Drawing The Lines of Civility

Recently, I became a moderator for an online community for the first time. The community is full of good people who want to do great things to improve US Politics. They seem to have all the right ideas in mind except one, they default to censoring rather than allowing for people to speak freely.

An issue came up where an individual said "Hey Government and Banks! Suck our dicks!" in the general chat. Another mod nudged them and they willingly changed their choice words. Ok, so it could be worse. At least they didn't delete the post altogether and gave him the chance. Still, I had to challenge them to think.

I asked what their reasoning was...

Excuse 1: "It's offputting to the female users among us"

Seriously? This looks to me like a case of not-being-sexist is the new sexism.
So, you are generalizing a group of people as being sensitive to the slang mention of human anatomy?
Because no sexist ever claimed that women are sensitive and weak minded, right?

Excuse 2: "Gish Gallop List: sexual identity, masculinity, patriarchy subjects."

I added the gish gallop part, but for real, the argument was this simple. Here's these three reasons among the "many" reasons they had.

Excuse 3: "[It] is not empathetic of the diversity of our group, particularly the use of the word 'our' which treats us all as a collective in this manner."

Kinda fair enough, I thought, so I made some suggestions of what he could have said alternatively.
"Suck our clits" to shift the male=neutral norm in society.
or "Suck our asses" to be inclusive of everyone. Because everyone has an asshole.

Honestly, when GI Jane said "suck my Dick!" to the guy who tried to rape her, that was pretty empowering in my eyes. But I guess they never saw that movie.

Excuse 4: "This is a workspace"

Funny thing about that, do you actually know of a workspace that doesn't have vulgar language spoken in it? In the US, I have never seen such a thing. I've seen rules and I've seen rules enforced... but not universally nor equally. What I've seen is a totalitarian excuse to pick on people who are lower on the food chain or to compete for social hierarchy over the meager scraps of free rights we are teased with by the higher ups who never EVER watch what the fuck they say. Tell me I'm wrong.

Also, why do you think it is that a workspace should not allow references to human anatomy? Surely it's not a matter of decorum as we fight dumbasses in congress like Nancy Pelosi who think that's the only problem with Donald.

Excuse 5: "I think you have to consider who you're subjecting to that vulgarity & whether you think that's okay. I don't think people should be expected to contend with references to genitalia in the general channel."

Ahh, now we get to the heart of the matter. "suck our dicks," is a phrase that somehow harms people internally. I'm not heartless. Trigger warning: if you have experience sexual trauma and don't feel ready to face it, it makes sense to ask people to give you a warning before talking about rape in detail. Being a common trauma, sadly, it makes sense for most people to be weary of the common triggers that victims who are likely within earshot will have.

This also comes down to issues of phobias. If you are triggered AT ALL BY ANYTHING, the following video is a depiction of exactly what you are going through in the best light, even if you are triggered by a detailed conversation about rape:

That's the real issue at hand. Your mind turns irrational and makes everyone around you at risk of having to witness you act this way. It's NO ONE's fault unless your trauma involves a perpetrator of a crime or bullying. It's not your fault, and it's not the fault of people talking about the subject that triggers you. I say this man is the best light of how to see yourself in such a situation because he is doing exactly what you should be doing, facing his fear as best as he can. You can only be ashamed of not trying and showing zero will or courage to make progress.

I have a nephew who is exactly like this with my pet kitten. I love the kid to death. I hate that he's afraid of small animals. He could care less about getting over his fear. He's fine with freaking out for the rest of his life when a pigeon lands nearby him. No one in the house is comfortable but him when he visits and even then, only if my kitten is locked away. My baby kitty whines to get out. Everyone loves him, even this nephew if I expose the kitty to him with a harness or in a kennel. His brother and sister want a cat of their own, but because of him, another street cat will go without a home next cat season.

(Sidenote: You are a REAL fucking moron if you put your pets outside. Next time, don't buy a pet. Just put some food out for the homeless strays in your neighborhood.)

Now, remember that this guy in the above video is a comparison to your own trauma and fear if you are reading this and you have triggers. If people around you are negatively affected by your triggers, like inconvenienced in that they cannot speak freely because you are there, they have every reason to expect you to work on it. They can't reasonably push you into the fire. They can't yell at you to get over it, but they can sure as fuck expect you, a grown adult, to be working on the issue that inconveniences them.

If you are working on it, then just don't be stupid enough to confuse the above with being a criticism of you and your issues because that is the condition of which I laid out this criticism.

Then there's the situation in question. A common phrase involving an oral fixation with male human genitalia? Really? That's the detail that commonly triggers sexual assault victims? If I say "Yo, suck my dick!" into a crowd of 100 people, do you think even one of them is going to be reminded of their assault? Trigger warning (slightly descriptive): The mechanics of that being a common experience don't make sense to me. I mean, unless a vast number involve a gun rather than a knife. If that, then are there more triggers involving guns and knives for sexual assault victims than I realize? Do we ask people not to talk about guns or knives? Guns is a common policy issue that comes up from time to time in politics, soo... where's the line supposed to be? I'm not knowledgeable on all the sexual assault related stats, so, I'm inclined to be enlightened on this point.

What these other mods fail to realize, and must be deluding themselves in doing so, is that the slope of censorship is very slippery and the bottom is very bad. Blasphemy laws that still exist today and result in murdering people for speaking honestly and sincerely make that point very clear. Free speech as a right in public isn't the only virtue being denied when censoring people in a private space. If you don't push for the ability to speak as freely as you reasonably can in every space, you're being a moron.

Because it has been and IS going to be you next. It's just a stupid social game of fake virtue signaling at this point where my fellow mods won't at least wait for a complaint of trauma being triggered before correcting someone. There's also a point at which the line should be drawn where the trigger is so uncommon that it's not reasonable to expect others to have the ability to accommodate you. If your trauma and triggers are just from a discussion of rape, count yourself lucky in that you don't have a fear that's uncommon. There are plenty of people who have zero choice but to suck it up and deal, because what they fear is everywhere by necessity.

See, I think the mod who started this is actually traumatized by a very common fear. It's not sexual assault. It's a perpetuated tradition of fear over bad words. The funny thing about this fear is that it's main source was the bottom gutter of that slippery slope, Puritans. Thankfully, we've come down from an age where words could get you killed in the US, to an age where they could get you beat by your own parents, to an age where your parents rage at you or panic and find a non-corporal means of punishing you for triggering their trauma of the earlier age they were raised in. Looking at gen Z, I have high hopes for a future where we won't have to deal with that stupid shit anymore. A time when people can measure the harm of words by their context rather than their word choice.

Until then, this is the curse of being even so much as average intelligence. You're effectively surrounded by morons.

It's quite doubtful that these mods will change their minds with reason, because reason didn't get them there. It's a complete lack of thinking about it that has them falling for traditional values they were raised with.

See, It's not that I lack empathy. I am one of the unlucky ones I mentioned above when it comes to trauma. I am triggered by hypocrisy. I can't expect the world to give me a warning before they behave like self-contradictory assholes, now can I? If I could, I would still have to see myself as weak and limited for even asking them to.