The incident log for the Red Means No CNC party that’s popular in rat / postrat circles.
Highlights include ‘non-negotiated’ penetration and a woman being dropped on the floor so hard it gave her a concussion.
Given the organizer’s abysmal response to your own assault, I wonder about all the things that didn’t rise to the level of an incident report, or that participants didn’t even bring to the organizers because they think it was a them problem (“I should be able to take this much pain” / “I don’t want to lose access to this community” / “but he’s So Important For The Movement” / “I could have been clearer”, etc).
An orgy and no one standing off to the side making sure everything is ok? That sounds fucking stupid. Allowing people’s personal info, including PHOTOS, to be shared with a whole email list? And we’re supposed to believe them that they’re the world’s smartest people?
I have noticed that the same rationalists who think Sam Altman is building Skynet are totally fearless about an ex getting access to their home address through an adtech data-broker or a friend at Google. They are sometimes paranoid about reporters getting information, but not as worried about who collects it in the first place.
This is lowkey fascinating
A lot of people might enjoy attending a less-risky kink event to see that its like any other nerdy event from a LARP to a music festival to a craft workshop. Someone has to rent a venue, keep drinks and snacks flowing, deal with interpersonal conflicts, and clean up afterwards, and some people are mostly there because they hope to hook up or see cute people.
This last run of “Behind the Bastards” about the One Taste cult/startup is giving off big this vibes. It didnt get wound up till 2023, so there could be a non-trivial amount of attendee overlap
There have also been Tantric workshops where participants were sexually assaulted. One reason I have been single for a while is that I learned too much about abuse in nerdy communities to feel safe and confident looking for partners. I don’t want to talk about that when people have been physically or sexually abused though.
Edit / also allegations about teachers and disciples at the MAPLE and OAK Buddhist rationalist cult
Snacks were set out on a stovetop.
Incompetence kink
forgot to include the manual : https://archive.ph/cSDnZ
i know i’m not the target audience but my god the drudgery of organising ethicalseeming orgies, and consensual rape parties in particular, makes me feel many feelings. something sisyphean but the boulder is made out of gender roles and power dynamics and the slope is made of … libido? the rationalists might well be the people i trust the least in the world to deal with it.
This does show that female rationalists can organize complicated events when they really want to. I don’t think any of the male rationalists we talk about would be able, although there are probably a few people at Lighthaven whose names I don’t know who could keep an office job that was not also their polycule.
I would be fascinated to hear from kinksters who have run similar events.
They are keen on controlling contact and fluid-borne infections, but don’t talk about airborne infection control. Rationalists have a “COVID is over and RSV sounds like a Linux distro” party line which separates them from alienated nerds I know.
Events I attend which combine alcohol and a risky physical activity have a one-drink maximum, or once you drink alcohol no more playing for you, not a subjective “Don’t drink too much.”
I’ve never been to such an event, let alone tried to organize one, but I’ve socially known various people who’ve done them (kink but not CNC, to my knowledge) and a few sex workers who did kink professionally, and my guess is that alcohol just would not be allowed. You don’t do Jägerbombs before trying a climbing wall, and you don’t bring a substance that impairs judgment and worsens coordination to your sex party, for goodness’ sake.
- We have worked to emphasize harder that choking is not on the default consent list.
- We now have reports that prey who have opted into choking are going under-choked.
- …while still having occasional reports that prey who didn’t opt into choking sometimes have people reach for their throats.
- We’re trying to resolve this with things like cheatsheets, but the process is ongoing.
I would like to hear more from experienced kinksters, but I think this shows why negotiating who will do what in advance while everyone is fully dressed and sober is a big part of kink culture (and so is demonstrating skills and building trust in less risky scenarios). If you want to be ravaged in a specific way, your pursuers can give you that if the focus of the day is on you, not on you and dozens of other people with beautiful individual desires and boundaries in a chaotic environment. It also sounds like many of the predators are not very experienced.
For others: CNC == consensual non-consensual
Sometimes I sincerely wish I could go back to the like 20 minutes some years ago when I was confused about why everyone was making such a fuss about computer numeric control.
Welcome to the abyss. It sucks here.
Sometimes I sincerely wish I could go back
I miss when I thought these people were just Internet cranks too! I recommend either going mad from the revelation or fleeing from the light into the peace and safety of a new dark age.
aka rape play
The original event page uses terms like “light bondage” and “light biting” without defining them, and does not talk about pinchy toys, buzzy toys, and suction toys. I hope that everyone at these events understands those terms the same way, and that male rats know that penetration is not the only fun thing you can do in bed.
Edit / the event manual mentions zappy toys. In my experience those are a rare taste but you do you.
The Project Lawful glowfic has a whole subplot where the forces of Evil lure the protagonist into BDSM play where surprise! their partner really truly does not consent.
In this scenario, I think its inevitable that some prey will feel neglected and others will have their consent violated. Words and body language are the most powerful tools we have to understand another person, and its hard to remember the exact preferences of dozens of other people who you don’t know very well. Responsible predators will err on the gentle side and others will make mistakes (“oh **** I thought you were Sally and Sally asked us to …”) or deliberately cross boundaries. I am glad that they make a list of incidents and policy responses but I would not recommend attending kink parties organized by Bay Area rationalists.
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have you actually managed to read project lawful? because I’d like to know more about it but it is incredibly unreadable
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what the fuck
nobody at all should read it
but college hill risked her incredulity on one of their glowfics https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1957447689248882728.html
Fanboy voice The Teacher wants researchers to read it so they will damage their brains and be unable to build Unfriendly AI before his breeding program ramps up!
I have read a few pages of the Project Lawful thread, but I follow the ways of my fathers and crib from TVTropes.[1]
This thread is summoning some complicated feelings from “what consenting adults do is their business” and “this is not my kind of fun” to “in theory they take some sensible precautions but these people are incompetent and/or bad.”
[1] When did not having read the book stop a Usenet warrior from posting?
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Every time I learn a new thing about Project Lawful, I am grateful that the glowfic format is so unfriendly and the prose so wretched that I caromed off within about a page.
I try again every couple of years to see if my fascination with terrible people and bad ideas has crossed into straight-up digital self-harm. Bounced off every time so far, so I think I’m okay!
i listened to some chalga/turbofolk again recently and found it tolerable, clearly showing my musical taste has decayed terribly in the past 15 years
