Inclusive Communities and Representations of Violence against Women

this...

Funny how the thread sputters into silence as I call people on their accusation that I have been secretly hiding a desire to ban rape RP . . .

Desmond, if I missed some "serious discussion points" that you asked . . . and it's entirely possible I did, as this has been a rather long and convoluted thread and I have a fairly busy RL . . . then by all means post them here, or send them to me in-world, and I will do my best to answer.

I have sincerely been trying to present what I thought was a fairly modest attempt at finding a middle ground, as I once did with the dolcett owner I have mentioned above. It has clearly failed. My REAL "hidden agenda," insofar as I actually have one, is a proposal submitted for an exhibit on community building and consensus in SL. This has been, in that sense anyway, a most enlightening experience.

Some of us like the word " forced". For some of us, "I want to force you to do x" is sweet nothings in the ear (ok, obviously it needs a bit more of a poetic take, but this is a PG forum). I reiterate: where do women like me fit into your world view?

Re-education camps to cure you of your afflictions?

Sounds fun! Where do I sign up?

"Why can't we work out our differences?
Why can't we work things out?
Little people,
why can't we all just get along?"

President Dale in Mars Attacks!

Idiot. Her SL name is Puppy, I don't 'call' her that, it is her name.

Rock

No, it sputters to silence because you have skipped every serious post and question to you.



Most everyone else who has been interested in a serious discussion has read every message. If you honestly want a discussion, you would do the same thing. Otherwise it truly has the appearance of you just cherry picking questions that you can ridicule.

I have this super-power called "common sense". And I trust that most everyone including you have it as well.

He doesn't know, he just makes things up to support his arguments. Of course, he will now just redefine 'everyone' for us.

Rock

omg i loved that movie lol
i want a little chihuahua body and my head on it lol

C'mere lil chihuahua

Awww, too cute! [In SL, anything is possible. ]

"For doing what I want?" What is that exactly? I make no demands on the people who RP in Anubia, whatsoever. As for the pampering, that is not done by me either. You really need to get your facts right. If this is the kind of drivel you come out with after 'thinking', I'd advise you give it up as a bad job.

Rock

That's new to you. When did you acquire it?

Common sense is a normal power to most people, it is a super-power to Argent, probably gets it every full moon. I always seem to catch him in between phases though

Rock

Ok, having just run into this thread, I feel I have to put my 2 cents in here n this point.

There are MANY women, and men, that use SL as a tool to deal with their past RL abuses. As a SAFE way to act out the anger and other feelings associated with this abuse. That said, I understand your concern and for the uninitiated (the newbie) it could come as quite a shock to "walk in on" a rape, just as in RL it would be. The difference here is that WE HAVE THE CONTROL TO LEAVE THE SITUATION!

Everyone on SL is supposedly a grownup so, why can't they ACT like grownups and remove themselves from the situation, deal with seeing cartoon characters having sex, violent or not, and go about their merry ways? Would you stand there, watching two people having sex on their own land? Of course not, if it offended you. All it comes down to is COMMON SENSE.

If you see a sim named "Johns Vicious Brothel" and you were offended by sex/violence/degredation of ANYONE, you'd be smart enough to NOT go there. If you were in a store selling poseballs and saw two people, naked, trying out them, you'd have a right to be offended. that goes to common sense as well. If you're offended by this, don't go there. Pretty cut and dried dontcha think? Yeah, me too



I myself role play in the Gorean sims. While they are adult content, MOST of the time you don't see the actual sex acts. What you see, MOSTLY, is beautiful women, kneeling OF THEIR OWN ACCORD, to another person, both male AND female. They have MADE THE CHOICE to do this. It's called freedom of choice. In my sim, I have MANY people that AREN'T slaves but that enjoy the role play of fighting and interrogation, servitude, secrecy and all the seedier sides of humanity. NOONE is MADE to do ANYTHING that offends them, IF THEY take the initiative to tell the person they are with that it upsets them. RESPONSIBILITY of the PLAYER is ALWAYS paramount.

If you aren't responsible enough to understand what upsets you AND AVOID IT, maybe you should return to your Betty Crocker kitchen and whip up some cookies. Stay in the house RL and off the internet.... it's a scary world out there......

Of course, yes. I understand now.

According to your post 561, you use the word We, which tends to indicate that you are including yourself in the statement.

Also, studies refuting your studies were posted, but you never commented on them, why?

because, as I saID in a previous post in this thread, there is a basic dichotonmy betrween those who view BDSM AS a sexual orientation, wothy of as much respect as being gay lesbian, biseual, transexual ... whatever; and those who view what we do as an optional extra which we cxan give up easily without significant cost to our sense of sefl.

thAt'swhy.
(and yes I am trolleyed and yes I am going to bed.)

I haven't followed this thread, except for the last few pages, out of curiosity, and I don't know who this might disagree with, but I've learned over time that many women like the idea of being forced to have sex, to the extent of enjoying simulating it in RL - as long as they know it is safe, of course. So I don't see that a "forced sex" animation is anything out of the ordinary.

The idea that coming across the idea of it might cause some people to shudder, due to a bad personal experience, doesn't hold up, imo. People who follow the daily news can't help but come across the idea of it.

Since you were so flippant when given a post and an example I'll break it down



There are already these rules in place : see Community Standards and ToS.

There is also going to be LL pointing you at the mute button and the teleport buttons which are there for your use as well.

There is nobody silenced in SL's communities.




Those are not representations of violence agaisnt women, they are consensual scenes of role-play. The participants may be female, male or other on the pose balls and in the roleplay.

The poses and activities are limited to certain areas marked mature, that are privately owned locations. There is no activity in public as the word is meant in regard to public places in the real world.

Your agenda shows here in that you focus only on women, you do not refer to general violence against people.

And you have a choice not to enter those sims, you chose to enter them. Mature currently means anything goes, you are welcome to stick to the private areas that suit your tastes. There are those in SL who have never entered a non-pg sim or land.





It works just fine as is, when people take personal responsibility and accept there are going to be things that upset them or offend them. and they have the tools given to all residents in dealing with them : mute, teleport, shut off SL




No you equate it to a hate crime, and go on above about how it should be removed from SL as such...



As long as it's sex acts you find enjoyable. There is no non-consensual acts in sl.




So you consider people playing out a fantasy to be a hate crime, because it disturbs you.

I consider forcing one's dislikes onto others under the guise of moral rights and wrongs to be a hate crime based on the past history of humanity.



There is no public activity, every sim and plot of land is private. Even those that are not set to only allow group entrance are still private.

All this from someone who describes themself as a 'widdle kid' and whose interests include 'playin and bein a general pain in the ankles of growed ups'.

Rock

Oh so you beat your pets if they don't do as you ask?

You said that we treat them with gifts and not the stick..

That is the equivalent of saying "hey little girl want some candy"

And you condone it on your sim... even if you don't do it yourself you condone the objectification of hurt and abused ladies being groomed into pets...

So in effect you promote that behavior you sick sick man

I found the 'study' posted by Autumn very interesting indeed, and I thank her for directing me to it. However, I put the word 'study' in quotes as it was not really a study, but a critique of studies.

The author did not dispute any of the evidence collected in the studies he was criticising, but rather the methodology used in gathering the evidence, and the bias of the authors (who come face to face with the victims of violence in the hospitals they work in). For example, when the authors of one study employed former prostitutes to gather data from San Francisco prostitutes, which revealed the following:

"...45% had been robbed, 65% had been beaten, and 70% had been raped or had experienced a customer “similarly going beyond the work contract” (a bit vague)."

he objected to the 'problematic orientation' of the interviewers. It did not occur to him that prostitutes may respond more easily to former 'colleagues' or others in the profession than to academics. He does not dispute the numbers, just the method. He also objected to the figures coming just from SF, (but when they did research in other cities, he likewise complained that the data came just from there too)! He never did explain just how many cities he would be happy with sampling. The authors conducted their research in areas that were close to where they work, and where they had contacts, ie the LA to SF area.

He did criticise the use of high-end prostitutes, who are either now famous, or who have had a good education, in studies, as representing one minority extreme end of the spectrum, but he also criticised several studies showing women as victims as being a minority at the other end of the spectrum, and in this I think he is entirely wrong. The problem is that the people who have tended to carry out research into prostitution have tended to be people who have seen first-hand its consequences, which he then labels as biassed.

Reading his critique, it is completely clear to me from the language he uses that he too is biassed.

His work is not without its own critics from academics either.

I am sorry Kokoro, I have not had time to read the references you sent, but I will on Sunday.

Rock

Edited to add: Yes, I used the word we. Anubia is an Ancient Egyptian themed sim, with a Pharaoh, Queen, Princess, and Ladies of the Court in the heirarchy. The Queen set policy regarding the neophytes (Pets) and the Ladies of the Court (4) dealt with all day-to-day matters relating to the neophytes in their House of the Palace.

Neophytes were interviewed at length about why they wanted to come to Anubia, they completed a 1 month probation period (we fished out a lot of males posing as females during this period, especially as during the probation we could do an instant voice-verification, at a time of the choosing of the Lady of the Court). Once the probation period was over we would have a big celebration, and the Neophyte would become a permanent member of the community, she would be bought all her wardrobe, and everything else she needed. The activities consisted of shopping trips (lots), dancing - in an amazing nightclub that appeared when the large pyramid rose further up out of the sand, (and there have been many SL guests to our masquerade balls), lots of under-water swimming in the undersea grotto, attending building courses at the Ivory Tower, particle and scripting courses, etc. As for sex, that was up to the residents (but heavy BDSM, humiliation and punishments were strictly banned). My partner was the Queen.

Nothing that the perverts on this thread would like to imagine goes on, unfortunately.

Why don't we end the name calling and just have a discussion?

Like I said earlier, my ideal is that the demand for eroticised depictions of sexual violence against women disappear. I have no idea what the answer is to ending violence against women, i seriously doubt it's everyone having access to more rape porn though.

The United Nations Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against women (CEDAW) says the following:

Articles 2(f), 5 and 10(c)

"11. Traditional attitudes by which women are regarded as subordinate to men or as having stereotyped roles perpetuate widespread practices involving violence or coercion, such as family violence and abuse, forced marriage, dowry deaths, acid attacks and female circumcision. Such prejudices and practices may justify gender-based violence as a form of protection or control of women. The effect of such violence on the physical and mental integrity of women is to deprive them the equal enjoyment, exercise and knowledge of human rights and fundamental freedoms. While this comment addresses mainly actual or threatened violence the underlying consequences of these forms of gender-based violence help to maintain women in subordinate roles and contribute to the low level of political participation and to their lower level of education, skills and work opportunities.

12. These attitudes also contribute to the propagation of pornography and the depiction and other commercial exploitation of women as sexual objects, rather than as individuals. This in turn contributes to gender-based violence."

My contention is that extreme pornography, including some of the content in SL, contributes to rape and sexual violence supportive attitudes & beliefs and reinforces rape myths, like those highlighted in a 2005 amnesty survey:

"The poll, 'Sexual Assault Research', published today (21 November) as part of Amnesty International's 'Stop Violence Against Women' campaign, shows that similar "blame culture" attitudes exist over clothing, drinking, perceived promiscuity, personal safety and whether a woman has clearly said "no" to the man. For instance, more than a quarter (26%) of those asked said that they thought a women was partially or totally responsible for being raped if she was wearing sexy or revealing clothing, and more than one in five (22%) held the same view if a woman had had many sexual partners.

Around one in 12 people (8%) believed that a woman was totally responsible for being raped if she'd had many sexual partners. Similarly, more than a quarter of people (30%) said that a woman was partially or totally responsible for being raped if she was drunk, and more than a third (37%) held the same view if the woman had failed to clearly say "no" to the man."

It's absolutely not the only factor in shaping these attitudes - like I said several times previously, other socialisation is a major contributor - but it is, I'd argue, part of the problem. VAW doesn't exist in a vaccum, it's legitmised and supported by values and attitudes. Do you think, for example, that if there hadn't been a shift in values and attitudes in the US that Mr Obama would now be president? Would that have happened 30 years ago? As attitudes shift and change so do cultural norms and behaviours to reflect that (not that i'm saying racism has disappeared).

SL is a drop in the ocean in terms of user base, and it's contribution to extreme pornography availability miniscule compared to what else is out there on the internet, but it still contributes to a culture of minimising sexual violence against women and conflating sex with sexual violence.

A few examples:

One rp area has a garbage truck for sale so that you can,
'fuck her in the back and close the compactor on her head when you are done'.

Another area has what it labels 'erotic images' around the walls. One such image (real photo, not SL snapshot) is of a naked woman in chains, seemingly barely conscious and covered in what looks like cigarette burns. There are many others around, including a non-phographic visual depiction of a woman being impaled with a pole through the mouth and vagina. To facilitate the role plays, the area provides 'rape' and 'attack' pose balls and a body bag for when you're done.

'forced, roleplay, gang, rape, bang, kidnap, hangout, capture, cocktease, slut, tramp, whore, cumslut, toy'
or
'basement, dirty, backstreet, dark, alley, whore, forced, fuck, sex, porn hardcore brutal rape ass anal oral group mmf gang bang roleplay hooker escort machine bitch'
keywords used to advertise other rp areas.

You could also buy a 'bitch post', to chain your rp slave onto. Or use a glory hole and pay 25 lindens if a slut is available to service you. Or just use a disembodied vagina and pair of legs as a 'sperm bank'. Buy 'the real slut' 3 hole edition. Go to the cumslut cafe and use the forced oral poses or buy a sexual violence animation with knife included.

Doesn't any of this stuff say something about attitudes toward women? About perceptions of violence against women? I don't want to see men being dehumanised in the same way, but can I ask why you think the vast majority of these areas involve rp or images of women being violated?