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cloudboy -> RE: Reality Check (2/25/2006 7:10:01 AM)
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quote:
One person asked what can be done to remedy the problems I have outlayed in this thread. I am only too happy to attempt an answer.
1) Eliminate any ad asking for money, gifts, or services of value. Stop accepting the myth that exploitation is BDSM. Write these people and tell them you do not accept their actions as a part of our community.
2) Eliminate the quasi-prostitutional pro-Domme ads. Stop accepting the myth that $250 an hour is a "valuable service" or a valid part of the greater community. It's exploitation and it's damned bad press for BDSM in general.
3) Censor ads with extreme unrealistic and/or exploitative content. (ironically, this is done in regards to pictures, but not to absurdity, immorality, or illegality) (BTW, conning, scamming, etc IS illegal, and it is condoned here)
4) Encourage real world discussion where non-extreme-posing "lesser players" are welcomed, creating a welcoming atmosphere and an accepting, tolerant gathering space for BDSMers. Expose the "experts" as online posing frauds who can only behave that way online.
5) Censor flame posts. Ban flamers. Ban people for any statement that would not be welcome in your living room or your local munch, just like you do in real life.
6) Post crucial educational, scientific, and political information about BDSM and all forms of legitimate alternative sexualty and expose and exclude online mythology from that. Here's an example, in the latter regard: http://www.revisef65.org/
7) Make a formal statement that financial domination is exploitation and not a valid fetish and condemn it on moral grounds. Equate it with overpriced prostitution. Eliminate it or separate it from the BDSM community, not unlike how criminal scams are separated from legitimate investing opportunities.
8) Create a BDSM real-life forum section, symbolically dividing the community, for real world BDSMers. No absurd extremes, just simpler folk who prefer this form of sexuality, just like those who attend munches. Let this section grow and rival the online mythological larger, currently over-represented, group. Create a cadre of voices saying they enjoy real life BDSM and not online pretending, and all that comes with that.
9) Encourage and activate people who do not pose online in accordance with accepted extremist mythology. You.....you who are reading this. Have you enjoyed this discussion? Has it given you hope? Has it clarified what's bullshit and what ain't? If so, write me a note and say so. Start a thread of your own, say your piece. Do NOT just sit there and benignly, silently allow what you know is just online posery to go on and on and get stupider and more extreme and less real, while the world debates what the BDSM community is and whether what we do is immoral, illegal, a pathology, or a variant of acceptible human sexuality. Stand up, make some noise, get flamed.....and after you do that, you know what happens? You value your real world life even more than you did before you waded into the online maelstrom of defying the collectively pretended status quo. Make a place for you, and for us realists. Don't just shut up. Don't be maginalized. You are the majority. Represent that online, and contrast the lunacy of the ads this place is bombarded by. Sanity, honesty, realism, will stand out amongst the pretended content the internet allows far too much of.
That's....just for starters.
Sounds like a call for massive gov't intervention or in CM's case ---- enhanced oversight and moderation. The truth is, its best if individuals learn how to navigate for themselves. I agree with the sign posts you identify above, and you have done a public service pointing them out --- but I think your remedies are extreme. Individuals need to refine their own search skills, internet reality checks, and sense of other people. Instead of banning PROs, I'd like it more if CM could offer a filter so that if one was searching for a pro, he could separate them out and find them and visa versa.
As for flaming, I don't think there is anyway you can eliminate bad faith posting or the twisting of one's arguments made on a MB. Smart, conscientious people see what is going on --- and enhanced moderation merely assumes other's cannot defend themselves or spot who the idiots are. The problem with enhanced moderation on a MB is that good posters will start to experience censorship b/c they are being: a) too sarcastic; b) too "mean spirited"; or c) challenging the status quo or the holders of the status quo.
Sometimes posters need to rumble around in the mud and have a good ole dirty fight. Its not the end of the world or a MB when this happens, especially when one has blocking features at his disposal.
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