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ORIGINAL: LadyPact

I would like a word with you on the other side, peon, if you should have the time.

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ORIGINAL: PeonForHer

I'm sorry that you feel that way, VC, but it it doesn't change my feelings nor my opinion of the Domme in question. 

I get what you're trying to achieve by invoking the 'who are you to judge what other people get off on' line, but it doesn't wash.  It doesn't matter to me what people get off on, so long as it isn't ultimately dangerous.

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I'm quite sure that some men, maybe lots of men, will have frenziedly tried to get together with her, precisely because of her far-out, ultra-sadistic profile.  That doesn't alter the fact, though, that she was a nitwit who wasn't remotely ready to dominate anyone.  Handing over the power of dominance to her would have been like giving a machine gun to a toddler. 

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I must say:  all I did was write one cmail to her that, no doubt, put the wind up her.  Nonetheless, I'd hardly call that a crusade.  She'll have got over it and learned, hopefully rapidly, that not all malesubs are as mad as she'd like them to be.  I was a lot more lenient on her, in fact, than some Domme friends of mine thought I should have been.  You, on the other hand, are defending a woman here who a) was clearly being nutty and stupid and b) you don't know whatsoever. 

You, though, seem to be on a bit of a crusade here, yourself.  You're not a silly, childish woman - not by far - so why are you defending some anonymous woman who is?  I've seen you weigh in against peabrained 'Dommes' here on the boards.  In fact, I've seen you being almost surprisingly (but rightly) quite heavy on them.  So . . . what gives, in this particular case?

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Three things give:

1) One of my former teachers had a profile when I first got here. I spent several years shit-scared they would  message me. The thought still gives me chills, so I know how you could have made her feel. That teacher knew my parents, they knew my friends, they knew my local community. So I don't see it as funny and I don't see it as harmless.

2) There's a difference between responding negatively to someone who's actively posting on a board, who has made an active decision to enter into a dialogue, and randomly being vicious and cruel to someone who doesn't even know you exist. You ought to know that.

3) What's really upsetting me is that you keep saying that you're *glad* that you did something so unpleasant to a stranger. You were proud of yourself when you told me the story, you were proud of yourself when you posted it here, and you keep defending being deliberately nasty to someone I can empathise with. That's really the only ugly side of you I've ever seen, Peon, but it *is* ugly.

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ORIGINAL: PeonForHer

VC, I have to say again that you'd not be defending this woman if you'd seen her profile.  Or, at least, I'd hope you'd not defend her because I'd think there was something wrong with you if you did.  I might not see you as ugly, but I'd see you differently.  That would certainly be the case if you'd talked of 'empathising' with her. 

You ask, 'how do I know that she was dangerous?'  I'd ask you - how do you know that she's safe?  That's the more important thing.  When I first came to CM ShaktiSama warned me about being blase with a femdom just because I'm male.  She was right to do so.  It doesn't matter how tiny a woman is, if you let her tie you up, or - perhaps worse - let her into your head too far . . . yes, it's a concern.

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Most of the time I think I can 'read through' a woman's profile and feel comfortable that what I'm seeing is all front, all fantasy and just drama.  On past experience, I do think I'm sharp enough at seeing people's characters.   But I'd never have put myself in the position of being physically restricted by that woman.  I still don't think she was 'downright evil', but I could see enough to know that she had at least a streak of that, and that she was silly enough, as well, to do something badly wrong.

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So, you talk of having the chills regarding your ex teacher who had a profile here - I talk of chills about that woman.  Nonetheless, I'm sorry that you had that worry about that ex-teacher.  The fact that you spent 'several years shit-scared that they'd message you' must have been horrible.  On the other hand if the Domme I'm talking about had felt similarly - assuming she took my message seriously, that is - the feeling would have lasted until, at most, the morning after I sent it.  It was on that morning that she looked at my profile and would have seen my face - and known for certain that I'd never taught her.

She'd also have seen pictures of me, naked.  She'd have therefore had an armoury of info that she could have used against me had I been a teacher she'd known - which was something that only occurred to me a lot later.  Pictures of me, downloaded, emailed to her friends, to the school?  No problem.  I'd have had ten times more chills than you if I'd been your teacher, VC, and had discovered that you were using the same BDSM site as me. 

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I've seen many Dommes' profiles here at CM, by now, as you might imagine.  But I've never seen one before, or since, like hers.  Beneath all the blather in a woman's profile, something will reassure me that she's OK.  This one was an exception.  She wasn't kosher.  I regret, actually, not writing more fully to her to ask her what the hell kind of trip she was on. 

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I don't know that she's safe. She may not be. But she has the right to put whatever the hell she likes in her profile. You don't have to let her tie you up or let her into your head, you don't have to be blase with her because you *don't have to engage with her*. I'm not suggesting you should have jumped into bed with the woman, I'm suggesting you should have stayed away from her.

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And if you think that my standing up for a woman's right not to be threatened (and 'didn't I used to teach you?' *is* a threat) regardless of whatever bullshit she wants to put out would make you think differently of me then perhaps you don't know me that well.

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And again, you have no idea if she'd ever go through with anything in her profile. Nobody is expecting you to put yourself in that position! If you don't like the profile then you move on. 

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With all due respect, Peon, unless the photos you use on this site have significantly changed since then she would have seen a couple of porn shots and a face shot that could have belonged to *anyone*. There is no guarantee that the person writing the email is the person in the photo. A geography teacher could easily have seen pictures of a body like yours on another site and thought 'I'll pinch that'. You're being naive.

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What if the teacher gets exposed and they decide it was my fault? They've already been sacked, what do they have to lose by sending a quick note to my parents, my friends' parents? What's to stop them setting up an anonymous facebook profile and inviting every single person I know to a group outing me? They know my full name, remember-they taught me.

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Well I'm afraid this is one situation where I don't feel I can trust your judgement.

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ORIGINAL: ourmsbetty
Peon, I understand that you were trying to do something good here. However, what people are trying to help you understand is that appearances are not always what they seem and you may well have done more harm than you meant to.

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ORIGINAL: PeonForHer

No, 'didn't I used to teach you?' wasn't a threat.  On the other hand what she'd written in her profile could easily have been taken as threatening, as well as either hilarious, disturbing, or both.

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What I am beginning to wonder, VC, is whether you're capable of disengaging from an imagined identification with this woman and seeing it from a sub's point of view.  This sub's point of view - one who you know well.

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You insist that I look at in terms of 'how do you know she wasn't lying in her profile about what she wanted to do'.  I'll continue to insist that the appropriate question is, 'how do you know that she wasn't lying?'  Should I automatically assume that what a Domme says is BS unless what she says is nice and acceptable?   Would you do that with a sub?

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But this is getting somewhat screwy, now.  Some man, a teacher, gets together naked pictures of another man, along with a photo of his face, and puts them all together into a profile - and then writes to this woman?  Why?  OK, I could just about imagine some nutty reasons why.

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But I think you're reaching very, very far to demand that I satisfy every possible source of paranoia in this woman while at the same time extending her every possible benefit of the doubt regarding her essential goodness, flatly against what she'd said in her profile.

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Nothing is to stop any former teacher 'outing' you.  But you don't have a teaching career.  What you do have, though, is lots of friends who are much more likely to be accepting of your orientations.  Anyone in this teacher's position would have far more to lose than you.  If you don't know how scared teachers are of vendettas from schoolkids under their charge these days . . . well, I think you need to read the education sections in the papers more often.

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Tell me, in your experience, have I generally erred on the side of being suspicious of dommes - of women in general - or have I erred on the side of being forgiving towards them?   If I'm going to make a mistake regarding whether a woman's a good sort underneath it all, or a bad sort - which is it most likely to be?

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At no point during any of it have you suggested that I should have gone further to deal with a woman who was potentially dangerous - other than to leave her entirely alone to find other subs with whom to pursue her agenda.

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That leaves me wondering quite a lot about your own judgement.

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ORIGINAL: PeonForHer

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ORIGINAL: ourmsbetty
Peon, I understand that you were trying to do something good here. However, what people are trying to help you understand is that appearances are not always what they seem and you may well have done more harm than you meant to.

Thanks, betty - but I don't need people to help me understand that appearances aren't what they seem.  To repeat, I don't generally see bad things in dommes that aren't there.  I tend to miss them, if anything. 

Actually, I don't think I did anything much of anything to this woman.  What harm she might have done to others, though, is something else again.  That's by far the more important consideration for me.  People are adults here - yes - but adults do silly things - as we're often telling people on these forums.

come to think of it, there are a couple old teachers of mine I wouldn't mind getting my hands on...

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ORIGINAL: VaguelyCurious

Don't give me that 'you can't see this from my point of view' nonsense because I've been in your position. Block, report, delete.

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I don't know she wasn't lying. But if someone of any orientation says something extreme to the point you are implying then yes my default assumption is absolutely that they are bullshitting, and I don't get to know them well enough to find out either way.

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I'm not reaching far at all. She gets a message from a man claiming to be her teacher. She believes him and freaks out. It's what I would do in that situation. How is that reaching?

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I'm not saying she's 'essentially good' because I don't know anything about her. I'm saying what you did was wrong, and being so proud of what you did is unpleasant. This doesn't really have anything to do with her.

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Peon, I know how scared teachers are of vendettas. But teachers aren't always teachers forever-and at the point where they retire/leave they know a lot more about me than I do about them.

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Tell me, in your experience, have I generally erred on the side of being suspicious of dommes - of women in general - or have I erred on the side of being forgiving towards them?   If I'm going to make a mistake regarding whether a woman's a good sort underneath it all, or a bad sort - which is it most likely to be?

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That's a point, but in my experience you also aren't malicious, you aren't nasty, you don't crow about upsetting people-this is outside the realm of my experience with you.

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At no point during any of it have you suggested that I should have gone further to deal with a woman who was potentially dangerous - other than to leave her entirely alone to find other subs with whom to pursue her agenda.

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Because I don't consider it up to you to take steps against someone whose profile you disapprove of. People say what they want to say, they do what they want to do. It isn't up to you to police the internet.

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ORIGINAL: ourmsbetty
Alright, peon, you think you did the right thing. We are unlikely to convince you otherwise. I doubt you are the first to give into the urge to drive off a perceived threat. Hopefully you were right.

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ORIGINAL: dreamerdreaming

*reports VC to the FBI*

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ORIGINAL: PeonForHer
It also looks like we're unlikely to convince VC that this woman was as nasty as I've said.  The urge I gave into was the one that was too lazy/uncommital to do more, is my view.

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ORIGINAL: PeonForHer

This is the first time I've seen you entertain the idea that I should have done anything other than just ignore that woman.  OK.  I didn't do any of that.  I should have done, at the very least.

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Actually, that's my default position, too.  In fact, it's been my only position outside of this case.  Maybe you should ask yourself why, in this case, I took a different view.

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It's 'reaching' to assume that she'd think that the person who sent her the message was anyone other than the person who was depicted in the profile attached to that message.

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My photos hardly look as though they were all pulled off the net.

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Yes, I do get that you think what I did was 'unpleasant'. I will say, again, that you wouldn't be saying that if you'd seen the profile.  My concern wasn't, and isn't, about my 'unpleasantness' or otherwise.  It's about hers.  For the record, I find it unpleasant of you that you can't get beyond seeing 'me' towards what I've said I saw in her.  But as you said, you don't trust my judgement, now.  That's one reason why this discussion is ultimately going to be fruitless.

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Hmm.  OK, this does seem a bit like reaching again.  But, that aside, my profile showed my true age at the time.  I would have been some twenty five years away from retirement.

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Yes . . . once again, I do understand that you now feel me to be malicious, nasty, etc, etc.

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Once again, I think you need to assume that this person may not have reacted the way you did with your bona fide teacher.  She certainly didn't read like the sort who'd scare easily.  She did the scaring, not vice versa.

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One person's 'Who elected you to be the policeman here?' is another person's 'Why were you so lazy and apathetic that you stood by and said nothing?'  Actually, if anything, I erred on the side of the latter.

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ORIGINAL: PeonForHer

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ORIGINAL: ourmsbetty
Alright, peon, you think you did the right thing. We are unlikely to convince you otherwise. I doubt you are the first to give into the urge to drive off a perceived threat. Hopefully you were right.

It also looks like we're unlikely to convince VC that this woman was as nasty as I've said.  The urge I gave into was the one that was too lazy/uncommital to do more, is my view.