I decided to make my Second Life a tad bit easier. I disabled incoming IMs from "non-friends" for some of my accounts.

[Arielle Popstar]

8 minutes ago, Zalificent Corvinus said:

Hahahahahaa.

No.

I's more that the worst offenders have either pushed off to Conan Exiles, or learned to stick to noob pits, where the potential victims are less confident in saying no and ignoring bullying/threats of fake AR's/whatever.

They are increasingly conditioned to avoid old hands who won't take any BS., as for the "reading our profiles" thing, I found wearing a group tag that reads "Man Hating Dyk*" was FAR more effective, than saying I won't date them in my profile.

 

Isn't that maybe why so many males dress as females so they will at least get lucky as "Man Hating Dyk" bait?

[Luna Bliss]

10 minutes ago, Arielle Popstar said:

59 minutes ago, Luna Bliss said:

Instead, I want the freedom to be assertive if I choose, and I want my potential partner to be free from the burden of always having to be the one who initiates -- this is liberating for both parties who want to live in the present moment without some sort of script playing in their mind, born of the socialization process we develop when growing up, telling us how we should behave.
Relating stereotypically is boring to me...like being shoved in a box not of my own choosing. It's less predictable, and so less safe, but responding to a situation without a script telling me how I should exist feels freeing and therefor exciting -- too much predictability kills excitement. When you are just 'going through the motions' set forth by a script you all too easily miss the exciting present moment where so many more potentialities exist.

That's all well and good but expecting the other half to now start interacting in a different way because well you and then expecting that all females should also change their acceptance because you're supposedly liberated is just an unrealistic expectation. Overturning thousands of years of conditioning in how men and women tend to interact is not going to change overnight and would at the very least start with the recipient of the overtures. The aggressor will simply change their manner of approach depending on what technique is the most successful.

Oh I agree women have to change too. They receive benefits from being 'kept' and not having to make those oh so tuff decisions a responsible adult has to make. More and more women don't want that though -- they want to be their own person.

However it's not "thousands of years of conditioning". The patriarchy hasn't been in existence that long (where men dominated for several thousand years). Before that there was equality and the matriarchy. It's a complicated history but one that's fun to examine -- theories of how and why this changed.  Aboriginal tribes (many of them) retained more of this equality so is fun to study their arrangements.

Edited April 12 by Luna Bliss

[Paul Hexem]

2 minutes ago, Luna Bliss said:

Before that there was equality and the matriarchy. It's a complicated history but one that's fun to examine -- theories of how and why this changed.

Wat.

[Luna Bliss]

3 minutes ago, Paul Hexem said:

Wat.

 

[Paul Hexem]

2 minutes ago, Luna Bliss said:

 

We're getting way off topic with this one and it has nothing to do with SL, so I suggest posting it or sending it elsewhere, but I'd love to see some peer reviewed studies or findings on matriarchy ever functioning or even existing long term or large scale in human history.

[Love Zhaoying]

6 minutes ago, Paul Hexem said:

We're getting way off topic with this one and it has nothing to do with SL, so I suggest posting it or sending it elsewhere, but I'd love to see some peer reviewed studies or findings on matriarchy ever functioning or even existing long term or large scale in human history.

Oh, is it off-topic? I keep wondering why the topic is still going!

[Luna Bliss]

Just now, Paul Hexem said:

We're getting way off topic with this one and it has nothing to do with SL, so I suggest posting it or sending it elsewhere, but I'd love to see some peer reviewed studies or findings on matriarchy ever functioning or even existing long term or large scale in human history.

It's fun to research but yeah going in depth here with the history of it all is likely more detail than is needed.

 

[Luna Bliss]

2 minutes ago, Love Zhaoying said:

Oh, is it off-topic? I keep wondering why the topic is still going!

Well, Arielle seems to believe men can't change in SL and approach women sensitively because they've had thousands of years of conditioning that prevents it.  So is kind of on topic, yet I'm not really willing to go into all the history.  But conditioning aside, we do have brains that can make alternate choices when necessary, unlike my kitty here who thinks I MUST pet her right now.

[Ayashe Ninetails]

2 minutes ago, Luna Bliss said:

Well, Arielle seems to believe men can't change in SL and approach women sensitively because they've had thousands of years of conditioning that prevents it. 

Wait what? Plenty of guys send respectful IMs in SL. Some do, some don't. Not much different than anywhere else, pretty much.

[Arielle Popstar]

4 minutes ago, Luna Bliss said:

Well, Arielle seems to believe men can't change in SL and approach women sensitively because they've had thousands of years of conditioning that prevents it.  So is kind of on topic, yet I'm not really willing to go into all the history.  But conditioning aside, we do have brains that can make alternate choices when necessary, unlike my kitty here who thinks I MUST pet her right now.

What it seems to come down to is neither gender can change and react just as instinctively as your kitty. If 90% respond to petting just the way it is done now, why would they change for the 10% that don't? Wouldn't it be better if the 10% change so they can get their strokes too and be happy they are getting them rather then stomping about complaining they aren't getting stroked the way they want?

[Luna Bliss]

3 minutes ago, Ayashe Ninetails said:

8 minutes ago, Luna Bliss said:

Well, Arielle seems to believe men can't change in SL and approach women sensitively because they've had thousands of years of conditioning that prevents it. 

Wait what? Plenty of guys send respectful IMs in SL. Some do, some don't. Not much different than anywhere else, pretty much.

Same here. The majority of IM's from men in SL have been polite messages.  I think Arielle was referring to those men seeking sex though.

[Arielle Popstar]

2 minutes ago, Luna Bliss said:

Same here. The majority of IM's from men in SL have been polite messages.  I think Arielle was referring to those men seeking sex though.

Eh? Most of my IM's are respectful also but you are white knighting for those who apparently get the non respectful IM's.

[Luna Bliss]

1 minute ago, Arielle Popstar said:

11 minutes ago, Luna Bliss said:

Well, Arielle seems to believe men can't change in SL and approach women sensitively because they've had thousands of years of conditioning that prevents it.  So is kind of on topic, yet I'm not really willing to go into all the history.  But conditioning aside, we do have brains that can make alternate choices when necessary, unlike my kitty here who thinks I MUST pet her right now.

What it seems to come down to is neither gender can change and react just as instinctively as your kitty. If 90% respond to petting just the way it is done now, why would they change for the 10% that don't? Wouldn't it be better if the 10% change so they can get their strokes too and be happy they are getting them rather then stomping about complaining they aren't getting stroked the way they want?

You've confused the metaphor. I was saying that, unlike an animal that behaves according to conditioning/instinct, humans have the type of brain that enables us to choose.

But moving on to the rest of your thoughts, no I don't think the 10% you cite (I think it's higher though) should adapt to the larger percentage. It's never good for a society to be robotic and determined by stereotypes. Society always changes, and that's a good thing.

[Luna Bliss]

1 minute ago, Arielle Popstar said:

5 minutes ago, Luna Bliss said:

Same here. The majority of IM's from men in SL have been polite messages.  I think Arielle was referring to those men seeking sex though.

Eh? Most of my IM's are respectful also but you are white knighting for those who apparently get the non respectful IM's.

Gopi stated having a problem when using his alts that are female.  We have been elaborating on this problem. And just because the majority of emails have been polite it doesn't mean the ones that are not polite should not be addressed.  They are numerous just the same, and bothersome, witnessed by all the women who have to state in their profile some version of "leave me the F alone"!

[Luna Bliss]

8 minutes ago, Arielle Popstar said:

What it seems to come down to is neither gender can change

Many men even do the dishes now.    You really should hang around some young people to see what's different these days.  People CAN change, and they do.

[Arielle Popstar]

2 minutes ago, Luna Bliss said:

You've confused the metaphor. I was saying that, unlike an animal that behaves according to conditioning/instinct, humans have the type of brain that enables us to choose.

But moving on to the rest of your thoughts, no I don't think the 10% you cite (I think it's higher though) should adapt to the larger percentage. It's never good for a society to be robotic and determined by stereotypes. Society always changes, and that's a good thing.

So you're IM's are respectful, mine are respectful, where is the foul here? Why are we debating and if you and I and a few others all get respectful IM's, why ever would we need to change how we receive them? We should start being  b*cthes so we can also get non respectful ones? Put out respect one gets respect back. If I am getting too many disrespectful ones when other's don't, I look at how I am responding that might be attracting that sort.

[Luna Bliss]

1 minute ago, Arielle Popstar said:

So

So...I'm done with debating you.  You're not debating in good faith.

[Arielle Popstar]

1 minute ago, Luna Bliss said:

So...I'm done with debating you.  You're not debating in good faith.

Good, you too since you are debating a problem you are now admitting you don't even have.

[Luna Bliss]

6 minutes ago, Arielle Popstar said:

8 minutes ago, Luna Bliss said:

So...I'm done with debating you.  You're not debating in good faith.

Good, you too since you are debating a problem you are now admitting you don't even have.

To clarify -- most IM's from men have been polite.  Of those men seeking sex, however, almost all have been tacky and inappropriate.  It has been a problem for me, and a problem for all the women who were compelled to state "LEAVE ME ALONE" in their profiles.

[Chery Amore]

16 minutes ago, Luna Bliss said:

To clarify -- most IM's from men have been polite.  Of those men seeking sex, however, almost all have been tacky and inappropriate.  It has been a problem for me, and a problem for all the women who were compelled to state "LEAVE ME ALONE" in their profiles.

Annnd what would you teach your daughter to do in a situation like this for the problem at hand in second life? Not for some future utopia but right now? It's not that hard. Don't respond.. mute and ignore.

There are jerks and there are not jerks.. and even some in between. I really doubt the in between ones are going to learn what you want them too by being preached at and belittled. 

[Ezbeharra]

I guess I need to differentiate my own stance on this from others because I don't really expect this behavior to change in SL and I don't actually care all that much about whether or not it does. It's symptomatic of larger social conditions that are way out of scope of this discussion, and those social conditions cause much bigger problems than this one. I started participating in this thread because I think it's interesting to talk about, but unfortunately people are so busy fighting over what or whether something should be done about it that they haven't even stopped to discuss exactly what "it" is.

Also, as someone who freely admits to being lewd in SL, I certainly am not bothered by being approached in the right circumstances, so let's be clear this is not a case of some kind of prudish indignation. Maybe others are experiencing different behavior or have different levels of sensitivity. For me, at least, there's way more cringe than outrage.

And finally, let's restore the context of the start of the thread. Someone had the experience of preventing behavior toward them that they had found unpleasant, and found the improvement in their SL experience remarkable enough to comment on, and went on to discuss the possible downsides of the mechanism of prevention. This seemed to me to be an opportunity to explore two things more deeply: the behavior in question, and the advantages/disadvantages of the particular mitigation measure.

But somehow from that we got:

• denial that the actual behavior occurs disproportionately to other behavior
• denial that it's actually something that the OP should have found unpleasant
• a bunch of stuff about feminists up to no good again (i.e., women who may or may not be feminists talking about an experience they've shared that might paint men in a negative light)
• extremely questionable claims about prehistory and anthropology (this is the part where the feminists get mad at me)
• "Political Correctness!" "Virtue Signalling!" "Snowflake!"
• something about Star Wars??? honestly I was pretty lost at this point and had muted about half the thread's participants

Anyway, great thread, 10 out of 10. Never change, SL forums!

Edited April 12 by Ezbeharra

[Zalificent Corvinus]

3 hours ago, Luna Bliss said:

 

Go and research something called "The Red Three" burial, from about 25,000 years ago, then burn your "3000 bce matriarchy" books.

 

[Love Zhaoying]

Missing from what I've seen on the actual topic in the LC:

"Anything you want to say to me, should be something you would be comfortable saying in public chat."

 

[Luna Bliss]

3 hours ago, Chery Amore said:

Annnd what would you teach your daughter to do in a situation like this for the problem at hand in second life? Not for some future utopia but right now? It's not that hard. Don't respond.. mute and ignore.

There are jerks and there are not jerks.. and even some in between. I really doubt the in between ones are going to learn what you want them too by being preached at and belittled. 

I would say.....

Dear Daughter,

I'm so glad you decided to explore this precious niche of the world with me. As we've discussed before, what makes life precious in any world is the ability to be who you are -- develop your talents and share them with the rest of the world.

As you grow, in any world, there are forces both within and without that will try to keep you in your place. The world is afraid of change and finds safety in the status quo, and unfortunately many in SL choose to embody the stereotypes that  limit their development and freedom.

On your travels you will meet men and women who harken back to times past, where the macho man and the bimbo woman reign. In a world where you can easily be whatever you want to be I can't understand why this would be chosen -- but if you do encounter such people just politely decline an invitation into their world, and if need be mute them. Carry on and be true to discovering who you are and resist embodying non-functional, oppressive patterns from past years that enslaved men and women and kept them from knowing who they truly are.

Never forget though, that some you encounter might actually change if you educate them. Remember the example I gave to you where I encountered a griefer who repeatedly ran into me trying to block my way as I attempted to traverse down a SL street. If you recall, finally I stopped trying to walk and turned to him and said, "In a world where you can be anyone and do anything, you want to be THIS"??? -- and he decided to stop griefing me on the spot as he hastily ran away down the street -- apparently something deeper sunk into his limiting griefer consciousness and a change was made.

So always remember -- anyone can change!  We just need to speak up!

“The most dangerous part of any oppression is that it can make people believe that there are no alternatives.” -- Saini

Love, Mom

Edited April 12 by Luna Bliss

[Luna Bliss]

1 hour ago, Ezbeharra said:

Also, as someone who freely admits to being lewd in SL, I certainly am not bothered by being approached in the right circumstances, so let's be clear this is not a case of some kind of prudish indignation.

I'm wondering why you felt the need to say that. Women who don't want to be bothered by men requesting sex are not prudes.