What Personal Responsibility Means To Me

[CopperKnob]

When I wake up, I put on my burka (I dress responsibly, and you should, too), grab a bite to eat (zero fat for my anti-***, pro-anorexia diet), and drive to work. There are no parking spaces near the door. Fuckadoodledo! 10% of ***s happen in car parks so I phone my boss to ask her to meet me at the car. She’s not in. The team manager is, but since 90% of ***s are committed by someone you know, I call the admin worker to accompany the dude who’s accompanying me to the door. This is sensibility at it's best.

They gave me my own office a while back, but working in a room alone can get you ***d, so I go to a the open planned area of the building and work from there. A few colleagues are going out for drinks after work, but personal responsibility requires me to be teetotal. One simply doesn't go out after sunset either, so I intend on spending every night this week with the cat. She’s sick to death of me because she doesn’t believe in personal responsibility, but she really needs to grow up, screw her with a massive hairball.

I used to love running after work, but now that I’ve learned about personal responsibility, I usually just grab some celery and go online instead. I’d probably have a more interesting life if I tried online dating, but going out with strangers from the internet is a particularly dangerous activity to even consider. Responsible women don’t go on dates with people they haven’t met yet. Perhaps I'll just stay single?

To check to see if I'm overreacting, I decide to read *** stats for the rest of the night. I discover that one in two violent crimes happen in the victim’s home.
I can’t go out.
I can’t stay in.
I can’t drive.
I can’t run.
I can’t socialise.
I decide to get a massive guard dog a taser and some mace tomorrow before spending the rest of the night watching a YouTube video about self-defence. While I’m practising my terrifying death stare, I get a call from my ex, who wants to meet up. Most homecides happen after a break up, and you know what that means.

The next day, my boss tells me they want to pay me to go back to University. It's a massive opportunity, but 0.4 million more crimes occur at educational facilities than in other environments. Studying would just be inviting assault. I'm smarter than that

But now:
I
Don’t
Even
Fucking
Know

My life has become pretty empty since I learned about personal responsibility, but anything’s better than living in ***.

Right?

For those who need the heads up, this is satirical but has an absolute point to it.

[Deleted Member]

🙏

[jameswhat]

As a wise person once said: 'the only thing we have to *** is *** itself—nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.'

[ge****]

Satirical and on point is what you do best CK.

Common sense is my preferred method of personal responsibility - and circumstantially adaptive common sense at that - I don't always get it right but generally it serves me well

[Deleted Member]

Like I said in my comments on the other post, we all make our own risk assessment.

[CopperKnob]

5 hours ago, Lady_Char said:

Like I said in my comments on the other post, we all make our own risk assessment.

Of course we do. I'm not disagreeing with you. But, risk assessing is only useful if we have full awareness of all the hazards as well as the likelihood of the harm occurring and the impact it'll have. All have a degree of variability because human nature is unpredictable. Without all the above, we don't truly know how risky a situation is.
.
It's one thing to risk assess ourselves, it's another to risk assess others/unknown environments, another to safety plan and something else entirely when a victim is 'blamed' for taking a 'risk' such as wearing a 'pretty dress'

[Deleted Member]

I'm a male *** victim, and as much as i get the point you're making, if this account of event is accurate.. you're letting something rule your life for the sake of something that may not even happen. Be prepared to defend yourself, sure.. but thinking about *** in this capacity is unhealthy and overruling.

[CopperKnob]

2 minutes ago, Purplerain8 said:

I'm a male *** victim, and as much as i get the point you're making, if this account of event is accurate.. you're letting something rule your life for the sake of something that may not even happen. Be prepared to defend yourself, sure.. but thinking about *** in this capacity is unhealthy and overruling.

You may have missed the final sentence

[Deleted Member]

Beautifully written as always and even though it's satirical, you make the point very well about the ridiculous guidelines women are often given to keep themselves safe.

[ey****]

there's assorted reasons why I hate the term 'personal responsibility' 

and, there's sometimes points around this I don't always word too well so please bear with me.

Straw Scenario.

Someone (gender unimportant) attends a fetish event. They are new but have been to a couple of events but never played.   They go into the dungeon and see some cool as fuck play going on - perhaps some flogging which looks really nice, and the submissive seems to take it effortly.  

Later, they are talking to the Dominant from the scene (whose gender is also unimportant) and say how good it looks.   Then perhaps either the Dominant asks if the newbie would like a go, or the newbie asks.  Whatever.

The Dominant asks some question - perhaps "Have you played before?" but it's noisy and the newbie hears it as maybe "Have you been here before?" and the newbie replies, "Yes a few times" and so the Dominant plays with an assumption of knowledge.

Turns out, floggers actually hurt, the newbie struggles to really get into the head space and doesn't really enjoy it.  They think they have to go through with it, as they don't understand properly about stopping a scene.

Now, really, in my straw scenario - nobody is really to blame here.  At least not on the surface.

But, actually.

A few days later the newbie complains about the bruising, the ***, that it was too hard - and - yep, someone goes "personal responsibility!  you should have...." followed by "...know how the Dominant plays...", "....knew floggers hurt...", "...used a safeword..." or whatever.

But nobody in this scenario talks about the Dominants "personal responsibility" - which was to have a conversation about experience somewhere quieter.  Clarified the newbie knew about safewords (a simple "do you have a safeword you like to use, or are you happy with calling red?") and, given they are playing with someone they've never played with, seen play, or know about their experience - possibly did some checking in during play.

and

obviously in my scenario - this was potentially a simple misunderstanding and the type which probably happens more often than we'd all admit - but - to claim 'personal responsibility' often places it more on the newbie than the person who probably should have known a little better.

 

[ca****]

re: above Eyem

I started reading it and got to the point where the conversation was had (in a noisy environment) and that h raised my alarms........  firstly it was a conversation the message was not communicated (not received)...    

Which brings it down to communication... not being through enough from both .

Like you say this kind of mis understanding / mis communication happens frequently in all aspects of life.   Just look at many recent posts on this forum (this one included) where people have misunderstood something or received / read the message and come up with their own meaning.  

re: personal responsibility ...   this will vary with every individual and only the individual can be responsible for their own take on it...  ??

[Je****]

I have tried to ignore this post.... but friends commenting has given me notifications. 

 

So here I am with a comment that wilol go down like a lead balloon.

 

 

I find this post horrific, and in extremeloy poor taste. So much so I couldnt even read it all. Not every word anyway. But the gist of it is just horrendous. 

 

the topic focus point of R that you used to focus this on is just triggery and unneeded. 

What's more is, its for a "satirical" passive aggressive jab at what someone else said in another forum post. 

 

Eveyrthing @eyemblacksheep said was totally relevant, made sense, hit the nail on the head with the accurate message across. So thank you for that Mr Eyem.

[Deleted Member]

6 hours ago, CopperKnob said:

Of course we do. I'm not disagreeing with you. But, risk assessing is only useful if we have full awareness of all the hazards as well as the likelihood of the harm occurring and the impact it'll have. All have a degree of variability because human nature is unpredictable. Without all the above, we don't truly know how risky a situation is.
.
It's one thing to risk assess ourselves, it's another to risk assess others/unknown environments, another to safety plan and something else entirely when a victim is 'blamed' for taking a 'risk' such as wearing a 'pretty dress'

Honestly, I felt quite hurt reading your post bc I felt it was in direct response to what I wrote (hate to be all "You're so vain", but there you go) and if that was the case I'd hope you'd debate it with me instead of mocking me but taking my comment and extrapolating it out to the point that any comment would lose meaning.

I didn't suggest a pretty dress, I gave a multitude of factors which would put a person in more danger. And if we're relating it to kink and the person can't risk assess bc of lack of knowledge, should they be doing it? Or should they be doing more research?

[se****]

35 minutes ago, Lady_Char said:

And if we're relating it to kink and the person can't risk assess bc of lack of knowledge, should they be doing it? Or should they be doing more research?

Nothing to do with this forum, but a question. In your thinking, if person can't risk assess bc of lack of knowledge,  but decides to do it...  it it goes wrong, would you say they are a victim or not. In my thinking,  maybe they "think" they knew enough. I am not sure about this one if, victim or not. I hope I make sense. 

[Deleted Member]

You can be partially irrelevant wholly at fault and still be a victim bc something bad has happened to you that you didn't intend. The only way I would say you weren't a victim is I'd you deliberately tried to find harm as part of a kink.

Bit what I'm trying to discuss is the before. How you can have the experiences you want and keep yourself safe *as best you can*.

[se****]

4 minutes ago, Lady_Char said:

You can be partially irrelevant wholly at fault and still be a victim bc something bad has happened to you that you didn't intend. The only way I would say you weren't a victim is I'd you deliberately tried to find harm as part of a kink.

Bit what I'm trying to discuss is the before. How you can have the experiences you want and keep yourself safe *as best you can*.

Thank you. Boy, this is a hard one.🤔

[Chloebear]

Going to say I also supported being realistic and risk assessing, I felt in the line of site of this post too. And the point is you have to be realistic. You aren’t likely to be attacked, but there are some situations that you can choose not to put yourself in. Should you have to? No. But that’s like saying a car shouldn’t hit you when you’re crossing the road. In certain situations - at traffic lights, it’s extremely unlikely. At crossings, some drivers fail to stop safely, and if you’re crossing without a crossing… we’ll, you look. Both ways even in one directional traffic. You look even at the lights… because not checking would be a daft risk to take. Most of us won’t have been hit by cars, I’m certain collisions are majoratively accidental but irresponsible drivers exist, they aren’t my fault, but I’ll mitigate on behalf of them to lower the risk of getting collected.

But I will obviously not stop crossing the road or leaving the house.

Honestly, the original post describes what happens to your mind after you are attacked. Ptsd makes you escalate risk and it becomes life inhibiting. I found the post jarring for this reason. It didn’t read entirely as satire to me but as a potential psych consequence of an attack… the humour fell flat because of that. I’ve stayed indoors for three months out of ***. (I guess post covid most of us have, ha!) Anyway…. You have to live and choose your comfort level, but it doesn’t feel fair to condemn realistic thinking. It is not victim shaming.

[se****]

You made great comment👍, but at this moment, I don't know anything anymore... too much brain food.

[Deleted Member]

2 hours ago, kiseu said:

Nothing to do with this forum, but a question. In your thinking, if person can't risk assess bc of lack of knowledge,  but decides to do it...  it it goes wrong, would you say they are a victim or not. In my thinking,  maybe they "think" they knew enough. I am not sure about this one if, victim or not. I hope I make sense. 

Personally I think they are a victim Kiseu, if you are talking about a sub in a D/s dynamic, because for me it is incumbent on the Dom to ensure before the session the sub knows what they are agreeing to, and then through out the session to ensure they are OK. The latter goes beyond them not using their safe word.

[se****]

Thank you, and see the point. But, here is a situation... misunderstandings. Both of you say the samethings, but different ideas in the minds. This can happen. So, there is a session, the Sub get hurt and Dom did ensure to do his duties. Does this make the Sub a victim?. Like I mentioned... too much brain food.

[Deleted Member]

12 minutes ago, kiseu said:

Thank you, and see the point. But, here is a situation... misunderstandings. Both of you say the samethings, but different ideas in the minds. This can happen. So, there is a session, the Sub get hurt and Dom did ensure to do his duties. Does this make the Sub a victim?. Like I mentioned... too much brain food.

In my opinion the Dom hasn't ensured his duties... it is incumbent on the Dom to make sure the sub understands how they are interpreting it, and then continually check during the session.

[se****]

Forgot, when Sub gets hurt, she won't be thinking automatic "Misunderstanding". I wouldn't, and wondering if he is a predator/***r. I hope you get the meaning.

[se****]

@NWKinkyGent In alot of cases, in Happy Moments people don't think detailed. Also, I don't it is arousing for people, bringing check lists at Happy Moments conversations and comparing if all communications are clear and go.😅

[Deleted Member]

1 minute ago, kiseu said:

@NWKinkyGent In alot of cases, in Happy Moments people don't think detailed. Also, I don't it is arousing for people, bringing check lists at Happy Moments conversations and comparing if all communications are clear and go.😅

I know what you are saying @kiseu, it can ruin the moment however.... I think it is absolutely essential that for a first D/s session, communication is clear and extensive. If the sub doesn't think it needs to be, it shows naivety which is why it is incumbent on the Dom to ensure they have a very clear understanding. 

[CopperKnob]

3 hours ago, Lady_Char said:

Honestly, I felt quite hurt reading your post bc I felt it was in direct response to what I wrote (hate to be all "You're so vain", but there you go) and if that was the case I'd hope you'd debate it with me instead of mocking me but taking my comment and extrapolating it out to the point that any comment would lose meaning.

I didn't suggest a pretty dress, I gave a multitude of factors which would put a person in more danger. And if we're relating it to kink and the person can't risk assess bc of lack of knowledge, should they be doing it? Or should they be doing more research?

I don't know what it is you wrote that you think that this post was directed to you?
.
The point of the post is, that everyone whether subconsciously/consciously risk assesses and takes personal reponsibility in a number of ways but, there is a limit to risk assessing/personal responsibility because we cannot always account for the behaviours of others. We can all think ahead/plan and take all the appropriate measures/have strategies in place and yet something unpleasant may still occur.