Marine’s asked me to redact this part of my previous post:
“I question that a program with no safeword can be associated with the Grey List. In my opinion there can be no support of a program that does not have a safeword.”
You can read her opinion in the comment, here. I encourage you to do so.
I can not comply, primarily because this association does call in to question the integrity of the Grey List program, in my opinion.
It is my opinion that insitutions that threatening Grey Listing as a consequence of Safewording can not be tolerated. That’s my opinion and just because it’s not liked by the management of the Grey List does not make it invalid.
I do understand that the Grey List does not police instituions. I also understand that the purpose of the Grey List is to discourage griefing and cheating.
Its purpose is not to coerce people in to forgoing their safeword. That, in my opinion, is a perversion of the Grey List however it is not a perversion of the Grey List’s choosing.
For some, safewording is a traumatic experience. Some find safewording very difficult to do. There must be no stigma or impediment attached to safewording. It’s my opinion that people need to be reassured that safewording if you are in distress is not only acceptable but mandatory.
CAII has chosen to use the power associated with the Grey List to coerce people in to not using their safeword. Like it or not, CAII’s program is associated with the Grey List. It’s my opinion that that is not appropriate.
May I step in the discussion? I am a former Bane Operator of Shuggi and an avid reader of this blog (I even “stole” a post of it to translate it in Italian for my own blog in the past), I am an employee of Kelley Tech’s Banishment Program AND I own a prison that is proud to be a member of the Grey List. I have read both your post and Marine’s comment and I would like to add my 2 cents.
As you know, I do agree with the fact virtual BDSM is 90% in the head – one might call it 99% too. I can add that both in my personal SL and as a prison owner I have met my share of people whose subby attitude had made them the target of manipulative dominants who would have no qualms in using their psychological power to push them dangerously close to discomfort and pain. I think that’s an intrinsic risk of this kind of relationship, unfortunately, and that the only thing I can do is try and prevent that when I see it happening – and offer comfort and or a safe haven to victims.
I do agree in general safewords are a necessary annoyance. I never used one because I would rather let the other part know I am not comfortable with what’s happening in some other way, but that cannot be a rule. But I do see how intense an experience could be to subscribe to a program where you prevent yourself from safewording too. It would probably burn out soon – and one would get stuck with something she or he has gotten him-herself into without thinking. But, hey, people make choice, don’t they?
What I want to point out is that, as a prison owner, I always used the Grey List as a useful informative tool that is not at all law. 90% of our WCF inmates are never screened against the list unless they give the guards reason to be suspicious. And I have personally jailed more than one people who had previously been Greylisted after reading the notecard that explained the reason of their inclusion in the list and deciding it was nothing I had qualms about.
All this is to say that, to my opinion, Grey List is and should be used as that: a list of people who, at least once, have subscribed to some rule and then broke it for whatever reason. It’s not a sentence, nor is it a ban.
I really believe it’s a tool. Of course, someone can and will use it to ill means, but that is true with anything. And someone who has been Greylisted by a system that allows no safewords will never be put on a par with someone who was Greylisted by a place that does allow them.
For the record, any greylist record I post will explicitly include the reason for the greylisting. If it’s simply being done as a safeword, then that will be noted, and as you have been told more than once, that information will be taken into account by those who use the greylist database. This is as it should be.
And as for:
What would you call the hefty monetary penalties attached to doing so in both the Alter Technologies (L$1000) and Kelley Technologies (L$1800) banishment programs?
Personally I’d forgotten about the deposit when I came out of banishment. I donated it to the program.
L$1800 which one has already handed over pales in to insignificance compared to being Grey Listed.