Talent, Skill, Popularity, and Misogyny: A Feminist Critique

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Re: Talent, Skill, Popularity, and Misogyny: A Feminist Crit

Post by macchinainterna » Tue Jun 11, 2013 10:49 pm

macchinainterna wrote:being an inconsiderate asshole as is expected of him
I will be serious for a moment. This thread is going absolutely nowhere fast. Anyone who posts a constructive arguement for Kio's thread gets immediately attacked by her. She refuses to hear anyone else's opinion on the matter and insists on being right.

This thread should be locked simply to allow everyone involved here, Kio included, to save face and agree to disagree.

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Re: Talent, Skill, Popularity, and Misogyny: A Feminist Crit

Post by JaddziaDax » Wed Jun 12, 2013 12:10 am

I decided to look into Feminism more due to this thread, and a lot of what I found I really didn't like. It does come off as "applying it to everything under the sun" when you see people making statements like if something doesn't go your way, blame the patriarchy. It usually ends up looking like misandry rather than females wanting equal rights and equal opportunity.

So my response about "applying it to everything" really came from that experience..

~~~~
As for this specific forum: I've seen some behavior that I think is creepy/rude towards females on this forum, but that is mostly in the Self Photos thread... anywhere else, I haven't seen it much, if at all. But I'd like to point out once again, I think it's more so due to lack of social skills. (And lacking social skills isn't necessarily a bad thing, it just means you need to learn, and people need to be patient to teach.)

As for the people who come in here and act as though the org is their personal playground, or like to act like jerks, I usually just brush them off as jerks. :P However they are jerks to everyone therefore I don't see females getting singled out by them. Granted many use misogynistic language as a tool to be a jerk, but they are essentially trolls anyway so I never thought that they were worth my time.

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Re: Talent, Skill, Popularity, and Misogyny: A Feminist Crit

Post by Kionon » Wed Jun 12, 2013 2:00 am

I think it's really important to realise that there is a difference between how feminism is portrayed by others and how those who self identify as feminists believe. Further, feminism is not monolithic and I have been very clear in claiming that I am an intersectional feminist. I'm pretty mainstream. I am not an extremist. I don't identify as a radical feminist and I largely disagree with those who wave the radfem label proudly.

As for the claim that the thread is going nowhere, I agree. However it is not because I have attacked anyone for offering constructive arguments, but rather because there have been repeated attempts to derail the thread, to mock my positions, to mischaracterise my beliefs, and to personally attack me.

I made it clear in the original essay and AGAIN in follow up posts that this wasn't a thread asking for people to prove me wrong. This wasn't an essay which ever gave any hint that I might change my mind or my opinions. This was me getting some serious issues off my chest. If you are attempting to convince me that misogyny in AMV communities doesn't exist, you've largely missed the point entirely. If you can't engage in this topic without trying to destroy my framework, derail the thread, and belittle me in the process, please start your own topic.
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Re: Talent, Skill, Popularity, and Misogyny: A Feminist Crit

Post by Kionon » Wed Jun 12, 2013 5:26 am

macchinainterna wrote:Anyone who posts a constructive arguement for Kio's thread gets immediately attacked by her. She refuses to hear anyone else's opinion on the matter and insists on being right.
Please point out where I attacked anyone.

There's a difference between hearing and agreeing. I've heard everyone else's opinions, but I'm under no obligation to agree with them. If I did not believe I was already right, I wouldn't have written the essay at all. I only wrote the essay to respond to that which I have already actually experienced and observed.

My expectation was for people to offer examples, and I have already explained at length why some people have chosen not to do that and my disappointment that they have not. The essay established ground rules. Ground rules which have been ignored. I'd rather people who are going to ignore these ground rules simply choose not to participate.

Unfortunately, they have chosen to participate, anyhow, and that is exactly the reason the essay was written in the first place and why the very people with the examples I hoped would be posted have PMed me to tell me there is no way they're going to get involved.

The hostility directed at this thread is exactly the hostility which provoked the essay in the first place. It's worth noting that over 90% of the inappropriate comments (accusatory, derailing, marginalising, etc) in the thread were made by male-identified members. I know. I counted. When you look at the posts that simply disagree with me, but are not inappropriate, the ratio is much more balanced. I'd find this absolutely fascinating, except that I already know from my previous writings and involvement with feminist perspectives in traditionally male dominated spaces that this is pretty par the course. Nothing too surprising here. Unfortunate, but not surprising.

Of course, not all of those inappropriate comments are seen as inappropriate by their authors, which of course itself just further lends credence to my arguments.
This thread should be locked simply to allow everyone involved here, Kio included, to save face and agree to disagree.
I stand by everything I have said so far. I do not need to "save face." The essay itself already established my positions, and I've also repeatedly reestablished them and reiterated my commitment to those positions.

A feminist writing a feminist critique continues to espouse feminist positions!

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Re: Talent, Skill, Popularity, and Misogyny: A Feminist Crit

Post by Fall_Child42 » Wed Jun 12, 2013 8:16 am

Kionon wrote:I made it clear in the original essay and AGAIN in follow up posts that this wasn't a thread asking for people to prove me wrong. This wasn't an essay which ever gave any hint that I might change my mind or my opinions. This was me getting some serious issues off my chest. If you are attempting to convince me that misogyny in AMV communities doesn't exist, you've largely missed the point entirely. If you can't engage in this topic without trying to destroy my framework, derail the thread, and belittle me in the process, please start your own topic.

You know how this reads right?

I'm not saying that this is what your saying but I want you to take a step back and read this paragraph from the perspective of someone who is not you. I want to show you why people might be getting the wrong idea and not understanding what you want.

This is a forum. A forum is for discussion. A discussion usually requires a conversation back and forth between people that have differing opinions. You clearly state that this thread was not made for discussion, so why does this thread exist? This was an inappropriate place to post your essay. A better place would have been the journals, or even an offsite blog. Simply due to the fact that you seem to be getting upset that people are trying to discuss things with you in an area made for discussion. But again you have clearly stated that this is not for people to try and change your mind and that you will not change your mind and that this is not for discussion.

Another thing that might be harmful to your point, you keep bringing up the "tone of the essay" or "My essay made it clear that" but there is some problems with that.

I'm sure you yourself would admit that your essay is a tad on the long site. If I may be blunt your essay is also not very clear. It lacks structure, logic, focus, and is very hard for people to read. If there were rules you wanted people to follow, they need to be much more concise and written in a way people can understand. I do not consider myself an uneducated individual, and I hope you also do not think of me as stupid, but even after reading your essay I didn't understand what tone you were going for or exactly how you wanted people to behave so I don't find it surprising that other people didn't understand either. Though I do kind of find it surprising your reaction to people that "miss your point" is not one of re-explaining it in a different way, in less words or different language, but one of annoyance or anger.

you must understand that many people on this forum are younger, don't have English as a first language, or simply did not have the means to provide themselves with higher education as you did, and thus a giant wall of difficult language is hard for them to get around, and easy for them to misconstrue your purpose, tone, or message.


These last two lines
"If you are attempting to convince me that misogyny in AMV communities doesn't exist, you've largely missed the point entirely. If you can't engage in this topic without trying to destroy my framework, derail the thread, and belittle me in the process, please start your own topic."

I know what you are saying is, "I'm sorry it seems you did not understand my original intentions, but I did not wish people to have these sorts of discussions in my thread, I am for these types of discussions but I would request they be held elsewhere." (I believe this is what you are saying I'm not trying to put words in your mouth) but the way you wrote it is combative. It can easily be read as "you don't get it. you're too stupid to get what i'm saying. if you don't think like i do get out." and that may be where you, and the other people in this thread are feeling the hostility from.

All of your language has had this sort of tone to it. I can sense the passion you have for the topic, but it also comes of as increasingly hostile even though you may not mean it to. But when it can be read like that easily it puts people on the defensive, and they just naturally start to fight back. Your vagueness and tone almost made me feel like I was being branded as one of these horrible misogynists, which I sincerely hope you don't believe, as I feel I am quite the opposite.
Then I took a step back and realized that this was not the case, but your lingual use brought that initial reaction from me.

I think there has been mistakes made by all in here, from the choice of posting area, to the ways people interpreted your words. I don't think any one person or group is to blame, but I also think that if this was an essay not meant for discussion and the discussion that is coming from it is not wanted then this thread really needn't be here in this way.

I would actually like to see a discussion feminism in general but the OP would have to be written to foster clear proper discussion with rules written out in a concise understandable manner.

look at me
i wrote all of these words,
I didn't make a single joke.

you brought out the worst in me Kionon.
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Re: Talent, Skill, Popularity, and Misogyny: A Feminist Crit

Post by Ileia » Wed Jun 12, 2013 8:31 am

Kionon wrote:I made it clear in the original essay and AGAIN in follow up posts that this wasn't a thread asking for people to prove me wrong. This wasn't an essay which ever gave any hint that I might change my mind or my opinions. This was me getting some serious issues off my chest. If you are attempting to convince me that misogyny in AMV communities doesn't exist, you've largely missed the point entirely. If you can't engage in this topic without trying to destroy my framework, derail the thread, and belittle me in the process, please start your own topic.
I don't really see how this a "discussion" thread, then, since that basically boils down to "agree with me or leave". But since you did post it on a forum......
Kionon wrote:A) Misogyny does not exist as a pervasive problem and feminist theory is wrong.
B) Misogyny does exist as a pervasive problem, but not in AMV communities.
C) Misogyny is pervasive enough that editors with personal experiences feel that they will be made uncomfortable, or mocked, or hounded if they choose to post.
D) Misogyny is so pervasive that it has been internalised so heavily by everyone that very few of us even notice it is an issue, even when it is directly directed at us.
There's another option here. Rather than women feeling too unsafe to post....it's that they don't have stories to share because misogyny in the AMV community is few and far between. Does it exist? Yes. Would I say that it's a "pervasive problem"? No. In fact, (unless I was really reaching), the few instances when I could even think of it being a issue were mostly a) years ago b) perpetrated by members who were established trolls and/or are long since inactive and (perhaps most importantly) c) not condoned by the members of the community.The one recent example I could find? Three months ago (Look in my uploader comments here), a commenter says that I'm either a girl or gay because my video is girly, then makes a joke about me making sandwiches/computer in the kitchen. Nobody gave him an internet high five or lol'd, none of that. They downvoted his comment to the point where it's hidden. It's clear to everyone that it's not okay.


I've been following this topic but I didn't want to post because, honestly, I find it kind of ridiculous. And, well, a little bit offensive. I resent that implication that we're being dominated by men, like the women here are weak fawns who need to quit letting ourselves be subjugated, we need to rise up and fight the power, sister! What? No. Since this thread popped up, I've discussed it with at least a dozen women and the response is all basically the same: an eye roll. Not at the subject matter itself, but at the length you are taking it.

And with that, I resent the suggestion that the men of the community are either being misogynistic or are standing idly by while it occurs, thereby condoning it. In reality, with the exception of obvious trolls, the vast majority of them are doing neither just due to the infrequency of the occurrences. And sometimes they're the ones (as I said earlier) making it clear that certain behaviors are not okay.


(I didn't see it until after writing this already, but I'm just gonna x2 Todd's post, since that also adds to the ridiculous what-would-even-be-the-point-of-posting-in-this-topic bit )
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Re: Talent, Skill, Popularity, and Misogyny: A Feminist Crit

Post by Chiikaboom » Wed Jun 12, 2013 10:59 am

Okay I really really really didnt want to post in here because as a raging feminist myself some posts are making me physically ill and its revealing a lot of internalized misogyny within the community and this makes me uncomfortable

but basically x2 on what ileia said. plus, if I could clarify a couple things about feminism:

Feminism is not about fem dom. It is about equality and it always has been. Anything "misandrist" is the patriarchy backfiring on men. For example, the notion that women shouldn't be hit is based on the misogynistic notion that women are fragile - while its supposedly acceptable for men to be hit because men are tough and strong and its okay to hit them. Its not a matter of just simply blaming patriarchy when things don't go our way, its based on fact. The idea that women are more emotional than men is also based on the misogynistic belief that women are again, fragile and weak, and men are tough strong and manly and don't have feelings thus they don't cry! again, because patriarchy. we live in a society run by men and these beliefs are reinforced by men, not women!

Real feminists want equality - real feminists want to break the patriarchy which in the end benefits both men and women. which is why misandry isn't a thing, males aren't oppressed, etc etc. theres no such thing as "reverse sexism".

I understand that feminism is easy to misunderstand, a lot of "white feminists" give the movement a bad name. There are good reasons to hate feminism: internalized misogyny, homophobia, racism, transphobia, etc (thanks to mainstream white feminism), but bad reasons to hate feminism are: "misandry!!!11 male oppression!!11 but what about teh menz???" which really is a lot of the comments im seeing here, that oppression is going both ways and males are equally objectified etc etc which is a load of bullshit.

I realize my post has little to do with amvs and such but as a feminist I felt the need to attempt to clarify a couple misconceptions in the thread. I think Kio had good intentions with this post but its derailed so much I honestly think it should be locked at this point.
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Re: Talent, Skill, Popularity, and Misogyny: A Feminist Crit

Post by AquaSky » Wed Jun 12, 2013 12:22 pm

My thoughts on the matter are simple. As someone who has spent 10 years on the .org and at conventions, I have always felt welcomed and included. I've made videos, made friends, and made memories. I'm truly happy to be a part of this community.

I've never felt unwelcome because I'm female. If anything, I've found a large support structure for women editors here, and a strong sense of belonging. I'm deeply saddened if other women have been mistreated or stigmatized by certain members of the .org, but I honestly believe that the actions of those few antagonists do not represent our community at large.

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Re: Talent, Skill, Popularity, and Misogyny: A Feminist Crit

Post by Kionon » Wed Jun 12, 2013 8:14 pm

I'd written a couple of different responses, and all of them didn't go the direction I wanted them to go. So rather than respond directly to the last few posts (I actually did that, I have a draft where I went line by line, post by post), I'm going to take a different tact entirely.

Please don't tl;dr this. Please read all of it. And please think deeply about it before replying. A failure to do so will have it locked.

I can't mention incidents which have been brought to my attention by others when they have chosen to remain private. I'd like to. In fact, I'd love to. But I don't have to right to betray that confidence. So instead, I'm going to detail of the many incidents I've witnessed or experienced over the years. I'm not going to name names, but I'm also not going to go out of my way to hide details about people.

Let me be bleakly honest. I don't expect this to go well. I fully expect to be mocked. I expect my experiences to be invalidated. I don't expect people to be sympathetic. I don't expect this to be a safe space, and I take a real emotional risk getting into specifics. I haven't even finished writing the post yet and I'm already flinching. Prove me wrong, maybe?

I honestly don't remember much about women being discussed at all on the AMV ML. I would have to go back to the archives, but I don't remember anything overtly negative OR positive. I don't remember much notice of women at all. That's an issue in and of itself, of course, but I'm trying to restrict myself to incidents I consider overtly offensive. Castor Troy brought up a really excellent question, even if I disagreed with how he phrases the question. Why am I only bringing this up now?

The answer is because I haven't had the necessary tools to analyze these incidents or even really cope with them until very recently (recently is relative here). I've only been heavily engaged in feminism for about four years now (although I've been around feminist thought since roughly late 2003, so almost ten years). In 2006 I had serious issues in the Navy including harassment and what has taken years for me to identify as sexual assault, all based on perceptions of orientation and a hostility towards women or those perceived to have woman like qualities. I hope you reread that sentence, because it is the first time I have ever said it publicly. This is the real reason I left the Navy, although I've often been intentionally vague about the reasons in the past. I had heightened awareness in 2007 as I found myself with smaller amounts of personal space as a woman, increased comments on my appearance, catcalled on the streets of Midtown Atlanta, followed by strange men in my neighborhood, and in one specific case, I believe I just barely escaped being sexually assaulted/raped (or murdered, once the individual in question realised a bit more about me). It's hard to say what he was doing, honestly, but after several minutes of calling out to me, then following me, when he finally reached out to me, I bolted. This is known as Schrodinger's Rapist. I was escorted home by a pair of police officers I ran into on their dinner break at a nearby restaurant.

I'd say I've only been overtly activist and academic about it for about two years, that makes sense as I attended a women's college for graduate school where nearly every class of mine was cross-listed between political science and women's studies. I've only been a published feminist writer for about three months. As has been expressed by several folks themselves in the thread, I came to believe that some people were just shitty people who said shitty things. I don't believe that any more. I can't believe that any more. I've simply seen too much evidence of an underlying patriarchal superstructure for me to consider it to be anything else but a pervasive issue. We're, the AMV hobby, just a whole lot better about it than other places; but I don't hang out in those places. I hang out here. And when it comes right down to it, it's all the little stuff, the teeny tiny bits and pieces of thought and phrase which help perpetuate the worst stuff. So it's not enough to say, "Oh, it's a minor problem. Only assholes act that way. Just ignore it." Sorry, I can't do that, and I think it should be really clear to everyone now why.

Chii isn't the only one with triggers.

At AWA 6 in 2000 (?), I was sitting with someone who would become quite prominent on the Org. He sat under VAT (or whatever it was called at that time, the AMV room) equipment drinking and making inappropriate comments on the appearance of women as they entered the VAT. I don't think many of them were actually editors (maybe a few), but that's irrelevant. I don't think I participated (I did drink, which probably shouldn't have happened, as I was 17 at the time), but I also didn't stop him.

In the early days of the Org, from 2001 to 2003, I witnessed a high number of thoughtless, off-the-cuff "I didn' mean nuthin' by it, I swears" misogynistic comments (in fairness, homophobia was just as bad, although due to intersectionality, the two cannot be completely separated). Plenty of these can still be researched on the forums, but a number of them weren't on the Org forums, and some of them are probably inaccessible because they were in the old Off Topic forum. Some of them were directed at me. Even as early as 1998, there were fandom areas (largely areas of Sailor Moon fandom) where I was identified as female, and I experienced micro-aggressions and general creepiness there. I experienced even more when I finally met up with some of these people offline.

In 2000/2001, the female editor I was romantically involved with at the time had her own "fan club" which was totally unwanted by her. Given the age difference between the two of us (18 and 17) and the "fan club" (college age), honestly it was pretty darn creepy. Some of the posts made really turn my stomach even more now than they did at the time. This was going on outside of the Org, but still in a fandom community in which certain AMVs ended up being posted as a matter of course. As of earlier this year, 2013, mind you, one of those "fan club" members is still posting on another website with the signature "So and so's #1 Fanboy" and touting his membership in the "fan club." I find this incredibly squicky. I received a number of creepy and inappropriate comments for "stealing" her away from one of her "potential suitors." As if she was property who hadn't decided to spend time with me of her own accord. From all I can tell, the female editor in question has dropped out of fandom entirely and hasn't produced a video in years (we had a bad parting of ways unrelated to editing, and rather related to our failed relationship, and we haven't spoken since the summer of 2003).

From 2003-2005, I was not active on the forums because I was active in the officer program for the Navy. I have already addressed how that worked out. This means I am really not as clear on specific events during this time, although again, I remember incidents at AWA which bothered me; but they may have been less about AMVs and more about fandom in general. I was definitely hanging out with a lot of editors though, so I imagine that even if these issues weren't so much about misogynistic tendencies in AMV communities specifically, there was certainly bleed over.

If my notes here are correct from what I was able to dig up about my personal history, including references on the forums, 2006 was the first year where I sort of kind of maybe asked if you could please respect my pronouns. This makes a lot of sense, as I left the Navy in December of 2005. I see no evidence anyone even noticed. In fact I was pretty soundly ignored, and by 2007, largely because I allowed godix to be godix, a trend started where my gender became a humor football to be punted around the forums and IRC. Memes, image macros, overt references, terribly hostile comments masquerading as jokes. And some of these by people I considered friends. Or at least people I didn't think actively hated me. But any time I sort of kind of maybe pointed out that it might be just a wee bit offensive and not cool and so maybe you could stop, I was just given a non-apology. Or I was ignored. Or I was laughed at.

This has pretty much gone on nonstop for the last five years with various points at which I have said, "Woah, not cool, people. You need to just get over this." In some cases I have been met with open hostility and arguments about how the comments are not offensive and I am too uptight. In other cases I'm blown off with further offensive commentary. In some cases I am placed on ignore (which has since become a real problem since I have taken over as an IRC op, I can't do my job if I'm being ignored by participants, and if I try to moderate based on shitty comments directed at me, then I am accused of abusing my power over so-called "personality conflicts"). So I spend months where I simply disengage. Where I don't post and I don't talk. Until the next time when I get annoyed enough to mention it. And then people are like, "Oh, you're still here? And that's still a thing with you?"

This past year has been really bad. Really, really, REALLY bad. I have put up with comments about my genitalia being openly discussed on IRC. I've had people talk about me "being on my period" (hello, I don't have a uterus, and you're not as funny as you think you are). I've been intentionally slighted by conversations in which "we" talk all about the women in the room and intentionally leave out Kio despite the fact I'm right there and contributing to the conversation. I have gotten pushback on my pronouns. Either intentionally ignoring them or just choosing not to use them (what the hell, yo?). And at the worst points, some relatively recently (only two months back maybe) I was dealing with all of these things in a single day, either through multiple comments by a single person or by multiple people making individual comments. And some of these individuals making the comments are women (although the vast majority of the commenters are men).

I noticed patterns and started putting together the essay. I finally had enough when I noticed that women who posted certain topics got shut down and derailed. And after speaking to some folks in IRC and in PM, I realised that my feelings, while certainly a unique flavor of misogyny because of intersectionality, were not uncommon. They're pretty damn common, honestly. And the response of the community and the various forms of moderating control have been pretty subpar in dealing with it or even recognising it. I have direct quotes for all of this stuff, but if I post direct quotes, I'll also post names. I don't think this is necessary, and I would rather not do it.

Thank you for reading.
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Re: Talent, Skill, Popularity, and Misogyny: A Feminist Crit

Post by Beowulf » Thu Jun 13, 2013 12:07 am

Ok Kio, I read that whole thing. I say the following with love, and I have no problem with you personally.

The only experience I have of you is of an uptight asshole. That might hurt to read, but thats the truth. Wonka and I would joke about how OUTRAGEOUSLY UPTIGHT you were when we first met you at Ushicon 2003 or so. You presented yourself to Wonka as Head Of Convention Security and demanded that he remove the syringe from behind his ear because it was a security risk. Re-read that sentence. Do you remember this? It's hilarious now, after ten years, but at the time, it wasn't. After Wonka tried to explain that

a) he's a type I diabetic and needs that syringe to take his insulin
b) he's a responsible adult, a fireman even.
c) a syringe is not a security risk
d) who could possibly care

you made a big fuss about it, got noticeably upset, and stomped away. Why do I post this in public? Because I would wager money that most of the people on these forums have experienced you in this way also, and are put off by it. Your posts WREEK of insecurity and overcompensation, like someone who is scared to death and trying really, really, REALLY hard. I actually think this thread has been a real blessing for you because it gets to show you how far off base your attitudes are with the general community. Maybe the lens you're seeing things through isn't accurate?

I'm truly sorry that the Org doesn't feel like a safe place to you. I really am. However, lets look at a bigger perspective. The Org is a community on the internet behind your computer. You really feel unsafe sitting behind your computer? Doesn't that look ridiculous once you read it? Are you so scared to say how you feel that your hands are trembling? Babe. You're safe. No one's going to hurt you. After reading your post I thought, "wow, ok, after twelve pages we get down to the real issue. Kio was traumatized and is scared to death." If that sounds flippant or glib, it's not.

I would offer that it might be a good idea to spend some time with yourself and find out where all that fear comes from, so you can consciously move through it. That way you

a) wouldn't have to be victimized by something as trivial as off-color jokes
b) wouldn't be nearly as uptight as you have been
c) would feel better, and safe
d) would be much more fun to interact with.

The tough love version of this thought is that it isn't the community's job to treat you with kid gloves because you have issues. There is no asterisk next to your posts that says "she's had a real rough time, but she means well."

Love,
Beo :aimkissyface:

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