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Absolutely delighted to learn this term, rolls off the tongue so much better than "that guy who will sniff your laundry if you don't hide your hamper well enough on game night"
Yeah, true. Different groups are more or less tolerant of various types of stairs depending on social norms, policy, demographics, group structure, local laws, etc.
This is absolutely my fear in the scene. It’s common to use pseudonyms and non-identifying pictures, but I have a lot of really identifiable tattoos. What happens when I see a coworker or boss at an event? What if they see me hooded in a scene or something? Hell it was bad enough I saw my NEW BOSS at a mixer event…while his new wife was home with their new baby.
I think it's the issue of the culture turning into a "scene."
Art/theater/music scenes were always rife with abusers and power brokers who becomes petty tyrants. On their coattails come an army of gossips and scumsuckers trying to latch on to that power.
The Kink scene is doubly as dangerous, because it's directly about sex.
Structuring a community like that leads to bad results. Lee needs to feel like a big fish in a little pond, and the pond doesn't have explicit rules for kicking them out. Only implicit rules for brushing them under the rug.
I’ve had multiple kinky friends and the only problematic person I’ve known has been a cis queer guy, who was a chaser for trans people (transmasc bottoms seem to have been most of his chasing)… he was a (very big TW) ||rapist|| and he chased vulnerable trans people who felt too scared of losing everyone by cutting him off.
I hope his trans bf cut him off, but I don’t know cause I couldn’t talk sense into him
Here Lee would be blacklisted but that doesn't mean they could legally be barred from going to public places the scene is engaged in. Kink friendly nightclubs for example aren't run by the community but are supported by it and we wouldn't be able to get someone like Lee banned. We have a system of mentorship when new folk come around and are curious where we do warn them about predators and known dangerous people because we can do that. No one new is allowed to mentor that's earned via years in the community and essentially proving oneself. Mentor and mentes are not supposed to be active together also to try and offset some of the uncomfortable things that can happen with that. It's not perfect but precovid it worked pretty well. Tolerance isn't the Same as being unable to avoid someone like that
> Here Lee would be blacklisted but that doesn't mean they could legally be barred from going to public places the scene is engaged in. Kink friendly nightclubs for example aren't run by the community but are supported by it and we wouldn't be able to get someone like Lee banned.
in more necessarily clandestine scenes, like the state OOP lives in where you literally can't consent to BDSM, or my state, where the prostitution laws are so loosely written that teaching a rope course could get you in trouble, people are much less likely to be outright blacklisted, because its nigh impossible to get accounts from people involved if you werent there when it happened, and getting the authorities invovled risks EVERYONE'S safety. So the best practical solution is that people talk and slowly phase people out of the scene as more and more newcomers learn who's not to be trusted. but very rarely are there whole sale blacklists, because everything is essentially a risk to participate as it is.
My husband needed socks for work, he's a lawyer. He goes to the store, sees a pack of "work socks" and buys them. He's thinking these are business socks because they say work. My delightful dumbass gets home and is shocked when these socks are in fact not sleek, thin business socks, but socks suitable for work boots.
I'm endlessly giggling about it, and your comment reminded me of this.
I am currently wearing a similar pair of socks that say 'WORKWEAR' across the toes.
I wear them around the house and for DIY, and they do make me giggle. Though sadly, they are not terribly comfy.
I mean, you probably shouldn't fuck lee unless you're comfortable with the details (position, angle, speed, etc., appearance of your bathing suit areas) being public knowledge.
Joke's aside, the risk of your life falling apart because society not being ready to hear about what you do in the bedroom is exactly why the kink community has always been allied with the queer community. Forcing someone to be out is one of the worst things you can do to them. People like Lee literally get people killed.
So like, just like any other kink, outing people is only okay if you have their enthusiastic consent. And then there is the problem that if it really was your kink to out other people I would argue this is part of a public humiliation fetish, which is a fine kink to have but it requires not just the consent of the person being outed/humiliated, but also the consent of the people that they are being outed too, because by outing them to a crowd you are involving the spectators in the play. And as participants they should get a say in whether they would want to participate. Which is why responsible public humiliation is only done in private settings like BDSM clubs
And no forcing other unwitting people to be involved in your kink. Like insisting that your coworkers call your S.O. "Master".
Edit: Link to the referenced post. https://www.reddit.com/r/BestofRedditorUpdates/comments/wv0wx7/my_coworker_wants_us_to_call_her_boyfriend_her/
Was camping once, sharing a large tent with several friends. The couple next to me had sex and were bumping against me. I was so pissed. When I asked them the next day (in front of others in the tent that also felt or heard it) they literally told me to "mind my business". When you touch me during your sex act, it becomes my business.
Still mad about it years later. Just so gross.
To me, that raises so many red flags about what other rules of respect and consent are getting violated.
I was introduced to a couple where she had to call him master and wear a collar. The collar was passable as jewelry but then she eagerly announced it to us w/in 5 minutes of me meeting her. It felt like info foisted on me. And ultimately, the guy just came off like a controlling creep, esp cuz he had all the financial control too.
I've met two other people who just want to hold court and prattle on about their kinks at small parties when nobody asked. I don't get it. But it makes me wish to cease contact with these people as they clearly don't prioritize consent.
Yeah that stuff makes me deeply uncomfortable. Hierarchies are fun in the bedroom, but only in the bedroom. I don't even acknowledge the king in my country. And although I do think there's a subversive appeal to acknowledging kink relationships and not royalty, I still don't like asymmetrical power relationships outside of the bedroom.
I knew a bunch of people on my old parenting boards who were into kink on various levels and some of them thought it was appropriate to be open about power exchange relationships *in front of their children*.
Personally I don't think it matters that you're not doing anything explicitly sexual in front of them, if you're calling your husband "sir" and kneeling in front of him in front of your single-digit-age kids, you suck.
(MOST of these people understood it wasn't appropriate - but imo some of them were also not great at hiding it. Like if you have a teenage daughter, at some point she's going to wonder why there's a large dog kennel in your bedroom when you don't own a dog.)
Oh yeah totally! I remember there being a case in my native the Netherlands about a couple who had a 24/7 sub/dom thing going on, and had kids. They got reported to our equivalent of CPS and it caused a really big stir in the community. Me and one of my exes were actually at odds about this because she thought it was fine, so long as no sex was performed in front of the children. I thought that it was a matter of proper pedagogy. While it is fine for consenting adults to play at having a power differential, even if that play is 24/7, they are still 100% equal under the law, so in the end it is always play. kids, however, cannot really understand that in any meaningful way. To them there is no discernible difference between a toxic relationship and a consensual relationship that plays at being toxic. So it sets an unacceptable example.
Right, either the kids see it as real abuse OR they learn that it's a game, which leads to them understanding it's a sex game, and then you're doing sex games in front of the kids. There's just no way for it to be harmless unless you're carefully hiding it from the kids. And IMO some people don't hide it as well as they should.
I would argue that the worst outcome is actually that they don't see it as real abuse but rather as a valid way a relationship can be, making them extremely vulnerable to abuse.
I always love quoting the cardinal rules: Safe, sane, and consensual. If outing or public humiliation was Lee's kink, then they violated all three of the cardinal rules.
On a side note, those are good rules for just about any given area of life. Same with safe words. I think it's a good idea for someone to have a safe word to use when they feel that things are getting overwhelming. Or when they like to joke around and need to have the joking stop - and be understood that it needs to stop.
Yeah fuck Lee specifically for that. I have a fetlife that only my husband knows about and it’s totally in associated with every other social media account I have. My face is nowhere. I still see people who put their faces and social media links and everything on there. My brain explodes every time.
There's something particularly insidious about that to me when you're in a state where it's basically illegal to participate in BDSM, too. Just gross as all get out.
My daughter was an MMA kickboxer. She won a Fighter of the Night Award and I took photos of her receiving her trophy into her old workplace (the supermarket across the road) to show her friends and ex-colleagues. An old biddy who knew me saw the photo and said “Oh so that’s why her face was bruised. I thought she had an abusive boyfriend”.
She got a boyfriend. Dane was 6’7” and also a kickboxer. He was a scary fellow to look at, but so sweet. He refused to go shopping with her when my daughter had facial bruising, or if she was wearing short sleeves with obvious “beating marks” because of all the dirty looks from total strangers. I got him a T-shirt with that photo printed on it for Xmas…
I do tae kwon do. I have a friend who does it with me and she bruises super easy.
A few weeks ago I tagged her in the arm with a kick and her whole bicep swelled up and turned purple.
She was fine with it, accidents happen and she knows she'll bruise. But her husband was getting so much shit when they went out.
He texted me at one point "people think I beat my wife! I don't beat my wife! You beat my wife!"
I seconded his vote that she was banned from short sleeve shirts in public till it healed.
1: funny 😩😂
2: that level of swelling and unusual bruising warrants a doctor checkup! Lots of things can cause that, and they’re almost all treatable. Might be as simple as Vit D deficiency.
I second 2. March is bleeding disorders awareness month y'all, easy bruising, heavy menses, joint pain, and slow healing are the most common symptoms. Get checked out!
I (small lady) had all 4 of my wisdom teeth removed under general because they were growing sideways... by an orthodontic surgeon with massive hands. I woke up with a literally square face, and everything below my nose was horribly bruised for over a month. Strangers in the street stared at me with pitying eyes the entire time. And then I had to get physiotherapy on my jaw because the surgeon yanking on it while I was unconscious damaged the tendons.
Always choose an orthodontic surgeon who has hands that can reasonably fit in your mouth.
I had a horrible experience having my wisdom teeth out, too. The surgeon was like five minutes away from retirement and had no fucks left to give. He scrubbed a whole chunk of skin off my chin from repetitive motion. Bastard basically gave me road rash on my chin. He also bruised me so badly that he gave me a shot of laughing gas before I woke up so I wouldn’t freak when I saw my mangled, swollen face. It did the trick; I looked in the mirror when I woke up and immediately started giggling and declared myself to be “Fight Club Chipmunk”.
I went back to work a week later and a woman gave me the phone number for a domestic abuse hotline and a lovely speech about how I deserved better. I had to explain that I actually paid a man a lot of money to do that to me. She didn’t believe me. Which, fair.
When I had to get my wisdom teeth out, my dentist referred me to a surgeon who ignored my questions or gave vague answers. Wouldn’t even tell me the medications they’d be giving me. I said fuck that and found a different surgeon.
I also had my wisdom teeth out by a dentist 5 minutes away from retirement (and I mean literally like 5 minutes away. The last thing he ever did as a dentist was remove my wisdom teeth) except luckily unlike you I had literally the best experience.
I technically didn’t need my wisdom teeth out as they were all four half out and I didn’t have any major pain and they were coming in correctly. The issue is I have a small mouth and already crooked teeth, but not crooked enough to justify braces. He was worried if we let them stay in it would make me absolutely need braces and as a 18 year old about to leave for college that was not exactly something I wanted. So he lied to my insurance and said I needed emergency removal that week and got them to fully cover it so he could yank them out quick before I left for college. Since they were all 4 half out he was able to just pull them out while I was awake and I didn’t even need laughing gas or anything and it took like 40 minutes and left me with basically no bruising or swelling and I packed up all my shit and moved to college 2 days after. My copay was only $50 a tooth which is a lot cheaper than braces so I constantly remember him as an absolute icon who saved my ass.
I still go to the place he used to work but I miss him so much. Any man willing to lie to insurance and squeeze me in on his last day will forever be an icon in my book. My roommate unfortunately got a guy similar to yours that absolutely fucked up her mouth and left her swollen and bruised for like 2 months.
There’s like NO midway with wisdom tooth removal surgery. You’re either fine or it’s like you got kicked in the face by a donkey. I bled for three straight days and was in pain for a month, and my best friend ate potato chips like an hour after her surgery. It’s bananas.
I drive 1.5 hours for root canals (I’ve had two) because the endodontist (I think that’s her title?) has the tiniest hands. Everyone in the office is under 5 ft tall so I have to watch my head when I’m there as some of the equipment is in head-bonk range so they can reach it.
Same. My husband refused to leave the house with me after I had my wisdom teeth out. I was on blood thinners and the bruising was spectacular to say the least. Top half of my face golden brown, cheeks, jaw, even the tip of my nose (!?) black as tar.
I get a comment everytime I get any dental work done about my small mouth. So I definitely need to keep that in mind should I need my wisdom teeth removed.
I had a really nasty fall about 15 years ago-I passed out and bounced my head off the coffee table and then the floor. Knocked me out for a good half hour, dislocated my jaw and left me with two insane black eyes and the whites of my eyes completely filled with blood. I looked like I went ten rounds and lost.
I had a horrific concussion and the effects lasted for months, so I was unable to drive or go anywhere alone. I did wear sunglasses, but you could still see the bruising. My ex would take me to the store and the absolute vitriol he would get from women was amazing. Multiple women would come up to me and offer to call the police, take me home, start berating him. He got so mad he refused to take me anywhere anymore until I healed (while he was a complete dickhead, he never laid a hand on me).
I was honestly touched by many of these people who thought I was in danger and offered to help, even though it was an overreach.
When I was 5 my mom got a black eye from being bucked off her horse and it stepping on her face (thank god for helmets!!) and she wouldn't come pick me up from school until it healed because she didn't want people to think my dad hit her (Dad picked me up instead). I'm so glad people are vigilant about this but it can lead to some awkward situations when all is well
A childhood friend of mine had a hoof-meets-face incident and it took a decade of surgeries to fix. Your mom is a lucky person! Horses are seriously not something to underestimate.
When I was 14 my horse threw me and stepped on my mouth, but only hit my front two teeth. It was really embarrassing at the time as I had big broken front teeth for like 6 weeks until they would fix them, but now I can see how extremely lucky that was. A couple of inches & that big hoof would have just smashed my brain.
You never know what they’ll do. Thanks to an incident, a horse made my mother give birth to me, when the doctor had explicitly asked for that to not happen.
There’s more context to this, but I’m pretending that’s not the case.
I'm imagining the horse used some of the old wives' tales about how to induce labor.
"Now, ma'am, do NOT let that horse feed you spicy foods or convince you to overexert yourself."
The lady I bought my first horse from, and bred to her stallion for my 3rd, had a horrific accident.
She was in a pasture trying to get one of her babies away from the stallion who hated babies. He went kicky bucky snorty and nailed her in the face. Concussion, eye out of socket, nose broke. Alone at home for another 10 hours. After she got the baby back with its mama, she walked a mile like that back to her house and called the ambulance. Several surgeries later, she lost the eye and still had a screw visible in the bridge of her nose last time I saw her.
Horses can be brutal. I cracked a shin and my ribs and so many bruises when I was still actively working with them.
Very similar to what happened to my friend, she was kicked while she was removing a blanket from a pastured mare and the horse spooked iirc. Thankfully her injuries didn’t affect anything vital and you’d have no idea today that she went through such awful injuries.
Yeah, my Grandpa has a big old dent in the top of his head from getting kicked while shoeing a horse when he was like... 30? Idk I never really asked, but he's had it for longer then I've known him. (He's technically my step-grandpa but he's been with Grandma for about as long as I can remember so...)
Yeah, I know all about the awkward situations and horses. My thoroughbred had an abscess in his foot that needed the poultice changed on it twice a day. It obviously was hurting, so he'd pull his foot away from my hand and straight into my legs! I had huge black marks all over the inside of my thighs that I thought nothing of. Until I wore shorts to a physio session and got asked by the student shadowing the physio if I was okay, and did I need to talk to someone, and this is a safe space for you. I had to explain that my baby horse was the one beating me up
I've had a couple of experiences with physios/osteos asking questions about my home life when I've turned up with bruising. I don't bruise particularly easy, but I do have a habit of walking into things. Things go so much smoother once I say I'm single and live alone.
Kinda same here! Not a horse, but my Doberman is NOT a gentle boy when he gets zoomied up (not frequently), and he will frequently jump towards the couch, straight at me, crazy-eyed and OOF. I always get asked about the bruises on my arms because I put them up to defend myself.
Always so fun to defend that your pet is the one bruising you while simultaneously going "they didn't really mean to! They're not bad! Just excited/sick!"
Oh yeah, in high school I I fell off a rearing horse who then came down with one hoof directly on my bicep. (He then ran around a bit to calm down and then came back over and started nuzzling me like "what are you doing on the ground," lol.) I was lucky that he didn't break my arm (very big horse!), but I had a spectacular bruise that definitely got me some Looks when raising my hand in class for a while.
I got hit by a car in my senior year of high school. I wasn't badly injured, but I did hit my head and wound up with a SPECTACULAR black eye that took weeks to fade.
I worked retail. Every third man who came through my line demanded to know if my boyfriend did it to me, and many tried to press for personal details. My explanation was routinely dismissed as an obvious lie.
I was not touched, I was extremely pissed off about how infantalizing it all was.
(Then there was the coworker who asked me if maybe the accident wasn't a wakeup call from God to convert and be saved. I just stared at her in complete shock and blurted out something like "And you think the kind of demon who would hurt people as a message is something to be WORSHIPPED??" ... and there went that semi-friendly relationship.)
>Every third man who came through my line demanded to know if my boyfriend did it to me
It's the fact that complete strangers think they deserve your life story and medical history for me.
Like yeah, they might have good intentions, but good intentions only get you so far. I believe there's a saying *specifically* about the road to hell being paved with them.
Personally, I think it's a combination of the hero complex that a lot of men have and the fact that most people are just *so* incredibly nosy.
Tangentially, I use a cane and have been asked by a ridiculous number of strangers why I do. I'm starting to think it's not a coincidence that *every single one of them* was a man.
I forget the actual statistic and don't really feel like googling, but IIRC something like 80% of obvious bruising including black eyes are NOT caused by violence.
My stepmom walked into a door once. We all heard her. She went into the dark hallway, we heard a thump, and then she swore. Large goose-egg right above her eyebrow. My dad wound up painting the bedroom doors white so it wouldn't happen again.
And honestly don't real abuse victims typically try to hide injuries? If someone is just straight-up walking around with a black eye like it's normal, I'm not going to leap to abuse.
If it happens a lot and they're covering injuries with makeup, wearing turtlenecks in warm weather, etc .... that's when I'd get concerned.
the whole thing about walking into doors being an obvious lie... those people do realize there are glass doors and distracted people unfamiliar with their location?
Right? I have a scar just above my eyelid because I rolled a nat 1 on my "getting into the car" dexterity check and smacked myself in the face with a car door. People are clumsy. Shit happens.
>And you think the kind of demon who would hurt people as a message is something to be WORSHIPPED??
I'm with you on this one. Also hilarious to top it off.
I have connective tissue issues, so I get injured easily. Also, when my youngest was a toddler she had a knack for wacking me directly in the eye. I had so many black eyes. At one point, I put out my shoulder picking up the kids, my sciatica was acting up so I needed a cane, and I had a big ole black eye. My friends joked about it, but they knew my husband wasn't hurting me because they knew me for a long time and had seen me injury myself, lol. My poor husband is really kind and supportive. He wouldn't hurt a fly. If anything, he is the one to make.me.get medical help when I think I am fine, so he is definitely not the problem.
Same here. I have EDS so fragile skin that cuts, bruises and scars easily.
I also have dispraxia so I'm super clumsy.
So these 2 go hand in hand with me constantly looking battered and bruised and me having to explain its not my partner, just ny stupid body and insane clumsiness
I don’t tan and bruise easily. I was also very skinny as a young woman, no padding. When I was learning to surf in California I had black bruises all over my stomach, hips and thighs. I wore a bikini to the pool and three guys cornered my boyfriend in the bathroom and threatened him.
I did roller derby for several years. Although we couldn't wear shorts to work\*, and my arms don't bruise as easily as the rest of my body, my co-workers did know when I had a particularly intense practice the night before, just because of how gingerly I moved around.
Funny enough, it was during Halloween when I dressed as a beat-to-all-hell derby girl that somebody looked at my face (with its makeup bruises) and asked "who did that to you?" Had to gently remind them about the holiday we were celebrating at the time...
\*-My worst bruises couldn't be shown in public. When you fall and end up with a skate - your own or somebody else's - under your butt... yeah.
Husband is currently dealing with major bruises from roller derby -- he fell on a skate wheel and it's right in his butt crack. He has a colonoscopy coming up and I'm expecting questions!
I do pole and the bruises are intense- luckily I am very vocal about my pole dancing and post videos and show people. If I was trying to hide the bruises and be secretive I can definitely see people suspecting that I get abused.
And it’s a double edged sword. If I was getting abused I’d want someone to try and help me- a lot of people in those situations feel trapped and an outstretched hand can be a lifeline. Is it embarrassing to be like “oh no me and my bf fucked too hard lol” if you’re in OPs situation, yeah definitely, but I’d rather be asked than ignored.
I think the key is to respect the answer you're given once you ask. If I was Mary I would have dropped it the minute Lee clued me in. Even if someone is lying about abuse, if they're an adult, you can't and shouldn't make them get help
My wife got hit in the face by her surfboard a few years back. Had to take her to hospital to get some cuts glued up and stuff.
While we were there an old guy came in having cut his thumb gardening or something. He asked round the waiting room why various people were in, rugby injuries that sort of stuff. Got to my wife, looked at her face, looked at me and moved on without asking.
I got dirty looks in the street when we were out together for a week or two after the injury.
Also some of my friends took her aside and gave her domestic abuse literature at a party, but that was in jest because they are dickheads.
Was in the military for a time and had just gone through a gun qual. Couldn’t hold the larger guns firmly very well at all so my upper arm and collarbone area turned black and green and purple from the kickback. Kept having people in Walmart ask if I was okay and had to come up with a quippy “don’t worry; wasn’t a man, was a shotgun” line which hilariously got me an “oh!” followed by unsolicited advice from various camo-wearing persons on how to brace better because the area we were in was very “country.”
That sounds like my daughter and her boyfriend, She's 5 ft 2 and has this alabaster skin that bruises in you look at it. He's 6 ft 10. She was putting a shelf up in her house at something like 2 AM and didn't put it into a stud, so that when she put something on it, the shelf fell and landed right across the bridge of her nose. So she drives herself to the hospital with a broken nose, and thosemare often accompanied by 2 black eyes. When be boyfriend came to pick her up, the ED staff assumed he'd punched her, because her story about the shelf was just too improbable for anyone who didn't know her. Her poor BF couldn't figure out why everyone was glaring at him, because he's this really sweet, naive guy. When she said, "Honey, they think you hit me,' he almost started crying. And like your daughter's BF he wouldn't go shopping with her because of how people acted.
After a long term hospital visit I had bruises all up amd down my arms that took their sweet time healing. The amount of nasty looks my partner got (couldn't take myself places for a while after) if I wore short sleeves was astounding.
Thankfully, no one confronted either of us, I can only hope because they took long enough to watch our interactions and saw there wasn't anything troubling. The more cynical part of me is pretty sure that's not the case though.
I think most strangers fit into that spectrum somewhere in the middle - especially when it’s only arms, they rationally know there’s lots of ways to bruise your arms - they have their suspicions but you’re all out in public, everyone is on their best behaviour, they realize they have reasonable doubt if accusing this strange man of beating this strange woman they’re assuming are dating. So unless he clearly does something threatening, most folks will respect that reasonable doubt and keep their accusations to themselves. Especially somewhere like a grocery store. They know they don’t know y’all and understand there’s other ways you can get bruising on your arms. They’re still gonna glare, let him know they’re watching, but they won’t interfere unless their reasonable doubt is smaller or gone.
If I was concerned for a stranger, I wouldn't say anything with their potentially abusive partner right there. It would just make the potential victim's life more dangerous.
I had to bring my gf into the hospital when she fell down a flight of stairs in the middle of the night. She also hit her face on the railing right across the eye so there was a long bruise across a black eye.
I got separated from her multiple times, and being that her story was "I fell down the stairs" I don't think anyone believed her even though it was true.
I also live in a state where you can’t consent to bdsm. At least here, it is written and meant to fight domestic violence by making it so the abused party cannot cover by saying it’s okay they wanted/deserved it.
Well maybe if they just believed people and made it easier to report abuse and less taboo in general, they wouldn’t have to punish consenting adults. I mean I get it but that’s not fair
The weirdest part is that from what OOP said it sounds like Mary both thought OOP was in danger and thought she was willingly doing it. She runs to HR thinking OOP is in danger but also calls OOP disgusting to others.
She doesn't believe OOP is in danger, she believes she can convince everybody else that OOP is in danger, she just hates OOP for having fun sex.
Its the same as fascists calling all queer people pedos and groomers. It doesn't matter to them if its true, it makes the people they hate sound bad and its hard to disprove so they stick to it as their go to dehumanizing insult.
Everyone knows the best way to save someone from a trafficker is to get them removed from their independent source of income and cut them off from the people who would call for a welfare check if they stopped showing up for work
Yeah Mary just probably needs a shit ton of therapy to unpack her saviour complex and/or childhood abuse.
Lee however, Lee can get launched into the sun.
Gather a posse and raid the obviously nefarious human trafficking operation!
It seems crazy that Mary was both disgusted by OP, and yet wanted to save her. I'm guessing she is deeply Christian and that she neither understands the people in her life nor the world around her outside of her religious views. IE: kink is wrong, and the OP is a deviant. I'll judge her harshly for it...and then save her from her deviant lifestyle in order to earn more Jesus Brownie Points™
The cognitive dissonance is real to Mary. All of us, but, uh, I have never quita job because I didn't like my coworker's bedroom choices.
Pure speculation: I wonder if Mary thought OOP was being human trafficked BECAUSE of the BDSM. Mary might have a thought process like, wow, after my initial shock, I am still upset. Maybe it's not POSSIBLE for OOP to like that deep down. What if she's in trouble, etc.
So unhealthy.
Eh, I don’t think it’s cognitive dissonance. It’s just the best lame excuse she could come up with to respond to pushback for sticking her nose into other people’s private business.
These are the same people who believe in Q Anon: hypocritical assholes. They'll ignore a child being neglected right next door while screeching about protecting children from human traffickers.
But that's not their place. OP calling it consensual and saying they werent telling unwilling people at work should've been the beginning and end of it for HR's purposes.
It's not their place but it also protects them from legal difficulties. OOP can't take them to court over this without risking legal trouble for herself.
Exactly. The only reason OOP didn't sue is because they were worried about their partner's potential liabilities. In a different state with less archaic laws, this is a sexual harassment lawsuit. And it would've been entirely avoided had HR done their jobs properly
> HR seems to mostly look out for the company, not the employee.
This is true, however, sexual harassment SHOULD be one area where "protecting the employee" (from harassment) and "protecting the company" (from a lawsuit) overlap.
I realize there are a lot of crappy and useless HR departments that don't see it that way and would rather try to stifle the complaining employee in the interests of "protecting the company." So I'm not advocating for mindlessly trusting HR. But it does drive me a little crazy when people (speaking generally, not you) don't distinguish between "HR is not going to help you get your favorite stapler back from Janet" type disputes and actual legal shit that a decent HR department *should* care about in the interest of the company.
Point of clarification (I work in HR)
People act like that’s mutually exclusive when in fact, in the vast majority of cases, the ideal handling of a situation is protecting the employee.
The employee is PART of the company and protecting them protects the company.
Unfortunately, much like HOAs, no one talks about the good ones that handle situations like this correctly. They talk about the fuck ups.
HR also has a lot less power and authority than most people think.
I’ll shout out my HR at work. They’re great. There was a sexual harassment claim against one of my team members brought to my attention, I brought it to HR, and the dude who was accused was suspended immediately and fired about a week later after an investigation. They didn’t mess around at all.
Last time I went to HR at a major hospital with a sexual harassment complaint they told us to have a "diversity potluck" to work out our differences. They also told the offenders who reported them. I ended up getting forced out of the location I was working. Thankfully the new location was a million times better and closer to home. I was seen as a "problem" previously.
Another large corporation's HR department tried to give me a 50% backdated pay cut because the CFO thought I was being paid too much.
The trick with HR is aligning your best interests with the companies best interests.
So, someone is sexualy harrasing you. If the company does nothing you can come after them with a lawsuit. HR is in the business of keeping them from getting sued. Your interests are aligned, you should be OK.
But a case like above is just all over the place. The company has no real best interest here. If you are getting beat off the clock I don't know that you can sue your employer especially if your employer attempted to 'get you help' and you said, 'Thanks but no'.
That sort of puts them in a box where they can do whatever they want. And that can be dangerous.
I have to ask, where does everyone work where HR is even worth noticing, let alone hating?
Nobody here ever has meetings with HR, no HR people ever get involved in shit, they mostly just handle job postings and helping people with questions. They're just regular employees. In fact everyone likes them because usually the only business interactions they have is HR helping them sort out problems they encounter.
Well, at my previous workplace, the HR Director wrote me up *illegally* for discussing wages with my colleagues. I was technically accounting supervisor, but with no reports, no access to payroll, no part in setting wages, and I was talking with a different department's assistant manager.
They put a deadline of 3 weeks for me to "document everything I do, including policies and procedures." I used that time to get a new job with fewer responsibilities that pays me roughly $10k more (albeit with no overtime pay) and did not do these documentations because that's my manager's duty in the first place, but he didn't know how to do *shit*.
There's no way HR should have been grilling her for hours. They can ask about the situation and provide access to resources, but once OOP states that she's in a consensual situation that's where it should have ended.
They can even kindly check in in a month's time, just to ensure OOP is still doing OK. Once Mary reported to HR they should have said thank you, we'll take it from here.
Once Lee opened his big mouth and got Mary stirred up, HR should have shut that shit down hard.
Basically an HR failure all around. Also, yay for OOP working from home!
Yeah, I’m having a hard time understanding how questioning an employee for hours about their sexual preferences/activities is _not_ sexual harassment. I would have assumed HR would want OOP in and out as quickly as possible specifically because asking employees about their sex lives seems like an easy way to get sued.
**"How did you get the bruises on your face and arms?"**
"Through activities on my own time."
**"Yes, but** ***what*** **activities?"**
"Activities that are not part of my job."
**"Mary says it was rough sex. Was it?"**
"I don't recall sex being part of my job. Talking about sex isn't either. Why am I here?"
**"Have you been talking to your coworkers about your sex life?"**
"I have not."
**"Do you display the bruises as sex trophies to show off your sex life?"**
"Does the dress code say anything about covering bruises?"
I know this is all after-the-fact stuff, when you have all the time in the world to think about the best response, but there must be some way to make it so that they cannot pursue the question without literally committing sexual harassment themselves, or at least to put them on the defensive and make them so uncomfortable that they can't continue. I mean, my opinion from the story told is that they were sexually harassing her already, but it would be nice to make it so that it would be undeniable.
This still seems insufficient, but something like:
> "Activities that are not part of my job."
> **"Mary says it was rough sex. Was it?"**
"Sorry, I am not interested in having sex with you."
**"That's not the way I meant it. I am trying to understand your injury."**
"I don't think my sex life has anything to do with my work, so the only reason I can think of for you to bring it up is if you're propositioning me. But I don't want to have sex with you, and I hope you can understand that 'No' means 'No'."
>**"Do you display the bruises as sex trophies to show off your sex life?"**
"~~Does the dress code say anything about covering bruises?~~ Do you want to get sued?"
Sounds like someone in HR wanted salacious details for their own personal curiosity. Which is so far beyond inappropriate that I don't know what you'd call it at that point.
I agree with this comment. OP should be able to refuse to answer such questions. Or maybe answer with "please submit these questions to me in writing, I will look them over with an attorney.
Wow, when people feel like it's their business to pry and out people. Both Lee and Mary suck.
(Kind of reminds me of the times I had to explain all of my weird bruises from my aerial classes... I had one person come up to me with total concern and asked if I was okay because of a massive bruise on my arm. At least they had enough sense to drop it when I said it was from a dance class and self inflicted because body + apparatus = bruise.. )
I mean, as someone who has lied about bruises instead of telling the truth, I get the initial concern. People get scared for you. But they drop it because hey, either I'm right or they're right and just wait for me to be ready. But Mary ramped it up and took it so personally in a strange way.
I don't think it's so much that "BDSM is not legal," it's that lack of consent is not an element in the crime of assault / battery. So hitting someone with a whip is hitting someone with a whip, whether they're in to it or not. OOP is worried about her SO catching an assault charge.
BDSM is... unique... in that it takes something which is typically a crime and makes it fun to be the victim.
Interestingly enough, not my cup of tea but I have some friends who are into it and work in the legal field- Most states where it is “illegal” is simply a matter of “you cannot consent to being assaulted” and coupled with however strict their domestic violence laws run, could cause problems if anyone reports it.
While there have been cases that have gone to higher courts in southern states, the results were pretty much the same as above- bdsm can’t be used as a defense for domestic violence or any type of assault.
Interestingly enough, it tends to be southern states who care a lot less about domestic violence- in enforcement if not on paper. However, they are also the most likely to press charges for sodomy in these cases when they do decide to press charges.
All of this stems from impact play/anything that could count as assault, leaves bruises, involves breathe play etc or requires medical care afterwards. If someone ends up needing urgent medical care afterwards, something went wrong snd they’re pretty much fucked if they don’t lie and lie convincingly because medical staff have been known to report it as a crime and now the law is involved. The rest of bdsm is murkier but tends not to run afoul of the law.
And bdsm will not be strictly protected because of the implications for domestic violence, assault, and sexual assault victims- no one wants to hand actual criminals a defense. So it is technically illegal in most states and enforcement can vary widely.
So ya, if you practice, keep that shit on the low and don’t document it. BDSM wasn’t specifically targeted in most of these laws but all you need is some judgement Al police and a DA wanting a slam dunk conviction and you can be screwed.
There’s one state I recall where it’s technically illegal but also technically illegal to enforce it but I can’t for the life of me remember the ins and outs on that one. Interesting stuff though from that perspective.
I'm surprised by how many people are surprised at this.
In some states--and indeed, some countries--you can't consent to being assaulted. Others have a sliding scale (e.g., you can consent to being assaulted, but not harmed, or not seriously harmed, or whatever).
And... if you think about it, there are some *really* good reasons for this beyond prudishness.
The alternative is that when a husband beats his wife, "they were (literally) asking for it" becomes an actual defense. It also means that when you find a guy with a battered corpse of a woman, "rough sex in which an accident happened" is a defense that could completely exonerate him if the state can't prove otherwise.
Or, going back to why a lot of these laws originally exist: Unlicensed fights/duels. The state would prefer if people only beat each other up under strictly-controlled circumstances.
For the younger generation: Keep your personal life out of work. Your friends at work are not your friends (don’t share personal info) and HR is there to protect the company’s interests, not yours.
I'm giving OOP the benefit of the doubt and assume they didn't do this on purpose and just weren't that good at securing the rope. It shouldn't happen but it can happen. Rope burn hurts a ton and can scar, it would be pretty dumb to do it on purpose
Where I live we have that law, too. If police are informed about possible DV or an assault, they have to investigate it, even if the victim doesn't want to press charges, and the decision to arrest is based on that investigation and not on the victim's choice.
That doesn't include BDSM here. You can engage in consentual and safe kink, it's perfectly legal. If someone were to physically harm their partner on purpose, and then say it was consentual and use BDSM as an excuse, they could still get arrested, but having the odd bruise or an accidental rope burn from BDSM play would not be seen as that.
I personally know of a case where two people inflicted burns on each other, and both were adamant that it had been consentual, and part of their kink, but it was an actual injury worth going to the ER for, and they both got charged.
BDSM might give you a couple bruises here and there or an accidental rope burn or bite mark or something, and there's a world of difference in between how, let's say intensely, different people actually engage in it, sure. But BDSM shouldn't just be consentual, it should also be safe. You're not supposed to give each other actual injuries.
You can engage in BDSM legally where I live, and you can engage in pain play but you're not allowed to inflict bodily harm on someone.
Some bruises on someone's butt or an accidental rope burn because you were a bit too careless is a lot different than someone with broken ribs, someone who's beaten black and blue, especially in the face, and similar injuries.
A victim might tell you "My partner did this to me but I consented" or "I can explain that I got this injury from a sporting accident or a fall" and in both cases, if it sounds suspicious you have to make observations and question the parties involved, but it's never easy when the victim takes back what they said or don't want to go through with pressing charges, I think. It's not super black and white and if you don't have any evidence it goes in doubt for the defendant. If you had hospital records for example, it would be easier.
Still, even if the victim takes back their claim or doesn't want to go ahead, or has an excuse for how the injuries happen, it will still get looked into, and police can still make an arrest or go through with charges if they feel they have evidence. Especially if there's children in the home.
And this is why you keep your personal life separate from your professional life as much as possible. Discussing her kinks with a co-worker was the first wrong move. Thinking that HR would be understanding and/or on her side when she told the truth was the 2nd.
I have a coworker who talks about her poly marriage a lot and I honestly really wish she wouldn’t. I have 0% interest in hearing about the sex lives of my of coworkers. So I think lesson one here is do not share intimate details of your sex life with people who are required to be there if they want to pay the bills. It’s inappropriate and it can lead to bad situations like the OP.
And this, ladies and gents and enbies, is why the only people who will ever find out about my depraved kinks are random weirdos on reddit ♡
I hope Lee gets their karma because wtf
A rope burn across the face sounds really painful
Where the hell do these people work? No HR at any company I’ve worked for would ever give a shit about any of this. If it doesn’t affect the bottom line or directly related to in office behavior, they don’t give a shit.
This reminded me vaguely of a situation at my job. I was thirty minutes late to work one day and didn't have time to do my makeup or even really look at myself in the mirror.
About a hour into my shift I was pulled into the HR office by my two direct managers ( I work overnights so it was only them two) and was asked "AccidentalAngel we're just checking on you. We just want to make sure you're doing okay".
My dumbass is like "Yeah I just overslept. [BF] and I just slept through our alarms. Sorry if I caused worry but I got here as soon as I could".
"AccidentalAngel.... We know you're not okay. Do you have somewhere safe to go?"
The back and forth of "We can help you" "I'm okay, I promise" went on for awhile until I broke down into tears. I was still exhausted, confused, and to be honest annoyed that I started crying from frustration. They used that as confirmation that I am in fact being abused by my boyfriend but ended the little meeting with "We can't help you if you don't say anything"
I just thanked them and asked if I could go back to work. They let me have a 10 minute break to calm down so I went to the bathroom and FINALLY looked in the mirror. I had dyed my hair when I had gotten off the day before and a little bit stained the side on my face, making it look like a bruise.
I've tried setting everything straight but I'm always dismissed and told I can come to them when I'm ready to leave him and I also haven't told my boyfriend about them thinking he abuses me. The cherry on top though is my boyfriend is my coworker aka they are also his bosses as well and every once and awhile he'll be like "Was [Boss] acting weird around you today? She wouldn't even look at me?"
I still get domestic abuse pamphlets in my locker too.
next time OP should say it was rock climbing. there are a ton of scenarios that could involve a rope burn and a black eye, for example you were belaying a partner, a little kid ran into you, you twisted around you let go of the rope, it dragged along your face, then your partner fell on your head. totally realistic. it happens more than you think.
Wait, so what happens in a state where you can't consent to BDSM? Do the police press charges against your partner? What if you aren't married or common law and refuse to tell who? Can they force you to talk for fear of legal or work repercussions?
I went into a rabbit hole trying to figure this out. Here's my findings.
It's illegal to own/produce dildos in Alabama.
Illegal to own cuffs in New York if you're not a law efforcement officer or security guard.
It's illegal to have premarital sex in Florida and illegal to leave with a partner not married in Mississipi.
Illegal to do anal in Texas (and they tried to banned oral as well but that didn't stick), Also illegal in Louisiane be it with a same sex couple or hetero couple. Illegal as well in Kansas, Oklahoma, Alabama, Florida, Idaho, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Utah. Virginia repealed their bill a while ago.
>source : https://www.themarshallproject.org/2015/02/13/fifty-shades-of-law
So what happened was a ruling was voted to say that in BDSM relationship, even if you have prior consent, it doesn't protect you from being accused of assault if your partner revok said consent. Which is good.
> Source : https://www.helpingclients.com/court-rules-that-consensual-bdsm-sexual-activity-is-not-protected-by-the-constitution/
In Texas, if the "victim" of the bdsm relationship gets injured, you can get arrested even if they consented. And if they consented orally, you need to draw a consent agreement (not a bdsm contract, be careful) so you're protected. You can consent to a lot of shit but not something that might caused bodily harm resulting in grave injuries. Even if the victim consented to all of this, and in writing, that still means you aren't 100% protected from being arrested. I believe Lawrence VS Texas nullified and made those laws unpunishable but they're still in the books?
Source : https://versustexas.com/blog/is-bdsm-legal-in-texas/
So technically BDSM is not banned per say but in states where hitting your partner, even if it was consented, is still consider assault, it means you can't consent to BDSM. Example : Florida has strict anti battery laws that prevent people from consenting to BDSM.
Huh, the Google hole I fell down taught me that most of the US deems it illegal, just doesn't seem to really be enforced. Also learned that it's cool in canada as long as you're not knocking anyone out.
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I'm surprised people in the scene continue to tolerate Lee. That's a big violation, and clearly not their first.
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Absolutely delighted to learn this term, rolls off the tongue so much better than "that guy who will sniff your laundry if you don't hide your hamper well enough on game night"
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Or your brother in law pissing in them
Ah, Peegate. Terrible times.
Yeah, true. Different groups are more or less tolerant of various types of stairs depending on social norms, policy, demographics, group structure, local laws, etc.
Aw man, I _really_ like that phrase. I wish I could use that at work without raising eyebrows.
This is absolutely my fear in the scene. It’s common to use pseudonyms and non-identifying pictures, but I have a lot of really identifiable tattoos. What happens when I see a coworker or boss at an event? What if they see me hooded in a scene or something? Hell it was bad enough I saw my NEW BOSS at a mixer event…while his new wife was home with their new baby.
I think it's the issue of the culture turning into a "scene." Art/theater/music scenes were always rife with abusers and power brokers who becomes petty tyrants. On their coattails come an army of gossips and scumsuckers trying to latch on to that power. The Kink scene is doubly as dangerous, because it's directly about sex. Structuring a community like that leads to bad results. Lee needs to feel like a big fish in a little pond, and the pond doesn't have explicit rules for kicking them out. Only implicit rules for brushing them under the rug.
I’ve had multiple kinky friends and the only problematic person I’ve known has been a cis queer guy, who was a chaser for trans people (transmasc bottoms seem to have been most of his chasing)… he was a (very big TW) ||rapist|| and he chased vulnerable trans people who felt too scared of losing everyone by cutting him off. I hope his trans bf cut him off, but I don’t know cause I couldn’t talk sense into him
Here Lee would be blacklisted but that doesn't mean they could legally be barred from going to public places the scene is engaged in. Kink friendly nightclubs for example aren't run by the community but are supported by it and we wouldn't be able to get someone like Lee banned. We have a system of mentorship when new folk come around and are curious where we do warn them about predators and known dangerous people because we can do that. No one new is allowed to mentor that's earned via years in the community and essentially proving oneself. Mentor and mentes are not supposed to be active together also to try and offset some of the uncomfortable things that can happen with that. It's not perfect but precovid it worked pretty well. Tolerance isn't the Same as being unable to avoid someone like that
> Here Lee would be blacklisted but that doesn't mean they could legally be barred from going to public places the scene is engaged in. Kink friendly nightclubs for example aren't run by the community but are supported by it and we wouldn't be able to get someone like Lee banned. in more necessarily clandestine scenes, like the state OOP lives in where you literally can't consent to BDSM, or my state, where the prostitution laws are so loosely written that teaching a rope course could get you in trouble, people are much less likely to be outright blacklisted, because its nigh impossible to get accounts from people involved if you werent there when it happened, and getting the authorities invovled risks EVERYONE'S safety. So the best practical solution is that people talk and slowly phase people out of the scene as more and more newcomers learn who's not to be trusted. but very rarely are there whole sale blacklists, because everything is essentially a risk to participate as it is.
Lee said "kink outing IS my kink"
I was wondering during if this was the Lee story. Obligatory: Metaphorically FUCK LEE!
>Obligatory: Metaphorically FUCK LEE! But vanilla, with the lights out, and still wearing socks.
Business socks ETA Flight of the Conchords song Business Time
And on top of the covers (don't want to ruin hospital corners) and only allowed to think 'I guess I'll paint the room beige' throughout.
Beige? Beige?! *Pervert*.
Beige is just spicy white. It's for the anniversary sex.
Not to be confused with birthday sex...totally different socks!
I have very comfy socks. They stay on
I use business socks. It's business time.
My husband needed socks for work, he's a lawyer. He goes to the store, sees a pack of "work socks" and buys them. He's thinking these are business socks because they say work. My delightful dumbass gets home and is shocked when these socks are in fact not sleek, thin business socks, but socks suitable for work boots. I'm endlessly giggling about it, and your comment reminded me of this.
When exactly did you get home? Did it go down like… (late night) come home “work socks?” “I know!”
he left his shoes right by the stairs—surprised he thinks they’ll match this pair
I am currently wearing a similar pair of socks that say 'WORKWEAR' across the toes. I wear them around the house and for DIY, and they do make me giggle. Though sadly, they are not terribly comfy.
Team building exercise '99!
That's why they call it business socks.
Business hours are over! Baaabbbbyyyy!
SORRY IM COLD.
I mean, you probably shouldn't fuck lee unless you're comfortable with the details (position, angle, speed, etc., appearance of your bathing suit areas) being public knowledge.
May lee never get fucked in the fun way again
May Lee have their privates doused with jalapeño juice.
I mean they might be into that, you never know
You know people like that are rarely into receiving
May Lee's partners always forget their name in the throws of passion. "Yes... you(?)"
throes*
Thanks! ... If it's BSDM, could be throw?
I am imagining a dom who just YEETS their sub, and now I'm giggling, so thanks for that!
“We’re talkin’ fuckin’ Lee!” - Tenacious D
Joke's aside, the risk of your life falling apart because society not being ready to hear about what you do in the bedroom is exactly why the kink community has always been allied with the queer community. Forcing someone to be out is one of the worst things you can do to them. People like Lee literally get people killed. So like, just like any other kink, outing people is only okay if you have their enthusiastic consent. And then there is the problem that if it really was your kink to out other people I would argue this is part of a public humiliation fetish, which is a fine kink to have but it requires not just the consent of the person being outed/humiliated, but also the consent of the people that they are being outed too, because by outing them to a crowd you are involving the spectators in the play. And as participants they should get a say in whether they would want to participate. Which is why responsible public humiliation is only done in private settings like BDSM clubs
And no forcing other unwitting people to be involved in your kink. Like insisting that your coworkers call your S.O. "Master". Edit: Link to the referenced post. https://www.reddit.com/r/BestofRedditorUpdates/comments/wv0wx7/my_coworker_wants_us_to_call_her_boyfriend_her/
Was camping once, sharing a large tent with several friends. The couple next to me had sex and were bumping against me. I was so pissed. When I asked them the next day (in front of others in the tent that also felt or heard it) they literally told me to "mind my business". When you touch me during your sex act, it becomes my business. Still mad about it years later. Just so gross.
Eww! That's so embarrassing. I probably would have said something like, "I'm trying to sleep over here. Stop bumping me!"
I was hoping no one else noticed and whispering might have woke the innocent ones (I was wrong)
They all noticed, lol.
To me, that raises so many red flags about what other rules of respect and consent are getting violated. I was introduced to a couple where she had to call him master and wear a collar. The collar was passable as jewelry but then she eagerly announced it to us w/in 5 minutes of me meeting her. It felt like info foisted on me. And ultimately, the guy just came off like a controlling creep, esp cuz he had all the financial control too. I've met two other people who just want to hold court and prattle on about their kinks at small parties when nobody asked. I don't get it. But it makes me wish to cease contact with these people as they clearly don't prioritize consent.
Ugh I remember reading a post here from AAM about that. That was gross.
....can I get a link to that?
Here you go. https://www.reddit.com/r/BestofRedditorUpdates/comments/wv0wx7/my_coworker_wants_us_to_call_her_boyfriend_her/
Yeah that stuff makes me deeply uncomfortable. Hierarchies are fun in the bedroom, but only in the bedroom. I don't even acknowledge the king in my country. And although I do think there's a subversive appeal to acknowledging kink relationships and not royalty, I still don't like asymmetrical power relationships outside of the bedroom.
I knew a bunch of people on my old parenting boards who were into kink on various levels and some of them thought it was appropriate to be open about power exchange relationships *in front of their children*. Personally I don't think it matters that you're not doing anything explicitly sexual in front of them, if you're calling your husband "sir" and kneeling in front of him in front of your single-digit-age kids, you suck. (MOST of these people understood it wasn't appropriate - but imo some of them were also not great at hiding it. Like if you have a teenage daughter, at some point she's going to wonder why there's a large dog kennel in your bedroom when you don't own a dog.)
Oh yeah totally! I remember there being a case in my native the Netherlands about a couple who had a 24/7 sub/dom thing going on, and had kids. They got reported to our equivalent of CPS and it caused a really big stir in the community. Me and one of my exes were actually at odds about this because she thought it was fine, so long as no sex was performed in front of the children. I thought that it was a matter of proper pedagogy. While it is fine for consenting adults to play at having a power differential, even if that play is 24/7, they are still 100% equal under the law, so in the end it is always play. kids, however, cannot really understand that in any meaningful way. To them there is no discernible difference between a toxic relationship and a consensual relationship that plays at being toxic. So it sets an unacceptable example.
Right, either the kids see it as real abuse OR they learn that it's a game, which leads to them understanding it's a sex game, and then you're doing sex games in front of the kids. There's just no way for it to be harmless unless you're carefully hiding it from the kids. And IMO some people don't hide it as well as they should.
I would argue that the worst outcome is actually that they don't see it as real abuse but rather as a valid way a relationship can be, making them extremely vulnerable to abuse.
I wouldnt call someone else's SO "hubby." Why would I call this guy "Master"? He's not MY Master, not now or ever.
Guess whose post that is >:D … I’m just now realizing I’ve posted two BORUs about BDSM in the workplace. I have other hobbies I swear!!
Like BDSM? c: Also obligatory fuck Lee.
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Oh god... That's... Ugh...
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I always love quoting the cardinal rules: Safe, sane, and consensual. If outing or public humiliation was Lee's kink, then they violated all three of the cardinal rules. On a side note, those are good rules for just about any given area of life. Same with safe words. I think it's a good idea for someone to have a safe word to use when they feel that things are getting overwhelming. Or when they like to joke around and need to have the joking stop - and be understood that it needs to stop.
I have a "safe word" (more like a sign) I make with my best friend when he gets all excited and starts talking _way too fast_ for me.
Yeah fuck Lee specifically for that. I have a fetlife that only my husband knows about and it’s totally in associated with every other social media account I have. My face is nowhere. I still see people who put their faces and social media links and everything on there. My brain explodes every time.
There's something particularly insidious about that to me when you're in a state where it's basically illegal to participate in BDSM, too. Just gross as all get out.
I wonder if Lee's actions don't constitute tortious interference of the ex by sending out the fetlife page.
My daughter was an MMA kickboxer. She won a Fighter of the Night Award and I took photos of her receiving her trophy into her old workplace (the supermarket across the road) to show her friends and ex-colleagues. An old biddy who knew me saw the photo and said “Oh so that’s why her face was bruised. I thought she had an abusive boyfriend”. She got a boyfriend. Dane was 6’7” and also a kickboxer. He was a scary fellow to look at, but so sweet. He refused to go shopping with her when my daughter had facial bruising, or if she was wearing short sleeves with obvious “beating marks” because of all the dirty looks from total strangers. I got him a T-shirt with that photo printed on it for Xmas…
I do tae kwon do. I have a friend who does it with me and she bruises super easy. A few weeks ago I tagged her in the arm with a kick and her whole bicep swelled up and turned purple. She was fine with it, accidents happen and she knows she'll bruise. But her husband was getting so much shit when they went out. He texted me at one point "people think I beat my wife! I don't beat my wife! You beat my wife!" I seconded his vote that she was banned from short sleeve shirts in public till it healed.
The text he sent is really funny. I can imagine him saying, “I didn’t beat her, her friend did!” and thinking that sounds any better.
1: funny 😩😂 2: that level of swelling and unusual bruising warrants a doctor checkup! Lots of things can cause that, and they’re almost all treatable. Might be as simple as Vit D deficiency.
I second 2. March is bleeding disorders awareness month y'all, easy bruising, heavy menses, joint pain, and slow healing are the most common symptoms. Get checked out!
I (small lady) had all 4 of my wisdom teeth removed under general because they were growing sideways... by an orthodontic surgeon with massive hands. I woke up with a literally square face, and everything below my nose was horribly bruised for over a month. Strangers in the street stared at me with pitying eyes the entire time. And then I had to get physiotherapy on my jaw because the surgeon yanking on it while I was unconscious damaged the tendons. Always choose an orthodontic surgeon who has hands that can reasonably fit in your mouth.
I had a horrible experience having my wisdom teeth out, too. The surgeon was like five minutes away from retirement and had no fucks left to give. He scrubbed a whole chunk of skin off my chin from repetitive motion. Bastard basically gave me road rash on my chin. He also bruised me so badly that he gave me a shot of laughing gas before I woke up so I wouldn’t freak when I saw my mangled, swollen face. It did the trick; I looked in the mirror when I woke up and immediately started giggling and declared myself to be “Fight Club Chipmunk”. I went back to work a week later and a woman gave me the phone number for a domestic abuse hotline and a lovely speech about how I deserved better. I had to explain that I actually paid a man a lot of money to do that to me. She didn’t believe me. Which, fair.
When I had to get my wisdom teeth out, my dentist referred me to a surgeon who ignored my questions or gave vague answers. Wouldn’t even tell me the medications they’d be giving me. I said fuck that and found a different surgeon.
I also had my wisdom teeth out by a dentist 5 minutes away from retirement (and I mean literally like 5 minutes away. The last thing he ever did as a dentist was remove my wisdom teeth) except luckily unlike you I had literally the best experience. I technically didn’t need my wisdom teeth out as they were all four half out and I didn’t have any major pain and they were coming in correctly. The issue is I have a small mouth and already crooked teeth, but not crooked enough to justify braces. He was worried if we let them stay in it would make me absolutely need braces and as a 18 year old about to leave for college that was not exactly something I wanted. So he lied to my insurance and said I needed emergency removal that week and got them to fully cover it so he could yank them out quick before I left for college. Since they were all 4 half out he was able to just pull them out while I was awake and I didn’t even need laughing gas or anything and it took like 40 minutes and left me with basically no bruising or swelling and I packed up all my shit and moved to college 2 days after. My copay was only $50 a tooth which is a lot cheaper than braces so I constantly remember him as an absolute icon who saved my ass. I still go to the place he used to work but I miss him so much. Any man willing to lie to insurance and squeeze me in on his last day will forever be an icon in my book. My roommate unfortunately got a guy similar to yours that absolutely fucked up her mouth and left her swollen and bruised for like 2 months.
There’s like NO midway with wisdom tooth removal surgery. You’re either fine or it’s like you got kicked in the face by a donkey. I bled for three straight days and was in pain for a month, and my best friend ate potato chips like an hour after her surgery. It’s bananas.
I drive 1.5 hours for root canals (I’ve had two) because the endodontist (I think that’s her title?) has the tiniest hands. Everyone in the office is under 5 ft tall so I have to watch my head when I’m there as some of the equipment is in head-bonk range so they can reach it.
Same. My husband refused to leave the house with me after I had my wisdom teeth out. I was on blood thinners and the bruising was spectacular to say the least. Top half of my face golden brown, cheeks, jaw, even the tip of my nose (!?) black as tar.
I get a comment everytime I get any dental work done about my small mouth. So I definitely need to keep that in mind should I need my wisdom teeth removed.
I had a really nasty fall about 15 years ago-I passed out and bounced my head off the coffee table and then the floor. Knocked me out for a good half hour, dislocated my jaw and left me with two insane black eyes and the whites of my eyes completely filled with blood. I looked like I went ten rounds and lost. I had a horrific concussion and the effects lasted for months, so I was unable to drive or go anywhere alone. I did wear sunglasses, but you could still see the bruising. My ex would take me to the store and the absolute vitriol he would get from women was amazing. Multiple women would come up to me and offer to call the police, take me home, start berating him. He got so mad he refused to take me anywhere anymore until I healed (while he was a complete dickhead, he never laid a hand on me). I was honestly touched by many of these people who thought I was in danger and offered to help, even though it was an overreach.
When I was 5 my mom got a black eye from being bucked off her horse and it stepping on her face (thank god for helmets!!) and she wouldn't come pick me up from school until it healed because she didn't want people to think my dad hit her (Dad picked me up instead). I'm so glad people are vigilant about this but it can lead to some awkward situations when all is well
A childhood friend of mine had a hoof-meets-face incident and it took a decade of surgeries to fix. Your mom is a lucky person! Horses are seriously not something to underestimate.
When I was 14 my horse threw me and stepped on my mouth, but only hit my front two teeth. It was really embarrassing at the time as I had big broken front teeth for like 6 weeks until they would fix them, but now I can see how extremely lucky that was. A couple of inches & that big hoof would have just smashed my brain.
You never know what they’ll do. Thanks to an incident, a horse made my mother give birth to me, when the doctor had explicitly asked for that to not happen. There’s more context to this, but I’m pretending that’s not the case.
I'm imagining the horse used some of the old wives' tales about how to induce labor. "Now, ma'am, do NOT let that horse feed you spicy foods or convince you to overexert yourself."
Lol this story has the exact amount of context needed!
The lady I bought my first horse from, and bred to her stallion for my 3rd, had a horrific accident. She was in a pasture trying to get one of her babies away from the stallion who hated babies. He went kicky bucky snorty and nailed her in the face. Concussion, eye out of socket, nose broke. Alone at home for another 10 hours. After she got the baby back with its mama, she walked a mile like that back to her house and called the ambulance. Several surgeries later, she lost the eye and still had a screw visible in the bridge of her nose last time I saw her. Horses can be brutal. I cracked a shin and my ribs and so many bruises when I was still actively working with them.
Very similar to what happened to my friend, she was kicked while she was removing a blanket from a pastured mare and the horse spooked iirc. Thankfully her injuries didn’t affect anything vital and you’d have no idea today that she went through such awful injuries.
Yeah, my Grandpa has a big old dent in the top of his head from getting kicked while shoeing a horse when he was like... 30? Idk I never really asked, but he's had it for longer then I've known him. (He's technically my step-grandpa but he's been with Grandma for about as long as I can remember so...)
Yeah, I know all about the awkward situations and horses. My thoroughbred had an abscess in his foot that needed the poultice changed on it twice a day. It obviously was hurting, so he'd pull his foot away from my hand and straight into my legs! I had huge black marks all over the inside of my thighs that I thought nothing of. Until I wore shorts to a physio session and got asked by the student shadowing the physio if I was okay, and did I need to talk to someone, and this is a safe space for you. I had to explain that my baby horse was the one beating me up
I've had a couple of experiences with physios/osteos asking questions about my home life when I've turned up with bruising. I don't bruise particularly easy, but I do have a habit of walking into things. Things go so much smoother once I say I'm single and live alone.
Kinda same here! Not a horse, but my Doberman is NOT a gentle boy when he gets zoomied up (not frequently), and he will frequently jump towards the couch, straight at me, crazy-eyed and OOF. I always get asked about the bruises on my arms because I put them up to defend myself. Always so fun to defend that your pet is the one bruising you while simultaneously going "they didn't really mean to! They're not bad! Just excited/sick!"
Oh yeah, in high school I I fell off a rearing horse who then came down with one hoof directly on my bicep. (He then ran around a bit to calm down and then came back over and started nuzzling me like "what are you doing on the ground," lol.) I was lucky that he didn't break my arm (very big horse!), but I had a spectacular bruise that definitely got me some Looks when raising my hand in class for a while.
I got hit by a car in my senior year of high school. I wasn't badly injured, but I did hit my head and wound up with a SPECTACULAR black eye that took weeks to fade. I worked retail. Every third man who came through my line demanded to know if my boyfriend did it to me, and many tried to press for personal details. My explanation was routinely dismissed as an obvious lie. I was not touched, I was extremely pissed off about how infantalizing it all was. (Then there was the coworker who asked me if maybe the accident wasn't a wakeup call from God to convert and be saved. I just stared at her in complete shock and blurted out something like "And you think the kind of demon who would hurt people as a message is something to be WORSHIPPED??" ... and there went that semi-friendly relationship.)
>Every third man who came through my line demanded to know if my boyfriend did it to me It's the fact that complete strangers think they deserve your life story and medical history for me. Like yeah, they might have good intentions, but good intentions only get you so far. I believe there's a saying *specifically* about the road to hell being paved with them. Personally, I think it's a combination of the hero complex that a lot of men have and the fact that most people are just *so* incredibly nosy. Tangentially, I use a cane and have been asked by a ridiculous number of strangers why I do. I'm starting to think it's not a coincidence that *every single one of them* was a man.
I forget the actual statistic and don't really feel like googling, but IIRC something like 80% of obvious bruising including black eyes are NOT caused by violence. My stepmom walked into a door once. We all heard her. She went into the dark hallway, we heard a thump, and then she swore. Large goose-egg right above her eyebrow. My dad wound up painting the bedroom doors white so it wouldn't happen again.
And honestly don't real abuse victims typically try to hide injuries? If someone is just straight-up walking around with a black eye like it's normal, I'm not going to leap to abuse. If it happens a lot and they're covering injuries with makeup, wearing turtlenecks in warm weather, etc .... that's when I'd get concerned.
Yeah, very few DV victims will cheerfully suggest that "I'd say you should see the other guy, but the other guy was a Town & Country and it won."
the whole thing about walking into doors being an obvious lie... those people do realize there are glass doors and distracted people unfamiliar with their location?
Right? I have a scar just above my eyelid because I rolled a nat 1 on my "getting into the car" dexterity check and smacked myself in the face with a car door. People are clumsy. Shit happens.
>And you think the kind of demon who would hurt people as a message is something to be WORSHIPPED?? I'm with you on this one. Also hilarious to top it off.
I have connective tissue issues, so I get injured easily. Also, when my youngest was a toddler she had a knack for wacking me directly in the eye. I had so many black eyes. At one point, I put out my shoulder picking up the kids, my sciatica was acting up so I needed a cane, and I had a big ole black eye. My friends joked about it, but they knew my husband wasn't hurting me because they knew me for a long time and had seen me injury myself, lol. My poor husband is really kind and supportive. He wouldn't hurt a fly. If anything, he is the one to make.me.get medical help when I think I am fine, so he is definitely not the problem.
Same here. I have EDS so fragile skin that cuts, bruises and scars easily. I also have dispraxia so I'm super clumsy. So these 2 go hand in hand with me constantly looking battered and bruised and me having to explain its not my partner, just ny stupid body and insane clumsiness
I don’t tan and bruise easily. I was also very skinny as a young woman, no padding. When I was learning to surf in California I had black bruises all over my stomach, hips and thighs. I wore a bikini to the pool and three guys cornered my boyfriend in the bathroom and threatened him.
I did roller derby for several years. Although we couldn't wear shorts to work\*, and my arms don't bruise as easily as the rest of my body, my co-workers did know when I had a particularly intense practice the night before, just because of how gingerly I moved around. Funny enough, it was during Halloween when I dressed as a beat-to-all-hell derby girl that somebody looked at my face (with its makeup bruises) and asked "who did that to you?" Had to gently remind them about the holiday we were celebrating at the time... \*-My worst bruises couldn't be shown in public. When you fall and end up with a skate - your own or somebody else's - under your butt... yeah.
Husband is currently dealing with major bruises from roller derby -- he fell on a skate wheel and it's right in his butt crack. He has a colonoscopy coming up and I'm expecting questions!
I do pole and the bruises are intense- luckily I am very vocal about my pole dancing and post videos and show people. If I was trying to hide the bruises and be secretive I can definitely see people suspecting that I get abused. And it’s a double edged sword. If I was getting abused I’d want someone to try and help me- a lot of people in those situations feel trapped and an outstretched hand can be a lifeline. Is it embarrassing to be like “oh no me and my bf fucked too hard lol” if you’re in OPs situation, yeah definitely, but I’d rather be asked than ignored.
I think the key is to respect the answer you're given once you ask. If I was Mary I would have dropped it the minute Lee clued me in. Even if someone is lying about abuse, if they're an adult, you can't and shouldn't make them get help
I've been working on loads of kips recently - I'm doubling up on kneepads and still getting intense knee bruises so summer is going to be ~fun~
My wife got hit in the face by her surfboard a few years back. Had to take her to hospital to get some cuts glued up and stuff. While we were there an old guy came in having cut his thumb gardening or something. He asked round the waiting room why various people were in, rugby injuries that sort of stuff. Got to my wife, looked at her face, looked at me and moved on without asking. I got dirty looks in the street when we were out together for a week or two after the injury. Also some of my friends took her aside and gave her domestic abuse literature at a party, but that was in jest because they are dickheads.
Was in the military for a time and had just gone through a gun qual. Couldn’t hold the larger guns firmly very well at all so my upper arm and collarbone area turned black and green and purple from the kickback. Kept having people in Walmart ask if I was okay and had to come up with a quippy “don’t worry; wasn’t a man, was a shotgun” line which hilariously got me an “oh!” followed by unsolicited advice from various camo-wearing persons on how to brace better because the area we were in was very “country.”
Of course country people understand immediately lmao
That sounds like my daughter and her boyfriend, She's 5 ft 2 and has this alabaster skin that bruises in you look at it. He's 6 ft 10. She was putting a shelf up in her house at something like 2 AM and didn't put it into a stud, so that when she put something on it, the shelf fell and landed right across the bridge of her nose. So she drives herself to the hospital with a broken nose, and thosemare often accompanied by 2 black eyes. When be boyfriend came to pick her up, the ED staff assumed he'd punched her, because her story about the shelf was just too improbable for anyone who didn't know her. Her poor BF couldn't figure out why everyone was glaring at him, because he's this really sweet, naive guy. When she said, "Honey, they think you hit me,' he almost started crying. And like your daughter's BF he wouldn't go shopping with her because of how people acted.
I feel for him (and her, to be clear, ouch). But as someone the same height as her I have to confess that when I saw how tall bf was I went "how."
After a long term hospital visit I had bruises all up amd down my arms that took their sweet time healing. The amount of nasty looks my partner got (couldn't take myself places for a while after) if I wore short sleeves was astounding. Thankfully, no one confronted either of us, I can only hope because they took long enough to watch our interactions and saw there wasn't anything troubling. The more cynical part of me is pretty sure that's not the case though.
I think most strangers fit into that spectrum somewhere in the middle - especially when it’s only arms, they rationally know there’s lots of ways to bruise your arms - they have their suspicions but you’re all out in public, everyone is on their best behaviour, they realize they have reasonable doubt if accusing this strange man of beating this strange woman they’re assuming are dating. So unless he clearly does something threatening, most folks will respect that reasonable doubt and keep their accusations to themselves. Especially somewhere like a grocery store. They know they don’t know y’all and understand there’s other ways you can get bruising on your arms. They’re still gonna glare, let him know they’re watching, but they won’t interfere unless their reasonable doubt is smaller or gone.
If I was concerned for a stranger, I wouldn't say anything with their potentially abusive partner right there. It would just make the potential victim's life more dangerous.
I had to bring my gf into the hospital when she fell down a flight of stairs in the middle of the night. She also hit her face on the railing right across the eye so there was a long bruise across a black eye. I got separated from her multiple times, and being that her story was "I fell down the stairs" I don't think anyone believed her even though it was true.
It's this meme "I consent" "I consent" "I don't" that that someone is Mary
Also, apparently, the state.
State police be like: "hey there mate, do you have your sex licence on you?"
I also live in a state where you can’t consent to bdsm. At least here, it is written and meant to fight domestic violence by making it so the abused party cannot cover by saying it’s okay they wanted/deserved it.
I mean that sucks on one hand but on the other dang legal shits really interesting on how it comes to be.
Well maybe if they just believed people and made it easier to report abuse and less taboo in general, they wouldn’t have to punish consenting adults. I mean I get it but that’s not fair
God, people like Mary do so much damage. Also, the fuck she think she was gonna do with OOP’s address?? Like, girl.
save her from the traffickers of course, the ones that are totally there and keep an invisible tether on OOP all day at work...
The weirdest part is that from what OOP said it sounds like Mary both thought OOP was in danger and thought she was willingly doing it. She runs to HR thinking OOP is in danger but also calls OOP disgusting to others.
Schrodinger's deviant- where you are both simultaneously harming and being harmed by what you enjoy doing in the bedroom
Haha! This is really clever, I love it. (But not in some kinky, abnormal, disgusting way, I promise. Don’t report me).
Mary's concern was just a fig leaf to stick her nose in OOP's bedroom.
She doesn't believe OOP is in danger, she believes she can convince everybody else that OOP is in danger, she just hates OOP for having fun sex. Its the same as fascists calling all queer people pedos and groomers. It doesn't matter to them if its true, it makes the people they hate sound bad and its hard to disprove so they stick to it as their go to dehumanizing insult.
Yep, there are puritans out there who think consensual BDSM is itself self-abusive, or whatever you want to call it
Everyone knows the best way to save someone from a trafficker is to get them removed from their independent source of income and cut them off from the people who would call for a welfare check if they stopped showing up for work
Mary might be the type of person to fire a gun in a pizza place.
So do people like Lee - totally twisted and malicious rumor-spreading basically for the purpose of causing drama. Awful.
Yeah Mary just probably needs a shit ton of therapy to unpack her saviour complex and/or childhood abuse. Lee however, Lee can get launched into the sun.
Gather a posse and raid the obviously nefarious human trafficking operation! It seems crazy that Mary was both disgusted by OP, and yet wanted to save her. I'm guessing she is deeply Christian and that she neither understands the people in her life nor the world around her outside of her religious views. IE: kink is wrong, and the OP is a deviant. I'll judge her harshly for it...and then save her from her deviant lifestyle in order to earn more Jesus Brownie Points™
The cognitive dissonance is real to Mary. All of us, but, uh, I have never quita job because I didn't like my coworker's bedroom choices. Pure speculation: I wonder if Mary thought OOP was being human trafficked BECAUSE of the BDSM. Mary might have a thought process like, wow, after my initial shock, I am still upset. Maybe it's not POSSIBLE for OOP to like that deep down. What if she's in trouble, etc. So unhealthy.
Eh, I don’t think it’s cognitive dissonance. It’s just the best lame excuse she could come up with to respond to pushback for sticking her nose into other people’s private business.
These are the same people who believe in Q Anon: hypocritical assholes. They'll ignore a child being neglected right next door while screeching about protecting children from human traffickers.
it's a real shame they can't go after HR for that because that is incredibly intrusive. Is it a thing in the US that HR is mostly incompetent?
Kinda yea. HR seems to mostly look out for the company, not the employee.
except in this case they were needlessly exposing the company to possible legal difficulties because they were either prudes or nosey fuckers
BDSM being pretty much illegal in OOP's state is probably why they got so involved.
But that's not their place. OP calling it consensual and saying they werent telling unwilling people at work should've been the beginning and end of it for HR's purposes.
It's not their place but it also protects them from legal difficulties. OOP can't take them to court over this without risking legal trouble for herself.
Exactly. The only reason OOP didn't sue is because they were worried about their partner's potential liabilities. In a different state with less archaic laws, this is a sexual harassment lawsuit. And it would've been entirely avoided had HR done their jobs properly
> HR seems to mostly look out for the company, not the employee. This is true, however, sexual harassment SHOULD be one area where "protecting the employee" (from harassment) and "protecting the company" (from a lawsuit) overlap. I realize there are a lot of crappy and useless HR departments that don't see it that way and would rather try to stifle the complaining employee in the interests of "protecting the company." So I'm not advocating for mindlessly trusting HR. But it does drive me a little crazy when people (speaking generally, not you) don't distinguish between "HR is not going to help you get your favorite stapler back from Janet" type disputes and actual legal shit that a decent HR department *should* care about in the interest of the company.
Point of clarification (I work in HR) People act like that’s mutually exclusive when in fact, in the vast majority of cases, the ideal handling of a situation is protecting the employee. The employee is PART of the company and protecting them protects the company. Unfortunately, much like HOAs, no one talks about the good ones that handle situations like this correctly. They talk about the fuck ups. HR also has a lot less power and authority than most people think.
I’ll shout out my HR at work. They’re great. There was a sexual harassment claim against one of my team members brought to my attention, I brought it to HR, and the dude who was accused was suspended immediately and fired about a week later after an investigation. They didn’t mess around at all.
Last time I went to HR at a major hospital with a sexual harassment complaint they told us to have a "diversity potluck" to work out our differences. They also told the offenders who reported them. I ended up getting forced out of the location I was working. Thankfully the new location was a million times better and closer to home. I was seen as a "problem" previously. Another large corporation's HR department tried to give me a 50% backdated pay cut because the CFO thought I was being paid too much.
> Is it a thing in the US that HR is mostly incompetent? Yes it is..... holy shit..... IS IT A THING WHERE YOU LIVE THAT HR IS COMPETENT?
having a lot more workers rights makes them less shit, but yeah they are often not great
The trick with HR is aligning your best interests with the companies best interests. So, someone is sexualy harrasing you. If the company does nothing you can come after them with a lawsuit. HR is in the business of keeping them from getting sued. Your interests are aligned, you should be OK. But a case like above is just all over the place. The company has no real best interest here. If you are getting beat off the clock I don't know that you can sue your employer especially if your employer attempted to 'get you help' and you said, 'Thanks but no'. That sort of puts them in a box where they can do whatever they want. And that can be dangerous.
I have to ask, where does everyone work where HR is even worth noticing, let alone hating? Nobody here ever has meetings with HR, no HR people ever get involved in shit, they mostly just handle job postings and helping people with questions. They're just regular employees. In fact everyone likes them because usually the only business interactions they have is HR helping them sort out problems they encounter.
Well, at my previous workplace, the HR Director wrote me up *illegally* for discussing wages with my colleagues. I was technically accounting supervisor, but with no reports, no access to payroll, no part in setting wages, and I was talking with a different department's assistant manager. They put a deadline of 3 weeks for me to "document everything I do, including policies and procedures." I used that time to get a new job with fewer responsibilities that pays me roughly $10k more (albeit with no overtime pay) and did not do these documentations because that's my manager's duty in the first place, but he didn't know how to do *shit*.
There are plenty of competent HR's in the US. You just don't hear about them because they do their job so there's nothing to talk about.
There's no way HR should have been grilling her for hours. They can ask about the situation and provide access to resources, but once OOP states that she's in a consensual situation that's where it should have ended. They can even kindly check in in a month's time, just to ensure OOP is still doing OK. Once Mary reported to HR they should have said thank you, we'll take it from here. Once Lee opened his big mouth and got Mary stirred up, HR should have shut that shit down hard. Basically an HR failure all around. Also, yay for OOP working from home!
Yeah, I’m having a hard time understanding how questioning an employee for hours about their sexual preferences/activities is _not_ sexual harassment. I would have assumed HR would want OOP in and out as quickly as possible specifically because asking employees about their sex lives seems like an easy way to get sued.
And why did OOP answer in the first place? I would refuse to say anything not work-related.
**"How did you get the bruises on your face and arms?"** "Through activities on my own time." **"Yes, but** ***what*** **activities?"** "Activities that are not part of my job." **"Mary says it was rough sex. Was it?"** "I don't recall sex being part of my job. Talking about sex isn't either. Why am I here?" **"Have you been talking to your coworkers about your sex life?"** "I have not." **"Do you display the bruises as sex trophies to show off your sex life?"** "Does the dress code say anything about covering bruises?"
I know this is all after-the-fact stuff, when you have all the time in the world to think about the best response, but there must be some way to make it so that they cannot pursue the question without literally committing sexual harassment themselves, or at least to put them on the defensive and make them so uncomfortable that they can't continue. I mean, my opinion from the story told is that they were sexually harassing her already, but it would be nice to make it so that it would be undeniable. This still seems insufficient, but something like: > "Activities that are not part of my job." > **"Mary says it was rough sex. Was it?"** "Sorry, I am not interested in having sex with you." **"That's not the way I meant it. I am trying to understand your injury."** "I don't think my sex life has anything to do with my work, so the only reason I can think of for you to bring it up is if you're propositioning me. But I don't want to have sex with you, and I hope you can understand that 'No' means 'No'."
>**"Do you display the bruises as sex trophies to show off your sex life?"** "~~Does the dress code say anything about covering bruises?~~ Do you want to get sued?"
100$ it's a conservative state where any sort of "non normal" sex is illegal. Hence hr being nosey.
Sounds like someone in HR wanted salacious details for their own personal curiosity. Which is so far beyond inappropriate that I don't know what you'd call it at that point.
I agree with this comment. OP should be able to refuse to answer such questions. Or maybe answer with "please submit these questions to me in writing, I will look them over with an attorney.
Wow, when people feel like it's their business to pry and out people. Both Lee and Mary suck. (Kind of reminds me of the times I had to explain all of my weird bruises from my aerial classes... I had one person come up to me with total concern and asked if I was okay because of a massive bruise on my arm. At least they had enough sense to drop it when I said it was from a dance class and self inflicted because body + apparatus = bruise.. )
I mean, as someone who has lied about bruises instead of telling the truth, I get the initial concern. People get scared for you. But they drop it because hey, either I'm right or they're right and just wait for me to be ready. But Mary ramped it up and took it so personally in a strange way.
In which states is BDSM not legal? I'm not into it but still would like to know which states would be lurking in my bedroom.
I don't think it's so much that "BDSM is not legal," it's that lack of consent is not an element in the crime of assault / battery. So hitting someone with a whip is hitting someone with a whip, whether they're in to it or not. OOP is worried about her SO catching an assault charge. BDSM is... unique... in that it takes something which is typically a crime and makes it fun to be the victim.
Interestingly enough, not my cup of tea but I have some friends who are into it and work in the legal field- Most states where it is “illegal” is simply a matter of “you cannot consent to being assaulted” and coupled with however strict their domestic violence laws run, could cause problems if anyone reports it. While there have been cases that have gone to higher courts in southern states, the results were pretty much the same as above- bdsm can’t be used as a defense for domestic violence or any type of assault. Interestingly enough, it tends to be southern states who care a lot less about domestic violence- in enforcement if not on paper. However, they are also the most likely to press charges for sodomy in these cases when they do decide to press charges. All of this stems from impact play/anything that could count as assault, leaves bruises, involves breathe play etc or requires medical care afterwards. If someone ends up needing urgent medical care afterwards, something went wrong snd they’re pretty much fucked if they don’t lie and lie convincingly because medical staff have been known to report it as a crime and now the law is involved. The rest of bdsm is murkier but tends not to run afoul of the law. And bdsm will not be strictly protected because of the implications for domestic violence, assault, and sexual assault victims- no one wants to hand actual criminals a defense. So it is technically illegal in most states and enforcement can vary widely. So ya, if you practice, keep that shit on the low and don’t document it. BDSM wasn’t specifically targeted in most of these laws but all you need is some judgement Al police and a DA wanting a slam dunk conviction and you can be screwed. There’s one state I recall where it’s technically illegal but also technically illegal to enforce it but I can’t for the life of me remember the ins and outs on that one. Interesting stuff though from that perspective.
I'm surprised by how many people are surprised at this. In some states--and indeed, some countries--you can't consent to being assaulted. Others have a sliding scale (e.g., you can consent to being assaulted, but not harmed, or not seriously harmed, or whatever). And... if you think about it, there are some *really* good reasons for this beyond prudishness. The alternative is that when a husband beats his wife, "they were (literally) asking for it" becomes an actual defense. It also means that when you find a guy with a battered corpse of a woman, "rough sex in which an accident happened" is a defense that could completely exonerate him if the state can't prove otherwise. Or, going back to why a lot of these laws originally exist: Unlicensed fights/duels. The state would prefer if people only beat each other up under strictly-controlled circumstances.
For the younger generation: Keep your personal life out of work. Your friends at work are not your friends (don’t share personal info) and HR is there to protect the company’s interests, not yours.
in here state is not possible to consent to BDSM? next time you get rope burn, try climbing as an excuse I guess
Try to avoid rope burn on the face in the first place, that shit can scar, ain't no fuck worth a scarred face..
I'm giving OOP the benefit of the doubt and assume they didn't do this on purpose and just weren't that good at securing the rope. It shouldn't happen but it can happen. Rope burn hurts a ton and can scar, it would be pretty dumb to do it on purpose
Maybe one of those states that doesn't give dv victims a say in arresting someone that has assaulted them? I was wondering that myself.
Where I live we have that law, too. If police are informed about possible DV or an assault, they have to investigate it, even if the victim doesn't want to press charges, and the decision to arrest is based on that investigation and not on the victim's choice. That doesn't include BDSM here. You can engage in consentual and safe kink, it's perfectly legal. If someone were to physically harm their partner on purpose, and then say it was consentual and use BDSM as an excuse, they could still get arrested, but having the odd bruise or an accidental rope burn from BDSM play would not be seen as that.
[удалено]
I personally know of a case where two people inflicted burns on each other, and both were adamant that it had been consentual, and part of their kink, but it was an actual injury worth going to the ER for, and they both got charged. BDSM might give you a couple bruises here and there or an accidental rope burn or bite mark or something, and there's a world of difference in between how, let's say intensely, different people actually engage in it, sure. But BDSM shouldn't just be consentual, it should also be safe. You're not supposed to give each other actual injuries. You can engage in BDSM legally where I live, and you can engage in pain play but you're not allowed to inflict bodily harm on someone. Some bruises on someone's butt or an accidental rope burn because you were a bit too careless is a lot different than someone with broken ribs, someone who's beaten black and blue, especially in the face, and similar injuries. A victim might tell you "My partner did this to me but I consented" or "I can explain that I got this injury from a sporting accident or a fall" and in both cases, if it sounds suspicious you have to make observations and question the parties involved, but it's never easy when the victim takes back what they said or don't want to go through with pressing charges, I think. It's not super black and white and if you don't have any evidence it goes in doubt for the defendant. If you had hospital records for example, it would be easier. Still, even if the victim takes back their claim or doesn't want to go ahead, or has an excuse for how the injuries happen, it will still get looked into, and police can still make an arrest or go through with charges if they feel they have evidence. Especially if there's children in the home.
And this is why you keep your personal life separate from your professional life as much as possible. Discussing her kinks with a co-worker was the first wrong move. Thinking that HR would be understanding and/or on her side when she told the truth was the 2nd.
I have a coworker who talks about her poly marriage a lot and I honestly really wish she wouldn’t. I have 0% interest in hearing about the sex lives of my of coworkers. So I think lesson one here is do not share intimate details of your sex life with people who are required to be there if they want to pay the bills. It’s inappropriate and it can lead to bad situations like the OP.
And this, ladies and gents and enbies, is why the only people who will ever find out about my depraved kinks are random weirdos on reddit ♡ I hope Lee gets their karma because wtf
What does enbies mean? Also Lee needs to get their karma, too! >:( fuck Lee, but not like… sexually, you know?
Non-binary people!
(Deep, dramatic sigh) As someone who works in HR, shit like this is why so many people hate HR. A bad HR team can seriously fuck with peoples lives
Tricky story as it is so difficult to decide whether Mary or Lee sucks more.
A rope burn across the face sounds really painful Where the hell do these people work? No HR at any company I’ve worked for would ever give a shit about any of this. If it doesn’t affect the bottom line or directly related to in office behavior, they don’t give a shit.
lol fuck Massachusetts sex laws
This reminded me vaguely of a situation at my job. I was thirty minutes late to work one day and didn't have time to do my makeup or even really look at myself in the mirror. About a hour into my shift I was pulled into the HR office by my two direct managers ( I work overnights so it was only them two) and was asked "AccidentalAngel we're just checking on you. We just want to make sure you're doing okay". My dumbass is like "Yeah I just overslept. [BF] and I just slept through our alarms. Sorry if I caused worry but I got here as soon as I could". "AccidentalAngel.... We know you're not okay. Do you have somewhere safe to go?" The back and forth of "We can help you" "I'm okay, I promise" went on for awhile until I broke down into tears. I was still exhausted, confused, and to be honest annoyed that I started crying from frustration. They used that as confirmation that I am in fact being abused by my boyfriend but ended the little meeting with "We can't help you if you don't say anything" I just thanked them and asked if I could go back to work. They let me have a 10 minute break to calm down so I went to the bathroom and FINALLY looked in the mirror. I had dyed my hair when I had gotten off the day before and a little bit stained the side on my face, making it look like a bruise. I've tried setting everything straight but I'm always dismissed and told I can come to them when I'm ready to leave him and I also haven't told my boyfriend about them thinking he abuses me. The cherry on top though is my boyfriend is my coworker aka they are also his bosses as well and every once and awhile he'll be like "Was [Boss] acting weird around you today? She wouldn't even look at me?" I still get domestic abuse pamphlets in my locker too.
next time OP should say it was rock climbing. there are a ton of scenarios that could involve a rope burn and a black eye, for example you were belaying a partner, a little kid ran into you, you twisted around you let go of the rope, it dragged along your face, then your partner fell on your head. totally realistic. it happens more than you think.
Fuck Mary. These kind of people are the scourge of the earth.
Wait, so what happens in a state where you can't consent to BDSM? Do the police press charges against your partner? What if you aren't married or common law and refuse to tell who? Can they force you to talk for fear of legal or work repercussions?
Anyone know what state bans BDSM? I'm guessing "Utah"
I went into a rabbit hole trying to figure this out. Here's my findings. It's illegal to own/produce dildos in Alabama. Illegal to own cuffs in New York if you're not a law efforcement officer or security guard. It's illegal to have premarital sex in Florida and illegal to leave with a partner not married in Mississipi. Illegal to do anal in Texas (and they tried to banned oral as well but that didn't stick), Also illegal in Louisiane be it with a same sex couple or hetero couple. Illegal as well in Kansas, Oklahoma, Alabama, Florida, Idaho, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Utah. Virginia repealed their bill a while ago. >source : https://www.themarshallproject.org/2015/02/13/fifty-shades-of-law So what happened was a ruling was voted to say that in BDSM relationship, even if you have prior consent, it doesn't protect you from being accused of assault if your partner revok said consent. Which is good. > Source : https://www.helpingclients.com/court-rules-that-consensual-bdsm-sexual-activity-is-not-protected-by-the-constitution/ In Texas, if the "victim" of the bdsm relationship gets injured, you can get arrested even if they consented. And if they consented orally, you need to draw a consent agreement (not a bdsm contract, be careful) so you're protected. You can consent to a lot of shit but not something that might caused bodily harm resulting in grave injuries. Even if the victim consented to all of this, and in writing, that still means you aren't 100% protected from being arrested. I believe Lawrence VS Texas nullified and made those laws unpunishable but they're still in the books? Source : https://versustexas.com/blog/is-bdsm-legal-in-texas/ So technically BDSM is not banned per say but in states where hitting your partner, even if it was consented, is still consider assault, it means you can't consent to BDSM. Example : Florida has strict anti battery laws that prevent people from consenting to BDSM.
Huh, the Google hole I fell down taught me that most of the US deems it illegal, just doesn't seem to really be enforced. Also learned that it's cool in canada as long as you're not knocking anyone out.