Being Propositioned?

Is anyone else having to deal with the irksome tediousness of being sexually propositioned on this website? Ive had to deal with it twice, already, from two different males, and I have only been on this website for approximately two days. The last oneclearly only stopped because he knew that if he continued, I would be well within my rights to report him.

To my knowledge, this is not a dating or a hookup websitethere are children on here for goodness sake, and these males dont seem to worry about age when propositioning someone who they deem a woman, regardless of the actual gender of that person as long as theprofiledoes not say male, and theyare old enough to be on this site, these malesjump straight for it in an often disgusting manner. I even put in my bio that I have no interest in any romantic relationshipsand asked the last one to read it, which he did not, even thoughhe asked me to read his bio.

To say that I am thoroughly vexed would be an understatement. Sadly, however, the only optionsI have is either blocking that doesnt work site-wide, or leaving this website for good.

I dont suppose anyone else has anydifferent suggestions that doesntinclude humouring these entitled males?

Funny thing i have been a member of this site for over a decade and the most bothering messages i personally got was about casting spells for other people. Not saying it does not happen but if it did happen to you, don't you think you should do everyone a favor and report them instead of dragging this around the mud? Just throwing it out there.

Hello Ciraithina!

Unfortunately, there are a number of these entitled males on the website. They are more likely to go after lurkers; lurkers aren't intricately involved with the community and they are less likely to report them to a mod.

I can make suggestions (such as changing "with love" on your profile), however ultimately these suggestions imply it's your fault they are hitting on you. It's not. They are just sad little boys who think sexy times make them a man. You can do things to make it less likely, much like not wearing provocative clothing removes some amount of catcalling, but ultimately it's a situation of sexism and sexual harassment.

If you keep getting these, I suggest going ahead and blocking them, then reporting them to a mod.

Sidenote: Sassy, your comment is extremely inappropriate in tone. I've been propositioned more than once and I have handled it a number of ways. You've been lucky enough to be left alone, probably because you are a man ; try to keep in mind that women are at a high risk (roughly 70-85% in different studies)and gender non-conforming folks are at an additionally increased risk of sexual assault and harassment.

Hello @Sassy, I do believe you should actually have asked if I had talked to a mod first before saying something so rudely. I talked to a mod and was told to report them if they continued to harass me. Please do your research first before judging others. Just a funny thing to throw out. Oh, and I was asking for advice on other suggestions on how to deal with these males, not slinging mud around. Once again, please do your research.

@Rethet, my profile does say my location is with my love meaning with my SO, however I shall try changing that to make it more obvious to these males, and also mention in my bio that I will report harassment, thank you.

Oh, and @Rethet, thank you so much for your side note, I really appreciate that you pointed out that information to Sassy.

I hope the change will help you. I know it's a difficult thing and I support you.

Again, I want to say it's not your fault or anything you do. These folks are completely at fault.

Thank you so much, Rethet, I hope those maleswill stop propositioning me, too, and if not, well, I can report them if they dont listen when I tell them to stop.

Be it rude or not its the truth, report the members who are bothering you and move on with your lives . Unless of course you just want to rub it in the mud some more be my guest you can sit around in here all day and write about how terrible it is that's your right. This site is for magic users and if someone is using it for anything other than its original intended purpose then it should be reported period. If you both feel my comments to be an error of judgment so be it i am entitled to an opinion.

Ah, did you completely miss everything I said, or are you deliberately ignoring it? Rude or not, did you also completely miss how I clearly and obviously said I was looking for advice and wanta way to properly block themso I dont have to even see their comments in other places where I wish to be? Did you miss how I was saying that I dont want to be harassed period? But of course, Im sure you arent aware of what its like, since you are a male and will be statistically more privileged in the regards of not usually having to deal with sexual harassment, if having to deal with it at all.

You are entitled to your own opinion, however please refrain from enforcing it where it isnt wanted in the slightest. I did not ask for you to continue reinforcing what I already have read, and you rudely stated. Also, I would hardly call asking for alternatives dragging mud aroundin fact, almost no one would call asking for advice dragging mud around. Have a good day, Sassy.

It seems like this thread is going into discourse, which I honestly don't want to be involved in, so I'm just going to give advice based on the original post.

Luckily the moderators on this site do a wonderful job, so there are much less disrespectful people on SoM than on most sites, at least from my experience, but there are still some unfortunate people in the mail sometimes.

Obviously blocking and reporting is an option, but continuously blocking and reporting people can get pretty annoying, especially if the first message is explicit. I've had people say really inappropriate things as soon as they message me (luckily not on this site, but on others), which I'd prefer not to read at all, as they make me pretty uncomfortable. So I definitely understand wanting to take preventive measures.

I've found that not having any human/humanoid entity in a profile picture helps (I've had cartoon characters as a profile picture, and even that seems to make people more likely to message that sort of thing). Having a picture/drawing that's female or can be perceived as female seems to bring more inappropriate messages. Obviously that's unfortunate, as people should be able to have feminine drawings as their profile pictures without being harassed, but it's something I've found to help. I usually use pictures of nature as my profile pictures online, and people tend to not want to flirt with trees lol, so that seems to help.

Sometimes spells can help with things like that, such as casting a spell to make people look over you if they're looking for romantic or sexual relationships. In the case of full-blown harassment, protection spells can help prevent things like that as well.

It sounds as if you handled it well, given that you did what you could as far as blocking and reporting. Keeping it from happening at all is obviously ideal, though. I've had experiences on some sites that have made me feel unsafe or triggered some mental illness episodes, so I completely understand and sympathize with wanting to prevent it.

Again, it's unfortunate that people have to do things just to not be harassed, so I'm sorry you realize with this and I hope it doesn't happen again! (And again, I don't really want to contribute to any discourse because I'd rather not be involved in things like that; I just want to give some advice because being harassed like that is really uncomfortable.)