Knowing a poster's intent is can be difficult.
Not knowing whether another poster is being sarcastic, is playing Devil's Advocate, or is deliberately seeking to goad others leads to tempers flaring and blood pressure soaring all the time on these forums. On my last thread NEWS: Girl, 9, Gives Birth in Mexico [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/18.400478-NEWS-Girl-9-Gives-Birth-in-Mexico] several Escapists made posts commenting that the not only does the minimal age of consent vary from country to country and culture to culture but that it can be difficult if not impossible to deduce a young girl's age sometimes.
Both of these observations are certainly true.
In parts of India, for example, child brides are notoriously common (even though their federal laws prohibit such things local ancient customs lead to such laws being routinely ignored).
It is also a proven scientific fact that some of the growth hormones given to cattle serve as an analog to the natural growth hormones that trigger the onset of puberty in girls which has resulted over the last 25 years or so in preteen and early teen girls developing breasts and generally maturing much earlier than girls just 40 years ago.[footnote]It's also a bad thing because the early onset of puberty slightly stunts their overall growth, but I digress.[/footnote]
And then there were the comments that ran along the lines of "So a child got raped? It happens everywhere. Why should I care about it?"
I bit my tongue and didn't argue. I certainly did NOT get the feeling that any of the posters were advocating pedophilia. Other posters stated that they were perturbed at some of the comments, but I recognized that the ones commenting about cultural differences, etc, DID have valid points. I didn't like the facts that they were pointing out, and I didn't believe that they were valid in this case, but I recognized that "Devil's Advocates" are generally needed.
So I bit my tongue. I did believe that some of the posters were trolling for the purpose of inciting others. But I bit my tongue.
Rape, incest, gun rights, the Holocaust, bestiality (for goodness sake), etc etc...
Every time a thread comes up that involves sensitive subjects that most people find abhorrent there are always posters jumping in and defending the matter--sometimes taking the argument to the extreme, even to the point of pouncing on Escapists who say--for example--that they were raped and object to the term being "degraded" in jokes like that comedian (I've forgotten his name) who joked at a show that a woman in the audience who'd objected to his "rape jokes" should "be raped by 5 men right now".
Topic of discussion:
(1) Do you ever find yourself acting as the Devil's Advocate out of an attempt to try to balance in discussions?
(2) Do you bite your tongue when you see posts like I've mentioned?
Not knowing whether another poster is being sarcastic, is playing Devil's Advocate, or is deliberately seeking to goad others leads to tempers flaring and blood pressure soaring all the time on these forums. On my last thread NEWS: Girl, 9, Gives Birth in Mexico [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/18.400478-NEWS-Girl-9-Gives-Birth-in-Mexico] several Escapists made posts commenting that the not only does the minimal age of consent vary from country to country and culture to culture but that it can be difficult if not impossible to deduce a young girl's age sometimes.
Both of these observations are certainly true.
In parts of India, for example, child brides are notoriously common (even though their federal laws prohibit such things local ancient customs lead to such laws being routinely ignored).
It is also a proven scientific fact that some of the growth hormones given to cattle serve as an analog to the natural growth hormones that trigger the onset of puberty in girls which has resulted over the last 25 years or so in preteen and early teen girls developing breasts and generally maturing much earlier than girls just 40 years ago.[footnote]It's also a bad thing because the early onset of puberty slightly stunts their overall growth, but I digress.[/footnote]
And then there were the comments that ran along the lines of "So a child got raped? It happens everywhere. Why should I care about it?"
I bit my tongue and didn't argue. I certainly did NOT get the feeling that any of the posters were advocating pedophilia. Other posters stated that they were perturbed at some of the comments, but I recognized that the ones commenting about cultural differences, etc, DID have valid points. I didn't like the facts that they were pointing out, and I didn't believe that they were valid in this case, but I recognized that "Devil's Advocates" are generally needed.
So I bit my tongue. I did believe that some of the posters were trolling for the purpose of inciting others. But I bit my tongue.
Rape, incest, gun rights, the Holocaust, bestiality (for goodness sake), etc etc...
Every time a thread comes up that involves sensitive subjects that most people find abhorrent there are always posters jumping in and defending the matter--sometimes taking the argument to the extreme, even to the point of pouncing on Escapists who say--for example--that they were raped and object to the term being "degraded" in jokes like that comedian (I've forgotten his name) who joked at a show that a woman in the audience who'd objected to his "rape jokes" should "be raped by 5 men right now".
Topic of discussion:
(1) Do you ever find yourself acting as the Devil's Advocate out of an attempt to try to balance in discussions?
(2) Do you bite your tongue when you see posts like I've mentioned?
