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It's been suggested I start another thread for this topic. I originally posted to "Moderation Request" about the thread on Conversation, called "My Best Mate's Uncle Fucked My Mother - I Need A Comeback" and subtitled Got a good comeback. Tell me so I can get something over a friend. Caustic the better, I want his eyes to bleed.
In my post I referred to another Conversation thread, "Stump Fuckin'", which was previously discussed at length on "Moderation Request".
My specific comment is below. But more generally, my question is this. If Barbelith is a kind of "garden" that we all create and tend, what if someone plants a seed that seems unlikely to grow into anything most people in the garden will find attractive -- that seems perhaps to blight the other plants around it -- that would perhaps be one of the first things visitors to the garden saw -- that may grow to dominate that patch, scratching and casting shadows -- that would look entirely right within another garden, but not Barbelith.
I think the garden metaphor may have died on me. But you might take my point. The two threads in question aren't offensive in a way I could unequivocally pin down. With "Stump Fuckin'" it was suggested that the title and topic could possibly offend women, or amputees, but that apart from being clearly crass, it was opaque to the point that it was hard to find specific reasons to either lock or delete it. I've given my misgivings about the "Uncle-Fucker" thread below.
These threads don't break any rules I know of, or explicitly hurt or hate and specific group of people. But they do seem to go against the general idea that Barbelith should be different from other internet communities -- that it should try to be better.
See and say what you think.
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++MY ORIGINAL POST++
I wonder if the thread about someone's best mate's uncle having once slept with his mother is another case for discussion, like "Stump Fuckin'".
I can't see that it's intended to, or destined to (without concerted derailment of the original intention) go anywhere that doesn't involve retro ideas of male pride, smackdowns verbal and physical, silly boasts and unpleasant ideas about female sexuality (that having once 'fucked' a woman can be used years later as a taunt; that a woman's sexuality is a matter for duelling between men; that for a mother to have a sex life in the past is hard to contemplate).
I'm not asking anyone to lock or delete it. I think it might be another case for discussion about whether some threads go against the stated ethos of Barbelith, and threaten to make it a different type of place from the place most people in the community seem to want -- that is, make it a place like many others online, rather than somewhere unusual in a good way. |
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