The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #50404   Message #765645
Posted By: NicoleC
15-Aug-02 - 02:36 AM
Thread Name: Mudcat Cafe: New Folk Music Porn Site?
Subject: RE: Mudcat Cafe: New Folk Music Porn Site?
The more I think about this thread, the more it pisses me off. In response to the recent spate of sexually explict threads and threads degrading to women, quite a few registered members who happen to be women have expressed their opinions.

NONE of them advocate censorship.

NONE of them suggest eliminating all off-topic posts.

NONE of them advocate the elimination of all sexual references.

ALL of them have politely asked that the line not be crossed. You know where that line is. You don't need to argue about it. To be old-fashioned, it's called behaving as if you were in mixed company.

On the other hand, we have a handful of men (not all, by any means) who's response is "fuck off, bitch, we'll say what we want because we're a *community.* Suck it up or go away if you don't like it!"

Members of a community respond to each others desires by moderating thie public behavior. Reacting to a polite request by blaming the other person for asking is just rude and unneighborly.

I have news for you: but just going away is not an option. There is nowhere on this planet that women can go and not be subjected in some form or another to this cultural disease that treats women like some sort of speaking livestock and men like horny herdsmen, whether it be the restaurant with ESPN2 turned up loud and a horde of men jeering at scantily clad female athletes or the guy at work at the next desk that does the same job, but gets paid 25% more.

Women have the disease, too. Most of us go from day to day pretending to not notice or are so desensitized that we really don't pay much attention -- and women are guilty of the same behavior sometimes. It's not going to magically go away and no one is asking for that. We're asking for people to think before they open their month or start typing.

At least where I grew up, that was called being mannerly, regardlesss of what you may think or do in private.

Those who have stated their objections to this kind of behavior within this community are not wrong or "prudish" or "condescending, moralistic, humorless, whining and self-serving" for HAVING AN OPINION. But it says reams about the attitudes of those who fail to even consider another's feelings.