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Scylla Rhiadra

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  1. Scylla Rhiadra
    While there are a number of points and clarifications I could make in response to this, Sandor, we've been asked not to continue this discussion, at least on this thread, so I'm going to refrain from replying. ETA: Suffice it to say that the term "RP" was probably not well-chosen by me. It is, however, complicated.
  2. Scylla Rhiadra
    Funny you should ask this . . .
  3. Scylla Rhiadra
    What a great idea! Why don't you do this!? Physician, heal thyself . . .
  4. Scylla Rhiadra
    I'm pretty sure Marigold has me on ignore, so I'll doubt she'll see this, but that's fine. Just a quick comment. I would actually agree that, if at all possible (and it often isn't), the name of someone accused of a crime but not yet found guilty should be kept from the public. Maybe. Much depends on context. However, if that person is in a position of trust (and a dentist definitely is), then some sort of action to ensure that people are kept safe pending an investigation that determines the person's innocence is a good thing. The dentist's practice should be suspended pending such an investigation. Personally, I don't want to go to a dentist who's been accused of sexually assaulting someone, almost certainly while under anaesthetic (which is how these things usually happen with dentists). And, it can be argued that, as a reasonably rational adult, I'm capable of understanding the difference between "accused" or "charged," and "guilty of." Should I not maybe be given the information necessary to allow me to make my own decision about whether or not I want to risk putting myself in the hands of someone who is accused of sexual assault? A couple of years ago, the police here in Toronto determined that they were on the trail of a serial killer who was targeting gay men. They consciously and deliberately decided not to inform the public, and the gay community in particular, about this series of crimes because they hoped to catch him when he murdered his next victim. Utterly and appallingly reprehensible.
  5. Scylla Rhiadra
    What if, indeed!!?!? In classical rhetoric, they called this occupatio -- protesting that you aren't going to talk about something in such a way that you are actually talking about it.
  6. Scylla Rhiadra
    I can't speak for Dyna, obviously, but my reading of what she has said is that it's the fact this was unfolding in this particular thread that was the issue. And that a new thread on the same subject would be fine. In other words, this is about "being off topic." And I get that, actually. There are a lot of people who treat this thread as a place for light curmudgeoning. I think it's fair that "heavier" topics should be reserved for their own threads, where they can be safely ignored by those who don't want to get into it. That said, I have zero intention of starting such a thread myself. I feel exhausted just thinking about it. /me returns to her chaise longe, fanning herself furiously.
  7. Scylla Rhiadra
    It seems to me that, in practice here, discussions that involve so-called "social justice" issues or other "political" themes are generally permissible so long as the discussion remains firmly planted in the context of Second Life. In other words, a thread built around @Stephanie Misfit's original post -- and most of the discussion here that it elicited -- would likely be allowed so long as it didn't 1) wander off too much into RL analogues or examples, and 2) become too heated and contentious. The fact that we have had such discussions here since the new rules when into effect is one of the reasons why I still post here.
  8. Scylla Rhiadra
    Yeah, I don't think we're very far apart on this. I brought "kink" into this, btw, because I was answering both you and Sandor at the same time, and he suggested that this was about kink, so "muddying the waters" is my fault, in that I conflated your two rather different responses. This will be the last thing I say on this, because we don't want to endanger this thread by turning it into a potentially lengthy and contentious (not between you and I) discussion, but I will just finish by saying that if I accept the right of these idiots people to disparage and belittle women, I hope that they similarly acknowledge my right to call them unredeemable misogynist troglodytes people who have very questionable views.
  9. Scylla Rhiadra
    I know you would. And I also believe that you would, as @Da5id Weatherwax suggests, call out its expression where you saw it happening outside of a controlled and consensual context. Yes, I would. It's not merely "not my cup of tea" -- I have some serious larger ideological issues with it -- but yes, I don't believe that you liberate women sexually by telling them what they can or cannot do. Anymore than you are "freeing" women by telling them they are not permitted to wear head scarves if that is what they choose and consent to, and despite the fact that I believe that head scarves are a symbol and product of sexist oppression. But we're in this dangerous place here where literally any expression of hate can be justified by the simple expedient of claiming that it's "someone's kink." An expression asserting the inherent inferiority of blacks? Well . . . that's someone's kink for sure: we've got groups for it. Hate Jewish people? Just a kink, right? Get turned on by under-aged school girls wearing short skirts? DEFINITELY a kink. What makes the expression of a kink different from an outright and unironic statement of hate is the provision of context: it needs to be shown that these are not "real" attitudes, but rather the articulation of a consensual scene or fantasy. That it is, in other words, a form of RP. Because without that "flag" to signal that this apparent expression of hate is really just a representation of a particular kink, such expressions are substantively no different from actual advocacy for hate. And that, I submit, is the case of this group.
  10. Scylla Rhiadra
    Then you are only referring to women who join the group, and not to the rest of us. I don't "consent" to the expression of this kind of hatred against . . . me. And my point remains: the tacit acceptance of groups like this poisons SL's culture by normalizing these kinds of attitudes. That doesn't mean I advocate its banning, btw. But I sure as hell am going to make noise when I see it expressed.
  11. Scylla Rhiadra
    @Seicher Rae and @Bagnu -- the assumption that you both seem to be making is that this is an RP group. That people join when they want to "pretend" that women are inferior to men, and should be treated like dirt. Where do you see any mention of RP in this group description? There's not even any explicit mention of SLex here. Nor any suggestion that it is not a group for who don't just actually believe that women are sh*t who merit abuse? You surely know that such people exist, both in RL and SL. Andrew Tate has nearly 8 million followers on Twitter, and god knows how many viewers of his vile and hate-filled online screeds. And he's just one example. Misogyny is not a "kink." It's hate. I responded specifically to @Stephanie Misfit's point that misogyny has become "normalized" in SL. That doesn't mean that it's everywhere: I myself seldom run across blatant or very toxic examples of it in-world. But there are a huge number of groups, and really large ones in some instances (I know of one r*pe sim with over 30,0000 members), that cater to it, sometimes through RP and sometimes, as in this case, not. Misogyny is, I will say without fear of contradiction, the single most popular expression of targeted hatred in SL. And the sheer prevalence of its articulation, and its tacit acceptance by LL, is bound to make the kind of attitudes Stephanie describes seem "acceptable."
  12. Scylla Rhiadra
    That can't be right, Stephanie! The TOS and CS explicitly ban intolerance on the basis of gende . . . Oh. Wait.
  13. Scylla Rhiadra
    Well, ok. . . I understand the cynical urge, but it would probably help to know a bit more about these bands. Hole is an exception -- they never considered themselves a "Riot Grrrl" band, and clearly sought mainstream success which, to some degree, they achieved despite some pretty radically feminist and subversive songs. And Courtney Love was a complicated figure, to put it mildly. But most of these bands were underground, their fan base built from photocopied zines, their songs often recorded in garages and basements on crappy four-track recorders. Their music was often circulated on individually recorded cassettes with handmade "covers." (I think I still have a few of these around somewhere!) They rarely played to audiences larger than a hundred or so -- even Bikini Kill, the iconic Riot Grrrl band, played its gigs in places like independent record stores, and never achieved anything like mainstream success. They used their gigs to "spread the word" -- Bikini Kill famously used to hand out feminist pamphlets at the doors of their shows. And they met a LOT of opposition -- Kathleen Hanna has talked about having to dodge things like chains thrown at her on the stage. A few did manage to get small recording contracts, often through the patronage of people like Kim Gordon of Sonic Youth, but mostly this was not a musical/political movement that was trying to score platinum albums. Or if they were, they were sure going about it in an odd way. I think you can legitimately question some of the tenets of their feminism and maybe occasionally their methods, but these were bands who took their message and their mission very seriously. Most did not embrace the kinderwhore look, but those that did definitely saw it as a political statement.
  14. Scylla Rhiadra
    It was a race to see who'd post this first! I nearly posted it, but I couldn't be an impartial judge then. SO, it is my happy duty to award you with . . . 🏆 (Unless you're a trans person, in which case I'm afraid you're disqualified for two years, cuz men's brains. Or something.)
  15. Scylla Rhiadra
    Pretty sure it's the Knights Templar who are responsible. Or the Illuminati. OR ALIENS! Anyway, I'm not going to speculate because I know zip, but the distinction between "removed" and "broken" is an important one, because the former suggests it was done in compliance with LL's viewer, and the latter that it's something that, maybe, can be "fixed." Hence, my interest in hearing what poor, put-upon @Whirly Fizzle might have to say on the subject. Anyway, it's DUMB.
  16. Scylla Rhiadra
    Interestingly, I have a similar Cheezu dress -- this one with sort of straps hanging from the skirt -- that I'm equally mystified by. I DO have some very nice things from there, though. And my inventory is stuffed to bursting with stuff from Pixicat. Between them, and Fashionably Dead (who made the dress I'm wearing in this pic), I could wear a new outfit every day of the year without ever duplicating one! And why NOT? Thank you! I think the look is partly a function of the way I took the photo (of course). I have pretty mixed feelings about the whole kinderwhore look, tbh. When it shifts from being a "statement" to just becoming a "look," it can start to become a weeeeee bit problematic.
  17. Scylla Rhiadra
    QA = Queen Ant? 🤔 Agreed though, I'd love to hear @Whirly Fizzle's take on this! If anyone knows what went down with the Outfits folder, she will.
  18. Scylla Rhiadra
    Ok, so last night, because I'm still in "avoidance" mode, I spent an hour and a half trying to create a kinderwhore outfit from the white version of the "Why Did I Buy This?" dress I used to make my soft goth outfit. Not as successful, I think: the dress isn't really quite right for the look. But I added a lacy body suit underneath, and . . . it's passable, I suppose. I could do better with another dress or skirt/blouse combo.
  19. Scylla Rhiadra
    Visited The Fletcher Gallery today! Bought a pic, and enjoyed a number of others, including this lovely one by @Katherine Heartsong (which I've mutilated hideously in my rendering: visit the gallery to see it in its original glory!)
  20. Scylla Rhiadra
    I think both of these things can be true. I think Love is probably a pretty awful person (although I think too that that angle has been exaggerated, not least of all by Love herself), and her feminism has always been . . . problematic. (She once famously sucker-punched Kathleen Hanna, which is a bit like a Roman Catholic cardinal socking the Pope.) But it's real enough, just idiosyncratic. And she -- and many others in the Grunge and Riot Grrrl movements -- definitely and consciously relied on "shock value" to carry their message. They were angry, and they wanted to be sure you knew it. Here's Love on kinderwhore from a Rolling Stone interview from 1994: Where did your fascination with the tarnished baby-doll look really come from? And where’s the feminism in it? "I would like to think–in my heart of hearts–that I’m changing some psychosexual aspects of rock music. Not that I’m so desirable. I didn’t do the kinder-whore thing because I thought I was so hot. When I see the look used to make one more appealing–when I see a 14-year-old girl in a fanzine acting like she’s nine, it pisses me off. When I started, it was a What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? thing. My angle was irony." (Emphasis mine)
  21. Scylla Rhiadra
    "Kinderwhore" is the (easily misconstrued) name given to a style that originated in the 90s with Riot Grrrl and women-fronted grunge bands like Hole and Bikini Kill (which was very much my scene in those days). It's particularly associated with Courtney Love. It takes a very soft and conventionally "feminine" look -- babydoll dresses, for instance, or dresses with Peter Pan collars, worn with Mary Janes -- and subverts it ironically by grunging it up and sexualizing it. The idea was to use the look to interrogate and expose the hidden and oppressive sexual underpinnings of conventionally soft and feminine clothing. Babydoll dresses, for instance, tend (it can be argued) to infantilize women (hence the name, "babydoll") while covertly fetishizing them as sexual objects. So, in some ways, kinderwhore was less a "style" than an overt political statement; the name is less a reference to the look than to what it is exposing about conventional fashion aesthetics. It's not a look I ever actually adopted myself, but I liked the idea. Here's Courtney Love kinda rocking the look.
  22. Scylla Rhiadra
    Not a terrible idea, actually. Maybe on a tee shirt?
  23. Scylla Rhiadra
    Well, thank you! It's a perfectly nice dress, very well-made. There's nothing "wrong" with it, except that it isn't really my "look." So I had to mix it up a little, and make it a bit gothy, but in a soft and slightly ironic way (hence the fluffy hair and big nerd glasses!). I can wear this now, whereas I wouldn't have just "straight up," so to speak. I think I also bought this in white (what was I thinking?): maybe I'll try a bit of a kinderwhore look with it. If it works, I'll post a pic!
  24. Scylla Rhiadra
    So, as mentioned in another thread (which features a different photo from this same shoot), I got bored yesterday, discovered a dress I'd bought that I wasn't sure what to do with, and spent close to an hour fiddling to put together an outfit that might make it wearable. I think I succeeded? It's kinda cute? Anyway, I wore it dancing last night, and no one left the room in protest.
  25. Scylla Rhiadra
    Your "Honourary Canadian" certificate is in the mail. (But you have to start spelling "horror" as "horrour," of course.)
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