Posts by Emma Hart
Last ←Newer Page 1 2 3 4 5 Older→ First
-
Up Front: Safety Net, in reply to Russell Brown,
but I hate it when I see the principle being invoked competitively, or to invalidate someone else's perspective. Or, indeed, any case where a language crime is called to negate the substance of what someone's trying to say.
Also, as Craig has demonstrated above, people don't hear clichés. If you take the time to find another way to say "own your privilege", the person you're talking to has a much better chance of hearing and understanding what you're saying. That, of course, assumes that the caller-outer has any interest at all in actually influencing the other person's behaviour, rather than just scoring points in their community or blowing off steam. And that, IME, is almost never the case.
At my worst, yeah, I can get lecturey. I am getting better at spotting when I'm getting my rant on - not least because even I don't want to listen to my 'handcuffs' rant again. But the thing is, I like to think of myself as a deeply practical person, and I know that neither yelling at people nor excluding them actually makes any progress. How I can make progress is by saying, to as open and broad an audience as possible, 'this is my experience, this is how it makes me feel', and hope that it changes the way somebody thinks.
Of course, sometimes I take my courage in my hands, explain something deeply significant to me, and end up getting massive personal benefit from it, so I could be biased.
-
Up Front: Safety Net, in reply to Morgan Nichol,
For instance the problem Emma related with doctors assuming any bruises on a woman are evidence of abuse, it’s incredibly obvious in hindsight, but didn’t occur to me until she said it.
Bless you Morgan, you've pretty much summed up why I do what I do.
And there are those who believe that subs don't exist, and that no-one could consent to being hurt.
Yeah, because for a start, what Bart says is true. But my particular GP has known me, and my family, for a long time and we have a pretty good relationship. So perhaps I could point out to her that the patterning of bruising has clearly been inflicted by a particular object, for instance, and none of it by a fist... but she'd still have to believe that I was capable of agreeing to that, without any degree of coercion. That I was in absolutely no danger with my Dom.
-
Up Front: Safety Net, in reply to Sacha,
and over-estimating how 'clever' the rest of us actually are :)
Pah, they should come drinking with us. Then we're all Brilliant!
-
Up Front: Safety Net, in reply to Morgan Nichol,
Shouldn't doctors just do doctoring and shut the fuck up with judgey bullshit?
Say (and this is an entirely hypothetical situation for me) I need treatment for injuries sustained in a BDSM session. Shouldn't happen in the normal course of things, but even with the best of intentions, things go wrong sometimes. Or I need a physical exam for something else, and it's going to make bruising obvious. My GP may come to the conclusion that I'm being physically abused, particularly if they're not very aware of BDSM practice. I don't want to end up with the cops knocking on the door. In some places (some US states, England) the police can press charges even if the "victim" objects.
Or, say I'm having dealings with the family court, and I'm ordered into relationship counselling, and there are custodial arrangements at stake. How much do I not want that counsellor to consider me a lesser person or an unfit parent because of my sexual practices? Fuckloads.
Also: most-commonly cited reason for wanting to contribute to PAS discussions, but not doing so?
People tell me they're anxious about looking stupid, or at least insufficiently clever.
I am currently, in this other community, lurking, and have been for about a week. I want to be able to start by saying something interesting and original. And I know just how ridiculous that is.
-
Up Front: Safety Net, in reply to BenWilson,
I'm curious whether you ended up with a man or a woman?
A woman. I don't know that it would have made all that much difference. She was not... hugely comfortable or supportive, but she wasn't actively obstructive, either.
In the US, where communities are bigger by dint of sheer numbers, this is the kind of information that gets passed through kink communities and websites: kink-aware doctors, psychiatrists, counsellors. It does happen here too: I got a GP recommendation rather after the fact, but it's harder.
-
Up Front: Safety Net, in reply to James Butler,
Hence the need for an Internet Face-Punching Service.
*knockknockknock*
"Hello?"
"Yeah, hi, are you 'libman496nz?"
"Um, yeah..."
"And did you say, 'Not that it's her fault or anything but she made the decision to be out alone at 2am, and she was probably drunk and dressed like a slag, I'm JUST SAYING she has to take some responsibility!'"
"Well... well, yeah, but..."
*Thwap* "Have a nice day!"
-
Up Front: Safety Net, in reply to James Butler,
feel empowered to do this because it is safe for them.
Absolutely. And I'm now considering the idea that the job of active moderation is to shift the balance of power. So a 'safe space' is safe for the people who (actively, as a community) make it. A sex-pos feminist Safe Space is not going to be "safe" for an MRA. Even when you ban particular types of behaviour, you're shifting the power from "those who are prepared to flame" to "those who can deliver the barbedest of complisults".
Also, I think it's important to note that just because someone feels threatened, that doesn't actually mean they're being threatened. Our ability to assess risk is actually pretty bloody terrible. Like that article Megan's talking about. You'd never guess from the piece, or the comments, or pretty much anything else that men are more likely to be assaulted on the street by strangers than women are.
-
Up Front: Safety Net, in reply to Bart Janssen,
Not just are they more open in some "safer" environments but rather do we each have a level of risk we actively want to take. So in a safer environment we push the boundaries to achieve our desired risk level?
That is a really interesting question, and given it's about human behaviour, the answer is almost certainly, 'for some people, yes'.
I suspect people would find the proposition more acceptable if you phrased it as "a level of risk we're actively prepared to take". Which involves a certain degree of sophistry.
I worked with a woman who, in a relatively closed, safe web community, simply wouldn't communicate with any of the men. She perceived that as a level of risk she wasn't prepared to take. So she would see my willingness to engage with men I didn't know as a risk-taking behaviour.
If being called an idiot is the most scary thing for you then the internet is a much more dangerous place than the "real world". I know people who would much rather be punched in the face than have an idea exposed as incorrect.
I would assume (always dangerous) that kind of person is less likely to have identifiers which would lead to them being automatically excluded or scorned in a public environment. They're not a Muslim in a supposedly-Christian country, etc. One of the scariest things I've had to do this year is find a medical professional I could trust in a context where I would have to reveal my sub identity. No, I don't like being called an idiot. It's quite a lot scarier to feel that I might not get fair, adequate medical treatment.
-
Up Front: One, Redux, in reply to Hebe,
I spent enough time as a journalist interviewing people who had been through a big thing, or who had been heroic and selfless, to make me question whether I could keep my head let alone be brave enough to help others. I have found that I still can't predict that -- am I totally unself-disciplined or just human?
Yeah, I don't think you can know. Shock and adrenaline affect people so differently, and not even always the same people the same way.
I was also home alone very close to the epicentre in February, and I flat out fell to pieces during the initial quake. There was nothing resembling a rational thought, just flat-out panic. But once that wore off - which was before the next big shake - I'd settled into a mind-set of straight practicality. Finding out if my family were okay, getting them home, making sure they could be fed and amused while we had no power. I found it difficult not to be able to do more practical stuff to help.
All of which, while it seems unselfish, is a coping mechanism. When I ran out of obvious, practical things to do, that's when I started to unravel.
-
Up Front: One, Redux, in reply to Hebe,
Oh Hebe. That's amazing. Thank you.