Great Vice article about creeper DMs

[AMFV]

That's because nobody can agree on what amounts to sexual harassment (The case in the article certainly being presented as such after the fact.)

Where I work and hang out, a lot of stuff some people get their panties in a twist about doesn't even register as mildly uncomfortable.

This is definitely part of the problem. The problem is that what is uncomfortable for one person isn't necessarily uncomfortable for another person, and it's not easy to figure out what that might be without knowing the other person well.




I missed the part where the RPG Morality Squad tarred and feathered the Creep GM. Really, asking people to tell Creeps "dude, not cool" does not strike me as too terrible a responsibility to burden our fellow gamers with, and is unlikely to make them become drunk with power. Yes, it won't change their behavior instantly, yes it might not work. It's still better than the current crappy situation.

It was right about when somebody threatened to hit the DM, or said that they would have hit him under those circumstances.


That dosn't give you the right to play therapist.
If a player is made profoundly uncomfortable by something that happens in-game, it's not your job to "Fix" them through repeated exposure. It's your job to make the game fun for everybody, not to repeatedly make them uncomfortable until it "Takes the edge off". If somebody is scared by a horror movie, the proper response isn't to force them to attend a SAW Marathon until they get over it.

The question is if something isn't profound discomfort, but only mild discomfort, should somebody tough it out. At what point should somebody decide that they're too uncomfortable. Furthermore if it isn't a solid limit how could somebody know that it is a solid l


I'm not the one proposing no sympathy. I am keenly aware of the limitations of the mind and how a person can be coerced into doing things beyond their will through abuse (Even if AMFV can't comprehend that, and Segev seems to be ignorant of the nature of what's going on). My stance is that the guys doing bad things won't go away just because you want them to stop existing, and it's a good idea to do everything reasonable and within your power to stop/prevent Bad Things when you can. I don't like it when attempts to arm someone to defend themselves against or get through bad experiences are equated to 'victim blaming', though.

First I never said that abuse wasn't necessarily enough of an issue to change people's mind. Second, even abuse does not excuse bad behavior. If somebody murders their children to prevent them from being abused by their spouse, it's still wrong. It may be a factor that would mitigate behavior, but it doesn't cease to be wrong behavior just because you were abused. And certainly peer-pressure in a no stress environment, does not equate even to abuse.

Furthermore, we still don't know what happened, we don't have a first hand account.

[BRC]

The question is if something isn't profound discomfort, but only mild discomfort, should somebody tough it out. At what point should somebody decide that they're too uncomfortable. Furthermore if it isn't a solid limit how could somebody know that it is a solid l



Each person decides they're too uncomfortable for themselves, at which point they SHOULD speak up.
It is the job of the group to make speaking up in those instances as easy as possible.

[Irish Musician]

It isn't about not making anyone uncomfortable at all. It is about knowing who your audience is, and if you don't know them, warn them about mature and intense content you have created. It is about having respect for you players. Sexual-assault isn't an no-no, I don't think anyway as long as it has something to do with the story. But more a no-no if it is truly hurting someone to be a part of it. I have DMed games that had rape and murder in them, but it was a very dark game and had to do with the plot. I also know all of my players very well, and while it did make them uncomfortable (which is what I was intending to do), I knew that all of them could handle it.

Being uncomfortable because of a few intense story lines isn't the same as some DM making a woman super uncomfortable on purpose ( or a man for that matter).....and doing so knowing that they will be uncomfortable the whole time. It is one thing to do it accidentally or on purpose knowing your players can handle it. iI is a whole other thing to do it with malicious intent.....which is what the DM in the original article was doing.

[Sartharina]

Each person decides they're too uncomfortable for themselves, at which point they SHOULD speak up.
It is the job of the group to make speaking up in those instances as easy as possible.

Which, unfortunately, is easier said than done. People are bad at communicating.

[AMFV]

Each person decides they're too uncomfortable for themselves, at which point they SHOULD speak up.
It is the job of the group to make speaking up in those instances as easy as possible.

Alright, well we're in agreement about that, however, I might add that it isn't the group's job to change to fit everybody's standard of comfort, it might be that that player isn't the right fit for the group. As long as we don't feel that people should be mandated to change their style of play to fit one player, but that either an agreement should be reached or the people should go their separate ways.


Being uncomfortable because of a few intense story lines isn't the same as some DM making a woman super uncomfortable on purpose ( or a man for that matter).....and doing so knowing that they will be uncomfortable the whole time. It is one thing to do it accidentally or on purpose knowing your players can handle it. iI is a whole other thing to do it with malicious intent.....which is what the DM in the original article was doing.

We don't know that that was what was being done in the original story. We have a biased article, with a second hand account from a participant, who is not directly quoted. That's not really a good source.

I'm not saying that the DM may not have been being creepy, and that's likely, but we don't have enough information to say that was happening. We don't know if she indicated discomfort or not. We don't know if she jumped on the seduction angle immediately without any prompting, we don't have enough information to make any rulings about the story in the article.

[Kid Jake]

Yeah, it's not like discussing this and how to deal with it could ever help people talk about this sort of thing in meatspace with their groups and hypothetical offspring. :smalltongue:

If it happens then great, but we shouldn't assume that we're making a difference just because we'd like to.


Wrong. It is the DM's job to check and make sure....

It's the DM's place to establish a consensus.....

It's the DM's place to provide the materials for a session, nothing more than that. He's not his player's keeper and he shouldn't be treated as such. If someone doesn't like the material he's provided, then they should say something so he doesn't do it again.



...I don't think swarthy (http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/swarthy)is quite the word you wanted there.

Yeah, sorry; I had a specific character(s) in mind from a MUD I used to play and the Fabio comparison didn't help. They were a pair of hedonistic brother/lovers named Santos and Miguel who traveled the world attempting to recreate romance novels and porn scenes. They were obviously played for laughs and as we described them; they were 2 parts Festrunk Brothers, 1 part Borat, with a dash of Siegfried and Roy (or rather The Father of the Pride version of them.) tossed in for flavor.

They were basically custom tailored to be auto-rebuffed.



I have good news for you, then. Taking reasonable steps not to skeeve out your players by taking them into sexual situations they want no part of doesn't fall under trying to guess everything that offends people. :smalltongue:

I think there's a miscommunication; I don't think a player should be uncomfortable with ANY aspect of the game if you can help it, not just the sexual stuff that everyone always takes for granted. If a DM goes full on Tarantino and drops an N-bomb in character every other word or a session descends into torture porn or it veers into unnecessary political or religious criticism that just serves as a DM's soapbox, then somebody needs to speak up if this is something that they don't want to be involved with. Some things are horrendously offensive to certain people, but not even noticeable to others and that's where most of these issues come into play.

An example: If playing with an overly political, and for this example conservative, DM in D20 Modern and the campaign veers into 'uncovering liberal lies' then there's probably going to be a point where strawmen arguments are turned into random encounters and if you're his only non-conservative (or at least politically apathetic) player, then you may not appreciate him mocking your views so casually. If he's used to everyone agreeing with him, then he would be legitimately surprised to find out that he's been mocking a friend. If you don't say anything, then he's going to keep doing it and your feelings are going to continue to be marginalized until a potentially group-shattering argument breaks out.

Whatever your problem at the table, you've got to say something if you want it to stop because in the vast majority of cases the DM is not a mind reader and the other players probably don't care or they would have said something. I really don't see what's so controversial about asking someone to say "Stop." if they're uncomfortable rather than expecting everyone to guess.





Why not? What magically makes a forum an unacceptable arena for this? I do not understand your objection to a standing body of intelligent and articulate people laying out the fundamental problems and best supposed-solutions to a social issue for others to see. I do not see how that's meaningless and unable to help people grow.

I don't have an objection or I wouldn't be part of the discussion, but as others have pointed out before me; the intelligent and articulate people of this conversation are not the DMs who insist on making players sit quietly for half an hour while they describe how a tribe of orcs run a train on the PCs bard.

[Irish Musician]

We don't know that that was what was being done in the original story. We have a biased article, with a second hand account from a participant, who is not directly quoted. That's not really a good source.

I'm not saying that the DM may not have been being creepy, and that's likely, but we don't have enough information to say that was happening. We don't know if she indicated discomfort or not. We don't know if she jumped on the seduction angle immediately without any prompting, we don't have enough information to make any rulings about the story in the article.
No, we don't know 100% that this is the case, but the evidence for him being a creeper is pretty good, even without the heresay account of what happened. She doesn't want to go out with him, he feels hurt about it, he waits until the husband and wife and not at a session to do it, and they don't hear about it until later because he won't be as sleazy again in front of them. I am not 100%, crystal clear that is what happened.....but given my life experience & the evidence I am inclined to have a very well educated guess that this is the case.

[AMFV]

No, we don't know 100% that this is the case, but the evidence for him being a creeper is pretty good, even without the heresay account of what happened. She doesn't want to go out with him, he feels hurt about it, he waits until the husband and wife and not at a session to do it, and they don't hear about it until later because he won't be as sleazy again in front of them. I am not 100%, crystal clear that is what happened.....but given my life experience & the evidence I am inclined to have a very well educated guess that this is the case.

And in my life experience I have met a lot of women who are willing to accuse people of that sort of thing, for their own ends. I'm not saying that this is the case, but I'm saying we don't know what happened, and passing judgement without evidence is a serious problem. I'm not willing to say that either of them are at fault without further evidence, I don't know them, so I can't say if either of them is likelier to be honest or manipulative. And frankly what happened was not likely that traumatic, or at least her account afterwards, appears more like she was "creeped out" than the DM was effectively "rapey." So we don't know, it's possible that this sort of thing happened often at the game. It's possible that when she rejected him, she told him about the characteristics she liked in a man, and he already had a romantic storyline planned, and needed to adjust it and did so clumsily. We don't know, I can suggest potentially hundreds of hypothetical, but we certainly have enough evidence to know if we was genuinely being creepy or not. Frankly the author of the story may not even know, he wasn't there either.

[White Blade]

Alright, so let me try a tact to express my opinion of the situation.

In real life, I have a friend. We're not the closest of friends, but at one point we were really tight and I care a lot about her. Something you need to know is that she grew up in a family with a lot of alcoholics (not her immediate family). Now, I don't drink but there was a time before I was 21 when I was looking forward to it (turns out, alcohol makes me a jerk).

So, one day, we're sitting around with a group of friends and joking about drinking. I knew at this point about her family history - I'm not going to pretend I didn't. So, she speaks up and says, "Hey, let's talk about something else because my family is alcoholic" and we all switched tacts and talked about something else.

Later on in life, we made it a rule that we wouldn't drink when she was around. When she noticed, because I told someone not to when they suggested drinking in our house when she was there (I said something like, "Maybe you should do that later" or "Hey, not right now" or "I don't think everyone here would feel comfortable with that), she thanked me. But it just seemed to be the thing to do for somebody I loved.

That being said, I don't feel bad about not having anticipated her emotional needs when we were joking about drinking. I didn't know that would offend her and it would be downright unreasonable to say that I was responsible for that. That I should check in advance, clear the topic with her in some sort of stodgy, explicit consent. That I should have read her face and body language. That's not really fair. And there are TONS of people with families touched by alcoholism, including me. I'd wager more than people who have suffered sexual assault (though I could be wrong, of course)

This isn't sex. This is a game built around talking and imagination. It isn't the same damn thing. It isn't close. There's a lot less delicacy and intimacy in the game. If I feel uncomfortable with a topic, I'm responsible for making that known. Because I'm a free and responsible person. As a kind and compassionate person, I'm also responsible for doing my best to make everyone comfortable - But if I'm in a group where sex is a part of the natural rhythm (I've never been in such a thing), I'm probably not going to disclaimer the sex. That would make those who have suffered such things more comfortable, certainly, but it would make everybody else less comfortable.

[Red Fel]

It isn't about not making anyone uncomfortable at all. It is about knowing who your audience is, and if you don't know them, warn them about mature and intense content you have created. It is about having respect for you players. Sexual-assault isn't an no-no, I don't think anyway as long as it has something to do with the story. But more a no-no if it is truly hurting someone to be a part of it. I have DMed games that had rape and murder in them, but it was a very dark game and had to do with the plot. I also know all of my players very well, and while it did make them uncomfortable (which is what I was intending to do), I knew that all of them could handle it.

Very much this.

It's very true that any number of creatures represent all sorts of horrific things - sexual assault, torture, traumas of all shapes and sizes. This isn't about molly-coddling the players. It's not about avoiding anything that might upset the players.

It's about being able to tell the difference between when a Succubus seeks to seduce a PC, whether by magic or wiles, and when the DM (or another player) announces to a player that their PC will have sex, no saves, no refusal.

Monsters try to do bad things to the PCs all the time. The world of tabletop games is chock-full of things that want to kill you for little or no reason. But you get to fight them. You get to resist them. You get to at least try to do something.

And game tone matters too. There's a difference between, say, Exalted (where you play larger-than-life heroes for whom narrative causality means nothing) and Call of Cthulhu (where you are guaranteed to die or go insane, it's simply a question of when). If you're playing a game where disturbing things are the norm, then to a large extent, you've agreed that there will be some creepiness. But if you're playing a game where there are big monsters, big heroes, and dice mechanics for everything up to and including successfully sitting in your chair while drunk, to suddenly be told that sex just happens is jarring, a violation of the game's concepts and of your autonomy.

That's the difference. When the Succubus tries to Charm Person, you get a will save. When that Ventrue uses Dominate, you can try to resist. Those are an understood part of the game, and I for one am not advocating for their removal. But when you're told that the only way for the plot train to move forward is to engage in the DM's personal autoerotic fantasies, or worse, you're simply told that it happened, irrespective of your desires or skills or powers, that's a violation. That's what's wrongful.

And a certain degree of sensitivity doesn't hurt either. If you know it's a bit of an uncomfortable subject, you don't need to dwell on it. You can simply "lower the curtain" on something - okay, it happened, let's move on. You can leave things to the imagination. What defines a creeper DM, in part, is the fact that he has to revel in the fantasy. If the seduction happens, he has to enjoy it - which means you have to live through it. It's one thing to be told, "Okay, you failed your Will save. The Succubus drags you away to another room... Dot dot dot. The party finds you the next day..." It's another for the DM to announce what she does to you, while you sit their drooling under her spell.


Each person decides they're too uncomfortable for themselves, at which point they SHOULD speak up.
It is the job of the group to make speaking up in those instances as easy as possible.

This is the bottom line, and it is something that we can actually do about the problem.

We can be the community of gamers that supports. In our individual groups, each of us can make an effort to be the person who, when you see someone clearly uncomfortable, gives them the support to be able to express it. Even if you don't think the group needs to change, even if you don't think the game needs to change, even if you think the person is being oversensitive, you can at least be enough of a friend to validate. To say, "If you're uncomfortable, just say so. I'm not judging you. It's okay for this to bother you."

It's not about changing the way a group runs, about altering expectations or lowering standards. It's about being supportive of friends, about being there when they're feeling unsure or unsafe. That's what it boils down to.

[Segev]

I cannot say, "Well, you didn't do enough about stopping it, so you deserve no sympathy."

And frankly... I think it's a very ignorant stance to take.

Oh, for crying...

It's not "you didn't do enough." It's "why do you keep putting yourself back in that situation?" or "why did you voluntarily stay when you had every chance to extricate yourself?"

Or are you saying that somebody who deliberately seeks out situations to be victimized is as deserving of sympathy as the person who is victimized despite doing all they could to avoid and escape it?

Do you condone a woman seeking out cases where she might feel sexually harassed just so she can scream about it and call for vengeance against those she feels harassed her?


And again, remember that we aren't really talking about rape, here. We're talking about playing a game with somebody who is being a jerk. Unless he's physically assaulting the player, the player always has the option of leaving. (Of course, if they're dependent on somebody else for a ride, that can mean waiting outside or in another room, but it's still an option.)

There is a huge difference between somebody who cannot help their situation and somebody who WILL not help their situation, and an even bigger one still to get to somebody who deliberately maintains their situation.


I lose sympathy for those who WILL not, or WILLFULLY PERPETUATE, their situation.

I mean, would you feel just as sorry for me if I went to a known "bad part of town" spewing racial epithets and challenging the manhood of local gangbangers, and then I got mugged and/or raped, as you would for an innocent man who was walking home, minding his own business and avoiding the "bad part of town" as much as possible, and still got mugged and/or raped?

Do you honestly think that the hypothetical me in the above paragraph is EQUALLY worthy of sympathy to the other hypothetical guy?

In neither case is the crime of the mugger/rapist/whatever diminished. But in one, I'm hardly worthy of sympathy since I was pretty much "asking for it." I was taking deliberate action to not only put myself in harm's way, but inciting people known to want to do harm. In the other, the hypothetical innocent is not only bothering nobody, but actively trying to avoid trouble, and just failed in that trouble-avoiding endeavor.

[Sartharina]

I don't know whether I should link this or not, but this discussion's been reminding me of this and the next three strips (http://shawntionary.com/chainmailbikini/?p=26), for some reason. (Warning - some sort of nonconsensual intimate contact joke, used to mock tabletop jerk behaviors and interplayer griefing in an insincere way)

[Segev]

Alright, so let me try a tact to express my opinion of the situation.

Well said. All involved behaved like adults, and with kindness towards one another. And if for some reason people REALLY wanted to drink, she could choose to leave, and nobody would fault her, I'm sure.

I also am a teetotaler. It's a religious thing for me. I have, at times, gotten uncomfortable with the amount of drinking going on, and left. Others, I've tolerated it because it didn't seem to be impacting the behavior of the group to a negative degree. It's not my place to dictate that others will never drink; it is within my rights to extricate myself if it becomes too much of a pain.

[Airk]

okay; This thread is like 8 different flavors of messed up now, with some opinions drifting around that are frankly somewhat reprehensible. Can we get this thread closed please?

[Irish Musician]

And in my life experience I have met a lot of women who are willing to accuse people of that sort of thing, for their own ends. I'm not saying that this is the case, but I'm saying we don't know what happened, and passing judgement without evidence is a serious problem. I'm not willing to say that either of them are at fault without further evidence, I don't know them, so I can't say if either of them is likelier to be honest or manipulative. And frankly what happened was not likely that traumatic, or at least her account afterwards, appears more like she was "creeped out" than the DM was effectively "rapey." So we don't know, it's possible that this sort of thing happened often at the game. It's possible that when she rejected him, she told him about the characteristics she liked in a man, and he already had a romantic storyline planned, and needed to adjust it and did so clumsily. We don't know, I can suggest potentially hundreds of hypothetical, but we certainly have enough evidence to know if we was genuinely being creepy or not. Frankly the author of the story may not even know, he wasn't there either.
I have known people in general to do that sort of thing, not just women.

You are right, we don't know what happened for certain, but we do have evidence that I spelled out before. And I cannot see that, even if he had a romantic story planned, not letting her do anything else but sleep with the NPC to get the story moving along as anything but creepy. And no we don't have enough evidence to be certain of his creep-level.....but we do have enough evidence to make it look as though he was being super creepy....at least to me. If he did it unintentionally, then he should have talked to her and explained to her that he didn't mean to make it so creepy....and because she never returned to the game I can say that this talk never happened with relative confidence.

[BRC]

Which, unfortunately, is easier said than done. People are bad at communicating.
I never said anything about it being easy.

Alright, well we're in agreement about that, however, I might add that it isn't the group's job to change to fit everybody's standard of comfort, it might be that that player isn't the right fit for the group. As long as we don't feel that people should be mandated to change their style of play to fit one player, but that either an agreement should be reached or the people should go their separate ways.
I agree, with the caveat that it's ALSO not the groups place to judge somebody for what makes them uncomfortable.

Lets remove the judgement inherent in the obvious "The GM is creepily harassing a player" situation and go with a more generic "The content of the game is making a player uncomfortable".
Suppose they are playing a mystery campaign, and one of the crimes they are investigating involves sexual assault. It's that sort of Dark, "This city is full of the worst kind of scum" type campaign, and most of the players enjoy it. However, one player is uncomfortable with the subject of rape coming up in the game (Their reasons are irrelevant here, they're uncomfortable with it), and expresses this as such. At this point the group could decide to move onto different subject matter.
I think it's also a perfectly reasonable response for the group to respect that the player is uncomfortable, but to want to keep the game as it is. Perhaps the player sits out until they finish that case and go back to investigating grisly murders, perhaps the player leaves the campaign altogether.

Where culture comes in is how this happens. When the uncomfortable player brings up their objections, do the other players respond respectfully, or do they accuse the player of being Overly Sensitive? Does the player leave the campaign, or are they driven out? What you want to avoid is situations where a player feels uncomfortable, but dosn't speak out due to fear, so they just sit, miserable, throughout the game.

An uncomfortable player does not have the right to dictate the course of the game, however they DO have the right to have their feelings respected by the rest of the group.

Of course, that's different from situations where a specific member of the group is being targeted by another, but the solution is the same. Create a culture of empathy and respect where people don't fear speaking out. Social Pressure is a powerful tool, and once it's pointed out, people can be pretty good about telling the difference between "That's just the type of game i'm running" and deliberate harassment, and using social pressure to support the victim and shame the harasser into stopping. A good group dynamic can also encourage players and GMs to be aware of signs of discomfort from other group members and proactively offer support.

[Boci]

Most TTRPGs don't include sexual assault.

What about games that do though? Like Vampire: The Masquerade. Is it the rest of the group's responsibility to defy a significant mechanic of the setting lore (the main reason you play WoD), or is it every player's responsibility to be okay with the possibility?

[icefractal]

Regarding: "If something makes someone uncomfortable, they can just leave the table" ...

Why should they be the one to leave the table? Make the person who's being creepy leave the table! Let's just consider if this was a behavior people seem to take more seriously:

You're all playing D&D, when one of the players starts spitting on another. Now let's say the spitter is disease-free, so this is not actually harmful, just unpleasant. Which of the players would be asked to leave the table?

Now what if the spitter was the DM? IME - the same thing. The only case that wouldn't get the spitter booted out is if he's the one hosting - in which case, everyone else would probably leave and not play at his house in future.

But wait! Maybe he wasn't spitting intentionally, maybe he's just one of those people who spits when he talks. Ok, fine - so he should apologize and then be careful not to do it again. Saying "I don't like covering my mouth, why can't people just accept being spit on?" is not considered appropriate in ... pretty much anywhere.

So yeah, I'm not sure why the standards around spitting - something that's equally "harmless" from a purely-physical standpoint - are suddenly "too harsh" when applied to something as bad or worse.

[Boci]

So yeah, I'm not sure why the standards around spitting - something that's equally "harmless" from a purely-physical standpoint - are suddenly "too harsh" when applied to something as bad or worse.

By my count the "well they can just leave" crowd is assuming that the whole group is in favour of the thing making the one player uncomfortable, so in your fabricated example it would be the whole group who enjoys spitting and doesn't want to stop.

[JusticeZero]

People keep talking about the creepy sex stuff as if it is some strange random coincidence that this is being discussed. it is not.

The situation we are discussing is more similar to this:
You are running a game with a bunch of people whose histories you do not know in any depth.

In your town, there is a startlingly high percentage of war veterans - one in six people you meet in the street may have actually been in a firefight, with real people trying to kill them. Many of those people have a lot of scars from that; they wake up in the middle of the night with the exact same nightmare playing in their head, screaming; if a car backfires in their neighborhood, it is all they can do not to dive for cover or reach for a gun they no longer carry to return fire at the enemy soldiers their mind is now screaming surround them.

Also in your town is a very high portion of anti-war activists openly aligned with the other side. These activists don't know who the soldiers are, but they hate them and have nothing good to say them. There are also some pro-war activists who want to lavish a lot of awkward and unwanted attention on the vets. So when vets are found out, their lives are very possibly going to get a lot more awkward.

Your decision as a DM in this case is "Hmm, I think it would be awesome if in the middle of my discussion of fantasy swordfighting that everybody is fine with, if I hit a button and set off a box of noisy fireworks just outside my window?"

The answer should be obviously "No, that's a really stupid idea." But the numbers I gave above are exactly the same as the IRL numbers for sexual issues.

Also, I keep seeing this assertion that the creeper in the original example was blameless. One, as noted, he waited until the victim's support network was away, then "made his move". Two, she did not accept, because she is described as having gone to great lengths to avoid the situation she was being directed toward.

[AMFV]

I have known people in general to do that sort of thing, not just women.

Women are much more likely to play the 'sexual victim' card when they aren't, because of the social reaction, male sexual victims are generally not regarded as sympathetically and are often the objects of humor or derision, which is a problem but not really one for discussion at this time.'

Which is not to say that men don't fake victim status to gain sympathy, it's just sexual victim status is for them less sympathetic, fake war veteran is a pretty common one for men.



You are right, we don't know what happened for certain, but we do have evidence that I spelled out before. And I cannot see that, even if he had a romantic story planned, not letting her do anything else but sleep with the NPC to get the story moving along as anything but creepy. And no we don't have enough evidence to be certain of his creep-level.....but we do have enough evidence to make it look as though he was being super creepy....at least to me. If he did it unintentionally, then he should have talked to her and explained to her that he didn't mean to make it so creepy....and because she never returned to the game I can say that this talk never happened with relative confidence.

Well we don't actually know that there was no other way to get around that obstacle. We don't have his side of the story. We know that she claimed that was her assumption, but we don't know if that assumption is correct, or if she is being honest. It is possible that it's creepy, but we don't have enough information.



Of course, that's different from situations where a specific member of the group is being targeted by another, but the solution is the same. Create a culture of empathy and respect where people don't fear speaking out. Social Pressure is a powerful tool, and once it's pointed out, people can be pretty good about telling the difference between "That's just the type of game i'm running" and deliberate harassment, and using social pressure to support the victim and shame the harasser into stopping. A good group dynamic can also encourage players and GMs to be aware of signs of discomfort from other group members and proactively offer support.

I concur, my main issue was when people were either claiming that the DM should have preemptively known she was bothered, or made assumptions regarding the guilt of the DM, which we didn't have enough information to be aware of.


People keep talking about the creepy sex stuff as if it is some strange random coincidence that this is being discussed. it is not.


Also, I keep seeing this assertion that the creeper in the original example was blameless. One, as noted, he waited until the victim's support network was away, then "made his move". Two, she did not accept, because she is described as having gone to great lengths to avoid the situation she was being directed toward.

What we are asserting isn't blamelessness but rather lack of evidence, there is only the one account, hers. And she may or may not be reliable, we don't know. I would say that odds are that he was being creepy. But I'm not sure that it's likely that he was aware of what he was doing. And it's possible that the entire story is a fabrication on her part, we simply don't know. We know that the neither she nor the author claimed to have confronted or spoken to the DM about his motivations. And we know that we have only one side in a highly charged encounter. It would be like if one of the anti-war activists came home and relayed a story about a war veteran going crazy. We don't have a clear account or clear knowledge of the circumstances, so we can't say one way or the other.

What we do have, is an article written by somebody who either took one party's side at face value, or used it to press their own agenda, which can be seen by the volatile and emotive nature of the piece it's intended to score internet views and provoke emotion, and that's not exactly congruous with present an honest unbiased account.

So let's be clear, I'm not saying he's blameless. I'm saying that we have absolutely no way to know where the blame really lies.

Furthermore, I am a Vet, with PTSD, and it is not anybody's responsibility to not have a good Fourth of July, on my account. Just because something is stressful for me doesn't give me an out of jail free card to avoid ever encountering that thing. Hell, my friends might even want to go to see fireworks, and if I can stomach that I'd certainly try.

[draken50]

Do you condone a woman seeking out cases where she might feel sexually harassed just so she can scream about it and call for vengeance against those she feels harassed her?

... I am frankly astonished to think that you believe this occurs with enough regularity for it to be a necessary consideration.

From your posts on here, the main thing that I can assume is that you are more concerned with protecting yourself from you can only imagine to be unjustified attacks on your character. The thing is, if your that concerned about it, logically you'd think you'd try to avoid actions/activities that could cast you in such a negative light.

While I hope you haven't had to deal with such a oddity in your personal life. I do recall one man I met who strongly espoused such views, ever concerned with how women could "unfairly" accuse a man of harassment of assault, who could not grasp the fact that the complaints leveled against him were entirely valid.

[White Blade]

... I am frankly astonished to think that you believe this occurs with enough regularity for it to be a necessary consideration.

From your posts on here, the main thing that I can assume is that you are more concerned with protecting yourself from you can only imagine to be unjustified attacks on your character. The thing is, if your that concerned about it, logically you'd think you'd try to avoid actions/activities that could cast you in such a negative light.

While I hope you haven't had to deal with such a oddity in your personal life. I do recall one man I met who strongly espoused such views, ever concerned with how women could "unfairly" accuse a man of harassment of assault, who could not grasp the fact that the complaints leveled against him were entirely valid.

Good move man. Good thing you're here to make tacit accusations with no basis in reality.

Segev has been pretty clear that he believes a person can only be held responsible when alerted for an action, but he has also clearly stated that he would hold such a person responsible. He also said he had experience of seeing someone do this very thing in front of him (but not to him, or so I understood). Maybe he did or didn't, but really, you don't know that any better or worse than you know what the woman in the article.

I'm not on Segev or Sarthrina or AMFV's side, for the record. I'm on my side. I've already said my opinion of how to conduct sensitive topics, people can agree or disagree with that, but it isn't stated in this post.

Also, that quote is badly out of context.

[Aedilred]

In emergency situations, high-stress situations, people freeze. I've read about it. Its something that requires training and experience for someone to be able to react rationally in situations they are unprepared for. You can look it up, there's books on it.

And just to add to that, what's needed to trigger a freezing moment, etc. isn't necessarily all that much. People might look at the details of the case in the article and say "why, that's barely even sexual harassment!" (classy) but that's still enough to put people into a spin, where their responses are probably going to be less than optimal.

Case in point: I have a friend who is normally quite sharp and witty, has no problems standing up for herself, etc. A few years ago she was sort-of-groped, publicly, by a senior colleague at a work party. As these things go, it was about as minor as such an event could get, but she said afterwards that in that moment she just had no idea what to do or say. You can think up a million brilliant comebacks once you're out of that situation, but in the moment, the shock, stress and embarrassment just made her freeze up, and she didn't say or do anything. And nor did anyone else, although those who witnessed it were sympathetic afterwards.

(Even past experience of such doesn't necessarily help - a few months after that she was having dinner with her boyfriend and got a real-life indecent proposal from a guy at the next table. Again, while she did manage to blurt out a "no", her response was nowhere near as assured, confident or decisive as one might expect from her).

[detritus]

Just one question - what kind of sad individual even *wants* to put in sexual content, let alone a character rape in a table top RPG?

[Segev]

... I am frankly astonished to think that you believe this occurs with enough regularity for it to be a necessary consideration.I don't doubt that it is utterly unusual for somebody to deliberately go seek out cases where they can get mugged or literally raped.

However, since we've been using literal rape as a metaphor for gaming-table sexual harassment (which is something I've pushed for us not to do, but people keep insisting on going back to the even more emotionally-charged metaphor), I did use it as a counter-example.

Do you believe that somebody who deliberately puts themselves in situations where they can claim they are being sexually harassed and/or otherwise made uncomfortable is deserving of sympathy for their situation? You haven't actually answered the question; you instead seek still to cast aspersions on my character and dismiss the question.

I have nothing BUT sympathy for genuine victims. I start to question the genuineness of their victimhood when they voluntarily recreate it over and over. It may be more legitimate than totally fabricated victimhood, wherein somebody merely CLAIMS it has happened, but it still is less worthy of sympathy.

As for this kind of sympathy-fishing and manipulation being rare...I hope it is. But there is a psychological disorder known as Munchhausen Syndrome, which applies specifically to people who deliberately make themselves sick in order to garner sympathy and to manipulate and control others around them. The danger of elevating victim status to inviolability and enforcing the will of the most offended is that it increases the same sort of behavior in even the mentally well; now they need merely find excuse to have the thinnest skin to get their special treatment.


From your posts on here, the main thing that I can assume is that you are more concerned with protecting yourself from you can only imagine to be unjustified attacks on your character. The thing is, if your that concerned about it, logically you'd think you'd try to avoid actions/activities that could cast you in such a negative light.

While I hope you haven't had to deal with such a oddity in your personal life. I do recall one man I met who strongly espoused such views, ever concerned with how women could "unfairly" accuse a man of harassment of assault, who could not grasp the fact that the complaints leveled against him were entirely valid.
Fortunately, no, I have never been such a target in specific. In fact, other than those who decide that I must be a sexist (or whatever) because I do not agree with whatever their preferred social cause happens to be, I don't get accused of sexism or any other form of bigotry much at all.

However, it is precisely because I see the charge of bigotry, in one form or another, used to dismiss any discussion that does not reflect 100% support for the most radical of positions that I get very defensive about this sort of thing.

Cast aspersions on my character all you like; I don't know you IRL and you probably wouldn't know me on the street or even if you saw my real name in a list of people. You can literally do me no harm by assuming the worst about me if you like. However, I get very testy when people debate dishonestly, even if they don't realize they're doing so.

My position on the topic in this thread has been pretty consistent: Talk about it if something is bothering you, and work things out with the group as best you can. If they're too immature to deal with you politely, just leave. You also should leave if they maturely agree that you have a right to be uncomfortable, but they still want to run things as they were going. But there is the possibility that they'll agree to tone it down or change subject matter to accommodate you. I absolve nobody who deliberately attempts to make somebody uncomfortable or to manipulate them unkindly. I have sympathy for those who must deal with such things. My sympathy diminishes as they more and more deliberately subject themselves to it, even as it does not absolve the perpetrator. I do, however, reserve the right to consider the alleged perpetrator blameless if he cannot be shown to have known he was in the wrong, and no effort was made to enlighten him. That does not seem to be the case in the tale that started this thread, but I wish to caution people against taking this tale and extrapolating it to "all DMs who make a player uncomfortable are automatically creeps."

[draken50]

Also, that quote is badly out of context.

Please explain to me how I was using the quote out of context:

"Oh, for crying...

It's not "you didn't do enough." It's "why do you keep putting yourself back in that situation?" or "why did you voluntarily stay when you had every chance to extricate yourself?"

Or are you saying that somebody who deliberately seeks out situations to be victimized is as deserving of sympathy as the person who is victimized despite doing all they could to avoid and escape it?

Do you condone a woman seeking out cases where she might feel sexually harassed just so she can scream about it and call for vengeance against those she feels harassed her?"

Speaking from MY personal experience, I have seen the opposite of the example Segev provided. However, that particular quote to me, especially considering the original context would imply that women who have complaints about harassment or assault, are doing it for ATTENTION.

Additionally, the main thread that I have been reading, though I am admittedly also working seems to now be going in the direction of "How do we know she's not just a liar." Which is a common result of many real life situations of this nature. The fact is, there is a problem. If you'd care to speak to women about the issue, it's incredibly common both at, and away from the table.

In fact I have a player in my current Earthdawn game, who was very hesitant to join, and quite nervous in play in the beginning because in the first and only game she had played in at that point she overhead the Storyteller saying "She sucks, and she opens her mouth too much, but she's really hot so I let her stay." I've heard similar stories for probably 4 out of 5 of the woman I've run a game for. (She's actually one of the best players I've had too.)

[Segev]

Just one question - what kind of sad individual even *wants* to put in sexual content, let alone a character rape in a table top RPG?

What kind of sad individual wants to put such things into any fictional medium?

If it can be justified in other media, it can be justified in tabletop RPG.

[Boci]

Just one question - what kind of sad individual even *wants* to put in sexual content, let alone a character rape in a table top RPG?

Someone playing Vampire: the Masquerade where a third level blood bond comes up? People who are okay with showing the most horrible action possibly within the game’s world? People who enjoy exploring the extreme lengths of sentient cruelty and the dynamics that arise from this?

[draken50]

As for this kind of sympathy-fishing and manipulation being rare...I hope it is. But there is a psychological disorder known as Munchhausen Syndrome, which applies specifically to people who deliberately make themselves sick in order to garner sympathy and to manipulate and control others around them. The danger of elevating victim status to inviolability and enforcing the will of the most offended is that it increases the same sort of behavior in even the mentally well; now they need merely find excuse to have the thinnest skin to get their special treatment."

.... So, now... deliberately avoiding scenarios of a sexual nature, most particularly related to those of a non-consensual manner, without explicitly discussing it with your group first... Is not something that should be done.. due to Munchhausen Syndrome? I'm not following.


I wish to caution people against taking this tale and extrapolating it to "all DMs who make a player uncomfortable are automatically creeps.""

I don't know who has said that. I believe the creep part was coming in from "DM's forcing unwanted sexual encounters on their players are creeps."

Edit: Actually, I think anyone forcing unwanted sexual encounters are creeps. Players do it to.

[Kalmageddon]

Unfortunately, this is not true. It is, however, very frustrating to deal with, and causes a lot of problems.

Again - some people are very bad at communicating/picking up on other's communications.

So except saying "nuh-hu, it's not true" do you have any actual arguments?

[Segev]

.... So, now... deliberately avoiding scenarios of a sexual nature, most particularly related to those of a non-consensual manner, without explicitly discussing it with your group first... Is not something that should be done.. due to Munchhausen Syndrome? I'm not following.Obviously not.

I'll be the first to advocate keeping things PG-13 or even PG. The problem is that what people expect is "acceptable" in those criteria STILL can be fuzzy. I'm all for explicit discussion if you have any reason to suspect what you're planning will be of questionable taste or uncomfortable for any of your players. I'm not quite willing to say that anybody who makes a bad assumption about what IS acceptable is automatically a bad person. Just a poor judge of audience. And if you don't so much as speak up to say "this is not something I want to do," it is possible the perpetrator in question doesn't know he's offending you.

I'm actually quite the prude. I've been on the receiving end of overly-sexualized situations. When I've spoken up about how it made me uncomfortable, the table either agreed to tone it back a bit, or I left the game. Usually, even the latter was not on bad terms; it was just determined that this was not the game for me. Had I "suffered in silence," except then I went and complained to others about how awful everybody was being to me by forcing that on me, I'd have been the one at fault. Nobody else was having issue with it; they were having fun with the subject matter being explored.


I think anyone forcing unwanted sexual encounters are creeps. Players do it to.I doubt anybody is actually arguing otherwise. However, as it's a GAME, what is "unwanted" by the player may be less clear than what is unwanted by the character. It is therefore uncouth to assume malice rather than merely different comfort levels with what the story contains. Especially if you don't even bother to object, and make it clear your objection is OOC.

Certainly, nobody is claiming that somebody who persists in such behavior after being told "Dude, not cool" is in any way justified. But I do not think it overmuch to expect a benefit of a doubt be given enough to say, "Dude, not cool," and see if it ends with that before assuming the worst of the alleged jerk.

[obryn]

What about games that do though? Like Vampire: The Masquerade. Is it the rest of the group's responsibility to defy a significant mechanic of the setting lore (the main reason you play WoD), or is it every player's responsibility to be okay with the possibility?
It's something you should probably cover before the game begins, or when inviting a new player. This falls under "consenting adults."

It's perfectly possible to run a less rapey vampire game, if that's what the table wants.

[Segev]

So except saying "nuh-hu, it's not true" do you have any actual arguments?

Well, I've mentioned that I've been told, after the fact, that social events have included people who were made uncomfortable or even angry by things going on with which I personally had no problem, and in which I was participating. I had no idea, despite interacting with them. Does that count as "actual argument" in support of her point?

[AMFV]

Speaking from MY personal experience, I have seen the opposite of the example Segev provided. However, that particular quote to me, especially considering the original context would imply that women who have complaints about harassment or assault, are doing it for ATTENTION.

I've never seen a woman report a sexual altercation simply for attention, but I have seen on more than occasion a jilted lover do it for revenge. I've seen women report harassment because they felt they were being treated poorly at work. I've known only a few women who were genuinely assaulted (that I know of), and a few men, and the people who are dishonest about that sort of thing, the people who treat an innocuous comment as sexual harassment, those are the people that make it harder for the real victims to be taken seriously.



Additionally, the main thread that I have been reading, though I am admittedly also working seems to now be going in the direction of "How do we know she's not just a liar." Which is a common result of many real life situations of this nature. The fact is, there is a problem. If you'd care to speak to women about the issue, it's incredibly common both at, and away from the table.

Well the point is that women (also men, although that's rarer since social sympathy for male victims of abuse is less) do lie about that in real life. Not all women, but it happens. That is why we should expect proof before rushing to judgement. And not only do we have no way of knowing if the woman is being honest, the story is being presented by a third party, and what's worse, a third party with a personal agenda in the story being spun a particular way.

And people do lie for attention, full stop, they do. There has been at least one case I've read on Humans of New York, where somebody claimed to have committed military atrocities for attention, even though they clearly had no idea what they were talking about. People lie for attention, women claim to have been raped, children claim to have been molested. I'm not saying that all claims are fallacious, in fact I think that it's estimated that between ten and twenty percent are (don't quote me on that I haven't read the statistics in a long time), but that's enough that you should insist on proof if being asked to judge somebody else.



In fact I have a player in my current Earthdawn game, who was very hesitant to join, and quite nervous in play in the beginning because in the first and only game she had played in at that point she overhead the Storyteller saying "She sucks, and she opens her mouth too much, but she's really hot so I let her stay." I've heard similar stories for probably 4 out of 5 of the woman I've run a game for. (She's actually one of the best players I've had too.)

Well she was treated unfairly, although if she had then chosen to stay in their group, she would have to accept that they viewed her as eye candy, no? Since that was made clear. I can see how that would be unsettling, but being accused of sexual harassment without cause would be equally unsettling to a male player.

Edit: Or even accused with cause, if the person believed that the other person was sending signals that they weren't. It happens sometimes people can make assumptions about other people's intentions particular vis a vis relationships whch are unfounded. Also what exactly constitutes sexual harassment isn't exactly an agreed on definition for everybody.

[Boci]

It's something you should probably cover before the game begins, or when inviting a new player. This falls under "consenting adults."

I agree, its just in these threads someone usually ends up saying "there's no good reason to have rape in games", which whilst easily to understand why they would think so, its a generalization and thus is probably going to be wrong.


It's perfectly possible to run a less rapey vampire game, if that's what the table wants.

Obviously, but you have to ignore setting lore to do so, and even for such groups, it will be very difficult to have ghouls in the story without a hint battered spouse sydrome.

[AMFV]

I agree, its just in these threads someone usually ends up saying "there's no good reason to have rape in games", which whilst easily to understand why they would think so, its a generalization and thus is probably going to be wrong.

It's also worth noting that certain things may bother people that they may not realize on the onset. VtM has a pretty unusual advantage in that sexual topics will probably be discussed beforehand, so people will know people's comfort levels, but other games that may not come up beforehand.

[JusticeZero]

We don't have his side of the story. We know that she claimed that was her assumption, but we don't know if that assumption is correct, or if she is being honest.There is very little reason to think that she was being any less than honest.
I would say that odds are that he was being creepy. But I'm not sure that it's likely that he was aware of what he was doing.That in itself is a good reason to put down all of the assumptions you are fighting against.
Furthermore, I am a Vet, with PTSD, and it is not anybody's responsibility to not have a good Fourth of July, on my account. Just because something is stressful for me doesn't give me an out of jail free card to avoid ever encountering that thing. Hell, my friends might even want to go to see fireworks, and if I can stomach that I'd certainly try.
This isn't about 4th of July, when you know there will be fireworks. This isn't about you deciding whether or not to go to a fireworks show. This is about it being mid-September or some other time nowhere near 7/4, you're doing something with friends, and out of the blue they set off a bunch of fireworks next to you without warning. Then people start saying "What's the big deal, it's just fireworks. You're being unreasonable. Maybe you're lying."

[draken50]

those are the people that make it harder for the real victims to be taken seriously..

The real victims huh? You know.. the ones who suffered "Legitimate" rape


Well the point is that women (also men, although that's rarer since social sympathy for male victims of abuse is less) .

Hmmmmm.. ya know.. I'm just taking a wild stab at this, but it might be because... well... women are at far far far greater risk of domestic violence and sexual abuse.


People lie for attention, women claim to have been raped, children claim to have been molested. I'm not saying that all claims are fallacious, in fact I think that it's estimated that between ten and twenty percent are

So we should just ignore the far greater percentage of children who are actually molested? Or the women who are actually assaulted? Yes, certainly... should absolutely suffer for the actions of others, after all, caring is much harder.



Well she was treated unfairly, although if she had then chosen to stay in their group, she would have to accept that they viewed her as eye candy, no?

This is a reasonable attitude to you? You don't see any reason why it might be worthwhile to work on maybe... you know... Treating women like actual people?

[Boci]

The real victims huh? You know.. the ones who suffered "Legitimate" rape

Comments like this make it very hard for me to agree with you despite raising some good points. No, I imagine the real victims to AMFV are the women who suffer rape, whilst the not real victims may include women who invent rape charges, which is a small percentage, but not an insignificant one.

[Arbane]

But is that conceit of the rules, or the players? D&D included from the start succubi, incubi, nymphs and dozen other sexual creepy-crawlies of human myths. Then there's Whitewolf's World of Darkness and Exalted. Considering inspiration for early RPGs and lot of modern fantasy and horror fiction (Conan, Lovecraft etc.), I feel rather safe in saying the possibility has always been there and has been capitalized on regular basis. The desire to either implicitly or explicitly ban such content came later on.

In any case, to me it's a laughable idea to treat sexual assault as a no-no when vast majority of fantasy games still involve and glorify murder and thievery.

I'm going to go out on a limb here, and guess that the vast majority of RPG players have not suffered a traumatic incident where they were murdered.

I saw a post somewhere a few days back where someone went through the Pathfinder bestiary books, and looked for monsters to whom sex was a big part of their description. Surprise, surprise, they were almost all either female or rapists. (Or both, in a few cases.)



Just one question - what kind of sad individual even *wants* to put in sexual content, let alone a character rape in a table top RPG?

Eh, people who DO want sex in their game? Some are sniggering 14-year-olds, others are sniggering 40-year olds, some are people of any age who want that extra drama to be part of the plot. It's part of life, and as long as the players are OK with it, I don't see a problem.

[Segev]

The real victims huh? You know.. the ones who suffered "Legitimate" rapeAs opposed to those who claim it falsely for whatever reason? Absolutely. Do you perhaps recall the Duke LaCrosse team case? That entire fiasco turned out to be an utter lie that gained traction because the prosecutor wanted a campaign issue. And yes, the fact that this one was a lie DOES mean some will look at legitimate cases of rape with more skepticism, and that DOES hurt genuine victims. Your dismissive, seriousness-of-the-charge attitude only contributes to making the populace at large jaded and to causing more harm than good.


Hmmmmm.. ya know.. I'm just taking a wild stab at this, but it might be because... well... women are at far far far greater risk of domestic violence and sexual abuse.To use your logic in analyzing others' statements, then, you must be condoning men who are such victims having to "suck it up" because they are at less risk. So obviously they're lesser people for succumbing to that risk that is so much less for them.

Or, if you prefer, I'll analyze it the way I'd rather you analyzed everybody else's points: You're right, that is true. Men are at less risk, statistically. But that doesn't make it any less heinous when it happens to them, nor the men any less worthy of sympathy.



So we should just ignore the far greater percentage of children who are actually molested? Or the women who are actually assaulted? Yes, certainly... should absolutely suffer for the actions of others, after all, caring is much harder.Once again, you are resorting to straw men and ad hominem. "Disagreeing with me means you want children to be molested, you awful person, you!"

Nobody even suggested what you impute, here. What is suggested is that we should actually investigate such claims, and seek proof before we ruin anybody's life over it. If a woman or child is in possible need of immediate protection, of COURSE we should act to protect them. But we should never assume the charge is true to the point of assigning punishment and taking life-destroying action against the accused until the case is proven. You know, like responsible adults.


This is a reasonable attitude to you? You don't see any reason why it might be worthwhile to work on maybe... you know... Treating women like actual people?[/QUOTE]Nobody's suggested otherwise, except you. You're the one suggesting they're such special fragile flowers that their charges shouldn't be investigated and that they should be treated with greater sympathy than men. The rest of us want to treat them like people. People whose claims must be verified, but deserve protection if they seem to be in immediate danger WHILE that danger is verified.

Why is it that some people think themselves champions of women/minorities/children, demand such be treated like people, and then try to treat them like something else entirely by applying a double standard?

[warty goblin]

.
Hmmmmm.. ya know.. I'm just taking a wild stab at this, but it might be because... well... women are at far far far greater risk of domestic violence and sexual abuse.


[Content Warning: Sexual and Domestic Violence Statistics.]

Studies since the nineteen-seventies have consistently found essentially similar in rates of domestic violence victimization between genders. In that sense the risks are close to equal. On the other hand, men are generally bigger, and so tend to do more damage when they perpetrate domestic violence than women do. So in that sense, the risks are worse for women. On a third hand, there are far more resources available for women who are victims of domestic violence at the hands of a man than vice versa, so in that sense the risks are unequal in the other direction. Recent studies (http://www.slate.com/articles/double_x/doublex/2014/04/male_rape_in_america_a_new_study_reveals_that_men_ are_sexually_assaulted.html) have also found a much smaller differential in rates of sexual violence victimization between men and women than is commonly reported, including a sizable portion of cases where the perpetrator is female and the victim male. Note that in many definitions, female-on-male rape is literally impossible, which is one possible reason for historical under-reporting of this particular category of crime.

The data are more or less similar (http://www.gaylesbiantimes.com/?id=5157) in same-sex relationships as well. The lifetime risk of sexual assault by a woman for a woman who engages in romantic relationships with women is apparently one in three, with a domestic violence rate in female same-sex relationships of one in four. The rate of sexual abuse in young gay men is even higher, although that source does not speculate on the sexual orientation of the perpetrators.


So far as I can make out, the statistics do not appear to support the traditional narrative that domestic and sexual violence is perpetrated almost exclusively by men, and almost exclusively against women.

[SMEE]

The Rainbow Mod: Thread closed for review.