So many posts, tweets, reddits and what
not about Fetlife not protecting its users, not upholding TOU, victim
blaming, abuser protecting.. So many rants about how the kink community
is upholding the" blame the victim" mentality.
But people...
this is silly. We are blaming Fetlife but, fetlife is not a person.
It does not represent unity, a specific set of ideals, philosophies or
ideals. It is merely a social networking site that allows all of us
kinky folk a place to meet and gather, talk and listen.
I realize
that in a perfect world there would be a kintopia in which everyone
would skip along, flogging you exactly the way you want, when you want
and never a misundertanding would occur. But that world cannot exist
with us conflicted, complex and diabolic humans in it. Just like the
vanilla world does not have it's euotipia garden, neither do we bdsm'ers
and the like.
Us kinksters are not so easily pigeon holed. Sure,
most of us on Fetlife are a bit kinky (or more than a bit) but our
interests are widely varried, as are our beliefs, values, cultures,
societal values.... and so on. Just because we all self identify as
kinky does not mean that we all think as a unit.
*Gasp* there
are assholes on Fetlife? Drama Queens? Liars? Abusers? Victims? Say
it isn't so!!! I do not understand the shock and horror that seems to be
rampant as we are told of tale after tale of non consent, assault,
lies, outing and general assholerly. Where there are people there will
be problems. Not pretty, not ideal, but very realistic.
I am part
of the Fetlife community. I am part of my local kink community. I am
part of several real world kink communities. Yet I do not support
abuse. I do not support abusers. I do not tell sexual abusers that
they are to blame. I certainly am not the only one who works hard to
play consensually-hell I am not even part of some minority group who is
morally superior to the rest. Just as the majority of humans do not
murder, I suggest that the majority of Fetlifers are not abusers. So
what gives with the smear campaign?
I firmly believe that we
are all responsible for our choices. That being said, the person who
violates another in any manner is ultimately responsible for those
actions. Period. If I walk buck naked down the fucking highway I am
not "asking for it". Period. Many people, kinky or not, uphold some
sort of similar value. It is the few that do NOT that create these
problems, not the entire group.
Yes our community leaders try
to promote the concepts of Safe, Risk Aware, Consent, Sane, Safecalls,
you name it. That does not mean that every kinksters follow all the
rules. Hell, I bet everyone of us can come up with at least one example
of a time we did not quite follow the beautiful rules. We are a
diverse group. Humans are complicated.
Refusing to post on
fetlife to show support for a victim is like refusing to orgasm to show
support. Neither of those things help the victim. Help the victim by
supporting education, women's rights, programs for sex abusers. Help
the victim by sending them verbal support. Fetlife itself is not to
blame for these horrid acts. The abuser is to blame. Baku is not
responsible. The abuser is responsible.
Baku and fetlife staff
do an incredible job. They provide us our playground, and allow us
anonymity. They don't take sides, Baku is not a judge nor a court.
Would
it be lovely if he had magic and could be absolutely fucking sure who
is telling the truth and who is not? If he then could ban the evils?
You bet! But he has no magic. He has his hands very full, I am sure,
with all the reports he has to sort already. Expecting him to just know
who is a probelm and who is truly the victim is ridiculous.
So
please... trashing Fetlife does not address abuse, it does not help the
victims past or present. It only creates more rifts in our community.
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