So, really . . . who IS that nice man "raping" you?

But it's YOU saying it! I can't find anything in Elric's posts to disagree with ... at all

I suppose this is really what bothers me ... I don't understand why you keep starting threads like this.

Anyway ... yes I lost my rag a bit yesterday and I'm sorry.

Perhaps you have forgotten the obviously intentional, but unfortunate (in that it has set the ambiguous if not self-conflicting tone for the confused orchestration of your misappprehensions) juxtapositioning of violence and sex in the initial paragraph of your OP:



I don't feel imprisoned at all. I am completely liberated.
Who was it that said that war was how residents of North America learned geography?

See above. I don't feel constrained, so you are wrong before you even get to the second person you ask. If *you* feel imprisoned then you need to look inside yourself and see if you can work out your inadequacies yourself.

"feminist thought" - oxymoron of the year?

So your use of rulers is intentional as opposed to mindless?

Hooray! You *have* been listening to me.

Pep (Now you need to stop expressing your agenda in sexist terms; why do I get the feeling that you are going to have problems with that?)

PS Perhaps you should have heeded the advice of one of your heros: "A woman, especially if she has the misfortune of knowing anything, should conceal it as well as she can."

PPS Or perhaps you did.

As to the question: you're so well-read, go and well read that. Which would be why I drew your attention to it.

BTW, there is a universal forum rule, second only to Godwin's Law. It says that when someone gets 20 pages into a thread and then says "I'm not trying to define...", then they are deluding either themselves, or everyone else. I strongly suspect you're convinced that you are smarter than all your correspondents. So ponder this: Whether Dworykin was just "taking a position" or not, the fact is that after her words landed, they got used by other people for whom that was not a position, at all - it was a credo. If you've noticed the way that such things tend to evolve in society, then perhaps you should apply that same logic to the "positions" you are taking, and put in some effort to be more understandable; or more applicable; or ideally both.

I think you're casting aspersions here. I think what Scylla is trying to do is to try to get people to look at their positions on subjects by using examples of behaviour that may not be quite as they seem as an initial starting point and then drawing conversations out of that.

It's a brave thing to do. If it's a contentious subject then you're quite likely to have everything from your intentions to what you think is an innocuous statement misconstrued.

/me takes a sip of her coffee in a valiant attempt to wake up . . .


This is reasonable, but the argument that you make here -- that we take risks with predictors for behaviours that have more serious consequences -- is as applicable to the second part of your argument:


This is absolutely true. But the logic you have applied in your first paragraph applies here as well: if the data from a registry is misapplied in Second Life, the consequences of that misapplication are not terribly severe. No one will be facing an RL court; he or she would simply be banned from SL. And when the cost of that penalty, even when misapplied, is weighed against the possibility of the kind of emotional damage that someone can inflict in SL, this might seem a worthwhile risk. Indeed, all the more so if there is any chance that the predator wants to meet his potential victim in RL, where very very serious consequences indeed are possible.

Again, however, I'm not actually advocating this. But I think an argument can be made. We can only protect ourselves when we have the full information in front of us. As residents of SL, we do not; only LL has (potential) access to the sorts of info that might allow us to make informed decisions about whom we should trust. This is certainly as it should be, but it does mean that we might have to rely upon LL to make decisions based upon information to which we do not have access.

Well, if you don't disagree with THIS statement by Elric . . .


then I'm not sure why you are you taking issue with me, as he is actually quoting me here in agreement?


Because, while my personal investment in what constitutes BDSM is not high, my ideological and political interest in what BDSM "means" is. And because I want to know.


No need at all to apologize. I really value what you have to say on this, and I very much appreciate you making the time and effort to say it.

I have made note of the book, Gummi; thank you for the reference.

I doubt, on the strength of this statement, that I am going to be able to convince you that my motives in this part of the thread -- we have rather shifted away from the original OP here -- are not about trying to *tell* you or spinster what BDSM is. That's fine, I suppose.

At the same time, I am not going to be backed into the position that you seem to want me to take -- of trying to defend Dworkin's position, or the views of others who have adopted it. I've already said I disagree with it, strongly, and I oppose it - strongly - whenever it comes up in debate within feminist contexts. Feminism is an evolving and diverse thing, not a monolithic viewpoint: there is plenty within the movement that I strongly take issue with.

Thank you, Couldbe: this is indeed what I am trying to do.

I am wondering, however, about the continued utility of this thread, which has now wandered pretty far away from the OP.

I would LOVE to see a thread devoted to discussions of the nature and diversity of BDSM and its practices: it would be enormously informative. I think, in fact, we've spoken of that possibility before.

But I think that probably THIS thread is not the best place to have that discussion, because it would artificially seem to connect that topic with the OP, which was never intended to be about "BDSM" in the first place. Also, in a new thread on the subject, I would want to make my own very very tentative and interrogative position much more clear in the OP, precisely because I don't want to seem to be "dictating" to anyone what BDSM is or isn't.

Maybe next week . . .

Maybe not at all.

Pep (BDSM is not a suitable subject for unrestricted discussion in a PG forum; I suggest you take it to SC2 where they already have a BDSM subforum.)

This. x100

Thanks Mel. I might have suggested that sex and violence was not a suitable subject for a PG forum, but today the idiots running English education announced that they were going to start teaching kindergarten kids about domestic violence.

Pep (It wasn't even made clear what techniques they would be recommending.)

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8376943.stm

What?



Gallows humor. Lol.

I would too. I also find it interesting and would like to have a better understanding as to 'what it means' to aficionados, and not just hear other uninformed opinions like my own, as I already know that I don't know anything on the topic. Love drops pearls of calm informational wisdom , here and there and I do glean something from those. And I do wonder, based on examples even in this thread, if BDSM actually means different things, even to those that practice it, or consider themselves to be practicing it. Do they actually agree with one another, or is it different and can be anything you want it to be? I don't know that you will actually get that kind of discussion here Scylla. Because people can be so judgemental, I get the feeling that those who truly do understand and/or practice BDSM, are cautious and hesitant to put much out there, and rightly so, it's like asking for an attack of the righteous. So I do understand that, and possibly the best information you may get, may be just from private one on one discussion. If someone trusts you, they will talk to you, where they may not talk on the forum.

Well and this, too, yes. Very much true.

SC might be the place for such a discussion then.

But even then the topic is incredibly vast. On the other hand, it might be interesting to explore the differences between SL and RL BDSM, as well as those who explore it and why or why not.

Couldn't such topics be covered on other SL forums?

I don't find that the original post thesis has been 'proven' but more it's digging around in a prurient topic for other reasons, none of which seem very scientific. I'm not against the discussion. I don't much care. I just don't feel this is really the proper forum.

PS Elric, I owe you a Pepsi, I guess.

I think you may be a bit confused about what BDSM is and isn't tbh. Forced sex is not BDSM in any classic sense. It may be a human kink but isn't part of the traditional umbrella. Down the last few years though any kind of "perversion" seems to have made itself at home under that name. Trying to gain some kind of credibility or legitimacy?

I tried to have a discussion about that on one of my favourite kinkster sites and even they didn't get it. The theoretical no longer has a place it seems and these days if you call yourself something then you are apparently.

I also think you're flogging a dead horse trying to use these forums in this way. It makes an assumption that people are open to analytical and critical discourse that is at odds with what internet forums are.

You might do better over in one of the kinkster forums on slu.

Very insightful Treasure, especially as you have based your thoughts on a shallow amount of information.



Yes.



No.



Well.. maybe.



Especially the clueless. As the saying goes, some people here know just enough to be dangerous.

I am confused . . . and in large measure because I am hearing so many different things. I have actually suggested that it was my understanding that BDSM need not have anything to do with either sex or violence, and been taken to task for that. And that's cool: I don't have any fixed opinions myself at all.

Again, however, it's not surprising that I am hearing so many different opinions here: cultural expressions are rarely monolithic, and invariably there are "schisms" and "heresies." It would be interesting to hear you in discussion with spinster, for instance, or with Love: I suspect that we would hear some very diverse views.

A kind of open discussion on this WOULD be terrific, but I take the point that this is probably not the place to do it. I worry a bit about taking it to another forum -- even, for instance, a feminist one -- because established blogs and forums tend to have ready-made cliques and/or ideological predispositions, that would surely impact upon the discussion. A completely "neutral" forum would be the best place, but I'm not sure where that would be. Perhaps I will try this in SCII . . . but not today.

So are the practitioners.

Pep (They can't even agree on what BDSM stands for.)

Hein? I live in BC, not Quebec. Coca Cola, please! /me smiles

Actually, I do not imbibe pop (slight allergy to carbonation which can cause me to pass out most spectacularly and startled many fellow students in study hall at University once... but I digress).

Single malt scotch, please!

/me quirks a brow seriously. Apart from the D being interchangable between Dominance and Discipline, I really hope that's the only variant.

Young kids today, I tell you.

/me reads and consigns to his memory . . .

Pep ( . . . yet another reason to drink scotch rather than another liquid.)

Sadism/Submission?

Pep (But then again, do the letters *have* to mean anything?)

/me chuckles

I believe any reason is a good one to drink scotch. And I can honestly say that in all my years, scotch has never caused me to pass out!