2658rudeness

[evile]

18 Nov. 8:25 am

 

 

This strikes me as someone with very poor manners getting all pissed
off because someone calls them on it. For godssakes, if you go to a
play party and see something that makes you uncomfortable, DON'T
LOOK. Go somewhere else, find a friend to chat with in another area,
take a trip to the restroom to calm down if you are THAT distressed,
but don't stand there while someone is doing a scene going "ew!
Squick!"....that's just RUDE. Not to mention possibly dangerous to
the people involved if they get distracted by your verbal outpouring.
Sounds like people who knew she was new were cutting her a lot of
slack with their gentle suggestions that she shouldn't diss it if she
hasn't been in the scene that long & hadn't tried it yet.

http://www.livejournal.com/community/dot_bdsm_snark/26817.html

Beware of Cavebabe (lovecraftienne) wrote in dot_bdsm_snark,
@ 2004-11-17 18:31:00

Current mood: irked

"I don't like that." "You will."
Okay - first post in the forum.

Sunday night I had the pleasure of my first attendance at a play
party. Lots of fun was had, by me and by others.

I'm a relative newbie; I've only been playing for about four or five
months.

But (and this is a big but, rather like my big butt): I do not need
to be told, every 5 minutes, that what squicks me now won't in the
future.

It is, or it should be, considered vaguely possible that I have a
better awareness of myself than those who, say, have only just met me
have. So why do people - people to whom I have just said, hey, I'm
new here - feel the overweening necessity of contradicting me when I
say "oh, squick"? I have never once indicated any judgement of the
people indulging in the behaviour I'm looking at; by definition, I'm
at the freakin' play party, I'm not likely to suddenly turn out to be
The Hangin' Judge of Pre-vert County. I just said, "Oh, squick."
That's a statement of personal taste, only, or it should be.

Just really bugged me. Now, me, I'm a long-time queer girl, queer
activist, feminist, et c., et c.. I don't sit back and say, "that
bugs me" without saying it to the people who are bugging me (and yes,
I did). But I thought it might be useful to the community in general
to think about it a bit; that saying "You will" to people saying they
don't like the look of something for themselves is counterproductive.

Several reasons:

1) The newbie is now informed, by someone they might take to have
some clue, that there is a well-known "progression" of BDSM. Oh,
great, thinks newbie, if I get into this, I'm gonna end up doing
those things that really turn me off right now. Oh, I don't want
that, or it scares me. Better not come back. There is a tyranny
imposed by this idea that there is a progression that everyone
follows; if you don't follow it, or would rather not, then perhaps
you don't belong there. Only it's not true; not everyone moves much,
and when they do, they don't move to the same place.

2) The newbie is told that their feelings about what they like, and
don't like, and go squick over, are invalid, and shouldn't be
ventured. When the only response given to someone's declaration of
desires and tastes is "oh, that'll change"...imagine, if you will,
that you are sitting at a table when you are 8. Your mother puts out
a plate of your least-favourite food. "I don't like that, Mummy,"
you say, and she says, "Oh, you will." Whether or not she might, is
it right that she should? Would it make you feel better about eating
your least-favourite food? Me, I doubt it. It places the newbie in
a spot where she doesn't feel right about contradicting the person
who apparently knows so much...and so she swallows her feelings.

3) The simple fact that it's not terribly nice to contradict someone,
over something fairly personal, when you've just met them, and that
it tends to annoy them. Annoying newbies is a good way to have no
newbies.

One - and only one - person had the kindness to say, "oh, may I ask,
what do you like, then?" This is an excellent answer - it focuses
the newbie back on the positives, on the things that brought her in
the first place, and allows her to begin making a new friend by
revealing something of herself.

It didn't spoil it utterly for me, but it was a source of low-level
irritation throughout the night. I guess I just want people to
reconsider whether this is a useful answer to someone who tells you
that they're not enjoying something you talk about or they can see
happening, or whether another approach might lead to some more
positive interactions. "You will" is a real conversation killer.

Yes, we are all responsible for our own feelings - my point is only
that we as a community could better serve ourselves if this insidious
little response got quietly dropped as something acceptable.

Having had my rant, I will say that the play party was otherwise lots
of fun, and there were some real positive aspects to getting to see
other people play. I've got another rant about some stuff I saw, but
I suspect it =may= be an old one, so I'll hang on and read the group
for a while before I bring that one up.

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