[Rules Update] Sex Rules Updates
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(Edited by Slither at 8:07 am on 11/26/2021)

Is emotional manipulation considered to be okay or are we specifically talking about physical stuff? One might think that emotional manipulation (guilt tripping) is the same as rape. Another person might think they are different so there is going to be this divide between the two. This might cause a conflict between the two.

Just really confused here.

So, um, pretty sure calling someone a 'perv' is okay as long as it's not related to non-consentual matters.

It's about two situations and two situations only:

Situation 1:

Character A initiates some kind of physical sexual RP with Character B, and Character B's player is NOT COOL WITH IT. Character B tells Character A, via 'ooc i am not OK with this, please stop'. Character A then stops. If Character A does not stop, Character B xhelps and lets the admin know and we deal with it. Character B can go @ooc until such time as it's been dealt with if they continue to feel uncomfortable.

Situation 2:

Character A spreads a rumor that Character B molests/rapes/sexually assaults people.

That is NOT allowed. Do not do it.

I don't think this rule is too hard to understand. Here's what the rule says. "If you want to engage in sexual roleplay with someone, ask them in character before making any emotes or poses of a sexual nature." That's all you have to do. Have your character ask. If a player changes their mind OOCly after a character says yes and says something, listen to and respect them.

Showing someone your junk without sexual context isn't sexual. Showing someone your junk with sexual context and asking them if they, say, wanted a taste, that's sexual, and probably don't do that based on the rules unless it was discussed in-character beforehand per the rules.

I think it's pretty clear.

Just bringing this topic back up as there have been a few questions / misconceptions about this lately.

Everyone should read 'help forbidden' to understand what is/is not acceptable, and what to do if you OOCly feel uncomfortable by someones direct sexual advances towards your character and want it to stop. TLDR: ask for it to stop on local OOC, if it doesn't save a log, and xhelp the admin and let them know and we will take it from there.

To be clear though, this is not carte blanche to call out any sexual content in the game. First and foremost, Sindome is an adult game, with adult situations. That includes sex, and violence, and other stuff like that. That includes in person or on the SIC. This is allowed within the rules. Just like violence is allowed within the rules. By participating in the game and agreeing to the rules, you consent to being exposed to sexual / violent messages on in person or on SIC as third party. Our rules specifically clarify that you do not have to partake in erotic roleplay, and even more specifically, if people were directly (not to a group) but to you saying or harassing you explicitly, that's when you'd want to use the local OOC.

Hope this clarification clears things up for folx!

Is there some kind of other intent here I'm not seeing?

OOCly, players consent to this happening as a risk of ERPing in the game.

Cyberpunk ultimately is a cautionary tale, and this is a component of it, and as staff this is where we discussed to draw the line between staying true to the theme and genre, and making players comfortable.

ERP is completely optional and a component any player is capable of avoiding completely in an OOC-enforced fashion. That may not escape false accusations of sexual conduct, but it will escape any actual proof from being created.

Help chastity is a good file to review.

However, blackmail to coerce sexual RP would not be allowed, for example.

Sexual assault and molestation in roleplay are considered part of 'rape roleplay' and are explicitly prohibited in our rules.

So I'm confused by Mirage's statement above that the prohibitions on rape roleplay only extend to forcing a player to participate their own rape, because that's not what the rules say at all. I think if the @rules are being changed so that sexual assault is now no longer considered rape roleplay and is now allowed, then the discussions of rumors and slander are basically meaningless next to that. That type of rule change would be dangerous and regressive to the extreme, and I think what is actually being allowed for needs a lot more clarification.

But setting aside the ethical issues, there is likely no EULA with teeth enough to wholly waive user sexual harassment protections in the US, and platforms can have liability merely for not acting effectively enough to prevent user harassment, let alone their liability for facilitating it. Meta Platforms and VRChat Inc. appear to be readying for potential major future litigation in regards to sexual harassment of virtual avatars in virtual places, and these are venues that emphatically prohibit harassment in every form their expensive in-house counsels can imagine. Linden Labs likewise prohibited anything and everything objectionable and still ended up repeatedly and extensively liable for illegal content they platformed in Second Life.

Any sort of disclaimer that Sindome is somehow exceptionally less-real compared to other virtual venues, and users could therefore automatically consent to imaginary sexual harassment, might be especially hard to defend considering Sindome was registered as a 501c7 non-profit social club, with very real tax exempt revenue. And no, member agreement clauses do not protect against liability if it there is willful misconduct towards users. Openly acknowledging that single-party recording and slander were still knowingly considered sexual harassment by staff, and then willfully permitting them anyway, was the sort of own goal that brings immediate civil settlements.

(Edited by MirageGM at 3:20 am on 6/14/2022)

Sindome is an adult game, with adult content. As such some amount of sex will, in all likelihood, enter into your characters life at some point.

Sexual assault and molestation in roleplay are considered part of 'rape roleplay' and are explicitly prohibited in our rules.

If you, the player, are uncomfortable Out of Character, with physical sexual roleplay that is being directed at or requested from your character, you may use the local OOC command to request that the person cease. If you make this request and it continues to happen, please use xhelp to alert the admin staff, and we will help resolve the situation.

If someone OOCly requests you cease physical contact during sexual roleplay with them under ANY circumstances, you are to cease it, without question. Failure to do so will result in punitive action such as being banned from the game.

It's important to do this Out of Character so there is no confusion.

Roleplay used to slander a character, or blackmail a character by in game means within the boundaries of rule 6.B is allowed. By playing Sindome, you acknowledge that your character may be recorded or slandered for their sexual relations during play.

6.B. Sexual Accusations

There is a zero tolerance policy on discussing rape, pedophilia, necrophilia, or bestiality, even as a fabricated insult or joke amongst consenting parties. Players may use the word 'deviant' to describe a character who is creepy within the aforementioned approved rules and boundaries, and this word is understood by all characters in its use to describe someone who has off-putting, or creepy sexual tendencies in character.

Including the new rules for ease of reference for myself and others in this thread.

Just want to get a little clarification really both IC and OOC, and give an example of what I as a player believe is acceptable and not acceptable under these new rules.

Acceptable:

"Hey Joe, you hear about Doug? I heard he and his wife are absolute deviants. Real crazy stuff."

Not acceptable:

"Hey Joe, you hear about Doug? I heard he and his wife total $%" using a rubber duck and "%"% a "%%^ with a "%%^ it was everywhere, and then "%"&&."

Essentially my understanding of the ruling is that is enough to slander someone with the word "deviant" without openly exposing everyone to the details unwillingly.

If I have not understood correctly let me know, please.

These slander campaigns can be as detailed and informative as is deemed necessary by the character (player) wishes it to be.

Just to give an extreme example of what this could look like (obviously excluding the actual details of the acts, but there is nothing to say it could not)

I go about setting up a campaign to ruin someone, I start a rumour or blanket campaign explaining in great detail another character's corpophilia fetish and then expand upon them being a ABDL, then start expanding that into them being a furry because they have bio-mods or like to sleep only with bio-modded individuals. I go through a list of every single fetish that could be seen by someone as unpleasant and spread this all over the Withmore.

(disclaimer; this is not intended to call anyone out over their personal views, activities or anything like that OOC whatsoever, it is purely an example of what could happen in game and is not reflective of my personal views on any of the previously mentioned fetishes. Safe, sane, consual)

Again, extreme example, my personal OOC view is that I really don't care what you want to ERP within the boundaries of the rules.

Is this a rule change to overall reduce ERP, as it now positions this sort of RP as a weapon to target at characters?

And this has been the case for the year and change I've been playing. The rule change seems to be more like clarification if anything.

Never said it was good, or bad. I just put out examples of what is now deemed acceptable under the rules. I honestly think that slander RP specifically around sexual deviancy is uninventive and boring, but it has been seen as effective. Characters might use extreme examples of fetish slander, in the same way as violence, torture, etc to achieve what they want within the scope of the rules both IC and OOC.

I personally think that the reason this hits harder than other IC rumours, is that it has common and real-world stigma that we may all come across IRL. So it might be that there are fights IC that people have had to fight IRL.

On the plus side sexual expression in general is an incredibly personal thing, and given that sexism, racism and homophobia is basically seen as an IC death sentence in Sindome, maybe this can be entirely handled IC.

Don't kink shame or you might end up getting chain vatted ;)

We knew prior to making this clarification that it would be an unpopular decision, and decided to proceed anyways after a lot of internal discussion. I don't think anyone would argue that this doesn't open the game up to topics or roleplay that are uncomfortable, and yes, it may even result in some people leaving.

This is hardly a rule change, but more explicitly clarifying our rules as they have always been. It wasn't spurred on even mostly by new game features, but instead xhelp conversations and investigations we've had before that game feature was even being engineered, because even we as staff were previously not on the same page about where the line was or wasn't. This happens when you have a game that is as old as Sindome where the staff continually change. Things get lost.

The biggest change is enabling players to call out non-rule-violating missing stairs utilizing the new 'deviant' code word, as well as an expansion on banned subjects.

I personally think it is a slippery slope that sets the precedent for a lot of disturbing stuff across the board. IC, OOC, for plot, and for the community at large.

Canonically we already navigate sensitive issues of race, gender, sexuality and religion, things that -could- drive a great deal of plot and conflict, as only issues for a bunch of backwards idiots. Anyone who cares about what race you are, or who you love, or what God you worship is seen as out-dated and dumb.

Why is this any different?

Why does anyone care?

We do not pretend racism and anti-theism don't exist, we just ignore them for the good of the plot and the good of the community.

I understand the point about consorting with unsavory individuals, but hiring mix joys should be a thing. It's just sex.

Additionally, I would suggest that plot driven by sexual slander is low hanging fruit. Much plot and risk taking is seen as very punitive, so people are forced to force plot, and this is and area where they can do that. It's lazy and uninteresting as far as I am concerned.

"For those of you holding out a slimmer ray of hope that perhaps we (staff) naively just didn't anticipate that this clarification would be harmful to the community, I am sorry I will have to disappoint you.

We knew prior to making this clarification that it would be an unpopular decision, and decided to proceed anyways after a lot of internal discussion. I don't think anyone would argue that this doesn't open the game up to topics or roleplay that are uncomfortable, and yes, it may even result in some people leaving."

I understand, but this is also one of our only vectors to express displeasure at a ruling. I hope that as long as we remain on topic and don't degenerate into rude fights, it's okay to discuss. Staff have reversed unpopular decisions before, even if it's a very rare occurrence. With that said, I understand that at the end of the day, it's either choose to play under the rules or not.

I wish things were different on this and yes, this is something that has me considering calling it a day, as anyone should when the things that bother you outweigh the entertainment you are getting from your free time. I also realize that there are plenty of people who are just fine with the changes as evidenced in the XOOC channel and that this might be more of a personal issue for me. I'll have to think about that and don't like to rush to decisions on anything.

I realize that I'm not compelled to play and no one is forcing me to do so, but as I said, this is really the only way we can communicate when something that is ruled is disappointing or we feel is wrong. You might have anticipated it, but if there is any "healing/reconciliation/understanding"; voicing what we think is wrong is part of that process. It is also possible that you have not considered every angle and while I have general faith that you've probably talked it all out, that does not mean that certain aspects came up or not, so it's again worth some discussion (which I will note that you haven't closed down the thread) both from letting players who feel strongly feel heard as well as perhaps introducing addition things for staff to consider.

Finally, getting some staff insight as to WHY this particular change is deemed important enough to "be harmful to the community" would always be appreciated. It might help some of us that are upset about this understand what you are trying to accomplish.

For the sake of transparency.

By 0x1mm at Jun 13, 2022 6:09 PM

"Correct, it does."

By MirageGM at Jun 13, 2022 6:09 PM

Unless I'm misinterpreting this, as this is 'protect' and not 'protect against' and the answer is that it does, are we not now just dumpstering every notion that if you don't want to be involved in said themes you avoid ERP? That seemed to be the core thing protecting players from sex stuff getting weird or predatory. Just don't participate. I'm confused as to how, in a text based medium, you getting forced to participate in erotic roleplay without consent and having erotic roleplay of you simulated (and worse, published) without your consent is any different at all. It's the exact same end result. With this change we now theoretically thrust chaste players who don't care to be bogged down with that brand of roleplay into having to participate and experience their characters in such settings. Said players who have been supported through @help chastity and other implications made by staff for a long time, due to their drive for what many might deem more productive roleplay. Seems like a total betrayal.

Slander, shaming, etcetera, are one thing. I understand that rule change. It's realistic, doesn't put the onus on admins to investigate and moderate hearsay, and is just a byproduct of the setting as much as getting mutilated or murdered is beyond consent. All that above quote is implying though, in the context of new mechanics? Just seems like we're opening the floodgate to a whole brand of unnecessary, uncomfortable themes rather than just 'providing clarity' of things. I believe that deserves a clarification or adjustment, even if it ends up coming out wonky or hyper specific in regards to the new mechanics, for the health of the game.

Sexual assault and molestation in roleplay are considered part of 'rape roleplay' and are explicitly prohibited in our rules.

This has not changed. Sexual assault is forbidden. I will always be able to stop a sexual scene I do not want to participate in, via local OOC.

If someone OOCly requests you cease physical contact during sexual roleplay with them under ANY circumstances, you are to cease it, without question. Failure to do so will result in punitive action such as being banned from the game.

This hasn't changed. Someone who doesn't cease a scene involving sexual physical contact when asked in OOC can be banned from the game for it.

Roleplay used to slander a character, or blackmail a character by in game means within the boundaries of rule 6.B is allowed. By playing Sindome, you acknowledge that your character may be recorded or slandered for their sexual relations during play.

This was always allowed, but because there are now more ways to record evidence, it makes sense to make this explicit. If your character's a corporate citizen who hooks up with someone from a rival company, and that person uses Simsense or a camera to record all the privileged secrets you told them, they are allowed to hold that dangerous relationship over your head even if it was recorded in an intimate setting. Is this a nice thing to do? No, not at all. But it is within the bounds of what intrigue in Sindome may look like.

Players may use the word 'deviant' to describe a character who is creepy within the aforementioned approved rules and boundaries, and this word is understood by all characters in its use to describe someone who has off-putting, or creepy sexual tendencies in character.

This is a new change and is very good in my opinion. It's now explicitly okay to talk about unwanted advances and inappropriate conduct ICly. If you observe that Rex Gold uses his subordinates as footstools, it's fine to warn people about that. If a solo has a deviant reputation for trying to sleep with their targets before they kill them, it's acceptable to talk about that. There's plenty of conduct that - while not banned under the rules - can and should have rep consequences.

This was always allowed, but because there are now more ways to record evidence, it makes sense to make this explicit. If your character's a corporate citizen who hooks up with someone from a rival company, and that person uses Simsense or a camera to record all the privileged secrets you told them, they are allowed to hold that dangerous relationship over your head even if it was recorded in an intimate setting. Is this a nice thing to do? No, not at all. But it is within the bounds of what intrigue in Sindome may look like.

I want to clarify something here as it seems to be a continual point of confusion between people talking on both sides of this issue.

The situation described here is NOT slander. By definition, slander is false ("a malicious, false, and defamatory statement or report"), therefore recording someone's actual activities and exposing them does not qualify as slander.

I'm making no comment here as to what is or is not, or what should or should be allowed under the rules. I'm only clarifying for the purposes of continued discussion that being "slandered for [one's] sexual relations during play" explicitly describes false statements of one's actions, not recordings or other evidence.

My concern is that when such false statements are made, will players have IC recourse to counter them? There have already been statements in this thread and in the XOOC rewind that indicate attempting to do so has been shut down as violating rules. That is frankly very concerning if accurate.

I have seen photos of two players in intimate positions, one of them logged off. They clearly consented to being in an intimate position as their @SP was set to support the scene. They could not consent to the photo as they were logged off.

It's also possible to maneuver a mobile, hidden camera into someone's pad and record or even broadcast them having sex without the parties having sex knowing. I don't know of any cases of this happening but it's ICly possible. And as far as I remember reading the rules up until then, it was not against the rules OOCly.

I may be wrong regarding my recollection of the rules before the change but, as far as I recall, this capturing sex acts without consent was never against the rules. Also, distributing these things was never against the rules. You could even mock a person for being with someone of the other class as long as you never slandered them about the sex part.

So I think that arguments need to be refined. Staff, as far as I can tell, did not suddenly allow the capture and distribution of sex acts without consent. These were never against the rules. Even mocking someone's choice in partner was not against the rules.

I do think that the new rules give someone greater latitude in how they can slander each other (and reduce it as I don't recall necrophilia and bestiality insults being against the rules before) but claiming that things have been allowed or added that were not there before feels off to me and might not carry a lot of weight.

But I do think that adjusting the wording of our sex rules would be helpful. I might even give it a go if I have time later and propose it to staff. I also think that ideas on how to refine the rules would be welcome and, possibly, accepted.

ERP is completely optional and a component any player is capable of avoiding completely in an OOC-enforced fashion. That may not escape false accusations of sexual conduct, but it will escape any actual proof from being created.

And:

We have always enforced that in some positions, choosing to have erotic roleplay with some classes of characters carries a risk to your character's job or having other consequences.

The communication overall on these updates has been muddled, but setting aside the Rule 6.A commentary, the above statements don't actually seem to be true. The above statements and specifically "but it will escape any actual proof from being created" don't appear to actually square with the update, since manufacturing false proof appears to be allowed by this update. There are already some player-available tools that would allow for this that I can think of, and GMs would have considerably more reach and teeth to fabricate 'proof' against player characters.

Let's say a player character calls out a powerful NPC for their bad behavior and the NPC retaliates with city-wide broadcast of edited video of that player character in some socially unacceptable sexual situation, and 'leaks' a paper trail of fabricated gridmails in which they sexually harass anyone and everyone.

Where was it ever suggested that staff would do any such thing?

We cannot redefine words to change the meaning of rules. Words have meaning, and keeping meanings consistent is important to clear communication.

Nobody cares about people being deviants because the world seems to be depicted as a bunch of deviants (I am not using the word 'deviant' with negative connotations here):

Then play your characters with this mindset. Wave off these kinds of things. If someone tries to smear Sam for sleeping with Bob and have 'recorded evidence', wave it off as nothing or even question the validity of the material. Suggest they got a favor from an NLM tech who manufactured it. Or that you have sex with people like Bib all the time.

I'm going to point to this comment from earlier in this thread:

It's not enjoyable and when you talk about it to try to defend yourself, you can get GMs in your head talking about how you're skirting the non-con line by saying you can't claim it's not something you wanted. The IC discussions around this naturally lead to running afoul of 6.A.

There was more about this in the rewind of the XOOC channel from last night, but the short of it appears to be that when a player or players have attempted to deny the validity of slanderous claims of sexual activity, their IC attempts were shut down by claims that doing so violated rules. I don't know the details here and can only go by what was said here and in XOOC; to my knowledge GMs have not commented on this. If I assume what I have read to be correct though, this seems like a terrible perversion of the rules to victim-blame and render any counter to slander impossible.

If that is the case (which again I have no firsthand knowledge of), then I think it is worth examining how the rules are being applied and how they may be potentially abused by metagamers to protect their slanderous RP.

As Mirage states above, this gave rise to a sort of Missing Stair problem, where player characters might have a pretty good reason to want to call another character out for behavior, but may not have been allowed to in specific terms.

The new Rule 6.B is more closely aligned to Rule 6.A, which I think is itself a good step.

It seems it could not be agreed to deal with missing stairs in any other way than providing unlimited license to make false accusations, and enshrine that as a core feature.

This seems to hew pretty close to the sort of reactionary views that understand accusations of sexual wrongdoing as primarily a falsehood weapon wielded to cancel people or whatever, and I think enshrining phony sexual allegations as a protected feature is, perhaps unintentionally, catering to this mindset.

How exactly would false proof created or handwaved into existence by the staff, be able to be proved false by a player?

Let's say a player character calls out a powerful NPC for their bad behavior and the NPC retaliates with city-wide broadcast of edited video of that player character in some socially unacceptable sexual situation, and 'leaks' a paper trail of fabricated gridmails in which they sexually harass anyone and everyone.

It wouldn't, I guess?

Can you explain why you feel this kind of railroading RP would be a valuable use of staff time though? Railroading is avoided as often as possible. Some may choose to believe otherwise, but if railroading were the go-to for GMs, the game world would be far less interesting. I, as a GM, think railroading is pointless and would rather just let a plot drop off than railroad it. 10/10 could promise the other GMs feel the same. It's boring for players. It's boring for GMs. It's pointless for building any story that anyone enjoys.

Just because the possibility exists for GMs to do something doesn't mean that they would. Just like I won't spawn 85 spiders on you without any buildup while you're in the lev just to see you die with no way of escape. It adds nothing to the story and is just an outright waste of time. We could pick you up and fling you off bridges anytime for no reason, but this would be stupid and entirely against the goal of creating meaningful story for players.

This isn't to say players aren't often forced into difficult situations they don't feel like RPing and stretched (getting fired or murdered sucks), but this is done to challenge the player or abide by theme.

I understand wanting to be prepared for situations, but I also ask for some perspective on what the GMs goals are. We actively encourage people to take notes. If we see that someone is suffering bleed or having a hard time, we regularly reach out to try to help or boop them away for a break. If a player were to leave a note 'this really upset me. I really hated this rp and hope it never happens again', we would take that into account and often even reach out to the player. But... if someone actively engages that RP, we will (when able) return that engagement.

I think that was actually the second time forced public sex reassignment was used as a player punishment since I started playing, though I recall that one got hastily walked back as well. I don't really think my hypothetical is much different in terms of social norms than what already goes on.

Because a lot of people were unaware it was a thing, and legal. We knew that clearly spelling it out would lead to people who were upset because those people did not realize this was possible + legal(our old rules did not make it clear).

The discussion was not SHOULD the rules be more transparent, more what wording to use, where do we draw the line, how do we handle x, y, and z. Additionally, there IS an outright rule change(the previously discussed 'deviant' addition, which was not in our rules before), which required discussion among the staff as well.

Any rule changes are talked about, and ALL wording changes to the rules requires a vote, even if we're just clarifying a current rule. In this case we were doing both, changing and clarifying them.