I dunno. Conflicted? Hell yeah.
Dunno what to do. Recently I gave up on a very old friendship because over the years it had grown toxic. My friend criticized everything I did, mocked my efforts to get our friendship on stable ground, and blamed it all on me whenever I tried to talk to him about it–thus clearing himself of any responsibility for helping me fix it.
That situation and this one are not at all analogous–except in one respect.
I am not a horrible person, and I do not need people in my life who treat me as if I were. I don’t want to have to think three times before I speak. I don’t want to question my every word or action. I deserve better than to walk on eggshells with those I call friends.
Others deserve to not be offended. They shouldn’t have to tolerate conversations that make them uncomfortable. They should feel safe in their community.
And right there, in perhaps my favorite online community, their needs and mine collide.
I’m not safe. I don’t think “sex” is a dirty word. I believe the human body is beautiful.
Anyone who thinks Don’t Ask Don’t Tell is a harmless policy, try this for a while. Choose something that’s very important to you–and don’t talk about it. Don’t hint about it or allude to it in any way. Hide it from everyone. I give you a week before you’re trying to figure out how you’re suddenly ashamed of this completely innocent part of you.
People assure me that referring to sex as “pink water activities” (pink being a chemical aphrodisiac; it’s an in-joke) is just for fun, but I’m still reluctant to just type “sex.” Because when people cough and blush and put the words “pink water activities” behind a spoiler cut, what the hell am I supposed to do with the terrifying word “sex?” Even those that I know aren’t afraid of the word don’t use it.
I like sex. I like smut. I like (some) porn. I think men are beautiful, and I like to look at them and talk about them. I found a site of normal people pictured, often in the nude, sometimes having sex–gay sex and lesbian sex and het sex and three-ways and an orgy here and there–and I think it’s beautiful. There’s nothing wrong with that.
Except I can’t talk about it. Can’t talk about my research for the smutbunny. Gotta behave with the links, no matter how much warning I put on them. Put a warning on my snips, and put them under a spoiler-cut if I think they’re really risqué. Even though the snips forum is supposed to be rated no higher than PG-13, so how damned risqué could they be and still be there? But I’m not sure they should be there. Because though the words are “PG-13” the gasps start happening if I go beyond “G.” Because while most of my friends are much like me, plenty of the community isn’t, and those people have rights too.
So, I thought, take it somewhere else. When I joked about a smut challenge, so many people chimed in with enthusiasm that I cheered and started an LJ community for it.
And nearly the first thing people wanted was a rating system so we don’t scare anyone.
It’s a smut challenge. The whole idea is to write a story (not a PWP, an actual story) starting with hot and heavy smut, and going from there write a story that works. One would think people joining that challenge would know what they were getting into.
I miss my friends. But what’s the point in going to chat if I’m just going to sit there not talking, uncomfortably trying to find something to say that isn’t going to offend anyone?
What’s the point in scaring or scarring my friends?
I’m constantly making my real-life friends (well, the new ones) uncomfortable because of my attitudes toward sex, sexuality, flirting and friendship. I’d like to blame this on my very open friends from Kentucky, but I’ve been this way ever since I realized that sex does not equal shame.
I don’t know how much having someone to commiserate with helps, but here I am?
In other news I was talking about you today to one of my fellow students. We were talking about the market for gay fiction and I had to correct him regarding whether or not straight women read gay male fiction. I believe the exact quote was, “You obviously haven’t met my friends.”
Of course, trying to explain Taro to him … got me a blank look. He’s apparently into literary fiction. :/
oh, the poor misguided soul! 😉
*hug* thanks. Commiseration helps.
*hugs lots and lots* For the record (although I think you know this), I’m not one who can be easily scared or scarred. You’re going to have to put some significant effort into it if you want to try.
I understand what you’re saying, and I had a similar experience with another online group (although in that situation it was partly politics, partly non-political conservative vs. liberal, and partly sex). I ended up leaving that group, although it took me several years to get to that point. Which just means that I have nothing constructive to offer, just tea & commiseration. *hugs again*
Blue? My FAVORITE color. 😉
*hug* I do know.
My interpretation of ‘rating system’ when it was first discussed was that it would be used to warn against super-extreme kinks that were potentially traumatic, rather than just explicit sex involving all the usual equipment. It only hit me later that most people don’t even know some of the kinks in my mental arsenal EXIST, and so that was probably not the intention. Whoops. <__>
I’m afraid I don’t have the answers, obviously. But I think you’re awesome and I wouldn’t put the effort into interacting with you if I thought you were at all sexually creepy, and I’m sorry if I’m missing out on epic plot/research discussions. And, you know, you have the advantage over some others of being much more used to the whole sex concept. Some of us kidlets are still trying to work out where everything fits and/or say ‘orgy’ without going into lolhysterics.
I would, however, like it noted that I quite shamelessly use the word ‘sex’ all over the place all the time. SHAMELESSLY.
*snuggles*
Oh, look, I totally broke that last comment by using non-standard smilies. Sorry about that. *ONLY JUST STOPS SELF FROM DOING IT AGAIN*
😐 I don’t know whether you’ll welcome public comments or not on this. But…
That day in chat still makes me conflicted. I still don’t entirely know what should or shouldn’t have been/be done, and that bothers me, too. I do know I don’t want to lose you as a friend, neither do I want you to leave the community. For selfish reasons, because you … enrich both. Me. The community. Make both better.
But you’re right, too. Your needs are valid, too.
I’d actually like to talk to about this more (if you can handle some head-desking ’caused unintentionally, but most likely still happening), because I’ve been thinking about this recently, why do we automatically assume sex is bad? Because I know a part of me thinks it is, conditioned for it without question. ‘Cause it’s why I use euphemisms and jokes. It’s why I’m a little awkward about it unless I’m certain the person I’m talking to can take it. It’s why .. a lot of things, but anyway… Which is hell, because another part of me agrees with your views quite adamantly.
[BEGIN TANGENT]
As for the LJ comm, I feel like I should apologize. My intention really wasn’t to ask for a rating system so we didn’t scare people… What I wanted, initially, was a clear definition so that people would be on the same page. I was actually expecting a specific kind of smut so that we could all sort of agree to jump into the deep pool together (or at least a minimum depth), no “eee, what if I end up writing less/more explicitly than everyone else?” I’m sorry I inadvertently made things more… complicated/harder. 😐
That said, I think the people who are members do want to explore. I think we may bet at different comfort levels right now, but I think we’re open to pushing. So, the ratings? Personally, I think everyone will jump in and read all snips regardless of the rating. 😛 It might help people in choosing where they read it, but I don’t think they’d shy away.
But… 😳 I think I …went off-topic from what I intended, but so I’ll say this last bit on the tangent: have you thought about bringing this up in the LJ comm? …or would you mind if I brought it up?
Coming back to my original intent, though…
[/END TANGENT]
I’m sending you ‘zen hugs. Hugs that are there because I desperately want to help and make you feel better even though I don’t know how exactly. Hugs that you can choose to accept if/when you like.
ps. I … don’t know where 😛 came from. Wasn’t my intention to put it there where it’s being displayed 😛
I agree that maybe the ratings are being made too much of, and it’s worth discussing over there. Could it be as simple as kink/non-kink (with same-sex defined as non-kink) and maybe two or three levels of explicitness? I know it’s a /smut/ challenge, but there’s a difference between romance novel-level smut and erotica.
Unfortunately, I don’t have the brain to intelligently discuss the other stuff at the moment (maybe later), so I’ll just say that I’m sorry you’re feeling stifled and that I, too, hope it doesn’t push you away from the community. I hope the existence of the LJ comm helps to mitigate that feeling, at least a bit. 🙁
forgot to add: *sends love*
I’m not sure what I can really say to this besides “OH GOD PLEASE DON’T LEAVE D:” and that’s not particularly coherent or helpful, so, um…
I wonder sometimes if the TSR attitude to all this isn’t, in some ways, self-perpetuating, rather than a totally accurate reflection of people’s needs. As in, people make joking euphemisms in a nod to the family-friendly policy and they catch on as in-jokes and people see the euphemisms becoming common and think, “Hmm, maybe I should be careful about such-and-such” and it sort of goes on from there. I mean, I know I was arguing for our standards the last time this came up but I don’t think they need to be interpreted as a total ban on even the mention of sex. Honestly, off the top of my head I can only think of two or three people who’ve been vocally averse to sexual conversations and even they’ve joined in sometimes when the discussion was fairly light or joking.
And that sort of tangentially brings me to my other thought which is that I don’t think it’s really accurate to assume that the reason people don’t like talking about sex is because they think it’s wrong or dirty, and therefore that you’re wrong or dirty. I mean, hell, I agree with you on pretty much every point there. I think it’s extremely important to be sex-positive, and I still don’t like reading smut if I can avoid it. Because I feel like a voyeur, or because I have a very malleable mindset and sometimes it gets muddled up with things that really really shouldn’t get muddled up with sex, or just because I’m asexual and sex is bizarre to me. So… I’m not sure how much that actually helps the whole censorship issue, but at least I think you can rest assured that it’s not really because we think you’re the corrupting spawn of Satan or anything.
This is a very long comment now but I guess my point is just that I know it’s been difficult to keep a content policy that works for everyone but I honestly don’t think it has to be as bad as all that and I’m sorry if I’ve said or done anything that made you feel alienated.
I’m not really sure what to say that others haven’t already said, but I want you to know that I read this and that I really do understand where you are coming from. I’ve been in that same boat in chat, and I would never leave the community because you all mean too much to me, but sometimes it does get very frustrating and…. it wears on me. A lot. So yeah, I understand what you mean.
If you ever want to talk, I’m here. I love you!
I pretty much agree with everything everyone already said (and Kami’s second paragraph could have been written from inside my brain). And what Alan said about the TSR-interpretation of “appropriate” and how it turns into a sort of cycle rings pretty true to me.
And I’m really sorry you’ve been unhappy, and if I’ve done anything that made you feel ashamed–which, honestly, I probably have, and saying I didn’t mean to almost certainly doesn’t make you feel better about it–but I am sorry about it.