Amina Sopwith

Definite phone peeve.

The point was that a lottery is drawing numbers at random from anyone who pays to enter. If you have to answer a question, there's a test of sorts to pass, a "skill" if you will, before you get entered into the draw. The question is made insanely easy so that lots of people will enter, but it stops it from actually being a lottery or true gambling. At least, that's how it works in the UK and that's why so many online/phone in prize draws bung a question on top of it. Good luck with getting lots of people to throw money at you. You sound delightful.

I'm of the view that when two people make a commitment to each other, that commitment is on them. If a committed man visits a sex worker, he's the one breaking a promise, not her. She's not responsible for his commitments and didn't make a pledge to anyone. So while I can't say it's honourable, I hold him absolutely 100% responsible for breaking his commitment. And obviously the same in reverse if a committed woman cheats, or someone in a same sex relationship. Your marriage/commitment is on you. If you found out your husband was propositioning women and the only reason he hadn't gone through with it was because they'd all said no, I think the damage would still be done. Intimate photos of someone who doesn't know they're being photographed are an entirely different kettle of fish. It's such a bizarre question to ask, especially in the context of a sex worker and her clients, that it almost makes me wonder if this thread is just a way of enjoying the fact that some of the johns are attached.

It didn't mention me by name, but it was clearly about me and what I said, which is what I meant by "personal". You absolutely have the right to criticise what I say, and I felt justified at the time in responding to your criticism, as I felt, and still do feel, that it was unfair and a misrepresentation of what I said. I don't believe it's a fauxpology to explain the thought processes leading to an action, especially when they don't appear to have been as clear as I thought they were. If you do, I'm happy to leave it there and let anyone who's still reading decide for themselves how to take the spirit of my comments.

I wasn't going to bring them to the discussion to ask, to be honest. They don't know I post here. They sometimes make self-deprecating jokes about their autism. They don't tend to like it when others do the deprecating for them. I could probably get away with it, with them, but I'd rather not. I can make other jokes. I did mean it when I apologised for any offence caused, but I still don't think we should normalise this kind of thing.

Why don't you just limit your photography only to people who know and consent to what you're doing? You surely realise that consent is the lynchpin of your industry, or at least it should be. We are talking about intimate situations here, not busy city scenes. Rather than making up your own rules about anonymity and so on, why not just use the obvious one: that the only people who will appear in your photography, whether recognisable or not, are those who have willingly consented to do so?

Given that it has come up again...if I myself offended anyone then I absolutely apologise, because it was not my intention. From my perspective: A couple of posts were made which I thought were unworthy. I responded directly to them and intended to leave it there. Another poster took me personally to task over what I'd said, so I responded to explain my thought processes and why I didn't think the criticism was fair. The discussion then drifted to Urban Dictionary. In the interests of full disclosure: I do not have autism, but I have some pretty close links with some people who have. So while I would never presume to speak for anyone else, I do take offence when I feel these people who are close to me have been insulted, and I don't like to leave it unchallenged. Once again, if I caused any offence then I apologise.

There's still the possibility of downloads and screenshots.

It's also not part of it to photograph clients and publish the images unless that's what the client paid for, or unless it was already agreed. This is such a weird question for the context.

Odd question. If you want to set up a photoshoot, get a willing model of whatever gender or aesthetic you're looking for (use an alt?) and keep them completely informed of what's going on. In RL, photographic models sign model release forms; you don't really need this in SL but the chat logs should do if you needed to prove that they agreed.

Haha, yes I saw that! I'd have added The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoevsky, Money by Martin Amis and At the Mountains of Madness by H P Lovecraft.

What is the preferred term? I just looked it up and it seems the words I've been using are acceptable, at least according to the UK sources. I apologise if I've been getting it wrong.

There are certainly a lot that go into gleeful descriptions of various horrible sex acts on women. One could argue that Urban Dictionary, as an entity, is not responsible for the content and doesn't condone any of them; it's just a reference for words that exist and what they mean. One would be correct. The fact still remains that just because a word is in there doesn't mean it's not offensive. And as Orwar pointed out, the word itself is less important than the context in which it was used.

If you're not the forum language police, why are you here telling me what I can't say? No, it is not fine. It is fine not to like pointless conversations and to say so. It is not fine to emphasise your point by making a derogatory remark about autistic people, even if you are young. (I'm sorry, have you seen some of the terms on Urban Dictionary? You don't think a heck of a lot of them are swimming in racism, sexism, homophobia and all the rest of it? You think that because a word appears on Urban Dictionary, of all places, that makes it inoffensive?) It is especially not fine to defend such language by claiming that you didn't mean these people literally are autistic. When you say "It's ok to call them autistic because they're not really" or "It's ok to use the R word because they don't have a learning disability really", you are in fact saying that being autistic, or having a learning disability or whatever, is a terrible thing to be. That it would be insulting only if it were actually true. I can't believe I have to explain this. I don't wish to drag up the past, but we have had a couple of comparable incidents recently. (We lost a popular and much-loved forumite at least in part because of it.) It does seem, to me, that these forums generally have a blowback against offensive sentiments such as these. I think that's a good thing, personally. The good news is, most people really are very forgiving if a person says, "Oh no, I didn't realise how offensive that was. I apologise, and consider me educated." If a person doesn't like that - if they explicitly say they don't like the atmosphere here because it's too sensitive or whatever - then yes, I might well suggest that the forum isn't a fit for them, because they want a response to these comments that they're not likely to get. There is a real difference between that and saying "Get lost, we hate you." And you say I have no sense of nuance? I am sure it wasn't INTENDED to be offensive, but it clearly was, by nature of the fact that it has offended people. And the only possible misunderstanding here was not in people taking offence, but a person not understanding why it's offensive to use autism as an insult. It's really not a nuanced situation. It's quite overtly insensitive. Anyway, this is the point where the well-intentioned person says, "I'm sorry, I didn't realise that was offensive but now I do." As it happens, though, you're right about one thing - I'm not the one who was insulted, so there's no need for anyone to apologise to me. What do you think of that "everyone and their grandmother" apology? And no, I don't need to have autism to take offence when someone insults autistic people.

Depends on what I'm doing. I'll always adjust it if that's better for what I want. In RP, though, I like to keep to the "real" daylight even if it's not optimal.

Rubbish. If you make a comment that many people find offensive, and your response to being told it's offensive is to make a sarcastic fauxpology and complain that the forum is over-sensitive and you don't like it, it's not "bullying" to suggest that the place may not be a fit for you. I was careful not to say "you aren't wanted here" because that's not true. I think it's fair to say that comments like that aren't wanted here, though, so if you want an appreciative audience for them, then yes, you are going to have to find somewhere else to make them. If we're talking about being welcoming, those kinds of comments aren't going to make people with autism feel wanted here. Incidentally, why do I have to have autism in order to be offended by unkind remarks about autistic people?

I think this is why so many radio or TV phone/text in competitions ask entrants to answer an incredibly easy question...so that it can fall outside the restrictions for gambling, since it does actually require a "skill" of sorts and isn't literally just a draw from anyone who puts their name in.

Then he might earn....A SHRUBBERY!

This isn't an apology. It's sarcasm and not very good sarcasm either. No, but it's still an incredibly ignorant and offensive thing to say, even and especially if someone does actually have a learning disability. And a fair number of us have said so, and will say so, if we need to. Like right now. We tend not to take well to disablist language. Though people are generally forgiving if it was a genuine error, made in sheer ignorance, a proper apology is given and the lesson learned. If you don't like that, and clearly you don't, then this may well not be the place for you. Personally I'll stay.

She read the CBeebies Bedtime Story a while ago. I told my son she was a very famous musician and singer who had made a lot of money and bought lots of books for children who might not have them otherwise. He said she sounded very kind. Then I said, "Isn't she beautiful?" and he agreed that she was.

Dolly Parton! "It costs a lot of money to look this cheap." On being asked if she was offended by dumb blonde jokes: "Why would I be? I know I ain't dumb and we all know I ain't blonde." God I love her. Love her love her love her.

I don't think that's a metaphor, but whether or not it is, I think you could have found a better way to express yourself.

I don't use the ignore function. I might do if it really did just kill any sign of a person on your screen, but I find it more annoying to see huge boxes saying HERE IS STUFF YOU CAN'T SEE than just scrolling past if I want to. I think it would also make it harder to follow conversations and a lot of the time you would see their stuff when it's quoted anyway. Spammers tend to keep coming back with new accounts so I don't know how useful I'd find it for those. I know I'm on at least one block list but that person let it be known that they block only badly behaved women and rarely appears except to whinge about them, so I kind of like that. I thought I was on another but it turned out I wasn't. Don't know about any others. I would expect at least some Goreans have probably done it, but as the average Gorean has never read anything that wasn't chewable and made of cloth, it doesn't make much difference.

You're not a dragon of any gender or description. It's like when Victoria Coren was on Have I Got News For You a few years ago. They were discussing reports of a pig whose owner claimed it was demonstrating psychic powers. Victoria just kept saying, "It's not a psychic pig." It wasn't a psychic pig. You are not a dragon.

Tucker's Law. (Very sweary. I love Peter Capaldi but he was just too good as Malcolm Tucker. It made it impossible for me to accept him as Dr Who.)