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 LordofHats wrote:
Sleeping sickness is primarily confined. Stay out of a specific region and your chances of getting it are minuscule bordering on zero (but it has happened). Ebola is primarily confined. Sickle cell anemia is primarily confined. HIV is not and never will be confined, primarily confined, or any combination of terms expressing the similar. Anyone can get it. Anyone can transmit it. It’s prevalence in specific demographics is a fluke of cultural and social variables and is unique to the West particularly the United States where the prevalence is higher. There isn’t exactly a big gay community in the Congo but there are a lot of prostitues and piss poor medical standards. HIV doesn’t discrimate and we shouldn’t pretend it does. That’s all I’m saying and I didn’t say fit to start some big tangent but merely because again the way we approach this kind of topic is important and how we talk about it needs to be carefully framed or the message will get lost. Some people of course just seem hellbent on being lost anayeY so maybe it’s best to just not bother.

Problem here is you are dismissing her rather valid fear of having higher chance of running into the disease that statistically is more prevalent in one group than others. YES others can have it but would you like 10% or 1% odds of catching as harmful disease as HIV? I know which I would pick...

tneva82 wrote:

 LordofHats wrote:
Sleeping sickness is primarily confined. Stay out of a specific region and your chances of getting it are minuscule bordering on zero (but it has happened). Ebola is primarily confined. Sickle cell anemia is primarily confined. HIV is not and never will be confined, primarily confined, or any combination of terms expressing the similar. Anyone can get it. Anyone can transmit it. It’s prevalence in specific demographics is a fluke of cultural and social variables and is unique to the West particularly the United States where the prevalence is higher. There isn’t exactly a big gay community in the Congo but there are a lot of prostitues and piss poor medical standards. HIV doesn’t discrimate and we shouldn’t pretend it does. That’s all I’m saying and I didn’t say fit to start some big tangent but merely because again the way we approach this kind of topic is important and how we talk about it needs to be carefully framed or the message will get lost. Some people of course just seem hellbent on being lost anayeY so maybe it’s best to just not bother.

Problem here is you are dismissing her rather valid fear of having higher chance of running into the disease that statistically is more prevalent in one group than others. YES others can have it but would you like 10% or 1% odds of catching as harmful disease as HIV? I know which I would pick...

A valid fear is valid of course. 89% of of the people known to be infected with Syphilis are men, so clearly women should just all be lesbians to give themselves the best odds at avoiding infection. As long as they're not black. Once you eliminate gay/bi men, black women are the next demographic most likely to have HIV. So white and Hispanic women only. No wait that's equally foolish since 66% of the people known to be infected with chlamydia are women but hey chlamydia ain't as bad as HIV right? Maybe just move to the moon though. After all 67% of the human species is positive for herpes.

Using statistics in this manner is bad statistics. If I went around telling people not to associate with black men because they're statistically more likely to be convicted murderers I'd be called racist, and that's a pretty racist thing to be going around and saying. We shouldn't judge individuals by statistical probabilities. It's bad math, it's just stupid, and yeah it's prejudicial and we call prejudice directed against homosexuals homophobia. I think this kind of reasoning is very common in society though, no matter how faulty it is.

And if we're really going to go by statistics, primarily straight actors (male actors often do both but generally one more than the other) have infected more people than anyone in the industry. Marc Wallice hid that he was HIV positive for two years and infected seven women (he contracted the disease through drug use, statistically the least likely infection vector). Darren James contracted the disease from an actress and infected four women. Probably the most famous case of a gay actor infecting others is Rod Daily and he didn't even infect any men if I remember right. He contracted the disease from his girlfriend (most gay actors aren't actually "gay") Cameron Bay who contracted it from no one knows where. All of her scene partners eventually came out negative so she had to have gotten it at some point in her personal life. Point of this tangent being that out of the dozen times I can think of that the industry has shut down for testing only two were actually related to men who had sex with men. The rest were either mostly straight actors or contracted the disease through other sources.

 ZergSmasher wrote:
While I totally agree with you, those Terms of Service rules are worth jack gak in a case like this. There should be criminal penalties for bullying that leads to a suicide. At the very least, some sort of thing like being an accessory to murder. Maybe when some of these people end up behind bars for a while people will take notice.

Awesome, so if I'm suicidal all I have to do is name some people I had a fight with in my suicide note and I can get them sent to prison? There's a reason these laws don't and shouldn't exist.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 oldravenman3025 wrote:
gays who would prefer to avoid HIV infection at risk in the long term (i.e. those that don't engage in "high camp" for some sort of questionable BS notions of "taking back" stereotypes and anti-gay slurs).

JFC, are you serious? What does "high camp" have to do with disease risks? Is it impossible to have a thread like this without blatant stereotyping?

Make no mistake. It isn't all due to prejudices and myths among heterosexuals, conservative-leaning individuals, and fundamentalist religious types. The gay community, as a whole, does jack to combat bigotry. Instead, many of them contribute to the problem in a desire to flaunt it in the face of the "breeders", just because they can. And those who desire for legitimate acceptance in society have another weight chained to their necks in their uphill battle, performing legit activism. Such nonsense just reinforces the idea that all homosexuals are hedonistic, sick, disease ridden freaks, when in fact, that is an unfair broad brush painted across the group as a whole.

And yep, right on schedule, there's the victim-blaming.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 stanman wrote:
One would hope that any woman always has the final say in choosing who's penis would or wouldn't be allowed inside of her, regardless of her reasons it's exclusively her decision to make and nobody else should feel they have a say in it. It doesn't matter if she's bigoted/ignorant/racist/homophobic, etc end of the line is that she still has ultimate authority to say No and refuse anyone she wants because it's her body.

And nobody is disputing this fact. Nobody is arguing that she should be forced to have sex with someone if we don't approve of her reasons for declining. But refusing to have sex with someone and publicly telling other people to avoid them are two very different things.

 LordofHats wrote:
A valid fear is valid of course. 89% of of the people known to be infected with Syphilis are men, so clearly women should just all be lesbians to give themselves the best odds at avoiding infection. As long as they're not black. Once you eliminate gay/bi men, black women are the next demographic most likely to have HIV. So white and Hispanic women only. No wait that's equally foolish since 66% of the people known to be infected with chlamydia are women but hey chlamydia ain't as bad as HIV right? Maybe just move to the moon though. After all 67% of the human species is positive for herpes.

Using statistics in this manner is bad statistics. If I went around telling people not to associate with black men because they're statistically more likely to be convicted murderers I'd be called racist, and that's a pretty racist thing to be going around and saying. We shouldn't judge individuals by statistical probabilities. It's bad math, it's just stupid, and yeah it's prejudicial and we call prejudice directed against homosexuals homophobia. I think this kind of reasoning is very common in society though, no matter how faulty it is.

Nice strawman you have there.

 LordofHats wrote:
And if we're really going to go by statistics, primarily straight actors (male actors often do both but generally one more than the other) have infected more people than anyone in the industry. Marc Wallice hid that he was HIV positive for two years and infected seven women (he contracted the disease through drug use, statistically the least likely infection vector). Darren James contracted the disease from an actress and infected four women. Probably the most famous case of a gay actor infecting others is Rod Daily and he didn't even infect any men if I remember right. He contracted the disease from his girlfriend (most gay actors aren't actually "gay") Cameron Bay who contracted it from no one knows where. All of her scene partners eventually came out negative so she had to have gotten it at some point in her personal life. Point of this tangent being that out of the dozen times I can think of that the industry has shut down for testing only two were actually related to men who had sex with men. The rest were either mostly straight actors or contracted the disease through other sources.

This is a much better counterargument against what I assumed Ames' logic was. I'm not familiar enough with pornstars or its history (I prefer erotic stories for my kicks) to dispute this, so I'll take your word for it. Out of curiosity, how much bigger is the straight porn industry compared to the gay porn industry? That's the only number I can think of that can throw a wrench into this logic.

In regards to the topic though, at most it proves Ames' reasoning (or at least our conjecture about it) was flawed, not that she was homophobic.

Peregrine wrote:And yep, right on schedule, there's the victim-blaming.

While I abhor, completely disagree with and distance myself from the post you're reacting to here, surely the victim in this case was the poor girl driven to suicide because she made an unwise but (presumably) well-meant comment on social media?

 Peregrine wrote:
And yep, right on schedule, there's the victim-blaming.

Hypocrite.

 Dreadwinter wrote:
#1 No, they do not have thick skin. In fact, many get in to the business due to underlying mental health issues, which can cause them to do very irrational things such as this.

#2 Every group, no matter how good the intentions are, is going to have that one gak who doesn't really understand what he is saying or doing.

Edit: had notoriously in there for no reason, because why not

Underlying mental health issues? Like what? I mean if you are telling me they do it because they are depressed - get over it - everyone is depressed. Any girl that works in the industry has been called a lot of names - it goes with the territory. I'm pretty much an expert when it comes to porn too - the things they do...that gives you thick skin is all I am saying.

In regards to the current environment - it's not a few bad apples creating it - it is mobs of people. It is truly terrifying to me.

 Xenomancers wrote:
I'm pretty much an expert when it comes to porn too

oh?

 Xenomancers wrote:

 Dreadwinter wrote:
#1 No, they do not have thick skin. In fact, many get in to the business due to underlying mental health issues, which can cause them to do very irrational things such as this.

#2 Every group, no matter how good the intentions are, is going to have that one gak who doesn't really understand what he is saying or doing.

Edit: had notoriously in there for no reason, because why not

Underlying mental health issues? Like what? I mean if you are telling me they do it because they are depressed - get over it - everyone is depressed. Any girl that works in the industry has been called a lot of names - it goes with the territory. I'm pretty much an expert when it comes to porn too - the things they do...that gives you thick skin is all I am saying.

In regards to the current environment - it's not a few bad apples creating it - it is mobs of people. It is truly terrifying to me.

I watch a lot of hockey. Doesn't mean I'm an expert on hockey

By all accounts, Ms Ames was a lovely young lady. She certainly was pretty. It's damn tragic that she lost her life so early.

Those looking to score political points on both sides of this issue should be fething ashamed of themselves.

 Xenomancers wrote:
I mean if you are telling me they do it because they are depressed - get over it - everyone is depressed.

"Everyone is depressed" is such a non-statement. Many people might have had moments of depression. But there is an entire scale between having the monday blues and severe almost permanent states of depression.

Its frankly insulting to say all depression is the same when really its not. It shows a significant lack of understanding mental health problems.

 feeder wrote:

I watch a lot of hockey. Doesn't mean I'm an expert on hockey

But what if he used to play hockey professionally?

oh the implications

 Xenomancers wrote:

 Dreadwinter wrote:
#1 No, they do not have thick skin. In fact, many get in to the business due to underlying mental health issues, which can cause them to do very irrational things such as this.

#2 Every group, no matter how good the intentions are, is going to have that one gak who doesn't really understand what he is saying or doing.

Edit: had notoriously in there for no reason, because why not

Underlying mental health issues? Like what? I mean if you are telling me they do it because they are depressed - get over it - everyone is depressed. Any girl that works in the industry has been called a lot of names - it goes with the territory. I'm pretty much an expert when it comes to porn too - the things they do...that gives you thick skin is all I am saying.

In regards to the current environment - it's not a few bad apples creating it - it is mobs of people. It is truly terrifying to me.

I get the sneaking suspicion that you are not an expert on anything, especially mental health. So I am going to just let you walk away looking like a fool instead of calling you out over the "get over it - everyone is depressed" statement and making you look far, far worse.

 Xenomancers wrote:

 Dreadwinter wrote:
#1 No, they do not have thick skin. In fact, many get in to the business due to underlying mental health issues, which can cause them to do very irrational things such as this.

#2 Every group, no matter how good the intentions are, is going to have that one gak who doesn't really understand what he is saying or doing.

Edit: had notoriously in there for no reason, because why not

Underlying mental health issues? Like what? I mean if you are telling me they do it because they are depressed - get over it - everyone is depressed. Any girl that works in the industry has been called a lot of names - it goes with the territory. I'm pretty much an expert when it comes to porn too - the things they do...that gives you thick skin is all I am saying.

In regards to the current environment - it's not a few bad apples creating it - it is mobs of people. It is truly terrifying to me.

If I understand you correctly, based on your degree in clinical psychology you can confirm there is no such thing as mental illness, and no reason at all why this particular woman should be affected by the messages directed at her.

Nonetheless. everything is the fault of leftist SJWs, and you are very frightened.

Is this a fair assessment, or would you like to re-present your thinking differently?

 Kilkrazy wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:

 Dreadwinter wrote:
#1 No, they do not have thick skin. In fact, many get in to the business due to underlying mental health issues, which can cause them to do very irrational things such as this.

#2 Every group, no matter how good the intentions are, is going to have that one gak who doesn't really understand what he is saying or doing.

Edit: had notoriously in there for no reason, because why not

Underlying mental health issues? Like what? I mean if you are telling me they do it because they are depressed - get over it - everyone is depressed. Any girl that works in the industry has been called a lot of names - it goes with the territory. I'm pretty much an expert when it comes to porn too - the things they do...that gives you thick skin is all I am saying.

In regards to the current environment - it's not a few bad apples creating it - it is mobs of people. It is truly terrifying to me.

If I understand you correctly, based on your degree in clinical psychology you can confirm there is no such thing as mental illness, and no reason at all why this particular woman should be affected by the messages directed at her.

Nonetheless. everything is the fault of leftist SJWs, and you are very frightened.

Is this a fair assessment, or would you like to re-present your thinking differently?

Thats a straw man... I see no references to "Leftist SJW's" in Xenomancer's post.

<quote = Xenomancers>In regards to the current environment - it's not a few bad apples creating it - it is mobs of people. It is truly terrifying to me.</quote>

I am sure you do not claim that 4Chan or the GOP are leading the rush to condemn someone for homophobia.

Hopefully Xenomancers can speak for himself.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
Hopefully Xenomancers can speak for himself.

edit: nevermind.

Bran Dawri wrote:


Nice strawman you have there.

Statistics could probably tell you a lot about white Americans in their late 20s with college degrees but a lot of that information would probably make you completely wrong if you used it to make determinations about me specifically. People are stupid about this kind of think because they see HIV in the news. The exact same logic being used to justify not having sex with a guy who has had sex with other guys can be applied to straight men, straight women, gay women, bisexuals, and all of it is fundamentally faulty because it's bad statistics. Statistics aren't intended to be used to judge individuals. STD infection in the porn industry trends lower than the general population to begin with. People do this nonsense all the time and its an easy mistake to make because it seems rational even though it isn't. They'll be terrified of being bit by a shark even though they're much more likely to be seriously injured walking through the beach parking lot. If I were to just go around shunning white guys because they're statistically more likely to be members of the Ku Klux Klan people would think I'm being stupid.

Sorry. It's not a strawman to point out that people are using statistics in a piss poor way here. The logic being used here is faulty, and pointing it out by applying it isn't a misrepresentation.

Out of curiosity, how much bigger is the straight porn industry compared to the gay porn industry? That's the only number I can think of that can throw a wrench into this logic.

I don't know the exact number but its probably worth dividing the industry into three main areas; straight porn, lesbian porn, and gay (male) porn. The first two are much larger than the third but actors/actresses move between them. I don't even know if a woman can be hired in the industry if she's unwilling to do girl on girl. Men probably can, but a lot of the men who work as actors generally do at least one gay shoot in their career. The straight/lesbian areas produce a lot more content than gay male.

All three though are overseen medically by the Adult Industry Medical Health Care Foundation whose track record is mired by a number of rather obvious feth ups, but they do so many tests that their more likely to run into bad results than most of the population which doesn't even get regularly tested at all.

In regards to the topic though, at most it proves Ames' reasoning (or at least our conjecture about it) was flawed, not that she was homophobic.

It's the difference between calling someone homophobic and saying what they said was homophobic. What she said was more than a little homophobic and it's the kind of low level you'll see it pretty much everyday prejudice that a particular brand of internet denizen loves to jump on and be absolute little monsters about. I don't know if she herself was homophobic (I don't think it matters a whole lot cause she didn't deserve to be treated that way), but I don't think she meant any harm with that comment. Looking into her history she seems to have been rather open about her struggles with bi-polar disorder and depression. Her full comment is this;

whichever (lady) performer is replacing me tomorrow for @EroticaXNews , you’re shooting with a guy who has shot gay porn, just to let cha know. BS is all I can say Do agents really not care about who they're representing? #ladirect I do my homework for my body

The agent bit is interesting. There's been increasing push back from actors and actresses for awhile now to have more control on set and during shoots. I think that's what Ames real focus was initially on, but like most people caught up in the speed and fury of the internet she did what happens quite often; someone jumped on her and she posted faster than her brain thought. She focused on the gay porn part, and lost track of the other half of what she was talking about. So yeah. There's a bit of that low key homophobia there, but there's another half to this comment that seems to have gone generally unnoticed and that's the part where she calls out agents for not taking the interests/safety of performers into consideration. This has been something going on ever since Darren James' infection as he's always maintained he didn't want to do the shoot where he was infected but was heavily pressured to.

EDIT: No idea why the end of my post got cut off there. Fixed now?

 LordofHats wrote:
Her full comment is this;

whichever (lady) performer is replacing me tomorrow for @EroticaXNews , you’re shooting with a guy who has shot gay porn, just to let cha know. BS is all I can say

Just correcting this, as you left off a sentence.

Full comment:

Whichever (lady) performer is replacing me tomorrow for @EroticaXNews, you're shooting with a guy who has shot gay porn, just to let cha know. BS is all I can say. Do agents really not care about who they're representing? #ladirect I do my homework for my body

Source: http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/gossip/actor-accused-cyberbullying-august-ames-responds-article-1.3689669

The "Do agents really not care about who they're representing?" statement makes me wonder how educated performers are about the safety standards in their industry, and how standardized those procedures are in the first place. If Ames believed that performers in gay films were a risk, and a risk her agent(s) should be aware of and protect her from, then are there different testing standards in place? That is a very specific fear of hers being voiced in that tweet, and I have a hard time chalking it up purely to homophobia. Misinformation, perhaps, but for an industry that supposedly has such strict testing it is doesn't add up that a performer would be "confused" about such an important facet of safety and regulation.

From that same article one of the actors who was Tweeting Ames, Jaxton Wheeler, who told Ames to apologize for her comments or "swallow a cyanide pill" has had backlash of his own. Dropped from two productions and black listed from a production company because of his interaction with Ames. Wheeler approached the gay porn blog The Sword to give his response to the situation and the editor of the blog is quoted as saying this:

Harlan Yaffe, editor of The Sword, told The News that Wheeler and others' public criticism of Ames came from a place of frustration in terms of long-standing stigmas that have plagued gay porn actors for years.

"This is really something that has simmered under the surface really for a long time. (They) were trying to get August to correct her record on the fact that in mainstream society, at first, all gay men were looked at as walking petri dishes of disease," he said.

"I think that in mainstream society some of that has chipped away a bit, but in the porn world, it really hasn't. And there's still a belief that gay men are walking petri dishes and they are somehow more of a health threat to their co-stars than men that don't do gay porn."

Yaffe explained that, as Wheeler said, all actors working for mainstream studios are required to undergo the same testing at the same frequency under industry protocol.

So who is right? One side claims testing is standardized across the industry, and yet there is still a bias among performers? That doesn't add up at all.

 DarkTraveler777 wrote:

 LordofHats wrote:
Her full comment is this;

whichever (lady) performer is replacing me tomorrow for @EroticaXNews , you’re shooting with a guy who has shot gay porn, just to let cha know. BS is all I can say

Just correcting this, as you left off a sentence.

Full comment:

Whichever (lady) performer is replacing me tomorrow for @EroticaXNews, you're shooting with a guy who has shot gay porn, just to let cha know. BS is all I can say. Do agents really not care about who they're representing? #ladirect I do my homework for my body

Source: http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/gossip/actor-accused-cyberbullying-august-ames-responds-article-1.3689669

The "Do agents really not care about who they're representing?" statement makes me wonder how educated performers are about the safety standards in their industry, and how standardized those procedures are in the first place. If Ames believed that performers in gay films were a risk, and a risk her agent(s) should be aware of and protect her from, then are there different testing standards in place? That is a very specific fear of hers being voiced in that tweet, and I have a hard time chalking it up purely to homophobia. Misinformation, perhaps, but for an industry that supposedly has such strict testing it is doesn't add up that a performer would be "confused" about such an important facet of safety and regulation.

From that same article one of the actors who was Tweeting Ames, Jaxton Wheeler, who told Ames to apologize for her comments or "swallow a cyanide pill" has had backlash of his own. Dropped from two productions and black listed from a production company because of his interaction with Ames. Wheeler approached the gay porn blog The Sword to give his response to the situation and the editor of the blog is quoted as saying this:

Harlan Yaffe, editor of The Sword, told The News that Wheeler and others' public criticism of Ames came from a place of frustration in terms of long-standing stigmas that have plagued gay porn actors for years.

"This is really something that has simmered under the surface really for a long time. (They) were trying to get August to correct her record on the fact that in mainstream society, at first, all gay men were looked at as walking petri dishes of disease," he said.

"I think that in mainstream society some of that has chipped away a bit, but in the porn world, it really hasn't. And there's still a belief that gay men are walking petri dishes and they are somehow more of a health threat to their co-stars than men that don't do gay porn."

Yaffe explained that, as Wheeler said, all actors working for mainstream studios are required to undergo the same testing at the same frequency under industry protocol.

So who is right? One side claims testing is standardized across the industry, and yet there is still a bias among performers? That doesn't add up at all.

Well that kinda is the crux of the matter. Which side is right?

Its kinda important.

Though if she had been told wrongly, or not been told about the level of testing he had been subject too correctly.

Its impossible to blame her for things she did not know or was misinformed about.

Yeah my browser clonked out. Not sure why it cut off the end of that sentence and like the paragraph I wrote after it.

 Desubot wrote:

 feeder wrote:

I watch a lot of hockey. Doesn't mean I'm an expert on hockey

But what if he used to play hockey professionally?

oh the implications

[George Takei] Ohh myyy [/George Takei]

Perhaps Xenomancer could establish his expert credentials?

 feeder wrote:

 Desubot wrote:

 feeder wrote:

I watch a lot of hockey. Doesn't mean I'm an expert on hockey

But what if he used to play hockey professionally?

oh the implications

[George Takei] Ohh myyy [/George Takei]

Perhaps Xenomancer could establish his expert credentials?

He's two fries short of a happy meal?

 feeder wrote:

 Desubot wrote:

 feeder wrote:

I watch a lot of hockey. Doesn't mean I'm an expert on hockey

But what if he used to play hockey professionally?

oh the implications

[George Takei] Ohh myyy [/George Takei]

Perhaps Xenomancer could establish his expert credentials?

You might know him better by his professional name, "Sweet Daddy Longlove".

 LordofHats wrote:
Yeah my browser clonked out. Not sure why it cut off the end of that sentence and like the paragraph I wrote after it.

When my computer acts up I blame it on Comstar. White robed bastards, all of them.

 jhe90 wrote:


Well that kinda is the crux of the matter. Which side is right?

Its kinda important.

Though if she had been told wrongly, or not been told about the level of testing he had been subject too correctly.

Its impossible to blame her for things she did not know or was misinformed about.

It was always my understanding that the industry regulated itself fairly well, but Ames tweet and the gak storm that followed says otherwise.

Living in California I got to vote last year on a proposition aimed at forcing performers in adult films to use condoms. The proposition failed to pass, and I voted against it because it seemed like a way to open the floodgates to frivolous lawsuits, but now I am wondering if there is some merit in the idea. Not that Prop 60 was the solution as it was written, but rather implementing some manner of state regulation. Granted, these musing are based purely on the confusion that seems to be at the heart of this story and why Ames felt the need to be protected by her representation from performing with certain actors.

 DarkTraveler777 wrote:

 LordofHats wrote:
Yeah my browser clonked out. Not sure why it cut off the end of that sentence and like the paragraph I wrote after it.

When my computer acts up I blame it on Comstar. White robed bastards, all of them.

Naw...It's WoB that caused all the issues...

I wonder about today's 'norms'. Everyone has their own life perspective and experiences.

So all of us will see and view things differently.

Now others will always 'present' their view in arguments to change your prespective. This has gone on forever.

But with the internet and a lot more crossover it seems that there is a mob policing mentality that if you have your own opinion and it is not 'correct' then you are taken to the gallows unless you shut up and go to your corner.

I thought we were moving into a more open society with the leaps and bounds in technology. It feels more and more that we are being coerced into nice little 'cow-pens' of mob thought.

Freedom or ?

 admironheart wrote:
I wonder about today's 'norms'. Everyone has their own life perspective and experiences.

So all of us will see and view things differently.

Now others will always 'present' their view in arguments to change your prespective. This has gone on forever.

But with the internet and a lot more crossover it seems that there is a mob policing mentality that if you have your own opinion and it is not 'correct' then you are taken to the gallows unless you shut up and go to your corner.

I thought we were moving into a more open society with the leaps and bounds in technology. It feels more and more that we are being coerced into nice little 'cow-pens' of mob thought.

Freedom or ?

Definitely. The Internet and society in general is on a downwards trend to Authoritarianism.

 skyth wrote:

 DarkTraveler777 wrote:

 LordofHats wrote:
Yeah my browser clonked out. Not sure why it cut off the end of that sentence and like the paragraph I wrote after it.

When my computer acts up I blame it on Comstar. White robed bastards, all of them.

Naw...It's WoB that caused all the issues...

True enough, and glad to find another Btech fan.

 admironheart wrote:
I thought we were moving into a more open society with the leaps and bounds in technology. It feels more and more that we are being coerced into nice little 'cow-pens' of mob thought.

A lot going on in your post that I don't want to touch, but in regards to this I'll just say when hasn't group consensus, public opinion, and all the other shortcomings of humanity's need to conform been an issue with regulating thought?

If anything technology opens up the potential for people to find other people who share their perspectives and "truths" to the point where facts are no longer facts. So, I am not sure what you are getting at.

 Peregrine wrote:

 ZergSmasher wrote:
While I totally agree with you, those Terms of Service rules are worth jack gak in a case like this. There should be criminal penalties for bullying that leads to a suicide. At the very least, some sort of thing like being an accessory to murder. Maybe when some of these people end up behind bars for a while people will take notice.

Awesome, so if I'm suicidal all I have to do is name some people I had a fight with in my suicide note and I can get them sent to prison? There's a reason these laws don't and shouldn't exist.

Oh for crying out loud, obviously there should have to be outside evidence. I had actually thought of the case you just described, a vindictive suicidal person who implicates someone just because they don't like them. Obviously there should need to be evidence before someone could be convicted of bullying. Like social media messages, texts, tweets, and other evidence beyond just the suicidal person naming names on a suicide note. I didn't say it would be easy, or that all such bullies would be caught, but at least some of them might if the right measures were taken.

 LordofHats wrote:


Statistics could probably tell you a lot about white Americans in their late 20s with college degrees but a lot of that information would probably make you completely wrong if you used it to make determinations about me specifically. People are stupid about this kind of think because they see HIV in the news. The exact same logic being used to justify not having sex with a guy who has had sex with other guys can be applied to straight men, straight women, gay women, bisexuals, and all of it is fundamentally faulty because it's bad statistics. Statistics aren't intended to be used to judge individuals. STD infection in the porn industry trends lower than the general population to begin with. People do this nonsense all the time and its an easy mistake to make because it seems rational even though it isn't. They'll be terrified of being bit by a shark even though they're much more likely to be seriously injured walking through the beach parking lot. If I were to just go around shunning white guys because they're statistically more likely to be members of the Ku Klux Klan people would think I'm being stupid.

Sorry. It's not a strawman to point out that people are using statistics in a piss poor way here. The logic being used here is faulty, and pointing it out by applying it isn't a misrepresentation.

I disagree. The logic isn't faulty. An assumption that the reasoning was based on was in error. The faulty assumption was that because gay men in general have a much higher chance of being infected with HIV that the same was true for pornstars who do gay porn. Your facts with regards to causes for porn shutdowns because of an HIV breakout set that straight.
However, the reasoning "People who have gay sex have an increased chance of having HIV, so if I have unprotected sex with such people I have a higher chance of contracting this disease than if I do it with someone who doesn't and I don't want to take that extra risk" is not faulty of itself without the extra information that almost all of the HIV breakouts in porn did not, in fact, come from gay porn sets even where the actor who introduced it did gay porn, but from other sources.

 LordofHats wrote:


It's the difference between calling someone homophobic and saying what they said was homophobic. {...}

The agent bit is interesting. There's been increasing push back from actors and actresses for awhile now to have more control on set and during shoots. I think that's what Ames real focus was initially on, but like most people caught up in the speed and fury of the internet she did what happens quite often; someone jumped on her and she posted faster than her brain thought. She focused on the gay porn part, and lost track of the other half of what she was talking about. So yeah. There's a bit of that low key homophobia there, but there's another half to this comment that seems to have gone generally unnoticed and that's the part where she calls out agents for not taking the interests/safety of performers into consideration. This has been something going on ever since Darren James' infection as he's always maintained he didn't want to do the shoot where he was infected but was heavily pressured to.

It's an important difference though. Someone saying something that comes across as homophobic because they make a mistaken assumption in an otherwise logical reasoning is differenct from someone being an actual homophobe. The former can be reasoned with by giving them the facts in the matter, the latter will not change their mind based on facts, as fear is not based in logic and reasoning.

Fully agree with you on the last paragraph. It's a big reason I prefer stories. No one gets forced into doing things they'd rather not do for those (possibly in them if your tastes run that way. Who am I to judge?).

 DarkTraveler777 wrote:



So who is right? One side claims testing is standardized across the industry, and yet there is still a bias among performers? That doesn't add up at all.

It does add up when you factor in the human element that people hold onto their preconceptions, prejudices and biases long after they are proven false or shown to have a complete lack of supporting evidence.

For evidence see flat earthism, abstinence only sex ed, young earth creationism, anti-vaxxers, climate change deniers, holocaust deniers, 9/11 truthers, obama birthers, moon landing conspiracists, string theorists etc.

The world is full of people who can continue to hold onto an idea even when it is plainly false with even the smallest bit of research.