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2primenumbers
United States144 Posts
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Pholon
Netherlands6142 Posts
On July 29 2014 23:56 zdfgucker wrote: Online activism is laughable at best and sad at worst. By looking at a shiny banner you change pretty much nothing. If anybody cared enough, they'd be protesting in the streets. I blocked the whole banner, I don't want politics on TL, sorry. On July 30 2014 15:39 Silvanel wrote: Off all the issues of the modern world You choose to make a stand on this on? Hunger, genocides, wars, pollution, tortures, illegal occupations, diseases and much more....And yet the one thing that TL makes political stand on is LGBT.This is weird. I'd like to attempt a response at zdf's post, and I think it might cover some of Silvanel's concerns as well. Changing the banner for TL is a big thing, or at least not the kind of thing we'd do on a whim. What Google does is nice, practically some few changes every week, but a bit too gimmicky for us. Why I think we're comfortable with this particular banner is that, while on one hand I feel it's (still) a pressing issue, it's also deals with a war of ideas (war may be too big a term, go "struggle" if you will). That is to say, what's at hand here is a way in which people think about an issue. Conversely, I wouldn't be happy to advertise, say, cancer treatment or prevention. While cancer sucks etc, I don't want TL to be a site that asks you for money or donations. In that same vein we wouldn't even ask you for any action, like an online vote, or even a Facebook Like, on behalf of some charity or similar. With discrimination though, it's really about the way people think about things. The banner may instigate people to maybe reconsider their convictions or open up a conversation. While I suspect online activism can be useful as far as starting a debate goes, I can assure you that if I'd go out in my hometown or Trondheim to protest in the streets, it would be quite laughable and/or sad indeed. I find it really, really weird that as an alternative to communicating a message to people, you don't suggest donations, collecting autographs, or running for office, but, instead, communicating the message more loudly. I mean, I'll consider the option but I'm afraid that IRL I wouldn't be able to reply to people as aptly and admirably as Drone <3 | ||
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r.Evo
Germany14080 Posts
On July 30 2014 23:52 Liquid`Drone wrote: Then how come there's no major kinkster or polyamorist movement? How come they're not visibly fighting for their rights? I'm lead to believe that there are two possible reasons, possibly a third I guess ; 1: kinksters/polyamorists are (very) few in number compared to homosexuals. 2: kinksters/polyamorists aren't, on average, that troubled by the lack of societal acceptance because they still find someone to be with, like for example you mentioned that there are self-organized groups. There's a possible 3; in that kinksters and polyamorists consider themselves /are considered more deviant than homosexuals do/are and that they have a much harder time finding people to talk about it, but if this is the case I'd expect it to be connected with the first point.. Basically, you're bringing up sexual minorities that which I've hardly even thought about the existence of or problems pertaining to, as a parallel to homosexuality- a group that comprises between 5 and 10% of our population and which has been persecuted in ways ranging from death to castration to simply being social outcasts. It's just not a good comparison That's actually an awesome question (sorry, wall of text seems appropriate and you seem to actually care <3). Just to pick a random thing in terms of size /r/ainbow and /r/BDSMcommunity have the same amount of subscribers at 30k with /r/polyamory/ sitting at a mere 20k and /r/lgbt sitting at 90k in comparison. Something interesting I just noticed clicking around their respective frontpages is that both /r/lgbt (the worst out of all imo, most likely due to size) and /r/rainbow seem a lot more... aggressive in the content being discussed whereas the BDSM and poly subreddit seem to be more about individuals asking stuff and trying to receive help from the community. (I'm keeping out /r/bdsm since it tends to be more... pornographic in nature.) I think the main reasons you don't see big movements from the respective groups is in terms of kinksters they are mostly covered legally (and/or know learned how to cover their asses via e.g. actual contracts) and the places where they are discriminated are treated as avoidable. e.g. if you see a user talking about how their therapist tries to treat their in his eyes abusive relationship the general consent isn't among the lines of "WHAT A BIGOT LETS DO SOMETHING" but more among the line of "Dude sucks, find someone else, here's a list of kink-aware therapists:" - it tends to be more quiet in direct comparison. You also need to keep in mind what kind of an effect professionals not treating everyone equally has on the people involved. The DSM-IV (not changed since 1994 on this issue) talks about BDSM as a paraphilia like this: "The fantasies, sexual urges, or behaviors" must "cause clinically significant distress or impairment in social, occupational, or other important areas of functioning" while e.g. the ICD-10 defines Sexual masochism as "A disorder characterized by recurrent sexual urges, fantasies, or behaviors involving the act (real, not simulated) of being humiliated, beaten, bound, or otherwise made to suffer." - Basically as a whole, medically, we're still at the start of professionals differentiating between sexually motivated, consensual SM and SM motivated by cruelty and anger. With all that in mind I'd say the approach of the majority of the SM community is a lot more resigned compared to e.g. the LGBT movement. I'd argue that for example the stereotypical man in a position of power (example obviously translates to other forms of kink) that enjoys being dominated in the bedroom simply doesn't want it to become public knowledge because he's afraid of the repercussions it would have on his professional life and to a certain degree has accepted that his desires are "abnormal" and/or "sick" since he can't even be backed up by medical professionals. So now you suddenly have a scene where quite a lot of members are afraid of public reactions to their kink which in return means that they consider "outing" themselves as a potential danger to their daily lives. All that combined makes for a comparatively "private" scene with parties being behind closed doors to protect identities and the youth movement being as vanilla as possibly (e.g. meetups in public cafés or restaurants) that is happier if no one in their daily lives finds out about anything (again, because of fear of social repercussions). Instead of fighting for more acceptance within the general public there is more a general acceptance of it being normal to not be accepted for their sexuality within the groups I've witnessed. Imo by far the biggest issue in this area is medical professionals not having a clear united stance. Not being able to say "this is okay, this is a sickness" apart from the more extreme cases makes it very hard to deal with it for quite a lot of individuals. As you can imagine the question for a young kinkster of whether he or she is a sick individual that needs to be treated or if they just have specific sexual preferences can be kind of rough. The question "How will my environment react if I'm honest about this?" comes second to "Am I a normal functioning being when I'm honest to myself or do I need psychological treatment?" ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ As for polyamory I think the question gets a lot harder. I have honestly no clue about straight up numbers and I don't think anyone ever cared to count. On top of that polyamory as a general concept is literally all over the fucking place in terms of the forms it can have and on top of it most forms aren't socially accepted in any shape whatsoever. This FAQ gives a solid first insight into the topic. It seems to be really hard to get all the various groups under one hood and it doesn't really help that basically all victories the LGBT community achieved are aimed to allow homosexual couples similar rights to heterosexual couples. On top of that it's not exactly rare that anti-gay lobbies use it as form of slippery slope argument ("If we let gay couples marry, what's next? Polygamy?") and similar to the kink examples above mostly sexual relationships tend to be kept in private and behind closed doors (things like swinging or wife-swapping aren't exactly what you want your boss to hear about because of the social images it has). So basically the people who are mostly into the sexual component are in the clear, people who'd like to pursue MFF-type of relationships get picked on by feminists and people who'd like to pursue FMM-type of relationships aren't seen as exactly glorious. So even if we assume that at least half the amount of people who are LGBT are into some form of polyamory (let's just grab a random example) aka 5% the amount of people that would like to pursue an even relationship that is close to a traditional one except for more people is pretty damn small. Like, just check the FAQ I linked and compare how many other variants are there except for geometric arrangements which is the only portion that genuinely cares about equal rights in this regard. However, and this might be one of the most important points with regards to poly, I do believe it's socially so unaccepted that even people who would love to be poly have no clue what it is or that it exists and that there are other people who are alright with it. Let's say a dude (or girl) is in a relationship and tells you he'd love to have fun with someone else. One of the very, very last things that comes to mind is: "Hey, have you thought about being naturally inclined to have consensual relationships with multiple people at the same time?" We'd rather shame any form of a non-couple relationship, call women who let their husbands have sex with women weak (and the other way around) and think of swinging as something nasty that normal people don't do. I just think the idea of someone consensually sharing his partner in any shape or form is too far out there for most people to be considered, even when actually appropriate. Basically the point I'm making is: "If you would have asked 10 (20, 30) years ago, how many people would self-identify as LGBT compared to today?" - I'm assuming there would (and will!) be a similar shift when it comes to identifying as poly in the future. It's not that suddenly more people became gay, it's just that they learned more about it, it became more accepted and it resulted in them self-reporting more as such. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ (Small nitpick, where is the 5-10% number from? I tried finding numbers through various years and the first I found was this one talking about 3.4% of the American population self-identifying as LGBT. The Wiki article on the subject is also all over the place. Why the hell does e.g. the UK claim 6% of the population in 2005 and 1.1% (!!) self-reporting as gay in 2011? This graphic reporting around ~3% of the younger population self-identifying as LGB is the most modern study result I can find there (2012).) | ||
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zeo
Serbia6284 Posts
I'd just like to add that at least I learned something new in this thread. Didn't even know that there was a sexual movement called kink and that I am in something called a vanilla relationship. Very interesting. Reading about gay rights is sooo fucking boring, the same things are talked about over and over and over... Thanks r.evo, your posts in this thread raised more awareness than the lgbt banner. | ||
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mainerd
United States347 Posts
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zeo
Serbia6284 Posts
edit: guess the point I was trying to make was that I highly doubt someone is more 'aware' about gay rights after seeing the banner. There have been a million threads about this, it has been discussed a million times. People should already be 'aware' about this subject and have formed their own opinion on it (at least on TL). Those that ignored the million threads will ignore this too. edit2: to answer mainerd below. My apologies to anyone who thought that I said they were wasting my time. I actually wrote a really long answer to this post but erased it. This forum is a way for people to express their opinions about subjects they are passionate about, its just that in abortion/religion/gay rights threads you know what the thread will be like from the thread title. It gets repetitive. All I'm saying. | ||
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mainerd
United States347 Posts
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Liquid`Drone
Norway28665 Posts
I mean I get that more openness and acceptance of all forms of consensual sex or relationship forming is a great cause. I totally support that. I wish I had been more conscious about my own sexual urges at a younger age, cuz I'd have had a lot more fun sex by now then. And I get how it'd be cool for the business-alpha male to be able to admit that he likes being dominated sexually without people thinking less of him in any way.. But certainly you see how it's much less of a problem that someone can't talk publicly about his sexual desires, in the event that he still gets an avenue to pursue them, than not being able to live with the person you love period? I mean gays often manage to have gay sex even in countries where it's forbidden and not accepted, it's everything else that fails. And I mean even if the sex doesn't give you fulfillment, I assume as a kinkster you can still have feelings of being in love with a girl who doesn't have the same urges? Also with the numbers I dunno where I got the 5-10% figure, I kinda assumed it was somewhere between those two numbers, if on the low end, and it seems to vary so wildly based on study and possibly criteria (how bisexual do you have to be to be bisexual? I've made out with lots of men, would never qualify any of them as a homosexual experience.) that I didn't see the need to be specific, but yea the 10% seems quite exaggerated. | ||
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Muffloe
Sweden6061 Posts
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r.Evo
Germany14080 Posts
On July 31 2014 04:37 Liquid`Drone wrote: thanks for the in depth reply. It's interesting for sure and I accept your analysis, but it still doesn't convince me in any way that the kinkster or polyamory movement deserve support or recognition in the way homosexuals do (in fact you said it yourself - many kinksters don't want to identify as one. ) I think that becomes thin ice really, really quickly and things start biting their own tail. Do people not want to identify as such because it's part of their nature or because they're afraid of social repercussions? Just like homosexuals would identify as such a lot less the more you go back in time the goal should be that no one has to be vary of getting screwed over due to his sexuality. As it stands the point that's really hard to debate is that (in the west) someone who wants to enjoy a polyamourous relationship he has less legal backing (or rather: none) than a homosexual couple in most places and someone who is into various forms of s/m or d/s has on average less medical backing than a homosexual. I think it's safe to say that we overall stopped trying to "cure" people of their homosexuality, we're still trying to cure people who are into certain kinks. Or rather, some professionals think we should try and cure them while others aren't so sure resulting in lots and lots of confusion among everyone involved. Those things alone are very scary things to stand and what brought me to "the LGBT movement is more 'there' than those for example" in the first place. I mean I get that more openness and acceptance of all forms of consensual sex or relationship forming is a great cause. I totally support that. I wish I had been more conscious about my own sexual urges at a younger age, cuz I'd have had a lot more fun sex by now then. And I get how it'd be cool for the business-alpha male to be able to admit that he likes being dominated sexually without people thinking less of him in any way.. But certainly you see how it's much less of a problem that someone can't talk publicly about his sexual desires, in the event that he still gets an avenue to pursue them, than not being able to live with the person you love period? I mean gays often manage to have gay sex even in countries where it's forbidden and not accepted, it's everything else that fails. And I mean even if the sex doesn't give you fulfillment, I assume as a kinkster you can still have feelings of being in love with a girl who doesn't have the same urges? See, that's the issue; you can't answer that question universally. From the couple of cases I know where those things collide people get into pretty strong emotional problems which, from what I understand, aren't very far from a homosexual man being married to a woman and having kids. We're talking being married for 10-20 years, having kids, never really enjoying your sexlife and then stumbling upon a party that opens someones eyes. Sure those people can and do lead "normal" lives (just like a homosexual in a heterosexual relationship can) but simply being completely unattracted to your partner in the bedroom while believing it must be your own issue or your own sickness isn't exactly pretty. Where we can probably find rather simple definitions for a hetero- or homosexual couple that can say whether or not someone is satisfied with their rights and privileges or not it becomes really hard for certain kinks and questions soon become too ugly for the public (or politicians for that matter) to deal with. Is it okay to have fantasies about rape? (Legally, sure. Is it morally? Should it be treated? How to we differentiate between a potential criminal and someone with a mere sexual interest?) Is it okay to engage in consensual roleplay that imitates rape? Is it okay to fantasize about being physically hurt during intercourse or fantasizing about physically hurting someone? (How much physical violence for both sides needs to be considered "too much" and requires treatment?) Should we embrace (or treat) someone for wanting to be sexually humiliated? Is it okay if that's the only way someone can satisfy himself sexually? Should we talk about things like this: 45.8% of men in a 1980 study reported fantasizing during heterosexual intercourse about "a scene where [they had] the impression of being raped by a woman" (3.2% often and 42.6% sometimes), 44.7% of scenes where a seduced woman "pretends resisting" and 33% of raping a woman. A study of college-age women found over half had engaged in fantasies of rape or coercion which, another study claims, are within the normal range of female sexuality. (1998) What should we tell a teenager who asks questions about those things? Should we encourage youth to ask questions about these things if they have certain urges in the first place? Is it okay to tell someone that loving your own gender is just as okay as engaging in fantasies with a partner that consents to engaging in them? Should we have talks in school that encourage safe, sane and consensual no matter the practice? This territory gets incredibly ugly for your average politician or polite family conversation very fast. | ||
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levelping
Singapore759 Posts
Except this goes beyond just raising awareness and is also a show of support for our gay community members (see op). Many people appreciate that support (see thread generally). At r.evo: While thia new general discussion on the issues faced by kink communities is great, especially for those who are new to the area, the comparisons you are trying to draw to the lgbtq community are still nebulous at best. I think it's great that you're obviously very passionate about the kink lifestyle, but why would this have a bearing on the desirability/effectiveness odour rainbow horse? | ||
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WolfintheSheep
Canada14127 Posts
On July 31 2014 09:17 levelping wrote: At zeo: Except this goes beyond just raising awareness and is also a show of support for our gay community members (see op). Many people appreciate that support (see thread generally). At r.evo: While thia new general discussion on the issues faced by kink communities is great, especially for those who are new to the area, the comparisons you are trying to draw to the lgbtq community are still nebulous at best. I think it's great that you're obviously very passionate about the kink lifestyle, but why would this have a bearing on the desirability/effectiveness odour rainbow horse? On a personal level, I wouldn't care if the rainbow banner was the only thing that TL did the entire year. They chose a cause to support, and they can choose to support whatever they want. However, I can see the point of view of annoyance at communities like TL just jump on the rainbow bandwagon to show off their support for a cause that's gone mainstream. And from the LGBTQ community's perspective, that's entirely what they wanted, to raise enough hell and make it a "thing" that the world would latch onto. Which, unfortunately, creates a terrible precedent for other minority groups that are under acknowledged and unrepresented. Yeah, it's great that gay rights are being supported by a lot of people. But where does that leave, say...people who are Asexual, or want polyamorous relationships (for non-cultist/sexist reasons)? Not much further than they were before, since people only seem to educate themselves as far as the "mainstream agenda" is being pushed. And Liquid'Drone's posts basically sum up the situation fairly well. Gay rights is a movement that's popular enough to be noticed and understood, but everything else is still open for quick dismissal because people haven't raised a big enough stink yet. | ||
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r.Evo
Germany14080 Posts
On July 31 2014 09:17 levelping wrote: While thia new general discussion on the issues faced by kink communities is great, especially for those who are new to the area, the comparisons you are trying to draw to the lgbtq community are still nebulous at best. I think it's great that you're obviously very passionate about the kink lifestyle, but why would this have a bearing on the desirability/effectiveness odour rainbow horse? In addition to what wolf put much more eloquent than I could here's the deal: Believe it or not, I actually don't consider myself passionate about some form of kink lifestyle on a personal level. Personally I'm pretty much in the boat of "No one is ripping me apart for it, I can find people to do things with and I'm lucky enough to make money in ways that can't be influenced by public opinion" and on top of that I'm lucky to not be into almost anything that is generally considered "extreme". But I can also see unfair treatment and can speak up when I see people spouting uninformed stuff. It annoys the ever-fucking-crap out of me when someone who identifies as a minority (which should make the person more tolerant and accepting, not less) accuses me of being disrespectful while he gives zero shit about the content I'm presenting. Wanna know what I'm talking about? Things like 24/7 relationships have probably a stronger feature in people's lives than any possible "regular" hetero or homosexual relationships. This, as a very blanket statement, implies that a "24/7 relationship" (whatever that is and whoever can have that) has a stronger impact on the daily lives than any "normal" hetero- or homosexual relationship. Even if you have zero clue what this is talking about it is very clearly something not related to who you're attracted to. This is the response I got (which is quite in line with things I've heard from the LGBT community before): Even accepting what you say about some kink relationships being 24/7 (though I fail to see how they will feature stronger than regular homosexual lifestyles since homosexuals also happen to be homosexual 24/7) the above point would apply. That said while I can accept that in some very dedicated dom/sub relationships the kink lifestyle would be immensely pervasive, this small number of cases cannot compare to being gay wherein any relationship would be 24/7 homosexual, to use your terminology. The comparison remains disingenuous. Which is saying "A 24/7 relationship in the context of BDSM is the same as a homosexual relationship because a person is homosexual 24/7 and therefor the same as any relationship between 2 people since a hetero couple is also 24/7 hetero." which shows that you've put zero thought into what I tried to convey, zero effort into even googling what I'm talking about and you just turned an issue that is NOT about sexuality into one just because... why not. All while still pretending to know exactly what you're talking about because otherwise the whole thing would fall apart. Here is an actual definition (note how it does NOT include sexuality): A 24/7 D/s (or M/s) relationship is based on total power exchange. This is when one person surrenders total control to another for an indefinite period of time. In a relationship like this the power exchange is super-imposed over the other roles that these people may assume; such as parent or spouse. One person is always dominant and the other is always submissive to them. Sometimes also referred to as Lifestyle D/s. Now how the hell was the original statement that such a relationship has most likely a stronger feature in people's lives than a "regular" hetero- or homosexual relationship inaccurate in any shape or form? We're literally talking about modern, consensual slavery here. It's about one person telling the other what to wear, when to orgasm and how to socially interact with others. It's an uninformed, disrespectful and hypocritical comment that turned a statement that wasn't about sexuality into one just to claim some sense of moral superiority. That kind of shit isn't okay at all, especially from someone who tries to lecture about respect, tolerance and empathy. But, hey, it's just about "sexual fetishism" and about me "not applying my mind to the degree to which kink and orientation feature in people's lives.", isn't it? | ||
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totally_spy
France104 Posts
I need this Tidehunter TL Arcana :p | ||
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PVJ
Hungary5214 Posts
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WGT-Baal
France3363 Posts
And it's a nice gesture too. Good on you TL! | ||
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Thax
Belgium1060 Posts
I don't see how a romantic and/or sexual relationship of any form between 2 or more consenting adults, or even between minors of a similar age, impacts me or anyone else in a negative way. Good job Team Liquid! See you in Amsterdam. | ||
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marvellosity
United Kingdom36161 Posts
On July 31 2014 19:14 WGT-Baal wrote: I like that banner, the horse looks great with those colours. It should actually stay like this! It's been my desktop background at work since last year ^^ | ||
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Silvanel
Poland4726 Posts
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diverzee
Sweden992 Posts
Anyway, I love the horse, and think it is super pretty too. It's the Pride week in Sweden now and there are a lot of rainbow flags displayed on balconies and hanging from windows. Noone pretends to change the world with a flag, but it is a fun way to partake in a celebration and show a little bit of support. It is no more complex than sharing a cake with someone having a birthday. Of course, there will always be someone straining themselves in coming up with ridiculously convoluted reasonings to justify their own bigotry. | ||
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