discussions on FetLife.com easier by adding comment threading for @-replies, a “previous/next” link for related comments, and visual highlights. Instead of needing to scroll past a bunch of unrelated comments, simply click the “Next in thread on page” link to go to the next comment in the thread. Rather than having to scroll up...
September 2012
3 posts
6 tags
“Fetlife has a monopoly in its space. People don’t use Fetlife because it’s...”
– Getting back in the swing of things « Kink in exile
9 tags
Hail to the Slash →
Okay, all you political perverts, here’s your presidential slash-fic site . .… . :)
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On Fetlife's Policy Preventing Naming Abusers in... →
This is cross-posted from this thread on Fetlife regarding many community members’ desire to change the policy preventing users from posting any identifying information, including usernames, of people they claim are abusers or rapists. Currently, if anyone publicly posts a “criminal accusation” the Fetlife team will go in and remove any and all information identifying the accused. Many people...
August 2012
24 posts
14 tags
colored queer waters: the need for anti-oppression... →
navigatethestream:
TW: Discussion of racism
i’ve probably opened, written, and then closed the tab a thousand times.
do i really want my email address attached to this site?- i kept asking myself
its a small small world out there- an excuse as to why it didn’t seem like a good idea
but finally, out of curiosity, i caved and hit the submit button on fetlife’s sign up page.
i immediately...
11 tags
Kinksters Sued & Suing For Defamation →
I note very carefully that FetLife is not getting sued, so, so much for the whole ‘FetLife will get sued’ meme. FL was never in any danger of getting sued over its users accusing each other, the people making accusations risk getting sued — as long as FL takes down the material targeted by whomever’s lawyers. All FL has ever been legally obliged to do is take down material...
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So You Think The Internet Is Private? (i) →
The internet, in general, has an ‘image collector’ problem:
…R/photobucketplunder may have gone dark, but a new subreddit made up of the same core community has already sprung up, using the name r/photoplunder in an effort to scrub all references to Photobucket from the site.
Even with a new name, it’s business as usual. The community already has 1,800 subscribers and a...
8 tags
Nice Person Syndrome
The Nice Person Syndrome from: “Anal Pleasure & Health”, by Jack Morin (Down There Press, 1998), pages 145-147
…Some of us are strongly influenced by a destructive pattern called the Nice Person Syndrome, which distorts or totally blocks effective communication. The Nice Person Syndrome is an exaggerated role adopted during childhood as a means of getting approval and...
7 tags
Feel the Love: If speaking up means breaking The... →
An oldy-but-a-goody. Kink ‘community’s’ abuse problem has been around for a long long long time. Used to be that discarded subjects of abuse were routinely told they had no one to blame but themselves. Used to be that the discarded subjects of abuse had nowhere to go. Many probably thought they were the only ones . … .
& then the internet happened. & all those discarded subjects of abuse,...
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So You Think FetLife Is Private? (iii)
Over the years I’ve been hanging out there, I’ve encountered hordes of clueless FetLifers after clueless FL’ers, wandering around, posting identifying information, disclosing to one & all their inability to be ‘out’ & equally clueless about the risk they’re taking. & when the lack of privacy is pointed out? Defensively arguing how ‘kinksters...
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How risky is oral sex? - Salon.com →
…A University of California, San Francisco, study put the per-contact risk of transmission through “receptive” fellatio with an HIV positive partner at 0.04 percent. (For perspective, consider that the same study found a much higher per-contact risk of 0.82 percent for unprotected receptive anal sex.)… …STD clinics have reported that 5 to 10 percent of patients have gonorrhea...
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Consent Culture » Blog Archive » The Ongoing... →
Lemons into lemonade, often it’s the best recipe we’ve got:
…Thanks to “50 Shades of Grey”, I’ve been getting calls nonstop for my stance on BDSM and consent. And I’m talking about it. I make sure every single time I’m reached for an interview I say that kink is complicated, that rape culture exists and is mostly unchallenged within BDSM communities on- and offline, and I...
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So You Think FetLife Is Private? (ii) →
I basically figure that my ‘age group’ & those older, who mostly did not grow up with computers & the ‘net, are mostly ignorant of vast amounts of ‘how the internet works’ & etc kinds of base knowledge, period. & access to computers being spotty for all kinds of other demographic groups, tech-literacy & -savvy is spotty at best. The disconnects...
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So You Think FetLife Is Private? (i) →
This is the second SomethingAwful thread poking fun of FetLife content.
Here’s the take-down letter FL honchos sent to Something Awful, as reposted by SA somebodies (???). I particularly note this bit:
…3) Please never make fun of the site http://www.fetlife.com, I repeat, the site http://www.fetlife.com. Don’t do it now or ever. http://www.fetlife.com…
Chasing around the...
8 tags
'Friending' on FetLife
From my FetLife profile, reposted to Tumblr by request:
I un-‘friended’ everybody on FetLife some time ago. I’m having a lot of discomfort about the ‘friending’ function on FL.
FetLife is often compared to a big house kinksters get to share, John Baku’s kink-friendly house the kinky all get to hang out in. The ‘friend’ function is an awful lot...
17 tags
Feel the Love: a story about mid scene... →
…I don’t know if this should have a trigger warning or what it would be. But, yeah.
So. I’ma tell a little story about one of my first experiences in the kink community. It’s icky and painful, and it doesn’t make me proud in any way, but this is the sort of stuff that’s been running through my head non stop since I recently reentered the conversation about consent and abuse and such.
This...
19 tags
The Kink Scene Has An Abuse Problem
For those who don’t know & would like to get up to speed about the issue of abuse in the kink community, this is a useful start:
There’s A War On Part 1: Trouble’s Been Brewing
There’s A War On Part 2: The Creepy Dom and The People On The Fringe
There’s A War On Part 3: A Fungus Among Us
There’s A War On Part 4: Just Us
There’s A War On Part 5: Wallowing In The SL-Op
{Where SL-Op...
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Shaping Kinkster Culture →
…Talk About Ethics, Expect Ethics
Doing things to people that they don’t consent to is wrong. We all need to stop pretending that it’s rude to say that. Violating limits isn’t cute or funny or edgy. Joking about violating limits isn’t cute or funny or edgy. Kate Harding, speaking in a vanilla context, said something that I think is very true in this context also:
“…But please...
11 tags
There Is Bad Pain.
I’m so tired of hearing, with near infinite variety, the tired notion that masochists enjoy every kind of pain. Especially when it comes out of those who oughta know better — like, say, kinksters. & most particularly outta toply / domly types. & the few masos who do like to have their hands slammed in car doors & similar are not helping. The rest of us would like you to...
10 tags
The Pervocracy: The scene is not safe. →
…1. Let new people know the scene is dangerous. Newcomers shouldn’t be hearing “BDSM is all about consent.” Newcomers should be hearing “BDSM should be all about consent, but there are a few people here who won’t respect that, and we don’t know who they are.” We shouldn’t be teaching new people to relax and take it all in stride; we should be...
11 tags
There’s A War On Part 7: There’s A Crack In... →
…I don’t need the public scene for me. I don’t need the orgs and the parties. The cops are not going to come knocking on my door and look for a singletail or check my wife’s body for bruises. Where and how I live, with the class and race and other privileges that go with it and all that, you can tell me to worry all you want, but I won’t. I tell doctors about my kinks if I need to for...
7 tags
Before I got into kink ‘community’ I’d been working on my stuff for a long time, ya know, & I’d gotten very clear about how ‘boundary jumping’ & ‘boundary testing’ are basic tools in both the predator & the problem-person kit.
Initially I was confused by all the ‘boundary pushing’ stuff that goes on in kink; some of...
9 tags
There’s A War On Part 5: Wallowing In The SL-Op « →
…I repurposed the term [SL-Op] from extractive industries like mining and oil, where it expresses the concept that aside from whatever formal regulations govern their operations, they have to maintain enough goodwill that forces are not mobilized to shut them down. Which is not far from what I mean in the rape and abuse context. Law and regulation and social structures are all dynamic...
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No Chosen People « →
…we are not the chosen people. We do some things right, but we also do some things wrong. And if we can’t listen to people — to women — when they say what their boundaries are, we have an urgent and pressing need to improve our own communities, rather than bask in the glow of having delivered to the world the ideas of negotiation, safewords and aftercare.
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Safety Fetishism vs Risk Fetishism
I noticed this a while ago, a ‘chasm’ in the out-&-organized kink ‘community’ (such as that is) between those who get off on risk versus those who get off on feeling safe, basically. I lean way over on the safety side, & I think I noticed it because so much of online kink social networking revolves around displays of risk-taking thrill-seeking stuff.
Not that...
8 tags
I was reading this 50 Shites recap & the blogger suggested Wiki’ing ‘submissive’. It auto redirects to ‘deference’, sensible, the much more prevalent ‘vanilla’ meaning that more widely applies. But, what was interesting, was that one of the ‘suggested’ terms as I was typing in ‘submissive’ was ‘submissive...
8 tags
Holy Crap!
Yes, that is in ‘honor’ (or mocking or something) of Miss Anastasia Rose Steele. Thanks to all the many deconstructions / read-alongs of those crappy novels, I have all those ‘vanilla swears’ stuck in my head, lol. I grew up with those ‘safe cursewords’ & there’s this groove worn in my head in their shape & all it takes is something like 50 Shades...
9 tags
So. A rope-junky friend of mine & I were discussing a favorite topic, kink education. Particularly teaching rigging skills. Most especially the spreading of suspension education. Yeah. So. Excerpts from my end of that convo:
…Annoyed. I’m so way frickin’ past this whole...