Personal Agency for Personal Boundaries

Kestrel · Dec 30, 2019, 5:35 PM

This is a bit off-topic but I wanted to share some (in some cases very strange) reflections I've had on this thread and some of the comments I made on it 3 weeks ago.

@Kestrel said in Personal Agency for Personal Boundaries:

@Pandora said in Personal Agency for Personal Boundaries:

@Kestrel said in Personal Agency for Personal Boundaries:

A while ago a friend told me they got banned on Arx for sexist behaviour.

Eye twitching.

Did they mention how many times they got banned?

It's not Azazello.

I'm pretty sure it was just the once but I didn't really follow up on it. I don't know the full story, I just gave a sympathetic ear when they griped about it. Their version of events didn't sound so bad, but it's the only version I heard. I'm not in the habit of vouching for people in situations I didn't witness that I don't know anything about.

So, ironically, this guy I mentioned here, my friend who never gave me any red flags, who seemed like the most normal person ever, who's listened to me rant ad nauseam about feminism and never expressed disagreement ...

Anyway I still don't know what happened over on Arx but I heard a very troubling and convincing first-person account about him, unrelated, from someone who's known him much longer than I have, and it was much worse than just "sexist behaviour". Not stuff I care to share openly, especially as it's not my story to share, but I'm pretty mad at myself now for the fact I was defending him less than even a month ago.

Also at this point starting to turn into a bit of a misandrist, I guess they were right about the evils of feminism all along. I just don't know how much more disappointment I can take from the nice, normal, perfect seeming people around me.

But on a less cynical note, I should've given @faraday more of a benefit of the doubt because I did read her AresMUSH policies on harassment and they all seem pretty legit to me, though I still think the principal idea proposed by @Pandora on this thread is a good one — more tools can't hurt.

If anyone needs me I'll be in the kitchen, aggressively chopping up a cucumber with a shiny new pair of jade glasses.

Roz · Dec 30, 2019, 5:32 PM

@Kestrel That sucks and I'm sorry.

Kanye Qwest · Dec 30, 2019, 10:02 PM

@Kestrel ugh, I hate being let down like that. These days, every time I like something a dude has done/created I have that nagging "you are probably going to regret enjoying this" feeling. Women are not immune, of course, but...

The thing about 'sexist behavior' - or racist, or whatever - is that it's so rarely a binary. I know several men I've had to bring around in my actual life who seemed to think sexist men were these mustache twirling goons who couldn't stop themselves from making comments like GET IN THE KITCHEN AND SUCK MY DICK every time they so much as saw a woman. It's so rarely like that. These biases and entitlements are deep seated and strongly conditioned, and often you don't even see them until you knock that person off-canter. You don't see that a man is sexist until a woman challenges him/has some kind of control over an aspect of his life.

RP is so emotionally charged, and SO full of wish fulfillment. You see sexism coming out of people around rp because almost no one gracefully accepts having their fun/power fantasy affected by someone else. I am an ethical, thoughtful, and compassionate person, and I get bent out of shape emotionally about rp.