Scylla Rhiadra

/me blinks Why on earth would you want to do that? Do you have a small plumbing job that needs doing? Something you require from a shelf that's too high for you to reach?

See? I can't even shock you competently. (I should, perhaps, note that the "quotation" from Germaine Greer is entirely fictitious: she's pretty potty-mouthed at times, but more elegant and articulate than I've suggested. I was going to remove the post before the mods took offense, and did it for me . . . but there seems to be no way to delete posts! Ack! I'm on record FOREVER!)

[Redacted: A whole bunch of completely inappropriate stuff that not only misrepresents Germaine Greer, who is an absolute GODDESS,* but also would undoubtedly offend a great many of the Virtuous and Upstanding Residents of SL and here on the forums, as well as raise the eyebrows of the Mods here who are, I'm sure, wonderful custodians of civil discourse and in every way totally liberal enough to overlook a mere jeux d'esprit, a momentary lapse in judgement.] *[ETA: Except for the stuff she says about trans women, which is entirely and completely wrong, and also weirdly inconsistent, although I guess 2nd Wave Feminism . . . you know?]

Yeah, but I only do that because I want people to think that I'm edgy and cool. But tell me, who else puts my "innocence" in scare quotes? Does that mean it's working????

How does a Martian blush? (That seems a much safer question than the other obvious one involving Martian physiology.) Well, the fact that you've discovered a place (SL) where it is relatively easy to talk about that sex thing suggests you've employed the "social barometer" well? You, and a great many other people I've known, have discovered in SL a place to interact and engage with more comfort, in part I suppose because of the "anonymity," but also because the social codes and conventions here are different. Although, actually, I'd question the importance of the anonymity. You aren't anonymous, and neither am I. You are Perrie, and you are known to and recognized by, I'd hazard a guess, a pretty broad and extensive range of people. Here, I'm "Scylla": I've developed a (somewhat tattered) reputation and history. I've embarrassed myself here countless times, and I can assure you that I've felt it deeply every time it has happened.

This "Scylla" character sounds thoroughly dodgy. I think I like her. Thank god she's fictional! It's odd that you, Maddy, thoroughly embedded in the STEM disciplines, should so often speak (so well) through parables, whereas I, trained in literature and poetry, rely instead upon prolix and turgid explication. I tried to come up with a cute little narrative sequel to respond, but I couldn't get past the part where "Scylla" is elected President of the United States on the strength of her ability to sell speciously attractive fantasies to people who desperately want easy answers. The view of John Milton -- and he was admittedly talking explicitly about print -- was that all ideas, whether good or bad (except Catholic ones) should be permitted to public view, because from the dialogue and debate that they engendered the Truth would inevitably emerge (unless it was a Catholic truth). That always used to seem to me a pretty sensible and liberal approach to the circulation of ideas (after all, I'm not Catholic), but I'll confess that recent events in the US and Europe have shaken my faith. So too has my unacknowledged faith that we are all slowly but inevitably moving towards a more liberal and generous culture. Sometimes, it turns out, the Truth is unpalatable, and the Fiction too seductively "reasonable." Sometime people aren't well enough trained to distinguish in a reliable way between the two. I guess that I still believe that even the snake oil salesmen need to be permitted to peddle their wares, because I don't know of anyone (with the possible exception of Maddy, of course) whom I'd trust to determine what is permissible, and what is purely malicious fraud. The answer, I think, maybe, is to teach people to "read" what they hear, or are told, or witness, well enough that they can make that determination for themselves. That's difficult -- very difficult, in fact, particularly in today's political climate. But at least it distributes the knowledge, and the skill, and the power. And maybe the "Scyllas" of the world will be just that much less successful in selling their 14 lbs of nonsense to the vulnerable, ignorant, and desperate? PS. I was never a Girl Guide (as we call them here); I never made it past one year of being a "Brownie." I'd have been lousy at selling cookies.

Well, if the stakes were higher, I'd argue with you about the wisdom, justice, etc., of this kind of system. It reminds me of the "good old days" in Britain and the US when the franchise to vote was limited to those (men) who possessed a minimum amount of wealth or property. As I said above, that's not actually very surprising: American libertarianism is mostly founded on principles from that historical era. However, as I say, there is not a lot really at stake here, so I'm not about to die on this particular hill. Ban me to your heart's content! I'll weep silently and copiously, of course . . . but somehow I'll pull through. (And hi Lindal!)

Well, I still think that you're filling in a lot of blanks here with an unnecessarily negative reading of his actions. You move from a few scant facts to motivations and intentions, which are always a bit slippery, no? And, as you yourself point out somewhere above, there is no real "harm" being inflicted here. On the whole, I think (as Maddy says above) the benefit of the doubt is the best approach. I'd rather be overly-generous in my judgements, than walk through life believing the worst of people. I guess that's a personal choice. In any case, I don't think this is worth pursuing further, although I will just note, in passing, that an approach that subjects new posters to this kind of sceptical scrutiny and speculative criticism isn't going to help attract new people to the community.

Well, it's funny. In some ways, or in some contexts, we've never been more "free," sexually speaking, than we are now. In most urban and well-educated environments, anyway, it's now pretty acceptable for a woman to be interested in just plain ol' sex. And I really think that's important, because I think that women have driven the sexual revolution of the past 50 years, for a variety of reasons. It was, after all, the widespread introduction of female contraception in the 60s that really got the ball rolling (so to speak) on this. That liberated women not merely to have sex -- i.e., be the newly-attainable object of male sexual desire -- but to actually seek it out. At the same time, of course, there remain corners and contexts where "***** shaming" and old-fashioned priggishness remain. And, more importantly, the relationship between sexual desire, and how we articulate that, has become much more complicated because the old rules regarding dating, courting, and the other rituals that used to establish the foundation for sex, have kind of gone out the window. And then there's the issue of consent, which, because it can no longer merely be "assumed," is now another complicating factor. And finally, there is context. Klytyna suggests just walking into a room and publicly announcing that you're looking for a sexual partner. In some contexts (in both SL and RL), that would be fine. In others, it would be a disaster. Not being entirely clear on those differences, and the different social conventions that adhere to each, means catastrophic failure. So I think that what you are detecting is really the confusion that arises during transitions from one set of social conventions to another. We're still working out how to talk about this, really.

Well, it was never exactly a constant problem for me either. The number of occasions when the whiny solicitations for "the sekksies" have got out of hand and truly annoying, or verging on harassment, have been pretty few. And in each case, I stopped when asked politely to do so.

Well, there's the difference between us, Maddy. You actually are an Evil Genius. Whereas I . . . I am a mere waif, a hapless ingénue, tossed hither and thither upon the waves of fortune. /me flutters her eyelashes fetchingly

Possibly it makes a difference in the US with regard to how much of the damage is covered by health care?

Klytyna, I too -- and probably every other woman who's ever been in SL -- has been annoyed by unwanted invitations to revel in virtual carnal delights. And yes, there is a part of me that gets at least mildly annoyed by men who clearly are only interested in sex, and for whom chit-chat is merely a necessary but probably slightly boring form of foreplay. But, in and of themselves, these things are not "harassment." Annoyances, like the bible thumpers or salesmen who turn up at your door, yes. But, unless their behavior crosses a reasonably clear line recognized, I think, by most people, they are still acting within the conventional bounds of civil engagement. So long as they respect the right of the women they are approaching to say "no" (which, to repeat, Reg says he did), that should be the end of the matter. Our apparently differing attitudes towards day-to-day annoyances aside, however, the key point is that your admittedly engaging portrait of how Reg conducted himself is constituted of about 90% speculative fiction, tacked up precariously with a few sketchy details provided by the OP himself. You've generated an elaborate and unnecessarily damning little narrative here about what went down based upon the slenderest threads of actual information. And I don't really get why. What does it cost you to take him at his word, that he was civil and polite? And what do you gain by publicly castigating him for putative behaviors that you can't possibly know him to have been guilty of? What does any of this achieve? Why say any of this?

Oh, you have no idea. Our underground network makes the Dark Web look like open chat in Club Penguin. And you should just see what our database has to say about you . . . (Bwahahahahah!!!!)

Hmmm . . . I'm not sure why I'm coming to his defence, given that he's completely ignored every post I've made here, but I don't actually see any real evidence in Reg's posts to suggest that he's been harassing women. Assuming that he's civilly backed away when those he's IMed have said "No" (and he says he has), then there's actually no particular harm in IMing multiple women . . . do you suppose women don't do the same at clubs? Really??? We don't have the chat logs, of course, but that's sort of the point: absence of evidence is not evidence of absence . . . or, er, something like that. There's this sort of game that gets played on this forum: someone will pop up with a complaint like this, and a forum regular (or regulars, more often) will begin to pick apart their story, looking for some slight evidence of hidden nefarious intent. Sometimes, maybe, that's justified, but as often as not it resembles a kind of mob swarming. 'Twas ever thus. I remember the very first time I ever posted in the SL "Residents Answers" board, in support of a friend who had made a pro-feminist post. Almost immediately, the assembled crowds decided that I was clearly a sock-puppet. Within an hour or so, I was also clearly part of an SL-wide underground conspiracy to rob men of their genital attachments, and ban dancing, hug animations, and cute puppy videos from the grid. (Well, ok, they were correct about one out of three. I hate cute puppy videos.) Then again . . . Reg has been studiously ignoring everything I said here, so you're probably all correct, and he's actually the first of a new wave of Woodbury University griefers. Anyone have a spare pitchfork I can borrow?

For which we may all, surely, be most consummately grateful.

Ah. I know the place whereof you speak (as I imagine do most people here). I always found it rather dull, myself: lots of avatars standing around engaged silently in IMing each other madly, with very little sense of community. But maybe it's changed? I'm sure that there are other cool, or even cooler places, to hang out and meet people. Although you may have a more difficult time finding curry and chips there.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Whatevs. Life's too short, Derek, and my coffee cup isn't large enough.

Speaking as someone who has been preemptively banned from whole swathes of Second Life that I'd never even visited, I entirely understand your sense of injustice. But . . . Second Life was built by a libertarian, and the structure of just about everything relating to the platform -- community standards, land controls, consumer protections (or the lack thereof), currency trading, etc. -- was designed with that ethos in mind. Despite the incursion of a few overarching rules enshrined in the CS at the time that the new maturity ratings were put in place, and which reflected a new concern over corporate responsibility and public relations, that seems to remain the case. There are no "human rights" in Second Life, and "power," such as it is, derives almost exclusively from property ownership. It's all very American, in an Adam-Smith-End-of-the-Eighteenth-Century sort of way. Those of us (I have no idea if this is your case or not) who come from other cultures, with other, very different assumptions about the relationship of the state to individuals, freedom, and so forth, sometimes find that difficult to understand.

Oh, she's cute alright. Absolutely adorable, in fact, in a sort of "Of-course-this-teleport-I'm-offering-you-won't-set-you-down-in-the-midst-of-a-blazing-brazier" kind of way. She's also terrifying, in a way, because she's probably the most perceptive person I've ever known here, and she can see right through me . . . Thank god she's gentle. Even when she's trying to immolate me.

Hi Dillon! I was wondering why you weren't around here when I dropped by earlier! I don't know the book, but I think I've seen it advertised on the subway here. I will check it out (even if it's not "chicklit" -- I've decided to try expanding my library to books that don't end in marriage or feature slightly crazed but lovable bff characters! ). I'm always looking for really effective and affecting articulations of feminism, LGBTQ and Trans-positive thinking, or perspectives on POC in literature because they can be really powerful teaching tools. It's not hard to explain social justice in logical or polemical terms, but I've always believed that literature can be an especially effective supplement because they engage the empathetic imagination: they help us see things differently through consciousness and experiences that are not our own. They humanize abstractions. I think that's what makes them pleasurable in a way that theoretical arguments and tables of stats never can be (as useful as those are as well). You are well, I hope? Have you been helping Snugs keep Maddy out of trouble?

I think you may want to update your training materials . . .

I had to go to the Urban Dictionary for that, and I still don't know what you're actually getting at . . . except that it had better not be meanings 3 through 14.

Well, I know I don't need to tell you how difficult it can be to keep them happily occupied in a non-destructive sort of way. We should have a coffee sometime and exchange notes.

I see what you did there . . . !