When I was on Metafilter, it was a mixed bag when it came to sexual ethics.
I found it to be pretty toxic when it came to LGBTQ issues but members of the LGBTQ crowd often gave it rave reviews. They were used to getting egregious amounts of abusive garbage from people around them and to them this was a breath of fresh air, an oasis, a sanctuary from the rest of their life.
Metafilter also had a surprisingly good track record for telling women "Honey, you are not a tramp who needs to drink less. You are a victim of acquaintance rape. He intentionally got you falling down drunk and took advantage of you." This is something I have literally never seen anywhere else, so I found those to be shining, redemptive moments that gave me hope the forum might someday stop being a toxic cesspit.
Their desire to be supportive of BDSM and Polyamory lead to sometimes extremely mixed, even appalling results at times. On one occasion, there were TWO questions on the front page of AskMe at the same time that highlighted this fact.
One question was from a woman who had a threesome with someone from work and that person's spouse. That person was now avoiding them and seemingly hellbent on ruining them at work and getting them fired and moved out of their life (or something along those lines). The other was from a couple who was into threesomes looking for tips on how to better arrange such.
The woman who was terrified that her life and career would be ruined indicated alcohol had been involved. The couple looking for tips also spoke of routinely plying "friends" with alcohol to facilitate arranging a threesome.
Alcohol has been called The Number One date rape drug. If you are plying people with alcohol in order to intentionally impair their judgement and get them to cooperate with sexual activities you feel confident you cannot convince them of when they are sober, you are a rapist.
The definition of rape hinges on the detail of consent. Drunk people too impaired to sign legal documents are also too impaired to give meaningful sexual consent.
People seem to have trouble with the idea that rape is ENTIRELY about consent. Many people seem to think it's got to involve physical violence, but physical violence can be entirely absent from a case of rape or very much a part of consenting sex for people into BDSM.
In one legal battle, a woman with a fetish for violent sex involving bondage accused her husband of rape and had videotape of the sexual encounter in question. He had zero history of such sexual proclivities and had only ever engaged in such while with her and they were divorcing.
He was found not guilty.
I think there are genuine cases of Polyamory, which is a word that means loving multiple people. I think that's real and does happen.
I also think it's rare.
Most people who claim to be polyamorous or to be in an open relationship are your bog standard swingers, philanderers and unfaithful assholes who have found a prettier name for their shitty behavior.
It's hard enough to genuinely love ONE person. You start trying to love two or more and things get really complicated, really fast.
Polyamory, BDSM and other alternative lifestyles tend to have a bad reputation. Perhaps it wouldn't be so bad if the default norm for such people was to put ethics and a policy of first, do no harm at the top of their priority list.
Unfortunately, far too many people who want to pursue threesomes or what have you will do whatever is expedient to make it happen. In many cases, they are de facto serial rapists leaving a wide swath of damage in their wake.
Although alcohol gets called The Number One date rape drug, no alcohol or drugs of any kind are necessary for a couple seeking "experiences" to do really shitty, rapey, ethically unacceptable things. Lies, deception and manipulation are fairly easily arranged in cases where there are two people up to no good who know each other well and are working together.
Such a couple can easily take advantage of social norms in an appearances can be deceiving type fashion to help them maneuver people. For example, a faux "break up" can give one of them the opportunity to cry on someone's shoulder as a means to try to seduce them before the couple "makes up" again and "gets back together."
I mention this in part because such people tend to be pedants looking for some loophole with which to justify their intentionally malicious actions, like "But no alcohol was involved! So it wasn't RAPE! We are in the CLEAR!"
Um, no. If you are intentionally deceiving people, manipulating people, etc. to arrange the "experiences" you desire without having to disclose up front what you are up to because you don't think they would agree if they knew, you are still a rapist in my book.
I found it to be pretty toxic when it came to LGBTQ issues but members of the LGBTQ crowd often gave it rave reviews. They were used to getting egregious amounts of abusive garbage from people around them and to them this was a breath of fresh air, an oasis, a sanctuary from the rest of their life.
Metafilter also had a surprisingly good track record for telling women "Honey, you are not a tramp who needs to drink less. You are a victim of acquaintance rape. He intentionally got you falling down drunk and took advantage of you." This is something I have literally never seen anywhere else, so I found those to be shining, redemptive moments that gave me hope the forum might someday stop being a toxic cesspit.
Their desire to be supportive of BDSM and Polyamory lead to sometimes extremely mixed, even appalling results at times. On one occasion, there were TWO questions on the front page of AskMe at the same time that highlighted this fact.
One question was from a woman who had a threesome with someone from work and that person's spouse. That person was now avoiding them and seemingly hellbent on ruining them at work and getting them fired and moved out of their life (or something along those lines). The other was from a couple who was into threesomes looking for tips on how to better arrange such.
The woman who was terrified that her life and career would be ruined indicated alcohol had been involved. The couple looking for tips also spoke of routinely plying "friends" with alcohol to facilitate arranging a threesome.
Alcohol has been called The Number One date rape drug. If you are plying people with alcohol in order to intentionally impair their judgement and get them to cooperate with sexual activities you feel confident you cannot convince them of when they are sober, you are a rapist.
The definition of rape hinges on the detail of consent. Drunk people too impaired to sign legal documents are also too impaired to give meaningful sexual consent.
People seem to have trouble with the idea that rape is ENTIRELY about consent. Many people seem to think it's got to involve physical violence, but physical violence can be entirely absent from a case of rape or very much a part of consenting sex for people into BDSM.
In one legal battle, a woman with a fetish for violent sex involving bondage accused her husband of rape and had videotape of the sexual encounter in question. He had zero history of such sexual proclivities and had only ever engaged in such while with her and they were divorcing.
He was found not guilty.
I think there are genuine cases of Polyamory, which is a word that means loving multiple people. I think that's real and does happen.
I also think it's rare.
Most people who claim to be polyamorous or to be in an open relationship are your bog standard swingers, philanderers and unfaithful assholes who have found a prettier name for their shitty behavior.
It's hard enough to genuinely love ONE person. You start trying to love two or more and things get really complicated, really fast.
No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other.It is possible to love two people, but it's hard. Parents are supposed to love their children equally, yet it's common for parents to fail to get this right. Many families have a favorite child that gets showered with everything they need and another child who routinely draws the short stick.
Polyamory, BDSM and other alternative lifestyles tend to have a bad reputation. Perhaps it wouldn't be so bad if the default norm for such people was to put ethics and a policy of first, do no harm at the top of their priority list.
Unfortunately, far too many people who want to pursue threesomes or what have you will do whatever is expedient to make it happen. In many cases, they are de facto serial rapists leaving a wide swath of damage in their wake.
Although alcohol gets called The Number One date rape drug, no alcohol or drugs of any kind are necessary for a couple seeking "experiences" to do really shitty, rapey, ethically unacceptable things. Lies, deception and manipulation are fairly easily arranged in cases where there are two people up to no good who know each other well and are working together.
Such a couple can easily take advantage of social norms in an appearances can be deceiving type fashion to help them maneuver people. For example, a faux "break up" can give one of them the opportunity to cry on someone's shoulder as a means to try to seduce them before the couple "makes up" again and "gets back together."
I mention this in part because such people tend to be pedants looking for some loophole with which to justify their intentionally malicious actions, like "But no alcohol was involved! So it wasn't RAPE! We are in the CLEAR!"
Um, no. If you are intentionally deceiving people, manipulating people, etc. to arrange the "experiences" you desire without having to disclose up front what you are up to because you don't think they would agree if they knew, you are still a rapist in my book.