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Corelyn · **10-07-2013, 02:10 PM**

Over the years, I've started telling myself something that, honestly, really and truly helps in any situation where I feel someone is being offensive either intentionally or not. Of course, it helps and goes hand in hand with the fact that I, myself, have a rather all-encompassing sense of humour including and certainly not limited to rude, crude, offensive behaviour.

Simply put, you cannot be offended if you do not let yourself be. That doesn't mean speak up against people, nor does it mean making anyone else stop. It starts with you. If you choose not to take offense to something, regardless of your beliefs or feelings on something... that is (eventually - it takes a bit of self-training, admittedly) where it ends.

Without someone to take offense, offensive actions or language are no longer as big of a problem, as the person who they would otherwise offend is now unaffected.

And believe me, this comes from experience, spending years of my life bullied and abused by my "fellow" man from grade school to high school to college to this very day. I'm a weird and eccentric person who often is at the end of some pretty offensive comments and behaviour.

That said...

[youtube]F8XlMYe_2Lo[/youtube]

Naunet · **10-07-2013, 02:47 PM**

(10-07-2013, 02:10 PM)Corelyn Wrote: Simply put, you cannot be offended if you do not let yourself be.Â

Honestly, this skirts dangerously close to the tired "You're being over-sensitive" accusation (and is similar to the "I'm sorry if you were offended by what I said" non-apology), which is just complete and utter horseshit. There needs to be responsibility on the part of the offender. You have no idea what history the offended person has that led to them reacting how they did, and you have no right to tell them notÂ to be offended. One must understand that they are, accept that, and work around it on a case-by-case basis.

Val · **10-07-2013, 02:48 PM**

As many others have pointed out, IC is IC.

I have three characters. One, my main, curses like a sailor. He does it because, well, that's just how he is. I imagine that those around can either block me or leave the area if they don't like the idea of seeing it. Strictly put, though, it's in character. It will always stay in character and I have no plans or desires to bring it out of character.

My other two are completely different. One is a soldier who has big dreams of becoming a knight. He is incredibly nice and I don't even think has a curse in his vocabulary. The other is capable, but he finds it tasteless and only does such when he's angry.

I'll never act like my main OOCly. To my knowledge, I don't think I ever have. If he offends people, or I feel he's offended people, I make sure to apologize to others OOCly for his actions and ensure that they know that I, the player, am nothing like that. I don't feel that I should have to do it, but it certainly is a bother and I'd rather be safe than sorry.

Tyndles · **10-07-2013, 03:04 PM**

People get offended by lots of different stuff, and I never intentionally try to push peoples buttons, but I have once gotten a tell saying that Jojo was "being a bit colorful"

They politely asked me if I could tone it down a bit, and I did.Â They were kind about it, and it was just a brief RP interlude that happened in the middle of the marketplace, so there were a LOT of people around.Â I managed to get my characters personality across....

but when you play a filthy-mouthed drunken Lalafell...without the quite as filthy mouth, it can mute the experience a bit.

Sometimes you gotta compromise a bit, but if you're doing it to a point where it isn't fun anymore, then you've done too much.

Vinter · **10-08-2013, 01:27 AM**

(10-07-2013, 02:47 PM)Naunet Wrote:
(10-07-2013, 02:10 PM)Corelyn Wrote: Simply put, you cannot be offended if you do not let yourself be.Â

Honestly, this skirts dangerously close to the tired "You're being over-sensitive" accusation (and is similar to the "I'm sorry if you were offended by what I said" non-apology), which is just complete and utter horseshit. There needs to be responsibility on the part of the offender. You have no idea what history the offended person has that led to them reacting how they did, and you have no right to tell them notÂ to be offended. One must understand that they are, accept that, and work around it on a case-by-case basis.

I can agree with the first two points, but not the third. You might as well argue that the offended party needs to understand that not everyone finds X topic offensive; accept that; and find a way to deal with it, without expecting other people to change themselves to conform to their own particular values.

Say for instance that I'm offended by homosexuality. Is it then reasonable for me to expect a gay rights activist to work around my personal prejudice for the sake of sparing my feelings?
They are after all the ones reponsible for offending me.

Naunet · **10-08-2013, 01:35 AM**

(10-08-2013, 01:27 AM)Vinter Wrote: Say for instance that I'm offended by homosexuality. Is it then reasonable for me to expect a gay rights activist to work around my personal prejudice for the sake of sparing my feelings?
They are after all the ones reponsible for offending me.

How one responds to that depends entirely on the rules you've established for your particular community. For my FC, well, said person would simply be turned away at the door with a polite suggestion that Unity would not be a good fit for them.

Though two things. 1) You passed over where I said "on a case-by-case basis". And 2) The "over-sensitive" and "non-apology" situations I referenced in my post are generally not used for such things as in your example, and more for topics related to oppression, control, deprivation, and generally triggering situations of all types. And yes, this can include curse words (particularly certain ones). I thought it was pretty obvious I wasn't talking about situations where one person's taking of "offense" was just disguised oppression of another.

synaesthetic · **10-08-2013, 06:03 AM**

It depends largely on context--where you are, and who is around you.

Unity is a "safe space," which means that members can expect a certain level of decorum being practiced in FC chat. This doesn't mean that people are required to sanitize their speech--there's no rules against dropping cluster F-bombs in FC chat (unless you start doing it so much it'd be considered spam).

But the whole "That's Offensive" issue becomes a lot more of an issue when you have certain types of communities. When you have lots and lots of people who have traumatic histories and pasts and may easily be triggered by certain topics, you have to be a little more concerned about what "offensive" really means outside of someone turning their nose up at you.

There's a whole world of difference between being mildly annoyed when someone cracks a sexual joke and being flung into a PTSD flashback and panic attack because someone made an extremely ill-advised rape joke.

Yeah; I take this topic seriously.

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[Discussion] 'That's offensive!'

RPC has moved! These pages have been kept for historical purposes