Another one from The Onion: S&M Couple Won’t Stop Droning On About Their Fetishes.
According to friends of Jason Roder and Gina Von Poppel, the sexually adventurous couple won’t stop droning on about spanking, caning, ball gags, erotic photography, fetish parties, leather, rubber, PVC, latex, whips, floggers, and countless other S&M-related objects and activities.
“When Jason first told me about his and Gina’s kinky sex life, I was amazed. I wanted to hear all about it,” said Stan Pritchard, Roder’s best friend. “But around the 15th time I heard about how great it is to be tied to a chair, I was, like, ‘Yeah, I know. The chair. The whip. Being straddled. Got it, thanks.'”
How sex-negative of him.
Meredith Engler, a close friend and former college roommate of Von Poppel’s, said she has frequently found herself subjected to hours-long accounts of the couple’s S&M exploits.
“Gina and Jason have a pretty open-minded group of friends and, at first, we all thought it was cool that they were being so frank about sex,” Engler said. “That was our mistake–giving them an opening.”
As Roder and Von Poppel delved deeper into sadomasochism, they began dominating nearly every party and social event with endless talk of fetishes, secret fantasies, and forays into bondage and discipline.
Well when you say “dominating” – you mean they take over the conversation? But what if that’s their kink? You’re just being sex-negative by objecting, aren’t you? Not wanting to hear every detail of other people’s sexual activity means you hate sex.
The couple’s friends try to avoid topics that might inadvertently lead to discussions of S&M, but the subject always manages to come up.
“It’s amazing what will prompt Jason and Gina to talk about sex,” Pritchard said. “We had a barbecue last weekend, and I said, ‘Pass me the tongs.’ So Jason and Gina exchange a knowing look and, before you know it, we’re off on an hour-long discussion of how you should put your metal sex toys in the freezer for a few hours before using them.”
It’s because Gina and Jason are sex-positive. They’re showing you the way! They’re doing you a favor! You’d be grateful, if you weren’t so goddam sex-negative.
After many unsuccessful attempts to subtly communicate her irritation to Roder and Von Poppel, Engler determined that she needed to be more direct.
“Last Friday, Gina was blathering on and on about domination, and I couldn’t help but say, ‘Well, you’re certainly good at conversation domination,'” Engler said. “I can’t help but wonder if this S&M thing is all a cover-up for their real fetish: talking to people about fetishes.”
Talking to people about fetishes against their will – that’s the really sexy part. If you object, you’re sex-negative…which is great, because that’s the really sexy part. Keep objecting! Louder! Louder!!
um…is there some reason that such a timely article has appeared in The Onion??
Check the date, Blanche. It’s not a new piece.
(Cackles…)
Personally, tho’, I’m a bit annoyed this is becoming a thing…
… tho’ mostly just ‘cos it’s I’m not as into it as my other submissive fantasy: being tied to a chair and being forced to watch slides of other people’s vacations*…
Oooo, baby!
(/Fans self.)
(*Seriously, you whips and chains people call yourselves masochists? Wimps.)
(Love it – funny and apropos)
http://i.imgur.com/Vvp6C.jpg
Please tell me there’s also an internal discussion going on about Carrier’s comments, cause I think these Onion articles may be way too subtle for him.
Talking to people about fetishes against their will
Is that “exhibitionism exhibitionism”?
Rather than all this Onion-dredging, why can’t Ophelia just say in future discussions she hosts on porn, “Please keep the descriptions of sexual acts you have participated in, watched porn of, or fantasized about non-graphic.” I don’t think anyone would have any problems with that, and hopefully no one would throw sex-negative accusations around: her blog, her rules.
This whole thing seems to be the kind of things that happen often when liberals who come from different cultures come together. Assumptions are made, what seems obviously ok for one person is crossing a line for someone else. This is ultimately a discussion of manners more than morality (except to the extent that manners always have a moral element.)
brucegee1962@7:
Because there are always new people appearing and commenting, and most newcomers don’t read commenting policies even if they exist, and host comments in a busy thread can quickly scroll away and be missed. It’s generally the job of new readers to lurk a while and get a feel for the commentariat’s culture, rather than the host’s job to repeatedly post rules.
All what Onion-dredging?
I’ve shared all of two Onion pieces. Both of them were pointed out to me by other people, so I didn’t do any dredging. I shared them because I think they’re funny.
As for why don’t I list some rules in advance in future – because I don’t want to. That would be tedious and off-putting, so I don’t want to. Nobody else has acted the way Richard did.
I second xyz @5; I really hope an internal discussion is occurring re: Carrier’s behaviour. That was gross and then teling everyone to get over their sexual hangups instead of not sharing his penchant for jizzing on ladies’ faces made it so much worse.
marinerachel, it’s done, and I think Richard Carrier is fully aware of his faux pas, and I also think he’s been pondering what happened and why.
How is gossiping about it going to help?
I don’t think The Onion‘s gag would work if, instead of mentioning their fetishes at every party and social event, Jason and Gina only mentioned them while commenting on a blog post about pornography and its influence on people’s sex lives.
That wasn’t actually what that blog post was about, Silentbob.
That is…that was included in the blog post, but it wasn’t the sum total. The part about porn’s influence on people’s sex lives was a very small part.
Sorry, but no, that post just was not an invitation to share copious details of anyone’s sex life.
Is this about the comment section over at this link?
Right, silentbob’s post doesn’t totally accurately depict the blog post and responses and all that, but it’s a much more accurate depiction of it than the onion article is of it.
@MrFancyPants says
I’m not sure about that “job”, but note that it is certainly the job of new commenters to read the commenting rules (which can be on a set page, rather than repeatedly posted).
It would also have to be a ludicrously and impractically long list. Formally defining the generally accepted rules of normal social interaction is a remarkably difficult task.
Yes, it is tricky. You meet a nice group of people, at a party, say, who seem to be liberal minded like you so naturally you describe to them how you like to cum on women’s faces and they mysteriously start inching away from you! How could you possibly have anticipated that they would be so highly strung?
@John Morales, #11
That’s kind of a gendered take on what’s happening here, and it isn’t that accurate, either. No one’s spreading false tales, doing any witch-hunting, speculating about and insinuating things not in evidence.
How else can one discuss what happened, how to prevent it from happening in the future, if you can’t talk about it? No one seems particularly concerned about what Carrier has or hasn’t learned (he’s got a blog to ponder that on), but in identifying what specifically about his remarks were inappropriate. It’s a constructive discussion happening on more than one thread. There’s nothing “gossip-y” about it, unless you consider Carrier somehow immune to criticism (or so sensitive that merely mentioning his behavior is an unwarranted attack).
Also, it’s funny. Making jokes about someone behaving presumptuously and contemptibly of his host is okay.
2015: Richard Carrier invents sex.
2016: Sex becomes self-aware and decides that Richard Carrier is a threat.
@Mookie 19
I agree that it should be discussed. There are elements that are similar to ongoing problems that are worth pointing out. This could be a fantastic opportunity for our community to work through a real example of these issues in a constructive way (if all the parties agree).
But it’s not so simple as they way that you describe it. There is a lot of hyperbole and creative portrayals of what happened that absolutely requires people to go and look at the original post in order to understand what is going on. I’m not saying that you or anyone else should not express how you really feel (including creative exaggeration like hyperbole, humor, sarcasm and more), but there is a point where people should also objectively describe what happened in addition or we risk ending up like the people over-reacting to the criticism and shaming of Hunt. A reason those critics are social problems is because they are often incapable of speaking in anything but hyperbole and exaggeration.
In addition this is precisely the situation that people like the ‘pit look for in order to engage in sociopolitical aggression. That was why Ms. Benson was confused by Avery Whitman and Judith Tollofson. When your enemies are fighting you engage in actions to make the fight worse or harm the opponent you are the most concerned by. I’m not suggesting that you or anyone is a convert sociopolitical aggressor, but pointing out that such people would love to keep the non-literal, content-less emotionally laden content the actual message.
So yes, discuss it as far as Ms. Benson will allow. But remember that while Mr. Carrier’s behavior is threatening to some feminist goals the situation is more complicated because he is “one of us” in FTB terms. The people close to Hunt also need to take similar steps as people like us take on the duty of shaming his behavior (everyone should be able to do this but I’m getting close to utopian as it is). This does not mean we don’t shame that behavior (or associated beliefs). It does mean that as people with social access to Mr. Carrier we should create ways of solving the problem that keep him an active member of this community.
This is Why What Richard Carrier Did Was Not Okay (and I’m not a sex-negative repressed prude for saying so!)
Back-story: Ophelia Benson wrote a blog post titled About the boyfriend who wanted to choke them. FtB’s own Dr. Richard Carrier made an appearance in the comments and in so doing ended up, one could say, over-sharing some rather intimate details of his sexual proclivities.
There was also follow-up called Guest post: Because that’s not what the vanilla partner originally signed up for and another called Droning on about their fetishes.
Please read through these posts and the comment threads on each if you want to know the back-story. Be aware there is some graphic sexual language in the comments on the first post, and if you are not comfortable with that you may want to just skim or avoid those.
To be clear, this is not about any kind of criticism or shaming of anyone for their sexuality, or their kinks and fetishes, or even for wanting to express and talk about those things freely. Sex and sexuality is not something that anyone should be ashamed about or shamed for and these are important topics that people ought to be able to discuss frankly. This is most definitely not about any of that.
This is about context. And boundaries. And community norms and expectations.
It’s about the fact that context matters and that the appropriateness of any given behavior or topic of discussion is context-dependent. It’s about the fact that we all have the right to choose what we are comfortable talking about at any given time, and nobody has the right to shame us for that choice. It’s about the fact that not everybody wants to hear about the very intimate details of everyone else’s sex life, and that offering such details unprompted and without prior consent might be a problem. It’s about the fact that there are some pretty well-established and well-accepted social boundaries that influence what is appropriate and what is not, and that violating those boundaries (even inadvertently) is a serious problem that cannot and must not be allowed to stand.
For example, a ribald joke that might be perfectly acceptable amongst close friends, might be enough to get one fired if told at the workplace. In the same way, providing a detailed description of one’s sexual fetishes and kinks might be totally appropriate and not at all creepy in one context, yet wildly inappropriate and or even far worse than creepy in a different context.
In this case, the context was Ophelia Benson’s blog. Anyone who has been around for some time should know something about the boundaries, expectations and norms that are in play here. If what you are posting is wildly different in character from anything else that has been posted, or from the kinds of things that are typically posted, that ought to be the first clue that you might be over-stepping these boundaries, expectations and norms. Based on past history and the kinds of posts and comments that are common here, it should be no surprise to anyone that offering up so much intimate detail about sexual fetishes and kinks was inappropriate and it amounts to creepy over-sharing, at best, and perhaps some form of harassment, at worst.
What’s more troubling than the over-sharing and disregard for these boundaries/expectations/norms, though, are some of the (pathetic) excuses being offered up in response to the reactions.
Excuse 1: We all need to learn to be more comfortable with frank discussions about, sex, sexuality and pornography
This sounds reasonable and innocuous on the face of it (because who could be against all of us being more comfortable), but there is a more sinister and insulting implication buried within. Namely that it’s the audience who is at fault for not being comfortable with such frank and detailed discussions, and it’s the audience’s responsibility to learn to be more comfortable in the future. In other words, the speaker/writer is absolved of any responsibility for ensuring the appropriateness of their message, and the blame is shifted to the audience, which obviously consists of a bunch of repressed prudes. This is unmitigated bullshit. In a different context, this would clearly be seen as victim-blaming. If multiple people say they were upset/offended or just taken aback by something you wrote or said, telling them to learn to be more comfortable is not the right answer. Frankly that’s something that should not need to be explained to anyone.
Excuse 2: Well the blog post was about pornography so it’s totally appropriate for someone to chime in with a detailed description of their fetishes and kinks
This is wrong on multiple levels. First, the blog post was not about pornography as such. Rather, the post did address the effects and influence of pornography on people’s sex lives, but in a broader context. But even so, even if the post had been about pornography as such, that still would not necessarily justify sharing (unprompted and with very little warning) very detailed descriptions of your kinks and fetishes. The one does not logically follow from the other.
Excuse 3: I posted a “TMI warning” so what’s the problem?
Yes, to be fair, a TMI warning is better than no warning at all. But what’s even better (sometimes) is to just entirely avoid or to modify the behavior such that it no longer requires any warning in the first place. Here’s why the TMI warning is not sufficient in this case. For one, the comments must be read by the blog owner who moderates those comments, and so the TMI warning doesn’t do any good in that case; you are basically forcing the blog owner to either read the comment (which may involve reading graphic details they are not comfortable reading) or to moderate the comment without reading it (which may lead to unfair commenting policies or other pragmatic concerns). Second, the TMI warning doesn’t negate or erase the words that follow, and so if those words are inappropriate in a given context, the TMI warning doesn’t magically make them appropriate.
These excuses are just not good enough. They miss the point and shift the burden of blame and responsibility. These should be no excuses. There should be no need for any excuses. If someone fucks up, they should apologize sincerely without excuses, rationalizations, and minimization.
If you are still scratching your head, here are a couple of other ways Richard could have handled this instead of the way he did. First, if he felt it’s so important to share such intimate details right at that moment, he should make use of his own blog rather than appropriate someone else’s blog for this purpose. In that case he could have written a piece on his own blog and just posted a link to it in Ophelia’s comments. That way people could choose whether or not they wanted to participate in such a frank discussion without derailing the OP. Or if he insisted on posting to someone else’s blog something that might be jarring or off-putting in any way (given the particular context), at least ask their permission first.
Richard Carrier once wrote about ethical sexual behavior and described a flirtation ladder. In that post, he wrote:
Now granted, posting comments on a blog is not the same as flirting. But I would argue that there is and must be a set of boundaries, expectations, and norms that influence what is and what is not appropriate here within Ophelia’s blog, just the same way such boundaries/expectations/norms exist in all places. Obviously the specifics of those boundaries/expectations/norms will differ from place to place, but the fact that they exist at all should not come as a surprise.
When it comes to detailed graphical descriptions of sexual topics, there should absolutely be a “conversation ladder” that is analogous to the flirtation ladder. Going from zero to sixty (in terms of sexual language and graphic detail) in a comment thread is akin to skipping a few rungs on your way up the flirtation ladder. If you feel it’s so important to discuss your kinks and fetishes, well then why not just start out by mentioning them but without too much graphic detail. If the rest of the audience gives you the “go” signal, then by all means share more details. But absent that “go” signal, you should know that you may be over-stepping boundaries and violating people’s expectations and established norms.
And when you get called out for that, you should sincerely apologize and make an honest effort to reign yourself in so such violations (of boundaries/expectations/norms) do not happen in the future. What you should not do is post a bunch of sorry excuses and try to blame the audience, and then slink away in silence as if nothing happened.
Oh how wonderful. We’re sex-negative now because we’re not close friends and I don’t want to hear about your fetish….
Do people really need it spelled out for them?
If you unload your inner feelings and it blows up in peoples faces, *you* clean up the mess. If others are sprayed with the collateral damage, you need to suck it up and apologize profusely and sincerely.
Apologies for english is my second language
Ophelia: I’m not trying to beat a dead horse so it you think my comment is out of place or unhelpful please accept my apology and know that I have no issue with you deleting it. I was just hoping to address, head-on, some of the excuses I’m seeing people make.
It’s ok Judith. It was held because of the links, and I did hesitate at first (since the horse is pushing up daisies), but you make good points, so I’ll let the horse have another drubbing.
@Judith Tollofson 23
Thank you for taking the time to write that. It was excellent and showed me new reasons for why it’s a problem to be too free with personal sexually explicit details. I took no pleasure in criticizing Mookie at 19 since I don’t want add pressure to people that should get to criticize and shame. I’m grateful that you were willing to write that.
@Judith Tollofson
A mention without too much graphic detail was already made (choking and anal were already mentioned in the blog post). It wasn’t exactly zero to sixty (like the tongs example in this Onion article).
So you’re saying that the one step means the next step makes more sense? If so I disagree. We can talk about what we ate for lunch without going into detail about what happened to what we ate after we swallowed it.
@29, Ophelia Benson
It isn’t about chronological steps, so your lunch example doesn’t seem relevant.
Seriously?
I think another angle people should consider is that in a group with mixed readership sexual content gains an extra level of complication when it comes to personal anecdotes. The examples in the article have been “objectified” to a certain extent. We don’t personally know the individuals involved so it’s easier to separate the sexual details and hold them in our minds by themselves.
When you bring up a personal anecdote you are literally making it about you so if the topic is an emotionally sensitive one you have a duty to use your example as a support for the topic and nothing more. I’m very careful about how I mention my personal experience of Tourette Syndrome because it has to support other topics, it happens to be useful because it has to do with being a person who has to struggle with behaviors that are very often complained about around here. So when I figure out something useful and general I don’t hesitate. I am making a connection between myself and others around me and it must be done carefully.
Empathy is complicated as a brain system. Part of that is the whole “seeing someone else as you see yourself” element. There is a form of synesthesia where people actually feel themselves getting touched if they watch someone touch someone else and it happens in high-empathy individuals. If you are used to interacting with someone or reading someone in a non-sexual context, suddenly seeing their sexual interests in graphic detail* gets, complicated. Go look at the “About the boyfriends…” thread again and you will see people reacting like they can’t get certain images out of their heads. That matters. Trigger warnings are not enough because as you scroll past the comments certain words will pop out at you.
Mr. Carrier is concerned about a very important topic. But his contribution needed approached differently.
Brian Pansky, The choking and anal that were mentioned were in specific context of women being pressured to do these things and in the broader context of anti-porn feminism. In the middle Ophelia says
Carriers first post was a too-graphic defense of pornography and “sex is mushed together with violence.” His later post were the same but more graphic and more personal. Not to mention the fact that he was considerably off-topic.
Also, as a person who is creeped out by sexual violence from both a personal experience and general empathy perspective, I’m getting a little tired of people saying that everyone who doesn’t whole-heartedly support rough sex, choking, anal, gagging, and facials is a prude. Harming another human being to get your rocks off is still gross, even if the other person likes it.
Oops…
In #31 I meant to fill in that “*” with at point that I think “graphic details” involves narration of activities and personal emotional feelings about those activities. If it starts reading too much like a dirty fanfic from someone’s perspective things may be too far for some audiences.
@28 Brian Panksy
Wrong.
It went from low detail (with a negative spin) to graphic detail apologetics. It went from ten (in reverse) to sixty (in overdrive), instantly.
He exploded onto the scene, and milked it at every angle he could think of – with no invitation to do so. Then the way he glazed over the subject as he left the discussion and notpologized. His nutty, in-your-face behavior is all the more harmful because he is (was?) one of us.
Brian Pansky @28,
Well I disagree that just because anal and choking were mentioned in the OP, that’s an open invitation for everyone else to start describing their own personal fetishes and kinks in detail. That just does not follow.
Do you, for even one second, genuinely think that Ophelia’s intent was to have a discussion about various fetishes and kinks and to invite/encourage her commenters to come along and share theirs? Really? You think that was the intent of the OP? I could see that discussion happening elsewhere, say Greta Christina’s for example, but it just doesn’t seem in line with the kinds of things that Ophelia tends to write about. Or that most of the FtB bloggers typically write about. Not saying it couldn’t happen or that Ophelia would disallow it or anything like that – just that it should not be a surprise as to whether that kind of discussion is welcome in any given blog.
That said, there is no question that there is some subjectivity involved here, such that you might not find something too graphic or inappropriate, while someone else does. But the important point is that your experience doesn’t erase the other person’s experience. That you did not find it inappropriate/offensive does not negate the fact that someone else did. That you did not feel it was really zero-to-sixty or that it amounted to skipping rungs on the way up the conversation ladder, doesn’t negate the fact that other people did feel that way. In fact, the subjectivity and the variation in how people will react is precisely the reason why it was so inappropriate to begin with. Starting with variation as a given, it should have been obvious that some people might not be comfortable with that kind of detail.
That’s a big part of the reason why people should err on the side of caution in these cases. Seems to me there is no harm in “under-sharing” at first just to be safe, and then if the audience seems receptive one can go into more detail at that point. You haven’t lost anything (except maybe a little time) but you’ve mitigated the risk of creeping people out, or worse.
Khakibu, we get it. We got the joke with your first comment. Aren’t you clever!
Now go play with your friends.
Khakibu,
http://static.comicvine.com/uploads/original/11111/111119363/3434335-bird.jpg
Im confused. I said english is not my first language. Im from singapore? Not sure how to prove that to you…
Brony, Social Justice Cenobite @27,
Thank you for the kind words and for your insight @22 and @32/34.
@Ophelia Benson
Seriously what? Yes, I’m being serious. Yes your chronological order example is a straw enemy. Which makes your example irrelevant (as far as I can seriously tell).
I’m sincere.
Now, here’s some good points people have made:
dogeared, spotted and foxed in post 33 points out that the blog post itself kind of showed that “ew” (or something) would probably be the reaction. Ignoring an indication like that is a bad move.
Judith Tollofson in 36:
Indeed I know people must have felt like that, or even that moving the conversation in that direction at all was unwanted. That clearly was the reaction of quite a few people, and they aren’t in the wrong to have reacted that way.
Also excellent point here in the same post:
“Seriously?” because chronology is not the relevant criterion.