Content, Clarity, and Consent

295

Policy regarding this kind of issue is make-or-break in the details. Assuming the worst about their neighbors implies that the issue is that they are presuming that ageplay means that someone is engaging in other activities that are agreeably immoral. It does not acknowledge that they may believe that the ageplay itself is unacceptable.

On the other point, inability to compartmentalize is the problem we are trying to solve with policy and software. The purpose of this policy is to compartmentalize the players, because asking people to not speak up on an issue they feel strongly about, either way around, is not viable.

This policy, and the proposed gameplay supports are designed to neither make ageplayers shut up and hide in the closet, nor to make anti-ageplayers sit on their hands and suppress their moral inclinations. Both positions see it that way because they believe they are objectively right and that the only appropriate course of action is for us to agree with them and take their side

What this policy is, is that we are putting up a curtain between the two groups and asking them to please talk amongst themselves instead of fighting. It’s just a curtain. No one is being sent to a gulag. You can cross over if you want! But if you cross over to raise a fuss with the other group, we can act on it instantly now.

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296

I do hate to bring this up, but you think there’s nothing that makes me uncomfortable?

You know what, there is.

You don’t hear about it from me because I tolerate people with other viewpoints. To me this feels like such a basic moral obligation it’s shocking to see it isn’t viewed that way by others.

There are certain things that must be considered unacceptable. I’m talking about murder, theft, rape etc, and advocating for same.

But to me, none of the unacceptables are engaged here. Once again, it’s all adults in a closed room engaged in kink roleplay.

At a certain point the reality of the situation has to actually matter.

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297

I called out Fain-rar on this, from the other direction, and I will call you out too: it is not reasonable to apply your own standards, based on your experience, to others and call that the essential bar to which people can be held.

We’re not talking about comfort here. If we wanted to make anti-ageplayers comfortable, we would be instituting a full ban. If we wanted to make ageplayers comfortable, we would issue a blanket condonement.

What we are talking about is what people find acceptable versus unacceptable, and it is not acceptable to project your own outlook, attitude, and perspective onto others, and hold them to your own standards, based on your own experiences.

If to you, none of the unacceptables are present- excellent. That means we’re doing our job well enough to handle that region of the information space. That doesn’t mean we’re done, though.

No one person, no one group gets to draw the line in the sand. The policy proposal above is not the product of any one position’s construction. It is no one’s favorite.

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298

Oh dude, no, i think your compromise is fine. I’m more talking to the unpresent people who left at this point, and their friends and advocates.

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299

This ‘people can have their own opinions’ is all fine and good… maybe not the stance I was looking for. Hiding the friction isn’t good and we are here to discuss how it has an impact on policy.

Fox has been here a few times in this thread to point out that they’re not looking to take a moral position on the matter, just minimize the friction. Just, this all feels like kicking the can down the road till the next time someone invariably gets upset about content on the server.

In the three years I’ve been on this server I’ve never once seen a public solicitation of a minor character. Most I know even refuse to hang out in the park just to shoot shit and talk. If I have anxiety about this issue it’s cause I know if people aren’t happy now with the situation, they’re really not going to be happy until there’s a full ban.

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300

Yeah, that’s the thing. There’s a group that absolutely will not be happy with less than a full ban.

So, isn’t the only option there to either say yes, ok, we’ll ban, or no we won’t.

I appreciate the mods have chosen the second, genuinely, and for the sake of the uncomfortable who would like to stay this content labeling thing is fine. It’s completely innocuous.

But don’t bend towards hard liners. Bend because it makes sense for the people who can stay.

Edit, i guess this is a question of how the rules and tools are implemented.

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301

I’m not taking a stance on the morality one way or the other, but attributing the cause of people leaving to the presence of extreme ageplay is accurate, as I (and the people who left) already explained. The question is how to respond to this fact.

I’m tired of my friends leaving, boss. That is my only concern. I can ignore people doing things I’m not into.

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302

I would like to briefly step out of my quiet place to state unequivocally that these statements all align with my needs, personally, and that — while they do not address my fears about our status on Wolfery long-term — they do offer the protection I was looking for from abuse on the site.

I recognize that we are in a context where our guard must necessarily be lowered in order to facilitate discussion about policy, and that this was lost in the weeds of our discussion about harm. I recognize, also, that you pointed this out already, and that I did not quite pick up that signal.

Hearing it stated unambiguously that the language here is permissible only because of its context, and that in other contexts it would clearly be unacceptable, satisfies most of my immediate concerns.

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303

People will talk about legality and moralism and that’s fine I guess, but it’s a lot more useful to talk about actual real world effects. That’s what I was always talking about in other topics and it was glossed over by everyone involved, especially when I started talking about my very personal experiences.

Like, I’m not interested in philosophizing about whether or not something is equivalent to another thing. I know for a fact that written VCSAM is used to groom people and it is used to desensitize people. I lived that experience myself. It’s not a speculation for me, it’s something that really happened in my life and the person who did it used it to make other people more willing to either ignore it or get into it. If you wanna lump that into the ‘trauma’ group then whatever, but it’s also about the kind of discursive effect that radiates out from this shit?

I really, really loved this community. I made friends that are going to last forever in my heart. I also lost people just because I had this ‘opinion’ like, I don’t want to see or interact with or be in a community that’s OK with something that almost ruined my life forever. Every time I try to talk about this stuff, someone pops up to talk about how it’s not illegal or something, but I don’t care about that. Legality isn’t the same thing as morality isn’t the same thing as ethics. I care about what it means, what happens as a result, and what people do with all of that.

We can all go on diatribes and compare sapient feral characters to child characters, but is that seriously useful? It’s not the same scenario in any way. It’s a false equivalency. What are the real world effects of ‘ageplay’ on the people who participate with it? It sure as hell doesn’t help me with my trauma. If it does for yours, cool. It makes my skin crawl viscerally because VCSAM was used to rape me.

I dedicated a large part of my academic study to the effects of VCSAM, I’ve written papers on it, I’ve compiled information. I think, from a positivist scientific perspective, that it is not fucking great and it makes people more likely to do things they wouldn’t have done before.

That is where I am coming from. That is why I don’t want it in this community, that is why I have been outspoken about it.

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304

Once again, moral equivalencies being drawn between ageplay and active real pedophilia.

Thanks for proving my point.

Look, I’m sorry that happened to you, but it was a pedophile who did it. Not some misguided ageplayer. They were a pedo first.

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I dedicated a large part of my academic study to the effects of VCSAM, I’ve written papers on it, I’ve compiled information.

Anything peer-reviewed you could send my way?

306

Mods, y’all should probably just close this thread at this point.

You’re seeing people say exactly what you said you didn’t want to start coming up.

307

I really appreciate where you’re coming from, and cherish that some folks choose to engage with their past abuse by becoming experts about the phenomena that lead to their exploitation. I respect that this stuff genuinely makes your skin crawl and that this sensation is wholly justified and entirely based in real, lived experience and real, laborious research.

I would like to take a step back from the topic of ageplay on Wolfery, in particular, and ask you some questions about what you actually want from the world. Like, magic wand, do you think all ageplayers should stop doing what they are doing? Is there something about how we tend to engage with this stuff that you object to on the grounds of your research? What is your reasoning for depriving innocent people of such liberty because there exist some who take advantage of that liberty to hurt others? How do you justify not depriving innocent people of other liberties, such as engaging with NSFW content in general, which also provides an avenue (and, anecdotally, to a far greater extent than ageplay in particular) for exploitation?

I do not want to make people uncomfortable. I want to contain my stories to private spaces with an audience solely comprised of consenting adults. I want to apply content warnings where such content is accessible by others. I want to take measures to ensure that kids who genuinely do not know better do not sneak into my private spaces and take advantage of the anonymity of the internet to get into my pants.

But I also have the right to exist, and to express my identity, and to tell my own story because I, too, have lived experiences that I have big feelings about. We all react differently to trauma, and — as with all kink — our needs are highly selective and our aversions profoundly visceral.

If we are banished from Wolfery, that does not mean we will stop telling our story. That just means we are going to find somewhere else that welcomes us. If we cannot find a public venue, then we will make a private one. If we are forced to send letters to each other via snail mail, then that is what we are going to do, because this is a part of who we are, and we are not willing to silence that aspect of ourselves.

So, if you cannot countenance our existence here, regardless of how invisible we are to you, how do you reckon with the knowledge that we are still out there, doing this thing, because it is so important to us? What is your ideal, here? What is your goal? And what can convince us to join you in that mission?

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308

I do not mean to diminish your feelings or experiences, but this argument can be made of all extreme content. What makes feral, or non-con, violence, vore, blood-play, ect. okay while this one thing gets constant backlash but all the others are almost never spoken about in this light?

If this one kink between consenting adults who do not want actual children to ever be involved or even see this content is so wrong we have to ban it, then how are the other even possibly considerable?

Rape is rape, but in these spaces no one cares until a fictional child is involved. Even when the scene itself isn’t non-consensual.

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309

Laws. The world is non-uniform. Countries exist. Various countries have various policies. There are significantly more countries that have issues with written ageplay than countries having issues with violence.

It’s bizarre this topic is raised and then swept under the rug of “don’t live in a backwater country” or “yeah, no one was ever was prosecuted for this, you’re gonna be fine”. There are laws. There is stuff that is illegal. Yes, even when it’s just fictional writing. Yes, that sucks. No, it’s not a blanket ban. But there are very specific, very concrete rules to which Wolfery does not adhere and thus the content is illegal as presented. Somewhere.

You need to understand that some people don’t have a personal stance against the group in a slightest, but they are actively legally liable for promoting an environment for such a group. Accipiter will have to start collecting donations with bitcoin the very second paypal will take a second look at the website. Will they have any concern with ferals or gore? Nope. They will have concern only about one thing. And this is not theoretical.

I feel sorry for the group being ostracised this much. I don’t know if that is reasonable or not. I’m not a scientist and I’m no good with reading research papers. But I know that there are actual real life concerns about being involved with this audience. And it really, really sucks.

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310

I second this request, or alternately that the mods begin enforcing that “don’t slur ageplayers with the p word” rule now.

Plainly, allowing this discourse to run to that topic has served it’s purpose. The active thread should now be the one about the actual content control implementation.

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311

I get what you’re saying, and I understand and respect your decision of leaving.

I believe it is rather unreasonable to expect that a site of this size and funding to be aware of and remain up to date on all laws in all countries someone might access it from.

I am also aware that the law doesn’t care. I am aware that if somehow this does come under scrutiny that there will likely be repercussions.

But if you take this stance then you can’t allow anyone to be trans or gay either. There are countries where that too is against the law. If we take all laws in all countries into consideration, anything adult is against a law somewhere.

So, again, I understand your reasons for leaving. But those who have remained on the staff have made it clear that isn’t what they are addressing here.

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312

This single infraction is the one we enforce more than any other, already.

If you see something, say something. If you say nothing, we can do nothing.

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We have had a great deal of argument of potential harm of restrictions - even minor ones - on ageplay in here.

We will not be going all ‘mods lock the thread’ when someone wants to - in a fair tone - discuss the potential harm of allowing it.

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314

Talon, there is nobody in this thread convincing anyone else.