This sounds like the exact same argument my ex high school friends used to use when overusing the word “r*ped” when playing video games because it’s apparently “just a metaphor for a power dynamic”.
(Not the person who down voted you)
There is a small difference between those things 😅. Rape is not the same thing as fellatio, using fellatio in a metaphor is not making light of a trauma caused by sexual abuse. I’m not even sure how its homophobic given it doesnt specifiy the gender of the person sucking someone’s dick. Its not a specifically gay sex act, people give straight blowjobs all the time (I, as a masc identifing person have given straight blowjobs)
If someone prefers folks don’t use “fellate” as a euphemism for indulgent gratification of another person in a metaphorical sense, similar to “sucking up to someone”, “patting eachother on the back”, or licking boots (though thats specifically about doing so to authority, so not really applicable) thats valid, I can respect that.
It didn’t occur to me someone might not appreciate that usage of the term, and if thats not within reasonable behavior for this space in the eyes of moderation thats okay-
deleting the comment and then leaving a reply implying I said something horrific, however, is less cool. Thats a dick move, and pretty transparently a bad faith behavior that feels intended to punish me for voicing frustration with .ml
Which again, I’ve had many positive interactions with folks from the instance. But it is certainly not without its frustrations and outright unpleasantness at times.
Yeah sorry, I wasn’t trying to equate the two words, just the arguments to defend using them. I can agree that the words hold very different weights.
There’s an argument to be made, even though “fellate” might be something that is done by a wide variety of sexualities, it has history and that history is as a homophobic insult. Sure, words can be reclaimed by the gay community, but the metaphor of sucking dick as a subservient action is so fucking pervasive (especially in discussions about politics for some reason) and it points towards unexamined patterns of language that are very harmful. Add on the borderline ableism at the end and it comes across as bad faith at the start, so it’s no wonder a mod responds like this.
I think you and I may have different definitions of “bad faith” 😅 I’m not sure what part of what I said was in some way disingenuous, or misrepresented my sentiment. My positive comments were direct and sincere, and my negative comments were also direct and sincere. I’m not really sure what the deception or misrepresentation would be. It doesnt just mean disagreeable, it means that someone is engaging insincerely or in a way that is disingenuous. That they’re misrepresenting their motives.
The argument that I called “dumb and vapid” argument was essentially: “here, I drew a straw man of you where you’re obviously wrong and don’t know what you’re taking about”. In that image intended to portray the person they’re disagreeing with as stupid they gave them buck teeth. Which is very explicitly an actual ableist stereotype associated with the dental deformities that often come with severe developmental disabilities, that the artist is using as visual shorthand. Using a drawing to straw man people you disagree with is a hollow, ill substantiated way to argue your point. And it is intentionally so. It does not try to be a serious argument. It is a intentionally, choicefully-without-merit argumentative strategy.
Personally, as a disabled person presently struggling to navigate the world due to my disability, the idea that calling someone’s intentionally meritless argument in a given exchange “dumb and vapid” constitutes ableism feels like it stretches the term well past the point at which it becomes entirely meaningless. Arguments and behavior can be dumb. I don’t think its a compelling argument to say it’s bigotry to call someone’s crappy and ill-conceived behavior/argument “dumb”, and I don’t think it justifies them deleting my comment and then going out of their way to publicly insinuate what I’m clearly just a shitty person.
We all have things to unpack, and if you wanna tell me as a queer disabled person that I should unpack how I use the word fellate or dumb, you can do so, I have no doubt that I will be unpacking things for the rest of my life (Hopefully we all will). But I’m still gonna tell you its crappy bad faith behavior to delete the comment because homophobia can be read into it and then try to immediately assassinate my character so no one questions whether the comment was deleted because it was critical of their instance. Since that would be a disingenuous and insincere way to use their power as a moderator.
Sorry for the ridiculous wall of text, maybe someday I’ll learn how to be concise about conveying what I mean. Clearly that day isnt today 😅
This sounds like the exact same argument my ex high school friends used to use when overusing the word “r*ped” when playing video games because it’s apparently “just a metaphor for a power dynamic”.
(Not the person who down voted you) There is a small difference between those things 😅. Rape is not the same thing as fellatio, using fellatio in a metaphor is not making light of a trauma caused by sexual abuse. I’m not even sure how its homophobic given it doesnt specifiy the gender of the person sucking someone’s dick. Its not a specifically gay sex act, people give straight blowjobs all the time (I, as a masc identifing person have given straight blowjobs)
If someone prefers folks don’t use “fellate” as a euphemism for indulgent gratification of another person in a metaphorical sense, similar to “sucking up to someone”, “patting eachother on the back”, or licking boots (though thats specifically about doing so to authority, so not really applicable) thats valid, I can respect that.
It didn’t occur to me someone might not appreciate that usage of the term, and if thats not within reasonable behavior for this space in the eyes of moderation thats okay- deleting the comment and then leaving a reply implying I said something horrific, however, is less cool. Thats a dick move, and pretty transparently a bad faith behavior that feels intended to punish me for voicing frustration with .ml
Which again, I’ve had many positive interactions with folks from the instance. But it is certainly not without its frustrations and outright unpleasantness at times.
Yeah sorry, I wasn’t trying to equate the two words, just the arguments to defend using them. I can agree that the words hold very different weights.
There’s an argument to be made, even though “fellate” might be something that is done by a wide variety of sexualities, it has history and that history is as a homophobic insult. Sure, words can be reclaimed by the gay community, but the metaphor of sucking dick as a subservient action is so fucking pervasive (especially in discussions about politics for some reason) and it points towards unexamined patterns of language that are very harmful. Add on the borderline ableism at the end and it comes across as bad faith at the start, so it’s no wonder a mod responds like this.
I think you and I may have different definitions of “bad faith” 😅 I’m not sure what part of what I said was in some way disingenuous, or misrepresented my sentiment. My positive comments were direct and sincere, and my negative comments were also direct and sincere. I’m not really sure what the deception or misrepresentation would be. It doesnt just mean disagreeable, it means that someone is engaging insincerely or in a way that is disingenuous. That they’re misrepresenting their motives.
The argument that I called “dumb and vapid” argument was essentially: “here, I drew a straw man of you where you’re obviously wrong and don’t know what you’re taking about”. In that image intended to portray the person they’re disagreeing with as stupid they gave them buck teeth. Which is very explicitly an actual ableist stereotype associated with the dental deformities that often come with severe developmental disabilities, that the artist is using as visual shorthand. Using a drawing to straw man people you disagree with is a hollow, ill substantiated way to argue your point. And it is intentionally so. It does not try to be a serious argument. It is a intentionally, choicefully-without-merit argumentative strategy.
Personally, as a disabled person presently struggling to navigate the world due to my disability, the idea that calling someone’s intentionally meritless argument in a given exchange “dumb and vapid” constitutes ableism feels like it stretches the term well past the point at which it becomes entirely meaningless. Arguments and behavior can be dumb. I don’t think its a compelling argument to say it’s bigotry to call someone’s crappy and ill-conceived behavior/argument “dumb”, and I don’t think it justifies them deleting my comment and then going out of their way to publicly insinuate what I’m clearly just a shitty person.
We all have things to unpack, and if you wanna tell me as a queer disabled person that I should unpack how I use the word fellate or dumb, you can do so, I have no doubt that I will be unpacking things for the rest of my life (Hopefully we all will). But I’m still gonna tell you its crappy bad faith behavior to delete the comment because homophobia can be read into it and then try to immediately assassinate my character so no one questions whether the comment was deleted because it was critical of their instance. Since that would be a disingenuous and insincere way to use their power as a moderator.
Sorry for the ridiculous wall of text, maybe someday I’ll learn how to be concise about conveying what I mean. Clearly that day isnt today 😅