Margarita @192: That was in response to the comments by others on the first page (nocutename, in particular), and not about /me/ not being allowed to comment.

I would not strongly disagree with you that gay men should ultimately be the arbiters of the ALPHA situation. I might even say thicc, bottom, gay men (from whom we have heard) because they're (possibly) the group being (possibly) abused. They should certainly not be drowned out or told to pipe down.

But I do think there's room for everyone to contribute, and one doesn't have to be gay (or male) to have experience with MM (or SS) sexual/emotional/romantic dynamics. Thicc, gay bottoms are not a monolith, and the Savage Love commentary is richer for its diversity.

Punting the double hunsky... !!!

@198: BiDanFan, when I said that newcomers would learn to navigate the site, I meant the site as it is, not the extension. I suppose a quarterly mention of the extension could be posted as a reminder or to let newer readers know about it, but remembering when to do that is probably more work than anyone wants to do.

ciods@189
I so admire you. Including your way of always disagreeing with respect, and your positive outlook. (I wonder if there are regions of the USA that do that better than others. IIRC, the Midwest?)

BDF@198
"I was annoyed by your stopping your quote of my comment right before the "Sorry about that, y'all," which clearly indicated that I was in fact including myself among the bickerers and apologising for my role in the mélee."

I'm sorry.

And not the first time this thread that it's been pointed out that I didn't quote more.

I leapt to the conclusion that you might think of yourself as only having opened the door.

I've been feeling defensive for a few weeks, even though I realize that I deserved it because I behaved badly weeks ago.

Even that witty coincidence between the c-word and that we always see each other next Tuesday wasn't enough to overcome my defensiveness.

"but weren't the lone sociopaths supported by the laughter of bystanders (who didn't want to become the next victim)? In my experience, they were"

Casting my mind back to my nightmares of being bullied, yes, that's exactly how it went. I guess I forgot because it's unbearably painful recalling it even now over a half century later.

I honestly can't recall if the bystanders were all boys. I'd guess mostly they were. Even if a 10-year old girl wanted to root on a bloody beating, would she feel safe in that circle?

And there's certainly analogies to be drawn here, including the knowledge that calling bullies out draws the attention of the bullies onto those bystanders.

So when Jibe was so brave and kind as to invite me to point out an attack on me that we've declined to draw attention to, I didn't want to so I didn't say a word. No good would be done by people speaking out on it. And it didn't need to be called out, it (paraphrasing Jibe now) revealed itself. So anyone's sacrifice is simply unnecessary. That's where I'm hanging my hat now.

M?? Harriet - Fair enough if you don't like the idea, but something has to be dome to prevent people from assigning us to the same team in anything more than the most vague terms. I did not interpret your excusing of that Wainthropp LW to be any sort of attempt to speak for or over Team G but simply giving your perspective as someone with a considerable experience of homosex, your experience of which probably exceeds mine by about as much as my experience of gay sex exceeds yours. You may take that as a compliment to your prowess.

I can see why DS people would take speaking from experience of homosex to be speaking as a member of Team G, but the error doesn't help either of us, our respective Utopiae being about as proximate as northern Sweden and the Australian outback. I wish you every happiness in yours.

I'm not commenting on ALPHA's letter--as a straight woman, I claim no authority from which to speak about gay hookup apps and the etiquette of use thereon.

I'm reminded of something that happened to me once: I met a man on a dating site. We chatted, met for coffee, and arranged a date for sex. Somehow--I can't remember how--when we met, he discovered in our conversation that I was Jewish, and mentioned that his ex-wife was also Jewish. Fine, whatever.

So we're in the throes of passion, and he starts saying, "Yeah, you're a fucking Jew. You fucking Jew." The tone of his voice was vicious. This was clearly coming from a place of hatred and contempt.

Now, I might be a bit on the subby side, and I may enjoy a bit of mild humiliation, but

A) we had NOT discussed this at all, and the expectation I had didn't include this.

and

B) this was not sexualized humiliation-play talk, but the most vile anti-Semitism. I was disgusted and a tiny bit frightened.

I don't know if he was turned on by the idea of fucking a Jewish person or disgusted by it, or if I reminded him personally of his ex-wife and he was angry at her or had always disliked her being Jewish and was using me as a surrogate so he could direct his anger somewhere that would have less consequences, but this was NOT okay.

There may well be Jews who have eroticized anti-Semitism and who enjoy role-playing Nazi guard and Jewish camp prisoner or what have you; I am not one of them. Anti-Semites other than Nazis have murdered some of my family members in Pogroms, during which they first raped my female ancestors. My great-grandmother hid under the bed and watched as her mother and sister were raped and then disemboweled with bayonets, and the trauma still ran through my grandmother's veins all her life because her mother suffered--understandably--from pretty severe PTSD.

So the idea that someone would get off on objectifying me because of my Jewishness, but more specifically, would get off on the idea that he was ethnically superior to me because he considered me to be a lesser human than he is nothing less than horrifying to me.

I've had boyfriends who thought my being Jewish was exotic--and erotic, in the sense that I wasn't raised with the inhibitions that so many Christians and former-Christians absorbed via their religion. I had a boyfriend once who was raised Lutheran in a pretty homogeneous community of uptight German Lutherans (he said that nearly every girl he dated in high school was a pastor's daughter), and whose ex-wife was Jewish; he said he wished he'd known that women like she and I and another Jewish ex-girlfriend existed when he was young: we would have been the answer to his horny teenaged prayers. But he wasn't suggesting that there was something about us in our DNA that was sexier; rather he was acknowledging that secular (or secular-ish) Jews in the US seem to have less guilt and shame associated with sex than the women raised in his conservative, rigid Lutheran community had.

So it's not simply that the guy I met didn't obtain my consent to verbally humiliate or abuse me, though that in itself is not okay. To me, the grosser infraction was that his attraction to me was based on hate and not only do I not want to have any interactions--let alone sexual ones--based on someone's hatred of me as a member of my ethnic group, but I find it offensive that someone's motivation, sexual or otherwise, in any interaction between humans, is based on a feeling of innate superiority.

The boyfriend with whom I had the most sexually-submissive-and-humiliation-based relationship had enormous respect for me as a human being and we were 100% equals in non-sexual situations and settings. I have nothing against those who live a 24/7 Power Exchange relationship, but that's not my personal thing, and it's important to me that my partner not hold me in contempt; it's important to me that my partner value me and respect me as a person. Like virtually everyone, I cannot help but bring a bit of my history, values, and attitudes to thinking about other situations.

I realize that I may be characterized as a sour, smugly self-righteous moralist and scold because my issue with ALPHA was that his turn-on was founded on homophobia and he was getting off on gloating about how much superior he--as a "straight" man--is to gay men (and of course, the letter didn't tell us whether the men he interacted with were aware of that attitude, let alone gave consent to that particular kind of degradation. If they were, fine; but ALPHA himself called his attitude/behavior "fucked up" and conceded that it was most likely homophobic in origin and in nature). Given the circumstances, I'm okay with that.

nocute@205
"This was clearly coming from a place of hatred and contempt...we had NOT discussed this at all...this was NOT okay."
"didn't tell us whether the men he interacted with were aware of that attitude, let alone gave consent to that particular kind of degradation. If they were, fine"

Wow. I'm so sorry that that hateful violation of your consent occurred!

But of people who did give consent, I would say not only "fine", but also that good was done (and salute those who wanted it for feeling good about the good that was done). Because as I've said repeatedly because I find it interesting, the good is a matter of the consequences in that case.

I think the fucked up place from which your abuse came, and the fucked up place inside ALPHA, is not an ethical issue, but is a mental health issue that, with consent, doesn't change that the consequences are good, so the actions are good: However ill the mental health of the doer; I don't at all mean to imply that doing good might keep someone from being so mentally ill that they need a vast amount of treatment.
(Should I re-punctuate that crazy sentence: yes, I probably should've! But I'm liking how crazy the punctuation is.)

Curious, that would get us into a discussion about whether or not good consequences can come from bad intent, which also rests on how one defines "good" and "bad intent" and who is on the receiving end of the "good." Do you meant that (using my experience as an example) if the Jewish person either didn't mind being called a "fucking Jew" or had given explicit consent to being called that, or maybe just had known that that was the other person's attitude derived something particularly "good" from it, or do you mean that the person who uttered the phrase "fucking Jew" derived something good from the encounter?

Does the "good" you mention mean only that an orgasm or orgasms occurred for either or both parties, or do you view that exchange as a sort of therapeutic act, in which the person who says "fucking Jew" is somehow healed of their anti-Semitism?

I don't understand.

I do get the concept of situational morality; I don't think that there are always moral absolutes. But in most cases, to me, hatred based on ethnicity, sexual orientation, religious faith traditions or anything else that is an intrinsic part of a person, rather than that individual person's specific actions or words is at the very least undesirable and at most immoral.

I also don't know that one is cured of one's hatred by finding a partner who willingly submits to abusive language; I doubt that this type of "exposure therapy" would put an end to the abuser's hateful attitude or thought process. And I don't think that most people agreeing to sex or even just a mutual wanking-over-the-computer are supposed to be therapists helping the "mentally ill" person work through their bigotry.

If you were saying something very different, I apologize for misunderstanding.

I don't know that I'd characterize ethnic, racial, or sexual/gendered hatred a mental illness, so much as the product of learned attitudes absorbed via socialization.

Not many new readers can navigate the site, nocute @202, because the culture here doesn’t feel welcoming & inclusive.
That guy you talked about @205 sounds super scary. Sorry you had to go thru that.

@208: Lava when I said "navigate the site," I meant just figure out how to comment and scroll--not how to deal with the various personalities and in-fighting.

If new people find the experience to be unwelcoming and non-inclusive, that is not something that would be changed by using fubar's wonderfully-renamed extension, anyway.

But to the larger point, I would like to see more voices, more inclusion, and less bickering, as would most of us. I hope that we can do better.

nocute@207
"that would get us into a discussion about whether or not good consequences can come from bad intent"

Yes it would; which I've been trying to do all thread.

But I see that since my concept of good is so simple, I'm afraid I won't provide much engagement with your complex thinking.

By "good", all I mean is that the sex that the eager recipient of the hate-sex gets is what they want to get. They get their wish. (That's all I mean by "good" in this context.) The (you're right, psychologically) ill person has granted them that wish.

Regardless of whether the hater deserves any credit for doing so, inasmuch as their goal was only to express hatred.

And now I'm feeling bad, having goaded you into this all multi-week thread, realizing I don't know how else to respond to your two first-paragraph questions. So to make sure to be as responsive as you deserve, I'll answer directly:

"Do you meant that (using my experience as an example) if the Jewish person either didn't mind being called a "fucking Jew" or had given explicit consent to being called that,"

I would call those prerequisites.

I'm not sure what to say about "didn't mind", though, since that doesn't mean the Jewish person wanted it. And I guess consent might also not mean the Jewish person /wanted/ it. Come to think of it, the hate-behavior is only "good" if the Jewish person wants it. If they merely "don't mind", then it's effect upon them is neutral, not good or bad.
(Wow, I'm thrilled I focused on your questions, that last realization fascinated me.)

"...or maybe just had known that that was the other person's attitude derived something particularly "good" from it, or do you mean that the person who uttered the phrase "fucking Jew" derived something good from the encounter?

The person in the interaction saying the hatred, I'm frankly not inclined to care much how doing so helped them; to me a good interaction is simply the Jewish person getting what they wanted to get.

And Ok, if the Jewish person wanted to experience hatred, I guess I am happy to call that a good consequence if they get what they want.

"Does the "good" you mention mean only that an orgasm or orgasms occurred for either or both parties, or do you view that exchange as a sort of therapeutic act, in which the person who says "fucking Jew" is somehow healed of their anti-Semitism?"

By this point you know that I am thinking of the Jewish person, not the bigot, in defining whether the interaction was good. However much therapy the hater might need, I'm inclined to give him absolutely zero right to inflict it on others without their consent. So any benefit to the hater plays no part in my assessment whether the INTERACTION was good.

p.s. Once one zooms out, reality is of course very complicated. Maybe that's why I just want to focus on 'the interaction' between the two. If one keeps things simple enough, in a hypothetical I think one can say something is good or bad. The more one zooms out, and looks at a complex reality instead of a simple hypothetical, the less one can say anything is good or bad. The universe just is.

Lava
Sorry, but your comeback victory laps are oozing hypocrisy:

You always doubted who the real Harriet is considering the often-contradicting life experiences we are presented with. But now that your inner mother goose kicked in it suits you to scream bullying and all of a sudden they are the real thing and have always been.

Mind you, occasional fuck yous and putting down others’ preferences and life-style choices are also forms of bullying.

And you out of all people offering a limit on posts by a single person. Wow!

@Curious: Yes, that's the way consent works: if I were to walk up and hit a random stranger out of the blue, that's assault; similarly, if during sex I walloped my partner without knowing unequivocally that they wanted to be hit during sex, that would also be assault.

If I joined Fight Club (oh shit! I just violated the first rule of Fight Club!), then I have implicitly given consent to be punched; if my partner and I discussed hitting during sex and I said I either didn't mind, which is one definition of being ggg in that it might not do anything for me, but I knew it would turn my partner on, that's fine. If I asked to be hit and my partner didn't get off on it but wanted to accommodate me, that's also fine. Best of all is when both partners are turned on by the idea and execution of one person hitting the other as part of their sex. All those are "good," and one can substitute being called "fucking Jew" or some derogatory homophobic slur for hitting. I don't think anyone here would say there's anything ethically wrong occurring. As for the issue of mental illness or psychological unsoundness, I don't consider the person who inflicts the pain or insult to be damaged or mentally ill, any more than I consider the recipient of the spanking or the verbal barbs to be damaged psychologically.

That's not what I'm talking about.

I'm imagining a scenario wherein an anti-Semite seeks out a Jewish person for sex--say on an app. They present themself as Jewish themself or as some Nazi Aryan ideal. They then facetime and either have the Jewish person recite prayers (I really don't know what they'd want) or talk about their Jewish identity or what their Judaism means to them . This gets them off. The Jewish person either has a Nazi fetish, as well, which is gratified (YAHTZEE! as Dan would say) or doesn't mind because they like to know that they gave sexual pleasure to people with whom they interact sexually and/or because they find this person attractive.

Fine.

But say that the anti-Semite doesn't identify themself as such; say that they make a big deal out of how attractive the Jewish person is to them. Say that the Jewish person is unaware that the anti-Semite is truly anti-Semitic and is turned on by thinking, "I hate Jews; look how superior I am to this dumb Jew--he thinks he's as good as me. But he's not, because I'm a gentile and blond, and he's a fucking Jew."

I, personally, as a member of a persecuted group, have a problem with that.

You want to fetishize (or you do fetishize--the wanting is beyond your control) your ethnic trauma, fine. People's fetishes are grounded in all sorts of origins. But if you THINK you're playing one game, to which you consented, and you're actually playing a different one to which you wouldn't consent, were you aware that you're playing it AND if the other person is deliberately keeping you from realizing the true nature of their very real, non-role-playing contempt for you, I don't think that's fine. At all.

Shoot--I hit "post comment" before I clarified something @212.

I said that I, as a member of the persecuted group, would have a problem with being used by someone else for sexual gratification based on that person's real bigotry and contempt for me if I didn't realize that they truly felt real contempt for me and was deliberately keeping that knowledge from me. I meant to add that I would hope--no, I would expect--any decent person WHETHER THEY WERE A MEMBER OF MY PERSECUTED GROUP OR NOT to be equally not okay with that.

And if, say, a Methodist or a Muslim, were to judge an anti-Semite who was misleading me and whose actions were motivated by contempt which I was unaware of, I can't imagine that my reaction to knowing that they disapproved of the behavior would take the form of "you aren't allowed to comment on this because you're not Jewish."

Holy shit, nocute @205. I can't imagine how I would deal with such a thing. I hope you told him to remove his dick from your person and his person from your apartment forthwith. That's some way-fucking-over-the-line shit right there.

nocutename @205: Oh wow. What a horrible, dark experience. I’m so sorry that happened.

It’s easy to see how ALPHA would have set off alarm bells for you.

Curious, as you mentioned @11, primal scream therapy doesn't help people get over anger. It reinforces their anger response. Acting out hate doesn’t erode it.

And someone who has fetishized pain, humiliation, degradation, isn’t going to be served by a bigot that genuinely despises them. The safety net in all kinds of edge play is provided by the top, who has to be tuned in and minding the bottom’s wellbeing.

Playing with an IRL bigot would be incredibly risky, like playing with live ammo. It's not fine, and it's not safe or sane.

As I was writing this, I searched for Jewish-themed groups on Fetlife. Only one came up that I found particularly disturbing, “Leonard Nimoy makes me cum”, but thankfully it has only 3 members.

Comeback victory Laps? That’s as far as I read.
I join a public conversation/ thread whenever I choose to. I feel no victory when I’ve been at the end of viciousness here since I jumped on. Only because I’m a tough Aussie chick that it rolls offa my back.

P.S. @215: Sometimes I attempt humour when I'm feeling stressed. I wish they'd allow editing.

@fubar: I have been trying to come up with a properly funny response to "Leonard Nimoy makes me cum," but the best I could do was to think, "well, who /couldn't/ say that?"

I got the humor; I even snort-laughed.

I really like the point that you, as a top who engages in D/s relationships involving (from what I remember) at least spanking, made in #215. And it seems unimpeachable, since your have the appropriate credentials to satisfy the "you can't comment or pass judgement if you're not a member of the specific group" contingent.

Of course people make judgements re other groups of people. We introject ourselves into situations, make assumptions all the time, in life.
Those who have lived experience though, have the edge.
And as we see here with this quest & comments, with gay men as with any group of people, there are individual differences on their take.

The thing is, CMD, I long ago stopped expecting to be included/ accepted/ be part of the ‘gang’ here, save by a couple of regulars, and that doesn’t phase me, because it has allowed me to say what my perceptions & truth are, not what is needed to stay in the ‘gang.’
That you & others have tried soooo hard to get rid of me, points to the fear some here have of other viewpoints, other ideas, other ways of viewing our world, our culture(s).

Such is my power, thru words, CMD, that fubar invented his lame blocking bull because of it.

nocute@212
"But say that the anti-Semite doesn't identify themself as such...I don't think that's fine. At all."

Extraordinarily interesting! You should have taught at Dropout's philosophy school!

I think I see that in your last three paragraphs you are introducing the twist that the person playing the anti-semite role is secretly /actually/ anti-semitic.

As long as that stays secret (which admittedly, probably wouldn't outside of a hypothetical sex session), how is something that is only in the anti-semite's head going to have any practical effects/consequences on the Jewish person? For example, any harm?

(That's always my question, which I believe makes me a consequentialist.)

Their secret dishonesty is repulsive, certainly. In other words we will naturally feel that we

"have a problem with that"

But what does that mean, exactly? For starters, it means that our glimpse into what's secretly inside their head reveals to us that they are psychologically healthy. We are repelled by the revolting ugliness of that.

But as long as the Jewish person doesn't know what's inside the other's head, how have they been impacted by what they don't know?

I guess I can begin an answer to that. They have spent time with someone who is deceiving them without their consent. Someone with whom they would not wish to have been with.

And I admit that has brought me to a perplexing place. Because the world is very complicated. Everyone has secrets from everyone. If everyone knew everything about everyone, would anyone talk to anyone?

But more importantly, the time stolen from the deceived Jewish person is less tangible than the practical material effects/consequences that would make this as simple as I would like. (I like to keep it simple.)

Are they happier having spent the time while not knowing? If they found out, would they wish they had not found out?

This reminds me of a secret I admitted here long ago I once kept in my head. I think doing so was for the best for everyone (other than me). It made everyone else happier (other than me). As it happens I was concealing the opposite of hate (love). I think what I did was good (other than for me).

Yet of course I won't say that what the hypothetical anti-Semite did was good. But I'm not sure how bad it's consequences were, so I'm not sure how much bad it did either.

I certainly don't like the time he's stealing from people who, knowing, would choose not to be with him. AND YOU'VE CONVINCED ME, THAT IS A WRONG. But that wrong is complicated, so I feel it's a less cut and dry kind of wrong, because the more we zoom out from simplicity, the less clear ethics is.

nocute@213
"being used by someone else for sexual gratification"

Well that's another twist. Since I had already written the above, I hope the reader will convert my talk about stolen time to 'being used for sexual gratification'.

@222 oops
"reveals to us that they are psychologically healthy"
please know that I meant
"reveals to us that they are psychologically UNhealthy"

@Curious: well, that's the philosophical question: Do we determine the goodness of an act based on its intention or motivation, or based on its consequences?

I don't know. I don't know if anyone does definitively know. I doubt that it's a knowable question. And besides, there are a lot of variables. Some motivations are or seem worse than others to some people, while other motivations seem or are worse to different people.

I tend to divide those motivations which aren't objectively altruistic into two broad categories:
1) a secret selfish motivation arising from a personal desire which, judged solely by the outcome appears to be good.

2) a secret selfish motivation based on an attitude I find repugnant, which motivation is unknown to the person who interacts with the selfish person.

If I play this out over several scenarios, I get different reactions, some more likely common and perhaps even objectively true, others more idiosyncratic and subjective.

For example, say Peter is hospitalized for a long time in traction and lonely/bored. His friends have mostly stopped visiting. One day Paul stops by for an obligatory visit, and sees a really gorgeous occupational therapist coming in to work with Peter's roommate. He makes small talk with her and finds out that she's on duty Tuesday afternoons and Friday mornings. He begins to visit Peter much more frequently--on Tuesday afternoons and Friday mornings. Peter is none the wiser, and Paul occasionally runs into the occupational therapist and mildly flirts with her. Paul's main motivation was selfish in origin, but Peter only experiences the good consequences, which brighten the rest of his hospital stay immensely. I see that as benign: no one was hurt, someone was helped, and the fact that Paul's motivation wasn't purely to cheer up Peter is essentially irrelevant. If I knew what the real motivation behind Paul's visits was and I had to hear other people go on and on about what a wonderful guy, good friend, and all-around humanitarian Paul was, I might get a touch irritated and I might roll my eyes a bit, but overall, I'd see this as a case of "what you don't know can't hurt you." I'd put in Dan's category of "secret perving, à la his proverbial shoe salesman with a foot fetish. I believe that this is how most people saw ALPHA's behavior.

For another example, (and right about now, you may want to go to the New York Times Magazine and read the article entitled "Who is the Bad Art Friend?" by Robert Kolker) say that Paul goes once to visit Peter perfunctorily and sees an occupational therapist he thinks is stupid, clumsy, ugly, and an appropriate object of ridicule. Paul is trying to launch a career as a stand-up comic. He finds out that the occupational therapist is on duty Tuesday afternoons and Friday mornings. He begins to visit Peter much more frequently--on Tuesday afternoons and Friday mornings. Peter is none the wiser, and Paul occasionally runs into the occupational therapist and mines the encounters for a mean-spirited comedy routine. As in the earlier scenario, Peter is none the wise that Paul's visits weren't motivated by pure friendship, and as before, his boredom is relieved by Paul's company.
Does Paul's behavior fall into the what they don't know can't hurt them? Does the outcome mean it's good?

Okay, so now I'm going to include two-three more twists:

1) Peter recovers, and goes to see his good friend Paul's standup at open-mic night. He recognizes the occupational therapist from the cruel and unflattering depiction of her. He also realizes, given the wealth of material, that many of Paul's visits were less to cheer him, Peter, up, and more to acquire material for Paul's act.
a) Does Peter still think that Paul's behavior was "good" on balance because he, Peter, benefitted from it and the target of his ridicule doesn't know what he thought of her nor that he's doing an act based on painting a humiliating portrait of her?
b) Does Peter reevaluate his friend's behavior in light of the realization that it wasn't motivated solely by a desire to relieve his boredom? Does Peter, hurt and now thinking that maybe Paul considers him foolish, also feel used by Paul? Does his new attitude erase or undo the one he previously held of Paul's being a nice guy and one of the most devoted friends he, Peter, has? If so, what do we think of Peter?
c) Even if Peter's not bothered, taking the pragmatic and selfish attitude that he benefitted from Paul's visits and what the occupational therapist doesn't know can't hurt her, do we who neither benefitted nor were personally hurt by Paul's behavior think this was "good?"

2) One evening the occupational therapist goes to a comedy club and sees Paul's act. She recognizes him, recognizes a mean-spirited caricature of herself, and realizes that Paul's visits must have been made for the purpose of gathering material. She's hurt.
But Paul doesn't identify her by name, and Peter still doesn't know the real reason for Paul's frequent visits, nor what he's done. No one else knows or seems to recognize the occupational therapist from Paul's act. Peter continues to think of Paul as his most devoted friend.
Is this "good?"

3) Paul develops an act based on the stupid occupational therapist. Neither Peter nor she ever realize this; Peter because he doesn't recognize the portrait as belonging to someone he barely had contact with during his hospital stay, and the occupational therapist, because she never sees the act. But the act is funny and launches Paul into a successful career. Peter still had the companionship of his friend--in fact, the only friend who came more than one perfunctory time to visit him; no one is actively hurt; Paul gets an outcome he deems good for him.
Is this "good?"

I don't have an answer and I doubt anyone else does either. This is complicated and takes into consideration such concepts as intent, outcome, unintended consequences. And there are a bunch of other permutations that play out in slightly different ways, each adding different layers of nuance to the question.

Are you correct that the Jew who is ignorant of the anti-Semite's true feelings and motivation are isn't harmed? Yes.
Did that Jewish person get what they came for or wanted in the form of the other person's sexual attention? Yes.
Does this mean that the anti-Semite acted morally? Up for grabs.

If I were to extend this analogy to the situation described in ALPHA's letter as written where we don't know what the gay men who interacted with ALPHA knew nor how much they knew nor when they knew it, it seems to me that the question, "was this okay?" is up for grabs. Some people may say that what the dudes didn't know couldn't hurt them and therefore it was okay, or good (I'm working from the position that the gay bottoms he interacted with didn't have humiliation desires); some, like me, find the motivation to be at least as important as the outcome. I don't know that in either my made up example, or ALPHA's story, we can all arrive at an objectively "right" answer we agree on. I don't think we have to. I would have liked to see everyone's take on the situation equally respected.

nocute@224
That was fun!

"Are you correct that the Jew who is ignorant of the anti-Semite's true feelings and motivation are isn't harmed? Yes."

Actually, I conceded that they might be harmed in a somewhat fuzzy way by having their time stolen (a fuzzy consequence).

I would have to google to discover whether that means I'm not a consequentialist. Because it is the motivation that causes the fuzzy consequences.

All I know is that the stolen time is the consequence that I believe is a problem. However many ways motivation informs the consequences, I think that nothing bad has happened without bad consequences.

Such as every second of time ALPHA wasted of people before telling them after his first contact that domination/humiliation was on the menu, but wasn't on theirs. And I don't think that time was as fuzzy as the Jew's. The Jew was having sex they liked at the time. ALPHA's contacts were spending tedious time trying to get to the sex they liked.

Of course we really need a gay man with a big ass to check our work. Seriously; as long as it's one with credibility, I'm sure we'd be happy to learn.

nocutename @224: Brilliant writing. Thanks so much, truly. Thanks too, to Curious, for his part in this guided tour though some very heavy stuff.

I'm fairly confident that Dan Savage, if he were reading the comments, would agree that everyone's take on a situation should be equally respected.

Lava
Your Aussiness and self-proclaimed toughness are not the issue. Same goes to fubar, gang(s), or a site-wide plot to drive you out.
As perceptions and declared truth keep shifting back and forth, all along chastising others for their own views and actions, one may wonder about their authenticity as well as truthiness.

nocutename @224:

I’m writing this after having just vaped some of my legally home-grown harvest (8oz from one plant this year!!!), so please excuse me, if necessary.

"Does this mean that the anti-Semite acted morally? Up for grabs."

I'm a solid no on that.

Everything has to add up to 100%, so a zero in the consequences column means a correspondingly high number in the intent column.

@228: See, fubar, I also think that my hypothetical anti-Semite (as well as my actual anti-Semite) didn't act morally. I don't do very well at math (as Mr. Ven can attest) so for me, it depends on how wrong I think the intent is (which is probably similar to your calculation) that determines the morality of the action. I think bigotry of any stripe to be as bad an intent as there is--it far, far outweighs, to me, any good outcomes which may result from it.

But that's me (and, apparently, you). I understand that everyone gets to place their own numeric values on both intent an outcome/consequences. For some, as long as there is a good outcome at all, the intent doesn't matter. Societally (my old thesis advisor would kill me for that usage. He believed that there was no instance when "societally" was used that "socially" wouldn't be if not more, at least as appropriate, and he detested its use. But here, I think it's apt. Sorry for the digression: your reference to your home-grown harvest inspired me to smoke a little of my store-bought, and I'm about to lose my train of thought entirely), we all probably agree about a few universal intents that put the kibosh on any attempt to classify the behavior as good or neutral--a kind of Levi-Strauss sense that no society on Earth is cool with an intent to murder someone for financial profit, for example. But I suspect that only a very few motivations are condemned to the same degree amongst a variety of people--even people living it the same society.

That's okay; that's where free will and free choice come in.

For instance, Curious considers the waste of someone's time to be a greater "crime" than intent: ("All I know is that the stolen time is the consequence that I believe is a problem. However many ways motivation informs the consequences, I think that nothing bad has happened without bad consequences" #225). I can respect that perspective, but I disagree; in my experience, not THAT much time gets invested over the course of a dating/hookup connection culminating not in a meeting in real life. At most, I can think only a few days (barring protracted long-distance things which may or may not be catfishing). To me, the waste of a few hours--even as many as 40 or so, spread over a week or so--pales in comparison with the immorality I assign to someone who needs to feel ethnically or sexual-orientationally superior to someone else, and who furthermore derives the fulfillment of that need by duping someone else into a false sense of mutual connection and interest, only for the purpose of gloating.

And that's okay: Curious is allowed his hierarchy of importance, as BiDanFan is hers, and Harriet is theirs, and you, yours. Because nothing that ALPHA has done is illegal, as nothing that anti-Semite did by spewing his anti-Semitism to me, mid-fuck, was illegal. There are some who will find Mr. anti-Semite--let's call him "Jimmy," because that was his name--'s motivation to be sufficiently immoral no matter how good a time I may or may not have had in our encounter, and there may be some who say, "well, as long as you enjoyed yourself, it wasn't so bad." And since it's not against the law to call someone a "fucking Jew" (it doesn't technically rise to the level of hate speech), it is up to each of us to assign our own moral weight to the action.

As it happens, and to really put Curious' yardstick to the test, I came multiple times during that encounter (yes, even after he said that), because he was stimulating my clit in the perfect way. (I am so sorry to report, ciods, that I didn't jump away, smack him down and jump up and leave the hotel we were in. I am very conflict-adverse. I just left as soon as the sex was finished and didn't try to arrange another meeting. I feel as I've failed as both a feminist and a Jew, but that's the truth.). So it could be argued that the outcome was good and that therefore the intent is irrelevant. I believe that despite the orgasmic outcome, the malignity of the intent rendered the whole experience bad and thus the intent made it immoral. I would further argue that orgasm alone is not a sufficient moral arbiter. My vaginal muscles may have contracted, but my mind and emotions--my psyche--was damaged.

@200 WA-HOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!! Major congratulations to fubar on scoring this week's highly vied for Double Hunsky Award honors! Savor your newfound and much deserved riches and bask in the decadent glory. :)

@201 fubar: Wait.......you don't want to claim this week's Double Hunsky?
@202: nocutename? Are you interested in claiming the honors?

@205 nocutename: What an awful experience! I'm sorry that happened to you.

Unless everyone in the comment thread is tired of the Lucky Numbers game and ready for a new Savage Love column, will we actually make it to a Triple Whammy (Double Hunsky @200 + Lucky @69 = @269) this week? Tick..tick...tick.....

Is SL regular, the_ fanastic_mrs_fox on vacation?

Meanwhile, on to my latest score on Finale to be exported to Logic for the final sound editing and bounced to mp3.

By the way, fubar, Dan, and everyone celebrating---however belated, Happy Indigenous Day and Happy (Canadian) Thanksgiving!

If I find this comment site hard to navigate, and I often do, it's because it's like starting a Russian novel in the middle. I can't keep the characters sorted, they're talking about stuff I don't know about, referring to other stuff I don't know about, at very great length. It's not unwelcoming, it's just hard to jump into the middle and stay there long enough to make sense of it.

Curious @203: "I've been feeling defensive for a few weeks,"
I think feeling defensive is probably responsible for at least 80% of the butthurt around here. I'm talking about all of us, including me, to clarify. Most of us have been on this board for a long time and once you have butted heads with someone once or twice, it's easy to see them as always seeking to butt you in the head. Our shared history makes us less objective.

The pattern is that arguments break out because Person A says something that is mildly critical, or cheeky, or even neutral, Person B gets defensive and swipes (back) at them, which to Person A looks like the initial swipe as they intended no offense, Person A then gets defensive about -that- and replies with a jab. Persons C and D observe this exchange and think, objectively, that Person A, Person B or both have overreacted and that their words were hurtful and unwarranted. They say so in hopes that Persons A and/or B will, with a second opinion, see that they have in fact overreacted and apologise, but if Persons A and/or B are still feeling defensive, this achieves the opposite, and suddenly there is "ganging up" and "taking sides." It's easy to see the pattern, harder to break it!

PS Curious @203, one reason I appreciate you is that you do apologise when you've been out of line. We're all human and screw up, but some of us own up and try to do better (I try as well), while others refuse to listen to any criticism and instead view it as "ganging up" or "bullying." I know which sort of folk I would rather engage with.

Nocute @205: I am so sorry that happened to you and join Ciods in wondering what your response was. I'd have been more than a bit frightened! [I've now skimmed as far as @229 and assure you, in similar situations, I've done the same thing, and similarly felt I'd let myself and the sisterhood down.] And I thank you for sharing your story because it shows that we CAN, in fact, often relate to people who are different from us demographically. Being racially abused and being abused for one's sexual orientation are not that different. You do have standing to empathise with someone who was non-consensually homophobically abused -- not that you should have been compelled to share that awful story to prove it. I think the assumption should be made that all of us have had a wealth of experiences that enable us to empathise with a variety of other humans, and that we are drawing from these when we comment, as opposed to presuming we are "moralising" or talking out of our respective arses.

Ms Cute - I'm sorry your oppressor had such "good" timing; mine (mot to imply that this only happened to me once; I am going on the most similarly egregious incident) didn't and I got off lucky, as it were, just about providing Ms Ods' ideal ending before there was any getting off of the most commonly (perhaps for most mutually would be better, but in my circumstances I think commonly more accurately applies) beneficial variety, to adopt Skr Curious' terminology. But that was luck to a large extent; mine jumped the gun.

[FOR THE NEWBIES: The exchange to which Ms Cute referred occurred in a thread from some time ago in which age differences were discussed and Ms Cute included in a post the statement that seventeen is almost half of thirty-four. I posted that she must have been given the "Math Is Hard!" Barbie when she was young and impressionable. Possibly I should have added that Miss Brodie was mathematically challenged.]

I wish I had time now to do more than mention in passing how my oppressor took Mr Savage's line and defended his conduct with the numbers argument - basically "all you @#$s love it".

xxx

Skr Curious - How would you weight the particular good of two individuals' enjoying mutual or common climaxes against the general ill of the encounter's spreading homophobia? Suppose the straight degrader feels sufficiently more homophobic after his encounters not just to support anti-gay politicians and ballot issues but to convince friends to do the same, while the degradee feels such an increase of Gay Guilt that he stops voting. Change enough votes and one gets school boards that push anti gay (and anti-LBTQ) agenda, and worse.

One might think such things unlikely, but I have seen the tendency in a number of relationships on what I've termed the Mediterranean model (the Top is still a Man) gradually to bleed into reality. (This is why I'm so skeptical of Mr Savage's postulation that so many gay degradees are genuinely so out and proud as they and he claim.) While they often begin as equals, a year or so later the Top/Bottom roles have expanded from the bedroom with the bottom just accepting lower status in the couple and performing menial tasks at the top's direction (shades of how Mr Suchet's version of Cards on the Table portrayed "best friends" Rhoda and Anne. I mention Rhoda and Anne because Anne clearly resents her subordinate status and isn't joyfully living out her inner truth, which is the harmful assumption people often make about those with a preference for a receiving/bottom that is limited strictly to the sexual realm.

In a better world, one could just write such things off as FTWL, for there would be no bad general consequences. But we're not there yet and may never be.

xxx

Perhaps I should add that, for what it's worth, I am lacking in that quality that would most abundantly attract the degrader in question. Also, for Magnum subscribers to the podcast, that particular Guest Expert appears in the current episode and gives a second opinion to a caller who's wondering whether he should rethink his policy of not hooking up with Trump supporters.

nocute @218 I just reread the entire thread and I'm at pains to find the "you can't comment or pass judgement if you're not a member of the specific group" contingent you refer to. As I've said a few times already, I think we are all entitled to express our opinions on any letter. As one of the only semi-regular lesbians posting to this board, there would be no conversation to be had if a lesbian wrote in for advice and only lesbians were permitted to respond.

I am going to apologize preemptively for using your comment as a jumping off point. This comment is a general observation about the board, not you in particular. I think you are a reasonable person with a gift for insight and expression and I always find your comments edifying and thoughtful.

The argument I think, was that if the letter writer is a member of a particular (perhaps marginalized) group, the perspective of other members of their community might illuminate particular tribal nuances or contexts that non-members might not be familiar with.

ALPHA's letter touches on a subculture for sure, but it is also about broader ethical issues, as you so articulately point out. The problem with the letter - and all letters really - is that there are so many unanswered questions. We don't know exactly how ALPHA is interacting with the men he meets on Grinder. It seems most of us are unwilling to believe he is acting ethically (myself included), and so we see his actions as malignant. Harriet and Dan and his guest expert have clearly interpreted the situation differently and in doing so are stressing their particular experience with Grinder, or the subculture in their arguments.

This difference is of perspective and experience and it seems that rather than allow for different opinions, the various parties involved in this dispute are taking these disagreements personally. What happened to agreeing to disagree? At the end of the day, we are all strangers on the internet with our own non-virtual lives. I guess I don't understand why the stakes are so high that we all feel the need to win the argument, or worse, to impugn the character and motivations of people we will never meet.

On a lighter note - has anyone seen Hacks? My favorite scene is Ava's answer to Deborah's question: "Are you a lesbian?" I meant to mention it in the comments of the lesbian blow-jobber letter, but since we also have HOTDAMN this week...

Harriet @199: "There is an 'imbalance of power' in the basic sense of there being three people, sometimes more, depredating my contributions as 'bait', trolling, provocations or insincere."

I would ask you why you would conclude from this that you are the victim of a concerted bullying campaign, rather than that multiple people have objectively read your contributions, have all interpreted them as trolling, or bait, or insincere, and thought, "hmm, perhaps I should make efforts not to come across as trolling, baiting, or being insincere"? In other words, why you see these as "depredations" rather than accurate analysis? As I said upthread, if one person takes issue with me, I tend to dismiss them as disliking me, or misreading me, or being oversensitive. If multiple people say the same thing, they are probably right. I am probably -- even inadvertently -- coming across as strident, or bitchy when I meant to be funny, whatever. But you remain steadfast in refusing to consider that maybe you ARE deliberately provoking people, or putting words in people's mouths just to argue against them, or contradicting yourself, or playing dumb, or any of the (fair) charges I've seen levied against you here, and levied myself, to little effect.

To use an analogy, let's say I go round punching people in the arm as what I consider to be a playful, jokey gesture. Curious says, hey, please don't punch me in the arm. Fubar says, hey, please don't punch me in the arm. Nocute says, hey, please don't punch me in the arm. I keep punching them in the arm and witnesses start saying, Hey, BDF, quit punching people in the arm. Am I now the victim of "bullying"? Clearly, no. Several people didn't gang up on me for no reason. I brought on the critiques by punching people in the arm. This isn't debating "personalities," it's debating behaviour -- behaviour which one could change, if they wish.

Indeed, we agree on 90% of things, but the 10% we disagree on seems to be that you are in fact guilty of the charges Curious, Fubar et al have brought to your attention, so I cannot "side" with you and speak up when they call you out. I don't know what you mean by "drive-by s" -- if it's my habit of muting you, then selectively uncloaking to reply to comments in which you address me directly, I can't see how that is not "above board" or how it has anything to do with morals. Are you the moralist now? This is exactly the kind of comment that others have described as "bait." I do not think it "honourable" to decry ganging-up on one hand, yet implore me to leap to your defense on the other hand. We are all individuals here; if I agree with someone, I say so; if I disagree, I say so; if I see them behaving in a way that is inappropriate, I say so; if I am called out and they have a point, I apologise, otherwise I defend myself, without resorting to insults. And indeed, if I see myself at an impasse with a commenter who I see as simply refusing to listen, I employ the SavageLUBE. Far better indeed than endless and pointless debating.

nocutename @229: The difficulty around Jimmy's intent was that he discovered you are Jewish only when you met, and wasn't - hopefully - seeking out Jewish women. But given that Jimmy was unable to keep a lid on his anti-semitism, and probably knew that, he should have spoken up and asked if you were down for a hate fuck, rather than proceeding without consent.

You were correct @218 that I engage in D/s relationships involving spanking (and quite a bit more). But I don't go through life suppressing an urge to slap, choke, hit, or otherwise torture women. Those things are fun in the context of pleasuring a masochist, and yes, I seek out masochists.

If someone like ALPHA brings pleasure to his encounters, it's by luck and by accident. For the most part, he's a danger to others (unless, as I suspect and have written before, key details were omitted from the letter).

I second BiDanFan @235 in regretting that you felt compelled to share that awful story to illustrate your qualification to comment, but I thank you for doing so.

Griz @230: I punted on the double-hunsky, having scored FIRDT this week. The honours go to nocutename.

A new column is up!

https://savage.love/savagelove/2021/10/12/mind-the-gap/

Fubar, growing sounds very fun. Fubar and Nocute, I am so envious of the ganja. Long mysterious story short it's been 20 years since I could partake. Luckily I made the most (I joked possibly the literal most for any non-Jamaican) of the time I had up until then. Sigh.

nocute@229
"I didn't jump away, smack him down and jump up and leave...I am very conflict-averse."

For all you knew, calling him on it might have endangered you. One might have to have a gun in one's hand to safely address his abuse.

"to really put Curious' yardstick to the test...that orgasm alone is not a sufficient moral arbiter....but my mind and emotions--my psyche--was damaged."

I don't think that breaks my yardstick. Because that is a consequence too. An enduring negative one that I would expect would exceed the positive brief one. Just as Nocute is telling us it did.

(Though another victim could very well be unaware of the psychological damage, so there is no subjective arbiter we should defer to.)

BDF@234
"I know which sort of folk I would rather engage with."

Sure! The other sort of folk aren't interacting.

Mr. Venn@236
"Skr Curious - How would you weight the particular good of two individuals' enjoying mutual or common climaxes against the general ill of the encounter's spreading homophobia?"

First, (as I just noted above) I don't think I or any subjective entity gets to weigh consequences. And in that sentence, I don't see enough evidence for me of offer an opinion.

"Suppose the straight degrader feels sufficiently more homophobic after his encounters not just to support anti-gay politicians and ballot issues but to convince friends to do the same, while the degradee feels such an increase of Gay Guilt that he stops voting. Change enough votes and one gets school boards that push anti gay (and anti-LBTQ) agenda, and worse."

But with this information, obviously I think that those consequences are worse than the orgasms consequence. A philosophical hypothetical can only address what's given. They're very useful when simple, but the more one zooms out the less useful they are. In the most simple hypothetical right and wrong are clear. Zoomed out to the max, when looking at the universe as a whole, right and wrong are meaningless: the universe simply is.

JibeHo @237: I think the issue of who was qualified to weigh in on ALPHA's letter was initially raised in the comments section for the column in which the letter originally appeared. But this week, @ 165, Lost Margarita, in a reply to fubar, said: "I don't think anyone was saying that people are not "allowed" or "qualified" to comment on issues relating to another demographic. But I can see why people from marginalized groups might be asking outsiders to moderate their voice and do more listening and less impassioned talking when discussing these issues. It's about knowing when to sit back down, and I think it's a fair point. I cringe when I see well-meaning white people holding forth on race issues and talking over POC. Last week I got that same cringing feeling when reading certain comments by non-gay non-men in the ALPHA discussion."

BiDanFan @I don't remember and JibeHo @237: I probably get too defensive in the exact way that BDF characterized it, and I definitely am too quick to assume that critical comments here which don't refer to anyone by name and to which some of my comments fit the description, are directed at me. For example, see Lost Margarita's comment @165, which I quoted above. Perhaps she was talking about several people, of which I am only one, but that seems unequivocally about me to me. I will try to moderate my responses better, but I am afraid I'll continue to feel attacked privately. It's an insecurity thing. I'm working on that. Thank you for reminding me that it's not always all about me.

fubar @239: You are correct that the major difference between Jimmy (my anti-Semite) and ALPHA et. al. is that my turning out to be Jewish was a bonus for him, as opposed to someone he was intentionally seeking out--maybe. We met on an online site in which one's religion is a fill-in box, so he was able to see I am Jewish before he ever contacted me. Perhaps he was screening for Jewish women; perhaps he didn't even notice that bit of information. I can no longer remember how the information that I was Jewish and so was his ex-wife came out--this was more than 14 years ago.

Curious @243: thank you for correcting my cringe-inducing typo when you quoted me. I'm grateful to you for making me seem less dumb.

Everyone @after I told the story of my run-in with that anti-Semite: Thanks for your expressions of concern, but I'm fine--and was, even then. I was far more angry than frightened, and the main reason I didn't write about it earlier in the discussion or when ALPHA's letter originally ran, is that I didn't want to invest the time in writing what I knew would be a lengthy comment, likely to be followed up with even longer comments. Which, indeed is what happened, and I'm sorry to have hijacked this thread.

Lastly, Curious @243: Yes, it's much easier to make right-or-wrong decisions when faced with a very simple situation or hypothetical situation. But real life is rarely like an AITA column, and I prefer the complexity and ambiguity, myself. Yes, at the universal level and remove, there is no such thing as right and wrong. But I'm not there--I'm here in my home in the USA, interacting with other people. I don't see the point in zooming that far out except as a way to console myself that my little problems don't add up to a hill of beans in this crazy world.

nocute@244
"correcting my...typo"

Wow, no one ever noticed before. If I notice that my browser sees a typo in quoted text, I just fix it, and pretend my browser did so all by itself.

nocute- sorry your Jewishness came out so ugly and abusive unplanned and non-consensual while already so vulnerable during play time.

Wonder if such context ever occurred in an otherwise pre-planned, consensual and mutually enjoyable manner. As for me, I was assigned to follow a German woman and attend to her needs in some event and asked in advance that ethnicity and history will not be part of it. As it turned out she couldn't make it and instead, much to my delight, I got to serve the woman who put it together.

@240 fubar: That's right--you did score this week's hotly sought after FIRDT! honors.
So....

@202: nocutename: WA-HOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!! Congratulations on scoring this week's highly vied for Double Hunsky honors! Savor you well deserved newfound riches and bask in your glory. :)

@BDF, it is pretty obvious that both Harriet and Lava have been extensively bullied lately. I would add that shunning is a particularly vicious form of bullying. JiBeHo, if you're giving guns out for self-defense but unhappy that they are being used for offense, then maybe stop giving guns out.

I have sometimes disagreed with Harriet or Lava but we are mostly on the same side, as we pretty much all are! I like that Harriet sees different sides, playfully tries on different points of view like fancy hats, and has an open mind compatible with nuance and meeting people at a point that's different from their starting point. And I like Lava's kindness, sharp mind, and concise way of expressing herself. One always remembers what Lava said, because she said it well.

On short, I think they are both reasonable and interesting people, assets to the forum, and the people who are piling on them just come off crazy.

@241 fubar: A new Savage Love column for the week of October 12-18, 2021 Mind the Gap is up? For some reason I can't access it. :o

Griz @241: Did you use the link I posted? It's up at savage.love but not yet at thestranger.com.

Cocky @248: Have you read through the comments this week? I feel like you're asking us to start again at the beginning.

The new column is up HERE now at https://www.thestranger.com/savage-love/2021/10/12/61926712/savage-love

cbu @248 I tried really hard to appear neutral while trying to point out that I felt Harriet was being mistreated in this space. I did that on purpose because I didn’t want my larger point to be lost once people decided that I was taking Harriet’s side. So I tried to make it about something more universal. In doing so i may have conceded too much ground and lost my point anyway.

Clearly if you think I was handing out guns to anyone, I failed.

Cocky @248, laughing out loud. Lava has been viciously verbally abusive toward me and others, who can speak for themselves if they choose. Sharp mind? Sharper tongue. Anyway, on to the new column.

@Nocutename
First, I must say that your discussion was the smartest and most impressive thing I've read in I don't know how long. And it was exactly what I was looking for.

Even though after mulling over my feeling that secret intentions in another person's head could somehow harm someone else, I'm back to thinking that makes no sense. (I'm sure I felt that way at the moment, because imagining that happening to you, my heart went out to you.)

So of course I retract my disagreement with your @224:
"Are you correct that the Jew who is ignorant of the anti-Semite's true feelings and motivation are isn't harmed? Yes."

What I was looking for was to understand your thinking. But I got something better.

Understanding your thinking was never gonna happen, so it doesn't matter that that impossible thing didn't happen, and that not a word of what you wrote was relevant to my understanding of right and wrong.

Because understanding isn't even the point. Because for me (and I expect for other healthy people), a sense of right and wrong doesn't derive from thinking. Healthy people have an inner compass that points to right and wrong. (I of course have cockamamie ideas about how that might work, but I'll just say we look to our heart.)

Not religious fundamentalists, apparently. I recall reading a study in which they said that if they found out that there's no god, they'd run around and start doing evil like crazy. Not certain I believe that, but a whole body of studies say they are amoral, so maybe it's true; if so, thank goodness those people have religious dogma to fill the hole where their inner compass should be.

But I digressed again. My point is that, in temporarily being moved to concoct my cockamamie construction about stolen time being a fuzzy wrong, I got an opportunity to experience feeling like intent alone without any consequence (harm) at all was wrong.

So while I'm now back to having zero understanding of your thinking, I think I've gotten the real prize that I was seeking, with a glimpse into /feeling/ a similar way.

I suppose it is obvious that your concept that even without harm

"...it depends on how wrong I think the intent is ...that determines the morality of the action." (@229)

makes no sense to me, because I think this idea of the 'morality' of an action is an illusory concept; I think actions have results (which might be right or wrong) and have intentions (which might be healthy if good or unhealthy if bad). I have always thought that I never use the word morality and instead always use the word ethics only because I want to avoid the stain of religion, but perhaps I see now I have another reason.

Curious @255, re: "Because understanding isn't even the point. Because for me (and I expect for other healthy people), a sense of right and wrong doesn't derive from thinking. Healthy people have an inner compass that points to right and wrong. (I of course have cockamamie ideas about how that might work, but I'll just say we look to our heart.)"

Oh, pish and also tosh. Unless you define "right and wrong" to be the same as "whatever the society the person grew up in from birth until about age five or ten says is right and wrong"? Otherwise, how do you explain, say, recovering hardcore Catholics who still feel guilty over masturbation? Their inner compass lies to them, and it's thinking that fixes it (if anything can). Hopefully the thinking becomes familiar and automatic enough to be essentially unconscious over time, but it's gonna take thought to begin with to undo the brainwashing.

And before you say "those people aren't healthy," let me pre-empt that by asserting you would then be creating a "No True Scotsman" argument.

I'll concede that if we /do/ define right and wrong as whatever the society says at the time, then that's probably imprinted enough to feel like an inner compass. But the minute you switch societies, your compass is gonna mess with you.

ciods@256
"Healthy people have an inner compass that points to right and wrong"

Oh, I see that you mean, that implies there is a true Scotsmen.

I obviously have no idea whether any, or many, or most people's compass is correct. My guess would be that almost none are, that most people's compasses are far from correct. I just meant that their compasses point toward something they THINK is right and wrong.

I use my compass as my guide, and naturally feel good about it's trueness. And I think there could be such a thing as a true compass.

Ah! Okay, gotcha, I retract my objection :)

ciods@258
You were incredibly kind to offer no more than pish and tosh, when I had written one of the craziest sentances ever.

To expand on my correction, I don't expect anyone to trust anyone's compass. The only reason I trust mine is that I reside within it. I figure that's pretty typical, and often a problem.

@204. Venn. There has never been a time in my life when I thought I had the least 'prowess' in sex. I sometimes thought I had more of a brass neck than other people--in seeking out sex, that is, not in anything else. I have no idea why people assign us to the same bucket of sexual identity, if the category is going to be more specific than 'queer' (admittedly, I first had sex casually on a gay scene--but it's not as if you've ever said, afaik, whether you had your first experiences on a scene, or in relationships, or what kind of self-identity you held in doing this).

My position as stated was never anything like 'only gay men are entitled to comment on the mores of Grindr'. The idea seems to have originated with Nocute last week, and to have been identified as mine by my critics before they overcame any reluctance they had and read my (last week's) comments. Nocute seems to be maintaining this principle as a space-clearing maneuver for her to comment on themes in straight life (or in het dating)--which she is entitled to do; but I would not be obliged to observe any symmetry and say e.g. 'I've never married a woman as a man, I've nothing to say about the ethics of wife-beating'.

@205. Nocute. I don't think anyone could have pinned you as a 'self-righteous moralist' because, unlike others, you took a genuine interest in why your response was different from that of the guest expert and putative insider Alexander Cleves.

@220 & @221. Lava. Oh, I don't think there is any 'gang' here. There are a handful of hot-keyboard commenters who sometimes pool their voices (as opposed to people like me, say, occasional hot-running keyboard individualists). I agree that the rationale of the Slogblocker is to block people, despite the new functionalities touted. Some of these 'let's-spin-the-blocker-as positive!' tools are frankly flimsy, like adding or changing the avatars. Like, as if anyone is likely to take objection to someone's picture...! A shirt and tie, objectionable!

@237. JibeHo. You are of course right about there being no statement to the effect 'you have to be a member of a specific group...'.

[break]
Thankfully, as a result of Nocute's posts, more interesting discussions have broken out. I do not think the analogy between the guy visiting his friend in hospital for ulterior motives and ALPHA, while suggestive, that close. ALPHA is messaging and stringing along a number of people. Possibly some of these are in on the tease and get off through having a denial kink, while others have come to expect that, most likely, the unavailable, fetishistically hot straight will not turn up to be sucked off or to ream them, and are only playing along, hope against hope. They may have developed a mindset that is humiliation- and denial-kink adjacent, without having a humiliation/denial kink. And they may be (may) newbies who genuinely think ALPHA will be at the meetup, and are hurt by his ghosting them. We were not asked to assess the effect of his interactions on any one person, but to characterise his pattern of behavior.

@238. Bi. Re 'multiple people': I don't see this as providing any objective criterion. Right now I think curious takes me for a deep-lying provocateur, fantasist and sociopath; Fubar thinks I am maliciously persecuting him; nocute can profess greater indifference, but thinks my words are weasel and that I argue in bad faith, and you think I provoke people and knowingly put words in their mouths. This is three or four people. There have also been times in the history of the board when (simultaneously, I think--??) SublimeAfterglow has thought you tendentially misrepresented his arguments; JibeHo thought you imputed to her ungenerous thoughts; PhilosophySchoolDropout called you a mean and dirty arguer; and Sportlandia (who in his threats went too far) thought you systematically unjust. Also three to four people. Right now, too, Lost Margarita has considered (esp. in your endorsement of the SlogBlocker and use of the tactic of 'before I block you... [comment]') that you're joining in bullying, and JibeHo (whether she thinks I provoke people or not) has also called the passive-aggressive pretending to hide behind this tool semi-organised vindictiveness.

As for the playfully punching people on the arm, the people taking issue with me all have different justifications (they don't all think I punch them on the arm). On one thread I asked Fubar a series of direct questions (increasingly direct because I didn't understand why he clammed up) and he supposed I was playing with him. I got into trouble last week with him for plain-spokenness, in calling his view that of a 'straight moralist' (a characterisation he thought was 'bait'). Nocute, on the other hand, thinks I refine my account of the possibilities in any situation described in a letter beyond the point where I can have a single moral view; I 'flip-flop' and am possibly only inciting someone to come out with the unreconstructed version of their position, with which I will say I agree. These are diammetrically opposed critiques (the criticisms of you had more coherence). It's easy for me to see them as only the ordinary misunderstandings and run-ins of a series of conversations, which have been unfortunately magnified by curious's evidently immoderate animus and by your encouragement.

Any number of times, I have offered the olive branch of suggesting we restrict our discussions to this week's case and exclude any discussion of what we said other times (including any personal vituperation or characterisation--which is much more of me, than committed by me). This has been received as my seeking to draw the veil over my past comments. I think, though, you are edging towards that sort of self-limiting ordinance (respectfully self-limiting, towards the readers of the thread and lw s) in your @233. None of the 'previous', the history, helps people writing in with a problem, nor I can think can be much entertainment for the readers of the thread. I don't think I would have named so many personalities or dredged up so many past views were the letter no longer current or this week's, and we very far down this thread.

What I would of course like is a conversation with people like yourself capable of appreciating subtlety and that conditionality can inform a view (e.g. if ALPHA is messaging guys in on the tease, he's not exploiting them; if he's targeting guys of a physical type indiscriminately or greenhorns, he is). Instead, the sense I have is that my habitual degree of subtlety is held against me, as throwing up a haze in which I obfuscate any statement. It is disappointing seeing people like you and nocute preferring to talk where you can expect no intellectual pushback to opening a conversation where in qualifying your views, we might arrive at a comprehensive 'good answer'.

@248. Cocky. Thank you! I really regret that anyone has come to see me as persecuting them.... I think that I remind one person in particular of someone else in his life or past, and that through unfortunate and of course inadvertent similarities with things I've said, has come to transpose their characteristics onto me....

With the 'trying on hats' thing, apropos ALPHA the people I've come to feel a sympathy for are the straight men, say, over 35, not successful, not alpha, not rich or witty, or not outstandingly any of these things, trying just to get a few fun fucks out of het women on dating sites. I have thought the reprobation visited on ALPHA last week by het women other than alison (NB this is NOT about nocute--at all--who was much more cautious) was a fending-off of any realisation of (afaik) how women behave on these sites. Sorry for this idea, peoples, which is not intentionally provocative, I promise, but just happens to be what passed through my mind.

Curious, your sorting of feelings vs. thoughts are very interesting. I'd agree that we don't all have the same moral compass. I do see your point about intent being, if not irrelevant, un-knowable and inconsequential. I just can't separate it from the action, assuming I know what it is. And if I know for sure or it seems to me that the intent behind the action is one I find repugnant, to me that colors the way I view the action's consequences, even if they're benign. I don't know if I can explain it better than this, and I've got things to do, so I don't have the time, but I appreciate the window into you.

nocute@264
I appreciate the window into you!

"your sorting of feelings vs. thoughts"

Note that I do acknowledge that such sorting is complicated by that we have thoughts about feelings, and we have feelings about thoughts.

"I've got things to do"

That's probably best, me too.

In case it's not obvious, had you asked me whether I think that right/good and wrong/bad are just as illusory, I would have said I do not. Well surely some of what one means by each is subjective, but key to my perspective is that I hold that there is an objective truth to right and wrong. (Not of course that any subjective perspective can know it.) So of course I wouldn't hesitate to say that cultural norms can be wrong.