your lucky ball and chain

I don't want to know the genitals of some stranger. It isn't my business!! At the very fucking least put it under a readmore, since this is borderline sexual harassment when people don't consent to seeing this shit and suddenly seeing it.

I have been giving out advice and answering questions just fine without soliciting people to send me drawings of their bits. In fact I encourage folks to tell me as little as reasonably possible about your external downstairs setup, I don't need to know about the mole on your left nut unless you're concerned it's cancer or something. I've rejected answering asks solely because the asker was saying *way too much* and I wasn't comfortable blasting that on my blog!

not wanting a certain thing sent specifically to you in your own space is one thing. critiquing perisex people for only being interested in our genitals is one thing. but requesting people censor intersex bodies in forums of public discussion is - to take your words - at best uncomfortable & unnecessary, and at worst potentially dangerous.

genitals are a body part, just like any other. there is nothing unpure or wrong or taboo about them beyond the social rules we have imposed. what is dangerous here? seriously, what is the actual inherent danger?

because treating intersex bodies as if they are somehow inherently hazardous or traumatizing to see seems a lot more dangerous. "It's not cool to expose people to that" EXPOSE people? to what, to normal human bodies? would you go up to someone naked on the beach and ask them to cover up because their variation makes you uncomfortable? this isn't even talking about real images - what is the actual tangible harm of someone seeing DRAWINGS? "I do not want the behavior to continue and eventually see any worst-case scenarios!" what is a "wost case scenario"? what do you think is going to happen here? where is this slippery slope we're being scared of and what do y'all think it's leading to??????

you can't be like "oh well when things are better we can think differently" as if progress is something that nebulously happens and isn't something we all actively have to partake in.

the "well i just dont WANT TO, it makes me UNCOMFORTABLE" is the exact same reasoning conservatives use to avoid seeing any other minority. i have - and i am 100 percent serious - have seen this exact mindset applied to fat people. "i don't want to see it so i shouldn't have to and it should be your onus to facilitate that".

I don't want to know the genitals of some stranger. It isn't my business!! At the very fucking least put it under a readmore, since this is borderline sexual harassment when people don't consent to seeing this shit and suddenly seeing it.

I have been giving out advice and answering questions just fine without soliciting people to send me drawings of their bits. In fact I encourage folks to tell me as little as reasonably possible about your external downstairs setup, I don't need to know about the mole on your left nut unless you're concerned it's cancer or something. I've rejected answering asks solely because the asker was saying *way too much* and I wasn't comfortable blasting that on my blog!

not wanting a certain thing sent specifically to you in your own space is one thing. critiquing perisex people for only being interested in our genitals is one thing. but requesting people censor intersex bodies in forums of public discussion is - to take your words - at best uncomfortable & unnecessary, and at worst potentially dangerous.

genitals are a body part, just like any other. there is nothing unpure or wrong or taboo about them beyond the social rules we have imposed. what is dangerous here? seriously, what is the actual inherent danger?

because treating intersex bodies as if they are somehow inherently hazardous or traumatizing to see seems a lot more dangerous. "It's not cool to expose people to that" EXPOSE people? to what, to normal human bodies? would you go up to someone naked on the beach and ask them to cover up because their variation makes you uncomfortable? this isn't even talking about real images - what is the actual tangible harm of someone seeing DRAWINGS? "I do not want the behavior to continue and eventually see any worst-case scenarios!" what is a "wost case scenario"? what do you think is going to happen here? where is this slippery slope we're being scared of and what do y'all think it's leading to??????

I just had a long conversation with Snail where multiple things became painfully obvious:

Snail is a disabled and very sheltered person who did not realize how being underinformed in a conversation like the ones we have been having could lead to unintentionally parroting harmful rhetoric.

Snail did not intend for any of their posts to come across as harmful, patronizing, downplaying, or willfully obtuse, let alone encouraging the perpetuation of harm or of pro-para spaces.

Snail has been dealing with a harassment campaign that while not baseless, given their statements are incredibly damning at first blush, has spiralled out to include transmisogynistic, ableist, and intersexist harm that they absolutely do not deserve to be subject to and has taken an effect on their physical health.

And lastly, Snail is a very sweet person who is willing to have productive conversations about their wording with people willing to take them in good faith as someone who is underinformed and disabled.

I don't think that anything I say will change that there are some parties involved here who will never be willing to take Snail in good faith, gently correct them, or even really treat them like a human being, but I do think that we should not treat them like a pariah for still being on chapter three of this conversation while the rest of us are on chapter five. From their own experiences, they grew up in a very rural, very conservative, and very religious area where they were not as well-informed about sex and kink as a lot of us, and is still actively learning about how all of this works.

Snail is going to work on drafting an apology and explanation for how all of this got started, which I am very pleased to hear and hopefully will be able to help them work on so that their words and ideas are conveyed the best they possibly can. This has spiralled far beyond the root of the issue, and I don't think anyone invested in continuing to harass Snail is going to just stop as soon as this statement or their own drops, but I must digress.

I am not going to name and shame, because frankly, I do not want things to get worse for Snail - but if you have a fucking problem, take it up with me. I can handle that shit a lot better and I have the capacity to clown your ass to hell and back. Leave Snail the fuck alone. Just because they aren't a minor doesn't mean they're going to automatically be caught up on every bit of discussion, advocacy, and discourse, especially when they've been out of step with a lot of us and have only come to our attention because they said some shit that looked damning as fuck the first time you read through it.

Their disabilities make it incredibly easy for them to be taken advantage of, and make it difficult for them to word their thoughts to the standards of others. This has been used by both sides of this discourse to detrimental effect, with not only pro-paras taking their words in bad faith to try and schmooze into their social circle, but even people ostensibly on our side to excuse harassing and smearing them.

I couldn't even get to the source of the screenshots I was sent because I had to slog through people constantly, willfully misintepreting everything they said and putting them on the back foot to just dig the hole deeper no matter how many times they tried to reword what they said and explain that they genuinely did not know how to phrase it.

I shouldn't have to tell you how fucked up and dangerous it is to take a vulnerable person and treat them like utter shit instead of actually talking to them about what they said, how it can be harmful, and working to help them understand what's actually being interpreted from their words and how better to convey their actual intent. Frankly, we are all extremely lucky that Snail was willing to talk to me at all about my prior reblog given the shitstorm they've been put through, because there is no doubt in my mind that it would be entirely understandable for them to have walked right into the arms of someone who could tell they were vulnerable and manipulated them further into pro-para shit by taking advantage of their disability and their lack of information and understanding about sex, kink, and paraphilia.

We need to do fucking better than that. For all our posturing about wanting to help victims and prevent abuse, it seems to me right now that a lot of y'all are more interested on getting to dunk on people than in approaching this shit with the actual care and attention needed, and that you're willing to actively put a disabled person in fucking danger than treat them with the basic fucking decency of respect and understanding.

What the fuck were y'all thinking?

It took me one fucking conversation to clear the air. One.

>"but i'm using it to cope with trauma!" would be absolutely indefensible if they were talking about like. physical beatings.

your idea here is false and honestly disproves your point. do you know how common it is for people to get into things like martial arts as a coping mechanism? do you know about rage rooms? non-sexual sadomasochism? contact sports? hell even things like airsoft and paintball, or video game mods that allow more violence?

we have a billion avenues for controlled violence as coping mechanism that consenting adults choose to engage in all the time. and we understand that those people are able to be violent in one situation and it not have anything to do with how they act in the rest of their life.