I don't often post serious stuff on this forum. However I've read a couple of comments from female users of the UMD recently which have made me feel decidedly uncomfortable, particularly in the context of the #metoo hashtag on twitter. It seems an element of users are making female users feel decided uncomfortable particularly when they join and are barraged with messages many of which are completely inappropriate. Women must make up a fairly slim percentage of themake up of the community. This has got to be at least in part due to the number put off wanting to come here.

I've even seen it suggested that Wammers are worse in this context than other fetish communities and that doesn't make me feel good. Do we really want WAM to be the Harvey Weinstien of the fetish communities? I witnessed it first hand when I used to frequent the chat room a lot, guys would come in and immediately say Any women in? yeah subtle dude, there would probably be more coming if idiots like you weren't coming and treating them as though they were some big game species that they are hunting!
I'm not pretending to have all the answers to this which is why I want to start this debate. Feel free to throw in ideas about how we can improve the situation. Let's try and keep it constructive guys and hopefully the result will be more female users actually wanting to come here and be part of the community. To kick things off a few thoughts from me.
Guys think before you send someone a message, when I say think I mean use your brain and not your penis! You wouldn't introduce yourself to a woman in the street by saying something in a sexual context (and if you would just go and hand yourself into the closest police station and ask to sign the sex offenders list) it's not acceptable here. Yes this is a fetish site, yes there is a sexual element but at the end of the day it's still a person reading your message. They are still going to feel uncomfortable /sick/ weirded out if you start the conversation in the wrong way.

Female users if you are being made to feel uncomfortable please get in touch with myself or Messmaster and we'll try and get it sorted asap. I very rarely get contacted about stuff other than tech problems with the site these days but I can only be effective as a moderator if you tell me when something isn't right. I'm quite happy to remove user's ability to send messages and post comments if they are found to be being a nuisance! I'd much rather you let me know and I sort it than just leave the community.

Over to you guys.
[Edit: Changed the title from "Etiquette Female Harassment on the UMD" -MM]

I think you pretty well nailed it. Yes, this is a fetish forum and sometimes that delves into scenarios where we are a little rougher/meaner than normal, but that by no means entitles a dude to talk to..well, anyone like that immediately. We are all still normal people and that rapport needs to be established before you have the right to be kinky with them. Sure, compliments on their content or a simple asking of what their preferences are is fun, but to go directly into it is just rude and inappropriate.

And it's not just girls...I've posted two sets of pictures on here this week and have it cleary noted that playing with other guys isn't my thing...but the amount of unsolicited offers I've gotten is just...ugh...

Or maybe I'm crazy.

I would say that besides reporting behavior like this, the best thing you can do is to call people out on it and ask them to stop when you see it. It can be uncomfortable to call someone else out on their bullshit, but it's much better than doing nothing.

Edit: Please sticky this thread for visibility if you can.

Great post. I've often noticed on the wall of female members there will be many comments which could easily make someone feel intimated or uncomfortable and I often wonder why someone would ever think it acceptable to post something like that.

As you say, I get that it's a fetish site and we're all here because we enjoy people getting messy (whether sexual or not), meaning most messages are going to have some sort of sexual element to them - but quite frankly people should still think before writing out a message. I've never been to a fetish club but if I did I wouldn't expect people to start conversations with something so explicit there even though you could make the same arguments.

Just a shame that this message actually needed to be said really, you'd hope in 2017 people would understand that they are speaking to human beings rather than a piece of meat...

I'm trying to think of something meaningful to contribute here (difficult to do really since it's the opinions of female UMD users really matter in this thread) but can't think of anything beyond taking action *after* a male user has already said or done something to make a woman uncomfortable. Calling out the harassers in public is all well and good but not if it will lead to further harassment.

Can MM set up something where users can opt to only receive private messages from users they're already friends with? Might be one way to stop women getting hassled out of sight by men who only sign up on here to bombard them with creepy messages.

There's no easy way of putting a stop to it.

Is there an ability to block private messages on here? That's the only resolution I can think of.

Just told a friend who was hounded off here about this thread. Her two pence:

I cannot wrap my head around someone thinking it is OK to take someone's online profile and try to work out who they are in real life. If your friend hasn't already reported it, you should definitely point that sort of thing out to MM or Bob.

In theory, that's already there. If you go to Profile | Preferences, there are 2 relevant settings:
"Who can inbox me?"
"Allow private chat with everyone, or just friends?"

In both cases, the options are "Everyone" and "Friends only".

The problem I've found is that someone can send you a friend request and immediately follow it with an inbox message or chat request, and then the website lets that through. (I reported this a while back, but never heard any more about it.) Similarly, if you decline the friend request, the website asks "Are you sure you want to remove this friend?" In other words, UMD will automatically accept friend requests on your behalf, rather than waiting for you to make a decision.

Well said

That's helpful, thanks I'll flag that to MM.

Just to be clear on the Mod tools available to me I can prevent a user from entering the chat room and remove their ability to comment on others profiles, message other users and send friend requests. In theory it's quite easy to shut idiots up but I don't get very many requests to do it. Users shouldn't have to feel awkward about tackling another user on their behaviour, that's what I'm here for. Please don't suffer in silence or feel forced out, just send me a message. I'm on the site most days and between myself and Messmaster we'll try and get it sorted for you.

Unfortunately as terrible as this is I don't have any mod tools that are going to take out stalkers. It's indicative though of how far removed some people are from reality that they think this kind of thing is acceptable!

There's a reason I've recently changed my profile pic to one of myself and Leon. Seems to have worked like a charm!

Unfortunately, any site that permits (intentionally or not) a degree of anonymity is going to be abused by some users. The only real solution is to require that everyone who uses the site (whether to post comments, just "lurk", or to to sell videos or all of the above) must register with a copy of their legal ID, which is kept in a secure location...yes, nothing is totally "secure" on the WWW, but I will note the number of people selling videos on the site now, and all of these sellers must register with a copy of their 1099 (which has lots of identifying info, so...)

However, if implemented now, this would require all current users to submit a new registration (some established members may resist this), and new (potential) members might balk at the ID requirements. Most likely, many would not go along with this solely on the basis of (the lack of true) Internet/WWW security around their identity. New membership will slow or decline. there will be lots of lurkers, but few posters (account holders). Maybe.

Perhaps this issue of anonymity is really fallout from the way the site was originally designed; it was always viewed as an "obscure" or "niche" fetish (this despite the fact that the site gets millions of hits per month, more than most any other fetish site) and so was made to be as welcoming and open to everyone as possible in order to make it grow. This was not a bad thing, initially.

Now we need to find an effective way to keep certain members from harassing other members. There will be no perfect solution* At least this thread gets the discussion going.

* Maybe have all members 'sign' (digitally) an agreement not to harass any other member (and 'harass' needs to be clearly defined) or, if found to be in violation (an account is tracked to more than one harassment; two strikes and you're out) be put on 'probation' (which a user can look up before accepting a friend invite or PM)....although this plays into the 'Scarlet Letter' issue.

While I do think that comparing this to the Harvey Weinstein #metoo situation is a bit of a stretch... there are defenitly a lot of creeps on this site.

one of the first thing that comes to my mind, is when there were a lot of Brazilian Pie TV shows during 2015-2016. I remember seeing guys from this site harassing the models on their instagram account. and posting comments about wanting more pies and fetish stuff on the show's social media accounts.

While it did not happen on this site, I think it's still relevant.

All I have to say to these freak of nature is, get out of your basement once in a while and learn to interact with people.

A ghost ban could be useful after the first strike.

I think that's actually a pretty good idea...as long as there wasn't any real way for them to find out they'd been shadowbanned. If they get "regular" banned they just make a new account and try again (aka runningrebel or whatever he goes by on Twitter nowadays), whereas if they didn't realise they'd carry on with an account that nobody would see.

Doesn't do anything about trying to change their behaviour, but let's be honest not much will with some of them.

To be fair, even as fetishes go this one is pretty niche and out there so I don't think it's surprising that there's some pretty socially retarded and plain old creepy weirdos here. I'd even go so far as saying I wouldn't be surprised if it was a small majority of visitors here that are of the seriously fucked up kind. I'd bet the regular names we see cropping up on the forums are just a tiny percentage of the actual visitors, both registered and unregistered, this site gets so I'm not calling out any of you guys here. Fact remains that the further down you go into the weird side of the web, and yes that includes this site, the more socially unaware and creepy fucks you're going to get.

You can't stop it, it's a sad fact of life. You can probably take steps to limit a female users exposure to these nutters but they will always be there.

WELL SAID and possibly should of been said before now, i have myself been on here a while and seven and chatted to many friends (female as friends and nothing more in confidence and private ) they felt the same what has been said just now , many have left the forum which is a shame ,i also have been harassed by men ,but i shun them off,or don't add them as friends , what we do is for fun and our inner enjoyments , no need to be hassled and harassed for it, there is always a good feed of entertainment of it on this site, if it continues,s they only have themselves to blame for the many that leave , who stay want to have fun n games and enjoyment of warming and showing their fun on here

Leon getting harassed too, hey Lisa - is no-one safe?!

Great original post - but such a shame that it needed to be made.

Think the ghost ban is a great idea - you won't change the behaviour of these people - not ever - but you can protect others from them.

I would have thought ghosts were banned already. Now I'm scared!

There definitely needs to be a way to block users completely. This was mentioned by a well respected female producer just recently, saying the reason she doesn't post much here any more is because there's no way for her to fully block users who harass her.

As to the main issue, long term the solution is to make the kind of abusive toxic behaviour being discussed socially unacceptable. That takes time though.

This is true, I don't post new pics often, but when I do get asked all kinds of questions, goofy messages and guys saying all kinds of sexual things to me, My pictures are for everyone to enjoy but I'm straight. My girlfriend who has a profile on here gets SOOO many messages, and if she doesn't answer them back quick enough people get mean and nasty.

Not to be overly negative, but I've said for years that this place seems extremely unfriendly towards new female members who introduce themselves publicly. I can only imagine how insane their InBox gets. The idea that there's no system in place to ban messages or users is just flat-out WRONG.

And again, the whole "banning users" thing is a bit of a farce, considering that RunninRebel guy stayed on here for years, even after he was called out for harassing multiple female celebs on Twitter. (And I suspect he still lurks here anyway.) I've experienced more than a few nutjobs over the years just incidentally.... And based on the few messages I've received from confused users who thought I *was* the model in my profile pic.... It's not pretty.

I will say the messages I've received from men in the wake of posting coed or male mess pics of myself... have all been respectful. I've had no bad experiences from that segment of the UMD.

I actually really like the idea of a ghost ban in which the user isn't informed that an action has been taken against them. Allow the person to continue to use all the site functionality, including the forum, but prevent their messages from ever arriving in another user's inbox unless the other user messages them first.

It would solve the problem of their harassing people, and they wouldn't even know they were banned.

Any thoughts on changing the default message settings for anyone signing up as female ?

Sorry to hear that, Lisa. It's also really surprised me. I mean, how long does someone have to have been on UMD before picking up about you and Leon being a couple? Seriously, it can't be more than five minutes.

But perhaps that's a clue to the type of people who are causing the problem here, in that they're not regular users. Like a few others on this thread have said, I've had a few PMs/chat comments telling me I'm gorgeous based on my avatar, and I just think "So you don't know that's Fi Stevens? Really?" What long-time user doesn't recognise a picture of her when they see it?

I wonder if that would make it easier from a moderation point of view to highlight the potential bad apples in advance and so keep an eye on them - ie users who rarely/never post but are very active with chat or PMs - or if that would actually be unfair as it would also include lots of people who aren't creeps but just prefer to keep most of their interactions with others private. I don't know. Just a thought.

I can see the funny side of the messages I get - it's hard not to smile as I type back "Thank you very much for your compliment. However, I'm not Fi Stevens and come to that I'm not even female" - but that's because I know I'm male and the guy who's messaging me is making an unsuspecting prat of himself. However, it obviously stops being funny if I imagine how I'd feel as a female getting messages out of the blue like that. I haven't had any really bad ones, but most have been blunt enough to make me wonder where the conversation was going if that was the tone of just the first one.

It's sobering to then think that actual female users must get this a lot, and some of the posts on this thread sadly confirm it.

FIXED

Well said Bob, it's been an issue for many years. The Wam scene does seem to attract these people. We have personally witness this happen with models and have also had guys from here posting comments on our normal hire business website. I think the worst situation we had was somebody from here posting comments on a clients Facebook page that had pictures of an event we had taken our Dunk and Gunge tanks to. Perhaps it's naivety ir just down right plain ignorance.

A very interesting discussion. I agree with the discussion around revisions of the private messaging system and also with the points raised about banning.

If banning won't be as effective as hoped, then perhaps focusing on the 'cause' of the issue should be our focus - Gender.

Has anyone considered the necessity of identifying as any particular gender on the site?

Naturally there should be no need to hide gender or fear discrimination/victimization for being female, but society is vast and change is based around awareness (which this forum conversation addresses) and unity. As much as we may like to eliminate such predatory actions from our society, we lack the means to effectively do so without investing far more resources than, I assume, the moderators for the site have access to considering they are also having to lead their own lives.

Removing gender from the equation might actually work in the favour of women in this situation. **I don't condone the necessity for this, I only make this suggestion since we don't have an answer now... and it could provide the protection of anonymity for new female users in the future.**

The easiest way to rout out a problem like this is full transparency, where the actions of individuals are exposed and prone to the full scrutiny of the public, while the victims gain communal support. The right to privacy (which is becoming a bit of a joke when you think about the amount of data phone apps collect on you nowadays, but that's a different conversation) is a human right which should not be marginalized, but if private messages are to be a part of our society, then as noted earlier, responsibility changes from the moderators to us as wider members of the community to regulate and protect our privacy.

If gender is absent, then individuals of ill-intent lose the ability to easily pick out potential targets and are effectively blind until an individual makes the conscious decision to disclose their sex to the person they're talking to.

In lieu of this idea: Perhaps a network could be established amongst individuals on the forum who do respect women who are verified 'safe' (by a panel) for wholesome discussions about the fetish? That way individuals who aren't 'safe', provided PM rights were disabled until such a status had been attained, would lack the ability to contact these users.

Safe users could be identified by the panel and also their existing participation on the forum could be used as evidence alongside a personal statement.

Implicit issues with this approach - lack of people and time to effectively implement, but over time, a community would be established where other safe members could read these applications, verify forum presence, then provide a summary for top moderators which they could verify/double check if they had doubts.

Change never comes easily; it takes time, effort, and perseverance... the question we have to ask ourselves is: Do we have this?