"It is entirely unacceptable to 'surprise' someone with slaps, whips, blindfolds, or anything like that if you haven't spoken to them about it before," said anonymous sex blogger Girl on the Net....How does something that people individually want to do get to become a "community," with rules and experts, who claim to be in a position to enforce lines they've decided are there? How does this level of organization (or perceived organization) occur? When an individual like Schneiderman gets bad press, the experts serve a function, tending to the reputation of what they call a "community," but how are we supposed to judge this after-the-fact PR?
"People who participate in the BDSM community pride themselves on their communication and negotiation skills," said [Clinical sexologist Dr Celina] Criss. "Ideally, negotiation happens before partners ever touch each other."...
Girl on the Net likened it to a contact sport. "BDSM is to abuse what boxing is to being punched by surprise.... "I also know that 'BDSM made me do it' has been an excuse used by powerful men in the past to try and dodge accountability for their actions. It's not acceptable... BDSM is not an excuse for abuse."...
"It can be sexy, but also deeply caring," explained sex coach [Sarah] Martin. Kinky sex should never be used as a way to defend violent behaviour, she said. "It makes me feel it makes an attempt to take advantage of general societal ignorance of BDSM," she said.
I haven't used my "the [blank] community" tag in a long time.
Posts
100 comments:
"How does something that people individually want to do get to become a "community," with rules and experts, who claim to be in a position to enforce lines they've decided are there?"
Yes, prof, I've been wondering how you appointed yourself ideological boss and spokesperson for women.
Who elected you?
Consensual torture? Do you mean like watching CNN panels? What a crazy morning.
Second question.
You were one of the leaders of the charge to normalize homosexuality.
The gay community in the places where I lived, that is SF and NYC, was heavily populated by S&M and B&D fetishists, leather fetishists, dungeon fans, glory hole and sex club addicts, and on and on...
Did it ever occur to you that your (and the legal community's) decision to force gay normalization on us would result in the seepage of that behavior into the hetero world?
After all, every good hetero liberal woman now tells me that she adores gay, trannies and ever kind of sexual deviant and that she tolerates any and every kind of sexual behavior.
Where do you draw the line?
You threw out traditional Christianity and morality. Now, you have to replace that on a case by case basis. Your HR Book of 10,000 Rules. How is that supposed to work?
So, take the women Schneiderman exploited.
They undoubtedly gave him the "I love homos, trannies and every kind of deviant" speech.
In this strange male mind of mine, this says: "I'm up for any kind of shit and baby, let's go to the races."
This makes me think of the LARP community, or organizations like SCA. They role-play being vampires or knights or whatever. There are rules for conduct. They only pretend to bite one another and when they whack each other with swords, they take pains to make sure that it's a non-lethal beating they are giving each other. If someone in the middle of a match decided to pull out a sharp edged weapon and start stabbing, that's a line that's definitely been crossed.
I don't think it's the same thing, though. They keep their pants on for the most part.
"Yes, prof, I've been wondering how you appointed yourself ideological boss and spokesperson for women. Who elected you?"
I've never claimed to be speaking for any "community."
Please learn about the strawman fallacy and improve your thinking skills.
Because BDSM flirts with dangerous activities, a system of ettiquette is built up around it. Of course it's a community with rules and ecpectations. One of the expectations that many people outside the community don't understand is that the submissive is the one in control, the one who sets the boundries and gives and witholds permission. That's why Schneiderman using BDSM as an excuse for abuse is seen as a threat by people who enjoy that kind of kink.
One of the expectations that many people outside the community don't understand is that the submissive is the one in control, the one who sets the boundries and gives and witholds permission.
This may be true in the real world, I don't know. What I do know is that when BDSM is portrayed in media (TV/Movies) it almost exclusively features a cruel dominatrix and some pathetic loser guy gagged and tied up who we, as the viewer, are to hold in contempt.
Unless it's a big-budget soft porn thing like 50 Shades. That's no doubt more realistic.
The Secretary has far more meaningful insights into that whole institution. Negotiations do not necessarily take place. Consent is not explicitly given. Consent would, in fact, ruin the fun for the participants.
HOWEVER...when you dance near the knife's edge, you are bound to be cut a time or two.
Schneiderman is just a bully who thought he was with women as kinky as he was. Why he thought that about FEMINIST women, who are the modern day blue stockings of sexual pleasure, shows that he really is disqualified to hold his high office.
Yes, you do indeed insist that you speak for a "community."
You're lying. I don't know whether this is deliberate lying.
You keep insisting that disagreeing with your Marxist feminist ideology is "misogyny," that is hatred of women.
So, you do insist that you represent women. I'm not arguing a strawman.
You repeat this lie almost daily, that disagreeing with your Marxist feminist ideology means one hates women.
The hatred you keep getting from men isn't about the fact that you have a vagina. It's that you keep insisting that you represent a
Marxist class, that is women, with a grievance against men, and that disagreeing with you is the same as hating all women.
Now, quit conning me.
And, yes, you are a Marxist feminist.
You are not a Marxist across the board. In most other areas you're not.
Your insistence that women form a political class with a grievance against men is classic Marxism.
You are a Marxist feminist.
The word "community" is simply used to create a sense of normalcy that otherwise doesn't exist. Before being used, a signet ring and a copy of their official membership card in said community should be produced.
And, you are creating the problem of obnoxious men like Schneidermen conning women. He's a sneaky fucker. He's learned that he can con women into anything if only he salutes your Marxist feminist flag.
The reason that women can be conned in this manner is that your Marxist feminist grievance against men is bullshit.
You've been lying for 45 years that you have a class grievance against men. That lie is at the heart of your Marxist feminist ideology.
And, you're setting up women who have no grievance to be conned by the likes of Schneiderman. It's your fault.
It you want to end this charade, stop peddling the bullshit Marxist feminist lie that women form a political class with a grievance against men. Everything flows from that.
I had a friend in grad school who would do a quick joke: "Hurt me!" "No!" "Ah ....." If masochists want pain, sadists might refuse them the pain they want. Less paradoxically, sadists by definition are inclined to override rules and "safe words"; masochists by definition (I guess) are inclined to leave themselves without the protection of rules or safe words. This is one case where the train called "don't worry, nobody here but consenting adults" includes some boxcars of bullshit.
The best thing you can do to advance the cause of women, prof...
Is to stop the con game and admit publicly that you've been fabricating this Marxist feminist class grievance for 50 years.
It's time take your medicine and admit that you just fucked up out of vanity and drama queen hysteria.
Excuse me. The film, the Secretary, done by Maggie Gyllenhaal.
Yup, she was in charge. Nope, she had no idea what he was going to do. Sometimes, I bet he blew it.
But from that very first spanking for some typos, the consent came from silence...and her purposefully making more typos.
See, unlike the blue stockings like Laci Green and others in the House, consent can be implicit instead of explicit.
Frankly, I put it down to female perfidy: they don't WANT to give consent so they can continue to be a 'good girl' in their own mind, woefully taken advantage of by that man making them do 'horrible things'...and is he free again next Thursday? Saturday? When IS he free?
It is an end run around taking RESPONSIBILITY for their sexuality. And now, with Obama, Feminists like Althouse, and Dear Friends letters, men are criminalized if the woman did not have an adequate time or feels the slightest smidgeon of regret in their encounter.
Keen. Who are going to marry your nieces Ms. Althouse?
This is a toxic relationship atmosphere and it would be nice for Ms. Althouse and other Feminists to take some actual responsibility for their creation of it.
I think because the act borders are real violence, a few grouped together to develop notions to protect themselves from legal trouble. When you think it through, this is common for a lot of dangerous activities that later become normal. How did bungie jumping become acceptable? Wing suits around mountains? Air acrobatics in aircraft? The initial people were considered crazy, until others explained how it could be safely done.
That said, I think BDSM is nuts.
Yes, FIDO, I'm tired of Marxist feminists like Althouse poisoning the well for my daughters and granddaughters.
Drop the bitch, Ann.
My daughters and granddaughters never faced any "discrimination." In fact, they were always favored over boys.
Pious, there are virtually no movie portrayals of BDSM relationships. The occasional exploitive scene, sure, but relationships? The only one that comes to mind is The Secretary, and while it may take a while for the dynamc to become clear to the viewer, by the end it's obvious who was running the show.
"In this strange male mind of mine, this says: "I'm up for any kind of shit and baby, let's go to the races.""
That's a statement that would be used against you if you were ever charged with a sex crime.
You are confusing: 1. An expression of belief in the freedom that belongs to all human beings, and 2. The choice by any given individual about how to exercise the freedom that he or she has.
Individuals have freedom to pursue happiness with respect to their own lives and in deciding what to do with their own bodies. To say that is not to say I would like to do everything that people are free to do.
How is it possible to confuse those 2 things?
Because BDSM flirts with dangerous activities, a system of ettiquette is built up around it. Of course it's a community with rules and ecpectations.
But that is for people who want to participate in the BDSM that operates within a system of etiquette. That can't possibly include everyone who wants BDSM in their sex lives.
Althouse, you are one of the most confused women I’ve ever encountered.
There was a reason, lo these thousands of years, why we provided young people with a Christian or Jewish moral education as the answer to these issues.
You’ve really fucked up in your belief that your 1000 Rule Book of the law for college law professors can replace that.
How can you be this confused and dumb to think you can replaced the moral system humans evolved over thousands of years with this bonehead book of Marxist feminist blabber?
As I said, it’s time for you to admit that, just like all the Marxists before you, this attempt to legalize and punish into existence the New Man and New Woman is a moral evil.
I’m not a law professor, but I have more sense than you.
Oddly, only crazed Marxist feminist women like you get caught up in this shit, and only crazied Marxist feminist women find themselves in the position of being conned by the Sneaky Fuckers.
You’re a mess. An incredibly intellectual mess.
Now, here’s what a sensible father or mother tells his daughter when she begins dating:
“Don’t tell some young man how tolerant you are a guys who play in each other’s shit, or cut their dicks off or go to the dungeon to hang from the wall. If you do, you’re going to be in for some bad shit.”
"How does something that people individually want to do get to become a "community," with rules and experts . . . how are we supposed to judge this after-the-fact PR?"
Question asked, question answered: people wanting to do deviant stuff individually become a community when they need after-the-fact-PR to justify their deviance in the eyes of of a still-disapproving society. It's a CYA operation, no BDSM pun intended.
But progs face a dilemma: they don't want to be judgmental about sexual deviance yet want to vilify men for any sexual conduct of which a woman disapproves. Consent is a too-convenient, but in fact very complicated, way out.
Of course, after the transvaluation of sexual values, "society" does not in fact disapprove of BDSM anymore. Anything goes, except what women regret after the fact.
Shouting Thomas, I was nice enough to give you a response, to try to help. But do you notice that no one else is talking to you? Do you see how much more you are writing than anyone else and how much you are repeating yourself? I'm about to conclude that you are hopeless and just need to find somewhere else to write. I don't mind criticism, but I do mind threads getting completely hijacked by people who don't care about the quality of the conversation.
Try a sincere apology now. You are about to become one of the people I have to delete all the time because I've decided they are out to ruin the conversation for everyone.
Will anyone here defend Shouting Thomas as a commenter they are reading and getting some benefit from?
The power of the government is ultimately the power to control people physically by imposing punishment on them. (Monopoly on the legitimate initiation of force, AKA the things we choose to do together.) Should it be surprising that people who expend considerable effort to become channels of such power in their public lives might get off on exercising it in their personal lives as well?
No, you’re liar, Ann.
The only reason I speak to you is to scold you for this lifetime of lying.
You’re a very destructive, lying woman.
I don’t give a fuck whether you delete me. You need to be told by somebody that you’re a fucking liar.
The only thing I have to say to you is, stop lying. Stop the Marxist feminist lying.
It makes you stupid.
No, got to hell. You’re a fucking lying bitch.
Althouse, he's not adding anything by talking to you that way (8:07, 8:08).
I don’t think one can defend a lot of Shouting Thomas’ writing on the merits. Or perhaps one could say that the first 20% is interesting, and then the next 80% drifts off into La La Land.
However reading it is still far less annoying than reading Inga or whatever sock puppet Ritmo is using today.
However, our hostess seems to become angry at ST much more quickly than the other troll spammers who populate this blog simply because he attacks her, whereas the others generally attack everyone else. Which is understandable since it is her blog, and she is not required to tolerate being insulted on her own blog.
Is Shouting Thomas any worse than Lazlo’s “fucked in the ass” routines? We assume Lazlo is performance art. Why not ST? Maybe he’s Althouse’s own Andy Kaufman. The remedy for both is to just skip it.
How does something that people individually want to do get to become a "community,"
By definition. 1.c
@holdfast
1. I'm not angry.
2. I don't care if people attack me. I want dialogue, and I'm not interested in persuading anyone or gaining any worldly power.
3. What bothers me is the spamming — the repetitiousness and the length and numerosity of the comments. I think it drives other people away. I've allowed ST to go on like this for years, and I think his abusiveness of the opportunity he's had here is just so egregious today.
Althouse is sensitive to the needs of the raving lunatic community.
Speaking of communities and groups -
Forward: "Is Jordan Peterson Enabling Jew Hatred?"
"Jew hatred" is (supposedly) enabled by saying that Jews, as a group, are smarter than average, but "racial hatred" is incited by saying some other group is dumber than average.
It sure would be nice if everyone were exactly average.
("Clones" by "The Waitresses")
You can rationalize anything, if you put your mind to it.
"numerosity"
I thought that sounded like a fake word for "numerousness", but it led to...
Numerosity = Noun, "large number"
Numerosity = = Adjective, "numerous"
Numerosity = the requirement that members of a proposed class [community?] formed for a class action be so numerous as to make joinder of the members impracticable
"The numerosity adaptation effect is a perceptual phenomenon in numerical cognition which demonstrates non-symbolic numerical intuition and exemplifies how numerical percepts can impose themselves upon the human brain automatically."
Abuse is abuse even if the victim agrees to it. Otherwise what's the point of the law? How can a cop tell if the victim is being intimidated into saying he/she wanted it?
I thought Althouse had tolerated ST so long because he was insulting her.
I recently read this about Jeffrey Dahmer. Dahmer used to cut off the penis of some of his victims. He would then put said penis in a pickle jar in clear embalming fluid. He would occasionally take that pickle jar out and look at it while masturbating. Can we all agree that such behavior is reprehensible and should not be encouraged? Even if he used a fake penis in the pickle jar I would condemn such activities......I'm just trying to establish a base line here,
Isn't encouraging or even tolerating a commenter to leave long, abusive posts a form of masochism. What dark bond exists between them?
However, our hostess seems to become angry at ST much more quickly than the other troll spammers who populate this blog simply because he attacks her, whereas the others generally attack everyone else.
I agree. It is interesting that strings of trollish comments make 250 comment long threads that are almost useless.
Even if he used a fake penis in the pickle jar I would condemn such activities......I'm just trying to establish a base line here,
You mean like if he used a dildo?
Ritmo vs. ST — what's the diff? Other than their specific monomanias, that is.
Not that I'm defending either of them. I almost always skip over both commenters, because they're dull, childish, and repetitive. It would be a net positive to the blog if they were both gone – but I don't know that you want to set yourself up for that.
Hey Mom, I'm a recognized BDSM expert. I was quoted by the BBC!
Oh son, that's the nicest Mother's Day gift I could ever imagine. Thank you so much.
ooh! ooh! i have it! i have it!
no TRUE S&M person would beat someone without their consent!
I've lurked here for years for the legal back-and-forth. As for Shouting Thomas and a few others, I skip the remarks. As for the insults to Althouse, life is too short for this crap.
I try to write no more than three comments in a thread, and to say something that hasn't been said. Any more than that is a waste of my time and everyone else's.
The "spokesmen" that seem to pop up claiming some official status in an unorganized group, or phenomenon, are a creation of the press. The journalistic mind seems to demand organization and authority even where it can't exist. It makes it easier to write about I guess.
The Tea Party of 2009 for instance. It was an unorganized phenomenon, but was characterized as an entity.
This particular one is pretty weird. Who can define the parameters of what goes on in private?
I glance at ST's comments but rarely read them through unless they're short. In part because he usually is carrying on his own independent conversation, and also because I often can't connect his anger to any particular cause so I come away feeling like I don't understand his motivation.
I think Shouting Thomas is triggered here? Something in the topic is upsetting and thus the attacks. It reminds me of a religious person who is gay but hates gays. A sheltered life that is rocked by the abnormal. The Marxist notes just seem to be the color of the pen Shouting Thomas is using. The other time I have seen this is when someone has a toothache, a headache, or some pain that shortens time for them.
I am assuming that the internet has played a big part in the formation of these "communities." But what about before?
Were there only local communities? There were underground newspapers but, then again, they were mostly local. How did these communities arise?
CBGB's? Happenings? Protests?
It's rather interesting to ponder.
[Althouse:] Will anyone here defend Shouting Thomas as a commenter they are reading and getting some benefit from?
Shouting Thomas and President Pee Pee Tape are pure vandals, always insults where arguments belong.
If I could get Killfile to work, that wold be fine. But it won't.
So, speaking as almost pure lurker (who visits a half dozen or so times a day), pretty much the moment either of those two shows up on a thread, I close it.
Will no one rid me of this turbulent commenter?
Althouse is on to something here. One of the difficulties you have when you prioritize inclusion is that boundaries still have to exist. Whatever taboos that remain must be kept taboo; you can't be inclusive of an identity that is still taboo. So the victims of sadists must give their consent. This makes it all rather pointless, doesn't it? The alternative is to say that a person who gleefully inflicts pain on another person against that person's will -- a stranger -- is not engaging in sadism.
Is an older man who is sexually attracted to teenage boys (but not girls) gay?
I’ve always thought ST was just a character. The dead Filipino wife who serviced his needs, his SF and NYC bullshit, etc. His comments have almost no humor and are the same thing over and over. He’s like those crazy guys who stand on the corner and tell the end is near or Obama is trying to control my brain.
I give him props for calling himself “shouting” Thomas. That’s what his comments are. Shouts of the insane guy.
The spamming can be a bit annoying. It’s pretty easy though to skip over his comments. They all appear to be the same length. And he splits the paragraphs evenly. They are longer than most but not so long that you can’t scroll past them pretty easily. So there is no reason to delete his comments until they are actual eyesores
One difference is that ST is only angry at Althouse., Anyone who responds to Ritmo then becomes the target of abuse, usually obscene and personal.
As to the BSDM “community,” the contact sport analogy fails. Customs of contact sports are enforced by referees based on rules developed over a long period of time and even customs among the players. We can all watch sports and see this. There are slides in baseball considered “clean” and others considered “dirty,” based on a game with a long history and 20,000 players at the MLB level over 130 years.
Maybe Schneiderman’s behavior was “consensual.” No way to know because it’s not televised like a contact sport and there is no instant replay. Would help him if he had a long list of rules signed by his ex-girlfriends. “I agree to all racial epithets either in isolation or in combination with a back-handed slap hard enough to draw blood and cause swelling and bruising.”
AA: Will anyone here defend Shouting Thomas as a commenter they are reading and getting some benefit from?
I'll bite. ST has an unfortunate tendency to deteriorate into barroom bloviator mode, which is tedious, but when he's in good form he's worth reading. You never really address his fundamental point - that real pathology, degeneracy, and anti-freedom, Orwellian thuggery have arisen from the ideologies that progressives have espoused, re sexual "freeedom" and "tolerance" and "liberation", lo these many decades now. If you respond at all it's with pettifogging evasions. If you did (could?), that might get interesting.
And as others above have pointed out, there are much worse offenders in the "asshole barroom bloviator" category posting here. ST doesn't post all that much.
Shouting Thomas doesn’t comment to nearly the same degree as a couple of other commenters that ruin the conversation with their trolling posts. When I see his avatar, I don’t assume the conversation is finished the way I do with others. And I think we all know who those others are.
I am indifferent to the various nasty commenters here. Saying more only encourages them.
The BDSM (i.e. label) community is prideful, but trans-social. Normalize, tolerate, or reject?
Are they a diversity class (i.e. monolithic), that deserve to be judged by their "color"?
Is their orientation voluntary, consensual, and legal?
Anyway, weird, and icky, too.
This is all well and good and may establish that IF he had informed prior consent he did not commit assault and battery--but given his political posturing it does nothing to argue that he is an odious person with some severe issues about women and being violent towards them.
We are in a very strange place, which the Clintons among others have taken advantage of, where if something is not adjudicated as a criminal act, it should just be ignored, and character means nothing.
Apropos of "community", I recall being bemused when a progressive, feminist blogger back in the day (pretty good writer, actually), once posted that she was off to some "S&M Pride" demonstration in London. I can understand why people form "communities" with rules, guideliness, etc., because that's what people do, regarding just about anything humans get into.
But I thought there was something kinda pathetic about the need to make some big public show of "pride" in one's kink, as if they couldn't bear that somebody out there disproved of them, or had "false stereotypes" about them, or that the rest of us were supposed to give a shit about what they got up to, one way or the other. It's been pointed out (by whom, I forget) that people set up these artificial, highly-ritualized "communities" as a response to the breakdown of universally understood sex roles in a society, and to the ideological rejection of any kind of natural sex role, or normal desire.
In the past, ST has served a useful role.
Not today, though.
I really enjoy ST''s general observations and critiques about feminism. He makes interesting and provocative points (in my opinion). A page of history is often worth volumes of logic. (Hat tip - Ollie Wendell Homeboy)
Alas, his personal attacks against Althouse make no sense whatsoever. Althouse has opinions on the topic, Yes, but has many other, broad, diverse, interests. She has never been a vocal leader of the feminist movement. It is obsessive and unhelathy for him to portray her as if she were Gloria Steinham or Betty Friedan, when she is not.
So, I'm with AA on this.
My 2 cents.
Is Shouting Thomas any worse than Lazlo’s “fucked in the ass” routines? We assume Lazlo is performance art. Why not ST? Maybe he’s Althouse’s own Andy Kaufman. The remedy for both is to just skip it.
Performance art? That’s absurd in each case. ST is pure anger that is directed at our hostess. There are a number of possiblilities, one of which is that he failed her first year ConLaw class. I can picture his blue book IRAC as a sequence of “I believe” and “generally, I find” and “it’s my view that”, and “I feel that “. Our hostess simply replied at the top with an F and a comment that, “like a dead owl, neither of us gives a hoot what you believe, find, view, or feel.” He’s been on a descending spiral ever since.
Laslo, on the other hand has never attacked our hostess or anyone else on this blog. Rather than performance art, his short stories were inspired by the subject matter of the post and invariably illuminated some characteristics of the parties or the situation with uncommon insight...often hilariously. As an example, his contributions to the antifa posts in the voices of the New Antifa Guy and the Clean College Chick With The Hot Nose Ring And Herpes were pure sociology. The personas (ae?) of The Girl at Starbucks That Hates You and Girl with the Ponytail on the Treadmill were immediately identifiable as pure truth.
That’s not performance art. It’s called writing. Much of it was very good writing.
- Krumhorn
Will anyone here defend Shouting Thomas as a commenter they are reading and getting some benefit from?
Sometimes he is out there, for sure.Kinda like crazy Mary, can be interesting or extreme in personally attacking AA.
Permanent ban over reaction.
Really, really, inconsistent to threaten him when Goofy Ritmo is by far the most boring and wasteful and has been hijacking for years
Not complaining about goofy revolutionary, though. Entertaining to push his buttons when bored.
How hard is it to skip over the posts of jackballs? The only reason they keep posting is it works, they garner attention from enablers. When they are on their game, they instigate an endless loop of verbal S&M. The only thing that stops their runs is when they run out of Kleenex
I’ve always thought ST was just a character. The dead Filipino wife who serviced his needs, his SF and NYC bullshit, etc.
I believe ST was in SF during the worst part of the Aids epidemic and personally witnessed the destruction caused by acceptance of bathhouse behavior and denial of the fact that Aids was spread by homosexual community.
I believe when he says he saw friends and acquaintances die. He believes acceptance of "deviant" behavior is responsible for degradation of American society.
He has been personally affected.
The Contra Feminist Thought that ST salts the comments with is a good contrast done in small amounts.I suspect that is why The Professor accepts it. He does defend the old men's tradition. But The Professor is spot on in pointing out that ST is covering all of the discussion with a pile of salt, and that makes it inedible.
The goal is a harmony of free thought. On one side there are Women who once were expected to submit to male authority , but now expect men to bargain for it on equal terms. On the other side is ST's ideology supporting that male will must decide every case.
What are we to do? I say we suspend the one trick pony. We need the amazing mind of the Professor a million times more, and ST has nothing new that we don't already know by now.
Laslo is still with us.
For what its worth, speaking as a fellow who supports the concept of a theocratic Catholic government, a "patriarchial" society, and a restoration of the Inquisition, I like Laslo. Roll the eyes sometimes, at the repetitive tropes, but it is in fun.
And that entity, going by Laslo or any other name, is a very talented writer, wasted here really.
If you are getting out your 'ban'-mer, there is a urine soaked individual whom I regularly click past and I am far from the only complainer.
ARM, Voltaire and Inga while in denial of any other point of view, occasionally puncture a talking point.
Pepe La Pee Pee adds nothing.
As far as ST, his ire has something to do with Feminists (including yourself) who are dismissive of any critiques.
Since they will not change, answer charges or concede anything, this frustration is growing at the social damage they are smugly observing.
A mere 60% of the population is getting vexed with Feminists to a greater or lesser degree.
So Shouting Thomas may be a bit of an ire filled outlier, but he is a symptom, not an anomoly.
As a tenured retired professor you don't have to answer anything you don't want to, except at the expense at your credibility.
I’ve never understood the notion of “thread hijacking”. What, we’re all pitiful helpless victims whose scrolling fingers become immobilized by the rantings of some poor schlub who has no life outside of the Internet? It’s a ludicrous complaint, especially in a forum where those eager to be seen as victims are routinely, and rightfully, mocked. I simply rarely read those who I know will have nothing original, insightful, heartfelt, challenging, or humorous to say. Some are tiresome but do occasionally find an acorn of humor or insight, like ARM or our late comrade, Crack. Others, like Inga, Ritmo, Chuck, and ST, are utterly predictable.
That said, there’s no reason for Althouse to put up with sustained personal attacks. But there’s plenty of reasons for her to put up with (indeed, encourage) attacks on her reasoning and worldview. That’s the whole point, no?
Ann Althouse said...
Will anyone here defend Shouting Thomas as a commenter they are reading and getting some benefit from?
5/13/18, 8:01 AM
Ooh, Ooh, Ooh...
But first, whatabout Ritmo? Or half a dozen others who quite clearly wish to "destroy the blog" in your parlance.
Answer that, then I'll proceed on the virtues of Shouting Thomas.
but I do mind threads getting completely hijacked by people who don't care about the quality of the conversation.
If this is your concern - and I agree with it - then you would've banned that drooling thug, Ritmo, a long time ago.
But you haven't.
If this is your concern - and I agree with it - then you would've banned that drooling thug, Ritmo, a long time ago.
To be fair, working the delete key on Ritmo would be a full-time job.
Leave Ritmo out of this. He uses good arguments and toughens up the opposing commenters. His hard personal shots are mostly counter shots from past matches. ST wants an 8chan style no holds barred brawl. That only appeals to Octagon fans.
A lot of people are appalled at this whole thing because of the violence involved. Which is pretty darn normal to be appalled at.
But it seems to me its all a matter of perspective.
If you come upon a girl who is tied up and being spanked, it could be quite appalling if this scene is a rape scene. On the other hand, if it's a husband and wife mutually enjoying some consensual kink, is it even a little bit appalling?
Situations like this should be treated the same as consensual vs non consensual sex. If a man and a woman come together and agree on Sadomasochism then who are we to tell them no? On the other hand, if they come together for some light kissing and it turns into face slapping and the slapped party is non consensual, then it should be treated as assault.
This doesn't seem that hard to me on the surface. The hard part is determining consent. But isn't that always the hard part?
The BDSM community jumping in with their 2 cents is just dumb. It's not like there are elected leaders of said community who get to speak for everyone. There is probably a very wide range of consensual BDSM just as their is in consensual normal sex.
I don't think it's the same thing, though. They keep their pants on for the most part.
The joke about the SCA is that it stands for "Society for Consenting Adults".
The Drift Compatible podcast got into a discussion of this in the last episode, especially the whole "you can't consent to assault" issue.
https://drift-compatible.com/2018/05/08/drift-compatible-5-7-18/
In the matter of Shouting Thomas I am a bit of a fan of his. He often vents but his anger is directed to an establishment he holds responsible for the deterioration of normalcy. He sees Althouse as the priestess of progressive rationalizations which have brought us to this moment. Thus he insults her. Not my favorite riff of his but it is symbolic. I suspect there is a bad feminist in his past. A very bad one.
How do we reconcile the interests of the BDSM Community with the Duct-Taped Gerbil Community?
traditionalguy said... [hush][hide comment]
Leave Ritmo out of this. He uses good arguments and toughens up the opposing commenters. His hard personal shots are mostly counter shots from past matches.
HaHaHA, Good one !
(Shouting Thomas got sent out to the corn field, no doubt.)
I just came back from an excellent LGBT-identified AA meeting in Asbury Park. The lead was a trans woman whose amazing and inspirational story evoked empathetic responses from a number of other participants.
On a gut level, I have a very hard time understanding gender dysphoria, just as I have difficulty in finding eroticism in the whole BDSM scene with its many exotic tributaries. Yet I'm very happy that more and more people are at liberty to live their own peculiar lives without much harassment from the uninvolved. The pursuit of happiness doesn't have to bring us to the same neighborhoods.
(A pair of black zip boots with 2.5" heels arrived at my doorstep from England yesterday. Wish I could post a picture for you.)
traditionalguy said...
Leave Ritmo out of this. He uses good arguments and toughens up the opposing commenters. His hard personal shots are mostly counter shots from past matches. ST wants an 8chan style no holds barred brawl. That only appeals to Octagon fans.
5/13/18, 2:07 PM
Shaddap ya kook. Southern redheaded lawyer carrion. You make me sorry to be on the same side as you.
Blogger Freeman Hunt said...
I thought Althouse had tolerated ST so long because he was insulting her.
Wow, that's a lot of unearned credit to give her. No, her only beef is if she herself is addressed.
How does something that people individually want to do get to become a "community," with rules and experts, who claim to be in a position to enforce lines they've decided are there? How does this level of organization (or perceived organization) occur?
Well, first off, because as a minority interest, it's not trivial to find partners to do the activity.
Then, once there was a bit of gathering so people could find partners, there were some very obvious common interests -- whether as prosaic as figuring out how to acquire toys (whips, restraints, and the like) or as critical as figuring out how not to put people in the hospital.
Thus definite social communities formed, and those communities soon discovered they had some problems, like predators who didn't care about hospitalizing people or driving people away from the community in fear. So, with a healthy blend of altruism and rational self-interest, they developed norms and customs against those predators in order to protect the community and the people in it.
And, well. This sort of evolution didn't always happen all the way in all the local "leather" communities in the pre-online era (when it didn't, they were often short-lived). But as soon as they were all brought into contact with each other via the early online communication systems, an overarching culture did emerge. One of the signs of that unified culture's formation was when the rival labels "Bondage & Discipline", "Dominance/submission", and "Sadism & Masochism" got portmanteau-ed into BDSM. Similarly there was the adoption of "Safe, Sane, and Consensual" as a slogan, and the rival formulation "Risk-Aware Consensual Kink" (on the basis that "safe" and "sane" were too relative to be guideposts).
ITSM the whole thing is a No True Scottsman fallacy. Schneiderman was said not be practicing true BDSM because true BDSM has all kinds of ethical rules and procedures.
People who hurt each other sexually without BDSM rules arent TRUE BDSM aficionados see.
Happy Mother's Day, Althouse.
The pursuit of personal happiness disproportionately requires the abandonment of communal responsibility.
Most importantly, it requires not having children, as they get in the way of "happiness", as defined by the sort of people bound up (hah) in sexual obsessions. This sort of "freedom" simply does not work on a community or species level. It is a meme-weapon designed to exterminate, as if it were for instance a biological pest control methods intended to limit successful mating.
Humans are intelligent, therefore they are vulnerable to being exterminated by an idea.
LBGTQ or trangender spectrum, BDSM, etc. #LoveSomething #TooManyLabels
That being said...Thomas...lighten up Francis.
It's not a "no true Scotsman" fallacy to say someone born in Ireland, living in Ireland, and descended from Irish ancestors is not a Scotsman. They aren't even though it's true that the Scots were an Irish tribe that invaded and conquered the Picts. Similarity is not identity.
The BDSM community didn't hijack an existing term (like sadist) and made a declaration that the only "real" sadists conformed to the rules. Instead, a new term was specifically coined (BDSM) by the same community that was defining how to do it.
If you don't have consent, you're not doing BDSM, you're a sadist or bully engaging in abuse. Just like, if you don't have consent, you're not a husband consummating his marriage, you're a rapist committing rape. That the actor is motivated by lust and the actions are physically similar doesn't erase the distinction; they reinforce the need for the distinction.
Of course, that won't stop willful idiots like Andrea Dworkin from declaring all heterosexual intercourse to be rape, but they need to be contradicted because they're speaking dangerous nonsense.
Blogger Michael K said...
"One difference is that ST is only angry at Althouse., Anyone who responds to Ritmo then becomes the target of abuse, usually obscene and personal."
In his defense. He's a very bright sixteen year old. Even if he has a latex fetish.
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