The Dark Side of online Role-Playing

[Kestrel]

@tek said in The Dark Side of online Role-Playing:

@Kestrel There's that, and then there's what this thread has turned into, which is @Carex saying that kids who rp sex are little sluts who can handle his digital dick. There's room for discussion on the former. The latter needs to be shut down HARD.

Yeah, and I don't agree with that at all.

But as far as @Ghost's comment on 'the politics of monitoring your child's online behaviour in a way that is healthy for them', I'm also going to more mildly disagree that this is a separate issue.

Without condoning any predatory sexual behaviour on children online, I share @Derp's particular perspective that the first post on this thread had me nodding my head in fervent agreement, thinking 'good shit, good shit', until I got to a latter portion of the post that had me raising an eyebrow.

I hope my initial response came across as sufficiently nuanced; I don't think my perspective on this is relevant in every case, given every child is different. I just think it's a point worth discussing a bit more calmly when we're done bashing @Carex.

[Ghost]

I have a hard time not being incredulous about believing that "finding out why your child is having fun roleplaying blood slut sexual TS with adults on the internet" may be taking a front seat to "immediately finding out if this is a case where they KNOW your child is a minor, are still doing it anyway, and your child is the subject of a predator's online behavior."

Even if your child is like "Oh fuck no. I tell them I'm a 22 year old law student" that needs to stop IMMEDIATELY, because it is also ethically wrong to hand wave allowing another adult to unknowingly exploit a minor

[Derp]

@Kestrel said in The Dark Side of online Role-Playing:

There's that, and then there's what this thread has turned into, which is @Carex saying that kids who rp sex are little sluts who can handle his digital dick. There's room for discussion on the former. The latter needs to be shut down HARD.

So now we have gone from "OP didn't say that" to ... saying that Carex said things they didn't say.

Interesting choice.

[tek]

@Ghost Also, if your 13-year-old is RPing some seriously fucked up sexual shit, that's a sign that they might have been traumatized or victimized already, not a sign that they're "just not as innocent as you think". @Carex has this weird fucking hangup on innocence, which is a major fucking red flag. It's not about innocence. It's about what is developmentally appropriate.

[Kestrel]

@Auspice said in The Dark Side of online Role-Playing:

15-year-old RPing vampire sex with another 15-year old: OK
15-year-old RPing vampire sex with a 45-year-old: Not OK

Educating your child on how to tell the difference and to feel safe and comfortable coming to you if the latter scenario happens: GOOD.

Being a major court case waiting to happen while trying to insist the latter is the child's fault and parents need to be OK with it: NOT GOOD.

tbh, just to be a super nitpicker and switch sides here yet again, I don't think I would trust most fifteen year olds to be kind to other fifteen year olds either.

idk what kind of 15 year olds you knew when you were 15 but most of the ones I had the misfortune of dealing with were super not into consent and mostly motivated by what will give them street-cred and seem cool in their heads.

A kid at my college got in trouble for spreading child porn after he filmed his short-term girlfriend performing a consensual sexual act, and then proceeded to nonconsensually share the video with all his friends. Because people are awful like that.

[Ghost]

@tek said in The Dark Side of online Role-Playing:

@Ghost This is where you have a discussion with your kid about boundaries. We all like to find ways to get our rocks off. Talk to them about the difference between reading a dirty story in a book or on a fanfiction site and creating interactive sexual content with an adult. Explain that even if they don't know you are a minor, the adult involved is committing a crime. Talk about safe ways to explore the things they want to explore.

Exactly.

Kids are obviously gonna be curious. It's totally normal to be curious, to have hormones, puberty, etc. This doesn't mean that partaking in sexual simulations online with adults is some victimless sandbox and that it's part of their development that you just need to respect.

It is highly illegal to partake in simulated sexual behavior with a minor, even in text-based roleplay, and this is something this community should be able to depend on GOOD PEOPLE keeping an eye out for.

[Carex]

@tek said in The Dark Side of online Role-Playing:

And if you don't understand the difference between a kid getting involved in developmentally appropriate horny shit with kids their own age and getting into stuff with adults that will fuck them up

Again, parents can't control that. They have no way of knowing if the person on the other end of a chat program is an adult or not. They have no way of knowing if the person their kid is MUSHing with is 15 or 50. You can't build your parenting strategy around things you can't control or even know. Trying to is just going to hurt your relationship with your kid.

I believe, underage kids shouldn't be allowed on adult theme games like World of Darkness in the first place.

If you do allow kids on your game, you should not allow TS.
These are choices for the game creators to make not choices for the parent.

Why is it perfectly ok for a 15-year-old to be on a game about vampires murdering people for blood and vengeance right up until the point someone describes a pair of tits?

If you're a parent and you want to keep your child safe from corruption, why are you letting them play on a game about immortal murder hobos? If your kid is advanced enough to play a murder hobo why aren't they advanced enough to imagine sex?

I'll tell you why, because parents don't really think their kids are going to go out and murder someone but they are pretty sure their precious little angel will go out and suck a dick at the slightest provocation. That's what this is about. Parents want to control their kid's thoughts because they are afraid but telling your kid not to imagine things and think about things isn't going to work. It has never, ever, in the history of the world, worked.

Instead, maybe parents should talk to their kids about what they are doing and feeling, without judgment, no matter how uncomfortable it makes the parents. That's all I'm saying.

[Meg]

@Carex holy shit, there are so many red flags in your post, mate. like honestly, don't TS with minors. it's a simple concept.

[Carex]

@Meg said in The Dark Side of online Role-Playing:

@Carex holy shit, there are so many red flags in your post, mate. like honestly, don't TS with minors.

and no one is arguing with you but parents can't control adults on the other end of the internet they can only parent their kid.

[tek]

@Carex Holy shit, get your hand out of your cheeto-stained sweatpants and read what people are actually saying, you fucking creep

[Meg]

@Carex right? which is what was being suggested?

eta: eh, i'm done with this. you are a troll. you also went to suggesting that the same people who might not want their children TSing online, also would TOTALLY BE COOL with their kids on a WoD mu*. I doubt that.

AND ANOTHER THING, if your response to 'don't TS with minors' is 'well, you can't control other adults on the internet'-- like, wow. fcking wow. no, i can't control you, but still. don't do it.

[Ghost]

@tek said in The Dark Side of online Role-Playing:

@Ghost Also, if your 13-year-old is RPing some seriously fucked up sexual shit, that's a sign that they might have been traumatized or victimized already, not a sign that they're "just not as innocent as you think". @Carex has this weird fucking hangup on innocence, which is a major fucking red flag. It's not about innocence. It's about what is developmentally appropriate.

EXACTLY

And if it's possible that they were previously abused and are continuing a cycle of sexual abuse with adults online, then stepping in could actually mean helping them end a cycle of self harm.

These are not "roleplay preferences", people. These are someone else's kids.

If you have knowingly TSed with a minor, shrugging it off with "Hey, this is their freedom of expression. It's their right to choose; who am I to intervene?" then fucking shame on you. You're a pedophile who chose TS and their own kink over worry about sexually exploiting a child.

If you're reading this and you know this pertains to you? You are a pedophile who committed a felony. I hope you rot in jail.

[Auspice]

The #1 takeaway, IMO:

Some kids only need a 'hey champ, if you ever need to talk about anything you see online, lemme know'
Other kids need the computer in the public room and close monitoring.

Only their parent will know which is best for their child.

[Kestrel]

MSB makes me glad I'm too dead inside to TS these days, lol

[Ghost]

You know what pisses me off about this conversation? It's that I've been in the hobby long enough to know there's probably at minimum ONE player reading this right now, where I'm telling them that they're a pedophile, who has KNOWINGLY TSed with a minor, who is like:

Man, go fuck yourself, Ghost. Mind your own business.

But they won't likely post that because it would provide a potential paper/audit trail that could result in them being branded a pedophile or being investigated as one.

[Carex]

@Ghost said in The Dark Side of online Role-Playing:

have a hard time not being incredulous about believing that "finding out why your child is having fun roleplaying blood slut sexual TS with adults on the internet" may be taking a front seat to "immediately finding out if this is a case where they KNOW your child is a minor, are still doing it anyway, and your child is the subject of a predator's online behavior."

Once again: PARENTS CAN'T TELL HOW OLD THE OTHER PERSON IS, OVER THE INTERNET!!
Omg, why can't you get this? You're like having an entirely different conversation because you can't get this basic concept.

Parents can't control if some creeper is online TSing with kids and you're assuming that the adult in this situation knows the kid is, in fact, a kid. You are talking about this wildly improbable, worst-case scenario where a super-predator has target your child and used his well-honed brain-washing techniques to lure your child into some dangerous situation but that isn't happening 99.9% of the time and when it does happen it usually ends when the kid tries to go see the adult and gets caught.

I'm not talking about your paranoid, nightmare scenario. I'm talking about what really happens on a real day-to-day basis where kids go online to things like Furry MUCKs and or Anime games and someone teaches them what the vagina is for.

I'm talking about the parents that try and stop that.

No one disagrees with you on the idea that if a parent finds out an adult is knowingly creeping on their child that parent should shut that shit down and call the FBI. No one.

[tek]

@Carex those goalposts are on wheels, my creepy dude.

also, the grooming shit happens a lot more than you think if two people IN THIS THREAD ALONE experienced it.

[Lotherio]

@Carex said in The Dark Side of online Role-Playing:

someone {online) teaches them what the vagina is for.
I'm talking about the parents that try and stop that.

You're advocating parents shouldn't stop kids from learning what a vagina is for on-line and need to stay out of their kids business cause, furry muck is the bastion of developmental education online?

Like in the same post you say:

Once again: PARENTS CAN'T TELL HOW OLD THE OTHER PERSON IS, OVER THE INTERNET!!

And you say this:

No one disagrees with you on the idea that if a parent finds out an adult is knowingly creeping on their child that parent should shut that shit down and call the FBI. No one.

Like - how are they supposed to find out when every method they may discover this seems you arguing they shouldn't do it?

[Kestrel]

@tek said in The Dark Side of online Role-Playing:

also, the grooming shit happens a lot more than you think if two people IN THIS THREAD ALONE experienced it.

To be frank, grooming happens everywhere, and I'd personally be much more worried about it happening IRL than online. The style will vary depending on the platform but I don't think online roleplaying communities present a higher risk than say, after-school activities or even just literally attending a school where they're in contact with adult teachers.

I think the most important thing you can do is just teach your child how to recognise problem behaviour.

My sister's been starting her daughter on "consent training" pretty much since she was born. She's encouraged myself and other family members to always ask for permission to hug her, and teaches her child that if she doesn't want to hug a person for whatever reason, she doesn't have to. This is distinctly different from how my sister and I were raised, where our parents pretty much just told us to go hug our grandma and just put up with being smothered with kisses etc. While totally harmless, these culturally ingrained lessons can just as easily make other, less innocent behaviours seem equally harmless later on, when they shouldn't be. I appreciate that this child is being raised early on to know that no one is allowed to breach her personal bubble without her express consent, under any circumstances, even if that person is a trusted family member/friend etc.

The biggest thing that makes children targets is that they don't understand what's happening until it's way too late.

[buttercup]

@Roz

It is okay. While I don't appreciate and am not a fan of his/her statements. I have thicker skin then to get discouraged, upset, and/or react to the individual. I've been responsible for my share of trolling and have made many social mistakes in my day and will continue to do so. I will make mistakes as a parent and I will do my best to grow and learn. There is nothing some person is going to say that is greater or even a drop in the bucket to the experiences I have had -- not even a little bit of a shit given.

Lots of potential here for great conversation. I'm already considering some adjustments in how I parent and govern this situation. A couple of parents here (and non-parents) described their situations and had valuable insight. It's also nice to see the perspective and broad ranges of similar circumstances that truly highlight the problem as it exists around us.

I wish Carex their best life and happiness through trolling or whatever way they can acquire it.