Cuidam Alicui et Suis Amicis

[diaphanus]

"Cuidam Alicui et Suis Amicis"
"To a Certain Someone and Her Friends"

First, let me allow Bugs to say this to you:

Click to view

Well, actually, I do not like war, but it looks like someone decided to turn on me.

Who is it? Sonia Leong:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonia_Leong

http://www.fyredrake.net/

Take a look at Sonia's latest post in her LJ:

Two

Comments

[cinskywind]

I'm going to throw my 2 cents into the pool on this matter (and wish for some kind of flying horse while I'm at it as I normally do when throwing coins into pools of water).

Not to make light of the matter, but I can see why you and your friends feel this isn't a big issue. I mean looking at the tags I can see 'breast', 'bunnies' and 'butts' (and that’s just what’s on screen) and the maybe even a few hundred tags related to all manner of things. You probably don’t feel the same way about ‘Bunnies’ as you do about ‘Cancer’ so guessing the tags are just to organize posts as opposed to entire dedicated sections. The Sonia tags and maybe even Sonia posts maybe an infinitesimal part of your blog but the fact remains that they are there, people have seen them and Sonia herself has taken offense not so much to the content and context of the posts but to the flippant remarks towards her husband.

Again I can understand if your intend and even if the views of your friends see this a small matter but I guess the only way to actually understand why people fell this way would be in their shoes so to speak. I can see from the details that you do have a wife from the sounds of things she is an upstanding person and sees that your hobbies are just and reasonable. How would you feel if someone started making public posts about her using her details? How would you see that person who frankly has no relation to you, your wife or your friends suddenly making post about your wife? Would you be upset? Would she be? I mean the person making the post maybe a terrific person with the best of intentions and no ill will, but to you and your wife it would be someone quite creepy right?

I’m not going to pick a fight with you or your friends, I’m not fight a war on Sonia behalf, I’m not going to call any derogatory names or even pretend that I’m above you in some manner because I’m not. What I do want to do is make you understand why people who see both sides may label you as ‘creepy’.

[diaphanus]

"The Sonia tags and maybe even Sonia posts maybe an infinitesimal part of your blog but the fact remains that they are there, people have seen them and Sonia herself has taken offense not so much to the content and context of the posts but to the flippant remarks towards her husband."

If Sonia and her husband felt that I was being flippant, rude, or whatever, they should know that it was not my intention to be so. In fact, I went out of my way to be polite.

"How would you feel if someone started making public posts about her using her details? How would you see that person who frankly has no relation to you, your wife or your friends suddenly making post about your wife? Would you be upset? Would she be? I mean the person making the post maybe a terrific person with the best of intentions and no ill will, but to you and your wife it would be someone quite creepy right?"

Well, not necessarily, at least not to the extent where I would be banning the person from my LJ, banning his or her spouse, giving the person no warning about what I would do, and starting some sort of Anti-Whoever campaign, thereby unleashing Team Lynch Mob.

"I’m not going to pick a fight with you or your friends, I’m not fight a war on Sonia behalf, I’m not going to call any derogatory names or even pretend that I’m above you in some manner because I’m not. What I do want to do is make you understand why people who see both sides may label you as ‘creepy’."

I can see why they would say that.

There is a part of my personality, which I think is more tongue-in-cheek than serious, that has been labelled as "creepy," and yet it is overall harmless.

But the kind of "creepy" that I am being accused of (see above, below, in that linked community) is the kind that warrants the "Warn everybody" campaign that Sonia has started. And that is what I mean "tarring me with that same brush" as the sickos.

[alexandraerin]

Ah, fuck it. No anoynous from me. I'm not here from any snark community and I'm not here from Sonia's posting.

The way you talk about women is going to be sickening to many people even if it is tongue-in-cheek. The way you have treated Sonia since the inappropriateness of your commentary was pointed out is sickening and not tongue-in-cheek. You can't absolve yourself of creepiness by declaring yourself to be harmless. Don't you think every "sicko" out there feels the same way about himself?

This isn't about how other people have framed things. People are responding to your words and your actions in their original context. Among you and like-minded friends, it seems okay... but obviously people who find you creepy aren't going to be your friend, are they? So the fact that you've got people patting you on the back and telling you she's out of line and you're not might be comforting, but it doesn't really tell you anything.

If you choose not to care that most people are going to see a guy who asserts his right to make posts about a married woman's ass and how she should dress up in fetish outfits (saying it's for her husband doesn't undo the squick factor there!), no one can stop you.

If you choose not to care that it is a heinously misogynistic thing to talk down to a woman who wishes to control her work, her personal image, and her sexuality by saying she should be grateful that you decided to promote her, so be it.

But none of that is harmless. It is degrading and it is creepy.