From: nelson@reed.edu (Nelson Minar)
Newsgroups: soc.motss
Subject: be kind to small furry animals
Date: 17 Aug 92 08:39:46 GMT
Article-I.D.: reed.1992Aug17.083946.8377
Organization: Reed College, Portland, OR

Be careful what you post - you never know who is reading it.

Way back in February or March, some ignorant person crossposted a
message to a bunch of newsgroups asking "is it true that all you gay
men put gerbils up your butts?". There were the predictable responses,
pointing out what a silly idea that is.

Something in me sort of snapped when I read this message. I think I'd
written one too many rational responses to clueless people that week
already.

So I posted a long and detailed message detailing the fine art of
gerbiling. I talked all about how to prepare the gerbil, how to get it
into the rectum, exactly how it felt to have the little beastie
squirming, dying, and where to purchase gerbils. It was rather nasty,
I was proud of it's rhetoric. (If you have it lying around, would you
mail it to me? I lost mine).

About a month after posting this I got called into my boss' office. He
showed me a printout of the posting, and asked me about it.
Fortunately, my relationship with my boss is reasonably good and he
knows me well enough that he assumed that I was not serious. Things
were fine with him.

What had happened? Someone read my message, either on soc.motss or on
the joke newsgroup alt.sex.bestiality.hamster.duct-tape. S/He was so
horribly shocked at my posting, and so incapable of understanding the
sarcasm, that they sent it off to the People for the Ethical Treatment
of Animals (PETA). S/He sent it anonymously, of course. No, I never
received any e-mail from anyone asking me if I was serious.

PETA then read this, completely out of context, and said "oh my god
here is this guy advocating the abuse of small furry animals and we
have to stop him now". They sent a letter to the President of Reed
College, enclosing my posting, and asking that the college prosecute
me for violating various laws involving advocacy of animal abuse.

The President of Reed College read the letter and passed it off to the
Dean of Student Services who realized that I wasn't a student then and
passed it to my boss who asked me.

It gets better. Things were settled quickly at Reed - no one here
thought I was serious. (I hope - I wonder if our President thinks I'm
a bigger pervert than I already am?) But not for PETA, no. They wanted
to make sure I was *punished*.

So I got to spend the next few weeks negotiating with this guy from
PETA. He was fairly nice, but I ended up not being very impressed with
their integrity. These people got an anonymous complaint from someone
about something I allegedly wrote, and took it so seriously as to
immediately ask the college to prosecute me? I wonder if the term
"irresponsible PC facists" actually has meaning.

Their rationale, as I understand it, is that what I had written was so
cruel and offensive that it deserved swift and powerful action. He
acknowledged that perhaps they made a mistake in not asking me about
the message first. He also acknowledged that maybe it wasn't such a
clever idea outing me to the entire power structure of my college.

What I really wanted from them was an agreement that they would
destroy the letter - I really don't want it coming back to me in that
context 20 years from now. They refused to do so - the best I got was
a letter promising they'd never use it again. I agreed to post a
message to soc.motss explaining that I was not serious.

So here it is. I do not advocate killing animals for your seual
pleasure. Do not do it, it is mean and nasty. My original message was
intended to be sarcastic, and I regret that it was possible for
someone to read it and think I was serious.

What's the punchline? I've been a vegetarian since I was 15 because I
am sickened by the violence associated with meat. I've participated in
animal rights protests. I've even given PETA my money. I wonder if my
donation paid for their stamps.
-- 
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nelson@reed.edu \/                    The sully-van vultures are on the prowl