I hate TMF

[blootwentytoo]

So, a few weeks ago I make a completely harmless, innocent, and utterly unoffensive thread on there, saying that I think as a community we should start embracing our sexuality as a big part of who we are, and be out and proud about it as much as possible...

this meandered into the topic of dating, and I said that as a community forum, tmf is way too focused on the instant sexual gratification of men, and less on community. I also pointed out that it's not exactly a female friendly forum.

and that eventually i would like to start a forum that is.

The place erupted with rage at my "attack".

A few weeks later, i had the idea for subforums that myriads could add to correct this problem including a women's subforum (which tickle brits has), a subforum for dealing with tickling in relationships and dating, a community subforum, and a subforum to help people deal with coming out/being out.

i skipped to the end, and saw this -

"Can all male members of this forum who've just cum their pants to the thought of this jumped-up feminist getting tickle raped by a room of dominant men please make themselves known?" [incidentally, this miserable excuse for a human is british and may post on here]

and three other misogynistic comments. one was a reply to the comment above that said "brutal : although she doesn't have a picture, and is probably unattractive"

i flagged it...nothing!

i pm'd Myriads.

He said this was not a rape threat, it was a "tickle-rape comment".






which is perfectly acceptable.

and this is after attacking me for saying that the place wasn't women friendly.

he said that "tickle rape COMMENTs" were ok, because they happen there all the time. which is actually something i pointed out among many other things that happen there all the time, to support my argument that the place isn't women friendly.

oh, and i also told him my subforum idea, to which he replied "this whole place is about community, so i'm not sure what you mean." and that a women friendly corner would be too much work to monitor. no shit!

here's the thread in question, by the way

http://www.ticklingforum.com/showthread.php?t=181859

i am in shock right now. i can't remember the last time a "heavily moderated forum" allowed rape threats of its female members! I just got this pm from him -

"We reviewed it. We read it as sarcasm speaking to the concepts you outlined in your OP. We polled some female users and they read it as sarcasm."

he's referring to this. this comment:

"Can all male members of this forum who've just cum their pants to the thought of this jumped-up feminist getting tickle raped by a room of dominant men please make themselves known?"

if you've read the thread, you know that an interesting "b story" to this is that as i was describing why tmf wasn't women friendly, i mentioned that there were few women posters on there and that a lot of them were professionals.

myriads then went on a very insincere rampage incited by my "calling all the women on tmf prostitutes and porn stars". obviously, no one could be so stupid as to interpret what i said in such a matter, but he needed some leverage in what he needed to turn into an argument (for some reason).

apparently this "insult" (which i will re-iterate is: hardley any women post on there and most of them are tickle prostitutes and tickle porn stars.) is the justification for not considering this to be a violation

"You basically made a post that directly insulted a huge segment of the forum. We didn't remove THAT when many took issue with it. When a lot of people called you on your insult, you ignored their issues with what you said, and even claimed you didn't say it when it was right there in you OP.
The post you have issue with is sarcasm. It speaks to the topic you created regarding women feeling safe here, and the attitude which you made your case to all of us in the thread."

[blootwentytoo]

hey - where's the women's subforum?

[Alphano]

Just to remind everyone, reasoned discussion on a topic is welcomed on this forum, but flaming will not be tolerated.

hey - where's the women's subforum?

If you PM Morning Angel or Kat, they can get you access to the Ladies' Forum.

[IrishLad]

Hey pal how's it going, I read through your posts on the TMF and I agree with a lot of what you said and I say fair play for speaking your mind.

What I would say is though your arguments are pretty solid, when you say stuff like "Contrary to your belief Myriads, you didn't invent our sexuality. These are not your followers." then you're going to get people to start going off subject. That's a pretty personal blow for no reason. Keep it as unoffensive as possible while still making your points. Phrases like "tickle prostitutes" sound really nasty and provocative too.

"I'm making perfect sense, you're just too stupid to follow what i'm saying." Ouch man, that's the comment that kinda buried you. Again, if someone disagrees you have to respect it. I'd say the best course of action would be to apologise for that but your call of course.

It's a good idea you have there but try not to insult someone if they go against what you're saying, it's just one person's opinion after all. And hey, I reckon you should go ahead and start this tickle dating site. I believe it's a good idea. I never actually liked the way the TMF has tickle porn strewn all over the place. This site has a much better feel of where we can just chat and give advice etc and I'm sure most of us prefer that sort of atmosphere.

P.S. My golden rule on the net is if somebody bashes you or bashes something you say/type, then never take it to heart. It's just an anonymous person who doesn't have the benefit of hearing you say the words you mean to say, meaning they have less context, and they don't hear your tone of voice etc.

Most people who are intelligent and don't dive into conclusions should clearly be able to see the merit of your post and give appropriate feedback but sometimes you just get people who try to look really clever and try to put others down to make themselves feel good. I've never once seen it happen here but I have seen it the odd time on the TMF. Best thing is to not feed insults with more insults. Good luck, mate.

[IrishTickle]

I have to agree with IrishLad here. You made some good points, but then insulted people. They insulted you and it went back and forth.

The TMF is too big a site to have a full community feel to it. There are cliques amongst the users that are the nearest thing to communities, but because there are so many users with so many different backgrounds, beliefs and lifestyles, that you can't really create a community out of it at all. I think of it as a country. Everyone has something in common and there'll be some people you can releate to, but the majority have their own lives to lead.

[Morning Angel]

Something to bear in mind that might help understand the TMF mentality is that the 'm' stands for 'media'. It is, in large part, a place for people to share stories, pictures and videos. That's what a lot of its members go there for, and it's enabled some talented people to gain some recognition.

That said, it has also been the means of organising countless regular munches and gatherings across the US, and without it I don't think we'd have this forum or much of a UK tickling scene. BigJim and the first UKTF members all met there.

The TMF has grown very big in recent years, so it can be hard to think of it as a community anymore and hard for individuals to have much of a voice, but people who've been around it for years have their regular events in their areas and feel very connected to it. This, of course, makes them quite protective of their forum, and sometimes they don't take criticism of it very well. Try not to get too frustrated with them, stay respectful, and if you have a vision for another forum go for it!

[Kat]

I have to agree with the 2 Irishs here. You started a very good discussion, and a lot of what you said to begin with was valid (although you did get my back up with the 'tickle prostitutes and tickle porn-stars, for completely different reasons than offending all female members). Unfortunately you felt yourself personally attacked when people said that parts of what you were saying weren't valid and then you personalised your replies and said things about the people behind them rather than about the ideas. At that point the thread turned into pure flame-fodder.

As for "Can all male members of this forum who've just cum their pants to the thought of this jumped-up feminist getting tickle raped by a room of dominant men please make themselves known?" - I would have to agree with Myriads that this wasn't a threat since the guy didn't say 'I'm going to..." and didn't even imply it. He was expressing a fantasy (which he is free to do), and if moderators took that statement as a threat they'd have to report over half of their members to the police. The idea of 'forcing' someone to do something is very strong in these sorts of fetishes because of the power-exchange/ bondage aspect of them so people have to take comments like this with a pinch of salt. I'm not condoning what he said, and it certainly didn't belong in that thread, but I can see why Myriads didn't agree with it being a rape threat.

I've never been hugely comfortable on the TMF because most members can't distinguish between ideas and the people behind the ideas, and tend to be on the defensive before they've even read your post. As well as that it's a huge site, so although the percentage of jerks is the same as on most other fetish forums, that percentage translates into a much bigger number than on here. Mostly the best thing to do is filter out all their BS and try to understand what they're saying under it all (and no, you probably won't like it, but they're as entitled to their opinion as you are)... either that or leave the forum or only go into the chat room and tell people who try to cyber with you that you don't do it then stop replying to them if they persist.

On the other hand I've met quite a few friends on there (into double figures now) as a result of PMing them after reading a post they've made that I liked and liked the style of, or using the chat room and starting a non-cyber/tickling orientated conversation in the private chat boxes. Incidentally I met my partner on the chat room after he noticed I was in the same country as him and we started talking about music (I'm not even sure he asked about tickling at all, but I can't remember that much).