From: scg@mentor.cc.purdue.edu (Kelly Martin)
Subject: Re: Sexual Harassment
Reply-To: scg@mentor.cc.purdue.edu
Organization: Gender Anarchists United
Date: Fri, 6 Nov 1992 16:30:11 GMT

003129z@ace.acadiau.ca (DAVID NATHANIEL ZINCK) writes:

>I thought I'd drop my two cents on sexual harassment right here, 
>right now. Anyone who sexually harrasses somebody on MUD is a tit. 
                                                               ^^^

I would think that using the word 'tit' as a derogatory could be
construed as 'sexually harassing'.

>Ok, lets pretend we have a generic female charaacter like ROTUNDA,
>You look at her, her description reads "ROTUNDA is a tall blonde
>haired voluptuos woman. Her powerfully muscled body, and smooth soft
>skin belie her swift sword arm"

Well, this is a classic cross-mudder description.  Real mudfemales
tend to have more sensible descriptions.  It's been my experience that
most of the male players who play female characters for either
mindfuck, sexual, or gender advantage reasons are very poor at writing
descriptions (or roleplaying in general).

>Anybody who looks at this girl and gets turned on over it has to be
>the most stupid tit!

There it is again!  Are you sure 'tit' is the word you want to be
using?

>How does he know that she is A) a girl at all?  I had a friend (male)
>who used to love playing female characters because all the typical
>acne faced computer geeks would happily kiss her (his) feet!

This sounds like cross-mudding for mindfuck purposes.  Some people (me
included), however, play opposite gender characters for sheer
roleplaying value or other (unrelated) reasons.  This has been argued
many times before.

>I would laugh my guts out for half an hour after reading what some
>guys would say to her! Guys, you can never really be sure who your're
>talking to. I for one would be more than a little embarassed to find
>out the mud girl of my dreams was a 6' hairy man!

The 'mud girl of [his] dreams' is exactly as described in the
character's description.  Remember that, if the player is really
playing a role, the identity of the player is irrelevant.

>b) The girl could be half a terminal away!  You could be looking at
>some serious charges if you get caught!

Lewd speech is, to my knowledge, not prosecutable in most civilized
nations.

>Mud type can be printed and probably would constitute as a legal
>document!

There is no way to prove beyond reasonable doubt the real life
identity of the sending party, nor that the recipient's log is
unadulterated.

>Remember, in canada at least Assault takes place in the mind of the
>victim! you don't have to touch her to find yourself on some pretty
>heavy charges! 

Assault is the crime of threatening unwanted physical contact (in
contries which follow the English legal tradition).  One could easily
make the claim that you meant what you said ONLY in the virtual
context, in which case there would be no threat of physical contact,
wanted or not.  As of yet, the law does not protect virtual persons.

>Also your fellow mudders, wizs, and so on would constitute as legal
>witnesses.  THINK ABOUT YOUR ACTIONS

The only person who could be used against you would be someone who SAW
YOU TYPE the words in question.  People whose characters were in the
same virtual room as you could not prove that it was YOU that typed
those words (you might have left the room for a moment and somebody
else did it, for example).

>And my last point is, If your're hitting on a computer alias that you
>don't know you must be pretty desperate.

Well, this, at least, I won't dispute.  Of course, I think people who
'hit' on anybody, in real life or virtual life, is a bit desparate.
It's much more satisfying to form real relationships.

--
Most system flaws can be attributed to unwarrantedly anthropomorphizing the
user.
	-- T.C.Bennett@syse.salford.ac.uk