Sure, but in my experience, they are much more likely to be level-headed about various taboos, at least until recently.
Can you clarify or rephrase your point here? I’m confused since you were the one who originally suggested throwing people under the bus.
Won’t bother quoting everything, but I feel like the rest of your post is centered around the implication that there’s some greater agenda here than calling out what I consider bad and unproductive approaches and advocating for what I consider to be beneficial approaches. I have no reason to believe that NGH is approaching this conversation in bad faith, so I don’t think there’s a need to kiss anyone’s ass.
Pro-c is a term that everyone in this conversation understands. There’s no reason that it can’t be useful here.
*@NoGoldHere if you want to have a meaningful discussion with me, contact me off-platform. I dislike this forum, on general principle, and the format is uncomfortable and unfavorable to me.
Edit because censored: Since I am used to asking for nothing I will only ask for one thing. Please remove mention of my Dreamwidth blog, blog posts, etc. from your above posts. Or at least just edit them, cross out the sentences. I spent hours yesterday dissociating and having flashbacks. I would appreciate if at least I don’t have this hanging on to me too. What you did here feels immensely violating and viscerally disgusting and painful and I am still triggered just thinking about it. It makes me feel extremely uncomfortable and unsafe. Take it out.
I know I’m not respectable or palatably marginalized and power-trippers like Chie and Prostasia would really rather have me just tone it down/shut up, and obviously you would take their side. Should still reconsider though, if you really want to learn or help.
I made this post while I was very stressed because of another private incident involving harassment by users associated with contact stances and, specifically, NNIA.
If you have a problem with harassment from a NNIA user then report it to NNIA moderation. Simple.
And put a trigger warning on those Inkbunny links for “anti-MAP bigotry,” because that’s what they contain.
@Iris
My apologies for the tone of this message, but you need to seriously change the tone of your posts and please be more respectful towards others in the thread.
This thread goes over something that’s very important among the FSM/VCP community, and if traffic analysis is anything to go by, I’d say it’s being observed by quite a few people.
Please be considerate and respectful.
This also goes for everyone participating in discussion.
Then it behooves you to understand why they aren’t being level headed recently, before you judge them or advise them. What’s causing that?
See above. Is the solution really to call it out vs having a civil, productive listening session while initially agreeing with their viewpoints and hearing and at least showing you care about their concerns? You have a concern and you want to be heard. Is calling people out the best way to do that? Is accusing them of throwing people under the bus or preventing support?
I don’t know that you’re hearing me right now, in this conversation, Elliot. Let me quote myself, in its entire context, because I feel like there’s important stuff you’re missing in it:
Handle it professionally by listening first, in private, and show them you’re listening by using their language. Using their language doesn’t mean throwing people under the bus in the long run. It may mean that in the short run. It depends on them. That’s why the if is there. They may not throw anyone under the bus. They might. You don’t know their reasons.
Here’s an example: Hypothetically - if they come to you and say “We’re bothered by these sick freaks saying it’s okay to rape kids and troll our forum with that bullshit and we don’t know who’s who” you’d respond by saying something like “Yeah it’d be really frustrating and gross to see sick stuff like that trolling bullshit and not know who’s doing it” so that they know you hear them. You need to validate what they’re saying.
I don’t know what their concerns are or what they’ll say, but without that initial listening, they won’t listen. My point is listen first, earn their respect, then you can offer solutions that fit their concerns and meet their needs. If you jump straight to “stop banning people” you’ve escalated the situation, they’re not listening, you’re not listening, nobody cares, and nobody changes.
Listening, kissing ass, whatever you want to call it, means people care, people change, and everyone is more likely to have say. The agenda, if there is one, is making sure everyone’s listening and not reacting as a starting point.
If you want a different way of saying it… when I’m holding my pet snakes and I make a sudden movement or do something they don’t like, they’re freaked out. They’re reacting. That’s the same as you calling these people out or confronting them - they’ll react, they won’t think carefully.
If I’m gentle and slow and pay attention to what my snakes need, they’re careful and deliberate in how they move and they consider things carefully. They’re not upset. I want them to be careful and calm, not only so they’re not stressed out, but so that they’re enjoying time outside their enclosure. You want these people to be careful and calm so that they’re listening to you and you can listen to them.
Pro-c/anti-c and contact, to most of the population, is a MAP term used exclusively by minor-attracted people to describe someone’s moral position to whether or not it’s okay to abuse kids. I’ve used it when explaining MAP issues to some of my closest friends and family before and the look on their faces - even when they’re familiar with me and the work I do - says it all. I asked a few times what the look was for, and they explained the same thing I’m telling you now. One was also a MAP themselves.
It doesn’t matter if everyone understands the terms if there are influences around how that term is seen and understood by non-maps. For non-maps, those influences win out, and they may start to think ‘it’s all just euphemisms for moralizing around abusing kids IRL’ and then you may have the reasons for your bans.
You don’t know without listening. A group of people don’t just ban a group of people for no reason, even if you don’t currently know what that reason is and disagree with the blanket ban on the group.
I cannot edit any of my comments. Not sure why. Flagged the one requested so either I can find out how to edit it, or it can be edited by moderation. Whichever works. I still apologize for dicussing Dreamwidth-- I assumed this was appropriate as Iris’ DW is linked in their profile, and I was reading through their intro posts/links, the first blog on the site. My intent was only to show that I was willing to do the reading, so I’m very sorry for harm I may have caused, or having triggered Iris or any other user(s).
While I have found some extremely useful, I think all I have learned is that I am not equipped to do anything more. Prostasia has approached me in the past about working with them, and I believe now I’ll have to firmly decline. I will still link Prostasia as a resource, but I am not far enough in my studies (academic or interpersonal) to provide anything satisfactory for this or adjacent communities. Therefore, for my own mental health and so that I do not cause further harm, I will step away from it and return my focus to purely fictional content.
Thank you Chie, Elliot, and TNF_13 in particular. I appreciate the information you’ve given me and the discussion had here. Thank you Iris, for your first reply to me, which I did find immensely helpful in my understanding, and I again apologize for any slight I have made against you.
Odds are, I will not be returning to this thread or forum for some time. Thank you again for what you’ve provided, I hope I can make use of it when I am better suited to do so, if I do become better suited to do so.
I would also recommend that you try places other than Prostasia if you’re looking for help or a place to start. Prostasia isn’t focused on combating pro-contactism or on MAP community issues (as becomes more obvious when you look at its general output). To be honest, I’m not sure who’s focusing on that at all—which is why I’m trying to create my thing, along with some other NNIA people, but we’re still in very early stages right now because we (we were wrong, I know now) didn’t really see the need for such specific activism until too late. But I feel that we’re going in the right direction, and it might be something that would be helpful to people like you too who are looking to apply it to different communities.
Also, for anyone who’d like to understand how Aethy is awful and bigoted in multiple ways and mistreats its users: