I have seen a post that got 15 upvotes that was advertising online sex and asking for people to DM them. I am confident that the moderators will remove it. However, I am disturbed that most of the comments replying to it believed nothing was wrong and actually requested to exchange DMs with this person.
A while ago I saw a post about someone in an online relationship with another person saying they meet over a kink discord server and a majority of the replies were encouraging them and this relationship instead of concern.
After this latest thing I can’t take it anymore. I should have reached my limit after the first thing and I can name several other red flags, but I realized only now that I was becoming accustomed to it.
If a significant portion of this community cannot practice basic cyber safety, especially around sex, then I think this is an unsafe place that creates an environment of encouragement around unsafe online sexual conduct.
This is supposed to be a transfem community and transfems are a minority group especially susceptible to sexual cyber abuse. Nobody here should tolerate the encouragement of unsafe online conduct or engage in it.
First before you read the rest of my response, could you put a meta tag in your post title? Just to keep things organized.
I do think that looking for for sexual interactions is against the spirit of this community. I am going to add that as a new rule and enforce it from here on out as a new standard rule. Looking for friends is okay, looking to meet people is okay, but that specifically is, I agree, something that puts vulnerable people at risk.
As for the comments about online relationships. This community is first and foremost a supportive community for transfeminine people. That necessarily entails that people can come here and talk about the things going on in their lives without an expectation that they will be met with gatekeeping and judgement. I dont want to foster an atmosphere whereby people feel like if they post here about something they are likely to met with a lot of unsolicited advice and caution towards their lives.
If someone were to ask “what do you think about my online relationship with this person I met on a kink discord” then I think its appropriate and acceptable for people to express concern. But if that hasnt been requested, if they didnt ask for advice, then I wouldn’t really want or expect the community to collectively throw a lot of caution or concern their way. The end result of that in my mind is more likely that the poster will just feel alienated from this space and unsupported here.
Case by case my vary, but depending on the tone of the comments I would be concerned about someone creating an environment of hostility towards other users here. A degree of caution is always warranted when engaging in online relationships. It is also true that many people who are in an online niche queer community like this are themselves in online relationships. I do think it is important that this space exist for them too.
It was a sensitive topic for me, as I have experienced sexual trauma online and I could have maybe overreacted, but I’m glad you’re addressing it.
Yeah I was under the impression this isn’t a dating site. I don’t seen anything wrong with seaking out sexual partners online. Don’t ick someone else’s yum and all that.
But also… This isn’t the place? Dating and sex tend to be their own thing for a reason.
Sexual and sex can be two very different things after all.
And hey, it’s only over reacting if you don’t have a good reason and hurt someone because you did something you can’t apologize for.
So if you have a valid reason and are sorry over an action you took and no one got hurt. You can always say sorry and things can move on.
Never beat yourself up for reacting to something naturally. As long as you self reflect you can always get better and it can help a lot to understand your trauma and move past it.
You can’t move on if you don’t confront yourself and accept yourself in equal measures. Its work!