AH - not a safe space

[curl4ever]

Oh my good lord, what has happened to this thread?

I've been trying to catch up, and say my piece, but it has gotten so bogged down I would have had to take notes, but by the time I realize I was going to have to scroll past so much nonsense, I couldn't remember where I wanted to go back and what I wanted to reply to.

I do feel, Handsinthedark, (I think it's you? Forgive me if it's not, it's 3am and I've been reading all of this for a very long time.) that when you say things like this,

"men don't treat each other that way and there's even less genetic incentive to treat women that way." And something else you said about how talking it out is the woman's way of doing things and men will just nod and and smile, gives credence to the terribly outdated and sometimes dangerous manta "Boys will be boys."

Other posters have made mention of how men can't help hitting on women, it's biological. Or some such nonsense. A grown man with half a brain should be able to stop himself from hitting on a woman if he doesn't seem to be getting the green light or if it is an inappropriate place or at an inappropriate time. And I'm not talking about polite "hitting on" like introducing yourself to someone you find attractive and seeing what might happen. I'm talking about the aggressive, can't take "no, I'm not interested" for an answer.

The other half of what you are saying, Handsinthedark, you agree with what Naoko is saying, she is simply telling other women that you don't have to go along with or entertain any kind of uncomfortable attention that you don't want, just because this is a site that deals with erotica, and you ESPECIALLY don't have to deal with someone who has gone out of their way to try to trick you by offering to help you and then demanding some sexual favor in return.

And Pilot, my goodness, I feel like you are misunderstanding Naoko's point entirely. Or maybe you lost the thread of it as I did. First of all, I must disagree with you when you keep saying this is a porn site, and so people have to be grounded enough to handle what goes on in this dirty dirty porn site. Naoko said several times that she is talking mainly to women writers and posters to the AH in general, and cited a specific example of a woman writer who was harassed by someone who pretended to want to help her, but was an asshole.

But you keep talking about women who come her to PLAY and then get all worked up when their PLAY results in unwanted attention. I don't know much about what goes on outside of the AH, and I'm sure it's more porn-y than it is in the AH, but Naoko, I don't think, is not talking about women who come to play in the GB or post pictures of themselves or whatever, she is talking about writers.

I am a writer and I don't come here to play. I come here to write. I take my writing seriously, little attention though it gets and little of it there is at times. When I used to write more BDSM stuff, I got a lot of PMs from men who thought they were Doms and who thought because I wrote what I did, and identified as submissive, that they had a right to demand all kinds of bullshit from me. Yes, I deleted their PMs and totally ignore them. Yes, that made several of them angry, as they felt it was their right to tell me what to do, me being all sub-y and them being all Dom-y and all. Which pointed out to me that they were not real Doms at all, as obviously they did not know how a D/s relationship works. But I am older and wiser and had this D/s stuff mostly figured out before I came here. There are probably a lot of younger, less sure, less confident women who don't realize that subs carry all the power, and a real Dom would not treat a woman like these men were trying to treat me. These women who maybe have some here to figure themselves out could get taken advantage of.

Anyway, I'm rambling just like so many people have caused this thread to. I agree with Naoko. Women, you don't have to be nice, or polite to someone who is giving you unwanted attention. If an editor, or any other writer, offers to help you, and then asks for something inappropriate in return, feel free to report them. You can do more than just ignore. Say something. It doesn't make you weak or whiny. It doesn't mean you have "gotten the vapors" (god is that a sexist remark or what?)

"Boys will be boys" is bullshit. "Men can't help being lecherous assholes" is bullshit. "It's a porn site, you get what you get and you don't get upset" is fucking bullshit. I don't care what name you use or what picture you post as your avatar, no one deserves to get harassed. Too many men still take silence as consent.

I had so many different things to say, but instead I'll just say

 

[loquere]

Ive been an ass on here, but I've been an equal opportunity ass. I also don't stalk or proposition. Wth that stated, this forum is not a compfortable place for women, however now that there's a MOD I think it'll get better.

 

[_Lynn_]

Ive been an ass on here, but I've been an equal opportunity ass. I also don't stalk or proposition. Wth that stated, this forum is not a compfortable place for women, however now that there's a MOD I think it'll get better.

Using your words 'stalking/propositioning', I've found the AH to be a comfortable forum since I started posting here in 2007. I choose the threads I enjoy and ignore the rest. I do the same with the people.

 

[LadyVer]

Ive been an ass on here, but I've been an equal opportunity ass. I also don't stalk or proposition. Wth that stated, this forum is not a compfortable place for women, however now that there's a MOD I think it'll get better.

After reading the thread, I wouldn-t count on it. But that is only my little ole pea-brain opinion.

Good to see you!

 

[TxRad]

You cant be more wrong, on almost every point you offer.

Prople are what they were 10,000 years ago. They haven't changed one iota. Fads come and go, but fads aren't change. The common factors for all here are: Low intelligence, cowardice, narcissism, functional psychosis, and industry that's more like the dead than the living.

Einstein said it more than a century ago: Your results conform to the statistics. If youre not near the one you fuck, you fuck the one youre near. AH is not where anyone goes to learn about writing. Its a place where a few dogs sit in the manger and chase writers away.

You have no idea what people were like 10,000 years ago. You have what science thinks people were like 10,000 years ago. People might not have changed or they might have, but that has nothing to do with the conversation here. This conversation is about society and social issues. Society has changed dramatically in your 10,000 years. You haven't but that's another story and question altogether.

As for learning about writing in the AH, you've learned a whole lot about writing here. I learned a lot about writing here. But then again, just writing teaches you about writing.

 

[Gorza]

Sex shops are damn interesting places. The smut-selling industry has seen something of a revolution, out of neccesity.

In every sizeable provincial town there's an old sex shop with frosted windows and fading decor. They're invariably run by old men who get a kick out of displaying their large collection of porn. They are dirty, sleazy and not a little sad, but I also find them to be amusing places. The customer base is almost entirely male. Whether they wear dirty raincoats or not, they slouch in the psychological equivalent. Women occassionally do come in. Some come out of curiosity, some because they want to find a bit of spice. They'll be given a warm, albeit sleazy, welcome, by the proprietor and other denizens. The atmosphere, merchandise and society are not designed to appeal to women. Most of these places were built before the great white explorers discovered female sexuality. Thus, the woman who enters must be a prostitute, a slut or lost. If she answer 'no' to an offer of help, then she must be merchandise.

The new, growing smut sector is quite different. In larger cities and on some High Streets, one can find sex shops that are more normalised: they operate as normal shops, integrating smut into the mainstream. They have women staff, sometimes a mix of sexes, and are bright and fun. The customers are a mix of young and old, men and women, gay and straight, and couples shopping together. Many sell online. Some organise sex-toy parties in customers' homes in the same manner our mothers held tupperware parties. If a guy come in and sleaze on a sales woman with a question about anal porn, she'd helpfully ask whether he liked it up his own arse. These places, even for nervous first-timers, are safe, friendly and realise that good sex is essentially humanising.

I know which I prefer. Literotica runs on old software; it's Web 1.0. Yup, it's a porn site, and it feels like Sex Shop 1.0 a lot of the time. It has been said that Literotica is a porn site, so what can we expect but sleazy raincoats. There will always be sleazy raincoats hanging around. They feel and believe that the only way they can be themselves is to dehumanise others. What matters more is atmosphere: how do we make AH and this forum feel more like a fun modern sex shop than a faded old throwback to the 70s?

 

[HandsInTheDark]

You have no idea what people were like 10,000 years ago. You have what science thinks people were like 10,000 years ago. People might not have changed or they might have, but that has nothing to do with the conversation here. This conversation is about society and social issues. Society has changed dramatically in your 10,000 years. You haven't but that's another story and question altogether.

As for learning about writing in the AH, you've learned a whole lot about writing here. I learned a lot about writing here. But then again, just writing teaches you about writing.

Great, the thread has finally gotten into nature vs nuture The point of no return in any debate.

 

[HandsInTheDark]

"men don't treat each other that way and there's even less genetic incentive to treat women that way." And something else you said about how talking it out is the woman's way of doing things and men will just nod and and smile, gives credence to the terribly outdated and sometimes dangerous manta "Boys will be boys."

Other posters have made mention of how men can't help hitting on women, it's biological. Or some such nonsense. A grown man with half a brain should be able to stop himself from hitting on a woman if he doesn't seem to be getting the green light or if it is an inappropriate place or at an inappropriate time

I'm always amused when a woman tries to explain how men should be and how biology isn't destiny and all that good stuff. Sweetheart, I'm a guy and I wouldn't ever attempt to speak for all men and how they are and should be; not even with the home court advantage of being male. What chance do you have? You have a radically different hormal system, different brain wiring; and above all have been trained differently by culture than a man is. You've got as much chance of being able to generalize about men as I do about women.

Men (and women too, but let me stick to a topic I know a little about) fall on a spectrum. Most men, clearly, have an average amount of self control and an average sex drive. Those guys are going to be mostly decent about women. I'm going to argue that it's not as pretty a picture as you're trying to paint; a guy in his 20s for the most part is a reproduction machine who wants to fuck every hot female with a pulse, and is constantly turning his imagination back from what his dick wants. But most men at most times have the average amount of self control and social conditioning and can be moderately decent, despite a biology that's screaming "fuck her! fuck her! fuck her!" more or less incessently.

But it's a spectrum. Some guys don't have the mental wiring, or life experence, to develop good self-control. Take a guy with underdeveloped impulse control and a high sex drive and you get someone who's always on the prowl, hitting on everything. Mix in some hate and love of control and you get a rapist, but even without that extreme you get a variety of behaviours, some of which have designations in medical handbooks. You get, in short, wolves who prowl and happen to look human. Some are socialpaths and psychopaths, some are just sex addicts who honestly don't mean harm, but bottom line, for some guys the off switch is out of reach sometimes.

Should men be gentleman and treat women with respect? Absolutely. Humans have a thing called morality and ethics which dictates that treating half the species as sex toys is just wrong. But men fall ona spectrum and not all of them are going to be able to rise to the level ethics demands.

My point is that in any large population, hell, in many small ones, you're going to have a few guys who simply don't behave they way you think they should. Maybe they don't have the half brain you allude to, or many it's not wired right. Maybe they had bad unbringing and now their behavious are deeply reinforced by life experiences. It doesn't matter why; they just exist. With different biology or different nurturing maybe they'd have turned out differently, and I'm not going to debate what part nature and nuture play because I have no clue and no one does. But they are both factors.

So.. again. Any online community is going to have some wolves. They aren't, perhaps, chosing to be jerks, they just are. You can't tell them to behave because they won't or maybe even can't. So it is necessary for your gender to stop whinging on about how men should be different, and deal with the fact that some men are never going to be what you dream they are. Live in the real world. It's why there's an Ignore feature here (and everywhere else on the net.)

Before you come back with a lecture, I'll turn it around. It's clearly not in any woman's interest to be sexual all the time; that can destroy a life in a lot of unpleasant ways. Ethics and morality dictate that wonen, like men, should be moderate in their sexual activity because otherwise you end up with too many babies and not enough food, etc. We can all agree thatunstrained sexuality in women is no better than it is in men, and it's bad for the woman.

But you've met the girls who are simply sluts and open their legs to any man who looks at them hard. Maybe you don't like these women because they're capable to stealiing your man; maybe you pity them.

But do you honestly think you can sit down with one of them and say "dear, use your brain, that's not good behaviour?" and get a change?

No. Because if people with behavioural issues could be talked out of their behaviours, we'd have more shrinks and less jails. And that would be a better world. But it's not the one we live in.

And let me add this bit of darkness. There are women in the world who love aggressive men. It's a fetish like any other; I've written D/s romances like Why I Hate My Roommate and quasi-non-con like Rent Comes Due and I promise you I have female fans who've admitted they want their real lives to be like that. They aren't indiscriminate sluts, they just respond to forceful or even bad men. The reality is, those women provide a payoff to the men who act like wolves, and as long as such women exist, bad men will find resinforcement for their behaviour. It may be an immoral or even viscious mating strategy, but sometimes it works, so it will never go out of style.

 

[sr71plt]

I would repeat my reality-based views on this but those who keep just repeating their fantasy pie-in-the-sky views at me would accuse me of just repeating my views over and over again (and not letting them beat me down with their repeated over and over again views).

 

[legerdemer]

I don't think I am. I think the women we are discussing are the ones who expect the site to cater to their sensitivities and protect them from even initial approaches. I don't see where Naoko would have had a reason to post about women who come into sites like this with their eyes open and with the ability to handle being on the site--which unfortunately doesn't include thinking that a thread on the AH is going to change the behavior of some men playing on an open-membership porn site. That's just spitting into the wind right there.

My understanding of her posts is she's trying to support women who aren't at the level of self-confidence or "with-it-ness" to get there on their own. To tell them, "Don't put up with what seems wrong to you. Develop and use your instincts. If it looks and smells like a duck..."

Although I will say that there for a while (not in the last year, as I can remember it), we frequently had threads on here asserting that women could act as sexy as they wanted and none of this should be taken as a signal of any interest unless/until that signal was conveyed (by osmosis?). But I think that that is just wishful thinking of such women and the denial that they have responsibilities too when applied to an Internet porn site (in the office or on the street--yes, but when they enter a porn site to play, they already are understood by certain men to be giving signals--men who aren't going to be changed by threads on a forum). And I believe that women exacerbate this when they pick a provocative account name and slap on a provocative avatar and are writing really steamy stories. It's just the reality of where they are choosing to play. They don't lose all of their responsibility for taking care of themselves and not overdoing the signals.

I agree with most of what you say here. Every action/word is a signal of some sort, and it is interpreted at both the giving and the receiving end - the problem of course is that the giver can't control the way the signal is interpreted by the receiver, and the giver needs to be aware of that. And that includes sexy/provocative avatars and account names - all signals of one sort or another.

But - the writing. This is one thing you wrote that somewhat boggles my mind. The writing on this site is defined as fiction. When writers don't want it defined as such, they label it so (whether that's a true label or not is immaterial). Do you really intend to tell me that, as a woman, I shouldn't be posting stories as steamy as "yours" (sorry for the personalization, I am only using "us" as an example, and because I have read your stories and know pretty well how steamy they are) because I might be propositioned more than you if I do so? But this site is all about steamy stories (as we all agree). If I want my writing to be noticed and be well-thought of, then it needs to attain a certain level of steaminess. You've pointed this out yourself in other threads - this is not the place for primarily non-erotic writing. And yes, I am well aware that by writing steamy stories, I have just taken myself out of the category of shy, demure, delicate wallflowers, be they male or female. But I still DO want to be treated with respect.

So should we equate steaminess, and erotic writing in general, by definition with an anything-goes invitation? Here I am referring to you as well on the receiving end - after all, you frequently (not always but often) write from a bottom's POV in a GM interaction - do you get constant PMs from tops who want to skewer you because, "clearly," your writing says you want it? When you do receive such messages, of course I imagine you delete them or treat them with whatever blend of sarcasm, rebuff, or just apathy you happen to feel at the moment you read them. But those message - if you get enough of them (whatever enough means, it's a sliding scale), don't they have an effect on you? Do you not get tired of them?

Which is not to say that I think (this time speaking only of myself) that anyone other than myself is responsible for drawing the line between what I consider cute, harmless, and snarky-fun versus truly obnoxious, objectionable, and downright offensive. I personally am the only one able to draw that line for me. But when I first joined the site, I would have been happy to feel some camaraderie between women whom I could ask advice about this or that behavior on the forum. It's not the camaraderie wasn't here - I didn't necessarily feel that it was inclusive, so I didn't avail myself of it. That's a different question altogether, and yet it is relevant to the point at hand.

We also for a while, during the SafeBet and Dyslexia period, had some "kill the bastards; kill all men" threads running. With a lot of cheerleading going on.

Before my time, I think, or at least before I was addicted to reading Lit threads. Personally, I have only a few bastards I want to "kill" (or perhaps just break their kneecaps), and none of them have anything to do with Lit.

 

[sr71plt]

But - the writing. This is one thing you wrote that somewhat boggles my mind. The writing on this site is defined as fiction.

I think you answered this yourself. The giver can't determine how the receiver takes it. I think any guy coming here to get a high on hitting on women (at this point I always laugh at the vision of a PM exchange between such a man and Susan/Freddie ) is going to see the same signal in a story posted here that he sees in the account name and the avatar. It doesn't matter if that's dumb; he isn't too bright either. Doesn't even need that much, actually. One of my women's name accounts uses an old-fashioned woman's name and no avatar (because she's never posted to the forum) and only has inspirational "feel good" nonerotic stories posted here (and, incidentally, gets the highest ratings of anything I post here). Still she got hit on in PMs. Simply being on the Web site was enough.

You said it yourself: the giver cannot determine how the receiver takes it. This is the bottom line to the spitting-in-the-wind of even posting this thread. This is an open-membership porn board (and those who rail in my continually pointing out that this is a porn board need to take a look around at the stories, the account names, the avatars, the various forums, the sex toy shop page, and the Web site presentation itself).

This isn't the office or grocery store. Posters (male and female equally) signal behavior by just being here, by the account name they choose and the avatar they post--and the stories they write. They don't lose responsibility for the choices they made--women no less than men.

By the way, I get hit on by men in PMs and e-mails for my "steamy" stories just as much as any woman does for hers. And, it's almost always a story that has prompted him to mail me--and he has always taken the story as what I've actually done/will do (and sometimes he's right about done, if not will do still, but not always).

 

[NOIRTRASH]

I'm always amused when a woman tries to explain how men should be and how biology isn't destiny and all that good stuff. Sweetheart, I'm a guy and I wouldn't ever attempt to speak for all men and how they are and should be; not even with the home court advantage of being male. What chance do you have? You have a radically different hormal system, different brain wiring; and above all have been trained differently by culture than a man is. You've got as much chance of being able to generalize about men as I do about women.

Men (and women too, but let me stick to a topic I know a little about) fall on a spectrum. Most men, clearly, have an average amount of self control and an average sex drive. Those guys are going to be mostly decent about women. I'm going to argue that it's not as pretty a picture as you're trying to paint; a guy in his 20s for the most part is a reproduction machine who wants to fuck every hot female with a pulse, and is constantly turning his imagination back from what his dick wants. But most men at most times have the average amount of self control and social conditioning and can be moderately decent, despite a biology that's screaming "fuck her! fuck her! fuck her!" more or less incessently.

But it's a spectrum. Some guys don't have the mental wiring, or life experence, to develop good self-control. Take a guy with underdeveloped impulse control and a high sex drive and you get someone who's always on the prowl, hitting on everything. Mix in some hate and love of control and you get a rapist, but even without that extreme you get a variety of behaviours, some of which have designations in medical handbooks. You get, in short, wolves who prowl and happen to look human. Some are socialpaths and psychopaths, some are just sex addicts who honestly don't mean harm, but bottom line, for some guys the off switch is out of reach sometimes.

Should men be gentleman and treat women with respect? Absolutely. Humans have a thing called morality and ethics which dictates that treating half the species as sex toys is just wrong. But men fall ona spectrum and not all of them are going to be able to rise to the level ethics demands.

My point is that in any large population, hell, in many small ones, you're going to have a few guys who simply don't behave they way you think they should. Maybe they don't have the half brain you allude to, or many it's not wired right. Maybe they had bad unbringing and now their behavious are deeply reinforced by life experiences. It doesn't matter why; they just exist. With different biology or different nurturing maybe they'd have turned out differently, and I'm not going to debate what part nature and nuture play because I have no clue and no one does. But they are both factors.

So.. again. Any online community is going to have some wolves. They aren't, perhaps, chosing to be jerks, they just are. You can't tell them to behave because they won't or maybe even can't. So it is necessary for your gender to stop whinging on about how men should be different, and deal with the fact that some men are never going to be what you dream they are. Live in the real world. It's why there's an Ignore feature here (and everywhere else on the net.)

Before you come back with a lecture, I'll turn it around. It's clearly not in any woman's interest to be sexual all the time; that can destroy a life in a lot of unpleasant ways. Ethics and morality dictate that wonen, like men, should be moderate in their sexual activity because otherwise you end up with too many babies and not enough food, etc. We can all agree thatunstrained sexuality in women is no better than it is in men, and it's bad for the woman.

But you've met the girls who are simply sluts and open their legs to any man who looks at them hard. Maybe you don't like these women because they're capable to stealiing your man; maybe you pity them.

But do you honestly think you can sit down with one of them and say "dear, use your brain, that's not good behaviour?" and get a change?

No. Because if people with behavioural issues could be talked out of their behaviours, we'd have more shrinks and less jails. And that would be a better world. But it's not the one we live in.

And let me add this bit of darkness. There are women in the world who love aggressive men. It's a fetish like any other; I've written D/s romances like Why I Hate My Roommate and quasi-non-con like Rent Comes Due and I promise you I have female fans who've admitted they want their real lives to be like that. They aren't indiscriminate sluts, they just respond to forceful or even bad men. The reality is, those women provide a payoff to the men who act like wolves, and as long as such women exist, bad men will find resinforcement for their behaviour. It may be an immoral or even viscious mating strategy, but sometimes it works, so it will never go out of style.

I've lived long enough and associated with enough females to be certain they lack the right stuff and talk out their ass about most subjects. Fucking is what they do best. Changing diapers is 2nd. House cleaning is a solid third.

 

[sr71plt]

Surely cooking would rank high with you too.

 

[HandsInTheDark]

Surely cooking would rank high with you too.

But so many don't cook well. Tragic, really.

 

[legerdemer]

I've lived long enough and associated with enough females to be certain they lack the right stuff and talk out their ass about most subjects. Fucking is what they do best. Changing diapers is 2nd. House cleaning is a solid third.

Gawd, you can be an ass when you want to. Get your head out of your posterior.

 

[HandsInTheDark]

Gawd, you can be an ass when you want to. Get your head out of your posterior.

Um... if you haven't figured out by now that he's in love with the yanking of chains...

(He was probably quite nice to his mom. Maybe out of fear, but I'm sure he was.)

Nice feet by the way.

(I added that just to keep the post on-topic. Sort of.)

 

[legerdemer]

Um... if you haven't figured out by now that he's in love with the yanking of chains...

Most of the time I don't bite. This time snarkiness just welled up and I didn't feel like controlling it. It's the AH forum, it makes me do it!

(He was probably quite nice to his mom. Maybe out of fear, but I'm sure he was.)

I wouldn't bet on it.

Nice feet by the way.

(I added that just to keep the post on-topic. Sort of.)

So, you don't actually like my feet?
(no, you don't need to answer that)

 

[rjordan]

Other posters have made mention of how men can't help hitting on women, it's biological. Or some such nonsense. A grown man with half a brain should be able to stop himself from hitting on a woman if he doesn't seem to be getting the green light or if it is an inappropriate place or at an inappropriate time.

Well, that nonsense would have been mine. Here's what I said:

"There is no way to prevent some guys from hitting on women. It's biological, but some have better learned behavior than others. That's not an excuse, it's just an incomplete explanation."​

There is no way to prevent guys from acting like that. Only THEY can prevent it with learned behavior. You, personally, can't prevent it by making them learn to behave, you can only ignore it or limit your exposure.

I make no excuses for men who act like that. Being civilized means suppressing a lot of behavior that is inherited or brought from other cultures.

I have a teenage grandson who is on the autism spectrum. He has a number of unacceptable behaviors. He knows what they are through years of therapy and training. He knows they are unacceptable. He has LEARNED to recognize them and suppress them. Mostly he's successful, sometimes he's not. The behaviors will probably never go away, but his ability to catch himself early steadily improves and a lot of people never realize he has the problem.

That's what I was talking about.

So you might want to consider if it is bullshit or just your inability to deal with something you can't fix that is the problem.

Here's a kitty.

rj

 

[JackLuis]

Only in your dreams, darling.

I just read Naoko's post and it made me think.

I know women who wont come to AH, they tell me, because its larded with dolts. They post stories but cant deal with the idgits here. So the problem is diverse...assholes and asshats.

Actually I like seeing your posts, even though I don't always agree with them. You give the place a little color, but I'm sure that is your intention.

I only have one person on Iggy, a particularly tiresome asshat. The rest I laugh at. Being on the Left Coast I get to see the whole circus delayed so it may color my view.

As for feminism, I grew up in a family of strong confident women and have little regard for macho men who think that they are God's gift. Women should feel more secure in who they are, a good dick punch is necessary once in a while to keep the asshats in line.

As for our bickering duo, I just shake my head and pass on by. They are not even fun any longer.

 

[sr71plt]

As for our bickering duo, I just shake my head and pass on by. They are not even fun any longer.

Apparently we are, or you wouldn't even mention/foment it--especially when the Mod has asked folks to cut it out.

 

[lovecraft68]

But so many don't cook well. Tragic, really.

I think this thread is pure wank fodder for you. I noticed you couldn't say "I've heard horror stories' you had to share some details and something tells me the subject of women being harassed is arousing in some way for you.

 

[lovecraft68]

Gawd, you can be an ass when you want to. Get your head out of your posterior.

He sounds like he's trying out for the Republican party.

 

[lovecraft68]

Apparently we are, or you wouldn't even mention/foment it--especially when the Mod has asked folks to cut it out.

They'd miss it, they say no, but then sit there with popcorn like people rubbernecking at a car wreck.

 

[sr71plt]

Of course. That's why they keep smugly "holier than thou" bringing it up whenever it dies down.

 

[ishtat]

I have had a surprising number of pm's saying generally, that the levity in post 192 was appreciated. Yet none of those people posted (publically) to the same effect?

Two interpretations present themselves as possible:

1 Some PM ers are sick to the back teeth of petty backbiting and want to lighten up a bit; but they maybe don't want to be 'yelled' at for an innocuous post.

2. Some PM ers think the story was a bit rude and don't want to admit they enjoyed it.

My own opinion, including my response to the op is that a lot of problems would not occur if just an ordinary level of courtesy is applied, especially when we disagree