I think I vomited for about an hour. Well it felt like an hour anyhow. Either way at the end of it all the disgust hadn't left and the anger was still potent.
I'm a pretty big SomethingAwful.com fan. They have the kind of humor that makes me gut laugh usually but every now and they they hit on a topic and go to town in it in ways no one anywhere has the balls too.
In their weekly TheWeekendWeb feature they always trash a message board community. It's always great stuff since they target everything from Anime and Furry junkies to stuff even their own members are into.
Their last one however focused on a message board for the kind of guys who are into kids...in a very very bad way. No matter what kind of humor you have, you can't make this stuff funny. SomethingAwful didn't try. Instead they highlighted what has to be some of the most vile shit I've read on the net...ever. That's saying quite a lot.
A while back I had defended the idea of Taboo fiction in that it allows for the exploration of the darker side of human nature and hopefully allows a deeper understanding of it's causes and it's true effects.
This stuff was...clearly men engaged in the support of the ACTION over the fantasy. In some cases given by the responses...their were clear admissions of such actions. One can factor in the typical internet bravado and bullshit...but god damn the tone of it all was very unsettling. The thoughts expressed are horrific in their "logic". It was difficult not to be physically disgusted.
How are communities like that allowed to function? I'm well aware every criminal act has it's online preseance but one would think such an OPEN display of such actions would warrent serious legal ramifications.
I know it sounds hypocritical of me to damn such a community that true enough without proof may as well just be a "fiction" site...but in reading the responses the members of that community give...I don't get the feeling any of this is fiction to them.
What should a society do about such online communities? Shut them down? Use them as a way to monitor such beasts? Something more extreme maybe? Something less os and subversive? or simply honor the rights of free speetch and swallow the bile their words alone cause?
I'll admit it's really hard for me to be objective so I'll leave it to the rest of you to add some sense to even handedness. For that reason I purposely left out the link to SA and their feature...none of it is "graphic" in a XXX manner mind you..it's simply that no matter what these "men" say sounds so sickening it does not matter.
It's not easy reading I'll give you that but if you ever wanted a small clue into the minds of these bastards...tread with caution.
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