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Double Standards regarding relationships?
I realise this may be a bit of a touchy topic, but I feel it is something that should be brought up since it is something that has the potential of being able to impact on someones RL enjoyment of Lusternia.
I have noticed a bit of a discrepancy regarding relationships pertaining to males and females in my time playing Lusternia, particularly pertaining to promiscuity. There is a couple of female characters I am aware of that have effectively been forced to go rogue and have been made pariahs, being labelled 'whore', 'slut' or even 'pedophile', ignoring the fact that a lusternian year passes in a mere 12 IRL days, plus the fact that there is other people in marriages/engagements/other relationships with equally large gaps in their ages, enough-so that they should be considered cradle-snatchers, but people turn a blind eye to it.
In contrast, males seem to get off scot-free, I know of a couple of males that are rather promiscuous and at least one that has questionable motives, yet they are still welcomed within cities and allowed to go about day-to-day activities without a problem.
Basically my gripes are "Why are females so badly stigmatised for their actions while males seem to face relatively minor repercussions?" and "Why is the actions of someone within the privacy of their own manse which is not even connected to their home (or ex-home) city, considered city business, as long as it is not breaking any clearly defined city or commune laws?" As long as they are working to better their home city or commune, what they do in their own manse should be their own business.
(And before anyone says anything, I am male IRL)
For the purposes of this discussion, the people I have mentioned above are to remain anonymous, any "naming and shaming" will be taken up with the administrators. I want this to be a fair, unbiased discussion.
Kiss of the Enchantress hisses eerily, "Let them fear, and despair."
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(c) Iron Realms Entertainment 2012.
Comments
Regarding the second part, cities and communes believe that the company one keeps is a reflection of their dedication and devotion to the city/commune's ideals. Therefore, they are interested in with whom one is spending time so as to judge the loyalty of the person.
There's no easy way out beyond to get friends in high places. To take part in such activities requires that you know the risk you are putting your character into. Most people who become City Leaders are understanding enough, but that's not neccesarily true 100% of the time. If you know your Leader will not look favourably on some activities with the enemy, then engaging in such activities are going to always come with a degree of risk.
There will also always be stigma towards certain specific activities in the bedroom. This is unavoidable - again, you simply have to do your best to only let it be visible to those you know do not mind. I personally don't think it's wrong for people who want to play this game just for those activities (sex-alts, as people call them), but it is understandable that there are people who would prefer not to have such content in their experience.
And I will add that even in ones own manse connected to a org or not, you are still subject to facing issues with your home if your welcoming enemies there. Or even people from another org that is considered enemy territory. Loyalty is a big part of Org related RP and yes, Lerad made a good point, some higher-ups will look the other way time to time, some wont. I know a few that will make it very clear that it is completely unacceptable to mingle even with family that is from an enemy org, and they very will ensure an enemy stat if ignored on the matter.
As for the treatment. If it is a IC thing, and you can learn from it, use it in your RP either take it and make your character now have a reason for hate, or step away and take a break.
Should it go OOC I think there are a few things one can do to make that stop as well, the easiest is to ISSUE yourself and ask if your unsure about something.
Currently Playing in: The doctors office. One more needle and I might just lose it again.
As to your second part, that's organisational politics, factionalism and general in character xenophobic attitudes. No one cares so much if it's the first person in your character's bed or the 20th, you're sleeping with the enemy, showing them compassion and hospitality and that just simply won't do. If you lead them in to Black Widow, however, and carve their face off with a rusty blade you'd be applauded for excellent work, and no one would bat an eyelid as to your personal habits.
The divine voice of Avechna, the Avenger reverberates powerfully, "Congratulations, Morkarion, you are the Bringer of Death indeed."
You see Estarra the Eternal shout, "Morkarion is no more! Mourn the mortal! But welcome True Ascendant Karlach, of the Realm of Death!
Estarra the Eternal says, "Give Shevat the floor please."
This is a very sound point.
Currently Playing in: The doctors office. One more needle and I might just lose it again.
You could write a book on this topic. Many have, actually. I won't, but a quick blurb about my perspective.
"Slut shaming," and the double standards regarding sexuality women experience in society is really the foundation of the argument. It's an issue that is then exasperated in male dominated arenas such as the gaming community, which presents an interesting topic of discussion as the gaming community tends to lean more liberal. So basically it boils down to the social constructs of gender roles that supercede even political inclinations. Men and women are not treated the same on this issue because society has different standards for them.
You see it in the real world just like you see it in Lusternia. We're not immune to traditional social issues!
More broadly, rping character development of the kind you describe requires a certain amount of ooc trust. This is trust that some people, having had bad experiences in the past, are not always willing to extend to characters which seem to match a certain profile. Is this fair, no, not really. Ideally we could have our characters react to people icly all the time, and ooc suspicions and motivations would never enter into it. Is it justified? Kind of. Sex is something that players have strong feelings and strong memories attached to, and it's therefore something that can get incredibly personal to the player incredibly quickly, and can make some people incredibly uncomfortable on an ooc level, causing their ic reactions to be influenced as well. That's not really their fault, particularly not when they did nothing to put themselves into a position where their ic/ooc boundaries were going to be compromised, but instead had it essentially shoved into their faces. In my experience (which, of course, is not universal) characters who behave a certain way receive the same treatment, regardless of gender, but disproportionately more female characters act this way than male characters.
There's also the way that people sometimes rp things that make it very difficult to react icly to. Someone can claim to be a contributing member of society and mislead and rp as if that's what they are, while the fact remains that they spend very little time in game gathering power, contributing to discussions, helping novices (unless they're trying to lure them back to their manse), and are constantly "naively" sleeping with city enemies. It's like rping an amazing combatant when actually you never show up to defend etherwilde, or assist in domoths. At some point, someone's rp persona stops being believable, and so their character is going to be treated as a liar, even though they're playing their character as someone truthful.
To give an extreme example of people rping in a manner inconsistent with their actions: In a non-IRE mud, I once witnessed fallout between one character accusing another icly of rape over a private mudsex scene that one player had interpreted to be icly consensual and the other player had interpreted as ic date rape. One person was rping as the unjustly accused, one person was rping as the disbelieved victim. Both insisted oocly that their character was the one wronged. The mess this turned into, has, unfortunately, given me a very extreme wariness about the motivations and ability to separate ic and ooc of people who get ic reputations for being promiscuous. Other experiences have only reinforced my tendency to distrust the level of ic of someone causing mudsex related drama, including alts that seem primarily designed to "discredit" a particular organisation. And I disagree that cities need laws explicitly detailing what level of association with enemies or people from enemy nations is okay, and what isn't, because there should be some degree of common sense, and respecting leadership when they tell you that what you are doing is inappropriate. Pretty much all cases I've seen in Lusternia have involved a warning and discussion of how the behaviour is not in line with the community's ideals, goals, what have you. It's also okay if a commune isn't perfectly "fair" in their treatment of someone they view as a traitor. That's an icly valid response to take to finding out that so and so is romantically involved with one of those icky tainted people and has been made corrupted as a result. Many organisations have a very unified view of their ideals (Nothing matters but Glomdoring! For the Collective!) and sleeping, even in your private manse, with someone who is in an org that is the antithesis of your org's ideals? That kind of is that org's business if they find out about it. You're giving pleasure to someone who has either directly or indirectly sought to harm your org's very existence, and by extension someone who is pursuing a course that will ultimately doom the world if it isn't curbed. Why wouldn't leaders who have dedicated themselves to the Wyrd/natural forest/Light/taint react poorly to that?
TL;DR Reacting to ic situations entirely ic is good, however people inevitably have ooc baggage when it comes to sex that means that a lot of patience, level-headedness, a thick skin ooc, and tact is required when you are instigating a sex related controversy ic. My experience has largely been that people are treated similarly on an ic level regardless of gender, that mudsex does have a stigma, and that I've run into more blatant female sex alts than male sex alts, which may account for the perceived disparity. Finally for people playing characters dedicated to an org's ideal, going to certain extremes with people who oppose that ideal is going to be treated poorly ic, and this is a perfectly valid way for them to play their characters.
As far as sleeping with the enemy is concerned... I am one of those people that will tell you not to do it and will be pretty adamant about some form of punishment if it is discovered that you went ahead and did it anyway. Why? Well, Elanorwen is first and foremost a fighter. From personal experience in the past, I've known people to disclose information during pillow talk that is normally not the kind of information they'd share otherwise. Does that mean that everyone does it? Not necessarily. Does that mean that it is a possibility? Yes. Even then, in most cases, what I'd say is... please use some discretion as to who you associate yourself with and what you do with them. It's not like you can't both go into the same manse without needing one to follow the other in... or needing to go at the same time, even. There will be people that will notice and the information will get back to people that will cause trouble.
As to the strumpet title? Well, again, discretion will save you from such a brand. Still, chances are, if you got caught once, you'll get caught again... so that is when you should probably take a step back and consider what you're doing wrong, or perhaps even ask for advice from someone who might not look too unkindly on such actions as to how to get better at avoiding detection. There exist artifacts that will allow people to spot you even then, and some do make it a point to try and locate individuals engaged in certain acts, but... most cases, they do keep it to themselves. Even then, if you are the kind of person that jumps into the proverbial bed with someone else at the drop of a hat, then the strumpet title is likely also appropriate, fair and square... and there really isn't much arguing the point. Do I limit myself in regards to labeling only women as such? No, not really. If they exhibit that kind of attitude, they will get what's coming their way.
To make a long post short... if you don't want to be called something, your best course is to avoid the kind of actions that will make it happen. If you persist in engaging in carnal pleasures with everything breathing, then it is likely that the brand you're receiving is spot on. Complaining about it won't change the matter in any fashion.
Forgiveness is the fragrance that the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it.
The best way to avoid being labeled as anything is for people to stop being judgemental a-holes. We should not be setting the standard that the onus is on the person being labeled to prove they don't deserve it.
Whatever kinky furrikin bondage MUD fantasies people partake in is really none of my business. Nor can I be bothered to give a crap. I WOULD SUGGEST that if you have the time to worry about who is putting their whodeeha in whoever's bumbledoodle, you have your own share of problems ripe with labeling opportunity. Only I don't care enough to give you one myself.
Find a better hobby than keeping a running tally of who in Lusteria has crossed the slutty threshold. One might wonder why you care about who is mudsexing in the first place.
disclaimer: There was that one time where a 2 newbies were mudsexing in the middle of Glom's swamp and I was totally in the audience watching while they couldn't see us. If you do it in public, that's your own fault. I will mock you for swamp crotch.