Exiern

Yes, I went with a boob joke. I would feel bad about that but it was either or have Peonie walk around with a black eye. Original I had planed to have Peonie have a black eye on this page.

But as I thought about it having Peonie with a black eye would be too distracting to the rest of the story. On top of that once the guards saw Peonie, Tiffany would have ended up in jail. That or it would be a mass slaughter as Tiffany resisted being put in jail.

A couple of you mentioned a spanking as the correct response to the situation. And I got to say when I saw the suggestion I was frustrated that I hadn’t thought of that myself. Because honestly that would have been the correct response to the situation and let’s face it, it probably would have gotten some extra sign up to the members area.

I do want to sum up my opinion on statements like “It’s never ok to hit a woman” because I do understand that the person saying it was not really advocating a complete secession of violence toward females. What they were trying to say was;

“if you are upset you should not vent your anger on those around you ever if you are hurt at the time. You should take a breath and remind yourself that you ultimately care about this person even if they have hurt you. You may have come from a culture or family situation where violence was uses as a punitive measure for disrespectful behavior but it is not an appropriate way to deal hurt feelings.”

However the speaker believed that “abusers” were to dumb to comprehend that message. Or more accurately that there may be some abusers among the entire population of abusers who might miss the message and that it was to dangerous to risk even one abuser missing the message. So the only way to make sure that every one understood the message is to oversimplify it down to a “noble lie”.

And perhaps this is the right thing to do. I am told that the “This is your brain on drugs” campaign was very successful even though it’s message was a complete lie and quite idiotic. Perhaps this is an effective technique. Personally I found the “brain on drugs” campaign very insulting, but then again was not the type of kid to experiment with drugs so I was not the intended audience.

But I don’t believe it is the only technique that will work to get a message across. Lying damages your credibility. You may win on battle but in the long run people are going to stop listening to you. And as we saw when you over simplify a message it is often offensive both because you are calling the listener and idiot and because the message often takes on other meaning you did not intend. “It is never ok to hit a woman” picks up subtexts of entitlement and discrimination against men that was never the intention.