Comments

1
Always set up different accounts with nicknames and no dates. NO DATES people. Why do people use their regular Skype and email addresses for these things?WHY?!?
2
A better question is why people waste their time and psyche on this cyber depravity in the first place.
3
A general piece of advice: if you're going to show your genitals on the Internet, avoid showing your face in the same frame.

@ 2 - The fact is that many, many people do. Asking your question reeks of moral condescension and is totally pointless in the face of reality.

4
Sorry, just have to say that she did not "coerce" LW into showing his dick. He did it willingly, not by threat or force.
5
natalie, he's just writing a letter. He's not a linguist or a novelist. He probably meant "convince" or "persuade" and just used the wrong word. He's a normal guy, a bit freaked out, and obviously takes responsibility for sharing them in a forum that's known for this sort of thing.

Raindrop, it's no more depraved than any of the other ways we seek attention or connections online. Like regularly posting your opinions about other people's lifes in public forums with strangers which is something you do frequently enough. It's normal. It's no more a waste of time and psyche than any of the other totally normal common behaviors of humans getting through their day.

Ricardo and Coffeepunk, yeah we don't know the details here. But I agree that it might be good for someone like Dan to write an article of Dos and Donts for this sort of thing to help people take precautions. Actually it probably exists already?
6
@2: On the internet, nobody can see how pathetic you look flipping through all these stories to post how you're "above depravity".

Your Trump-loving existence is pretty loathsome to the rest of us, dude. Who cares about exchanging pictures, you gleefully support actual monsters.
7
@5 Considering how common this "angry father and [100% nonexistent] teenager" blackmail scam is, I wouldn't be surprised if there was a general guide needed for otherwise well-meaning people who think someone actually wants pictures of their junk.
8
Sorry to be dense Undead, but I can't make sense of your post. You mention a scam in which a person pretends to be the dad of a victimized teen right? Which yes I've heard of, but I don't think that's the case here. This is just straight out blackmail. But anyway, what I mean is, a Do and Don't list about how to share your private pics online while covering up linkages to your real identity so that people can't figure out your FB account or real name or whatever from your Skype name or Chatroullete name or whatever else you might use to share your naked photos. Even if it's something that most social media users know how to do, I personally wouldn't, for example. I'd have no idea how to safely send pics of my naked self to strangers online- what are the basic safeguards I should take against blackmail, etc. But that might be my own naive problem or I might be misunderstanding you in general. As for the proliferation of dick pics (even unsolicited) vs the rarer occurrence of blackmail (if that's what you mean), I just assume this is because most women are too busy going about their own lives to bother with retaliation, but I didn't mean situations like that, and rather how you go about protecting your privacy in general while filming yourself, sexting, etc. which I'm sure all the cool kids are doing anyway in the age of revenge porn, etc. But this sort of guide probably does already exist and I just have no reason to know about it.
9
@EmmaLiz — Thank you for injecting reason and empathy into Slog today.
10
Ah Undead, ignore my other post. I see what you are saying, yes. The dad/daughter scam and the disbelief implied that some people might legit request naked pics both threw me off, but now I see you were agreeing. Posting/reading tends to coincide with drinking for me, so reading comprehension was off, my bad.
11
@6: I bet you a barrel of bitcoins that you can't find one Slog post of me in any way shape or form supporting Donald Trump.

Republicans, GOP, conservaties, Ronald Reagan, 'W, et. al, sure - but the Donald, no.

So stop lying.

I eagerly wait your the links you find.

@3 - You're right.

P.S. to @6, if you stay on topic and are nice, you get nice responses.
12
@4 be careful - it's not very well agreed that doing something that someone asked you to do isn't coercion. The guy was horny and therefore vulnerable to this type of exploitation; he simply wasn't in position to say no. /s
13
As usual I am VERY confused as to why people use “social media” so much>
Gawd I’m old as I actually leave my house and MEET people. We have face to face and often have real genuine sex without cameras--just enjoying each other.

What am I missing? What is the “thrill” in showing your dick on the Internet? Wouldn’t you rather be with any real live human being of your choice? In the flesh? You know meet people hiking, at a bar, camping, at a concert, playing tennis, golf, racquet ball, at work--ANYTHING BUT A COMPUTER!

Can ANYONE clue me in here? Please?
14
@10: Sorry to confuse, they're iterations on the same scheme.

@11: Oh please, you're utterly enamored by the GOP. Your posts here are nothing but loathsome attempts to shame sex positive persons and you support the Trump admin plenty with your ideology. You have more in common with Seattleblues and the rest of those conservatrolls than you do any person interested in the health and happiness of sloggers.
15
Yup, agreeing with Dan. "Publish and be dammed," is the only way you can respond. Also, for future reference, Nude 101 is never have your face in any picture you couldn't show on a billboard.
16
Life imitates Black Mirror again.

Raindrop @2: Because they're horny, duh. Was that really a difficult question?
And I think you have to take your lumps for correctly revealing your party affiliation. Gee, assuming a Republican would be a Trump voter, how offensive. ::rolleyes::

I guess one good guideline would be to ensure that if you're sending your genitals online, they don't appear in the same pictures as your face. If this scammer does have RANSOM's cock shots, how is there any way to prove to people who've never seen his (adult) cock -- like his parents -- that it's him?
17
@14: Well, I can't blame you for trying.
18
"Entrapped" is a more accurate word than "coerced." But this guy was exploited. He can't be faulted for using hyperbole.
19
Why does the blackmailer even need to entrap or coerce the target into sending a real naked picture? Wouldn't something photoshopped based on any ordinary beach picture do just as well?

I'm asking myself what I, as a friend or relative of someone who was being blackmailed, would do if someone approached me with naked pictures of friends. I'd probably shrug and say "oh, Businessman Friend is naked and/or hard sometimes." Okay, I'm not the person the blackmailer is hoping for. Let's say Target is conservative and has conservative friends. In addition to blocking Blackmailer in every way possible, wouldn't a good approach be to explain that Blackmailer photoshopped the pictures? That's an honest question. I have no idea and no experience in this area.
21
@17: Well bless your heart.

You have nothing to offer these topics, you just take a big old smug shit on the floor and sit there grinning.
22
@19: As far as I understand it, they choose people who have linked (public) social media profiles and just mass distribute it to everyone listed, mom, dad, etc.

The reason why they do is that it's a lot easier to claim that it's photoshopped when it's actually photoshopped, they're going to be a lot more likely to pay up when the image is unmistakably them.

It's also much more effort to learn photoshop than it is to find your average dating site denizen willing to show their genitals to a stranger. Hell, from the sounds of it it's almost harder to find one who WON'T send an unsolicited image.

But yes, it's that feeling of complicity that has this so successful.
23
Moral of the story: Nix pix and flicks of dicks to chicks. High-risk, hard to fix, packs a mix of squicks, hard licks, and sticky wickets for Internet hicks.
24
The Adult Mother Goose. Can't wait until you get to Puss in Boots, Capricornius.
25
@16: Yes, whatever floats your boat is fine, even if it's cyber junk sex. And that's perfectly fine, even for dyed-in-the-wool Republicans like me.

26
@25: If things are "fine" with you, shut the fuck up with all the sneering pearl clutching in all these threads. Nobody cares.
27
EL @24, I rely on interesting letters to Dan rather than the Brothers Grimm for my semi-literary inspiration!
28
@26: Sigh
29
@13 (Dr. Helen): Does the woman in that picture know you're using it as your image?
30
Raindrop
While your politics may have slightly shifted, or more accurately “further shift to the right has been put on hold for now,” your judgmental comments regarding others’ sexuality and relationships haven’t.

You are certainly welcome to join the discussion, but when all you do is telling others how fucked up they are then you may be asking for sympathy at the wrong place.
It will be helpful to know how your own personal experiences relate to what you profess beyond, “well, God said so and so did that clergy dude in my congregation.”

So what’s your age group, if I may? Are you in a relationship? Any kids? Any lessons you’ve learned over time?
You know, that kind of stuff.
31
@30: A little older than Dan. Funny you mention relationships. What is worrisome here is not "morality" by anyone's definition but rather the narcotizing and unrelenting addition of our devices, from smart phones checking email or Slog posts every 2 blocks or to these take-me-away-calgon escapes into a seductive wonderland of pixels, gifs, vids, and minicams that can literally eat away hours. This addiction can both hider existing relationships and the forming new ones.

It's like potato chips. Junk food. Junk science. Junk sex.
32
Raindrop- what kind of relationship/s do you favor and involved with? How well does it work for you?
Are your kids, if you have any, use cellphones?
What porn do you favor, if any?
33
Raindrop - not to rain on Undead's hate parade, but compared to most 'conservative' commenters I meet online these days, you are a model of reason and civility. Like most here, I often (perhaps even usually) disagree with what you have to say, but you generally seem pretty measured to me.

Btw, I think what set people off today was your use of the word 'depravity'. A rather loaded term around these parts. A lot of us are happily depraved little perverts who don't cotton to the squares labeling them. :) But I think perhaps you meant well.
34
@ 31 - Perhaps CMD's point wasn't clear enough for you. Here's a paraphrase : As long as you don't reveal anything about yourself, we can't figure out where your moralistic judgments come from, and they are therefore totally useless to the conversation. Every. Fucking. Time.

Now do you get it?

I've told you a few times in the past that you're stupid. Please stop proving me right.
35
@ 31 - And considering how often you comment here (and who knows where else?), your whole diatribe on virtual addictions seems rather misplaced. Pot, as they say, meet kettle.
36
Nudes have been painted, photographed, sketched, etc. since our cave-dwelling ancestors picked up a chunk of charcoal. You can view any number of penises at the local museum whilst rubbing elbows with all manner of upstanding citizens. The difference here is that LW wants to control the subset of humanity who get to bask in his one-eyed glory. So - hey! Random strangers everywhere! Behold my manhood! Oh, but not you Grandma! As Baretta used to say back in the days before the World Wide Web, "Don't do the crime if you can't do the time."
37
Ricardo’s experience as a professional translator proves very useful in this case.
gatoverde @ 29 also qualifies for an honorable mention.
38
@33 - Thank you. Yes, 'depravity' was too strong, even when modified by 'cyber'.

@34: Thank you for proving me right in that people get upset over what they don't want to hear and blame the messenger.
39
oh raindrop, please stop pretending you're not getting it. Being single, unemployed, and still masturbating to the Playboy issues you found stashed in Daddy's den when you were 12 don't make you an authority on anything, let alone "a moral compass" of some sort.

Admittedly, at first I also thought undead may have been a bit too harsh on you. Thanks for proving me wrong.
40
Raindrop @31 - "What is worrisome here is not "morality" by anyone's definition but rather the narcotizing and unrelenting addition of our devices, from smart phones checking email or Slog posts every 2 blocks or to these take-me-away-calgon escapes into a seductive wonderland of pixels, gifs, vids, and minicams that can literally eat away hours. This addiction can both hider existing relationships and the forming new ones."

I don't see how any of that is any more of an "addiction" or "time waster" than traditional hobbies like making model trains or joining a soccer league or reading romance novels. *Any* hobby is a waste of time to someone who isn't interested in it. My father, for example, is one of those rare individuals who finds no pleasure in food and only consumes it because he has to. He constantly questions why the rest of us waste time and money cooking tasty meals or seeking out restaurants we like - it's not like we really *need* that steak or pizza, who cares what it is as long as you get your nutrients (he eats raw rice and vegetables on a daily basis because cooking is a waste of time and effort). He isn't stupid - on the contrary, he worked his way up from a war-torn and poverty-stricken childhood to a Ph.D from a top university in the US. He just doesn't get why people make such a big deal about food. To him, your "addiction" to food is just as much of a waste of time as other people spending time on the Internet is to you. Would you appreciate him calling you "depraved" or "immoral" because you enjoy things that he doesn't?

Also, like any other hobby, that "wonderland of pixels et al" only hinders or prevents relationships if you let it. Your assumption that using the Internet as entertainment = addiction seems rather narrow-minded. Plenty of people, yourself included, use it as a harmless outlet every day, so why would you assume that the LW or anyone else are wasting their lives away on the Internet? Or maybe you consider yourself an addict, and are projecting on to others? Seven of the 39 posts in this thread so far are yours, after all.
41
@33/39: The obnoxious thing is the constant gimmick about how everyone but him is some sort of horrible deviant, he's not some sort of polite positive person, he only comes here to mock the residents/lws and judge their sex lives, which is far more rude than my worst. Raindrop's intentions are: he's better than you and wants you to know it. For someone who hates sexuality not his own, he sure wallows around the people he loathes to preach.
42
22-undead-- Thanks. It would seem that this particular subset of blackmail is like any other blackmail. It has less to do with the person being blackmailed (in this case RANSOM) and more to do with what the people whom the blackmailer (Chatroulette-Skype-girl) threatens to tell (facebook friends and family members) of the alleged crime.
43
@40: The addiction to internet porn is well understood by professionals. Whether it is a classic "addiction" or not is debatable for sure. But it's hardly:

"I don't see how any of that is any more of an "addiction" or "time waster" than traditional hobbies like making model trains or joining a soccer league or reading romance novels."

I speak from experience. Many others do. Porn is fun, a relief, a tool, can be enlightening and transformative, but if you don't think it can become an obsession that interferes with the productivity of one's life, you're wrong about many people.

I should have said 'time waster' instead of 'depravity'.

Physical exercise in soccer no more of a time waster than masturbation? Seriously?
44
@ 38 - Since you obviously haven't figured it out yet (and probably never will), let me spell it out for you.

Since the invention of religions, Western society (and probably most others) is profoundly sex-negative. Yet all that sex-negativity has never managed to change human desire for sex (have you heard about the gay orgy held by a high-ranking Vatican member in a Vatican-paid apartment a week or two ago?). Nor was it meant to be: religion uses its sex-negativity as a tool to control us, and the more we "sin", the easier we can be controlled.

Now many of us have turned our back on religion, but that doesn't mean that our culture and so-called morals are no longer based on those religious precepts. The names may have changed (you call yourself a conservative, not a christian, for instance), but the sex-negativity remains. But so does human nature.

And then comes along this wonderful tool, the Internet, which allows a whole bunch of people to actually express their sexual self somewhat closer to their liking, free from the preaching and lecturing of sex-negative morons. Why on Earth would they not dive right into this? Yes, humans being how they are, some of them will exaggerate, but that's because they're compensating for all the times when they couldn't be free to express that aspect of their personality... thanks to the sex-negativity of conservatives.

In other words - as fucking clearly as I can put it - it's high fucking time you realize that YOU are the cause of the behaviours you decry.

We are not blaming the messenger. We are blaming the one who's responsible for getting us in that situation. Now you can shove all your moralistic drivel up your ass; that's the only place where it belongs.
45
Thank you Ricardo @44.

I have spent so many conversations trying to express to people who think that the (social) far-right is trying to do what they think is "right" (encourage families, protect innocent lives, make sure sex happens inside meaningful relationships) that no, in fact, what they are trying to do is control people by controlling sex and anything related to it. Maybe the people near the bottom of the power structure are convinced it's about right and wrong, but everyone anywhere near the top knows perfectly well it's about control.
46
@45: Seriously, Republicans don't get free passes for hatred of "indecent lifestyles" because they're "polite" when telling you that you disgust them.

The issue is less that he's a Republican (republicans like kink too), but that he is by his actions here no different than any other Alt-right internet basement dweller.

He has nothing of interest to add. Nothing positive to contribute. Just this hovering over Savage articles to remind us that he is not like you and does not approve of your sexuality. If he is different offline, we'll never know because his online persona is willfuly, intentionally repellant.

It makes him feel good to not be like us, which sure, I'm happy to not be like him too, but I don't track him down to the Breitbart comments to judge who, how, and if he fucks.
47
@44: And I'm more than willing to accept that someone can be "one of the good guys" but self-ascription is really not enough. Saying decent and not-Trumpish statements would be enough, saying "I don't like Trump" when you support his aims and goals and effects on the rest of us comes off as insincere as the rest of his posts.
48
And hell, I post and lurk here to know more about what other people do, feel, know, and react to the plurality of life and experience.

And that's why these disgusted posts tweak me so much. Even if I'm opinionated and don't always agree with every person or position on a particular situation, I sincerely appreciate the opportunity to learn and change preconceptions/broaden my understanding of relationships.
49
Raindrop @43, I'm sorry, but trying to deflect by bringing up porn isn't a counter-argument. Although I have to say that it's quite telling that, when you mention "vids," apparently you are talking about porn, whereas I was thinking of humorous cat videos. Why does your mind immediately go to porn and masturbation when you think of the Internet, I wonder?

And since you bring it up (you certainly like dragging sex into the conversation, don't you?), yes, I don't see how masturbating is any more or less of a time waster than playing soccer. Both are done with the ultimate goal of making you feel better by doing something you enjoy, and both are used as ways to occupy your time. One can argue that soccer has health benefits, but according to plenty of health researchers, so does masturbation. Besides, it's not like the two are mutually exclusive - plenty of people do both in their daily lives. So, really, why is one good and the other bad?

My opinion on that is best summed up by Hamlet - "there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so."
50
@49: Dont forget his super-valuable time spent shitposting online.
51
@49: I thought later that you were being sarcastic. ;-) And yes, Shakespeare always nails it.

@50: You're starting to sound like you're enjoying being upset by all this.
52
I find it telling that Raindrop didn't answer my post @ 44.

It should be obvious to us all by now that a raindrop is nothing but a snowflake in warm weather.
53
snowflake in warm weather only answered about his age. Wonder what he is so ashamed of.
54
CMD @ 53 - Probably of the fact that he's single, unemployed, and still masturbating to the Playboy issues he found stashed in his Daddy's den when he was 12, as you so eloquently put it earlier.

55
Who are you guys Dr. Laura? Dr. Phil?

This gay avatar has a happy life, I check the "it's complicated" box in regard to relationships but now having the best sex of my life. No kids. Gainfully employed and homeowner. I do enjoy old Playboy cartoons however, the Granny especially.

You can go back to projecting now and filling in the gaps with our imaginations.
56
And you guys really do need to work on projection skills. Republicans are typically always employed and an unemployed person wouldn't be complaining about about taxes and upzoning single family neighborhoods.
57
Snowflake @ 56 - "Republicans are typically always employed"

You really need to work on that contact with reality, which is so severely missing in just about everything you write.

"an unemployed person wouldn't be complaining about about taxes and upzoning single family neighborhoods"

You've already demonstrated you're delusional, so why wouldn't you, even if you were unemployed?
58
@57: That quote my dear, "an unemployed person wouldn't be complaining...", was a joke. I guess it was too subtle.
59
@ 58
A joke indeed, just like the rest of your well informed and extremely knowledgeable posts, based on your own rich experiences which you never dare sharing for some reason.
Reminds me of Laura Palmer in the Twin Peaks movie, as the ceiling fan starts spinning and she asks, "Who are you?" while "Bob", laying on top of her, turns out to be her father.
Creepy, I know, so are you.
60
Comments on Savage Love do not require sharing personal experiences, as often an opinion suffices.

I've been trying to segue into an end to this thread, but you're intent on being nasty and snippy.

Good night.
61
And I provided more details in @55. You probably just skimmed it. That's fine.

Please wait...

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