Grakor Grumbles: Sexual RP Policy

[Delta]

It's all about common courtesy and reasonable-ness. Personally I take things to party chat when things go beyond a PG-13 rating or just beyond what I consider "publicly appropriate". The limitations on RP from the standpoint of sexual content should be limited only by what the involved parties see as reasonable limits, and any party that can see the RP in question counts as involved, whether or not they're actually interacting.

Huh. I was going to write a paragraph this morning which would have been this, almost verbatim.

I am easy either way when it comes to this sort of thing, but I recognise that others may not be and censor myself appropriately. As long as you're mindful of who's around you, and respectful of their boundaries, you can't go too far wrong.

There was more I wanted to say regarding the policy on 'prostitute' characters, but I can't find a decent way to word it. I'm in favour of loosening restrictions, ultimately. Self-moderate, be selective about who you roleplay with and who you expose certain concepts to, and it shouldn't be a problem.

[McKnighter]

My view points have already been listed regarding when things should be moved to party chat, so I'll talk about prostitution.

The main issue I have with it is that once someone is known for having a lady(or man) of the night, I feel like they're going be labeled with "Omg, did you hear about this person? Such a ERP hound, rolling a hooker!" It's going to encourage negative impressions on certain players based off their characters without actually getting to know them IC or OOC.

Now, I'm personally completely fine with such characters, because I know some who would make a -killing- if they started charging money. But, I hope they have thick skin and are ready to receive a backlash from some of the community.

[Nymus]

LFG "Hooker LF ERP".

In the native Goldshirean dialect, that'd be "nite elf dimon droed LEF mait 4 som cewl arpess!"

[Harmonic]

Rensin's butt hair getting some fresh air

Sometimes, you just gotta let it flow in the wind.

[SachikoMaeda]

I'm gonna skip over most of the discussion and throw down my views.

ERP? Best in party chat. Quite honestly I would be highly annoyed if I was seeing it and wasn't in the mood for ERP. Plus the usual attitude of "LOL U ERP SO GROSS" or acting better than someone because they ERP is just asking for drama. So since it might bring out the lack of maturity in some, I would keep on in private.

Prostitutes? Like it or not, people skirt around it with "loose" characters all the time. I don't see a problem with rolling prostitute characters or even having your own little brothel run somewhere so long as it's not publicly advertised. It would just bring constant pain and judgement from the community that could be uncalled for.

If someone wants ERP, they're going to get it. One way or another. We're all (supposedly) adults (or can at least act lie one) and shouldn't have to lolridicule someone over liking or choosing to partake in erotic subjects.

[Wuvvums]

So, my question to you all: where do you think the lines should be drawn?

I think I agree to some extent with Pyschyn, though to me it depends on the context. I can't find a lot of situations in real life where I would just talk about who had sex with who, where they had sex and so on. Even in New England where those things were the attitudes towards sex were a little more lax, it never really happened in the middle of public. You wouldn't go into a restaurant or bar talking about these topics, so it does feel strange to see it come in say the Legerdemain Lounge along with certain inappropriate inuendos and heavy hints that the character would totally get on her knees (sorry to mention that, but it's an example).

The social mechanism in real life probably stops us from this because it's embarrassing, mortifying, and easily makes you come off as an absolute creep. So I always feel in rp the inclination to delve into sexual topics is more OOC than anything else. I think it's the idea that you don't really have to face the consequences of talking about your sex life in public because everyone around you are NPCs, or just people who don't know you on the internet. I could be wrong, maybe for some people this is normal for their culture, but I do have the feeling that without the real life constraints some players are much less hesitant to do socially unacceptable things on their characters.

I care a bit about setting and tone and WoW has definitely gone towards the end of making things all-ages and perhaps going towards jokes and inuendo at best. I haven't played through the quest, but I always feel as a rule of thumb if a parent would be outraged having their kid see this then the developers have no intention for being in the game.

Spoiler:

Speaking of tone I must say that the few times I've seen stories or settings where sex and who had it with who was casual were often... youtube cheesy porn intros or raunchy-fanservice anime, where the logic of the universe centered around sex. I just don't see it as something that would come up casually unless it was part of a sex-driven setting, which to me Coth is not.

Do you think we should be more strict on this?

Ideally there are some things we should curb but can not be feasibly implemented and would cause a bit of a backlash. I think it would require not only heavy policing of rp, but the GMs having to interpret a lot of gray area. And I do talk about it being a matter of tone and realism; I think in any rp server or forum to mandate a specific way the characters and universe should be ends up making things too rigid. I do think that the offending rp should stop if someone crosses a line and another person speaks up.

I do feel a good rule of thumb though would be the PG-13 rule. Say you have a little brother or sister or son or daughter, would you feel comfortable about them reading this back or hearing it in a movie? I have met some users on coth before that are pretty darn young, so none of us want to go overboard with it.

Do you think that prostitute/etc. characters should be allowed? Where do you stand on this issue?

There is something that deeply unsettles me about the idea of prostitutes being available on coth. I have also found trouble seeing mention of them in histories, though I don't want to single out someone, I've seen a certain amount of characters that are meant to be sleazy or come from a sleazy place and one of the ways mentioned is being born to a prostitute. It's one of the few times where it seems to be defining your character's mother solely by her sexual actions, and it seems too often that women are reduced to being just that. Seeing how we have asked for certain profiles to be edited if they push themselves into really dark territory, I do find myself worrying when prostitutes come into a profile, but a little hesitant to call it out on the worry that I'll be seen as too “social justice.”

I've seen some people who would probably run it off into the deep end and I really don't want to see it. I feel like this would disproportionately affect female characters, and to some extent gay characters (in cases of yaoi) in a way that would dance really close to the line of being distressing to see. I think there are other places you can take your prostitute or ERP-centric characters if you're dying to have one, this really shouldn't be the place. Above all else, I think prostitution is a little too dark for the community.

[Jonoth]

On my most vulgar characters, I humorously follow a "that's what she said" rule. If I want to talk about something that can be considered dirty, then it can only be in a form where using the phrase (or something equivalent) would make sense. If what you say is so dirty that a good "that's what she said" seems unnecessary or redundant, you should consider wording it differently or moving it to a private channel.

I'll also echo the no to prostitute chars. I do think there are many players capable of handling such a character in a proper manner. However, many of the people who would end up rolling it would probably use it as an ERP trap. And the other big issue I find is that while I don't object to ERP if practiced privately, I think prostitute characters will inevitably cause it to bleed over to public channels.

[Duraza]

There are a lot of reasons why I want to say no to prostitutes, however I think most importantly that rule serves as a firm boundary when it comes to sexual rp. To me it says that 'X type of content is not the sort of content we want to come up frequently in public role-play.' It isn't to judge anyone who would play a prostitute to ERP, or even someone who would play a prostitute really well. Instead, 'no prostitutes' acknowledges that minors and players who aren't interested in sexual rp play this game and that the general 'tone' of the server should not be one heavy with sexual themes (or even lightly colored with sexual themes).

That's my belief at least. I think the status quo is as close to ideal as you can get in reality. Yes, problems will arise. However, when I don't ever feel worried that if I go to X place to rp I might get hit with RP I don't want to see. It could still happen, but the tone of the server isn't one that makes me think I'm going to run into that sort of thing. However, approving prostitutes means sanctioning more mature roleplay as a norm (whether or not the prostitute is played excellently. That doesn't change the fact that the roleplay is for more mature audiences) which I don't think is fair for those who are younger or simply don't want to deal with it.

[Reigen]

Where do you think the lines should be drawn?

The moment someone expresses discomfort with the subject, it should be moved to party or whispers. S' a matter of respect for me. That's the 'line' for me, the others in the area who may or may not like the subject. Me? There are maybe two subjects that get me riled up to the point where I don't want to be around the area. I'm pretty much fine with everything else, so I'm a bad line.

Do you think we should be more strict on this?

No if we go by the 'if everyone is okay with it' clause.

Do you think that prostitute/etc. characters should be allowed?

See, this is a tricky one for me. I'll just sum it up to indifferent. I'd never play one, no, but if others want to then there's nothing really stopping them beyond naming their character as a hooker in their profile.

Where do you stand on this issue?

My stance is pretty clear: If someone asks for a subject to be taken to party chat due to discomfort, take it there. Respect their wishes and they'll respect yours.

[Vladdy]

Too many people in the real world already want my body. I don't think CoTH should be too much like the situation in the real world.

(In other words, no prostitutes.)

[Harmonic]

...Now I keep thinking of the idea of rolling a male prostitute. It both intrigues and horrifies me, only because I can only imagine the crap the character would be subjected to. Same goes for a female prostitute. When you make that your character concept, you invite a certain type of RP, that unless you are very, very comfortable with the people you are doing that sort of RP with, can become -very- awkward.

Let me say this, the idea behind a hooker is doing something that normally is kept intimate and private for the sake of money. That concept sort of flows over onto you when RPing this type of character... sort of hard to be discriminating or to show inhibitions about who it's with when this character throws away intimacy and privacy for the sake of monetary gain. I guess if people are willing to do this, well...

It still opens the floodgates in my opinion though. You've got hookers running around doing their thing, sort of opens up for other types of RP and discussions about what we'll let. I know people feel that it's like playing the "Drug dealer", which is a character concept I've seen a lot on CoTH, but more so to me this is something that encroaches on what we consider private. We know what the character's for, but are we as a server ready for that? Are we mature enough to handle it? What happens when said hooker accosts people ICly? What happens when others get uncomfortable with this sort of character being around in RP?

All questions that arise from us talking about this.

(Sharing my feelings here now that I'm actually awake.)

[Sadron]

I think my views have been pretty much summed up in this elsewhere in this thread, so I'll try not to be redundant.

It's not that I'm uncomfortable with ERP or sexual themes on CotH--I'm just not particularly interested in the whole deal. My attitudes towards sex in WoW are the same as profanity and excessive vulgarity: I just don't feel like it fits. I can tolerate it, but I'm still going to silently cringe behind my screen and mutter 'why just why' if I see ERP being broadcast over /s or /e. That's just me. I think people should take it to party or whispers if they're getting frisky because, really, I don't understand why anybody would want to broadcast that to people within hearing range.

As for prostitutes, I'm going to have to echo the no. Again, it just doesn't feel right to me. I mean, WoW is a fairly bright world, all things considered. Does prostitution really fit into WoW's setting? Furthermore, does that kind of a character fit in with our server's identity? Do we, as a community, want that kind of character to be allowed?

The answers to those questions will vary from person to person. My answer to them is no.

[Nymus]

@Noble I think you'll remember this anecdote.

Back on the 1942 RP server (World War 2 German RP), I got bored and asked the owner if I can roll a prostitute for the soldiers. We all thought it'd be rather lulzy, so I went ahead and did it.

Sweet jesus my lungs required surgery after that.

If you want semi-serious comedy relief "I did it for a laugh" RP, a prostitute could be done. Although that's just me, I laugh at jokes that aren't considered politically correct.

[Grakor456]

To redirect the conversation about "prostitutes" a bit...would your answers change if we're talking about, say, higher-class escorts? At which point their jobs are much more than anything sexual, and may not involve sexual activities at all.

[SachikoMaeda]

I already have a geisha character. Take a peek at Alorel. And remember there is a HUGE difference between a geisha and a prostitute.