opinions of "Asterids parlor"

[Elf Witch]

I need to start reading threads all the way through before posting.

In so far as it's being discussed: Titillating art in fantasy books is just that it's designed to sexually titillate. Objectification of women as sex objects is fun, for the objectifiers and can be unpleasant for people who are being objectified.

The fact that a group of folks have created a space where they can discuss it is a good thing.

[sblock=original post]


Not to toot our own horns here, but this came up recently and I think EnWorld collectively did basically what you seem to want.

Obviously you've been riled by some posts, but assuming things about people is a two way street.

This may come off as simplistic and craven, but the op not understanding something and posting about it, inviting comments, etc. doesn't have to be a challenge. He could be just talking to his friends over beer and re-enforcing his own notions of gender equality instead of posting someplace publicly and inviting comment.[/sblock]

I would like to say that when the PC pregnant thing came up here it was handled with far more maturity than I have seen on Astrids. No one got pissy and while people did bring up in game consquences as a possiabilty to add to the game it was not done in that you have to do this and if you don't then you are playing it wrong.

I am taking the fact that you spoiler blocked your original comment to be that you mis read what I was saying. Because I was not assuming anything about the OP. I was pointing why I don't think Astrid's really works.

One of things I see happening on Astrids a lot is that people come in with a chip on their shoulder. Some guys are resentful of the forum or they can't understand the need. They act like they are being discriminated against and feel the need to drive home every argument they can come up with as to why political correctness is wrong, that reverse discrimination is wrong, what about men's rights.

They take everything to extremes.

And then you have the prickly feminist who take everything the wrong way and get angry even innocent comments or they feel the need to debate the point with the guys above to death.

And some how a forum that is supposed to be about woman's issues in gaming gets lost. That was my experience. Which is why I stopped reading and posting.

 

[roguerouge]

so i guess if there was actually a guy out there who didnt realize graphic rape decriptions might upset girls and he happened to look in a forum for girl gamer issues that might be worth something.

Please see this thread: http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=219081

 

[roguerouge]

The other had a DM desribe in great detail the rape and vaginal mutliation of her PC she walked out and to this day will not play DnD.

Whoa. Wow. That's got to be the worst diplomacy botch I've ever heard of. Followed by botches in sense motive and perform: storytelling.

 

[Puggins]

And women are a majority. So you're saying that Curves "[has] an unfortunate tendency to be fertile grounds for back-room deals that serve only to keep the majority" (Which in the example we're talking about is women) "in power."

Using this logic, the Black Majority of South Africa during Apartheid was "in power," and so was the Shiite majority under Sadaam Hussein.

The point of Astrid's is to provide a valid sounding board for concerns that are usually drowned out on typical gamer boards. Women are a tiny minority in gaming, unfortunately, and it would be beneficial for the gaming community as a whole to understand why we attract so few females to this hobby. Astrid's, aside from providing camaraderie, is a reasonable step in this direction.

As for people concerned about why boards for male gamers don't exist... well, as a point of fact, they do. Practically every board in existence other than Astrid's has a higher proportion of male gamers as posters than Astrid's has females as posters. Go check out the average long thread on this board and compare it to a typical long thread on Astrid's. You'll find more men posting on the thread at Astrid's than you will find women posting on the threads here. And you'll find all sorts of concerns for male gamers on these boards. How many threads have talked about how to deal with the friend's girlfriend that isn't into the game? Or about introducing D&D to your girlfriend? Check here and on Wizards' normal boards for plenty of examples within the last 30 to 60 days.

 

[tzor]

The point isn't that groups are excluded from places like Asterid's Parlor (as you pointed out, or not), the point is that putting the shoe on the other foot and say, creating a forum focused on white male issues, would cause tremendous outrage.

The problem with this and the reason the argument is actually somewhat moot is that there is no such thing in the first place. There is no generally agreed upon "white male" model to base issues off of, and secondly a place like Astrid's parlor is based on "gaming issues" not on "women's issues." It is (or rather was supposed to be) a place where gaming issues could be discussed from a certain perspective which we can call with a rather sloppy label "women's," even though we all know that not all women have that perspective and not all who have that perspective are women. In as much as the forum was "open" and not restricted to women only, it was a positive place to promote the specific perspective. Thus the only really good example to compare it to is other perspectives not to specific race/gender divisions. Jocks who game, actors who game, LARP players who game ... that sort of thing.

We often slap a race/gender label on things not to exclude but to over generalize. Yes we probably should describe all things in fifty words or more but we don't. A lot of people, for example, tend to throw the label "African American" on the Jazz genre, but that doesn't prevent a lot of white people, like myself, from listening to and collecting the great Jazz greats like Charlie Parker. I think one cannot deny that there is a perspective in the gaming community that has been sorely underrepresentated and can be a significant potential for the gaming community.

Whether or not Astrid's Parlor can live up to that idea is a different question given the nature of the whole forums there since the Gleemax revolution, but that doesn't mean that it is not a valid idea to persue.

 

[Keefe the Thief]

Sweet!

I suck at it, though. You would not like to see my last scarf.

 

[Kid Charlemagne]

Whoa. Wow. That's got to be the worst diplomacy botch I've ever heard of. Followed by botches in sense motive and perform: storytelling.

I think you misread the situation. That wasn't a Diplomacy botch. That was an Intimidation success. Sadly, I'm not even close to being joking about that.

 

[Kid Charlemagne]

Putting my "Moderator" hat on here for a moment, I think this is a fine thread, and everyone is handling the subject with maturity (momentary stop while I check if anyone has reported it) but it has skirted (ahem) a little close to the politics rule on occasion. Just keep that in mind as we continue on!

 

[ironvyper]

Your comment about the chainmail bikini is a reason why forums like Astrids are needed. So if the players handbook is filled with cheesecake pictures she should just leave the hobby? After all how can she play without a book.

Thats not what i meant at all, I think it was fairly clear that what i meant is "dont buy the bikini then." You dont have to buy your chainmail in bikini form just becuase all the other kids at school have one. I mean hell thats like a brunette saying that she cant play a human female with brown hair because the picture in the book is blond. And after all she cant possibly have something different then the art in the book, no not at all. Although since the picture of races in the PHB is black and white and not wearing any sort of bikini at all maybe they really hate anyone who has been colorized and wears any sort of armor.

Sexist bastard artists, making thier pictures of women in the book wear pants in black and white. What about all the full color bikini models who might like D&D? How dare they not include 1,000 pictures of every shape and form of woman? Damn the page count, just stick the sears catalog in there, normal and big and tall version so no one is left out.

I can't tell you how it fustrates me to not be able to find a decent mini and then to be told well suck it up cheesecake sells and you are not important to me as a customer.

I dont think its that at all. Think of it like you own the business. You only have so much production capacity and shelf space in stores. Now you have one type of product that sells well reliably and makes you a tidy profit. Are you really gonna make the decision to pull some of those products off your limited shelf space and production capacity and put out the money to make several all new lines of basically untested products for a minority of a niche market and hope that they sell and you get your money back?

American car companies tried that over the last few decades, and look at how that turned out. Like it or not minis are a small part of an allready niche market in an economy thats been slowing down for a while. Mini companies would just be stupid to put out money on a totally untested product right now.

As for the two woman who you are using as an example I can also point to two woman I know who were turned off by boorish behavior at a gaming table who feel that part of the problem was the atmosphere of gaming as being a all boy's club.

The one showed up for her first game and the DM proudly handed her a painted mini of a female wizard. The wizard was nude from the waist up. When she protested he said it was his only female character and he would find her a better one. The entire session the other guys made sexual jokes till it got very uncomfortable for her. The only reason she plays today is that she joined an all female gaming group and that got her interested in DMing. She eventually met a guy who games and they got married and she plays in a mixed group now and plays with decent guys.

Well as i DM myself if someone is using my minis they take what i have or use a coin. If they are super particular about artwork and get pouty cause i didnt happen to buy something they liked then i guess they should have shelled out a couple bucks and bought one of thier own instead of expecting me to spend a fortune having every kind of mini anyone might want.

Other then that, did your freind say "hey guys tone it down"? or anything of the sort?

The other had a DM desribe in great detail the rape and vaginal mutliation of her PC she walked out and to this day will not play DnD. I keep trying to get her to join my game.

That sort of guy is never going to look at a forum for girl gamer issues anyway. So it really has no bearing on whether this sort of thing is helpful for that kind of situation.

 

[Puggins]

But I've found more of the types that throw around terms like "feminazi" are more frustrated by what they perceive as an inequity or prejudice, simply because they were born with a certain a gender and skin color that happens to place them in the social "majority" (those with more influence, allegedly).

I'm making the assumption that, by the addition of "allegedly," you are implying that you are skeptical that white males have more influence in today's modern society. Is that correct, or are you trying to be egalitarian about the situation?

Ultimately, understanding cuts both ways. I said it before, I think too many folks hide between "you don't know what its like to be [____________]", and forget that everyone (well, most everyone) has feelings like that. And to claim your story of misunderstanding is more compelling or more important or more relevant than someone else's promotes ignorance, it doesn't abate it.

This is promoting relativism, which I think is usually a good thing. But whether or not people perceive their situation as just as dire as minority X doesn't make it true. I'm a white male, and I grew up with plenty of angst, true, but I recognize that I really don't know how an African American feels like growing up in the United States.

One of my groomsmen was African American and is still a really close friend. We both went to the same elite University. I only had positive experiences with campus police- they would stop to help me carry my luggage into the dorms or give me a ride across campus. He, meanwhile, was stopped on a monthly basis, interrogated and forced to produce identification proving that he was indeed a student and not a vagrant walking around campus. It'd be nice to think that his was an isolated experience, but the same story is repeated on campus after campus around the country. Could someone who found the Campus police to be as helpful as I did really relate to someone who was a continuous target for the same officers?

More relevant to this discussion, do you really think the average white male's angst is as justified by someone who has to worry about getting drunk at a party for the fear of date rape? Or someone who is subject to all sorts of really annoying sexual advances at their place of work or at their favorite hobby shop (an extremely frequent occurrence, apparently)?

The solution you seem to be advocating- forbidding all compartmentalization by race, gender, religion or whatnot- is a noble goal, and appears attractive in theory, but I think ultimately breaks down when you realize the pressures and attacks some minorities are subjected to when they try to raise their voice in forums dominated by the majority class. So, men who roleplay have full use of the boards and freely discuss topics that are clearly male-centered (dealing with the annoying girlfriend, how to introduce a girlfriend to D&D, discussing the price of sexual slavery, etc. etc.), while females have to contend with posts full of clearly misogynistic overtones (see the aforementioned sex slave thread). The equality of a genderless messageboard is illusory when 95% of all posts (at least, from what I see) are made by males. Yes, that may mean that 95% of the board population is male, but it doesn't change the fact that females are frequently not well-served in such an environment.