Porn? on Psych Central blog? Acceptable?

So, I have been blogging here at psych central. It has been a great outlet for me. My therapist even asked if she could read some of it—that made me feel good. I am surprised that she would want to take the time to read it.

Today, when I posted my blog, I noticed a post called “xxx.” And, you know, it really is porn—at least, it is what I understand porn to be—it describes sex and penis size and everything—leaves nothing to the imagination. I was shocked—I clicked on the link to see it because I thought maybe, the first few sentences were just racy and it would then talk about abuse or something like that. But, nope, it was just porn. I guess, since this is psych central I did not expect to find porn on the blog site. Maybe it is a sexual outlet for some, maybe it is a healthy expression for some…it just shocked me.

So, now, back to the therapist. She is going to check out my blog on what it means to be a survivor. Great—the porn post is below it. Come on…what she gonna think? I have told her nothing but good about psych central and now her first impression is going to be about porn. Just great. I am embarrassed and I wish I would have never told her about my blog.

I may be out of line for even complaining about this…I guess blogs are whatever anybody wants to write….but porn? Maybe I am just being too sensitive or maybe I don’t understand what porn is…or maybe I should just shut my freaking mouth because I am sure this will make somebody mad. Maybe I am just being too conservative.

I am thinking about erasing my blog—I cry as I write that because it is very important to me…but I don’t want my story of being a survivor right next to what I consider to be porn. I guess that will be my call…I am really disappointed.

I can't believe that is allowed to stay up in the blogs. horrible!!!

could someone please put a trigger icon on this one?

No, you are right. It probably is an oversight (that there is a porn blog).

The blogs are for "mental health" and not for exploitation and titillation.

Have you emailed DocJohn? I'm sure he'll do something about this problem as soon as he is able to.

I just wanted to assure everyone that porn is absolutely not "allowed" here at PC. I have been alerted to this problem and have since alerted admin. I'm not sure how the blogs are moderated. I went to try and find it but I couldn't. If someone could find the said blog and copy a link to me, I'd appreciate it!

Thank you for alerting us. I'm gonna figure out how to take care of it.

~Rayna

ray link is in your mailbox

Thank you bebop.

Again, apologies to everyone who saw it.

I am sorry to everybody for posting here and getting people upset. I should have gone straight to admin and not made a big deal out of it. I posted out of anger. Sometimes I don't make the best choices when I am angry. I am confident admin will do what is needed to resolve the situation.

No worries at all DePressMe. There might have been a new member who saw it and didn't know to alert us, so you've helped by giving us a place to let everyone know that this is not acceptable.

Blogs are moderated by DocJohn and it helps him when he gets alerts from the members about innapropriate blogs like the one we're discussing or blogs containing spam. So this thread has become informative about how we can all work together to keep the blogs safe.

You did wonderfully hon. Thank you for your help in protecting PC!!!!!!!!!!!

Yes, DePressMe, I'm thankful you posted this. I'm VERY sensitive to any kind of porn. It is a bad trigger for me so your post warned me not to go to the blogs until it is deleted. Thanks so much to you & Ray for attending to this issue.--Suzy

Porn is not allowed on the site, neither is spam or unacceptable behavior. In fact, we go to great lengths here at the community to prevent theses issues. This is, however, the internet and these things will happen from time to time.

What helps is when members help us to keep the community safe for all by immediately reporting anything like this. That happened yesterday, and as soon as the owner signed on, the yuck was removed.

Again, we go to great lengths, especially here in the community, to keep these things outside of our door so to speak. The blogs have had some recent spamming, and then the post with porn. It's hard to see, I know.

We will continue to keep the site as safe as we can and THANK YOU ALL SO MUCH for helping us to do that by acting out against it. We really are a community that cares for each other. It shows every time.

Love & Respect,

KD

I just went and looked at the blogs again (thanks for the head's up that there's more).

There are a few more inappropriate entries there, so everyone be careful until we've cleaned it up, OK?

I'll post here when it is...

Love,

KD

Everyday we get about 10 new spam blogs created. Every day I review them manually if the filter doesn't catch them. Sometimes they create one and don't post on it for a week, and then come back later and post spam or pornography.

The best thing you can do to help is to simply PM me with a URL that you caught that is a spam blog. However, if it is a brand new blog, please do not PM me with the URL, as I will catch it automatically in my next review.

I'm human, so sometimes I miss something. If that happens, PM me a day or two later and let me know.

Please note, too, that you have your own PERSONAL URL for your blog -- yourblogname.psychcentral.net

That's the URL you should send people to to read your blog, not the main psychcentral.net blog page. That way people will always just see what you intended them to see and not anything you didn't want them to see (like this stuff).

Thanks,
DocJohn

Yes... thank you thank you thank you DepressMe... I am a relatively new member and it was good to see your posting and to then read that it is not accepatable for PC.

If you'd have dealt with this privately people like me wouldn't have been informed about the position of the administrators on this kind of stuff.

I appreciate your courage even if it was fueled by anger. Anger isn't always a bad thing if it prompts us to do good.
You did good my friend....

Thank you...

Hi DePressMe

I agree with you on some of the points you have made. I have a problem with members posting images of male gentials in the Sexual Forum. I think such images should be reserved for PM (private message) not for general viewing. We all obviously have access to the internet and if we care to google images reproductive or gential organs we can do so on our own. The images in this thread isn't porn IMO but I don't think it is appropriate for young members to view.

That being said I do respect members right to post what they want but maybe in the future to PM graphic images of female & male gentials. Or at least put in bold font that this image contains images of "______________" .

I had actually found some earlier ..i think it was yesterday? And i notified the moderators and they took it down..i thought that was all...i was atsonished to hear from you depressme that there is more...and i thank you and give you two thumbs up on a good call.....i didnt even think of to write it on a forum to warn others...you are way ahead of me....and im glad we have others like you to think of these things..lol cuz god knows i dont always think things through or just do things half way....so thanks for giving everyone a heads up ...and i guess this would be the best time right now to support everyone...If anyone finds anything offense like porn or spam ...remember just look at the whose online under the forums bar uptop next to blogs it will show which moderators are on and all you have to do is pm them....its all our jobs not just the moderators and adminsterators to keep an eye out for each other and there safety and well being...I hope the more we watch the less spam and anything else...crude....will appear...good luck to everyone ...lets get out those eyeglasses !!!

thank you doc and all admins and mods for keeping us safe here!

DePressMe you did good today thank you also!

Okay, one last comment...what makes people want to do things like break into blogs and such?.

I try to live my life being considerate and helpful to others--how I drive, how I dress, what I say, what I post, in general all my actions.

I think I get taken advantage of because of this--sometimes I know I appear as "weak." Times like this I feel like I live in a pit of vipers. From the gossip and back stabbing at work to the driver who cuts me off and then flips me off for doing something like allowing a pedestrian to cross the street.

I keep telling myself to have compassion for the "jerks" in the world. And I know I'll feel guilty for calling them jerks. Really they have problems that make them act that way and I should show them compassion...but, really, sometimes, I just want to tell them exactly where to go.

Maybe I got up on the wrong side of the bed today because I am angrier and more compulsive than usual.

DePressMe, you are not alone in trying to be a considerate, friendly person only to have negative things happen to you. That's the way of the world now, unfortunately. Let's make a pact to not let it turn us into THEM--the inconsiderate , hostile people we encounter. Continue to be yourself--which sounds like a very caring person.--Suzy

Thanks to everyone for your understanding in this issue. Its good to know that we all watch out for each other!!!!!

I also wanted to add, that there are no pictures of anything posted in the Sexuality forum, only links to pictures that one can choose to click. So please do not be frightened to visit that forum; no one will see pictures of anything unless they so choose. The sexuality forum is for frank and honest conversation, so there might be some posts not suitable for everyone, but there are no pics that anyone will accidentally stumble upon.

Anyway, just wanted to say thanks again for everyone's participation in ridding PC of unruly blogs!!!!!

Love ya'll,
Rayna

I have spent far too much time trying to understand why people do the things they do. Saying cruel things without provocation, in particular. Why do people create viruses to harm the computers of people they don't even know? (Well, I did hear the biggest creators of viruses are the companies that create software to protect you from them--like gangs that make people pay them for protection from them, the gang!!!) It baffles me. Some people are just cruel.

Seeing sexually explicit material generally doesn't offend me, but if I know it isn't supposed to be on a site or whatever, I find it annoying, because if it's not ok for me, it's not ok for you. There are plenty of places you can create your own blog and post adult material, if you want to. Just a couple days ago, a friend invited me to check out her site on bebo.com, and I saw a kitty video, clicked it, and on the page of the kitty video, on the right, were "Recently viewed" videos (still pics of the videos), I guess of the the person who posted the kitty video, or recently viewed overall. The first pic on there was a sexually explicit video, and my friend said they don't allow nudity on there. I didn't specifically see anything in their Terms of Service, although it says they don't allow "obscene" content; I don't know how they define obscene, so I don't know if that includes all adult content or what. In any case, I thought, what if a kid sees that?

Unfortunately, no filter is perfect, and the Internet has far too many users to keep perfect control. People will spam, post inappropriate content in inappropriate places, and the best we can do is help by reporting them. In real life, too many people don't want to get involved. They say, it's none of my business. If you report the bad guys, they call you a rat or a snitch, but I grew up with the understanding that if people don't help by turning in people doing wrong, they're allowing the crimes to go on, and they have no business complaining.

"All that is required for evil to prevail is for good men to do nothing." - Edmund Burke

> there are no pictures of anything posted in the Sexuality forum, only links to pictures that one can choose to click.

Thanks very much for clarifying that, Ray.

I always find it... surprising (?) - that isn't quite the right word - when people complain that a thread entitled 'porn' doesn't contain a 'trigger' warning because it contains (surprise, surprise) talk about porn. or that when people are talking about circumscision and post a link to a pic people complain because following the link takes them to (surprise, surprise) a picture of a circumscised penis.

i mean... what did people think this thread was going to be about?

what did people think the link to the pic of the circumscised penis was going to be a pic of????????

i really can't comprehend people sometimes...

alex, it's simple. we're all coming from different places, different life experiences and we don't all think alike.and it would be terribly boring here if we all drank the same flavor koolaid... ...pat

i understand that what people find triggering is a function of their past experiences and that different past experiences result in different triggers. i understand that people don't choose to have the triggers they do and it is not their fault that they have them and that when triggered they often feel a lot of pain.

what i fail to understand, however, is that if people know they are triggered by a discussion of porn then why on earth is it that they choose to click on and read a thread that has the term 'porn' in the title. if people know they are triggered by a photograph of a penis then why click on and look at a picture where the context of the discussion makes it clear that the picture is going to be a picture of a penis.

repetition compulsion, that is why. there is something compelling... something mesmerising... something that draws us to things that result in our feeling pain, sometimes. part of the compulsion to engage in activities likely to trigger us (e.g., reading a thread about porn or following a link to a picture of a penis) is in our desire that such things NOT trigger us. often we engage in activities that we are fairly sure are going to result in our feeling hurt because we are desperately hoping and wishing for a different ending. if i know the subject of pornography or if i know a picture of a penis is likely to trigger me i may have this compulsion to read the thread and / or to follow the link because i'm hoping and wishing for a different ending where i manage to do this and... where i don't feel triggered!

but to ask people to put a ******trigger****** warning on a thread about porn when they have already mentioned 'porn' clearly in the title... to ask people to put a ******trigger***** warning on a link to a pic of a penis when they have already stated they are posting a link to a pic of a penis...

is to undermine the value of the *******trigger****** warning.

if almost everything has a trigger warning then the trigger warning becomes meaningless as a signal. marking everything with a trigger warning ultimately is about as useful as marking nothing with a trigger warning. when people make the subject matter clear and reserve *******trigger******* for the especially likely to trigger stuff (where that may well NOT be apparent from the title / context of the discussion) isn't that most useful ultimately?

there is also the point that different people find different things triggering.

i really do wonder half the time if what people intend is to prohibit things they find triggering on this site. the trouble with that strategy is that different people find different things triggering. what can be a useful conversation for some can be a triggering conversation for others. if we couldn't discuss anything that someone or other found triggering then much of the utility of the site would be undermined...