diamondlil said:
Am I missing something? Maybe it's just my sense of humour but I thought the 'nail nibbling' was surreal and funny. It was no more likely to offend than the 'how you doin'?' comments that are posted here by many of us on the members' photo threads IMO
I thought that the original thread was somewhat amusing, and I even contributed to the humor. But then I see the "nails" theme intruding in ANOTHER thread (this one). In my opinion, things started going too far. I think this was the quote that made me decide that this discussion wasn't appropriate:
Pet Corn Snake said:
oh ive told roy a few times about his fingernails but i only told him i liked them not that secretly i wanted to bite them off :grin01:
People could get the wrong idea about this quote. George, and others, have mentioned my nails in threads. But it's not clear from this quote where George and I have discussed this. I think Susan made some great points about this. "How you doin'?" is playful harrassment, and its meaning and intent are fairly clear. A 23 year-old man hitting on a 21 year-old woman is a whole different thing than a 36 year-old man and a 14 year-old BOY discussing the boy's infatuation with parts of the man's anatomy. I'm sure you can see the difference, Janine. You may think that it's no big deal for the relationship (even a purely electronic one) between a man and a boy to be ambiguous, but when that man is me, it's a big deal...
Also, you should keep in mind that the sensibilities of Brits and those of Americans are not the same. The Puritan mentality still pervades our culture, and I'm a product of that culture. I'm a pretty liberal guy, and despite being straight, I have zero hang-ups about gay culture. But does George know this? Susan made some good points about George's safety too. There are two very bad consequences that could result from George being too open and playful with the wrong people:
1. He could be targeted by a sexual predator. The internet and the world at large are full of them.
2. He could be targeted by a homophobic psychopath. There's no shortage of them in the world either. In some places, a gay guy winking at a straight guy could earn him a death-ride chained behind a pickup truck.
It doesn't seem like people in George's "real" life are teaching him much about what is or isn't socially acceptable. I'm not going to assume this general responsibility, but when his breaches of acceptable behavior involve me, I'm very likely to take corrective action.