Sexual harassment

[MuseTraveller]

I lurk primary as Teledji - a 50 year old sleazy male lalafell with a stache is the best armor! :'D
The funny part was when some random Joe found out I'm female irl through the server FB page, a few words exchanged and he is all flirty and suggestive. I'm like, whelp there goes my hopes for normal friendship and someone extra to run content with, so I told him to imagine my potato's stache brush against his cheek ... he never messaged me again. :'D

Both my mains are male lala so I honestly haven't got any kind of sexual harassment ig. Even if I do, blacklist is made for that.

[Ashpd]

2018 and people still don't know how to block people. And believe to all without any thinking.

[Enla]

I'm not sure if I should feel gladdened by the amount of people who have clearly never dealt with emotional manipulators and narcissists in their lives. Even if it's to the point that stating that blocking and reporting is a catch all solution to a situation involving people who are clearly enmeshed in each others lives. Because at least they haven't experienced it themselves, which is a net positive in my book. Or conversely saddened by the lack of empathy for those who /have/ who often meet with the very same responses and thus fall further into isolation because of it.

As others have stated, blocking really only works on the random creeps who approach you out of the blue who you can tell to get bent with little to no consequences. It doesn't work on people who will happily emotionally manipulate and isolate dozens of people. Treating some like kings and queens, while showing their very worst sides to a select few who then are unlikely to be believed if they ever come forward. Because 'x isn't like that', 'x would never do something like that', 'how could you do this to x?', 'x is the real victim' and so on to the point of ad nauseum. You can't block every flying monkey that comes your way when someone is determined to punish you for daring to have a spine and slander your reputation to anyone who is willing to hear it. Which coupled with the threat of losing friendships and manipulation by the abuser often keeps victims quiet.

Should SE have a bigger role in punishing people for these actions? Frankly I'd rather they just be more serious about looking into reports rather than letting them fester, for reasons stated on other pages. They can't do anything about matters stated off site or out of game but when they have clear evidence of harassment within the game itself it would be nice if they were quicker to respond to it, if at all. My main beef with this whole situation is the amount of people who can't seem to understand the difference between blocking Random Joe Blow who just DM'd you and blocking an actual, long time abuser. The latter of which is nowhere near as simple as people are making it out to be.

[Septonyte]

So, I just read the article. Why was there not a single mention of these women going to law enforcement, the GM's, or mods of the various social media services this alleged behavior took place on. I'm no lawyer but I am fairly sure that he committed blackmail if this is true which would mean that the police could be involved. I am certain the police have ways to get warrants for social media, even deleted messages since companies keep the deleted messages for a while after the user deletes them.

In the end reading this reminds me of that article Rolling Stones Magazine ran back in November of 2014 about the fraternity. You know, the one where the woman whose last name was withheld to keep her an "Anonymouse Jane", weaved a sensorious tale to the author of the article but never reported the alleged crime to ANY one in authority. The fiasco that was disproving that article and the fallout thereafter is probably why people are calling this article into question. Well, that, and the fact the author has Moderator privileges and locked the comments section.

In the end, I think people are getting weary of these stories with "anonymous sources" that turn out to be bogus but end up screwing up or splitting the community.

[Doozer]

I think what people forget (or maybe aren't aware of) about sexual harassment is that it's not always some rando coming up to you and being like "hey you're sexy" and running off. More often than not, it's done by someone you know. A friend, a partner, a friend of a friend, an FC mate, etc. and it makes it way more complicated, and way more personal.

Sexual harassment is your FC leader saying "hey ERP with me or send me nudes or I'll turn everyone in the FC against you". It can be even scarier if you happen to have some irl connection with them. Maybe you play with your roommate and their boyfriend, and that boyfriend starts pressuring you in-game to do things you're not comfortable doing. If you take action you could face real life consequences. I know people will say that's not in the game so it doesn't count, but like I said; it's usually someone you know, and it can be very complicated.

Just like sexual harassment irl, blocking/avoiding a person isn't guaranteed to make it stop. Instead we should be teaching people to respect other people's boundaries. Not leaving it up to the victim to solve the problem.

[Reinha]

You can't block every flying monkey that comes your way when someone is determined to punish you for daring to have a spine and slander your reputation to anyone who is willing to hear it. Which coupled with the threat of losing friendships and manipulation by the abuser often keeps victims quiet.

But the thing is, you can block them all. The busy status prevents anyone from contacting you privately. Losing reputation means nothing outside of professional circles because any community willing to believe slander is too rotten to be a part of anyway. If you prioritize your self worth higher than any relationship, these abusers have no leverage. I am not saying it's easy, but I am saying that this approach is more effective than just silently taking the abuse for fear of losing your social circles and hoping it will go away one day.

The part where things get tricky is when the abuser is someone who might arrive at your physical location to do who knows what, or someone who has the ability to affect your livelihood. Then it's time to contact the authorities. Again, simply tolerating it is not an effective way to ensure your safety.

Square Enix can do very little in a situation involving out of game contact. I think in-game communities are the ones capable of curbing harassment in the gaming circles. Isolate every person using common harassment tactics like spreading nudes, putting people in a negative light or asking people to message spam someone. If abusers use the community as a tool for harassment that means at some point they will reach out to other people to gain support and to act on their behalf, thus revealing themselves.

[Aeliott]

Oh my the mobile site is awful...can't delete / edit? Oh well. Cliff notes version then:

It extends beyond the game, you can't "just block them". It wouldn't work in a "real life" dispute so to speak so why would it here? Actually read it and get context. Know it all responses like that are making me embarrassed for the people saying them. You think they're you're friend, you're working on a big community project, they can blackmail...come on. Don't enable stuff like this.

[FeyaAres]

One time, I seat myself on a lalafell (by mistake). Is it sexueal herrasment ?

[KaivaC]

For a community that tends to have a fairly good reputation in the MMO market, some of the comments that have been made are rather disturbing. I seriously question those who have said that seeing something like this brought humor to them, or that it was irrelevant to the community. Whatever happened to basic human decency? Have we gotten so jaded over the years that this is the typical response to situations like this? Whether we like it or not, this story does matter, because if something like this is now getting exposed, how many more silent cases are happening. This may be uncommon for FFXIV, but it is still something that the community needs to be aware of nonetheless. This is not something worth being mocked or derided upon. Regardless of the facts presented to this point and whether the truth is fully in the light right now, the fact is that real lives are being negatively affected.

This isn’t just some ‘FC drama’ nor is it some bait for popcorn. Something like this has bled into real life. If this was a family member of yours and they were essentially held hostage for two months, would you be laughing at them when you finally get ahold of them, not knowing if they were a victim of sexual assault or worse? Or if their boss for a fansite, one of the larger fansites for this community, was threatening them and telling them to provide nudes or jump on Skype to perform lewd acts, would you still look that family member in the eye and laugh at them?

The folks who say that law enforcement is an easy call away do not understand just how hard it is to get out of a situation like this, of how much damage it does to your mind. It takes a long time to build the strength to even get out of a situation like this. Especially if you were already in an emotionally compromising state of mind as it were. For a healthy, rational, and strong person, yes, perhaps it is a simple choice to make.

But for a victim who feels powerless, the choice is not that simple. Some of the comments that have mocked and laughed at a situation like this just reinforces this. How is something like this even remotely amusing?